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The Main Investigations Directorate of the Russia’s Investigative Committee has held a procedure check into information published in a number of media that Moscow opposition was financed by the money form the federal budget that were allocated to ZAO BYURO17 and OOO Slava under state contracts on holding events aimed at enhancing prestige of reading in parks of Moscow and creative contests.

It has been revealed that from 2010 to 2014 ZAO BYURO17 concluded with the Federal Print and Mass Communications Agency 7 state contracts worth in total 13 million rubles and 9 state contracts worth 51 million rubles with Moscow Mass Media and Advertising Department.

The object of those contracts among others was services to organize and hold activities aimed at enhancing prestige of reading in city parks of Moscow and a review contest.

Ms. Markvo was owner of BYURO17 and in fact managed the company, while its nominal director was her driver Andrey Mylnikov.

According to investigators, when organizing one of such events in 2012 Markvo used free of charge some infrastructure created on the money of taxpayers and located in the park. However, the formal documents stated that the premises were taken on lease for over 2 million rubles. Based on this false information, Moscow city office paid the sum for the services of BYURO17. As Markvo did not bear any real expenses connected with the renting of the premises, investigators believe that the money was stolen and spent on Marko’s personal needs.

Markvo used the same scheme in 2013 to steal money allocated from the federal budget under a state contract on organization and holding the review contest “News from Classics”. Markvo, Mylnikov and other unidentified individuals put false information in the report filed with the Agency as the basis for payment. The report stated that they had allegedly bought prizes for the winners of the contest and had rented premises for an awarding ceremony, none of which was true. For all of that Markvo allegedly paid 500 thousand rubles. But the investigators have found that that Markvo did not organize the awarding ceremony or rent the premises. Instead of awarding the prizes to 4 winners on the ceremony, they were mailed or offered to be taken by the winners themselves. This way the suspect saved some money not only from the ceremony. Instead of proper prizes (a laptop computer for the first place, a tablet computer for the second, a smarphone for the third and a bookreader for the fourth) Markvo awarded the winners with identical cheap bookreaders and made her personal budget, which is not so small, even bigger.

The events organized by Markvo were participated by writers and representatives of artistic intellectuals, but all of them by some strange coincidence are members of the so-called Opposition Coordination Council and League of Voters. They include writers Dmitry Bykov, Lev Rubinshtein, Viktor Shenderovich, Boris Akunin, TV hosts Mikhail Shats and Tatyana Lazareva.

The investigators have got hold of the documents according to which Shats and Lazareva in 2011 received around 1 million rubles from BYURO17 though none of them could recall for which events.

But forgetfulness is not the only strange thing that happened to those representatives of artistic professions. Boris Akunin has went abroad when learnt that he was summoned to the investigator for a talk, Lev Rubinshtein and Vikrotor Shenderovich refused to talk to investigators referring to article 51 of the Russian Constitution. Such a reaction makes one think over what precisely those people were engaged into under the project organized by Markvo and her proxies, who include Vladimir Ashurkov notorious for his involvement in Navalny’s election campaign.

The Main Investigations Directorate of the Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case against head of ZAO BYURO17 Alexandrina Markvo and Andrey Myknikov. They are suspected of crimes under parts 3 and 4 of article 154 of the RF Penal Code (fraud on a large and very large scale).

During the probe the investigators will check execution of other state contracts concluded with BYURO17 as there are reasons to believe that they were executed using the same scheme. The investigators are also going to give legal assessment to the activity of OOO Slava formally headed by Olga Voznaya while the investigators have information that actual head of the company was Alexandrina Markvo.

At present investigating operations are underway to find out all the circumstances of the crimes.

Head of Media Relations                                                                                                     V.I. Markin