Timur Frank is a sinister character by any standards. This is the reputation he has earned as the manager and beneficiary of the Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine Company. Frank gave up his position to another person after the events at the Kuzbass village of Cheremza, near the town of Myski. Those events involved violations of the Russian laws, and large-scale persecution of eco-activists and journalists who reported abuses of human rights by Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine Company.
Timur Frank was born in the city of Prokopyevsk, Kemerovo Oblast. He mostly appears in the media as a co-owner of Alfa Company, holding about 44 percent of the stock of the Kuznetsky Yuzhny coal mine. The company got the license to mine the reserve of about 240 million tons in 2019, with an estimated design capacity of 2.2 million tons of coal per year. Timur Frank is a graphic example of a character that thrives and will continue to thrive in Kemerovo Oblast after the retirement of the Governor Aman Tuleyev.
Timur Frank (TIN 420600374065), via his Adonis Company, owns 69 percent of Alfa Company, which, in turn, owns 44.09 percent of Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine Company.
The Kuznetsky Yuzhny coal mine began operation in late 2020 – early 2021. The official website of the company says the design capacity is to be reached in 2023.
Timur Frank, who is now a billionaire, started his lawyer career as a bankruptcy manager. Among other employments, he worked in a non-commercial partnership of bankruptcy managers in Krasnodar. After getting a hand on a number of large farm bankruptcies, Timur Frank went big time in Kemerovo. Frank became a confidant to many prominent figures in the region.
According to media sources, Timur Frank helped Maksim Makin (First Vice Governor of Kemerovo Oblast at the time) and his cronies to siphon off more than a billion rubles from illegal coal mining in Prokopyevsk District—in particular, from the Koksovaya-2 mine, which allegedly had no license. Maksim Makin's "partner" in this "business" was another Vice Governor, Alexey Ivanov, who was later arrested on charges of extortion of the Inskoy Mine shares.
Why did Aman Tuleyev’s both deputies trust Frank so much? The answer is simple: Timur Frank is a relative (according to rumors, a nephew) of Alexey Ivanov. In turn, Alexei Ivanov used to be a police Major General, in charge of Tuleyev's security department. This explains the level of trust the officials had in the "modest" lawyer. For another thing, our sources say Frank's wife used to work as a judge of the Kemerovo Oblast Arbitration Court. To sum it up, Frank & Co. had all resources available to settle any matter in the region.
In addition to the high level of trust, Timur Frank enjoyed high levels of income. Our Kemerovo insiders estimate that over the years of Maksim Makin’s vice-governorship, Timur Frank had amassed a wealth of $40-50 million, roughly ten million a year, which he is believed to have stored offshore in Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands. You can only imagine the fortunes knocked up by Makin himself and those who “partnered” with him. Quite understandably, Timur Frank’s wife Olga Frank got tired of working in the arbitration court, and for a couple of years now has been spending time in her estate in Tenerife.
Apart from Maksim Makin and Alexey Ivanov, Timur Frank rendered services to the Kuzbass businessman Aleksandr Shchukin, who later was detained along with Ivanov in the Inskoy Mine case.
Frank was a personal adviser to Aleksandr Shchukin, who relied on his lawyer expertise and his family ties with the regional government. Shchukin trusted Frank so much that, once he believed "trouble" had started, he assigned a part of his assets to the lawyer. Timur Frank took full advantage of his boss's trust: he pulled off a scheme to appropriate the asset.
The case in question was the bankruptcy of the Investment Fuel and Energy Company (ITEC), which Shchukin assigned to Frank. The “smart” lawyer then claimed 1 billion rubles from ITEC for a share he bought a little earlier for 0.1% of its real price.
Still, the biography of Timur Frank features even more foul-smelling episodes. One of them is related to the murder of a bankruptcy trustee from the town of Prokopyevsk.
The Koksovaya-2 mine is a constant source of tension and a technological disaster in the very center of Prokopyevsk (Kemerovo Oblast). The regional government and corrupt law enforcers have built a “black digging” business there. The mine has a criminal record: its bankruptcy trustee Yevgeny Lazarevich disappeared under very strange circumstances, and the investigation of his murder case is clearly being dragged.
The Koksovaya-2 mine is a household name to all residents of Prokopyevsk. Essentially, the mine sits within the town, with underground workings going on directly under the roads and houses. You are not safe even when traveling by tram. Once, ground under the rails collapsed between the Podstantsiya and Zakladochnaya stations—people could feel a suffocating stench from below. These things keep happening because coal is burning constantly at Koksovaya-2.
This problem is decades old. The first endogenous fire in the mine began in 1973, and it took 17 years to extinguish it. In 2013, a new fire broke out—the source was one and a half kilometers long and one hundred meters deep. At that time, Koksovaya-2 Mine Company, owned by Boris Yakubuk, was already bankrupt, with Yevgeny Lazarevich appointed its bankruptcy trustee. Lazarevich developed an effective debt management scheme, where the money from the sale of mined coal (the fire did not affect the entire mine) went to pay off debts, primarily to the employees.
As his sister Anna (now named a victim in his murder case) has stated repeatedly during interrogations and in her appeals to the investigative authorities, Yevgeny Lazarevich stubbornly refused to “share”. So, in December 2013, high officials of the regional Interior Ministry arrived at the mine, accompanied by an anti-riot squad. They seized 6,100 tons of mined coal—it was taken out by trucks as material evidence in a criminal case. Predictably, after that, the company was left without money, and could not pay wages. That, in turn, served as the basis for the prosecution of Yakubuk and Lazarevich. In February 2014, the bankruptcy trustee was in the Iskitim town hospital, receiving treatment for severe diabetes and a number of other diseases. The police took him when he was still under a dropper and under anesthesia and moved him to a Kemerovo hospital. There, as Anna Lazarevich wrote in her appeal to the Russian Investigative Committee, he was visited by “Shchukin’s lawyers, in particular, T. Frank <...> who demanded that Lazarevich agree to terminate his trusteeship of Koksovaya-2 Mine on its own initiative.” Lazarevich refused, and was sent from the hospital to the Prokopievsk pre-trial detention center.
After that, all attempts to extinguish the fire at the mine were stopped. Instead began uncontrolled and illegal coal mining, so called “black digging.” It is hard to say who exactly reaped the profits, but Anna Lazarevich (apparently, form her brother’s words) estimates the amount of illegal proceeds at several billion rubles.
The black digging went on for almost two years. However, when the town residents started to file numerous complaints with various authorities, including the Presidential administration, the business began to pose a danger to its beneficiaries. So they decided to legalize it. In December 2015, an auction was held for the right to develop the Chernokaltan coal site, a promising deposit 50 km from Koksovaya-2. The Kemerovo Oblast administration loaded the auction lot with the extra condition of a proper abandonment of the problematic Koksovaya-2 mine. The auction was won by Shchukin and Frank’s joint venture—Siberian Coal Company JSC ("SCC").
But fulfilling the license conditions was not so easy. The abandonment job at Koksovaya-2 would entail colossal costs, possibly amounting to billions of rubles. Having realized this, Shchukin's specialists decided that the project was not viable and would never pay off. From day one, SCC had been spending 50 million rubles a month to pump out water and carry out the minimum work necessary to prevent an environmental disaster in the town.
In November 2016, Shchukin and several high-ranking functionaries and law-enforcement officials became defendants in a criminal case (more about that in Novaya newspaper, April 16, 2018). The Koksovaia-2 and Chernokaltan mines were turning into a huge problem and a threat to their beneficiaries.
Yevgeny Lazarevich saw this as a chance to see justice done. The criminal prosecution against him had been lifted: after Shchukin and Frank acquired legit control over Koksovaya-2, the activity of his persecutors spontaneously abated. He started to write to federal law enforcement agencies, declaring his readiness to testify against Shchukin and other officials, including the head of the Kemerovo Investigative Committee, Sergey Kalinkin. General Sergey Kalinkin was the one who sanctioned the criminal action against Lazarevich under Article 171—an identical episode was mentioned in the Inskoy Mine case, which led to Kalinkin’s detainment. In short, Lazarevich had become a threat.
On December 12, 2016, Yevgeny Lazarevich went to a business meeting in Novokuznetsk (Anna Lazarevich says, it was a meeting the notary Tarasov, who was doing business with Timur Frank) and never returned home. A few days later, his car was found in a backyard in Novokuznetsk, with the numbers removed. The salon had been cleaned and generously sprinkled with red pepper.
Yevgeny Lazarevich disappeared at the end of 2016. The Russian Interior Ministry published an APB. Relatives posted advertisements in social networks asking for help in the search. The crime was not solved until Yevgeny Lazarevich's sister Anna managed to meet the head of the Russian Investigative Committee Aleksandr Bastrykin in person and to apply that the case be handed over from the regional division to the main department of the Investigative Committee.
Four years later, in late 2020, Sergei Dunin and Dmitry Nosov were detained as suspects in the murder of Yevgeny Lazarevich. It turned out that in December 2016, Lazarevich left Prokopievsk for Novokuznetsk to meet with Dmitry Nosov. Later they were joined by Sergei Dunin, who allegedly had a conflict with Lazarevich. Dunin asked Nosov to hand him a pistol, and then fired the weapon several times at Lazarevich, who died on the spot. All three were sober.
However, Timur Frank became really famous in relation to the events in the village of Cheremza, on the border of Novokuznetsk District and the city of Myski.
On June 9, 2020, Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine Company started building a road under the railway bridge across the Kalandas River, about one kilometer from Cheremza. Local residents insisted that the passage of vehicles under the bridge is unacceptable and may lead to the collapse of the bridge and deaths of people.
On June 13, 2020, a confrontation began between Cheremza residents and Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine Company, which decided to construct a coal loading station near the village, without a proper permission. The coal miners tried desperately to collect the documents allowing the construction of a coal loading facility and its access way. However, the residents declared that, even, if every single permission is in place, they would still defend their land.
The local residents and activists from neighboring regions organized a tent camp on the construction site, keeping watch around the clock. The management of Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine Company tried to resume work at least five times, but local residents and environmental activists formed a human shield and blocked the passage of machinery to the site.
On June 17, 2020, in his interview to the Vesti Kuzbass news channel, Timur Frank, owner of Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine, said that the company was determined to continue the work. He explained that the misunderstanding that had led to the conflict was due to the lack of information among the residents of the local villages. He promised that the full information and "comprehensive answers" would be published soon in the local newspapers of Myski and Novokuznetsk. Until then, work on the construction of the loading complex would be stopped. It was not.
On June 24, after the mining company had refused to stop illegal construction work and remove the machinery provided by its subsidiary Sibgeoproekt, several residents of Cheremza and activists supporting them started an indefinite hunger strike.
On June 28, Pyotr Frolov, CEO of Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine Company, told environmental activists that the construction had been suspended, but the activists and locals refused to leave the camp, fearing that illegal construction would continue. They demanded revocation of Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine prospector’s license.
The opening of a coal loading facility may cause not only a deterioration in the quality of air, soil and water in Cheremza and nearby villages, but also affect the lives of the Shorians, an indigenous small people of the Kuzbass who are engaged in agriculture and traditional craft such as hunting and fishing.
Back in autumn of 2019, at public hearings, residents of Cheremza and neighboring villages opposed the construction of a coal mine and a coal loading site near the village. According to environmentalists, this would cause significant harm to the environment and affect not only the air, but also the nearby Kalandas River, whose bed had already been damaged by the movement of large trucks. Back then, Kemerovo Oblast governor Sergey Tsivilyov said no mines would be built in the area until agreements were reached with the local residents. And yet, construction resumed in May 2020. Locals reported that the coal company was illegally carrying out stripping work. Blast-furnace slag had been dumped along the road to allow the passage of construction machinery—this was done in the water protection zone of the river, without any permission. These activities created a risk of the bridge collapse. Several local residents were severely poisoned by hazardous substances contained in the slag.
On June 21, 2020, residents of Novokuznetsk District recorded a video message announcing a hunger strike and demanding the resignation of the head of the District, Andrey Sharnin. They accused him of acting in favor of the mining business and contributing to environmental damage to the fertile soil of the region. The demands were not met. The activists started an indefinite hunger strike.
On June 28, Pyotr Frolov, CEO of Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine Company, managed to appease the activists by promising to suspend the construction “until all circumstances were clarified”. But the protesters were certain all that was just “for show”, and waited for further developments. On the same day, residents of the village of Talzhino recorded a video message in the Cheremza tent camp to support the eco-activists.
On June 29, two more residents joined the hunger protest.
On June 30, artist Vasily Yelesin, founder of the People's Art Gallery in the Myski town, and Mikhail Laskin, deputy of the Zagorsk village, arrived at the camp to support the protesters.
On July 8, several eco-activists were poisoned by blast-furnace slag dumped in the Kalandas River by a contractor of Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine Company.
On July 9, residents of Myski and the Novokuznetsk district removed part of furnace slag from the river and dumped it in front of the office of Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine. The protesters wore gas masks.
On July 12, residents of Cheremza, Bezrukovo and Myski independently restored the road, broken by the Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine.
On July 26, protesters and residents of Cheremza recorded a video public message stating that the owner of Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine was spreading false information.
On July 28, protesters and residents of Cheremza demanded an end to the repression of residents and people covering the Cheremza events in the media. They also mockingly suggested how exactly Timur Frank should put his Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine to a proper use.
On August 1, about 30 residents of the villages of Tetenza and Borodino blocked the technological road passing through Tetenza to the coal-loading station of the Kiyzassky mine.
On August 9, the day of indigenous peoples, the Shorians of Southern Siberia asked for solidarity and support in their fight against coal mining companies destroying their original habitat.
On August 10, the Myski administration refused to accept a telephone message from members of the Public Council for Ecology, citing their “lack of time.”
On August 13, Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine Company, together with the SGP company, began erecting a fence on the territory of the protesters’ tent camp. Law enforcement subdivisions arrived, including an anti-riot squad and private security companies, to suppress the protest. The protesters had to move the tent camp. Law enforcement officers detained several people. This incident became the most popular on YouTube on August 13.
On August 18, protesters and environmental activists in Cheremza demanded the resignation of Sergey Tsivilyov, governor of Kemerovo Oblast (the Kuzbass). They also demanded that Timur Frank, owner of Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine, get out of the region.
On August 20, eco-activists measured the radiation level of the slag dumped into the Kalandas River by the contractor of Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine Company.
On August 21, Cheremza protesters made an announcement urging those who were experiencing various types of pressure to contact the Cheremza Operational Headquarters.
August 30 in a way finalized the protesters’ actions: Kemerovo Oblast governor made a statement about the impossibility of building a coal-loading facility by Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine Company. In fact, this did not come as a surprise to the residents of the region, since Timur Frank's company had started construction work elsewhere—this time on agricultural land, which is unacceptable according to the Russian laws. After the statement was announced, protesters and eco-activists dismantled the tent camp and had a celebration in the outskirts of the village of Cheremza.
And then prosecutions started...
Vyacheslav Krechetov, a cameraman from the Kiselyovsk News media, was detained on August 24 based on the materials of the Anti-Extremism Center (aka “E” Center). Allegedly, he was the protest organizer, since he was staging shots when filming the Cheremza events, even though all the witnesses stated that Krechetov had been giving his instructions strictly as a cameraman.
A lawyer was not allowed to see Vyacheslav Krechetov for more than six hours. The hearing took place only the next day, late in the evening, after 22.00, although the court officially closed at 18.00. After the court decision was passed, the police used violence—as a result, Krechetov was taken by ambulance to intensive care. On the same day, his hospital discharge summary was made public. Only the doctors of Novokuznetsk City Hospital No. 1 or police officers who openly photographed the document had the opportunity to make such a publication.
In an interview, Krechetov explained the practice of "night court sessions", which is gaining popularity in Kuzbass:
“It’s very simple. Daytime hearings can gather a large number of concerned people, and the authorities in Russia are very afraid of large gatherings. Confident that there are no night rallies, they have decided to hold the hearings at night. My hearing began after the working hours and ended after midnight.”
On the evening of August 25, reporters noticed people secretly filming at the court. The journalists identified them as Vladimir Klevtsov from Novokuznetsk City Administration, and two employees of the Anti-Extremism Center.
The case of Vyacheslav Krechetov resonated in the regional and federal media. On October 17, the Kemerovo Oblast Court returned the case for retrial. As a result, the Central District Court of Novokuznetsk terminated the proceedings in the case of Vyacheslav Krechetov due to the absence of an administrative offense.
But there were other cases. During the dispersal of the Cheremza camp, anti-riot officers detained three people over 60. One of them was a disabled person. All three were prosecuted as participants in an unsanctioned event, and received fines of 10,000 rubles.
In addition, Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine Company filed honor and dignity protection suits with the arbitration court against NK-TV and Kiselyovsk News for covering the events at the protesters’ camp. NK-TV agreed to a peaceful settlement, but Kiselyovsk News editor Natalya Zubkova fought to the end. She lost the case, of course—the court was chaired by a former colleague of Timur Frank's wife. Here is how Natalia commented on the actions of Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine Company:
“It was a full-scale bullying and mental violence. Every Monday for two months, I received either a new lawsuit or pre-hearing demand. At the same time, Timur Frank filed complaints with the police for alleged slander on my part. And the “slander” consisted in the fact that I recorded a public video saying that I was afraid for my life, and that I perceived the actions of Timur Frank as a real threat.
“I did this after I once discovered that I was being stalked by some Vladimir Gorbunov. He is a former police officer who has served a sentence for participating in an explosion in a Novokuznetsk billiard club. He actively participated in the dispersal of the Cheremza protest camp. He was instructing the “E” Center officers whom to shoot on camera. He was throwing people out of the area where the workers were erecting a fence. I know that the stalking was no joke. Once I stopped my car at a gas station to use the toilet. When I came out, I saw Gorbunov standing there and looking at me.
“Later, there were threatening posts saying that I could get into an accident. According to Kuzbass activists, the threats were posted on sites run by “E” Center officers. And I actually got into one accident! Luckily no one in my car was hurt.
“At my hearing, a Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine representative produced a very interesting conclusion by the notary Natalia Romanovskaya. Not only was it not true to fact, it also contained gross errors and evidence of the notary's illegal actions. However, the court accepted the document, while our objections were not taken into account. Timur Frank is very good at using administrative leverage. Knowing his biography, you can expect anything from him, including physical elimination of those who stand in his way.”
In February 2021, Natalya Zubkova, the former editor of Kiselyovsk News, left Russia with her younger daughter. She was forced to do so due to many reasons including the persecution organized by Timur Frank.
As an individual entrepreneur, Timur Frank filed lawsuits against environmental activists who had filmed a video address to supervision agencies listing all the violations by Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine Company when T. Frank was its CEO. Olga Selishcheva was one of those activists. For many years she had resisted the barbaric coal mining in the Kuzbass. The lawsuits filed by T. Frank undermined her health. In the summer of 2021, Olga Selishcheva suffered a stroke, after which she never recovered. She died in November 2021.
In June 2021, Timur Frank was injured in a plane crash. The crew of the L-410 were performing a training flight at the Tanay airfield near the village of Zhuravlyovo, Kemerovo Oblast. Four people died in the accident—both of the pilots, and two paratroopers. Fifteen people were injured. Two people refused hospitalization. Five were taken to intensive care. Among those injured were Timur Frank, co-owner of Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine, and Alexander Friling, deputy of Chistoozyorny District, Novosibirsk Oblast. Both are members of the Russian parachute acrobatics team. They were supposed to do training jumps preparing for the World Championship.
At the time of publication of this material, there has been no news about the state of Timur Frank’s health after the plane crash. Some eco-activists say that this was a karma boomerang. Interestingly, exactly one month before the crash, the Shorian shaman performed a rite to protect the land of the indigenous people from destruction by Kuznetsky Yuzhny Mine Company.
Many residents of the Kuzbass are looking forward to the recovery of this typical Russian coal miner—so they can bring their cases against him to the ECHR, and maybe even to the International Tribunal. Only the fact that Natalia Zubkova was in a car with her youngest daughter at the time she was being stalked by Vladimir Gorbunov tells all about Timur Frank’s scrupulousness and methods of running a business
@blackmark_en – in Russian
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