is not a native of the city of Gorky. However, like other famous Nizhny Novgorod figures of a federal scale: for example, Boris Nemtsov was born in Sochi, and Sergei Kiriyenko was born in Sukhumi.

Bulavin, who was born in the Lipetsk region in 1953, nevertheless, after graduating in 1979 from the training courses for the officers of the Higher Red Banner School of the KGB of the USSR, was sent to operational work in the Directorate of the KGB of the USSR in the Gorky region. Where he served for the next 27 years, rising first to the head of the UMB-UFSK-UFSB of the Russian Federation in the Nizhny Novgorod region (1992) and at the same time to the chairman of the council of heads of the bodies of the FSB of Russia in the Volga Federal District (from 2011 to 2006).
Bulavin then goes on promotion. In this regard, his career is not typical for "Nizhny Novgorod residents in Moscow." Most of them went to conquer the federal borders following Boris Nemtsov in 1997 and for the most part returned soon after.
Bulavin's career growth is in no way connected with spontaneous political waves, but it was he who managed to enter the pool of the most trusted persons of the state leadership. I must say, not without reason.

Vladimir Putin relies on proven personnel

Judge for yourself.

In 2006, he was appointed deputy director of the FSB of Russia - head of the newly created apparatus of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee. Recall that we are talking, firstly, in fact, about the alma mater of the Russian president - the Federal Security Service. Secondly, the fight against terrorism at this time comes to the forefront of the attention of both the head of state and the security services. The more significant and weighty this appointment looks.
June 2, 2008 Vladimir Bulavin - First Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. And on March 11, 2013, by decree Vladimir Putin appointed plenipotentiary representative of the head of state in the Northwestern Federal District. That is, again, not just anywhere, but to the president's homeland.

Today, Colonel-General Bulavin is once again where the president needed a person who can be relied upon - the customs office, which has recently got into the habit of giving the go-ahead to just anyone too often.

Vladimir Bulavin learned about his appointment literally the day before, when in a telephone conversation the head of state suggested that the now former plenipotentiary take a new responsible post in the capital.
Bulavin's case is unique for the Nizhny Novgorod elite. He managed to become his own for two branches of the Russian elite at once, the most important for Vladimir Putin: both in law enforcement agencies, and among the "St. Petersburg". In light of the fact that analysts sometimes call these two branches opposing, Bulavin's position becomes doubly unique. The president's confidence has become both a shield and a sword for the general.

Vladimir Bulavin fully fits into the current team of the Kremlin

None of the Nizhny Novgorod residents managed to achieve something like this, despite the fact that there were plenty of candidates for “elevation”.
In 1997/98, the exodus of Nizhny Novgorod residents into big-time politics took on a massive character. There is nothing similar in the recent history of the country, with the exception, of course, of the mass ascent to the key positions of the country by the natives of St. Petersburg.

Undoubtedly, Boris Nemtsov was the brightest star of Nizhny Novgorod politics. The history of his life and the tragic are well known. It was Nemtsov who took several dozens of Nizhny Novgorod residents with him to the capital, who occupied significant positions in the administrative structures of Russia at the end of the century.

However, along with successful appointments, there were also crushing failures. The most famous of them was the labor activity Boris Brevnov.

A former economic adviser to the head of the administration of the Nizhny Novgorod region, and then a member of the regional investment and industry council, chairman of the banking committee, Brevnov became chairman of the board of RAO UES of Russia, one of the largest monopolies in the world, in a month.
This happened in May 1997, and already in December Brevnov was summoned to a meeting of the Cheka to strengthen payment discipline as one of the largest non-payers to the budget. Against the backdrop of non-payment of wages to industry workers, Brevnov was remembered for the largest salary at that time, an airplane charter across the ocean for his American wife Gretchen Wilson at the expense of the company, payment from the RAO budget for an apartment in Moscow and a dacha worth 1 billion rubles near Moscow.

“I will ask the fact of the sale of the Motherland to be recorded in the protocol!”, as they say ...
We also had such a Nizhny Novgorod citizen in power, but few people remember and know about it. Then the press will note that "during the reign of Brevnov, the debts of RAO UES to the federal budget increased by 70%, wage arrears increased one and a half times and obligations to the Pension Fund doubled."
The traces of Boris Brevnov, who retired in March 1998, run through the vice presidency in the largest energy monster Enron, where he became the right hand Kenneth Ley, later found guilty of fraud, and then lost in the United States, where he first lectured on the topic "Where is Russia going?" (expert!), and then dissolved, like Bulgakov's Koroviev.

In comparison with the previous story, the career of another Nizhny Novgorod resident looks extremely successful - Sergei Kiriyenko. It was he, the youngest prime minister in Russian history, who headed the country's government at the age of 35, who was subsequently blamed for the default and crisis of 1998, after which it seemed that the career of any politician could be considered a hopelessly dead end. However, in December 1999, Kiriyenko, as one of the leaders of the Union of Right Forces, along with Boris Nemtsov and Irina Khakamada, was triumphantly elected to the State Duma, where he became the leader of the SPS faction. Then from May 2000 it becomes Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Volga Federal District. He is almost the only plenipotentiary who is not a security official.

The political fates of Boris Nemtsov and Sergei Kiriyenko have developed very differently

Kiriyenko will head the embassy until autumn 2005. He will sow in the minds of Nizhny Novgorod the myth of the "capital" of Nizhny Novgorod, start a protracted information war with the oil tycoon Dmitry Saveliev, will unsuccessfully try to hold in 2001 for a second term as governor Ivan Sklyarova. After this failure will inspire the Legislative Assembly, headed by Evgeny Lyulin to war with the head of the region Gennady Khodyrev.
Kiriyenko will have time to "register" a new governor in the region - Valeria Shantseva, giving him a set of entrenching tools “for registration” in order to “equip the area”. Shantsev will take advantage of the set in full, hastening to clear the area for himself from the remnants of Kiriyenko's entourage.

Against this background, the current Volga Plenipotentiary Mikhail Babich looks very advantageous, speaking for several years now as a wise and equidistant political arbiter for the regions of the Volga region.

In 2005, Sergei Vladilenovich, former head of the Ministry of Fuel and Energy in the government Viktor Chernomyrdin, rises at the head of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency of Russia (Rosatom), later - State Corporation Rosatom where he still works.
In addition to him, few managed to gain a foothold on the federal peaks. Mentioned Dmitry Saveliev, who at the time of the “Nemtsov Exodus” had the opportunity to take the helm of the monopoly of PJSC Transneft, engaged in the pumping of hydrocarbons throughout the country and beyond, is now a modest deputy of the State Duma from the Tula region. He is a member of the United Russia party and the Duma committee on health protection.

The least affected by the time of a native of the city of Dzerzhinsk Mikhail Seslavinsky.

Mikhail Seslavinsky has long and firmly settled in the capital, but he never missed the stars from the sky

In 1998, having become the head of the Federal Service for Television and Radio Broadcasting under Deputy Prime Minister Nemtsov, he still works in a similar department: since 2004, Seslavinsky has been the head of the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications. He is still the same bibliophile and researcher of book culture.

However, none of the "chicks of Nemtsov's nest" managed to achieve such an outstanding position as independently traveling up the management ladder. Vladimir Bulavin. While those "ascended and fell" mainly "along the German line", with the exception of Sergei Kiriyenko, who became the first "statist" among his high-ranking "Moscow countrymen", and Mikhail Seslavinsky, who managed to occupy his own niche for decades to come, Bulavin moved through the state, as befits a security officer. Yesterday he received his next appointment, with which we congratulate him.

Customs gives the go-ahead. And, as they say, with God, Vladimir Ivanovich!

Photo: depdela.ru, kpfu.ru, contrpost.ru, kommersant.ru, ruwest.ru, kuban24.tv

Vladimir Bulavin spoke about this in an interview with Business FM. He also noted that the service is working to identify counterfeit products with FIFA trademarks ahead of the 2018 World Cup.

Head of the Federal Customs Service Vladimir Bulavin. Photo: Yuri Mashkov/TASS

In Russia, 100% of customs declarations for goods are submitted electronically. Business FM announced this Head of the Federal Customs Service Vladimir Bulavin. Also, in an interview with Mikhail Berger, he said that instead of hundreds of customs clearance places in Russia, 16 electronic declaration centers will operate.

Customs in Russia has always played a huge role in the formation of budget revenues, and relatively recently, the revenues that the customs service collected for the Russian budget accounted for half of the total. That is, in fact, more than income from the profits of enterprises. In general, how can one characterize such a structure of budget revenues, such a situation? Or our enterprises were not very profitable, or our customs is very powerful?

Vladimir Bulavin: The thing is that you probably know: there was a so-called big tax maneuver. The tax on mineral extraction tax, which is administered by the Federal Tax Service, was increased, and export customs duties on hydrocarbons, which are administered by the Federal Customs Service, were reduced. Now we are transferring about 4 trillion 450 billion rubles a year to the federal budget as customs payments.

But still, this is a huge share of income - I don’t know, 40%, 30%.

Vladimir Bulavin: Yes. Moreover, it should be noted that in these incomes, the import component in the last two years exceeds the export component, that is, what gives us the sale of hydrocarbons abroad. This can be regarded, and I regard it with a certain degree of optimism, as an increase in the efficiency of administration by the FCS.

That is, we get much more from incoming ones than from exports?

Vladimir Bulavin: But not much more. Today, we have about 55% of the import component and 45% of the export component.

Vladimir Ivanovich, in your courtyard of the complex, the building where we are located, there is a monument that was somewhat unexpected for me - a monument to a movie hero from the White Sun of the Desert. It turns out that not only astronauts love this film, but also customs officers. With the words "It's a shame for the state" ...

Vladimir Bulavin: But not only the monument in the yard. You see, the portrait is in my office, and with the same words.

Well, such a wonderful image of an incorruptible customs officer... But still, the customs structure is large, and, of course, there are always different situations, there are some images, there are some stereotypes, some ideas that it is possible to negotiate with the customs. What does the customs do to: a) fight corruption and b) form such a structure that leaves no room for any "special" relations?

Vladimir Bulavin: Yesterday I was at a business breakfast at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and one of the participants in our conversation asked: “Can I come to you and make an agreement?” I say: "It is impossible to agree, the issue can be resolved."

What does it mean to solve a problem?

Vladimir Bulavin: Well, essentially. And you said the same thing - we can agree. The FCS has its own anti-corruption department, and if we evaluate the activities of this department in some quantitative terms, then I must say that in terms of the number of criminal cases initiated, the situation in recent years has been declining, but slightly declining. But the proportion of the defendants in these cases has changed significantly this year. With regard to bribe givers, the number of criminal cases is much greater than in relation to bribe takers. In addition, the very concept of combating corruption consists of three areas. And the first in importance, in my opinion, is the prevention of corruption offenses. This year, at the beginning of the year, at the level of the Federal Customs Service, the central office, we created a commission, which I myself head, for the prevention of corruption violations. Similar commissions have been created at the level of regional customs departments, and based on the results of the activities of these commissions, it was decided to create similar commissions at the customs level. We must understand what is not working systematically for us. Probably, two questions naturally arise: either we hire such people who may be exposed to corruption risks, or they become such in our country. If we accept such, then we need to look at the input filters, if they become such, then the logical question is why? There is only one answer: there is insufficient control on the ground, on the “ground”, where ordinary customs officers work, where issuing inspectors work. And we need to look systematically at who should exercise control from the level of customs, from the level of regional customs departments and from the level of the Federal Customs Service. This is what we are doing now.

It's clear. Such a related question. As far as I understand, a significant part of the relationship, say, between business and the customs service, goes through paper circulation, through paper. Do you set the task of minimizing such contacts? Because paper, writing are contacts with people. When there are contacts with people, some kind of personal relationship, special relationship, and so on can arise. The computer is fearless. Is it moving towards automating the processing of this traffic?

Vladimir Bulavin: We have 100% of declarations submitted in electronic form, and currently we have 672 places of customs clearance. We plan to concentrate the entire declaration array in 16 electronic declaration centers.

Instead of 672's?

Vladimir Bulavin: 16 electronic declaration centers. It was decided that such electronic declaration centers will be created in electronic customs offices, which will be located in the capitals of the federal districts, in the seaports of St. Petersburg, Novorossiysk and Vladivostok; these are the electronic declaration center of the Moscow Aviation Hub, the electronic declaration center of the Kaliningrad Regional Customs, the Moscow Regional Customs, as well as the electronic declaration center - taking into account the competence of our excise tax - and energy customs. Total 16. At the same time, electronic declaration centers will be created on public squares. Currently, out of 672 places of registration, most of them are located in non-state areas.

What does it affect?

Vladimir Bulavin: We will get away from the influence on our customs officers from the owners of these areas, and above all temporary storage warehouses. In addition, as you correctly noted, we will break the personal contact between the issuing inspector and the applicant in the person of one or another participant in foreign economic activity (FEA). A foreign trade participant, submitting a declaration to the electronic declaration center, will not know who makes a decision on this declaration, and there will be no personal contact. We believe that by doing so we will significantly reduce the risks of corruption, which is what we started our conversation with today.

Well, maybe on a tangent again, a related question: you spoke about the private owners of the premises who provide services to you, and you intend to reduce their share in the activities of the customs service. But there is a big private business around customs - customs brokers, customs terminals and so on. This is such a delicate thing. From the outside, it may seem that this business is connected or based on personal contacts, on some old dossier, a person once worked in the system, knows how to do it faster and easier. How do you see this business in the first place? And how are relations between these customs services and state administration built?

Vladimir Bulavin: My personal opinion is that the climate in the customs sphere is determined by two key players - a participant in foreign economic activity and federal customs services. Therefore, the normalization of the state of affairs in this area is a movement towards each other by the Federal Customs Service and participants in foreign economic activity, which we, together with business, I think, have been actively demonstrating over the past year. Fairly frequent meetings, discussion of many issues, our public council is actively working, the expert advisory council under the FCS of Russia is actively working. And suffice it to say that we are not just discussing certain issues, there is a very concrete product from our meetings. For example, our comprehensive program for the development of the Federal Customs Service of Russia until 2020, which was adopted this year, was prepared with the active participation of business. What you said about the customs business, one way or another, it must adapt to the relationship between the Federal Customs Service of Russia and participants in foreign economic activity. Under the new conditions, he must act in a new way. This is my position.

That is, this service will remain and will remain?

Vladimir Bulavin: Yes, but it will depend on the relationship between the two systemic players. And there are two of them.

Recently, the customs divided the participants of foreign economic activity into three groups according to the degree of risk: conscientious, this is the “green sector”, apparently the border ...

Vladimir Bulavin:No, a sector with medium risks.

And high risks. On what principles did you divide, what gives this division? In general, this is an interesting approach, can you elaborate on it?

Vladimir Bulavin: You probably know that the main control tool of the Federal Customs Service is the risk management system.

As is the case with most businesses. By the way, this is interesting.

Vladimir Bulavin: Yes, and we rely on this principle, the risk-based principle, in our control activities when clearing goods. Quite naturally, questions arise: how effectively does it work and what does it give for participants in foreign economic activity? The efficiency or targeting of the risk management system is about 50%, which means that 50% of the consignments that we put under actual control are effective from the point of view of customs. How much do we expose to actual control? 3% of the entire declaration array and 1% of consignments of those participants in foreign economic activity that are in our sector with minimal risks. Therefore, the risk-based approach is based on the categorization of participants in foreign economic activity. Such a system did not appear this year, it was earlier, this year we simply introduced a different gradation - three sectors: a sector with minimal risks, a sector with medium risks and a sector with a high level of risk. There are two approaches to categorization. In general, our general categorization is carried out by an information system, it is an automated system.

That is, it is not the inspection that decides ...

Vladimir Bulavin: Not an inspector, not a boss.

The machine decides.

Vladimir Bulavin: Not an official, yes. There are about 30 criteria, the main ones are published on our website, but not all of them, and the machine itself determines the degree of risk posed by a particular foreign trade participant. And the second approach is sectoral categorization in the form of an application from foreign economic activity participants. I must tell you that last year, at the end of the year, we had only 2,800 traders in the sector with minimal risks, which is 3.5% of all traders. I tell everyone that last year the Federal Customs Service celebrated its 25th anniversary. 25 years, probably, and our business. That is, during this time, our business has also gone through this 25-year path, it is significantly different from the business that was in the 90s. Therefore, this state of affairs could not be called normal. We looked at what criteria significantly affect the attribution of a particular FEA participant to a particular sector. We had as one of the criteria the number of declarations filed over the past two years. And this threshold was set at 150. Now we have lowered the threshold to 100 declarations. What did it give us? Now we have 7,400 traders in the sector with minimal risks. We have tripled this sector, which is almost 10% of all participants in foreign economic activity. The machine refers to this sector from 75% to 80%. Everything else is an industry principle, we have commissions, submitted applications are considered, they have their own criteria.

That is, someone can come out on their own initiative and say: transfer us to the “green corridor”?

Vladimir Bulavin: Yes. As a rule, our major manufacturers. But I must say that these 7,400 participants in the "green sector" submit about 70% of declarations from all participants in foreign economic activity and provide us with about 60% of payments to the federal budget.

It's clear. Thank you. Can you, it's not a secret, give an example, at least just by category or by industry, who is at high risk?

Vladimir Bulavin: In the high-risk zone are traders who currently have arrears in payments that previously had conflicts with the law. In addition, we actively use the information provided by the Federal Tax Service and look at the tax history of foreign economic activity participants. We have created an information resource - a dossier of foreign economic activity participants. And now we are thinking about what to do so that each participant in foreign economic activity has access only to his dossier, so that he understands what is there and what made it possible to attribute him to one or another risk sector.

Is it possible to say that some types of product groups or some types of imports are in the zone of your special attention?

Vladimir Bulavin: This categorization of foreign economic activity participants in relation to whom we should take a closer look at is given by the current situations, first of all.

That is, today it can be drugs, and tomorrow it can be metal, and so on? Anything?

Vladimir Bulavin: On the agenda - clothes, shoes, electronics.

You took up the fur coats, I know.

Vladimir Bulavin: And they also took up fur coats. But the picture is not static, it can change.

That is, the structure is changing.

Vladimir Bulavin: Yes.

It seems to me that clothes have always been, apparently, with the complexity of the assessment?

Vladimir Bulavin: We recently identified two "grey" channels for branded clothing to enter the Russian Federation. We are currently working on clarifying the development of these channels.

Vladimir Bulavin: Our law enforcement unit is also working quite actively and purposefully.

You didn't name the jeweler, after all, we know about the affairs of large dealers in expensive watches...

Vladimir Bulavin: We dealt with expensive watches last year. The agenda has changed this year.

And what does the customs territory of the Russian Federation look like today, does it coincide with the borders, or does it look different in connection with the Customs Union?

Vladimir Bulavin: Of course it looks different. After all, we are in a single Customs Union, we do not, relatively speaking, have a customs border with Belarus, with Kazakhstan.

In this regard, there are many different conversations, many different adventures about the appearance of Belarusian or Kazakh goods, which by nature could not appear there: coconuts, bananas, oysters.

Vladimir Bulavin: Here, most likely, the issue lies in the plane of countering sanctioned goods, because the goods released by the customs authorities of the five countries are goods of the Union. And, if sanctions had not been imposed against us and there had not been our response to these sanctions, the question would not have arisen at all. The thing is that our partners in the Customs Union did not join our response measures, and we are forced to oppose the sanctions. They do not have such a thing as “sanctioned goods”.

Desynchronization happened.

Vladimir Bulavin: Yes, and we were now forced to counteract the import of sanctioned goods here already, at home, on our territory. For this, 35 mobile groups were created, which operate on the section of the Russian-Belarusian and Russian-Kazakh border. I can honestly say that we hoped for some preventive effect from the activities and the very presence of these mobile groups. But now we are forced to change approaches to the organization of this work and have gone to federal highways, gone to large fruit and vegetable bases, and began to work with the respective owners of these trading and purchasing bases. We also understand who imports sanctions from among the Russian participants in foreign economic activity, we work with them. And now the question is about re-equipping mobile groups and introducing them to the staff of the Federal Customs Service as independent units.

You are a very important ally of business in the fight against counterfeit goods that are imported into the country, and even the president paid attention to this. What activities do you carry out in this regard, what do they bring to business, consumers and the country?

Vladimir Bulavin: First of all, as you understand, probably, counterfeit goods have different origins, including domestic ones. Naturally, we counteract only those counterfeit goods that come from abroad. This year, we have identified more than 8 million counterfeit items. We are actively working with copyright holders, last year we created an electronic register of our trademarks, which currently contains 4.5 thousand intellectual property items. Now the task is to establish information exchange between our customs authorities, which are engaged in the declaration of consignments, and copyright holders, so that copyright holders receive information from us online and we can coordinate our actions with them when releasing a particular consignment. This means that we are doing this experimentally, and I think that we will set up such an automatic mode of information exchange in the near future. Due to the fact that we will be hosting the World Cup next year, we are actively working to identify counterfeit products containing FIFA trademarks. There are such examples, suffice it to say that last year 61,000 (units) of commercial products containing FIFA marks were identified. This year - about 50 thousand.

And from the point of view of capital operations, does the customs service participate in capital management? Or do you only deal with cash that someone has in a suitcase, in a bag, in a pocket?

Vladimir Bulavin: You mean the currency control function. You probably know that the customs authorities have been endowed with this function since 2016. We are dealing with these issues and have established the necessary contacts with the Central Bank of Russia and the Federal Tax Service.

What is the mechanism: do you match the physical movement of goods with their financial services?

Vladimir Bulavin: Yes, and financially, we are very carefully looking at the customs value, how real it is, where there is an overstatement, where there is a flow of consignments, where there are none. We are very carefully working on one-day firms that are specially created to implement these schemes.

We also know that large business structures are ready to sign a charter of conscientious participants in foreign economic activity. Moreover, this is timed to coincide with the Day of the customs officer, October 25. What charter could it be? In a nutshell. Is this a letter of intent, a wish, or will it be followed by significant action, will there be consequences for participants or non-participants? For example, those who signed will be nicer and closer to you, those who have not signed will be in the field of especially close attention ...

Vladimir Bulavin: I will say a few words about what preceded the preparation of the charter. We discussed with you that with the active participation of business, this year we have prepared and adopted a comprehensive program for the development of the Federal Customs Service until 2020. This comprehensive program has a section called "Ten Steps Toward Business," which describes the quantitative indicators of these steps. We have undertaken fairly ambitious obligations to bring the level of automatically registered declarations, that is, without the participation of a customs inspector, to 99%. The share of automatically issued declarations is up to 80%.

Now what is the level?

Vladimir Bulavin: While insignificant. Up to 80%, but without risky deliveries, of course. At the same time, I would like to note: in 2020, 80% of declarations will also fall on the share of participants in the "green sector". If we take 80% of 80%, this will mean that 64% of all declarations will be issued automatically, that is, only by machine, without the participation of a customs inspector. And, when we discussed this with business, we say: here, customs has ten steps towards business, how will business respond? The business conferred and decided to adopt a charter of a conscientious participant in foreign economic activity. For our part, we also welcomed such intentions of business. Well, firstly, it is law-abiding in the customs sphere. Secondly, it is a role model for other participants in economic activity. Thirdly, we hope that the participants, the signatories of this declaration, will take a more active position in ensuring that there are as many such signatories as possible. This, I believe, is an example of moving towards each other, which is aimed at significantly reducing the potential for conflict in the customs sphere, which currently still exists.

Well, the charter also imposes certain obligations, as I understand it, on business participants. And from the side of the customs service? ..

Vladimir Bulavin: On the part of the customs service - I have already said everything. We have ten very ambitious steps, and in three years, by 2021, we must reform the system in this way in order to fulfill these obligations. And it's not easy, I must say. Business understands this.

Tell me, this is a purely human reaction when some unpleasant, say, incident occurs within the framework of your service, someone is charged with corruption, criminal, criminal ... What feelings do you experience? Are you satisfied that you caught the criminal, or, on the contrary, are you more upset that you still have it in the system, it occurs and it is impossible to eradicate completely?

Vladimir Bulavin: First of all, I think that our system of combating corruption and, most importantly, the prevention of corruption offenses is imperfect. I once told your colleagues that I had an acquaintance, he said something like this: keep your fingers in honey and not lick them - this is contrary to the human structure. Therefore, it is necessary to move the barrel of honey away, and shorten the fingers a little, and do all this systematically.

Well, in fact, customs in general has historically been a place of increased interest in Russia since ancient times. Even Gogol's Chichikov from "Dead Souls" served before he became a swindler, in the customs office.

Vladimir Bulavin: Do you know what I should say? There are no bribe takers without bribe givers. And this is also the relationship between business and customs, and business should also think about it. What is the business, such is the customs, and vice versa. Let's move towards each other, then everything will be fine with us.

Over the past month, players in the foreign economic activity market have been following the clash of two of the most important Russian law enforcement agencies: the FSB, which in recent years has achieved recognition as the most influential, and the Federal Customs Service, on which the country's budget is half dependent.

As you know, the Central Office of the FSB reached out to the first deputy head of the Far Eastern Customs Sergei Fedorov. He was taken to the capital with the accusation of patronizing the business of the largest figure in the customs community of Siberia, Rodion Tikhonov. And shortly before that, several entrepreneurs were arrested in Primorye for smuggling, and along with them, on suspicion of bribery, the deputy head of the customs post "Sea Port of Vladivostok" Yevgeny Romanchenko suffered. That distant news began on February 20 and ended at the end of March. Parallel to this, similar events developed in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, where the regional FSB attacked the North-Western Customs Administration. We are from the beginning of March published those information reports, but the nuances that we understand today only decorate this fight.

It all started on March 2, when, at the annual board of the FCS in Moscow, Major General Alexander Bezlyudsky awarded the medal of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" 2nd degree. And a few hours before that, operatives from the 2nd department (customs line) of the Economic Security Service of the UFSB began a search in the office of the head of the Kingisepp customs, Sergei Slepukhin. So, when the head of the Federal Customs Service, Vladimir Bulavin (by the way, Colonel-General of the FSB) shook hands with Bezlyudsky, both, of course, were informed of the situation.

There is a hidden irony in this sketch. The procedural order of the state is arranged in such a way that the awarding goes through all the stages in the presidential administration only after appropriate checks in the power structures. And first of all, in the specialized divisions of Lubyanka and Liteiny, 4. That is, the day before, in the same 2 department of the SEB, at least they did not mind.

The second wave was also thought out elegantly. Or treacherously - this is from which side to look. At seven o'clock in the morning on March 6, the same operatives came to the country house of Alexander Bezlyudsky with a search. Therefore, at 10 a.m., he could not be in the Administration building on Savushkin Street on a video selector with the same FCS head Bulavin. Therefore, Bulavin again received an informational emotion about the North-Western Customs Administration. Moreover, Bezlyudsky's office was already being searched that morning.

At the same time, State Security came to the St. Petersburg apartments of Bezlyudsky's two daughters, one of whom has three children. Not that common sense, rather, the practice of sophisticated combat suggests that such events are not aimed at a specific effect, as they print in search warrants, "the address may contain objects and documents of interest to the investigation." This is a powerful element of psychological pressure. As members of the special forces, charmingly understanding that no one is going to offer any resistance to them. And it turns out, as at the front: "Comrade General, we are being attacked in all directions by superior forces." If the moral-volitional is broken, then it's time to retreat in an organized way or run chaotically.

At the same time, counterintelligence received information that Bezlyudsky's wife had left in her personal car for Moscow. Almost for the first time in the history of similar events for high-ranking civil servants, the wife’s phone is taken direction, the traffic police of the Moscow Region are sent to intercept, and three crews block her at the entrance to the capital. After that, the 56-year-old lady, who was not formally detained, was actually locked in the cabin for six hours. During this time, FSB officers traveled from St. Petersburg with the utmost zeal. Her car is officially searched. They find nothing and with angry disappointment decrease back.

And at about 4 pm on March 6, General Bezlyudsky was brought into the entrance to Liteiny, 4, from the side of Shpalernaya Street, was interrogated at the Investigative Service, then politely flinched, and at about three in the morning on March 7, he left as a witness.

Only ex-employee of the North-Western Operational Customs Zakhar Sychev, who was also searched at the same time, was not released. He was detained and sent to house arrest on March 9 on charges of transferring bribes, but in fact the situation is a stalemate. According to the initial version of the investigation, Sychev transferred the money to Bezlyudsky, and apart from the version, it seems that nothing remains in the case.

The only thing that remains is that no one from the outside can notice. The initiator of the implementation was the head of the department of the 2nd department of the SES, Lieutenant Colonel of the FSB Nikolai Sirotin. Naturally, such large-scale, planned actions were approved by the head of the "customs" department of the SES, Colonel Yuri Gurenkov, with the head of the SES, Colonel Andrey Yakovlev, and then everything was coordinated with the head of the FSB for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, Alexander Rodionov. That is, operational information was reported, behind which there was confidence in achieving the goals - at least the demolition of the leadership of the North-Western Department, the maximum - attraction. In the special service, both are considered indicators, in contrast, for example, to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where everything loses its statistical significance without bringing charges.

Based on the foregoing, we see that only Slepukhin lost his nerve, who on March 19 is writing a letter of resignation. As for the head of the North-Western Directorate, Lieutenant-General Alexander Getman and his deputy, Major-General Bezlyudsky, according to our information, after this epic, they were in Moscow a couple of times. The first one belongs to Bulavin, the second one belongs to the deputy head of the Federal Customs Service, Lieutenant General of the FSB Anatoly Seryshev.

Indeed, there were many rumors, and preliminary information about personnel withdrawals after this news, but I will tell you this, and you can draw your own conclusions: if at the highest level they were sure that something was wrong, they would have told them to go a long time ago on free bread, - the interlocutor from the central office of the Federal Customs Service hinted to us.

[47news.ru, 03/15/2018, Hetman, get out: The chief customs officer of the North-West of Moscow was advised to look for a job. But first Vladimir Putin must sign. It was not easy for local forces to arrange a mess: they would not be able to influence a new candidate, which means that a controlled one would hardly come.

The other day, the head of the North-Western Customs Administration, Alexander Getman, had an unpleasant conversation with the head of the Federal Customs Service, Vladimir Bulavin. As they say, Hetman was recommended to look for a new job. At the moment, we do not have information whether he wrote a report, but the rules of the game in this coordinate system do not imply stubbornness after such proposals.

If Hetman writes a letter of resignation, then a rather lengthy procedure will be launched. First, like most leaders, he probably has a large supply of unspent vacation days. At this time, the head of the FCS will send documents to the presidential administration, where a draft presidential decree will be prepared. In terms of time, we can talk about a month and a half. [...]

And on January 15, to the head of the Main Directorate for Combating Smuggling of the Federal Customs Service of Russia Andrey Yudintsev Alexander Bezlyudsky and the head of the department for combating economic customs crimes of the operational customs, Evgeny Aleshkin, were supposed to arrive. On March 12, Yudintsev politely asked Hetman about this in a letter, which turned out to be at the disposal of the editors. - inset K.ru]

Despite the fact that our friend did not agree to authorize his comment, he allowed the author to cite statistics that were prepared for the same collegium on March 6, when Bezlyudsky began to be fannedly searched.

I am reading the dynamics for 2017 according to your management: the value of the seized goods is 757 million rubles, which is 58.6% more than in 2016; additional charge - 973 million rubles, which is 20.7% more than in the previous one; additional collection - 625 million, which is 124% more. Are you able to record? Of course, there are many more indicators, but for the rest you will only get confused.

From this we conclude that in the capital either they do not agree with the position of the regional FSB, or they understand what is behind it. The market players themselves, who predictably did not want their names to be named, point to a specific point of intensification of intraspecific struggle. We also wrote about her. Then, on February 19, in Ivangorod, instead of cheap fuel pellets, they found goods subject to a serious duty, worth $400,000.

Here it must be explained that the FSB, represented by specialized units, often requires loyalty. Such relations are expressed not at joint meetings, where they mint a state approach, but in informal wishes, where every reasonable person understands between the lines. Where, for example, it is not necessary to look. The public attitude to what happened is not from FSB, we will not wait for the FCS. Moreover, until the final procedural decision is made, no one in these departments will say anything, even to each other. Let the opinion in both corners be formed, but the rules of the game do not allow it to be expressed loudly.

Assuming that Alexander Bezlyudsky, to whom we have devoted many lines over the past month, does not want to communicate with us, we have prepared a question.

- Alexander Mikhailovich, do you understand where you came from?- the author managed to ask, quickly introducing himself.

Yes, not a boy, - he answered, immediately defending himself with a catchphrase: - Sorry, I have no time.

So the time between them came uncomfortable - no peace, no war.

Evgeny Vyshenkov

A year ago, Vladimir Bulavin was appointed head of the Federal Customs Service. He took office after a series of corruption scandals around the former leadership of the FCS. A year ago, customs was in conflict with the FSB, spending all their strength on this. At the same time, road trains with goods stood at the border for hours, and revenues from the service to the federal budget fell. What Vladimir Bulavin was able to change in a year - in the PASMI material.

Gray schemes and legacy conflicts

In 2004, three employees of the administration were arrested in the Nizhny Novgorod region for "an attempt to establish surveillance of the head of the Nizhny Novgorod FSB Vladimir Bulavin". The sources claim that they were carrying out an internal investigation into the disappearance of confidential information from the regional administration's computer network. The FSB detained these people, but they were released four hours later, and the department concealed this information for a week.

The FSB explained their detention as an attempt to "establish surveillance on the most senior people in the region." Governor's press officer Gennady Khodyrev said that administration specialists managed to find a trail of information thieves. An anonymous source of information in the regional government suggested that local special services were involved in the theft of information, and the FSB was covering their tracks in this way.

Sources claim that compromising material was beaten out of Efremov against the ex-head of the FSB in the Nizhny Novgorod region, Vladimir Bulavin. The officer refused and was killed

Insiders also reported that Khodyrev seriously clashed with the then presidential envoy to the Volga Federal District Sergei Kirienko, who was friendly with Bulavin.

One of the regional administration specialists detained by the UFSB said that, in his opinion, the special service played ahead of the curve. According to him, the detention is connected with the discrediting of the governor, which was being prepared by the department.

The undercover fight went on and on. In 2009, as part of the case of an attempted sale 40 kg of confiscated heroin the ex-head of the investigation department of the FSB Nizhny Novgorod was arrested Oleg Efremov. An attempt to sell a batch of drugs was made by his former boss, Vladimir Obukhov.

June 24 of the same year Efremov was beaten to death in solitary confinement of IK No. 11 town of Bor, Nizhny Novgorod region. The investigation found Aleksey Bobrikov and Pavel Kruchinin, officers of the colony, guilty of the murder, who allegedly tried to force the location of caches of heroin out of the prisoner by torture. However, some sources, citing the widow, claim that compromising evidence was beaten out of Efremov against the ex-head of the FSB in the Nizhny Novgorod region, Vladimir Bulavin. The officer refused to provide it, and because of this he was killed.

Customs hands over

October 25, 2016 at a meeting with Vladimir Putin, dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the department, Bulavin summed up the work of the Federal Customs Service for nine months. He reported on the full implementation of planned appointments, the treasury was transferred 3 trillion 165 billion rubles, what is 103% to the control figures of the Ministry of Finance.

Because the 52% of this amount for the first time relate to the import component, according to Bulavin, this indicates the effective work of the customs authorities. The head of the FCS noted that the digitized customs procedures will allow to exceed the benchmarks and make the work of the department more efficient.

Since 2013, the time of customs operations for imports has been reduced 30 times to 1 hour 35 minutes, and for exports - five times, to 47 minutes

Bulavin told the President of the Russian Federation that the introduction of preliminary information about imported goods made it possible to reduce downtime at railway and automobile checkpoints to two hours and 18 minutes, respectively. The head of the FCS noted that since 2013, the time of customs operations for imports has been reduced 30 times to 1 hour 35 minutes, and for exports - five times, to 47 minutes.

In accordance with the instructions of the President of the Russian Federation, Bulavin initiated joint work with the Federal Tax Service, which includes the integration of information resources and joint audits. And there are already results - in 2016, departments conducted 514 checks. According to their results, customs additionally allocated 1.5 billion rubles to the budget, the tax service - more than 1.9 billion rubles.

On July 13, 2017 it became known that the government of the Russian Federation started discussion of implementation of a system tax free. In particular, a process for the exchange of information between the FCS and the Federal Tax Service will be developed, as well as tasks for creating special points and increasing staff.

On May 31, 2017, Vladimir Bulavin held the first public discussion of the results of the law enforcement practice of the Federal Customs Service in the first quarter of 2017.

Vladimir Ivanovich Bulavin was born in the village of Stanovaya, Lipetsk Region, which was later merged with the village of Ploskoye into the regional center of Stanovoye. Vladimir was a smart boy and therefore, after school, he went to Moscow to get a higher education, where he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers. After graduation, he was assigned as a design engineer to the Voskhod machine-building plant in the city of Pavlovo, Gorky Region.

Vladimir Bulavin has established himself as a disciplined, hardworking and vigilant employee, and after two years of his work, representatives of the state security agencies approached him with a proposal to join their ranks. Vladimir Bulavin did not refuse, and after a two-year training course at the Higher Red Banner School of the KGB of the USSR in Minsk, he was sent to the KGB Directorate for the Gorky Region.

Bulavin systematically moved up the career ladder, and when in 1992, after the change of power in the country, mass resignations began in the central apparatus and local bodies of the former KGB, he turned out to be a suitable figure to head the regional administration. During the nineties, the department changed its name twice, as, by the way, the name of the region itself changed. As a result, Vladimir Bulavin turned out to be the head of the Directorate of the Federal Security Service for the Nizhny Novgorod Region.

Vladimir Bulavin - Nizhny Novgorod

The department of Vladimir Bulavin was significantly inferior in number to the Nizhny Novgorod police, and, nevertheless, its importance in the region could not be overestimated. It was the feds who did all the big things. On the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod region, several secret defense enterprises were located at once, from which classified information flowed to the West in the nineties. Bulavin's people managed to stop the trade in state secrets from the Federal Nuclear Center in Sarov, thus preventing possible losses of several billion dollars. After this incident, the head of the Nizhny Novgorod FSB was awarded the military rank of lieutenant general. In addition, there were corruption investigations and suppression of terrorist acts.

In a word, Bulavin's weight in the region grew rapidly, and even though he was laconic, he was perceived not only as a security official, but also as a political figure. Therefore, when the commander of the special police detachment, Colonel Alexander Vasilyev, decided to take part in the mayoral elections in 1998, this step was linked by everyone with the words of Vladimir Ivanovich Bulavin, who said that the time required that a representative of law enforcement agencies come to power in the city. Vasiliev himself assured that he was an independent figure, and the words of a representative of the special services only served as an impetus for the decision.

One way or another, a man with a criminal past, Andrey Klimentyev, close to the former governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region Boris Nemtsov, who at that time moved to the government of Viktor Chernomyrdin, almost became the mayor then. But Klimentyev was already "developed" by law enforcement agencies, including Bulavin's department. Therefore, just a few days after the voting results were announced, the elections were declared invalid, and the failed mayor was arrested. True, even in the re-elections, Colonel Vasiliev took only seventh place, gaining only 0.56%. And another person of Boris Nemtsov and Sergei Kiriyenko, Yuri Lebedev, became the mayor.

The unspoken "arbiter" Vladimir Bulavin

In 2001, the roads of Klimentyev and Bulavin crossed again. Vladimir Ivanovich that year just took the post of chairman of the council of chiefs of the bodies of the FSB of Russia in the Volga Federal District (VFD), and Andrei Anatolyevich was released ahead of schedule a year before. There were rumors about both that they were preparing to participate in the gubernatorial elections. Klimentiev openly declared his intention to become governor, and naming his main rivals, he also mentioned Bulavin, who did not publicly show gubernatorial ambitions, but began to appear more often on the TV screens of Nizhny Novgorod residents.

In turn, the head of the FSB for the Volga District mentioned Klimentyev in his speech when commenting on the upcoming elections. The lieutenant general warned of the danger of coming to power of "persons who have spent more than one five-year period in places of deprivation of liberty", transparently alluding to Andrei Anatolyevich. However, Bulavin paid his attention not only to the criminal, but also to the current mayor of Nizhny Novgorod, Lebedev, who was not allowed to participate in the gubernatorial elections. After Vladimir Bulavin declared that the law should be the same for everyone, regardless of the "position he holds", it became clear to everyone that the mayor had no chance of raising his status to that of a governor.

Vladimir Bulavin himself did not go to the polls, but it was obvious that the center elected him as an unspoken arbiter, who made sure that the situation of the 1998 mayoral election campaign did not repeat itself. Klimentiev, on top of everything else, fell into disgrace with his former patrons Boris Nemtsov and Sergei Kiriyenko, who became the presidential plenipotentiary in the Volga Federal District, and took only fifth place. The communist Gennady Khodyrev won the elections in the second round.

Vladimir Bulavin in the service of the State

Kiriyenko was dissatisfied with Khodyrev's victory, so Vladimir Bulavin, who worked closely with the plenipotentiary, began to pay close attention to the new governor. Over time, a lot of files on the head of the Nizhny Novgorod region have accumulated in the folders of the special services. Under the leadership of Vladimir Ivanovich Bulavin, a high-profile investigation was carried out in the region against the head of the main department of road and transport facilities (Dorfond) Yuri Muravyov, who was personally invited from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod by Khodyrev.

It turned out that the items of expenditure for the “acquisition of road equipment” indicated in the Dorfond estimate concealed the purchase of luxury exclusive cars for the personal use of the fund’s leaders. In addition, it is not clear why Dorfond had an expensive representative office in Moscow, and also considerable sums were allocated for foreign trips of the head of this organization.

As a result, one of the high-ranking employees of the Road Fund, Sergei Maklagin, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, while Muravyov "got off" with his resignation. Instead, Khodyrev invited another Muscovite, Oleg Zakharov. Considerable sins were also found behind the new head of the organization, and in 2004 he was arrested.

In the same 2004, a scandal erupted. Representatives of the special services detained three employees of the Nizhny Novgorod regional administration, who were accused of trying to establish surveillance of the head of the FSB. The detainees themselves claimed that they were trying to establish the reasons for the leakage of confidential information from the computer network of the administration, as work was being done to discredit their superiors.

However, even without a confrontation with the governor, the head of the FSB had enough worries. In 2004 alone, its administration detained 11 members of international terrorist organizations on the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod region. In addition, Vladimir Bulavin, as chairman of the council of chiefs of the FSB for the Volga Federal District, also participated in the opening of similar cells in such large cities as Kazan and Ulyanovsk. In the same year, his service again thwarted an attempt to steal state secrets from the closed city of Sarov.

In 2004, the procedure for empowering the highest officials of the subjects was changed. Now they were approved by decisions of legislative bodies at the suggestion of the President of the Russian Federation. Already in 2005, a new governor was to be appointed in the Nizhny Novgorod region. And again, Vladimir Bulavin was named the main candidate. Vladimir Ivanovich, in order to finally dispel all speculations on this score, publicly announced that he was not going to leave the service, at the same time expressing support for the new procedure for appointing heads of regions.

Vladimir Bulavin and the Chechen amnesty

Nevertheless, Vladimir Bulavin, who over the years of his service managed to acquire high-ranking patrons, was waiting for a promotion. In 2006, under the patronage of the then Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, he was appointed deputy director of the FSB. In addition, a new structure was created for the "Nizhny Novgorod" - the National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAC), of which he became the secretary.

The main task of the NAC was to normalize the situation in the North Caucasus. From the center, Bulavin was entrusted with the difficult task of carrying out the unpopular "Chechen amnesty", which was officially offered to those convicted of minor crimes during the counter-terrorist operation, but it was obvious to everyone that the word "non-serious" was simply inappropriate here.

Vladimir Bulavin had to convince the State Duma of the need for such a step. Not only in parliament, but also in society, there was a heated debate over this issue. People were worried that the amnestied militants would be given shoulder straps and weapons, and film director Stanislav Govorukhin angrily declared that "in Chechnya they would cut us the same way they will cut us." And only thanks to the authority of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, whose support was enlisted by the head of the NAC, the amnesty was nevertheless announced.

After the green light was received, the next, no less difficult stage began - the actual implementation of the amnesty itself. During the first six months, Vladimir Ivanovich Bulavin said that hundreds of militants laid down their arms, but when a specific figure was named, it turned out that only 288 people were hiding behind the “hundreds”. In addition, the head of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee promised that every amnestied person would be under operational control. And yet in society there was no trust in these promises.

In general, Vladimir Ivanovich Bulavin was able to organize the work of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee in a short time. At the same time, he tightly entered the team of Nikolai Patrushev and could safely be called his man. But in 2008, after Dmitry Medvedev became President, Alexander Bortnikov headed the FSB. Patrushev was appointed secretary of the Security Council, and Bulavin, again under the patronage of Ivanov, got the post of his deputy. At the same time, analysts said that the arrival of such a specialist as the former head of the NAC should have raised the status of the Security Council.

Death of Oleg Efremov

In 2009, echoes of the Nizhny Novgorod period of Vladimir Ivanovich's career surfaced, when Bulavin's employees conducted operational developments not only in relation to the people of Gennady Khodyrev, but also in relation to his wife Gulya, who was suspected of organizing an illegal additional issue of shares of Novomirsky GOK.

After Vladimir Bulavin left for the central office, the new head of the Nizhny Novgorod FSB, Lieutenant General Oleg Khramov, dropped the case against Khodyreva. This decision was dissatisfied with another employee of this department, Colonel Oleg Efremov, who claimed that the case was dismissed for a bribe of 100 million rubles. Efremov worked with Bulvin in Nizhny Novgorod since 1993, and after the departure of his boss, he not only remained under the new leadership, but also headed the investigation department of the FSB.

And now, in 2009, Efremov himself went to jail. Back in 2004, the Nizhny Novgorod Gosnarkokontrol detained two dealers who claimed that they had purchased heroin from Vladimir Obukhov, the former head of the investigation department of the Federal Security Service for the Nizhny Novgorod region. At that time, the case did not receive further development, but with the advent of Khramov, it was resumed, and the leadership of the investigative department of the FSB was almost completely dissolved. In this case, Efremov was arrested, while he was unexpectedly transferred to the Bor special colony, despite the fact that his guilt had not yet been proven. Here he was tortured to death in solitary confinement.

After the tragedy, letters from the deceased were discovered, in which he set out his own version of his arrest, including that he was required to testify against Bulavin. In 2011, the Borsky City Court of the Nizhny Novgorod Region issued a verdict in the case of the death of Oleg Efremov. The jailers were declared guilty, and some of the defendants turned out to be classified and actually freed from real punishment.

Vladimir Bulavina and FCS

In 2013, there were changes in the Northwestern Federal District. Nikolai Vinnichenko left the post of Presidential Plenipotentiary in it, who, back in the mid-2000s, due to disagreements with the then Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, left the post of Prosecutor of St. Petersburg. And now, thanks to the patronage of his former classmate, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, he has the opportunity to return to the leadership of the prosecutor's office. The question arose of who would replace Vynnichenko as plenipotentiary. And again, Sergei Ivanov, who at that time was already the head of the Presidential Administration, did not find a better candidate for his recommendations than Vladimir Bulavin.

This choice was also supported by Georgy Poltavchenko, who was preparing for the elections in St. Petersburg and who needed the figure of a technical performer who would not overshadow his already not bright figure. In addition, Georgy Sergeevich was bribed by the fact that their biographies in the early years almost touched - Poltavchenko was admitted to the Higher Courses of the KGB, just when Vladimir Bulavin graduated from his studies there.

At the end of 2015, Vladimir Bulavin began to receive signals that smuggling was carried out in his district in huge volumes. The importation of illegal cargo was put on stream by a St. Petersburg businessman with a reputation as a "mafia", who worked in close conjunction with representatives of the highest echelons of law enforcement agencies. Vladimir Bulavin gave the command to collect all available information and identify facts of violations of the law. As a result, a criminal case was opened against Mikhalchenko, and heads flew among the security forces. In particular, the head of the Federal Customs Service was dismissed, who was replaced by Bulavin.

It is no coincidence that it was Vladimir Ivanovich Bulavin who was entrusted with putting things in order in the customs service. In recent years, he has served as Plenipotentiary Representative in the Northwestern Federal District, which is one of the key transit regions of the Russian Federation. Vladimir Bulavin not only studied the region well, participated in personnel policy, but also fully supervised the activities of the special services regarding investigations of smuggling activities in the territory entrusted to him. In addition, the Kremlin would like to see a “transparent” performer in place of the previous head of the FCS, whose activities left many questions for law enforcement agencies. Yes, and Vladimir Bulavin himself accepted the new appointment with pleasure, since he himself repeated more than once that he does not seek political activity, but considers service to be his business.