Former mayor Sorokin. The vice speaker of the Nizhny Novgorod parliament was placed under arrest. Mayor in law

Law enforcement agencies detained Deputy Chairman of the Legislative Assembly of the Nizhny Novgorod Region Oleg Sorokin. Searches are being conducted at his place of residence. State Duma deputy from the Nizhny Novgorod region Alexander Kurdyumov told TASS about this.

“He was detained, searches are underway,” Kurdyumov said.

Let us add that Ivan Karnilin, in 2016 as mayor, was convicted by the Anti-Corruption Foundation of illegally owning real estate in Miami. In May 2017, Karnilin was sent into early retirement following an audit of foreign assets.

Sale of land rights to relatives' companies

According to the Investigative Committee, in 2011-2012, the administration of Nizhny Novgorod held auctions to sell the right to conclude agreements on the development of built-up areas in the Nizhny Novgorod region and on the lease of 14 land plots in the region. Based on the results of the auctions, contracts were concluded with RegionInvest52 LLC and Ingradstroy LLC, affiliated with close relatives of Oleg Sorokin, Interfax recalls.

The investigation examined the circumstances of the conclusion of transactions and the actual participation of the city mayor in the management of commercial organizations. However, during the audit, no objective data indicating that Sorokin had committed illegal actions was established.

The agency also recalls that on December 1, 2003, an attempt was made on Sorokin while he was a businessman. He was hospitalized with three gunshot wounds in the Bogorodsky district of the Nizhny Novgorod region. A year later, Vice-Speaker of the Nizhny Novgorod Parliament Mikhail Dikin, as well as his brother Alexander, chief of staff of the Prioksky District Department of Internal Affairs of Nizhny Novgorod, were detained for attempted murder. In August 2006, the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court sentenced Mikhail Dikin to 16 years in prison, Alexander Dikin to 15 years. In the summer of 2016, Mikhail Dikin was released on parole from a Mordovian colony.

The Investigative Committee has completed an investigation into the former mayor of Nizhny Novgorod, accused of taking a bribe and kidnapping. The statute of limitations for these cases expires in April 2019.

The Investigative Committee has completed an investigation into the criminal case against the former head of Nizhny Novgorod and vice-speaker of the legislative assembly of the Nizhny Novgorod region Oleg Sorokin. The politician is accused of receiving a bribe related to the city's largest land auction on 453 hectares of land for housing development, and kidnapping a person in 2004. Experts believe that Oleg Sorokin and his seven lawyers will not rush to familiarize themselves with the case materials, since the statute of limitations on the particularly serious charge of kidnapping expires in April 2019.

The preliminary investigation into the criminal case against the former vice-speaker of the Nizhny Novgorod parliament Oleg Sorokin, arrested in December 2017, was completed in early May. He is accused of receiving a bribe “in the form of illegal provision of services of a property nature.” According to investigators, in 2013, on behalf of Oleg Sorokin, his former friend Mansur Sadekov was supposed to transfer $1 million to the Vektron company so that it would not interfere with the Ingradstroy company (controlled by Oleg Sorokin’s wife Elada Nagornaya and his business partners) to win a competition for lease of 453 hectares of land for residential development. The second episode of the accusation concerns the participation of Oleg Sorokin in the so-called operational experiment of police officers of the regional police department. In December 2003, an attempt was made on businessman Oleg Sorokin. Investigating it, criminal investigators in Oleg Sorokin’s car forcibly took Alexander Novoselov, the security guard of the then vice-speaker of the Nizhny Novgorod Legislative Assembly, Mikhail Dikin, into the forest. Alexander Novoselov claimed that Oleg Sorokin himself was in the forest, who took an ax from the trunk and threatened to “cut off his leg,” and the police beat him and suffocated him with a bag. Frightened Alexander Novoselov testified against his boss, who was sentenced to 16 years.

Yesterday, in court to extend the period of detention, Oleg Sorokin and his four lawyers tried to refute the investigator’s interpretation of the events of 2004 and 2013 as serious crimes. In the case of Alexander Novoselov, prisoner Sorokin said that the testimony of the security guard, previously “convicted of perjury and telephone terrorism,” cannot be taken as the truth. He said he provided police with his Mercedes at an official request as part of an investigation into an attempt on his life, not knowing what his car would be used for. He noted that the European Court of Human Rights, which awarded compensation to Alexander Novoselov, “did not question” the legality of the operational experiment. His defense attorney Sergei Lebedev recalled that for 14 years Nizhny Novgorod law enforcement agencies and courts did not see any crime in “moving Novoselov from point A to point B.” Defense lawyer Lebedev called the investigators' arguments procedural cheating.

In the case of the competition for 453 hectares of land, the lawyer believes, the investigation changed the concepts, “turning commercial bribery into a bribe.” The lawyers cited a transcript of a hidden audio recording of negotiations between Vectron representatives and Oleg Sorokin in Cannes, from which it followed that he suggested that the company’s representatives officially go to auction and invest in Nizhny Novgorod.

Also, the defense and Oleg Sorokin criticized the formal reasons for the arrest a lot. They were especially outraged by the investigation’s refusal to confiscate his passport with an open visa. “Should I burn this passport in public in the hall, or what?” - the accused complained, trying to convince the court that if a person under investigation decides to flee the country, he is unlikely to cross the border legally. Oleg Sorokin’s voluntary resignation from his parliamentary powers also did not help. ICR investigator Evgeny Lagunov argued that the “former” deputy chairman of the legislative assembly is still a significant person in the city and can influence the course of the investigation, and his wife used a car with diplomatic license plates (Elada Nagornaya is the honorary consul of Hungary in Nizhny Novgorod). As a result, the court extended Oleg Sorokin’s arrest until August 1, considering that the accused politician, who used the business jet, could flee abroad to his wife and children or interfere with the investigation.

According to the lawyers following this criminal case, given that the statute of limitations on the serious kidnapping charge expires in April 2019, it is unlikely that the accused Sorokin and two former operatives Evgeniy Voronin and Roman Markeev will rush to familiarize themselves with the case.

How a shady businessman Sorokin ended up at the head of Nizhny Novgorod Nikolay Golovlev

On October 25, 2010, the long-time mayor of Nizhny Novgorod, Vadim Bulavinov, unexpectedly lost his position. The overthrow of a popular mayor with a trust rating of about 80% among the townspeople was the result of the replacement of popular elections - the election of the head of the city with the votes of city deputies. The winner of the “undercover” campaign for the sympathies of the deputy electorate turned out to be a certain Oleg Sorokin - a 43-year-old businessman with an extremely ambiguous reputation and biography. A person involved in several scandalous criminal cases, in which the future head of Nizhny Novgorod managed to be a witness, a suspect and even a victim.

At the end of that memorable meeting, an interesting scene took place on the sidelines of the Nizhny Novgorod Duma. While most local politicians and journalists attacked the triumphant Sorokin, one of the deputies approached the upset Bulavinov, who was leaving the building. In a low voice he... congratulated the ex-mayor on what had happened. They say that only now, when Sorokin has received the coveted mayor's chair, Bulavinov need not fear so much for his life and health. Vadim Bulavinov nodded understandingly and remained silent...

And that is to say, no one in Nizhny needs to explain once again who Oleg Sorokin is. It is well known that on the way to achieving any of his goals, the new mayor will sweep away anything and anyone from the path. Note, it will sweep away in the literal sense of the word. Oleg Valentinovich has every chance to enter future history books as a true hero of our troubled times.

Semenovsky seamstress in the role of the “Trojan Horse” His life is the success story of a shadow businessman from the 90s, a classic hero of the era or, if you like, the Anti-Hero of the initial accumulation of capital in Russia at the turn of the century. Based on Sorokin’s biography, it’s time to study the realities of the “dashing” 90s and the fat “zero” years: cooperatives and station stalls, buying up shares and bankruptcy of defense plants with their subsequent privatization. Then - bill of exchange schemes for theft of hundreds of millions of budgetary funds from government agencies, money laundering through Cypriot offshore companies, criminal cases that ended in nothing. Showdowns with division of property, kidnappings, machine gun fire, corpses. Subsequently - the legalization of capital, a move into politics, a new image of a “public figure”. And for all of the listed positions, Mr. Sorokin has episodes associated with his name. A miracle, not a biography!

A young man, Oleg Sorokin, lived in Semenov. Returning from the army in 1987, he became a cooperator. He made souvenirs and “cooked” jeans, selling his simple goods at a kiosk near the Moskovsky railway station. It is not known for certain what else Oleg Valentinovich was doing; he himself characterizes his activity at that time as “purchase and sale.”

The future mayor of Nizhny Novgorod first appeared in public space in 1998 as the director of the Start defense plant and the nominal owner of 40% of the company’s shares. Subsequently, it turned out that Sorokin then served as the “sic chairman” under an influential Nizhny Novgorod banker named Gurevich.

“I then decided to change my field of activity,” Sorokin later said in an interview, “and the Start plant came into view.” However, being the general director of the plant, I realized that I was not a production person.” Already in 1999, the director left his position without fulfilling his promise to the factory team to take Start out of the crisis.

The secret of being at the head of a state-owned enterprise of a young man without a higher education and minimal experience in production was revealed in November 2001, when the arbitration court declared Start bankrupt. The property and land of the plant were purchased by the head of Ellipse Bank Gurevich and... Oleg Sorokin. In a ratio of 50% to 50%.

It became clear to everyone that the “activity” of Sorokin-Gurevich initially had as its goal the destruction of the plant, which was of interest to businessmen only from the point of view of a huge plot of 25 thousand square meters in the very center of the city, with communications and engineering infrastructure. However, the true goal of the raiders was clear to the specialist from the very beginning. Back in February 1998, Deputy Governor Antyuganov wrote about Gurevich and Sorokin to the Russian Minister of Economy Yakov Urinson:

“The actions of these individuals reveal a persistent desire to take possession of the plant in order, given its very prestigious position in the city center, to transform it from an industrial enterprise into a “profitable business” establishment. Alas, the authorities of that time were unable or did not bother to prevent the seizure.

In 2003, on the site of the Start factory canteen, the Sorokino company Stolitsa Nizhny built the fashionable shopping center Etazhi. In 2005, the former workshops of the enterprise turned into trading hangars for Sportmaster and M-Video. The factory no longer exists.

Offshores, corpses and assassinations...In general, it is clear where the money to buy property and land from the banker Gurevich could have come from in 2001, but the mystery of the origin of Sorokin’s legal millions, alas, has not yet been solved. All that is known about Oleg Valentinovich before his miraculous appearance in 2001 in the guise of a large capitalist “developer” is a short stay as a civil servant of the regional Road Fund

Perhaps the trade in boiled jeans at one time brought such an impressive profit to the Semyonov cooperator that even a decade later it was enough to purchase territory and invest in large-scale construction. Agree, very unlikely.

So, alas, the answer to the question “Where does the firewood come from?” it seems to be in the materials of a criminal case about the theft of 500 million rubles from Dorfond when our hero was the financial director of this structure.

From 1999 until the fall of 2001, Sorokin worked first as deputy financial director of the fund, then, after his boss Viktor Erikov drowned, as financial director.

By the way, the death of the boss, which greatly accelerated the career of his deputy at Dorfond, still raises legitimate questions among everyone who is familiar with the circumstances of the tragedy. Erikov died under unclear circumstances during a joint picnic with Sorokin. Master of Sports in swimming Erikov drowned. Moreover, according to the conclusion of the Forensic Medical Examiner, it follows that at the time of death the alcohol content in the blood of the deceased was 0.82%. In other words, he was sober, so he could not, as they say, “drown while drunk.”

But when examining the corpse of Erikov V.B. a fracture of the 4th cervical vertebra was detected, and in the soft tissues of the parietal region on the left there was a dark red irregularly rounded hemorrhage measuring 1.2 by 1.5 cm (volume No. 10, l. 152-156). The materials of the law enforcement investigation recorded the conviction of the father of the deceased that Oleg Sorokin was involved in the death of his son.

However, no criminal case was opened on Sorokin’s suspicion of murder, and the businessman took over the post of financial director of Dorfond. And soon, under unclear circumstances, Dorfond director Alexander Glazov also died. Thus, Oleg Valentinovich remained the rightful owner of the fund until his departure. At the beginning of 2004, the Control and Audit Department of the Ministry of Finance checked the financial and economic activities of the Dorfond for the period from 07/01/99 to 12/31/2001. During this time, 6 billion 250 million rubles passed through the fund, mainly automobile taxes.

A three-month audit revealed methods of disappearing money that were amazing in their simplicity. Of course, in violation of the law, competitions for suppliers of fuel and materials were not held here. Almost all purchases of the fund were made through gasket companies, which is why the cost of materials increased to 20-40%. A random check of only three intermediary firms (there were more than a dozen of them in total) and only for two items (bitumen and diesel fuel) revealed a total overpricing of 32.2 million rubles!

On August 11, 2004, a criminal case was opened against Sorokin “for the theft of budget funds in the amount of over 500 million rubles and subsequent legalization in the period from January 1, 2002 to the present.”

The materials of the Investigative Committee of the State Investigative Directorate at the Central Internal Affairs Directorate indicated that Sorokin stole money and then “laundered” it through the accounts of shell companies and offshore companies: HarstonFinance Incorporated, from the Virgin Islands, Cyprus RekevinTrading Limited, Cyprus, Nicosia, Trading TotemLimited" from Montenegro and dozens of others. The main financial terminal was the already mentioned Ellipse Bank many times. For example, the seal of a certain TotemBank (AD) (Montenegro), through which money was legalized, was found here. Even during the search, they found the constituent documents of companies, through operations with bills of exchange of which the fund was damage amounting to 40 million rubles was caused.

Employees of the UBEP GUVD conducted a survey of a certain Golovko of the State Corporation "Capital Nizhny". He said that the funds received to finance real estate projects, the construction of which is led by Oleg Sorokin, come from non-resident organizations registered in Cyprus.

Agree, it is strange that the criminal case against Sorokin ended in nothing. And then be amazed where our civil servants get multimillion-dollar capital.

Be that as it may, after Sorokin left the civil service in 2001, Nizhny Novgorod recognized him in his current capacity - a major businessman, head of the development group of companies "Capital Nizhny".

By the way, almost immediately an epic of scandals, “showdowns” and crimes related to the land and property of “Start” began. Everything that happened then clearly demonstrated to the people of Nizhny Novgorod the personality of Oleg Sorokin. The clever Semyonovsky businessman first got rid of his companion, then from those , to whom Gurevich sold his share. The last of Sorokin’s enemies-companions - the once seemingly omnipotent deputy chairman of the Legislative Assembly of the Nizhny Novgorod region, Mikhail Dikin, lost not only his share, but also... his freedom. Dikin is now serving a 16-year criminal sentence for organizing the attempted murder of Sorokin. In December 2003, a certain machine gunner allegedly fired at Sorokin’s Mercedes, wounding him. Dikin allegedly “ordered” Sorokin in order to thus resolve a property dispute over Start.

Among law enforcement officers there is no consensus either about the perpetrators of the assassination attempt, or even about whether it actually happened. Or the public was shown a more or less successful staging. After all, if you answer the main question of jurisprudence, “Who benefits?” about the motive of the crime, it is worth noting that the result of the “shelling” story was Oleg Sorokin’s acquisition of 100% of the property.

The price of the issue was 20 million dollars. What is an easy “crossbow” when it comes to that kind of money?

Crime came to power After such scandals, the name of Oleg Sorokin was remembered by Nizhny Novgorod residents, but until recently the entrepreneur was classified in public opinion as semi-criminal “freaks”. In 2006, no one attached much importance to his foray into local politics, considering his desire to acquire a deputy mandate in the local Duma only as a common habit among businessmen to simply “shepherd” the power “clearing.” “You see, we are businessmen, pure and simple. I have always distanced myself from politics because I believe, and I am absolutely sure of this, that it is impossible to do business and politics equally well,” Oleg Sorokin said in Sorokin in 2004. In 2010, the same Sorokin, by hook or by crook and half-truth, pushed through the appointment of his person to the post of head of Nizhny Novgorod.

There is no need to dwell in detail on the total campaign of “hostile takeover” of the city’s executive power organized by him in collaboration with Governor Valery Shantsev. Sorokin, who immediately realized that in direct elections he had no chance against the popular mayor Bulavinov, successfully played along with the governor. In 2009, Shantsev began active work to subordinate local government to himself. His goal was to finally break the slightest resistance of the heads of cities and districts of the region, but first of all, to eliminate the obstinate mayor of the regional center. To do this, the governor needed to cancel the popular elections of municipal heads, which, ultimately, was done. But, unlike the politician Shantsev, the businessman Sorokin knew exactly what he wanted from the authorities.

And his very political struggle with the then mayor, performed by a “business politician,” was, in fact, a way of catching the “golden calf” in the troubled waters of the conflict. Sorokin simply “wasted money” on the city budget.

At first, as they say, “in small things,” then, having gained a taste, Sorokin began to steal hundreds of millions from the city and its citizens. In 2007, Sorokino construction LLC Start-Stroy violated an agreement with the mayor’s office regarding payment for a land plot for the construction of three residential buildings. "Start-Stroy" pledged to give the city 20% of apartments and 10% of parking spaces. But, having built housing, Sorokin simply sold ALL PREMISES due to the city. This fraud caused damage to Nizhny Novgorod of almost 15.5 million.

The apotheosis was the deception with a plot of land of 50 hectares in the Meshcherskoe Lake microdistrict, provided to Sorokin for the construction of the “Seventh Heaven” residential complex - 18 “seventeen-story buildings” with a total area of ​​150 thousand square meters. meters. Here's how the company's website poetically describes the delights of these urban lands:

“For the construction of a new residential complex, Stolitsa Nizhny chose one of the most picturesque places in Nizhny Novgorod. It was here that the world-famous Nizhny Novgorod fair was noisy, for whose guests the famous Montferrand built the magnificent Old Fair Cathedral. The windows of the apartments will offer stunning views of the high bank of the Volga, the panorama of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, the Chkalov Stairs, and Meshcherskoye Lake.”

According to the agreement with the city, Sorokin undertook to repay for the “picturesque place” given to him by transferring to the municipality “7% of the areas of administrative and amenity facilities and at least 3% of apartments in the residential buildings of “Seventh Heaven.” To date, 16 out of 18 high-rise buildings have been put into operation. Oleg Sorokin never returned a single square meter to the residents of Nizhny Novgorod!

And he clearly has no intention of doing so any time soon. This is not why Oleg Valentinovich spent money on getting the position of mayor. On the contrary, the raider takeover of the mayor's office turned the city government into a mechanism for extracting super-profits for Sorokin's business structures.

Robbery with the flail of power It is common knowledge that officials make money from administrative resources. Every now and then the press adds new names to the list of uncontrollably successful relatives of governors and mayors in business. But the shameless simplicity with which the current head of Nizhny Novgorod uses power to enrich himself can shock anyone.

How do you like the amount of 1 billion 600 million rubles of direct budget loss from Sorokin’s decision alone? This decision is based on the selfish motive of entrepreneur Sorokin. So, in August 2010, an open competition was held for the right to comprehensively develop 30 hectares of land within the city - the territory of the former Tsvety state farm.

Two people took part in the competition: Start-Stroy LLC and Zhilstroy NN LLC.

The competition was won by Zhilstroy NN, which undertook to:

Build housing with a total area of ​​335 thousand square meters on a land plot of 30 hectares. meters, as well as create at your own expense all the necessary engineering infrastructure facilities.

Invest at least 10 billion rubles in housing construction and development of this territory,

Upon completion of construction, transfer 14% of 335 thousand square meters of living space.

14%, this is 47 thousand square meters. The cost per square meter on Tsvetochnaya Street, according to the most underestimated estimates, is 40 thousand rubles. Thus, the Nizhny Novgorod municipality would receive about 1.9 billion rubles from Zhilstroy NN LLC. Moreover, in the form of the most real apartments.

Start-Stroy LLC, which lost the competition, filed a lawsuit to declare the results of the competition invalid. The founder and general director of Start-Stroy, then still a deputy, Sorokin called the competition held, in which Start-Stroy participated but lost, corrupt and tailored for a specific company.

Having become the head of the city, Sorokin, on behalf of the mayor's office, voluntarily declared the results of the competition invalid in court.

The new competition was prepared by the deputy head of the administration Mironov, in the recent past - the deputy general director of... Start-Stroy LLC. Unsurprisingly, conditions improved dramatically for the developer but worsened for the municipality. So, from 30 thousand square meters they cut a kind of “fillet” so that, God forbid, the developer would not overpay the city “extra”:

Plot No. 1 with an area of ​​136,678 sq.m. with an initial rental price of just over 208 million rubles

Plot No. 3 - 79,769 sq.m. at a price of almost 121.5 million rubles

Newspapers openly published the testimony of the head of Zhilstroy-NN, Berezin, that his competitor, being in the rank of head of Nizhny Novgorod, offered Berezin to abandon the fight for the land of the Tsvety state farm. In return, Sorokin, on behalf of the city authorities, offered Zhilstroy-NN support for other construction projects, in particular for Ul. Burnakovskaya. As a result of this conspiracy, the law interprets such relations in this way, damage was caused to the city budget. Nobody except Start-Stroy LLC came to both auctions held on July 15, 2011. The Sorokin mayor's office signed a contract with Sorokin's company at the minimum price.

The city received less than 330 million from this agreement. Let us recall that under the terms of the contract with Zhilstroy-NN LLC, which was torn up by Oleg Sorokin, the municipality of apartments with a total area of ​​47 thousand square meters. meters, worth about two billion rubles. The damage to the city can be estimated at 1 billion 600 million rubles!

But that's not all. The comprehensive engineering development of the territory of Tsvetochnaya Street will be carried out at the expense of... the city budget. The 2011-2012 budget provided funds for the development of infrastructure specifically in the Sorokinsky areas and adjacent territories.

And this is not a mistake or negligence, but the principle of the current government: in every possible way to facilitate the receipt of maximum profits by the boss’s business structures. The shortest way to this is to “pass” the costs on the city and citizens, in addition to paying nothing.

At the same time, Sorokin assigns the best plots of land to himself, and the mayor-businessman forces taxpayers to pay for the construction of roads, communications and other infrastructure on this land.

“In 5 years you won’t recognize the city!” said Oleg Sorokin, taking the oath of Nizhny Novgorod mayor, solemnly promising to solve the problem of dilapidated funds, queues for kindergartens, triple the city budget and much more.

Today, after a year and a half of Sorokin’s management of the municipality, you begin to understand with alarm: the words “you won’t recognize the city!” were either a threat or a warning.

If what this character is doing in Nizhny Novgorod in the name of power is not the most cynical corruption, then it is not clear what to call “corruption” and “cynicism” at all.

Arrested on charges of receiving a bribe “in the form of illegal provision of services of a property nature.” The ex-mayor of Nizhny Novgorod is called “entrepreneur number one” by deputies, and his wife, who manages the family business, in 2012 became the richest of the wives of Russian officials with earnings of 1.5 billion rubles. Political scientists associate the criminal prosecution of Oleg Sorokin with the efforts of the presidential envoy in the Volga Federal District (VFD) Mikhail Babich to strengthen the position of acting governor Gleb Nikitin.

“Mr. Nikitin has the power and political support of the embassy, ​​which actively helps him as a young politician. Each famous player in the Nizhny Novgorod region has a folder that is taken out at the right time. We saw this in the case of Vadim Bulavinov and the former leadership of Nizhny Novgorod. As for Oleg Sorokin, where there is big business, big claims inevitably arise,” says political scientist Valentina Buzmakova. The head of the political expert group, Konstantin Kalachev, also did not rule out “the influence of the plenipotentiary mission” in the vice speaker’s case, but noted that in relation to Mr. Sorokin, “the Sadekov case is not the only thing that could be found and proven.” Political scientist Alexander Kynev noted that Oleg Sorokin, who along with the governor was a key politician in the region, is “a unique case of political vitality.” “Despite a lot of compromising information on him, for many years this did not lead to any consequences,” the political scientist noted. “Sorokin, obviously, had extensive connections in Moscow, which have probably weakened now. And the acting head received carte blanche, incomparable to what Shantsev had.”

Oleg Sorokin is a major domestic businessman who was involved in parliamentary activities. At one time he was the vice-chairman of the Legislative Assembly of the Nizhny Novgorod region, he led himself. He is currently in custody on charges of taking a bribe.

Biography of the politician

Oleg Sorokin was born in 1967. He was born in Nizhny Novgorod, the city was then called Gorky.

He received his higher education at a local commercial institute. He made a career in private entrepreneurship. In 2001, he headed the urban planning company Stolitsa Nizhny.

He was also deputy director for finance at the territorial road fund of the Nizhny Novgorod region.

Construction business

Sorokin Oleg Valentinovich specialized in the construction of residential buildings, as well as large business centers and shopping and entertainment complexes.

In 2003, through his efforts, a modern European-level entertainment center called “Etazhi” appeared in Nizhny Novgorod. Over time, a business center arose, which was called “Capital Nizhny”.

In 2006, Oleg Sorokin began building the largest residential complex of multi-storey buildings at that time, “Seventh Heaven”. 18 houses were designed not far from the Volga embankment. The project was completed by 2012.

Since 2007, the Fantastica shopping complex was built, which was bought by the Auchan company in 2013.

After Oleg Sorokin became mayor, management of his business empire passed to his wife. She already launched the construction of a residential complex, which received the beautiful name “Flowers” ​​in 2012, and opened the “Seventh Heaven” shopping center, which opened near the residential complex of the same name.

Among the major projects of recent years, it is worth noting the beginning of the construction of the Aquamarine residential complex, the construction of a house on Freedom Square, and a restaurant on the Volzhskaya Embankment.

At the very beginning, Oleg Valentinovich Sorokin’s business career was risky. In 2003, he was almost killed during an assassination attempt. A businessman was shot at in a car. Sorokin received three bullet wounds and underwent several emergency surgeries.

A trial was held, which recognized that the organizers of the attack were police lieutenant colonel Alexander Dikin and his brother Mikhail, who at that time was the vice speaker of the regional parliament.

Mayor of Nizhny Novgorod

In 2010, Oleg Sorokin, whose photo is in this article, won the election for mayor of Nizhny Novgorod. He was supported by 28 out of 42 deputies. In this post, he replaced Vadim Bulavinov.

Sorokin's work as mayor was associated with numerous scandals. Stories about his activities were repeatedly broadcast on federal channels. In particular, the Rossiya 1 channel shot an entire documentary film authored by Arkady Mamontov. One of the stories was dedicated to the biography of Oleg Sorokin. It was alleged that after he became mayor, large-scale construction began in the city. Historical buildings were demolished for the sake of residential complexes built by the mayor's wife.

At the same time, numerous violations were committed during construction. For example, communications were laid not at the expense of the developer, but with money from the city budget. As a result, the treasury suffered serious damage. The same film featured hidden camera footage of Sorokin spending a weekend in Cannes.

Conflict with the governor

In 2015, at the end of his term, Sorokin came into conflict with Valery Shantsev, who held this post for ten years.

Shantsev planned to appoint Dmitry Svatkovsky, who was close to the regional government, to the post of new mayor. Sorokin openly opposed this candidacy and did everything to prevent it from passing.

As a result, Ivan Karnilin became new.

Personal life

Oleg Sorokin and his family have appeared on the pages of the media more than once. His wife's name is Elada Lvovna Nagornaya. She is the daughter of the head of the city's Central Department Store. After her husband went into politics, she is the director of the construction department at the urban planning company Stolitsa Nizhny. He has many public positions. For example, Nagornaya is the honorary consul of Hungary in Nizhny Novgorod.

According to journalists, in 2013 she became the richest wife of a Russian official. Her annual income alone was estimated at one and a half billion rubles. Since 2015, co-owner of the limited liability company "Semyonovskaya Khokhloma Painting".

The hero of our article has three children. These are two sons, whose names are Danila and Nikita, and a daughter Elizaveta. Celebrities, including federal officials, often communicate with the Sorokin family. For example, Elizabeth’s godfather, who at that time was the Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights.

Currently, his son Nikita, who is 25 years old, most often appears in the public space. He is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party. In 2016 he became a member of the regional parliament.

Sorokin's arrest

It came as a surprise to many when on December 18, 2017, the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against Sorokin. He was accused of causing significant property damage by deception. According to investigators, Sorokin received a bribe while he was mayor.

As a result, 14 land plots were designated for housing construction. During a search in his private home, investigators found one and a half billion rubles in cash. At that time, the hero of our article was the vice-speaker of the regional parliament.

On February 19, the Nizhny Novgorod district court decided to take Sorokin into custody pending trial. He will remain in the pre-trial detention center until at least February 17.