"Tumanov, teach those morons how to work!" With these words, Vladimir Tumanov was met in 1977 by USSR minister of non-ferrous metal industry Petr Lomako at the meeting with gold-mining directors. "Seems like I'm done", - such were the Tumanovs thoughts at the time. This story has been told to "7x7" by Sergey Kochnev, Tumanovs buddy from prospector's artel and one of the road-building company PSK "Stroitel" co-founders.

Vadim Tumanov was born in Ukraine in 1927, served his time at the Far East, was a member of Pacific fleet boxing team, where he was famous for his strong punches, which ability served him well quite a few times during his life. Tumanov had his share of seafaring experience: on "Ingush" steamship during Russian-Japanese war of 1945, and after that on "Uralmash" steamship, from which he got right into the welcoming arms of NKVD by autumn of 1948. Tumanov was arrested for ownership of Esenin's poetry and Vertinsky gramophone records – he has spent a total of eight years in Kolyma labor camps and in transit.

Camps were the place where Tumanov gained his first experience in the gold-mining area. In 1956, when he got rehabilitated, he founded prospector's crews: first in Kolyma, Yakutiya, Ural, and next at the coasts of the Okhotsk Sea, in Tadzhikistan, Bashkiriya and the Komi Republic. All his artels and affiliated enterprises together during their existence have obtained more than 500 tons of gold for the country. Evgeniy Evtushenko was dedicating his poems to Tumanov; his biography was adapted into a novel "Black candle" by his friend Vladimir Visotsky, later a movie called "Fartovy" was shot by director Vladimir Yakanin.

By 1987 Vadim Tumanov has founded "Stroitel" cooperative in Karelia, and at the beginning of 90's he became a general director of the company and was heading it until 2002. Currently, Tumanov mostly stays away from the firm's activities, yet a quarter of the company still belongs to him. The rest is divided in equal parts between his old prospector pals – Sergey Panchehin, Sergey Kochnev, brothers Nikolay and Vasily Zhilkins and Alexander Demidov.

Bulldozer operator Sergey Panchehin was born in Yaroslavl region. He met Tumanov after the Army service in June of 1969. Since the first years of his work, as Tumanov recalls in his book "To lose everything and start it all over from a dream," Panchehin has been surprising everyone.

Once Tumanov's artel was transporting the machinery through the winter roads and bulldozer got stuck in one of the Yakutian swamps. Panchehin, as the youngest, was left in taiga with a tent, iron furnace, supplies, and a rifle, so it would be easier to locate and rescue the machine when spring comes. However, stubborn Panchehin was not fit to be waiting until people come back and at -40C have begun excavation on his own, picking the ice around the bulldozer daily.

⁃ I thought: "What can I do? I have a crowbar and a shovel" Each day I was picking the ice, - reminisces Sergey Pachehin. When people came for him after two months they saw an excavated pit around the machine – together with Pachehin, a rescued bulldozer was transported from Taiga.

After that incident, Panchehin was a frequent participant in the most complicated expeditions: in 1971 as a part of "Vostok" artel, he covered 1,5 thousands kilometers of wild territories through Dzhugdzhur pass and entered Lantar valley, located on the shores of Okhotsk sea. There, Tumanov's artel has discovered a primary location for gold-mining in Khabarovsk region, which is still called one of the major enterprises of the Far East region and Russia for the placer and hard rock gold.

"I still can't believe that we have done it. All our boys who passed through Dzhugdzhur should be recalled Heroes of Labour", - reminisces Tumanov.

Tumanov's "Vostok" artel have spent six years on Okhotsk coast. Panchehin was serving as a bulldozer operator there. After that, he became a mining engineer, and in Bodaibo was appointed as an area supervisor. In 1988, Sergey Panchehin became a first deputy of Vadim Tumanov in Karelia.

Today, Panchehin heads republican bridge construction sector in PSK "Stroitel".

In 1983 Vadim Tumanov arrived at the "Pechora" artel bringing with himself a young fellow in riding breeches and jackboots. Fresh out of the army, certified philologist became superintendent and warehouse supervisor. It was Aleksandr Demidov, soon to become a fifth co-founder of PSK "Stroitel."

An intelligent guy Demidov came from Pyatigorsk. His mother worked as an editor on the same TV studio where Vadim Tumanov wife Rimma was a narrator.

Demidov grew up without a father – with his mother and brother, who was an opera singer. Rimma Vasilievna used to tell: "You come to visit them and one is composing his music, singing and banging on his piano, another recites poetry, and there's no food at home – fun times, what can you say! Everyone is doing his business, - chuckles Sergey Kochnev. - Aleksandr is a walking library. Whatever you ask – he knows the answer. He was helping Tumanov with this book ["To lose everything and start from the dream"], and there were no mistakes. It wasn't even edited.

At the beginning of the 90s, Aleksandr Demidov became a personal assistant of Vadim Tumanov. Just like his boss, he is a founder of "Stroitel" company, yet resides in Moscow.

"Pechora" artel in the Komi Republic has almost been closed, when in May of 1987 an article emerged in "Socialisticheskaya industria" newspaper dubbed "You couldn't have dreamt of it" by V. Kapelkin and V. Cekov. Authors proclaimed Vadim Tumanov a famous recidivist, which has captured "in his greedy hands the gold mines under the cooperative democracy flags." "A bunch of... almighty dealers, who despise all principles of cooperative management are just ripping the best parts of the country resources". Such were their complaints. Right after the article publication, four criminal cases were opened against Tumanov.

- KPSS couldn't stand the fact that gold-mining operations were headed by some "criminal" which everyone should look up to. My salary, for example, equaled base manager's, since 1980 it was 1800 rubles a month – says Sergey Kochnev. Good engineer in Moscow received around 250-300 rubles a month at the time, for 1800 rubles you could have bought ten beaver lamb fur-coats, three "Rubin" TV-sets or "Ural" bike with a side-car.

After the collapse of "Pechora" Vadim Tumanov created a cooperative "Stroitel" in Karelia and together with "Karellesprom" began construction of logging roads. In November 1987, the court declared the articles in the "Socialist industry" to be considered defamation, and on 29 January 1988, the criminal case against Tumanov was dismissed.

— So what was so special about this cooperative? At the timber industry enterprise, for example, you walk into the garage at the middle of the shift and everyone is just fooling around. But in the "Stroitel" people worked for 12 hours by the sweat of their brows. Alcohol wasn't even mentioned, it was like a first commandment there. Even smoking was allowed only in strictly designated areas. Like a pioneer camp daily routine: rise at six in the morning, exercise, then breakfast, going to work, coming back, dinner. The discipline was outstanding, — recalls Georgy Goryanov, chief economist of the all-Union organization "Karellesprom" from 1985 to 1992.

In 1987 Goryanov was sent to Kemsky district to check how Tumanov's cooperative works. The road construction for Krivoporozhskaya HPP was done by mobile mechanized column — which had only laid out a kilometer and a half of the road in a year, and they had to do thirty-five more kilometers in the next one. "Stroitel" arrived in August and finished the road by the New year.

— It was a strong men's club, they had no fear to take on the most complicated jobs, — says journalist Yuri Shleikin, who devoted one of his book's "Business Trip in the XX century" chapters to Tumanov. — It was necessary to construct roads through the swamps — and they were doing it. They worked on a rotational schedule, recruiting people from all over Russia, sweated their guts out — it was a serious men's work.

By 1990 PSK "Stroitel" became known in Moscow. The first Mayor of Moscow Gabriel Popov and Chairman of the Moscow city Executive Committee Yuri Luzhkov invited Tumanov to advance the road construction in the city.

"We talked on the phone, then met and decided to do the following. We lease him one bitumen factory and the equipment available in the city. We help with housing for workers. And through this, we begin to work out an economic mechanism that would attract entrepreneurs," Luzhkov wrote in his book "We are your children, Moscow."

At that time road builders were working only during the day. However, the "Stroitel" was laying asphalt twenty-four-hour a day and finished reconstruction of the 12-kilometer section of Moscow Ring Road in 28 days.

Tumanov took his future permanent assistant, Alexander Demidov, to Moscow in 1990. Other Tumanov's artel workers distributed road facilities among themselves: Sergey Panchekhin administered the Moscow section, Sergey Kochnev ruled in Smolensk, Vasily Zhilkin went to Komi. The new sections appeared in the Tula region and the Caucasus. All precinct supervisors at the same time were Board members of the cooperative and later became its founders. Many of them had no university degrees. According to the Sergei Kochnev's recollections, one of the experienced miners who had only eight classes of school behind his shoulders at the meeting with officials said that he received "the Tumanov's degree."

At the same time while "Stroitel" was constructing roads in Moscow and other regions, accountant, lawyer, and more than a hundred employees continued to work at the central base in Petrozavodsk. Soon the base was dubbed by people as a "drunken resort." According to Sergey Kochnev, he and Nikolay Zhilkin were sent to bring discipline.

— When we lowered the payroll budget and concentrated our efforts at Moscow, there was a period when everyone started drinking. The chief accountant performance cost us several milliards — he didn't pay taxes, which resulted in fines and so on. We almost went bankrupt, but then Victor Stepanov [Chairman of the Karelian government from 1994 to 1998] gave us plots, we began to engage in the forest works and little by little we survived. Then the orders came again, — says Nikolay Zhilkin.

Soon "Stroitel" was ousted from Moscow by competitors, and by mid-1990s the company closed its sites in other regions of Russia. The cooperative had fully returned to Karelia. Sergei Kochnev, Vasily and Nikolai Zhilkin recall how "Stroitel" had to work on offsets. Those days everyone had a debt to the Federal Road Fund — the railroad, the mills, and oil companies — the cooperative has been taking these debts from the state as a payment for their work, and received notes, goods, and services from enterprises at the expense of debt.

We had undergoing drilling and blasting operations, and we've been paying out our debt to the railroad and Segezha industrial complex, who supplied us with hand-crafted sacks, which we in turn traded for explosives and brought them back so that drill technicians could carry out blasting operations for us, - says Nikolay Zhilkin.

This is how, for example, a detour road "Kola" was constructed, which connects Petrozavodsk with a federal highway. "Stroitel" was widening the tunnels to allow the passage of timber lorries at Pitkyaranta, and constructed gabions ( baskets filled with stones used for slopes fortifications) on the road to Sortavala.

Since 2011 in Karelia "Stroitel" has received state orders estimating at 2,6 billion rubles, its total sum of state orders – 3 billion rubles.

Everything depends on the region head, - says Nikolay Zhilkin regarding "Stroitel" operation today. - With Katanandov [Sergey Katanandov, head of Karelia from 1998 to 2010] we had a stable relationship, so we have been able to work somehow. Nelidov [Andrey Nelidov, Karelia head from 2010 to 2012] was gone too fast, and then Hudylainen [Aleksandr Hudilainen, head of Carelia in 2012-2017] brought his firms with him.

In 2015, the company from St. Petersburg "Remstroykomplekt" came to Karelia. According to the information in the database "Kontur. Fokus" in 2015, the firm won the contract for 6 billion rubles for the five-year period of maintenance for most of the regional roads. Part of the highways after their work collapsed in the first autumn, and Petrozavodsk city hall is still suing the company.

In the same year, "Remstroykomplekt" won the competition for the construction of the Ikhala — Raivio — state border highway for 210 million rubles, although the "Stroitel" offered 180 million rubles. After several complaints and letters to the FAS, PSK "Stroitel" returned the contract and then finished the road, which the competitor had not completed.

— He [Aleksandr Hudilainen] never called me, and suddenly I get a call from him in the morning, and he says: "Can you come?" I didn't even know him before. I came, and he told me that other guys should work instead of us. I said, "Nuh uh." Eventually, we took the facility, but Hudilainen still has a grudge against me, — says Nikolay Zhilkin.

Alexander Hudilainen refused to confirm or deny this information to online magazine "7x7" — the former head of Karelia asked not to call or write him. Today he is a witness in the criminal case concerning acceptance of a bribe against the management of the company "Remstroykomplekt".

According to the "Kontur. Fokus" database, the company PSK "Stroitel" won 40 state contracts over the past eight years. The main customers for these years were "Federal Road Agency Directorate of St. Petersburg-Murmansk Motoring Road" (FKU Uprdor "Kola") and "Automobile Roads Department of the Republic of Karelia" which signed 11 contracts with PSK "Stroitel" for 1.6 billion rubles in 2011.

— Countless times we were left overboard, for a few years in a row it went on like that. And as of now, we're doing bridges. It just happened so that all the people in the bridge business suddenly disappeared. Bridge maintenance is, in fact, quite an unprofitable trade. So at Federal Road-transport, they said: "Take the bridges, we'll top you with part of a federal highway." We're not giving out cuts as a principle, so we had to take the bridges to be able to make roads. All those tenders are just a formality. Whatever the higher authorities decide will be carried out, - tells Sergey Kochnev. - Like with KSM [Karelian construction company "Karelstroymehanizaciya" owned by Nikolay Makarov, 2nd place in "State Order Kings" ranking in Karelia] and us: not to get pushy and to not to downplay the price we partake in tender, but only formally. KSM wins, he does the terrain, and we as sub-contractors are doing the asphalt. This way the price remains the same and if you get pushy price falls.

How the ranking was made

The initial sample frame of companies was done with "SPARK-Marketing" database and included all companies, which between January 1st, 2011 and October 28th, 2018 have made 94/44-F3 contracts in that region worth over 300 million rubles. Then, the government and municipal companies were removed from the list, as well as the companies which 94/44-F3 contracts made less than a half of the sum of their total contracts (94/44-F3 and 223-F3) in that region; the companies which were in fact just branches of the major regional companies were removed as well. The remaining companies had their owners identified with the help of both "Kontur. Fokus" and "SPARK-Interfax" databases. The companies with common owners were added to a common cluster and their contracts summed, after that the ranking was ordered by the owner. In the cases where the owner was unable to identify (which mostly took place in cases with ZAO), as an exception, a general director's name was written in the "Owner" field (all such cases are specified separately).