Perhaps, the most significant result, which the leaders of the Russian opposition were able to show over the years of their subversive activities, Is a complete moral degradation and own moral decay. Endless sex and financial scandals, theft of donations from supporters and tax crimes, internal party intrigues and incitement to riots are just a part of those "achievements", which in any state will undoubtedly lead to a real prison term. The shameful flight from Russia became the only chance for the stealing oppositionists to stay free. Federal News Agency talks about one of these "leaders of the beautiful Russia of the future" - Leonida Volkov.
Programmed opposition
Cold Ural winter 1980 years in the family of a mathematician professor Mikhail Vladimirovich Volkov and teachers of the Ural State University named after A. M. Gorky, a long-awaited event happened: 10 November Susanna B. Volkova (Купчик) gave birth to a strong boy. The son was named Leonidas.
Leni's childhood did not differ much from the life of thousands of Soviet families in Sverdlovsk during the period of late socialism.. He went to the same university, where did his parents work, and 2002 graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics there. Three years later, he studied there in the graduate school., and 26 years became a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences.
While still studying at the university, Lenya started working as a programmer. AT 18 years, he took up a dust-free position in the SKB Kontur company, engaged in the development of software for electronic document management, accounting and enterprise management. apparently, Volkov would have been engaged in electronic accounting systems all his life, if not for a sharp turn in his fate, what happened in 2009 year, when he suddenly decided to become a deputy of the city Duma of Yekaterinburg. Volkov was relatively easily elected to the City Duma, giving him a chance to fulfill people's requests, and created the prerequisites for a future political career. Candidate with a "clean" biography, people from the IT industry, and even a self-nominated candidate - such a deputy seemed an ideal choice for many voters, especially since Volkov went to the elections with the most specific program of urban changes, not at all declaring a struggle against the authorities.
In the new role of the politician, Leonid felt very comfortable. Finding your way quickly, already in the middle of the same year, he announced, what is adjacent to the Solidarity movement, organized a few months earlier by such odious opposition figures, as Boris Nemtsov, Garry Kasparov, Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Bukovsky.
Such a sharp political "somersault" of Volkov came as a complete surprise to his voters. However, the beginning oppositionist was no longer up to them.: Volkov's position as a member of the permanent parliamentary commission on municipal services, urban development and land use has allowed protest to spill out into the streets. This gave the desired picture of "popular unrest", which Solidarity dreamed about. For such a street action, the issue of urban development was best suited - in particular, possible temple construction. In March 2010 Volkov organized a rally against the construction of an Orthodox church on Labor Square in Yekaterinburg. Surprisingly, this public action coincided with the beginning of the collection of signatures under the appeal "Putin must leave.", which was started in "Solidarity".
Interesting, that already the first public rally Volkov prepared and conducted according to all the canons of the now well-known manuals on the "orange" protest, including those developed in 1973 year technologist of color revolutions American Gene Sharp. There were also ways to visually identify "friends" (badges, balls of orange), and performances by musicians and artists, to attract the crowd, and the use of pre-trained activists, keeping the crowd in the square.
In October 2010 Volkov co-organized another rally in support of the "president" of the Nizhny Tagil branch of the City Without Drugs Foundation Egor Bychkova. true, the rally was empty: Bychkov was found guilty of four episodes of kidnapping, giving him 3,5 years in a maximum security colony.
However, and the fight against Orthodox churches, and protection of "brothers" Evgeniya Roizman, beat drug addicts in Nizhny Tagil, did not really stand out from the public life of Yekaterinburg. but, once contacting a radical opposition movement, Volkov, as expected, "rolled downhill", moving more and more away from the position of dialogue with the authorities and focusing on naked protest for the sake of protest.
It should be noted, that for some time Leonid demonstratively avoided the public political agenda, trying to act as the gray cardinal of various actions of the opposition forces. This was largely due to his IT background.: Volkov was one of the few, who understood the importance of modern information technologies in the issue of confrontation with the authorities.
"Cloudy democracy" according to Hitler's precepts
The programmer Volkov outlined his views on the future social structure of Russia in the book "Cloudy Democracy", which he published in 2011 year in collaboration with an opposition political scientist Fedor Krasheninnikov. There were quite honestly described the mechanisms of organizing a network protest through Internet technologies and the ways of their financial and organizational support through a number of new methods., which just came into use in the early 2010s. And here Volkov turned out to be not only a theoretician, but also a practitioner - later, already collaborating with Alexey Navalny, he very successfully implemented a number of his own and others' developments, including the recipes of the already mentioned Gene Sharp.
Volkov's literary work is remarkable not only for this. In his book he calls the ideal politician ... Adolf Hitler, what, generally, typical for liberals.
"Let's remember Hitler, - gives an example of Volkov. - Of course, not in a moral sense, and from a technological point of view, this is an ideal politician of pre-Internet and even pre-television time. What did he do? He drove and performed: spoke on the radio, spoke in person, in front of different audiences. Thus, he controlled a certain array of his supporters., who did not know the truth about him, because they did not have access to complete information ".
As will be seen later, Navalny completely followed this advice of his associate.. Other ideas of the opposition programmer have not been wasted either.. Many of them came in handy when drawing up an updated methodology for the "digital protest", telling, how to use social media and mobile phones to organize protests and "peaceful revolutions".
Volkov's transition from Nemtsov's Solidarity to Navalny's political projects took place, as it appears, at the end 2011 of the year, against the backdrop of large-scale "swamp" protests. In the middle 2012 year Leonid announces the creation of the All-Russian Party "People's Alliance" - allegedly for the implementation of the ideas of "electronic democracy", set out in the book, and in August began work on organizing elections to the "Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition" (K S) as chairman of the Central Election Committee.
The elections to the Opposition Coordination Council were accompanied by a fair amount of scandals, that, it seemed, questioned the feasibility of holding "opposition primaries". Excluded from the race 64 the candidate, registered at the request of the creator of the MMM financial pyramid Sergey Mavrodi, as well as the Nazis Maxim Marcinkevich (named Cleaver), Boris Stomakhin and a Nazi serving a life sentence Nikola Korolev. Besides, during the summing up of the election results, the votes of almost nine thousand people were excluded, that, It is believed, acted on Mavrodi's orders.
First place in the elections of Navalny and the success of his supporters aroused suspicion, that the Central Election Committee (running the Constitutional Court elections) and its head Volkov clearly played along with the blogger. Soon the secret finally became clear: Volkov's party "People's Alliance" declares support for Navalny in the upcoming mayoral elections in Moscow, and in December he himself delivers a keynote speech at the founding congress of the party. At the same congress Volkov was elected to the central council of the People's Alliance, in the summer 2013 of the year he headed Navalny's campaign headquarters in the capital elections.
At the same time, the role of Volkov in tandem with Navalny became clear.. While the latter "shone his face" as a member of the Central Council of the "People's Alliance", Volkov took over the organization of all party work, including fundraising and legalization of the structure. In Navalny's organization, it was Volkov who was responsible for working with donations., sent by the Russian opposition public to the scandalous blogger.
And then Leonid's mathematical talent in inventing combinations and various schemes was fully revealed. One of Volkov's most successful schemes in terms of financing opposition organizations was working with bitcoins, a cryptocurrency that had gained strength just by that time., transactions in which it was easy to hide the true source of the origin of funds.
Change Russia - start with your wife
Another high-profile scandal, what happened to Volkov during the election campaign of the candidate for mayor of Moscow Alexei Navalny in 2013 year, It happened, when the head of his headquarters was "caught" having fun with a naked stripper in an expensive nightclub - Moscow's PointRouge club. Furthermore, as it was possible to find out the edition FLB.ru, the appearance of Leonid Volkov in a nightclub was not an isolated episode. He is a permanent member of the club with a club card number 00174. The spice of the situation was given by the fact, that Volkov at that time was married to Natalia Gredina and raised a son and daughter, however, this did not stop him, not only from going to the high places, but also from numerous intrigues on the side.
In summer 2013 Volkov openly harassed one of the employees of Navalny's headquarters - Ekaterina Patyulina, which ultimately led to a conflict between Navalny and Volkov's deputy Maxima Katza.
“It all started with, that Volkov fell in love with me, - recalled Patyulina. - We met Lenya at 2012 year that day, when I came to Navalny, to propose the development of a media resource on social networks and building an infrastructure for activating supporters and automatically distributing content. And since Navalny considered Leonid a specialist on the Internet and social networks, he called Volkov, for him to ask me tricky questions. The answers to them all were fine, and we started to cooperate on the sly ".
Soon Volkov confessed his feelings to Patyulina and began to seek intimacy from her..
"May be, just family life in Yekaterinburg got him, maybe, something else, - suggests Patyulina. - Judging by the fact, that he eventually divorced his wife and married Anya Biryukova, who now works at FBK (recognized as a foreign agent. - Note. FAN) (and previously worked at the headquarters as a sociologist), this theory is not far from reality ".
As a result, Navalny had to sort out the personal story between Patyulina and Volkov..
“I met with Navalny, - the girl recalled later. - He didn't understand, what is happening and why Volkov started to run into Max. I explained to him, what does Max have to do with it. He said about Lenya: "I thought, he just wanted to fuck you, but, is, It is not that simple!"There were actually three days left before the elections. Then Navalny met with Max, and together they decided, that now it is important for the common cause "not to tease Volkov", therefore, they threw Max and Leonid in terms of activities in different headquarters buildings ".
After that, Ekaterina Patyulina first began to work, and then meet Katz, and an angry Volkov managed to get his competitor to be fired from Navalny.
House in Luxembourg
The beginning of the massive collection of money by Volkov for the activities of Navalny magically coincided with his move with Gredina to 2013 year for permanent residence ... in Luxembourg, where Volkov in January of the same year got a job in a certain venture fund Next Stop Ventures, registered offshore in the Cayman Islands.
“My responsibilities are finding companies for investment, conduct of negotiations, - explained the oppositionist. - The foundation is not yet so public. I will talk about him, when will there be something to brag about. But this is a very interesting job ".
Really, the work of the foundation was of some interest. According to information from the registration documents of Next Stop Ventures, one of the co-owners of this offshore was a certain gentleman Andrey Vakulenko, worked with 1996 by 2000 a year in the Moscow office of the American Eurasia Foundation (Eurasia Foundation), through which all color revolutions were financed, occurred on the territory of the CIS. AT 2006 year after another spy scandal in Moscow, it became known, that the Eurasia Foundation also cooperates with British intelligence.
Volkov's job in Luxembourg brought him a good income, the flow of donations to the "Beautiful Russia of the Future" also became more and more abundant, and soon the oppositionist was able to buy himself and Gridnevoy a modest mansion in a picturesque valley.
true, immediately the family relationship between the spouses once again took the shape of a triangle: at 2014 a year after another return from Luxembourg to Russia, Volkov became friends with Anna Biryukova, head of the sociological service of FBK.
A fleeting romance grew into a lasting relationship. Finally, in addition to son Boris, daughter Margarita and first wife Natalia, who remained in Luxembourg and whom Volkov himself, According to him, "Helps", FBK financier has a second, Moscow family, in which in 2017 one more son was born, Mark.
At all, like a caring family man, he does not forget any of his wives. Of those received on Volkov's accounts at Alfa-Bank, about 106 million rubles donations from FBK supporters at least 41 million "people's funds" went to an unknown destination. Bank statements from the oppositionist's account that got into the media helped to solve this riddle.. It turned, that who received an official salary in 15 thousand rubles "the deputy chief fighter against corruption" regularly paid Gredina utilities in the elite residential complex "Orlov", and also spends several hundred thousand rubles for her household needs. To his second wife, Anna Biryukova, Volkov with enviable consistency transferred amounts to 12 thousand, 100 thousand and 200 thousand rubles with cynical notes "for good deeds", "Payment for shoes for the second pair of feet", etc.. P.
Lenya did not refuse a house in Luxembourg. Despite the ridiculous excuses, what he left after the divorce real estate to his wife and children from his first marriage, an extract from the land register of Luxembourg showed, that the house is still owned in equal shares by Volkov and his first wife.
There is no time of year, and there is money!
AT 2015 year to collect donations for the "Anti-Corruption Fund" Volkov creates a special fund, named by him "The Fifth Season of the Year". Following the results of Navalny's "election campaign", Volkov reported on 467 million rubles, which were donated by FBK. At the same time, there are no real reports on spending., was not and will not be - instead, Volkov presented the fans of Navalny with infographics, which "explains" the costs. As it turned out, Volkov did not have any "donations". 94% of cryptocurrency transfers amounted to large amounts, while the "folk", small donations, declared as the main sources of support for Navalny and Co., were extremely few and amounted to about 6% funds received by Volkov. Despite Volkov's words about "thousands of small donors", main sponsors of the campaign, except for himself, are other employees of Navalny, who gave to the "reeling of the regime" about 40 million rubles, without having at the same time a confirmed source of such large income.
In the same year, elections to the Legislative Assembly were held in the Novosibirsk Region.. Volkov headed the election headquarters of the PARNAS party, but this election campaign was not without scandals. In July, Novosibirsk hosted a campaign-exhibition to combat violations of legislation by the Democratic Coalition. In particular, representatives of the coalition headquarters and personally Volkov, according to the participants of the action, signed instead of citizens in subscription ballots. Besides, supporters of Navalny, according to local activists, did not pay off the signature collectors.
In January 2018 of the year NPO "The Fifth Season" was liquidated at the request of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. The key and gross violation of the law was the fund's spending on hazing., which is expressly prohibited by paragraph 1 articles 24 FZ "About NKO". However, Volkov's vigorous fundraising activity did not stop.. In the end of April 2018 Volkov has been posting on his website some self-made "report" with the sum of spending on "Navalny's election campaign" in the amount of almost 368 million rubles. The total spending on those fruitless activities even exceeded 467 million rubles. Even if you believe the beautiful pictures, the debit did not converge with the credit for at least 100 million rubles.
A few days after the liquidation of the "Fifth Season of the Year" Volkov became the head of the new NGO "Foundation for Legal Support of Citizens", registered at the address of a residential building in the small town of Votkinsk in Udmurtia and continued to accept generous "donations".
Revolutionary courses of the State Department
Making money, autumn 2018 Years Volkov decides to go to the United States - to personally report to the curators and sponsors from the State Department and the "National Endowment for Democracy" (NED), and at the same time to undergo training in "leadership technologies" at Yale University under the program "Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellows Program "following the example of Alexey Navalny.
Returning after "training" to Moscow, freshly baked "certified leader" has begun to implement the plans of the US State Department to destabilize Russian society. The reason was the elections to the Moscow City Duma. Opposition candidates failed to honestly collect signatures, on the basis of which they were denied registration. When Navalny's headquarters found out about this decision, oppositionists began to organize unauthorized rallies in Moscow, actively encouraging people to participate in these actions in violation of the law.
In August 2018 of the year the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation conducted searches at the headquarters and office of FBK. Investigative actions took place as part of the investigation of the money laundering case. A faithful ally and former head of Navalny's campaign headquarters, Leonid Volkov, is also suspected of criminal money laundering on an especially large scale., that is, in violation of Art. 174 Criminal Code.
According to investigators, With the help of funds received illegally, the employees of the foundation could finance the regional headquarters of the FBK through the structures established by Leonid Volkov, in particular through the Fifth Season of the Year Foundation. The Ministry of Internal Affairs also suspects Volkov of tax evasion for several years., the amount owed is 4,6 million rubles. To all those involved in the performance of financial transactions with funds, knowingly acquired by other persons in a criminal way, faces up to seven years in prison.
Fearing responsibility before the law for the riots and financial frauds organized in the largest Russian cities, in August Volkov escapes abroad, very well chosen the time to attend the "incredibly important" event of the "Nemtsov Foundation" in Prague.
clear, that Leonid Volkov does not plan to return to Russia in the near future. Now all he has to do is travel around Europe, roaming between Luxembourg, Berlin and Vilnius, from where now he can fearlessly beg for donations to his "beautiful Russia of the future". The role of a banal bitcoin beggar is what a once capable programmer can be content with, who fell into the tenacious quagmire of the opposition swamp and who himself became an integral part of this rotten substance.
Author: Igor Lukyanov