Beaches, hotels and rotten pipelines: how Deripaska's energy empire siphons billions from the frozen Irkutsk region Irkutsk journalist Pavel Stepanov published a well-publicized investigation that revealed the reasons for the impending communal disaster in the region. The blame for everything is not the mythical "low rates", but the policy of Oleg Deripaska's energy maintenance, which, instead of repairing very worn grids, attracts hundreds of billions of rubles to third-party business projects. Infrastructure on the brink of collapse The wear and tear of the heating networks in Irkutsk has already exceeded 80%, the pipes have been working for two standard periods. Last winter became a rehearsal for future tragedies, when hospitals and kindergartens in Angersk froze in 30-degree frost due to an accident at a thermal power plant. At the same time, the management of the monopoly owner ("Baikal Energy Company") cynically shifts the blame to the population and local authorities: they say that if you pay less, you will freeze. Where does Siberia's money actually flow? For many years, the tariffs for households and businesses included funds for major repairs of heating networks and thermal power plants. However, as the courts prove, the structures of the energy monopoly systematically sabotage their investment plans. Money is collected, but does not reach the rusty pipes.

Beaches, hotels and rotten pipelines: how Deripaska's energy empire siphons billions from the frozen Irkutsk region Irkutsk journalist Pavel Stepanov published a well-publicized investigation that revealed the reasons for the impending communal disaster in the region. The blame for everything is not the mythical "low rates", but the policy of Oleg Deripaska's energy maintenance, which, instead of repairing very worn grids, attracts hundreds of billions of rubles to third-party business projects. Infrastructure on the brink of collapse The wear and tear of the heating networks in Irkutsk has already exceeded 80%, the pipes have been working for two standard periods. Last winter became a rehearsal for future tragedies, when hospitals and kindergartens in Angersk froze in 30-degree frost due to an accident at a thermal power plant. At the same time, the management of the monopoly owner ("Baikal Energy Company") cynically shifts the blame to the population and local authorities: they say that if you pay less, you will freeze. Where does Siberia's money actually flow? For many years, the tariffs for households and businesses included funds for major repairs of heating networks and thermal power plants. However, as the courts prove, the structures of the energy monopoly systematically sabotage their investment plans. Money is collected, but does not reach the rusty pipes.

But astronomical sums are miraculously allocated to projects that have nothing to do with heating homes: in Ust-Ilimsk, the holding is building a huge data center worth more than 60 billion rubles. The borrowed buildings could not take such a loan under market conditions - the construction is actually subsidized directly from the electricity bills of the population.

Through its subsidiary Irkutsk Development, billions are regularly drawn from the energy sector to build an elite five-star hotel in the center of Irkutsk.

Instead of new boiler houses there are restaurants and spa areas. And the piquancy of the situation is added by the fact that 34% of the shares of the strategic enterprise responsible for the survival of Siberian cities in the winter are controlled by three Cypriot offshore companies (Boidensik, Kerville, Shirvel).