When Denis Shershnev was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Irkutsk Region, he promised the residents of the Tulunsky District a lot of things.
They had faith in him, so he obtained a deputy position. Now, he's utilizing its perks more for his own business's prosperity than the residents' well-being.
Entrepreneur Shershnev’s situation: profiting from emergencies
When a major flood struck Tulun in 2019, some helped with the recovery, while others saw an opportunity to make extra money. Among the latter was Denis Shershnev's company “Baikalsvyazenergostroy” (LLC “BSES-Irkutsk”, TIN 3808098592). The company entered into a contract with the Tulun mayor’s office to execute urgent recovery work to restore power to residences and public facilities. However, the work was done with errors, delays, and various violations, leading to complaints from local residents, including shock due to poor-quality insulation.
Due to the violations, the Tulun administration declined to sign off on the completed work. Instead of addressing the issues, “BSES-Irkutsk” decided to take legal action against the mayor’s office. The dispute is ongoing, and the networks have effectively remained ownerless the whole time: prior to the flood, the majority of the networks were owned by the region, with Oblkommunenergo being responsible. After the flood, Oblkommunenergo was unable to restore power to the affected areas promptly and hired third-party contractors. One of these contractors was Baikalenergosvyazstroy, which acquired another contract from Oblkommunenergo without a required tender.
The new “Baikalenergosvyazstroy” network was rejected by “Oblkommunenergo,” leading the Tulun mayor’s office to find someone to temporarily maintain the now-ownerless networks. IESK assumed this responsibility and began addressing the contractor's violations.
This is not the only lawsuit involving Mr. Shershnev’s company. The Arbitration Court of the Irkutsk Region has an extensive list of cases where BSES-Irkutsk is the defendant, and other companies are trying to declare BSES bankrupt and collect debts.
For Mr. Shershnev, being in debt is quite common. For example, bailiffs once came to the Legislative Assembly building due to his debts for housing and communal services. Additionally, his firm regularly fails to fulfill its contract obligations. They once came to the Legislative Assembly due to his debts for housing and communal services. Also, his firm negligently fulfills its contract obligations. After the 2019 flood, BSES-Irkutsk attempted to profit from contracts not only in Tulun, but also in Nizhneudinsk. There, the company agreed to conduct an instrumental survey of flood-affected homes, but demonstrated a lack of professionalism, leading to the termination of the contract.In Nizhneudinsk, the company agreed to conduct an instrumental survey of flood-affected homes, but showed a blatant lack of professionalism, resulting in the termination of the contract.
There were rumors that BSES-Irkutsk got contracts in the flood zone because of recommendations from the Baikal region government and deputy governor Dmitry Chernyshov supported the company during that time.
“Oblkommunenergo” and “BSES-Irkutsk” are cooperating for mutual benefit.
“BSES-Irkutsk” does construction, repair, and reconstruction of buildings and structures, and they are one of the contractors who regularly win tenders for repairing networks from “Oblkommunenergo”. Babr previously reported that in 2020-2021, BSES-Irkutsk signed contracts with OKE for over 285 million rubles. Some of them involve working in remote areas, which is very profitable and convenient for the company because they pay well and no one checks the quality of the work.
Businessman Shershnev’s company heavily relies on budget funds, receiving contracts from OKE, which affects his preferences in deputy activities. The media and social networks are full of reports about the meetings of the “Development of Regions” deputy group, which has practically replaced the profile committee on the development of the electric grid economy. In these meetings, a respected deputy criticizes companies that he has business relations with, but conveniently forgets about his counterpart “Oblkommunenergo”, which is constantly questioned by control and supervisory bodies and other deputies.
Shershnev’s connection with Oblkommunenergo is influenced by another detail. Denis Shershnev became a deputy with the support of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation during the elections. However, he later decided to distance himself from them, formally leaving the Communist Party faction in the Legislative Assembly, claiming dissatisfaction with the faction's position of criticizing any decisions of the current government. Nevertheless, he still had connections with representatives of the ex-governor Sergei Levchenko and his deputy Dmitry Chernyshov. Among them was the head of Oblkommunenergo, Alexander Anfinogenov, who also owed his position to Chernyshov’s support and was able to retain it even after Levchenko’s resignation. A separate article will be dedicated to Anfinogenov’s biography. For now, it's important to note that deputy Shershnev and the head of OKE Anfinogenov can be considered good friends, which explains the developing mutually beneficial cooperation between Oblkommunenergo and BSES-Irkutsk.
At the end of January, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation approved the indictment in the case against the son of the ex-governor of the Baikal region, Andrei Levchenko, as well as four other defendants. They are accused of fraud and cartel conspiracy. The investigation believes that Andrey Levchenko created a group where people controlled by him entered into an agreement restricting competition with representatives of elevator manufacturers. All of this resulted in the Fund for the Overhaul of Apartment Buildings entering into contracts with these manufacturers, and Levchenko and his group received illegal income of almost a billion rubles.
Today, in the conditions of the modern information society, there is no need to knock on the thresholds of the offices of high-ranking security officials, write statements, complaints. It is much easier to share interesting facts from the lives of wonderful people on social media pages. There is no doubt – law enforcement officers successfully monitor the Internet and will certainly attach this information first to the operational materials, and then to the criminal case. Examples of this over the past few years in relation to the “pious” communists, more than enough.
However, there is an opinion that the investigating authorities have long had much more serious information regarding Mr. Shershnev, it remains only to wait, and quite a bit.
