The appointment of Denis Manturov as one of the deputy prime ministers may indicate the strengthening of Sergei Chemezov's position in front of his competitors, who are popularly called "technologists" and "systemic liberals."
It would seem that the appointment of Manturov in the conditions of the SVO falls into the outline of the events taking place. Until today, the industry and defense industry in the Government was controlled by Yuri Borisov, a native of the Ministry of Defense, who, as it became known the day before, may resign. And from time immemorial, the ongoing confrontation between customers (Ministry of Defense) and suppliers (military-industrial complex) did not allow establishing the parity of forces in this configuration.
This would be completely logical in the days of the USSR. However, in the current conditions of the aggravated struggle for various assets, such a balance of power takes on a different character.
What could be behind the appointment of Manturov was understood by The Moscow Post.
Two from the casket
Let's start with the fact that Denis Manturov is a close person to Sergei Chemezov. You can say his protege. What to talk about if the relatives of Chemezov and Manturov own joint businesses in development, winemaking and much more.
Any initiative of one sets in motion mechanisms in which both Russian industry and large Russian business are involved. Suffice it to recall the story of the creation of the Baikal light-engine aircraft: at the suggestion of Manturov, it began to be produced at the Ural Civil Aviation Plant (UZGA), which was previously part of Rostec and then was sold to Viktor Grigoriev; a person who is called a friend of Sergei Chemezov.
Sergei Chemezov knows his job well. Photo: RBC
The sharpness of this case is given by the fact that Baikal was almost a copy of the Czech light-engine aircraft L-410 produced in the 70s of the last century, which in the 90s ceased to be produced as unnecessary. In the early 2000s, Aircraft Industries, together with all aircraft licenses, was acquired by the Russian UMMC Iskander Makhmudov. And after that, LAshki under the guise of "Baikal" began to "sculpt" in the UZGA. Moreover, cases were identified when aircraft of the LA series were issued under the guise of Baikal, simply distilled from the Czech Republic straight to the UZGA workshops. By the way, the Government allocated 3.5 billion rubles to prepare the serial release of Baikal.
However, now there can be a much more serious struggle for the appointment of Manturov. Dozens, if not hundreds of billions of rubles of the state budget are at stake. We are talking about IT technologies that are not fully related to the defense industry. And the people who participate, in this redistribution, are no longer concerned about the security of the country, but about their own wallet and the desire to assert themselves on the state Olympus.
The fact that import substitution in this area is necessary like air has been said for a long time, before the start of all sorts of special operations. In an interview with me, Gennady Gudkov pushed this idea of spattering with saliva not yet a liberal, but quite a statesman and State Duma deputy in 2008. This topic became active in 2014 after the reunification of Crimea with Russia. It determined two clear directions for the creation of a Russian operating system, and a domestic processor.
What about you, Denis Frolov?
At first, apart from the true "fanatics" of the idea, few people were interested in it. The same former manager of Wimm-Bill-Dann, Denis Frolov, the current owner of Varton, Astra and Baikal Electronics, calmly sold himself Chinese LED bulbs until, with the blessing of then President Dmitry Medvedev, he began to "sculpt" his own, such as Russian ones, seem to be immune-substituted.
However, when it became clear that the state was ready to allocate a lot of money to create its own supercomputers.
In Russia, several companies are engaged in the production of processors. But the most famous are the already mentioned Baikal Electronics and Elbrus.
Rostec was the first on the path of IT import substitution, whose head Sergei Chemezov will be closer than the rest to the country's main person. In 2019, the state corporation released a supercomputer based on the Elbrus processor.
The competitor of Elbrus was and remains Baikal Electronics, which at that time belonged to Vsevolod Opanasenko.
Probably, it is at this moment that representatives of the so-called "systemic liberals" appear in this story, including the notorious Anatoly Chubais, followers of Sergei Kiriyenko in Rosatom, Arkady Dvorkovich, Sergei Abyzov, and the conditional "financier" of this process Igor Shuvalov. Now someone from this list is far beyond the borders of Russia, someone is in jail in a case on suspicion of fraud.
Expressing the terminology of Denis Frolov, they had to have time to jump on the outgoing train. The "carriage" in such a outgoing train for them was Vsevolod Opansenko, as already mentioned by whose company produced domestic Baikal processors.
Next, as they say, "watch your hands." As the media wrote, Opanasenko cedes his share to the structures of Rusnano, and VEB, then "unexpectedly" he is accused of fraud in the supply of computers to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. And after his shares in Baikal Electronics are in the hands of Denis Frolov, and another company NM-Tech, in the hands of VEB (after which the company was headed by the same Denis Frolov), Opanasenko is released under house arrest. Oil painting.
Former seller of LED bulbs Denis Frolov. Photo: gauss.ru
Here it is worth mentioning who this Denis Frolov is. I don't want to offend anyone, and no matter what they tell me about a young prodigy who made his way from the bottom, in my personal opinion this is an ordinary "trader," or an ordinary "shopkeeper." In the Soviet Union, these were called, farts, speculators, and later enterprising people. The essence of this does not change. This "prodigy," previously worked in the company for the production of juices and yogurt "Wimm-Bill-Dann."
But after it became known that PepsiCo was buying the company, it probably decided that capitalists who ask for every penny should not be contacted. And he went to sell, as already mentioned, Chinese LED bulbs. This seemed to be not enough, and having gained some capital, he opened a plant for the production of Russian light bulbs. However, as they say, they did not differ in any special way from the Chinese.
The first "patron" Igor Shuvalov. Photo: Regnum
They say that the success of Frolov was very contributed by Dmitry Medvedev and the current head of VEB (and under the presidency of Medvedev, First Deputy Prime Minister) Igor Shuvalov. In this regard, it is not surprising that Frolov enjoys such support from VEB, and is the General Director of the company NM-Tech, which has transferred from Opanasenko to the state corporation.
"Roof" decides everything?
But back to Rostec, headed by Sergei Chemezov and his nominee for the post of deputy prime minister Denis Manturov.
After the successful release of the supercomputer in 2019, powered by Elbrus processors, it became clear that in Russia there are two serious developers Elbrus and Baikal Electronics. "Serious" is not so much in the sense of manufacturability as in the Russian understanding of the word, but in such a polluted word as "roof." In other words, if Rostec was behind the "Elbrusovites" in the person of Chemezov and the head of the Ministry of Trade Manturov, then behind the "Baikal" and Denis Frolov, the head of VEB Sergey Shuvalov and Rosatom, together with the remaining supporters of Sergei Kiriyenko. Where Rosatom came from will be discussed below.
After such a dizzying success, when the Head of State was presented with a supercomputer, the Ministry of Industry and Trade announces a competition for the creation of three new microprocessors, promising the developers 21 billion rubles. Even before the announcement of the competition on the sidelines, they shushed that only "their own" would be the winners. As a result, the companies MCST (Elbrus), Module and Elvis became favorites. There are rumors that Frolov was not even going to be allowed there at first. By the way, the company "Module" was once founded by Yuri Borisov, who was predicted to resign the day before.
The matter is understandable, the amount of 21 billion is serious. However, the question here was not only a loss-win, how much in prestige. And here, how often does one of the "hardware mechanisms" work for us. They say that someone ran to complain to Vladimir Putin about the organizers of the competition. And since the organizers were the Ministry of Industry and Trade, it can be assumed that Rostec also participated in the "division." In this case, the "grievor" was much closer to Putin than Sergei Chemezov.
Since Denis Frolov and his company were not among the winners, and Igor Shuvalov is not so close to the President, it remains to assume that someone went higher to "knock." Well, the one that was already mentioned here. However, knowledgeable people claim that it was allegedly Sergei Kiriyenko. Although others, as knowledgeable, argue otherwise.
One way or another, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the entire commission urgently announced the cancellation of the competition. As the then representative of the government apparatus, and now Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, explained, the cancellation was due to the need to attract end-market customers to develop Russian electronics directly.
Really, what are the cases? Just take and give 7 billion for the "brother," and not share, for example, with Deniskaya, well, it's completely wrong.
Nevertheless, the slightly "tattered" honor of the losers was restored, a break was announced to the parties by the country's chief referee.
All-hardware operating system from the designer
However, the struggle for the IT market is not only processors and supercomputers, it is also software. It was about the native, Russian operating system (OS) that they spoke for a long time and a lot. Single artisans had good ideas, there were quite sane proposals. But who will pay attention to them, much less give funds? When the concept of "long money" does not exist in economics, if the Left-hander appears capable of forging a flea, then he has a very short life, and he will die unknown. Since no one needs it.
This is exactly what happened to the unfulfilled dream of a genuine Russian OS. There are now about 5 operating systems on the market that call themselves domestic. All of them are based on American Linux. Systems based on it, as a rule, are created and distributed in accordance with the free and open source software development model, and are distributed free of charge.
What the reader would understand is such a software Lego, from which you can create almost any OS. As one programmer specializing in Linux on this software told me, he can assemble anything, for example, a system that completely simulates Windows in such a way that no one will distinguish except a specialist.
About the same assembly of conditional Lego was done by Russian developers, who were paid very good money.
Now on the Russian market there are about five operating systems that call themselves Russian. However, this is not entirely true, since they are assembled based on Linux. And it could not happen otherwise, since no money was given for another.
Among them, according to the degree of "seriousness" that was mentioned above, that is, "roof," two stand out. This is the Rostov Axis, and owned by Varton Astra Linux.
We have already told how his conditional "guardians" gathered around the main "Sislibovsky" businessman Denis Frolov, among whom were Rusnano, headed at that time by Anatoly Chubais, VEB represented by its head Igor Shuvalov and many others whom we will not remember in vain.
Sergei Kiriyenko knows who gave money for RusBITeh's purchase? Photo: Life.ru
In 2017 Rosatom when it became known that 50% of the RusBITeh company of the developer of a line of Astra of Linux were acquired by Denis Frolov joined this company. As it was said in the statement of RBC a purchase was made for the benefit of Rosatom. State corporation, by the way, both then, and Sergei Kiriyenko's followers of the Deputy of the Chief of the Presidential Administration who is nowadays holding a post and who was earlier heading Rosatom direct now. Therefore from where at that time "lampochkovy" producer Denis Frolov had money for purchase of strategically important OS which many security agencies use, doesn't arise.
As there is no question and on that from where it had funds for all the rest.
I stole, I drank, in prison
But time doesn't stand still, around IT the passions were tensed serious, events were untwisted according to the scenario of the grandfather Marx: however, adjusted for the words of the hero of the famous comedy movie "I stole "money-goods-money" - I drank - in prison".
Rostec at the time very well "burned" on YotaPhone, approached release of own smartphone rather thoroughly. At the end of October of last year the state corporation presented to the market positioning itself as the smartphone for safe communication of AYYA T1. It was released by the SmartEkoSistema company the "subsidiary" of Rostec owning her through Scientific Research Institute Masshtab. According to users it is impossible to tell that this development enjoyed wide popularity, but nevertheless they developed her.
Denis Frolov had no scientific research institute, but there was money, and it was impossible to lag behind the main competitors. Then he paid attention to the producer of the computer equipment Aquarius which was capital asset of the National Computer Company (NCC). There were three owners: Leonid Goldenberg, Evgeny Lachkov, and president of NCC Alexander Kalinin. Having come with the offer to redeem shares of owners, Frolov, in fact, at once pererugat them. And if Goldenberg and Lachkov were ready to sell the shares with "giblets", then Kalinin the founder of the company was categorically against.
From this point same "miracles", as in the history began with Opanasenko. In June, 2020 Alexander Kalinin is detained and put in the pre-trial detention center, and from his son Aleksei recognizance not to leave is taken. Law enforcement agencies were remembered a story with the case on cartel conspiracy in the state automated system Vybory system opened in 2017 by FAS. Kalinin spent the whole year in prison. And his partners managed to displace Kalinin from a position and will appoint Denis Frolov's CEO. However the court nullified on October 25, 2021 Frolov's appointment.
Further history begins to be wound off for Frolov upside-down. Already on October 29 the same year Frolov was brought to interrogation in Investigative Committee, and in his apartment searches are conducted. Probably, at this moment Frolov understood that on any force in this world there will always be other force. To carry out a part of the life overlooking "the sky in a section" well in any way to Frolov didn't smile. Only after that all claims of Frolov with types on Aquarius and NCC were gone, and owners of the company made the peace, divided assets having sold to Aquarius to Kalinin's family, and declared completion of the conflict. Now Aquarius is preparing for release of own smartphone on the operating system for the mobile Aurora platforms to which by the way too there are a lot of questions.
Friends sing
The author of these lines, and in combination the founder of one popular edition, it is difficult to suspect of excessive love for Rostec and the Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov whom the State Duma has to confirm the Deputy Prime Minister to the post.
I perfectly understand that again will tell that article "custom", is caused by aspiration "to hammer a wedge" between the main beneficiaries of events mentioned here. Even the conversation with one of their representatives who as the proof of "friendship" with Rostec said that he sings with them a karaoke clubs is remembered. Yes sing children on health! Only Russia not of a karaoke, and won't dance to your tune.
Therefore in the light of the above events Manturov's appointment looks far more safely in my opinion for the country, than "sislibovsky" methods when democracy is understood as permissiveness.