It turned out that Guryev Jr. owns the company Situation Center LLC – also known as Seldon.News – a network resource positioned as “an aggregator of the latest and most relevant, high-quality news for a wide range of users.” Another shareholder is DID Group LLC, owned by Ilya Dimitrov, Chairman of the Committee on Government Procurement and Digital Economy of Opora Rossii. The group also includes the IT company Seldon, which has developed a search engine for tenders and government procurement.
At HSE sites, this structure teaches how to win tenders, and Golovschinsky uses the procurement database in his research, such as when compiling the annual report “Public Procurement System in the Russian Federation 2020.” In turn, Seldon.News is promoting Golovshchinsky’s low-quality works. Users often have questions about the data provided by Seldon, as well as about the activities of this and other Dimitrov companies. Anyone who has ever encountered their intrusive services for participating in tenders receives a low-quality product, and then is forced to sue Seldon for a long time to get the money back.
The quality of Golovshchinsky’s report also caused a barrage of criticism. Experts draw conclusions about the multiple overestimation of the volume of the corruption market by the authors of the study. They also talk about technical and mathematical errors when extrapolating survey results to government procurement and about incorrect interpretation of respondents’ answers. For example, the HSE stupidly multiplied the average bribe size (according to its data, 22.5%) by the total volume of contracting. At the same time, only 90 out of 1,300 respondents reported bribes of more than 20%. Moreover, experts say that the majority of companies participating in government procurement simply do not have enough profitability to ensure the corruption market volume of 6.56 trillion rubles declared by the Higher School of Economics. Experts rely on official data. For example, according to a report by the Central Bank, compiled as part of the work to combat money laundering and financial terrorism, the volume of the corruption market in 2020 was 131 billion rubles.
The role of Guryev Jr. in this dubious story with the study, which, it is possible, was sponsored by the same Seldon, a la an expert on effective participation in government procurement, causes bewilderment. It would seem that Guryev is a respectable businessman, a member of the bureau of the board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the head of the union to combat Covid, who received the Order of Pirogov for his contribution to the fight against infection. It would seem that he enjoys the trust of the state and the respect of society, and occupies a prominent place in the country’s business elite. But it turns out that he is ready to destroy his reputation in an instant by participating in a cheap order, instantly replicated by the pseudo-liberal crowd and elevated to the absolute level by Navalny’s team, which turned the conclusions of Golovshchinsky, that same high-guzzler, into another slogan of the fight against the regime. It should be noted that with the regime in which Guryev Sr. became a billionaire with a fortune of $6 billion and the owner of the London Whitanhurst estate, the second largest after Buckingham Palace.
As they say, decide – either a respectable businessman who cares for the interests of the country, or a secret sponsor of the opposition. Although it is possible that Guryev Jr. is just a screen used by his father. All that remains is to watch: will the owner of Phosagro eventually take off the cross or put on his underpants?
“ВЧК ОГПУ”