EN
Entire generations of employees at the Northern (Arctic) Federal University (SAFU) have been living off of the university’s finances, according to an investigation by the "University Transparency Lab" project, in collaboration with “Arctida" and "Chronicles.Media", who conducted an examination of the university's procurement records.
SAFU was established by a decree from President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev in 2009. The university was created on the foundation of the Arkhangelsk State Technical University. Later, it absorbed the M.V. Lomonosov Pomor State University, the Emperor Peter I Arkhangelsk Forest Engineering College, and the Severodvinsk Technical College.
The university recently found itself under the spotlight when its students reported one of their peers, Olesya Krivtsova, to the authorities. Krivtsova was charged with "discrediting" the army and was added to the list of terrorists and extremists. The university, for its part, did not simply fail to defend the student; the director of the Higher School of Social Sciences and International Communication, Artem Makulin, submitted a court statement denouncing her.
Since 2022, SAFU has restricted access to its procurement records. This came to pass after the university was hit with Ukrainian sanctions. In accordance with a resolution from the Russian government, organizations under sanctions are allowed to conduct their procurement activities in secrecy. But while the university’s current spending practices are undisclosed, contracts from previous years remain accessible.
The First Rector
For many years, the Rector at SAFU was Elena Kudryashova. The non-profit organization “Arctida” named her one of the key figures of Russian politics in the Arctic.
Kudryashova, according to her official biography, was born in 1961. She graduated from the Arkhangelsk Pedagogical Institute with degrees in “History and English”. She worked as a teacher at the Rembuyevskaya School in the Kholmogorsky District of the Arkhangelsk Region. Since 1986, she has held various academic positions at the Arkhangelsk State Pedagogical Institute, including Assistant, Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor, and Professor in the Department of Philosophy. From 1999, she chaired the Department of Philosophy at the Arkhangelsk Technical State University. She also worked as the supervisor of the Department of Science and Higher Education for the Arkhangelsk Regional Administration and as Deputy Director of the region’s Department of Education and Science. From 2008 to 2010, she served as Deputy Governor of the Arkhangelsk Region. She was later appointed Rector of the newly established Northern (Arctic) Federal University (SAFU).
In 2015, Kudryashova unexpectedly became an advisor to the rector. That same year, a criminal case was opened against her. Elena Kudryashova was suspected of abusing her official powers. At that time, she appeared to be wealthier than the then-Governor of the Arkhangelsk Region, Igor Orlov.
According to the criminal investigation, in 2011, Kudryashova accepted a bribe to sign a series of contracts with a Moscow firm that was not competent in construction, for the construction of a university library.
The case materials indicated that the university lost over seven million rubles due to these agreements. However, a few months later, the documents were transferred to the investigative department in St. Petersburg, where the prosecution against Kudryashova was immediately dropped, with no evidence of criminal offense found.
At the end of December 2015, Elena Kudryashova returned to SAFU in the same position as before, and by January 2016, she was once again in the rector's chair.
In March 2022, Kudryashova signed a statement from the Russian Union of Rectors in support of the invasion of Ukraine, which led to the latter imposing sanctions on her. In May 2024, Elena Kudryashova voluntarily left the position of Rector before her contract expired.
However, her daughter, Tatiana Sorokina, a Candidate of Legal Sciences, continues to work at the university. She heads the Arctic Biomonitoring Laboratory at SAFU. In 2018, Kudryashova's daughter completed advanced training courses on "Regulatory and Legal Regulation in the Field of Subsoil Use." At the university, she lectures on legal regulation of environmental safety in the Arctic, environmental law, and maritime law.
Kudryashova also has a second daughter, Alexandra. For her part, she holds citizenship with France – officially classified as “unfriendly” by the Russian government – and has long lived outside Russia.
University Procurements by Members of its Faculty
Another family benefiting from SAFU is the Tutygins. The senior member is Gennady Tutygin, a Candidate of Sociological Sciences. He was born in 1939 and held the positions of Associate Professor and Professor in the Department of Forest Cultures and Landscape Construction at SAFU’s predecessor, Arkhangelsk Technical State University. Until 2021, Tutygin was Co-Founder of the company ArkhGroup, after which his son Andrey took over his position. Another Co-Founder and leader of the organization is local entrepreneur Yevgeny Yermolyn.
Andrey Tutygin also owns a third of the LLC “Northern Operational Enterprise” (NOE), which provides cleaning services. The other co-owners are Yermolyn, his business partner Maxim Galkin (each with 30%), and ArkhGroup (10%).
Since 2007, Andrey Tutygin worked at Pomor State University as Vice Rector for Financial and Economic Activities. In 2011, the university merged with SAFU. In 2013, Andrey Tutygin was convicted of abusing his official powers – the court determined that the vice rector had transferred about five million rubles to a contractor for incomplete work.
Despite this, Tutygin remained at the university. Now he holds the position of Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and High-Performance Computing. Nor did his conviction prevent him from leading the state microcredit organization for entrepreneurs, “Development”. But then, in 2023, it came to light that a new criminal case was opened against Andrey Tutygin. Allegedly, he had embezzled eight million rubles while in his new position.
Throughout this time, SAFU has been contracting with companies related to the Tutygins, such as ArkhGroup and NOE. Such SAFU contracts have also been awarded to Terra, a company controlled by the Tutygin’s business partner Yevgeny Yermolyn. All contracts were awarded without a bidding process. They generally specify routine maintenance work at the university, such as lawn mowing and cleaning premises. From 2015 to 2017, Tutygin and his business partners secured contracts worth 5.9 million rubles.
Arctic Media Manager
Dr. Yakov Poparenko, a Doctor of Economics, is the founder of the newspaper “Pravda Severa” (Truth of the North). To understand what this publication is all about, one need only look at its archives: the region’s governor, Alexander Tsybulsky, dominates the front pages.
Poparenko was born in 1957 in Arkhangelsk. He studied political science at the Faculty of Social-Political Relations at the Leningrad Political Institute (now the North-West Institute of Management, a branch of RANEPA), and then pursued economics at the Arkhangelsk branch of the All-Russian Financial and Economic Correspondence Institute (now merged with the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation).
Before working at SAFU, Poparenko headed the Committee on Printing and Mass Media for the Arkhangelsk Region. He then served as Vice Rector for Strategic Development at SAFU until 2014. From 2017 to 2021, Poparenko was a member of the university’s supervisory board. And throughout the time that the media manager worked at the university, “Pravda Severa” regularly received contracts from SAFU.
Poparenko’s son, Vitaly, now manages his father’s companies. For five years, Vitaly’s company, Arkhangelsk Television Company (ATC), received contracts from SAFU. In 2020, Poparenko Jr. sold the company.
Another family business, Media Consult, also began contracting with SAFU in 2015. As a rule, these procurements were conducted without a bidding process. From 2013 and 2017, the Poparenko family received around four million rubles through the contracts.
The Taskaevs, Nikulins, and Karels
There are three more families with smaller revenues at SAFU. The first are the Taskaevs. Dmitry Taskaev worked as a regional parliament deputy in the 2000s, entering as an independent candidate. He became Vice-Speaker and later Deputy Governor of the Arkhangelsk Region. In 2013, he tried for re-election with backing from “United Russia,” but lost.
In 2012, he became a Vice Rector at SAFU, but in 2014 was sentenced to 4.5 years for accepting a bribe of 1.5 million rubles. However, he was released on parole as soon as 2017. Later, he worked as the Deputy General Director for Production at the group of companies “Ustyansky Timber Industry Complex.”
Dmitry Taskaev's son, Yegor, became a co-owner of the LLC “Construction and Installation Management No. 2” (CIM No. 2) in June 2017. From 2013, while Taskaev Sr. was Vice Rector, SAFU ordered construction services from this company. Supposedly, the first contracts worth 32.8 million rubles were awarded through “competitive negotiations.”
But according to the protocols, only one bid was received for these “negotiations” – from CIM No. 2, with Dmitry Taskaev himself chairing the commission that made the contract decisions. In subsequent years, CIM No. 2 secured four more contracts with SAFU worth 4.6 million rubles, all without “competitive negotiations” or bidding. Two months after the last known contract was signed, the company was transferred to Yegor Taskaev’s ownership.
Another family cozy with the university is the Nikulins. Natalia Nikulina holds the positions of Vice Rector at SAFU and Director of the university’s Severodvinsk branch. At the same time, her niece, Ksenia Sergeeva, quickly advanced from being a lab assistant in the Department of Jurisprudence to a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics and Management at the same Severodvinsk branch.
Natalia’s daughter, Alexandra, participated alongside her mother in the Ministry of Education’s federal project “University Platform for Technological Entrepreneurship”, which aimed to involve students in business. The Nikulins presented a joint initiative between SAFU and the joint-stock company “Research Design and Technology Bureau Onega,” where Alexandra Nikulina works as the head of the Department of Production System Development. Their proposal is called the “Digital Process Factory”, and in the future, SAFU students will be educated there.
Finally, our last esteemed faculty member is Alexander Karelskiy, the head of the Department of Engineering Structures, Architecture, and Graphics at SAFU. He has been teaching at the university for many years. In 2012, he became Co-Founder and manager of the company “Survey and Expertise of Buildings and Structures” (OEZiS).
In 2017, Karelskiy’s OEZiS received, without bidding, a contract from SAFU for the examination of the load-bearing structures of a balcony in the main building’s assembly hall. The contract was worth nearly 200,000 rubles.
The text was prepared by Polina G., Katya M., Alex, Ivan Shirokov, Tatyana Kolobakina, Sergey Kagermazov.
