Companies co-owned by the leader of the extreme right organization Alexey Kolegov successfully master budget of tens of millions rubles, winning auctions for repairs and other work in public institutions, including the Syktyvkar temporary detention center, sports facilities, kindergartens and other. However, the nationalist constantly accuse regional authorities of pressure and persecution, but takes no consequences for the rant, he is not responsible. In Komi, he is called "ruchnoi natsik"(“tame nationalist”) who performs a dirty work — marginalize protest activity, blacks out all independent social and political endeavors and initiatives in the region. «7x7» tried to see into the unusual symbiosis of power and extreme right patriots.
Contract system
Information about how well Alexey Kolegov conducts his business is in the public source. He owns shares in several companies engaged in wholesale trade of metal goods, demolition, performance of earthworks, installation of engineering equipment of buildings and constructions, the letting of premises and so on.
Photo: Andrei Aksenovsky
Two companies arouse particular interest: "Mr. Metalloprokat"(metal-roll) LLC, 50 % of the further capital is owned by Alexey Kolegov, and 50 % — to some certain Dmitry Tolstov; and "Promresurs-M", with the shares distributed in a similar manner.
Besides, both companies, since the end of 2011 up to now, have been highly successfully acting as executors of various works, ordered by the republican government institutions. During this time "Mr. Metalloprokat" has a modest reference list with seven state contracts at a cost of less than a million rubles, while "Promresurs-M" has to its credit 23 contracts at a cost of more than 56 million rubles. These are mainly repair and construction works.
Among the customers of the company's services there are educational and medical facilities, administrations of the Kortkeros and Syktyvdynsk areas, sports facilities and other state-financed organizations. It is curious that among accomplished public orders there are also contracts on the video surveillance system repair in the administrative building TCC MIA of Russia for Syktyvkar , as well as on the overhaul of the Vocational Training Centre of MIA in the Republic of Komi.
The leader of the nationalists repeatedly stated that law enforcement agencies have a special interest to "Rubezh Severa", which is expressed in a diverse pressure on the organization at the instigation of authorities.
Also Alexey Kolegov publicly criticized regional officials. Here are just a few of his quotes: "They’ve lost touch with reality, so we’ll cut them down, we won’t be slow", "Gaizer is against us, against me personally", "No wonder our once democratic republic is now called "North Chechnya" with crushed opposition, all the media is closed or bought, only so-called "Murzilki" controlled by tandem Chernov-Maruschak are left".
Leader of "Rubezh Severa" in an interview to «7x7» said that his company do participate in the auctions and win them in a fair fight:
“I go in for construction, repair, sales of building materials. And we participate in these auctions. There is constantly a struggle. I assure you that there are no cunning schemes while organizing auctions or tenders under someone. And all these auctions are very transparent. You can’t take part just like that, be sure to have SRO. You say that we often win multimillion-dollar contracts... It was a couple of times when we shoot out our cuffs. We performed 100% of these contracts. And moreover, we have the gratitude of the heads of administrations of some areas where we have been involved in the contracts.”
Thus Alexey Kolegov admitted that he supports public organization with the money earned in the business.
“There where we have the opportunity to participate in auctions — we participate. If we don’t have the opportunity, then we don’t participate. I need to feed the public organization somehow. It is clear that no one gives me money. I do it with my own expense, organize. This proves once again that I am an independent figure. And some say that I get money from the yellow house, the CIA or the West,” the leader of the “Rubezh Severa” said.
Criminal "strides" of nationalists
Kolegov with colleagues disrupt the meeting of the Komi Memorial Human Rights Commission
As judged by the rhetoric of "rubezhists", they want to assert themselves in the Republic of Komi as one of the main social forces. However, to put it mildly, controversial statements and actions of the nationalists get on the way. Here is just a small part of the career path of "Rubezh Severa".
So, one of the members of the organization Alexander Karmanov admitted in court that he considers himself a Nazi. In one of his video messages he formulated a wish to see operating Auschwitz Furnaces again, and the liberals would get "hot tours" there.
"Rubezhisty" has long opposed the construction of a mosque in Syktyvkar: participated in public meetings, collected signatures, made harsh statements. Their actions can be described in one word — bullying. Erection of the mosque was stopped after the house of builders near construction was burnt and a pig's head was buried.
In addition, members of "Rubezh Severa" put a constant pressure upon the followers of the church "Bozhya Slava". They repeatedly disrupted pickets of the church members, for what eventually were convicted.
One of the most high-profile scandals connected with the "Rubezh Severa" members happened in May, 2013: nationalists came to a meeting of the Komi Memorial Human Rights Commission and provoked a fight. As a result, one of the attackers got a real sentence.
Support from the informational front
Despite the semi-criminal activities of nationalists, pro-government media actually provides Alexey Kolegov with information support. Materials about him are regularly published on the websites of agencies "BNK" and "Komiinform", journalists of a local TV channel "Yurgan" invite him as an expert.
During 2013 the agencies "Komiinform" and "BNK" published 85 materials with mentions of "Rubezh Severa". Even the chairman of the Public Chamber of the Republic Margarita Kolpaschikova has got less attention — 82 references. Thus only 29 articles were devoted to the most influential of the independent organizations of Komi — HRC Memorial, and 80% of them, unlike the materials about nationalists, has a negative connotation. Materials about the extreme right organization are generally newsworthy "Alexey Kolegov said", "Rubezh Severa" delivered", "nationalists plan to" etc.
Regional social activists have repeatedly passed an opinion that public activity of "Rubezh Severa" is just a cover for one task — the marginalization of opponents of the regime. A simple double play is made to achieve it: first, through the controlled media, the population forms a negative image of the nationalists; creating an atmosphere of intolerance to their actions and the actions of their colleagues, and after that independent public figures are ranked together with them. Population begins to associate civil society activists with the nationalists.
At the Russian level this method was recently used during the mayoral elections in Moscow. Last summer, the opposition candidate Alexey Navalny was invited to participate in debates with еpatage leader of the rock group "Korroziya metalla" Sergei "Pauk" Troitsky and known for her inadequate prophecies of the arrival of reptiles from the planet Nibiru, leader of the "Volya" party Svetlana Peunova. Navalny refused to participate in the event.
Screenshot: BNK
So, in December of last year, an article appeared on “BNK”, which reported that Alexey Kolegov and leader of the "RPR-Parnas" in Komi Leonid Zilberg went to Kiev. The title misinformed readers: people fell under the impression that Kolegov and Zilberg went to the capital of Ukraine together. However, they visited Kiev not only separately, but generally at various times. In this regard, Leonid Zilberg expressed the idea that the main purpose of journalistic material was not a story about the protest in Ukraine, but "pollution" of the Komi opposition by surname of the nationalist.
At the end of December 2011, it was Alexey Kolegov, not other social and political organizations, who received permission to hold a rally "Putin, go away!". Thus nationalist claimed that he was supported by liberals and communists. In their turn, the participants felt that all this was done in order to reduce the number of protesters.
"We have to go at least to give support to people on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow and people in other Russian cities. Just don’t fall for the deception of the yellow house, for Kolegov, which we are offered as a leader. I have a simple suggestion: to come to the Theatre Square in Syktyvkar and just turn our backs on Kolegov. Turn the back. We came because we were robbed on December 4, they stole our votes, and that we are fobbed off some carton “durilka”, it is not something to fall for. We should turn our backs on him and talk on our own issues," chairman of the HRC "Memorial" Igor Sazhin wrote in his blog.
In one of the interviews Alexey Kolegov called a journalist Sergei Sorokin his colleague. This statement has been associated with the material published in the newspaper "Krasnoye Znamya" and devoted to the problematic situation with migrants in the village of Malaya Pera in the Sosnogorsk district. Then Alexey Kolegov said the following: "Take the recent case of Malaya Pera. We won with maximum efficiency, even without traveling there. While the authorities said that there are no problems in the village, we know that there is no smoke without fire. See how well the opposition worked. Our colleague Sergei Sorokin from "Krasnoye Znamya" worked well, Valera Chernitsyn, newspaper "Tribuna". We have affiliated on time and very effectively, and eventually the power and company with migrant workers stopped bullying locals. Authorities of the Sosnogorsk district afraid of our arrival and eventually cleared the village."
Let us recall that Sergei Sorokin often wrote critical articles about the activities of officials. So, a series of his articles "ZARUBINCORPORATED " was published in the newspaper "Krasnoye Znamya" and described how officials could use their positions to enrich themselves. Sergei himself called the words of Kolegov bluff.
“It's a bluff. I can’t be a supporter of Alexey Kolegov being liberal-minded. Moreover, I don’t think that Kolegov himself adheres nationalist views. He rather pursues some certain political goals using phobias and longing for a "strong hand" of some part of the population,” the journalist said.
As mentioned above, Alexey Kolegov became known as a "tame Nazik" in Komi. Igor Sazhin gave such a characteristic after he saw a clear connection of nationalist and authorities. Leader of "Rubezh Severa" has decided that a statement is offensive to him and sued. But lost.
In general, taking into account the Russian realities today, it is hard to imagine that officials will not seek to left their opponents without any economic base and try to denigrate them using media resources. However, as can be seen, "crushed opposition" by being extreme right organization may live with the hated authority in full economic concord.
Viktor Ivanov, Maxim Polyakov, «7x7»
Original: http://7x7-journal.ru/item/37260
