Gref, German

President and Chairman of the Board of Sberbank of Russia

President and Chairman of the Board of Sberbank of Russia since November 2007. Previously - Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation (2000-2007), First Deputy Minister of State Property of the Russian Federation (1998-2000), Vice-Governor - Chairman of the Committee for City Property Management of the Administration of St. Petersburg (1997-1998), Deputy Chairman - Director Department of Real Estate, First Deputy Chairman of the Committee for City Property Management of the Administration of St. Petersburg (1994-1997). Chairman of the Board of the Center for Strategic Research, member of the Board of Directors of NK OJSC Lukoil.

German Oskarovich Gref was born on February 8, 1964 in the village of Panfilovo, Pavlodar region of the Kazakh SSR, where his parents - ethnic Germans - were exiled in 1941 from the Donbass. According to legend, Gref’s ancestors settled in Russia less than a hundred years ago: in 1913, his grandfather came to St. Petersburg to teach Greek philosophy. According to other sources, his German ancestors moved to Russia and settled in St. Petersburg during the time of Peter the Great. The Gref family communicated in both Russian and German. According to media reports, Gref later took part in the return of exiled Germans to Russia - with his assistance, the entire German village of Strelna was built near St. Petersburg (a number of publications pointed to numerous violations of the law in connection with the implementation of this project).

After graduating from school, Gref entered the Faculty of International Economic Relations at MGIMO University of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but after the first year he was expelled from the university. According to other sources, after school, Gref and his first wife Elena Velikanova entered Omsk State University, but failed the exams. According to the official biography, in 1981-1982 Gref worked as a legal consultant for the district agricultural administration of the Irtysh district of the Pavlodar region.

From 1982 to 1984, Gref served in the Armed Forces, in special forces units of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, stationed in the city of Chapaevsk, Kuibyshev (now Samara) region (military unit 3434). The media noted in 2005 that among members of the Russian government, Gref is almost the only one who completed military service in the army. Economist Mikhail Delyagin told reporters of the Sobesednik newspaper: “They say in the White House about Gref’s strong-willed qualities: well, whatever you want, the man went through prison special forces.” The publication indicated that Defense Ministry employees unofficially referred to Gref’s military specialty as a sniper. Referring to the words of veterans of the internal troops, the "Interlocutor" pointed out that in 1982-1984, service in these troops meant escorting prisoners, searching for fugitives, and suppressing prison riots. In November 2005, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published information that Gref, together with the Commander-in-Chief of the Internal Troops of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Colonel General Nikolai Rogozhkin, visited the “semi-secret” special forces center for training internal troops personnel for operations in mountainous and wooded areas in Krasnodar edge .

According to a number of media reports, Gref, having completed military service without exams, was enrolled in the workers' faculty of Omsk State University. In 1984, Gref entered the Faculty of Law, where he became a Komsomol organizer and head of the student operational squad (other publications wrote that from 1984 to 1985 he studied at the preparatory department of the university). The dean of the Law Faculty of Omsk State University in those years was Sergei Baburin (in the future - Deputy Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation). The media also published information about Gref’s classmates: in particular, it was alleged that the chairman of the St. Petersburg Property Management Committee, Igor Metelsky, is one of Gref’s student friends.

In 1990, Gref graduated from the university, according to some media reports, with honors, receiving a diploma in jurisprudence, after which he taught for some time at Omsk State University. In the same 1990, Gref moved to Leningrad, where, according to Sobesednik, on Baburin’s recommendation he entered graduate school. In 1993 (according to other sources - in 1994) he graduated from graduate school at the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg State University. Other information was also published: a number of teachers claimed that Gref did not study in graduate school, while others reported that he studied, but did not defend his dissertation. The head of the press service of the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg State University, Victoria Nasledova, when asked about Gref by Interlocutor journalists, answered: “There is no such person on the lists of defended graduate students.” The press called Gref’s supervisor in graduate school Anatoly Sobchak.

According to a number of media reports, in 1990 Gref met the future President of Russia Vladimir Putin - at Leningrad University, Putin, who returned from a business trip to Germany, worked as Sobchak’s deputy, with whom Gref was writing his dissertation. Most publications noted that in 1990, Putin was indeed Sobchak’s adviser, but as the chairman of the Leningrad City Council, while Sobchak worked at the university in the department of civil law before his election to the Leningrad City Council (Putin supervised the university through the KGB). According to other sources, Gref met Putin in 1991-1992, when he already held a post in the administration of the Petrodvortsovy district of St. Petersburg. A number of media outlets, citing some St. Petersburg officials, reported that subsequently, in 1996, Gref was one of the few who continued to communicate with Putin and even helped him after he lost his post as vice-mayor of St. Petersburg.

From 1991 to 1992, Gref was a legal consultant to the economic development and property committee of the administration of the Petrodvortsovy district of St. Petersburg, and from March 1992 to October 1994, he headed the property management committee of the same district. The media reported that Sobchak introduced him to the Peterhof administration. It was also indicated that the head of the administration of the Petrodvortsovo district at that time was Alexey Ignatenko (later he worked as the head of the city KUGI department and was a subordinate of Gref).

In October 1994, Gref was appointed director of the real estate department of the State Property Management Committee (Kugi) of St. Petersburg, deputy chairman of the committee, ,. Within the walls of the administration of St. Petersburg, German Gref met Alexei Kudrin, Dmitry Kozak, Dmitry Medvedev, who later occupied key positions in the country's leadership. According to a number of media reports, in February 1997, Gref became one of the “ideologists” of housing and communal reform in St. Petersburg. By decision of the Governor of St. Petersburg Vladimir Yakovlev, it was KUGI that was appointed the department responsible for carrying out the reform, during which there was a twofold increase in rent in the absence of any improvement in service. A number of publications indicated that Gref failed in reforming the St. Petersburg housing and communal services.

In July 1997, Gref became first deputy chairman of KUGI. On August 18, 1997, he was appointed acting chairman of the committee (on that day, the chairman of KUGI, Mikhail Manevich, was killed). Subsequently, a number of media outlets, without drawing a connection between Gref and this crime, wrote that the reasons for Manevich’s “sudden death” should be sought “in the mechanisms of St. Petersburg privatization.” On September 2, 1997, Gref became vice-governor - chairman of the KUGI of St. Petersburg. Governor Yakovlev offered him this post. At his first briefing as head of the St. Petersburg KUGI, Gref said that he considers himself “a man of Yakovlev, Chubais and Nemtsov at the same time.” Literaturnaya Gazeta wrote in 2001 that Gref is characterized by “political versatility,” which “can be very useful in terms of career growth” (as an example, the publication cited the fact that, despite his closeness with the first St. Petersburg mayor Sobchak, Gref worked well with the new governor Yakovlev). In 2005, the media, calling Gref “the champion of resignation rumors,” wrote that Gref retained the high posts of deputy minister and minister of economy at a time when the government was replaced by five prime ministers.

The media wrote that during his leadership of KUGI, Gref was accused of abuse of official position, in particular, of the illegal transfer of the Hay market for a bribe (the case was closed after the murder of the only witness), the illegal privatization of the Gorchakov Palace (the case was also closed). , however, these publications had no consequences. In 2000, the French newspaper Le Monde published information that from 1997 to 2000, Gref, together with Putin, were consultants and members of the advisory board of the German real estate company SPAG (St. Petersburg Immobilien und Beteiligungs AG), created on the initiative of the northern mayor's office. capital Cities. The mayor's office, according to the publication, was a co-owner of this enterprise. On May 13, 2000, the head of SPAG, lawyer and brother of Liechtenstein's Minister of Economy, Rudolf Ritter, was arrested in Vaduz on suspicion of money laundering and links to organized crime. A report by the German secret service BND alleged that Russian criminal elements were transferring funds through the Romanian bank IRB for the purpose of purchasing real estate in Russia. This, according to them, brought profit to Ritter, the main shareholder of SPAG (real estate was sold through this company). The Russian presidential administration denied any connection between Putin and SPAG. SPAG director Markus Rese, in turn, did not refute the fact that Gref and Putin worked for the company, but argued that it was an “unpaid position, a kind of patronage.”

In September 1997, Gref became a member of the board of directors of JSC Lenenergo. In January 1998, he was introduced to the board of the Ministry of State Property of the Russian Federation. In April 1998, Gref joined the board of directors of OJSC Sea Port of St. Petersburg, and in June of the same year, he joined the board of directors of OJSC Petersburg - Channel 5.

On August 12, 1998, Gref was appointed first deputy minister of state property of the Russian Federation. According to a number of media reports, Gref came to Moscow on the recommendation of Anatoly Chubais. By resolutions of the Government of the Russian Federation of December 30, 1998 and January 21, 1999, Gref was included in the Coordination Council on Economic Issues of Regional Policy of Russia and the board of representatives of the Russian Federation at Svyazinvest OJSC. On April 28, 1999, he was appointed head of the government commission to audit the activities of the Russian Federal Service for Insolvency and Financial Recovery (FSDN). At the same time, he joined the board of directors of Svyazinvest JSC.

On May 10, 1999, in accordance with the order of the Russian government, Gref joined the board of state representatives at the Russian State Insurance Company (Rosgosstrakh). On June 4 of the same year, he joined the board of the Federal Commission for the Securities Market (FCSM), where he worked until September 2000. On June 26, 1999, Gref was elected to the board of directors of Aeroflot - Russian International Airlines, and on August 26, as a representative of the state, he was included in the board of directors of Gazprom. In September 1999, Gref became a member of the board of state representatives at Transneft OJSC. In the same year, Gref was elected chairman of the board of directors of Sheremetyevo International Airport OJSC.

In December 1999, Gref was elected chairman of the supervisory board of the Center for Strategic Research Foundation. According to Delyagin’s memoirs, Gref was the only one who agreed to lead him - “the place is not a good one, they don’t give bribes there.” A number of media outlets wrote that the country’s development program for the coming years, which was prepared by the TsSR headed by Gref, “outlined the main vector of development of the country’s economy - in the direction of its further liberalization.” Other publications, on the contrary, noted that everyone forgot about the “Gref program” immediately after its adoption. In addition, during the same period, Gref became part of Putin’s election headquarters and was among his authorized representatives on financial issues.

In 2001, Gref headed the commission for holding auctions for the sale of industrial quotas for catching (extraction) of aquatic biological resources, and also became a member of the commission on tariff regulation in federal railway transport. In January 2001, Gref was recommended for the post of chairman of the board of directors of Project Privatization Company OJSC, created by the Russian Federal Property Fund and the Ministry of Property Relations of the Russian Federation for the sale of 50 million shares (6.13 percent) of Lukoil OJSC on international stock markets. In April 2001, Gref was appointed as the government's official representative when the chambers of the Federal Assembly considered the draft Land Code. On April 28, 2001, Gref was appointed as a representative of the Russian Federation to vote at a meeting of shareholders at OAO Gazprom and was re-elected to the board of directors of RAO UES of Russia. In May 2001, Gref was appointed deputy chairman of the Russian Government Commission for coordinating the activities of federal executive authorities and state authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation on the implementation of production sharing agreements and was re-elected to the board of directors of Aeroflot-RMA OJSC (since June 2001 - OJSC "Aeroflot - Russian Airlines"). In August 2001, he was also again elected chairman of the board of directors of Sheremetyevo International Airport OJSC. In August 2001, Gref became a member of the government commission on structural reform of railway transport.

In January 2002, Gref became deputy chairman of the Russian Government Commission on Electric Power Industry Reform and joined the board of directors of JSC Federal Grid Company of the Unified Energy System (FGC UES). In 2002, Gref opposed plans to switch to 100 percent payment for housing and communal services by the population. He called for “to stop scaring the population with 100 percent payment,” since due to the plight of the majority of citizens, this task is “unnecessary and unrealizable.”

On October 21, 2003, Gref was elected chairman of the assessment committee created on the board of directors of Gazprom. In its report, RIA Novosti noted that the committee’s competence includes analysis and preparation of proposals to improve the assessment of the value of the property of Gazprom and its subsidiaries, conclusions on the feasibility of transactions with property, as well as recommendations for voting of representatives of the OJSC in the management bodies of subsidiaries and affiliates companies Subsequently, Gref was re-elected to this post several times.

On February 24, 2004, when the president dismissed the Kasyanov government, Gref became the acting minister of economic development and trade of the Russian Federation: Putin signed a decree “On the Government of the Russian Federation,” according to which the government of the Russian Federation was instructed to fulfill its duties until the formation of a new cabinet of ministers. On March 9, 2004, Gref was again appointed Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation, and Mikhail Fradkov became Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation. Izvestia wrote that by that time there was already a long-standing and mutual hostility between them. According to the publication, it originated in 2000, when the Ministry of Trade headed by Fradkov was abolished and transferred to the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. During the period of Fradkov’s work in the Security Council and the tax police, his relations with the head of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade were also quite tense, but without aggravation. The most serious clash between them occurred in the second half of 2003 during one of Gref’s visits to Brussels, where Fradkov was Russia’s special representative to the EU. According to eyewitnesses, Gref then sharply reprimanded Fradkov for “bad work with the EU” in front of his subordinates. According to other sources, two high-ranking officials at Brussels airport began shouting at each other, without paying attention to witnesses. In 2005, Profile wrote that the ideological incompatibility of Fradkov and Gref (one is a Soviet bureaucrat, the other a convinced “marketeer”), aggravated by personal hostility, led to the fact that not a single government meeting was complete without a spat between the prime minister and the minister of economics . But, according to the publication, over the years the situation has changed, and the working relationship between them has become completely different than at the first stage.

According to media reports, Gref has repeatedly opposed the monopolization of the oil and gas sector of the economy. In an interview with the Kommersant newspaper in January 2005, Gref said that the state should transfer “any profit-generating activity into private hands,” and that it itself “should focus efforts on creating clear rules of the game that are strictly followed by everyone.” He called the direct presence of the state in the oil sector “unjustified.” In particular, Gref was opposed to the nationalization of Yuganskneftegaz, a subsidiary of the Yukos Oil Company, but subsequently publicly approved the deal to acquire it. According to media reports, Gref changed his mind because the government decree obligated state representatives in joint-stock companies to vote in accordance with the directives and powers of attorney of the Ministry of Property of the Russian Federation.

Gref took part in the fate of the state company OJSC NK Rosneft, including in organizing the initial public offering of ordinary shares (IPO) among Russian and international investors in Russia and the UK in June 2006. At the same time, the head of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade emphasized that more 70 percent of Rosneft shares will remain with the state.

Gref paid great attention to the Russian Regional Jet (RRJ) program, a joint project of Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, the Ilyushin Aviation Complex and Boeing. The goal of the program was to create an aircraft that would meet the existing and future requirements of the Russian and international markets. During a press conference on November 2, 2005, Gref called this project one of the priorities for Russia and promised that the obligations of the Russian side would be fulfilled on time. According to him, the state was supposed to invest 8.6 billion rubles in the project. It was assumed that six aircraft should be produced by the end of 2007, and their serial production should begin in 2008.

In November 2005, Gref headed a commission that was involved in forming a list of projects applying for money from the Investment Fund of the Russian Federation. The list of investment proposals to the government included projects for the construction of a complex of oil refineries in Tatarstan and a project for the development of the Lower Angara region, as well as a number of projects for the development of the country’s transport infrastructure: the construction of the Western High-Speed ​​Diameter in St. Petersburg, a section of the Moscow-St. Petersburg toll highway, a new exit the Minsk highway on the Moscow Ring Road and the railway to mineral deposits in the Chita region, as well as the construction of the Orlovsky tunnel under the Neva. It was planned to allocate 164 billion rubles for the implementation of these projects.

On July 27, 2006, Gref made a statement on the transfer of authority to the Federal Tax Service (FTS) to maintain a unified state automated information system for accounting for alcoholic beverages. He made this statement after a group of members of the Public Chamber addressed an open letter to the head of government, Mikhail Fradkov. In the letter, representatives of the Public Chamber asked the Prime Minister to deal with violations of the production and supply schedule of alcoholic beverages that arose due to a failure in the operation of the Unified State Automated Information System (USAIS), the development and maintenance of which was carried out by FSUE Atlas under the FSB of Russia.

Gref was a supporter of Russia's early entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and has repeatedly stated that Russia could be admitted to the WTO by 2007. After representatives from Moscow and Washington again failed to agree on this issue during the G8 summit held in July 2006 in St. Petersburg, Gref sent a letter to US Trade Representative Susan Schwab. It indicated that in the event of further failure of negotiations on accession to the WTO, Russia will be forced to reconsider agreements on the import of meat from the United States, according to which quotas for the supply of poultry, beef and pork from this country were increased.

On June 26, 2006, Gref proposed to the board of directors of RAO UES of Russia to work on the idea of ​​creating a Power Engineering Center on the basis of the Power Machines (SM) concern. OJSC Power Machines, whose turnover in 2004 amounted to 639 million US dollars, was called by the media the leading Russian manufacturer of power equipment. Previously, the German concern Siemens expressed a desire to buy the OJSC, but the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) denied the right to purchase it under the pretext that the company carries out, among other things, military orders. Only after RAO UES of Russia acquired a controlling stake in Power Machines did Siemens receive a blocking stake in the enterprise. According to media reports, by the end of August 2006, the energy holding directly owned 22.43 percent of the company's shares and about another 30 percent was in trust management of RAO; 2.5 percent of the shares were concentrated under the jurisdiction of the St. Petersburg Generating Company. Analysts saw Gref's proposal as an attempt to convince the management of RAO to take Power Machines under its full control. The board of the energy holding, as stated in the issued communiqué, accepted the proposal of the head of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade for consideration.

In July-August 2006, Gref's name was mentioned in the press in connection with the process of approving the draft budget for 2007. The submission of the draft document for consideration by the government was postponed, as Gref’s department delayed the transfer of an updated forecast of government spending to the Ministry of Finance.

In December 2006, the Ministry of Economic Development approved the creation of special economic zones (SEZ) of a tourist type. Their residents will have to receive an income tax benefit (20 percent instead of 24 percent), will be able to avoid paying property and land taxes for five years, and the unified social tax will be paid at a rate of 14 percent instead of 26 percent (but only from annual salaries up to 280,000 rubles). In the 2007 budget, 1.1 billion rubles were allocated for the creation of tourist zone infrastructure, so it was planned to create two or three, maximum five SEZs of this type. After the meeting of the competition commission at the end of October, seven regions scored the most points: Altai Territory, Gorny Altai, Buryatia, Irkutsk Region, Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories, as well as the Kaliningrad Region. “It’s a difficult choice, you can’t throw anyone out,” Gref said at the decisive meeting of the commission and offered to support all applications. The commission agreed with him.

Describing Gref's personality, the media wrote that he has a reputation as a strong market leader and liberal who is ready to implement unpopular reforms. He, according to a number of publications, believes in his ability to change Russia for the better. At the same time, it was noted that Gref lacks the depth and consistency of economic knowledge (he does not have an economic education). He believes in the absolute intrinsic value of private property and the need for the state to withdraw as much as possible from the economy, and even state social programs, according to a number of publications, are an unnecessary burden in the eyes of the Minister of Economic Development. Gref does not accept anything that contradicts these principles, and it is absolutely impossible to convince him, since he does not like and cannot conduct a reasoned argument (it was even suggested that this was one of the main reasons for his hostility towards the former presidential adviser on economic issues Andrei Illarionov, known for his love of discussions).

The media associated Gref's weak economic preparation with the opinion expressed by a number of senior officials, according to which Gref allows Finance Minister Kudrin to “play on his own field.” As a result, departments that should balance each other are unable to work together. Speaking about the rivalry between Gref and Kudrin, a number of publications mentioned the supposed advantages of the Minister of Finance over the head of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. According to them, Gref’s personal services to Putin are more modest than those of Kudrin, who actively helped the future president find a job in Moscow after he left St. Petersburg in 1996. The media also wrote about alleged mutual hostility between the ministers. However, the FeldPochta newspaper published the words of Gref himself, refuting this opinion: “We can argue and conflict as much as we like, but in difficult times we are ready to come to each other’s aid.” It is known that in 2004 Kudrin was among those invited to Gref’s wedding.

In January 2006, Fradkov signed the Russian development program for 2006-2008. Vedomosti called it "an excellent example of a compromise" between the prime minister and his subordinates - Gref and Kudrin. The signing of the program, according to the publication, was hampered by disagreements over the clause on doubling GDP in 10 years. Throughout 2005, Gref’s department introduced various revised versions of the medium-term program, but doubling GDP did not work out, despite the planned ultra-high oil prices. As a result, only the phrase remained in the program that the program should ensure GDP growth doubled in 10 years, but without indicating which years and without economic calculations. In exchange for this, Kudrin and Gref agreed to reduce the value added tax (VAT) rate to 13 percent, which Fradkov insisted on for more than a year, but also without specifying the timing of the introduction of this rate. In this regard, political scientist Alexei Makarkin noted that “Fradkov clearly does not have enough strength to push through decisions, there are too many centers of gravity in the office,” since “both Kudrin and Gref have direct access to the president.”

It was noted that Gref is absolutely intolerant of the slightest signs of corruption in his circle (allegedly his secretaries are afraid to take even a box of chocolates as a gift). In 2001, Literaturnaya Gazeta expressed the opinion that Gref clearly sees that the root of evil in Russia lies in corrupt officials. According to the publication, ninety percent of his efforts are aimed at combating them. At the same time, the newspaper noted, Gref’s sobriety in his assessment of Russian realities is at times strikingly combined with naivety: for example, he allegedly believes that if the authorities set an example of honesty and transparency, then the bureaucracy at lower levels will follow this example.

The press published statements about Gref as a proud, hot-tempered and not always restrained person. He reacts sharply to criticism and once at a government meeting he was indignant for a long time and demanded that the extremists who publicly burned his effigy be severely punished. His working vocabulary is also figurative and emotional (the media published stories from Gref’s colleagues that expressions such as “for such work you should be hung on a rope”, “lowered down the stairs” are commonplace for him). At the same time, the press emphasized that Gref always apologizes if he was wrong, and in ordinary situations he is quite polite and correct.

Putin, according to some reports, appreciates the simplicity, aphorism, and “unscientific” nature with which Gref sets out his views on the country’s development. It was even suggested that Putin’s expressions “wet in the toilet” and “the ears of a dead donkey” were born precisely “during meetings between the head of state and the minister of economics.” A number of media outlets mentioned that with other high-ranking officials, Gref very often uses a win-win argument: “I will go to Putin, and he will support me!” - despite the fact that the president does not like to interfere in conflicts between his associates.

In 2003, the television "News of the Week", calling Gref the only Russian Catholic minister, reported that he accompanied President Putin during his visit to the Vatican and appeared before Pope John Paul II. “Arguments and Facts,” in turn, also talked about the visit to the Vatican, but clarified that Gref adheres to the Protestant faith, which denies the very institution of the papacy, which, in their opinion, gave some piquancy to the situation.

In May 2006, in an interview with NTV channel, Gref said that he did not intend to work as an official all his life. Comparing civil service with service in the army, he noted that it is associated “with a huge number of restrictions, including personal restrictions.” “But this cannot last a lifetime,” he emphasized. In December 2006, in an interview with NTV, he again spoke about his resignation. Having said that the work of the Minister of Economy is extremely difficult, he said: “I believe that there are a large number of worthy people in the country who will cope with these responsibilities no worse than me.” He also mentioned the need for rotation in the government, noting that he “will need to be ‘changed’ in the near future, like other ... members of the government.” About his plans for the future, Gref said: “I would like to go into business somewhere, I don’t know where else, I need to change the field of activity...”.

On September 12, 2007, Gref became the acting Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation due to the fact that the Chairman of the Russian Government, Mikhail Fradkov, asked President Putin to resign his entire cabinet. The prime minister justified his request by the desire to give the president freedom of personnel decisions on the eve of parliamentary and presidential elections. Putin accepted the resignation, asking the prime minister and other ministers to temporarily perform their duties. Fradkov's successor as prime minister was Viktor Zubkov, whose appointment was approved by the State Duma on September 14. On September 24, a new government was announced: Gref was replaced by his former first deputy, Elvira Nabiullina.

On October 16, 2007, the Supervisory Board of Sberbank of Russia recommended Gref's candidacy for election as president and chairman of the board of the bank. A few days earlier, the former head of Sberbank Andrey Kazmin was recommended by Zubkov for the post of head of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Russian Post. At the extraordinary general meeting of shareholders of Sberbank of Russia held on November 28, 2007, a decision was made to early terminate Kazmin’s powers “in connection with a transfer to another job.” As expected, Gref was elected in his place (no other candidates were put to the vote).

In June 2009, Gref, as chairman of the board of Sberbank of Russia, joined the board of directors of NK OJSC Lukoil (president - Vagit Alekperov).

In 2009, Gref repeatedly appeared in the press with forecasts about the future of the Russian economy and the possibilities of reducing the negative consequences for it during the global financial crisis. In January, he was quite optimistic: the head of Sberbank noted that simultaneously with the reduction in the number of banks as a result of the crisis, the technological level and quality of the banking system would increase, and “the old and, as it turned out, ineffective, risk management model would be replaced.” At the same time, Gref admitted that the crisis would last longer than could be expected. In April of the same year, he stated that “the banking crisis in the Russian Federation is now at the very beginning, and it will come from the real sector of the economy.” At the same time, he reported that back in September 2008, at a meeting of the Russian government, he predicted a decline in GDP in 2009 by four percent and a possible drop in the banking sector by 18.8 percent. “Everyone laughed at it then... But now it’s obvious that these are absolutely real numbers...” he said.

In December 2009, Sberbank of Russia announced rebranding. Gref said that the bank was going to change its corporate identity and instead of the existing logo choose a more “dynamic and youthful” one back in May of the same year. According to experts, changing the logo and updating all branches should have cost about 20 billion rubles. Even before the presentation of the new logo, experts said that although Sberbank’s rebranding is aimed at attracting new clients, it will only pay off if business processes are changed along with the corporate identity. The bank's new logo was introduced on December 14, 2009; At the same time, Gref announced a number of other measures aimed at creating the image of a “completely new Sberbank”, including the introduction of new formats for customer service offices. In September of the following year, the bank also changed its previous name "Joint-stock commercial Savings Bank of the Russian Federation (open joint-stock company)" to a new one - "Open joint-stock company "Sberbank of Russia"".

In January 2010, Gref, speaking at the Davos Economic Forum, spoke out in favor of reducing the state share in the capital of Russian banks: in particular, he proposed reducing the state stake in Sberbank from 57.6 percent to 50 percent plus one share. In March of the following year, the sale of 7.58 percent of Sberbank shares was approved by the National Banking Council, and in September 2012, the shares were sold on the stock exchange for $5.22 billion.

At the end of May 2010, it became known that Gref acquired a small number of shares of Sberbank - 0.000004 percent of the authorized capital. It was noted that the option programs being prepared at that time for Sberbank could have allowed Gref to significantly increase his stake in shares. However, already in June, Gref, without waiting for the start of the option programs, increased his stake in Sberbank immediately by 150 times, bringing it to 0.0006 percent of the authorized capital. By August 2011, his share in the authorized capital of Sberbank increased to 0.0016 percent and continued to grow.

In February 2011, Vedomosti reported the record profit that Sberbank received and the largest payments to its managers in the bank's history, amounting to almost 985 million rubles at the end of 2010. The quarterly report noted that the increase in payments was associated with an increase in the bank’s net profit from 21.7 to 183.6 billion rubles, i.e. more than 8 times. Gref spoke about the successes of Sberbank at a meeting with Prime Minister Putin. In response to this, as Vedomosti noted, the head of government asked how much the bank pays on deposits to its depositors, and, having heard the answer that for a period of six months the rate would be about 5 percent, he joked: “You are swindlers.”

Sberbank's net profit in 2011 was again a record, exceeding the previous year's result by 74 percent and amounting to 315.9 billion rubles. Only in the last quarter of the year, the bank showed a lower financial result than in 2010 due to increased contributions to reserves associated with lending growth outpacing the market. In the first quarter of 2012, Sberbank's net profit again exceeded the result of the previous year and amounted to 92.2 billion rubles against 86.8 billion in January-March 2011 [

The head of Sberbank, the main credit institution of the Russian Federation, German Oskarovich Gref went from a lawyer in a remote village of the Kazakh SSR to key positions in leading national enterprises and government agencies. Among them are Lukoil, Yandex, Transneft, Gazprom, the Center for Strategic Research and the chair of the head of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

As Minister of Economic Development and Trade, he became famous for developing conceptual ideas. Among Gref's initiatives, a prominent place was occupied by the creation of free economic zones, reform of the electric power industry, and taxation.

Having headed Sberbank, Gref was included in Forbes magazine's list of the nine most unusual Russian businessmen who act unconventionally and, at first glance, strangely and recklessly, including Evgeny Chichvarkin, founder of Euroset, Pavel Durov, creator of the social network VKontakte, Oleg Tinkov , owner of the Tinkoff brand and others.

Childhood and youth of German Gref

The future chief “strategist” and banker of the country was born on February 8, 1964 in the village. Panfilovo, Irtysh district, Pavlodar region, in a family of German exiles. Therefore, their parents taught their children - Evgeniy, Elena and his youngest son - to speak two languages ​​at once, their ancestors and their homeland, German and Russian.

The head of the family, Oscar Fedorovich, worked as an engineer responsible for the village's power supply, and his mother, Emilia Filippovna, worked as an economist in the village council. When Herman was only one and a half years old, his father passed away and died. His grandmother helped his mother raise the children.

Gref was an obedient and neat child, he studied well at school, but not brilliantly, was persistent and capable of achieving his goals thanks to his inherited pedantry.

After receiving secondary education, he worked as a legal adviser in the regional agricultural department. Since 1982, he served in the Soviet army (special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs). Its unit was stationed in the Kuibyshev region.

Then the young man entered the law faculty of Omsk State University. F.M. Dostoevsky. After receiving higher education in 1990, Gref was left at his university to work as a teacher. At the same time, German became a graduate student at Leningrad University, but based on the results of his studies, he did not defend his candidate’s dissertation (Gref passed the candidate’s exams and received a first-level academic degree later, only in 2011).

Career of German Gref in Leningrad

German's supervisor in graduate school was the mayor of the Northern capital, famous political figure Anatoly Sobchak. He introduced German, who clearly had professional and personal potential, into the administration of the Petrodvortsovsky district of the city.

Since 1991, his rapid advancement up the career ladder began. He held a number of leadership positions - head of the property management committee, legal adviser, head of department, deputy chairman, head of KUGI.

Working in the power structures of the Northern capital, Gref was familiar with Vladimir Putin, as well as other significant officials, in particular, Dmitry Medvedev.

German Gref in government agencies

In 1998, German Oskarovich joined the board of the Ministry of State Property and was the first deputy head of this department.

German Gref in the Posner program

The next year was no less eventful with appointments to key positions for the young politician. Among them, membership in the board of the Federal Commission for the Securities Market, election to the board of directors of Gazprom, Svyazinvest, leadership of the Center for Strategic Research.

After Putin’s victory in the election of the country’s leader, Gref was invited to join the government as the head of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, newly created under him (by merging separately existing departments). He retained his position even during the change of executive power, gaining recognition for his “political universality.”

German Gref and Sberbank

On the recommendation of the Supervisory Board of the main financial institution of the Russian Federation, in 2007 German Oskarovich was elected its president and chairman of the board.

His team expanded the range of clients conducting payment transactions via the Internet, involved pensioners in the progress of mass adoption of plastic cards and other advanced technologies, and introduced a private banking service for wealthy citizens.

Gref obliged his top managers to visit the corporate gym and swimming pool, and resumed the previously existing tradition of organizing Sberbankiadas.

Personal life of German Gref

The financier's first wife was Elena Velikanova, the first beauty of his school. The young people got married immediately after receiving secondary education. Soon their son Oleg was born, but the marriage did not last long.

The banker's current wife, Yana (nee Golovina, in Glumov's previous marriage), works as a designer. Their wedding celebration in 2004 was held in one of the halls of Peterhof. In 2006, they had a daughter, and two years later their second child.

Gref is a Catholic, loves German expressionists (Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde and others), and also re-reads the great Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

German Gref now

At the annual meeting of shareholders held in May 2015, Gref’s powers as the head of the country’s main credit institution were extended until 2019.

During the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (June 2015), at the first panel session “Economy: honest answers to pressing issues,” Gref critically assessed the government’s work. In his opinion, a crisis in the economy is always the result of poor management; therefore, the Cabinet of Ministers does not make new decisions quickly enough and does not react promptly to changes in the economic situation.

In the summer of 2015, German Oskarovich demonstrated his human qualities at his best. The financier came out of the situation with dignity in connection with an open letter to him from the writer Samuel Lurie, who suffers from cancer and is undergoing treatment in the USA. The appeal from overseas referred to an incident that occurred with the writer’s sister, who was not given the pension due to Lurie at Sberbank of St. Petersburg under a power of attorney certified by the consulate.

German Gref on macroeconomics and sanctions

Gref replied to Samuil Aronovich that his pension had been issued to his sister and, despite the presence in the received message of some harshness towards the employees of the bank he headed, he apologized to the writer for the misunderstanding that had occurred, earning universal respect for his actions.

German Oskarovich Gref was born on February 8, 1964 in the village of Panfilovo, Irtysh district, Pavlodar region, Kazakh SSR.

In 1990 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of Omsk State University. F.M. Dostoevsky with a degree in Jurisprudence, in 1993 – Postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg State University. Candidate of Economic Sciences.

In 1991-1992 - legal adviser of the 1st category of the Committee for Economic Development and Property of the Administration of Petrodvorets and St. Petersburg.

In 1992, he was appointed head of the Petrodvortsovo district agency of the City Property Management Committee of the St. Petersburg City Hall.

In 1992-1994 - Chairman of the Property Management Committee, Deputy Head of the Petrodvorets City Administration.

In 1994, he became deputy chairman and then first deputy chairman of the City Property Management Committee of the St. Petersburg City Hall.

In 1997-1998 - vice-governor, chairman of the Committee for City Property Management of the St. Petersburg City Hall.

In 1998-2000 - First Deputy Minister of State Property of the Russian Federation.

In 2000-2007 - Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation.

Since November 2007 - President, Chairman of the Board of Sberbank.

Awarded the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, II, III and IV degrees, the Order of Honor, the Order of Alexander Nevsky, and the P.A. Stolypin Medal. II degree, Order of the Holy Blessed Prince Daniel of Moscow, I degree, Certificate of Honor and Gratitude of the President of the Russian Federation.

Awarded the highest distinction of France - promoted to officer of the Legion of Honor.

For special achievements in the field of banking and personal contribution to the development of Sberbank, he was awarded the Sberbank Gold Badge.

He is a shareholder of Sberbank: the share of participation in the authorized capital is 0.0031%, the share of ordinary shares owned is 0.003%.

Biography

German Oskarovich Gref is a Russian statesman of German origin, president and chairman of the board of Sberbank of Russia, former Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation (2000-2007). Co-chairman of the board of trustees of the Mariinsky Theater, member of the board of trustees of the Russian International Affairs Council. Chairman of the Board of the Center for Strategic Research. Member of the Board of Directors of Yandex. Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Research University Higher School of Economics. Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Supporting the Deaf-Blind “Connection”. Globalist, supporter of globalization in Russia.

Born in the village of Panfilovo, Irtysh district, Pavlodar region, Kazakh SSR, into a family of ethnic Germans who were expelled from Donbass in 1941.

In 1982-1984 he served in the Armed Forces of the USSR, in special forces units of the internal troops of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, stationed in the city of Chapaevsk, Kuibyshev region, military unit 3434.

1990 - graduated from the Faculty of Law of Omsk State University with a degree in jurisprudence and remained as a teacher at the Faculty of Law of Omsk State University. At the university he was a Komsomol course organizer and the leader of a Komsomol operational detachment, and joined the CPSU.

In 1990-1993, he was a graduate student at the Faculty of Law of Leningrad University. His scientific supervisor was Anatoly Sobchak, to whom he came on the recommendation of the dean of the Faculty of Law of Omsk State University S. N. Baburin, and became an activist of the FLNF. However, Gref never defended his dissertation.

February 2011 - defense of a dissertation at the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation on the topic: “Development and prospects for structural institutional reforms in the Russian economy.”

Member of the board of trustees of the ANO Institute of Economic Policy named after liberal reformer Yegor Timurovich Gaidar

Work in St. Petersburg

1991 - Legal Adviser of the Committee for Economic Development and Property of the Administration of Petrodvorets (St. Petersburg).

1992 - Head of the Petrodvortsovo District Agency of the Property Management Committee of the City Administration of St. Petersburg. Chairman of the Property Management Committee - Deputy Head of the Administration of the Petrodvortsovo District of St. Petersburg.

1994 - Deputy Chairman - Director of the Real Estate Department, First Deputy Chairman of the Committee for City Property Management of the Administration (KUGI) of St. Petersburg.

1997 - Vice-Governor, Chairman of the Committee for City Property Management of the Administration (KUGI) of St. Petersburg, member of the Board of Directors of JSC Lenenergo.

1998 - joined the board of directors of the Sea Port of St. Petersburg company and the board of directors of the Petersburg - Channel 5 company.

While working in the administration of St. Petersburg, German Gref met Alexei Kudrin, Dmitry Kozak, and Dmitry Medvedev.

Work in the Government of the Russian Federation (2000-2007)

1998 - member of the board of the Ministry of State Property of the Russian Federation. First Deputy Minister of State Property of the Russian Federation.

1999 - member of the board of the Federal Commission for the Securities Market, head of the Center for Strategic Research.

Vladimir Putin won the Russian presidential elections held on March 26, 2000. On May 7, he took office and on May 17 appointed Mikhail Kasyanov as Prime Minister. When Kasyanov’s government was formed, Gref was invited to the post of Minister of Economic Development created specifically for him. On May 18, by Decree of President Vladimir Putin, the Ministry of Trade of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Economy of the Russian Federation were merged into the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation.

German Gref was the main lobbyist for Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization. Also, at various times, he was a member of the board of directors of many state-owned companies (Gazprom, Svyazinvest, etc.) On February 24, 2004, Kasyanov’s government was dismissed. Gref also resigned from his post as minister.

At the beginning of March, the first Fradkov government was formed, in which German Oskarovich again headed the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation. On March 14, presidential elections took place, in which Vladimir Putin was re-elected. On May 7, having existed for only two months, this government resigned its powers to the newly elected President of the Russian Federation. Mikhail Fradkov retained the position of Prime Minister, and in May a second Fradkov government was created, with German Gref continuing to serve as Minister of Economic Development and Trade.

On September 12, 2007, Prime Minister Fradkov turned to Vladimir Putin with a request for the resignation of the government. The President accepted the resignation of the government and thanked it for the results achieved in its work. Putin noted such government achievements as good economic growth rates, reduced inflation, growth in real incomes of the population, and the start of major social projects.

Sberbank

From October 2007 to the present, Gref is Chairman of the Board of Sberbank of Russia. The former head of the bank, Andrei Kazmin, was transferred to work at Russian Post, which caused dissatisfaction among the bank's leading managers who voted against Gref. Gref's four-year contract as president and chairman of the board of Sberbank expired in November 2011.

Prospects of falling under sanctions

In January 2018, he was included in the “Kremlin list” of the US Treasury.

Public statements

In 2012, at the SPIEF 2012 forum dedicated to overcoming the crisis, in response to Tim Kelsey’s monologue, Mr. Gref stated that he doubts the effectiveness of the power of the people, and the indirect receipt of information by people inspires fear. He also stated that the media is somehow dependent and involved in preserving sections of society. Gref later explained that his previous statements were only dark humor in order to stir up the discussion.

On December 28, 2017, he sharply opposed the use of bank plastic cards, saying that “I already mostly pay using Apple Pay. I dream of the moment when I don’t have a card in my pocket at all, I consider it an atavism.”

Ratings

In October 2011, German Gref was noted by Forbes magazine as one of the nine most unusual Russian businessmen - madmen, eccentrics and eccentrics.

Income

In 2013, he entered the top 5 Forbes list (1st place) of the most expensive managers in Russia with an income of $15 million. The share of shares of Sberbank of Russia owned by G. O. Gref: 0.003096% (package price - $27.19 million) . In 2014, he again found himself in a similar Forbes ranking in 4th place with an income of $26 million. In 2015, in the list of the most expensive company executives of the same publication, he took 6th place with $13.5 million, at the end of 2016 - third place with an income of $1 million.

Family and personal life

German Gref is married for the second time. His wife Yana Golovina (Glumova, Gref) is a designer. Their wedding took place in the throne room of the Great Peterhof Palace.

In 2006, Gref had a daughter, and in 2008, a second daughter.

Gref's mother-in-law Tatyana Golovina is engaged in the resort business. Since the end of 2008, he has been the head of the Rus sanatorium in Gelendzhik, owned by structures of the state company Transneft.

Gref's son from his first marriage, Oleg, graduated from Moscow State University in 2004 and is the head of the consulting group NEO Center.

German Gref's older sister Elena Peredriy graduated from the pedagogical institute, married Sergei Peredriy and moved to Nakhodka. Elder brother Evgeny Gref is a businessman in Omsk, co-owner of the Tekhnosofia and Sibir-Keramika store chains, and the Geomart and Letur shopping centers.

German Gref is bilingual, having equal command of Russian and German from an early age.

Awards

Order of Merit for the Fatherland, III degree (October 19, 2011) - for his great contribution to the development of the domestic banking system and many years of conscientious work

Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree (August 6, 2007) - for active participation in ensuring the victory of the city of Sochi’s bid for the right to host the XXII Olympic Winter Games and XI Paralympic Games in 2014

Order of Alexander Nevsky (2014)

Order of Honor (February 13, 2014) - for achieved labor success, significant contribution to the socio-economic development of the Russian Federation, merits in the humanitarian sphere, strengthening the rule of law, protecting the rights and interests of citizens, many years of conscientious work

P. A. Stolypin Medal, II degree (2009) - for services in the development and implementation of the economic strategy for the development of the Russian Federation and many years of impeccable work

Certificate of Honor from the President of the Russian Federation (February 11, 2009) - for many years of conscientious government activity
Order of the Holy Blessed Prince Daniel of Moscow, 1st degree (ROC, 2006)
Honorary citizen of the city of Astrakhan (2007)
Honorary Citizen of Peterhof (2007)

Personalized honorary badge “For Civil Merit”, 1st degree (Astrakhan, December 10, 2007) - for enormous support aimed at the comprehensive socio-economic development of the city of Astrakhan, expansion of production, improvement of the living standards of citizens, their social security, preservation of peace and friendship between peoples, further development of charity, patronage of the arts, and on the eve of the 450th anniversary of the city

Officer of the Legion of Honor (France, 2010) - for his contribution to the development of relations between the two countries
Winner of the national business reputation award “Darin” of the Russian Academy of Business and Entrepreneurship in 2003.

Laureate of the All-Russian Prize for Financiers “Reputation” 2013 in the nomination “For the formation of socially responsible financial business”

Badge “For Merit to the Moscow Region”, 1st degree (2016)

Gref was born in 1964 in the village of Panfilovo in northern Kazakhstan to a Jewish mother and a German father, expelled from the Donbass in 1941 (so the label “German-Jewish fascist” that arose during his reformation is correct). When he was one and a half years old, his father died, the boy was raised by his Jewish mother and grandmother. He studied averagely, with C's and B's, but was persistent and managed to enter MGIMO, which was then the main humanitarian university of a huge country (this was possible in the USSR), but was expelled after the first year. According to his official biography, the 17-year-old boy became a legal adviser to the district agricultural administration.

He served in the special forces of the internal troops, whose functions included escorting dangerous prisoners, searching for fugitives, and suppressing riots. How someone who served in the army without exams got into the workers' faculty of Omsk University and entered the Faculty of Law, where he became a Komsomol organizer and head of a student operational detachment. After graduating from high school in 1990, Gref entered graduate school at Leningrad State University, but did not defend his dissertation: it was no longer needed for a career in modern times.

Gref's scientific advisor turned out to be Sobchak, and in 1991 the graduate student became a legal adviser to the Committee for Economic Development and Property of the Administration of the Petrodvortsovo District of St. Petersburg, and in 1992 headed the Committee for Property Management of this district. In 1994, he became deputy chairman of the City Property Management Committee (KUGI) of the “northern capital” and managed all the city’s real estate.

After Yakovlev’s victory over Sobchak, Gref took the initiative and, as one of the ideologists of the housing and communal services reform, climbed to a new step on the career ladder, becoming the first deputy chairman of KUGI, although the liberal reform led to the usual results (rents doubled without improving service). After the murder of the head of KUGI Manevich, Gref took over his post, becoming vice-governor.

Numerous accusations against Gref of crimes characteristic of liberal reforms had no consequences; Thus, the case of the illegal transfer of the Sennaya Market in the center of St. Petersburg for a bribe was closed after the murder of the only witness.

Five days before the 1998 default, on the recommendation of Chubais, he was appointed First Deputy Minister of State Property of Russia.

After Primakov’s resignation, Gref reached a new level: he became a member of the board of state representatives at Rosgosstrakh and Transneft, the board of the Federal Securities Market Commission, the boards of directors of Aeroflot and Gazprom, and chairman of the board of directors of Sheremetyevo airport.

In December 1999, he headed the Center for Strategic Research, which Putin instructed to develop a strategy for 10 years. Titled reformers seemed to shy away from this honor as troublesome and unrelated to material benefits, but Gref jumped at the chance to come to the fore.

And just as the “500 Days” program brought Yavlinsky into politics, the 2010 strategy brought Gref into the government: in May 2000, he headed the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade created for him.

Lord of reforms

The CSR gathered the vast majority of qualified Russian experts, but their work was wasted.

An example is work on banking reform. Almost all the country's specialists presented reasoned proposals, which were discarded, and the text was written “from scratch” by one person who did not even know what types of banking licenses there are in Russia. The absurdity of the result caused a categorical protest from the leadership of the Central Bank, and this section was excluded from the strategy.

It was an undeveloped, incoherent, unstructured set of unreasonable demands. The summary attributed by Kommersant to Prime Minister Kasyanov, “The mountain gave birth to a mouse. It’s good that it wasn’t a cockroach,” was perceived as a soft and balanced assessment.

The government never approved it.

However, a number of its provisions were pushed through by liberals in the form of separate reforms, which caused enormous damage to Russia.

The key mechanism of the strategy is to stop the outflow of capital from the country by improving the investment climate, although with a strong outflow of capital such an improvement is impossible with liberal prescriptions (it is reminiscent of taking pills to treat dizziness caused by blood loss due to a ruptured artery). The investment climate can only be improved through government regulation measures, primarily the modernization of infrastructure, which contradicts the interests of global business and is therefore rejected by liberals.

Helpless babble about reducing capital outflow for unknown reasons served as a simple cover for the main and only well-developed tool for ensuring economic growth: cutting government spending by a quarter, primarily through social spending in the regions.

The state's refusal of social obligations, “social default” as the core of the strategy gave it the character of social genocide and made a liberal dictatorship its necessary condition.

The strategy required the abandonment of non-tariff regulation of foreign economic activity, which soon led to the destruction of the standardization system and the destruction of the product quality control system. The demand to join the WTO, of which Gref was the main lobbyist, was fulfilled - on completely colonial terms - and sharply slowed down the economy, replacing confident investment growth with a recession.

The promise to “remove obstacles to the bankruptcy of ineffective enterprises” resulted, along with the “de-bureaucratization” of the economy, the engine of which was also Gref, in the creation of ideal conditions for unpunished raiding, the rampantness of which destroyed the very idea of ​​property rights.

The “legalization of the export of capital” resulted in the abolition of currency regulation, which made Russia defenseless against fluctuations in the global market. How can one not remember the oligarch Bendukidze, for whom the main human right and criterion of democracy was the right to freely export a million dollars!

The reform of natural monopolies outlined in Gref's strategy was realized in the disaster of the electric power industry and the lesser-known disruption of railway transportation.

The housing and communal services reform led to a terrifying increase in tariffs while disorganizing the industry.

Labor relations reform has deprived workers of real opportunities to protect their inalienable rights.

The cuts to social assistance were implemented in the form of cannibalistic monetization of benefits, pension reform, and the destruction of education and health care.

In the first versions of the draft strategy, Gref directly pointed out the need to overcome the tendency to form a “welfare state.” The attempt to abolish the Constitution, which enshrines the social character of the state, failed: direct self-exposing formulations were removed from the text, but the ideology was implemented.

Finally, the judicial reform, as far as one can judge, created administrative control over the courts and led to the disintegration of the latter, essentially depriving Russians of access to justice.

Gref was the driving force behind almost all liberal reforms, both in his position and due to his personal preferences.

When creating the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade (MEDT), he tried to take on as many functions as possible in order to maximize his influence. As a result, it turned out to be a cumbersome monster, unmanageable due to the volume of its functions (only at the beginning there were 159 of them, and the number of departments exceeded 50).

The unmanageability of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade was caused by the unification of heterogeneous, unrelated functions (for example, regulating foreign trade and ensuring northern supplies), as well as the unification of tasks, the implementation of which required different types of management organization. Their unification ensured organizational incompatibility of the corresponding control contours, permanent internal conflict and, as a consequence, loss of controllability. The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade was reminiscent of Kurchatov, who would have been tasked with making an atomic bomb in three years... provided he simultaneously worked as a traffic controller.

The inability to work was aggravated by the lack of professionalism, which became the hallmark of the “Grefdom”: the Minister of Economic Development himself was a lawyer, M. Dmitriev, who studied banks until 1997, was in charge of pension affairs, A. Sharonov, who was involved in social policy, was in charge of reforming natural monopolies, and A. Dvorkovich, who analyzed the budget.

This is probably no coincidence: the destructive nature of liberal reforms in Russia precludes their implementation by specialists.

The owner of the people's money

In 2007, Gref suddenly became head of Sberbank, leaving the government, following the example of Chubais, for a large state-owned company. He was probably bored with the apparatus struggle, and he wanted to become the absolute owner of a large structure that would provide him with legal wealth and not administrative, but socio-political influence.

Sberbank, which permeated the daily life of most Russians and had branches in all more or less significant settlements, corresponded to this goal no less than RAO UES of Russia.

The Sberbank reform caused numerous scandals; Thus, the rebranding, carried out in a crisis, not really justified and hardly noticed by anyone, cost 20 billion rubles.

Gref sharply increased the pay of Sberbank’s top management and in 2013 became the fifth most paid manager in Russia, according to Forbes.

With the most severe cuts in other costs, a significant part of the old employees were fired, and their place was taken by young people (probably agreeing to lower salaries), whose efforts, I remember, were not often supported by professional knowledge. The result, as far as one can judge, was a decline in the bank’s service and reputation, but also an increase in profits.

The employee who wrote on the social network “If you stick a Sberbank sign in an open field, she will immediately have a line of pensioners” was fired, but this joke seemed to clearly reflect the state of Sberbank during the reform.

The increase in fees for household payments, with the widespread introduction of payment at automatic machines and Internet banking and the closure of many branches, was intended to reduce costs. There was a feeling that Sberbank, earning most of its money from corporate clients and financial transactions, was striving, under the guise of talk about “customer focus,” to minimize face-to-face communication with the public, viewing it as nothing more than a source of costs to be cut.

During the 2008-2009 crisis, Sberbank loans became fatal for a number of businessmen. A classic example is MAIR, from which Sberbank structures, as far as one can understand, demanded early repayment of the loan; the case ended with the destruction of the business, the elimination of a mass of jobs and the criminal prosecution of the creator of MAIR, Makushin, who was forced to flee the country. The degree of absurdity of the accusations is evidenced by Cyprus’ refusal to extradite him to Russia - the second in the entire history of relations between our countries.

As a result, Sberbank's profitability increased, but the attitude towards it, as far as one can judge, worsened. The situation was aggravated by stories about frequent “technical failures” in Sberbank’s payment machines and even in its Internet banking, leading to financial losses for clients. This may be due to the large volume of transactions - but I have never heard anything like this about other banks.

The memorable liberal initiative to corral all of Russia into 28 huge megacities, which reached the government, was apparently caused by Sberbank’s desire to cut costs. After all, the smaller the settlement, the lower the profitability of the Sberbank branch located there (in small settlements they can be unprofitable). But it is impossible to deprive the population of Sberbank due to its unique position. This means that for maximum efficiency of Sberbank, the entire population must be gathered into huge megacities.

Consideration of this idea discredited the government apparatus, but it was probably not born of evil liberal intent, but only of Gref’s desire to minimize Sberbank’s costs, without regard to anyone’s interests and values.

A man of liberal ideas

Gref has a reputation as a strong market man, even compared to Kudrin, giving the impression of a man not burdened with economic knowledge, which, of course, strengthens his liberal beliefs.

For example, when he took up the task of stimulating investment, he was surprised by both the lack of ready-made large investment projects (in 2006 they simply had nowhere to come from), and the fact that they needed at least a year to prepare.

And in July 2013, when corruption, monopolism, the Medvedev government’s refusal to develop and the colonial WTO rules were breaking the back of the Russian economy, when industrial production was declining, and the slowdown in GDP growth promised to turn into recession, Gref said: “Russia has one of the best in the world among all countries of macroeconomic situations."

According to those who know him, without an economic education, Gref does not like and cannot conduct a reasoned debate. Blind faith in the absolute intrinsic value of private property, the need for the state to withdraw from the economy, redundancy of social assistance to the population and intolerance to objections very successfully replace knowledge for him.

Gref is hot-tempered; Thus, at a government meeting, he demanded that the people who burned his effigy, who were protesting against the criminal pushing of Russia into the WTO on obviously enslaving conditions, should be severely punished for extremism. During a visit to Brussels, in front of his subordinates, he gave a beating to the head of the Russian delegation to the European Commission, Fradkov, which “backfired” on him in the latter’s premiership. True, stories about Gref’s promises to “hang” his subordinates with a rope are accompanied by ritual assurances of his politeness.

When Putin met with the Pope with him in 2003, some media called Gref a Protestant, while others called him a Catholic.

At the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in 2012, a completely innocent question suddenly provoked Gref into scandalous frankness, which revealed the categorical unacceptability of democracy not only for Russian reformers, but also for modern liberals in general.

“You are saying terrible things,” Gref replied. “You are proposing to transfer power into the hands of the population... As soon as people understand the basis of their “I” and self-identify, it will become extremely difficult to control them, it will become extremely difficult to manipulate. People do not want to be manipulated when they have knowledge. How to live, how to manage such a society, where everyone has equal access to information, everyone has the opportunity to judge directly, receive unprepared information through government-trained analysts, political scientists and huge media machines engaged in building and preserving (social) strata? “Your reasoning makes me a little scared; to be honest, it seems to me that you don’t quite understand what you’re saying.”