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- The Taming of the Shrews: how "communal empires" keep houses despite residents' complaints
The Taming of the Shrews: how "communal empires" keep houses despite residents' complaints
There are hundreds of messages on social networks from owners who are dissatisfied with the work of apartment building management companies. The claims relate to flooded basements, dampness and unpleasant odors in the entrances, leaking roofs and even fake receipts. At the same time, falsification of signatures in the minutes of the general meeting of owners remains one of the main problems. In some regions, companies take over hundreds of homes in this way, turning into "communal empires," but they still perform their duties extremely poorly. How such "empires" are formed and how residents struggle with them is in the Izvestia article.
Complaints about the Criminal Code in Yekaterinburg
"Our house on the lane Exit, 4, last year is in hell. The basement is constantly flooded with boiling water, the first floors suffer the most. Because of the water and steam in the entrance, there is nothing to breathe — there is condensation on the ceilings, there is a terrible stench. Now we are also left without hot water, while the entrance is flooded with steam. Our management company Narodnaya simply ignores us," says a message from a resident of Yekaterinburg in one of the local public sites.
House 4 eventually managed to change its management organization, while residents of other houses were less fortunate.
Over the past year, Narodnaya has lost dozens of its offices, its office has been searched, and its head, Viktor Starokozhev, has been involved in several criminal cases of fraud. At the same time, the management company continues to service 52 houses in Yekaterinburg. Hundreds more are listed in the Criminal Code associated with Viktor Starokozhev and members of his family.
How the Criminal Code took hundreds of houses in the Urals
The management company Narodnaya, according to data from the Spark system, was registered in 2012 in Yekaterinburg. Its only founder since its foundation is Viktor Starokozhev. Residents of the city nicknamed him the "communal baron." In addition to Narodnaya, he owns Uralgradmash Local Management Company and Ukiko LLC.
The latter is registered in the Moscow region of Istra, but has dozens of branches in the Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk regions. In October 2025, the State Housing Inspectorate (GJI) of the Chelyabinsk Region cancelled the company's licenses to manage 546 houses in the region. The prosecutor's office found out that Ukiko participated in tenders for the maintenance of residential buildings without paying fines for poor-quality maintenance of other houses.
In response, the company appealed to the arbitration court and is now trying to invalidate the agency's decision. The State Housing Inspectorate also filed a lawsuit, demanding that the licenses issued by Ukiko for house maintenance in the Urals be completely revoked. The proceedings in this case have been suspended until the court makes a decision on the first claim. In fact, the company still has 15 valid licenses in different regions of the country, but there are no houses in maintenance.
This is only part of a large empire, which, however, has suffered significant losses over the past year. In September, Ukiko was fined 250 thousand rubles for improper maintenance of one of the houses in Chelyabinsk. A month earlier, the court had placed Viktor Starokozhev under house arrest in a case of fraud on an especially large scale (Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). According to the investigation, during the year, the Criminal Code sent receipts with false information about services to residents of houses, thus receiving more than 1 million rubles. At the same time, according to the investigation, the company did not fulfill its duties. At the end of August, the criminal case was submitted to the Chelyabinsk court.
At the same time, Viktor Starokozhev is being tried in Yekaterinburg on charges of fraud and money laundering. Together with him in the dock, Andrei Shchekin is the director of LLC Guaranteeing Management Organization of the Urals, which manages Narodnaya, and the former director of another scandalous Empire company, Lazurit Management Company. They are accused of embezzling 1.6 million rubles allocated by the regional capital repair assistance fund for work in one of the houses in Yekaterinburg.
Lapis Lazuli, which was originally founded by Viktor Starokozhev, has also lost all its homes over the past year. However, she continues to cause trouble to the residents even after she leaves.
"The management company at our house was Lapis Lazuli. After that, no management company takes our house. Two entrances were flooded in the house, from the fifth to the first floor, there is no heating at all, it's snowing outside, how people live. Water is already entering the living quarters," a resident of Yekaterinburg said on social media.
Some of Starokozhev's companies are registered to his son and wife. So, Evgeny Starokozhev is listed as the founder of 10 companies, but none of them currently has houses on the balance sheet.
A criminal case has also been opened against his son, and it is being conducted by the military investigative bodies of the TFR. Starokozhev Jr. is accused of fraud on a particularly large scale. According to the investigation, it was the son of the "communal baron" who was the real head of the Municipal Unitary Enterprise Uralgradmash, which has 251 houses on its balance sheet. The second person involved in the case is Igor Agarev, the former head of the company.
From 2025 to 2026, the Management company serviced houses on the territory of the military camp in Yekaterinburg: monthly money was collected from residents for the maintenance of common property and repairs, but the funds received ended up in the pockets of managers, the investigation finds.
In September, Evgeny Starokozhev was released from jail. The measure of restraint was softened after the Criminal Code nevertheless began to repair houses in a military town, the businessman's lawyer told local journalists.
The companies of the Starokozhev family are accused not only of poor maintenance of houses, but also of falsifying the results of the owners' meeting on the issue of choosing a criminal code. In February 2024, the Department of State Housing and Construction Supervision of the Sverdlovsk region said that in 2023, the courts considered 79 lawsuits from citizens declaring the results of the meeting invalid. In 45 cases, it was about the criminal Code "Narodnaya", in five — about "Lapis Lazuli".
— After the bankruptcy, our houses were left without the previous criminal code. Then suddenly there were announcements that residents could contact Uralgradmash. It seems like we chose her in some kind of vote. I would like to note that such a criminal code had not even been heard of before," a resident of Nizhny Tagil reported last year, where, according to Spark, a branch of Uralgradmash is located.
Viktor Starokozhev himself calls the charges against him "nonsense", does not agree with the removal of houses from management and states that the main reason for the problems is a personal conflict with the State Housing Inspectorate.
— We serviced dilapidated and dilapidated housing. Our houses are dilapidated and dilapidated housing. It's a difficult job. Could it be that in 2026, GJI tested the same person more than 800 times? So they're not working, they're just checking on Starokozhev. This is nonsense," Starokozhev Sr. told Izvestia journalists.
Complaints about management companies in Russia
Similar stories come from all over the country. Novosibirsk residents have been complaining about the work of the Dzerzhinets Management Company for several years. The reasons are still the same — flooded basements, leaking roofs, uncleaned house territory and ignoring the Criminal Code of the listed problems.
The issues cannot be resolved without the involvement of the prosecutor's Office. In 2024, the Criminal Code started repairing the entrances only after the agency intervened. A little earlier, the prosecutor's office of the Novosibirsk region found that the company had increased the maintenance fee without a decision of the general meeting of owners.
— It's all out of hand! They don't do anything out of their duties. Even with applications left, you have to "kick", says one of the locals.
According to GIS Housing and Communal Services, 385 houses in Novosibirsk are registered for the Criminal Code "Dzerzhinets". The company belongs to JSC "MKS-Novosibirsk", which already manages 686 MCD and another management company "Housing and communal services-Garant". Above "ISS-Novosibirsk" stands CJSC "ISS". He owns seven other management companies. The head of the CJSC is Elena Volkova. Her husband— Ivan Volkov— is the director of the listed Criminal code.
Business partners of Elena Volkova in other companies include Alexey Plyasunov and Alexander Kostyukov. The latter, as previously reported by the media, owned Kovilet LLC, which owns 100% of the shares of MKS CJSC. In early 2026, Alexander Kostyukov resigned from the founders of Kovilet, and Alexey Plyasunov became its sole owner.
The entire network of the Volkov–Kostyukov management companies consists of 2.5 thousand houses and billions of turnover. The active redistribution of the Novosibirsk housing and communal services market took place for 10 years, until 2017. It was then that the Moscow-based ISS holding entered the market and managed to gain a foothold over the years. The company is trying to work openly: it leads a group on the VKontakte social network, publishes news about clean-up days and major house repairs. However, there are dozens of complaints from residents about her work in district and regional publications, especially in winter.
— They come when something breaks, and ask when you will be demolished. When the pipe burst, we waited three days for them to arrive and pump it out," a local resident told Izvestia.
Ivan Volkov does not hide the fact that the company is only waiting for the settlement of such houses and is not going to invest in their repair.
— These are low-rise buildings that are subject to resettlement. We are reaching this wonderful moment, they have already been deleted from the overhaul program. We are not a construction company — we are engaged in the maintenance of houses, but when a house falls apart, we need to resettle it, and not collect money from people for something they will never receive, — says Ivan Volkov.
Why is it difficult to change the management company
It would seem that the best way in such a situation is to get away from an unscrupulous management company. In fact, changing the Criminal Code is not so easy.
After the announcement of the transfer to another company, people from the current Levoberezhye management Company visited the residents of one of the houses in Omsk.
— Levoberezhye has already started running and collecting signatures on the termination of the contract, which does not exist. They went house to house accompanied by guards, intimidated people, reacted aggressively to questions, refused to provide documents. After the police officers arrived, this "company" immediately ran away somewhere, - residents of house 24 on Volgogradskaya Street tell.
Levoberezhye has two valid licenses to operate in the Volgograd and Omsk regions. The company serves 429 homes in the Siberian region. Since 2025, the company has been owned by Oleg Zolotov, a large developer from Omsk, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Stroybeton Group of Companies.
In response to the accusation, Levoberezhye stated that their employees had distributed voting forms regarding major repairs to the house. According to the Criminal Code, an in-person meeting on this issue was held on August 7, and an absentee vote was held until September 30.
— At this stage, forms of resolutions for voting on the issues on the agenda of the meeting are being distributed. The owners themselves must fill out the form, answer the questions on the agenda, sign it and hand it over to the representative of the managing organization for further vote counting," the company explained and reported on the work done over seven years.
Despite his achievements, there are dozens of posts on social media about the activities of the Criminal Code: residents of the city complain about uncleaned container sites, poorly made repairs and flooded basements.
— Our house is serviced by Levoberezhye. On September 30, a sewer pipe burst in the basement. The entire basement was flooded with sewage. Since then, the problem has not been resolved, despite our repeated requests to the management company. The Criminal Code says that the repairs have already been completed and everything is working. But we go down to the basement and see something completely different: pipes continue to flow, sewage drains directly into the ground under the house," said a resident of Omsk.
In February of this year, Levoberezhye re-registered in Volgograd and now plans to expand in a new region.
Where to complain about the management company
Regional statistics for different periods show an increase in complaints about management companies, then a decrease. However, the overall picture does not change: citizens systematically talk about the poor work of the Criminal Code and catch them faking the results of the owners' meeting.
— There are a lot of complaints about management companies because the existing control system often starts working when a violation has occurred. A resident is first confronted with unfulfilled work, questionable charges, fictitious protocols or even forged signatures, and then he is forced to go to the authorities himself and prove the obvious," says Alexander Aksenenko, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Construction and Housing and Communal Services.
To remedy this situation, according to the parliamentarian, it is necessary to oblige the Criminal Code to report to the owners every six months, apply more serious sanctions to those who systematically do not do their work and ignore residents, and promptly check all cases of forgery of the minutes of the meeting, bringing violators to justice.
— A simple principle should fully work: if there is no completed work, there is no full payment for it, — concludes Alexander Aksenenko.
Experts advise to record all violations of the company and massively complain to the regulatory authorities, and if nothing helps, change the Criminal Code.
— Record each violation in photos and videos with reference to date and time. Submit an application to the emergency dispatch service of the Criminal Code and be sure to request its number and the name of the operator. If the management Company does not respond, draw up an act of non—provision of services together with the neighbors - signatures of 2-3 owners are enough. Together with your neighbors, write complaints to the State Housing Inspectorate, Rospotrebnadzor and the prosecutor's office," explains judicial lawyer and public figure Elena Shalaton.
Owners have the right to demand a reduction in fees if the management Company does not perform the work or performs it poorly, says Maria Sirotina, senior associate at the corporate and contractual practice at MGKA Bureau of Lawyers De Jure. If the tenants' private property has been damaged as a result of the company's inaction, they may also claim damages.
— If signs of forgery of signatures or minutes of the general meeting are found, you should request copies of the protocol and a written decision issued on behalf of the owner, as well as file a police report and report the circumstances to the housing inspectorate, — explains the lawyer.
For forgery of the decision and minutes of the general meeting of owners, the management company may be held criminally liable under Article 327 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
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