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Theatrical comedy by Marat Oganesyan

Theatrical comedy by Marat Oganesyan Theatrical comedy by Marat Oganesyan

It’s time to film the next part of “Gangster Petersburg” in St. Petersburg, only this time it’s about officials. Circumstances , so to speak, are favorable. Former vice-governor of St. Petersburg convicted of bribery Marat Oganesyan now works at the Mariinsky Theater, which they say was once robbed during the construction of a new stage.

Our people in Smolny

The biography of Marat Melsovich Oganesyan really looks like a poem, only with a criminal connotation. Today, for law enforcement agencies, there is nothing unknown about Marat Oganesyan. The material for it was collected many years ago. Although the former vice-governor was arrested in 2016 in an embezzlement case 50 million rubles when purchasing a scoreboard for the stadium on Krestovsky Island, its star began to decline back in 2015, when the security forces already knew everything they wanted. That year, as they say, even officials from Smolny became clear that Marat Melsovich was involved in very shady affairs. Moreover, the media even openly wrote that Oganesyan was a man of the clan Grandfather Hassan (Aslan Usoyan), and decided in his favor. As a direct example, the press colorfully described the facts of budget development during the reconstruction of the Bolshoi Theater and the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theater.

Marat Oganesyan’s career became brilliant when, according to knowledgeable people, he found himself surrounded by a thief in law Eduard Asatryan (Edik Osetrina). Asatryan is known to have had a long-standing friendship with Ded Hasan. The Armenian diaspora helped Oganesyan get the position of head of the Federal State Budgetary Institution “Directorate for Construction, Reconstruction and Restoration” of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country). Then his rapid rise led him in 2011 to the North-Western Directorate for Construction, Reconstruction and Restoration.

That’s when he, in fact, began to oversee the construction of a new stage for the Mariinsky Theater. In March 2012, the Accounts Chamber announced that, according to its calculations, the Mariinsky Theater had mysteriously disappeared from the budget during the reconstruction 290 million rubles. The ugly building cost the federal budget 21 billion rubles. The press called this facility one of the most expensive theatrical buildings in the world. The refined theater audience salivated in horror and tolerantly called the Mariinsky 2 an “architectural mistake.”

Cultural code

In 2013, he took over the post of vice-governor of St. Petersburg, in charge of construction issues, and then everyone simply became scared. Rumors spread throughout the city that Marat Oganesyan intended to remove the leadership of the State Unitary Enterprise Vodokanal, St. Petersburg Metro, and Metrostroy in order to install his own people there. The “hijacking” was to be carried out with the help of the Chamber of Control and Accounts.

The first attack took place at Vodokanal. In the fall of 2013, as they say, Oganesyan encouraged Vice-Governor Lavlentsev to start “rinsing” the “iron” department Felix Karmazinov. Loud statements appeared in the press. But the attack quickly fizzled out. As we already wrote, the old Soviet business executive Felix Владимировичwas too big a hardware shark, and he was not the first to crack opponents.

Powerful connections were quickly activated, important calls were made, and revenge was not long in coming. Lavlentsev lost his post, and then Marat Oganesyan also fell.

As they say, after hitting Karmazinov, on the governor’s desk Georgy Poltavchenko an interesting folder appeared, provided to him by the FSB Directorate for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. There, in dry clerical language, the royal plans of Marat Melsovich and his friends from among the thieves in law were described to seize key positions in the city. A little more, they said, and the Northern capital would have become Gangster Petersburg, not in the television version, but in real life. Everything would have been fine, but Oganesyan’s criminal camarilla did not stop. Then there was an attempt to facilitate the dismissal Dmitry Burenin – Head of the Committee for Transport Infrastructure Development. It was not a matter of position, but a delicious budget in 40 billion rubles. There was no way to miss such a sweet bite, because the position of head of Komtransport opened up the broadest opportunities to get close to the State Unitary Enterprise “Metropolitan” and “Metrostroy”.

Since the proteges of the Moscow thieves in law very efficiently used the information space in order to “drown” St. Petersburg officials they disliked, then, according to legend, the St. Petersburg security forces beautifully “mirrored” this strategy. A scandalous video from the Moscow Bochka restaurant has appeared online, where a man “resembling the vice-governor” was sitting at the table with thieves in law. This video simply blew up the sidelines of Smolny. Indeed, it couldn’t have been more scandalous.

History lessons

In 2015, Marat Melsovich quietly left his post of his own free will. And in 2016 he was already arrested on suspicion of fraud during the construction of the stadium. As a result, Oganesyan was found guilty of accepting bribes and sentenced to 5.5 years in a maximum security colony and a fine of 20 million rubles.

The trial itself and the events that preceded it looked more than theatrical. Firstly, the investigation into the case of Marat Oganesyan was supposed to end in 2018. But the verdict only happened in May 2021. Secondly, almost from the very beginning, Oganesyan made a deal with the investigation, pleaded guilty to fraud, and, as the defense stated then, “took measures to repay the damage.”

However, the Smolninsky District Court unexpectedly “did not count” the plea deal, considering the terms of the pre-trial agreement unfulfilled. The Prosecutor General’s Office immediately terminated all agreements with Marat Oganesyan and the ex-vice-governor was charged with the episode of supplying a video board, qualifying his actions as receiving a bribe (Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country)). The new position of the investigation was as follows: Marat Oganesyan and Deputy Chairman of the Construction Committee Alexander Yanchik created an organized criminal group.

A whole criminal octopus emerged in the case towards a verdict, predatorily spreading its criminal tentacles. Evil officials persuaded Inzhtransstroy-SPb to conclude a contract with the Theater and Decoration Workshops (TDM) company for the supply of video boards and pay the company 50 million rubles in advance, 28 of which went to Oganesyan and Yanchik. Moreover, the money was pumped through Baltstroy, the structure of the disgraced billionaire Dmitry Mikhalchenko…

At the time of his sentence, Oganesyan had only a year left to serve, and he quietly served it and just as quietly left, refusing to give any comments to the press, even after being freed. In all subsequent years, nothing was known about the fate of the ex-vice-governor. Only recently the news blew up the Internet – it turns out that Marat Melsovich is working again, in the same Mariinsky Theater, with the construction of part of which his major career in St. Petersburg began. Today Oganesyan’s new position is Assistant director of the theater for the implementation of investment and construction projects.

It’s hard to say what guided the management of the Mariinsky Theater when they hired such an odious person. Only sarcastic questions come to mind. After all, everyone knows that Marat Melsovich appears only where he can cut the budget. As our insiders say, in the law enforcement agencies of St. Petersburg, this news caused excitement and healthy laughter. Now there is a crude joke going around the Northern capital that, while dealing with investment and construction projects, Oganesyan will definitely put a “brick” into his new criminal case.