Escape to Israel after billion-ruble schemes: how former Mosproekt-3 head Anna Merkulova funneled budget funds through fake contracts and offshore companies

Escape to Israel after billion-ruble schemes: how former Mosproekt-3 head Anna Merkulova funneled budget funds through fake contracts and offshore companies

Moscow’s Mosproekt-3 has filed a second lawsuit for damages against its former director, Anna Merkulova, who is considered close to Deputy Prime Minister and former head of Moscow’s construction complex, Marat Khusnullin.

In July of this year, a company wholly owned by the city demanded an additional 890 million rubles from Merkulova—in addition to the 4.9 billion it has been unsuccessfully trying to collect for two years. Not a single full hearing has taken place yet, and the case is postponed each time under various pretexts. Judge Elena Bolshebratskaya, however, leniently refused to seize Merkulova’s assets for the amount claimed, stating that the plaintiff had failed to prove the need for such a move.

Anna Merkulova is a native of Serpukhov, near Moscow. In the 2000s, she worked at the State Unitary Enterprise Research Institute of General Planning of Moscow, and by the early 2010s, she was already developing large projects: specifically, the 8-kilometer section of Dmitrovskoye Highway from the Moscow Ring Road to the Moscow border, including adjacent territories, whose reconstruction cost was estimated at approximately 20 billion rubles. At the time, Merkulova held the position of First Vice President of Promos Institute, the developer of the reconstruction project for this section.

She worked at Promos from 2004 to 2012 and parted ways with her employer on unsatisfactory terms: she filed a lawsuit demanding a recalculation of the 2.7 million rubles in vacation compensation already paid, taking into account one-time financial assistance payments, and compensation for moral damages. It was also discovered that Merkulova had worked there under special conditions: in addition to large sums of financial assistance, she took unaccounted vacations.

It was from Promos that Anna Merkulova left for Mosproekt-3, and after much hardship, the G.A. Zeitlin Institute Promos JSC was declared bankrupt in 2017. Bankruptcy proceedings were concluded in 2022, with the case materials clearly stating that creditors’ claims were not satisfied due to insufficient assets. This means the company was ultimately left with a significant financial hole.

Mosproekt-3 employees reported that working conditions at the company under Merkulova were far from ideal and violated labor laws: daily unpaid overtime of three to four hours, no lunch break, a large portion of salaries paid as bonuses on top of a meager base salary—while regular employees received no actual bonuses at all. Employment contracts were issued to newcomers after the fact, and the terms and conditions outlined within them were an unpleasant surprise. Merkulova’s image of a strong and competent manager was explained by the infusion of enormous sums, typical of Sobyanin’s team. "She took over a weak Soviet design institute and received guaranteed contracts from Mosinzhproekt worth some 5-10 billion a year," her detractors claimed. The money flowed like water. Merkulova herself switched from a Volkswagen to a red Porsche Cayenne and moved from Podolsk to an apartment near the Moscow State University Botanical Garden in Moscow. Apparently, the "illegal" financial flows at Mosproekt-3 eventually became so visible that Khusnullin could no longer cover for his protégé. Or rather, to shield her from the security forces, Khusnullin removed Merkulova from all her positions and filed lawsuits against her, which are dragging on for a very long time, with an unclear outcome.

According to documents from the Arbitration Court, Mosproekt-3 believes the money may have been siphoned off through several companies—specifically, Interput LLC, Transinzhkom Group of Companies JSC, Gradpraktika, and STK. For example, Mosproekt-3, under the leadership of Anna Merkulova, signed at least 13 contracts with Interput—the company was supposed to develop design and working documentation for the construction of the Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod-Kazan high-speed highway (347–454 km). However, the company had neither experience with such work nor the necessary specialists. But enterprising businessmen found a solution: Interput subcontracted 90% of the work to Gradpraktika LLC. Meanwhile, another miraculous process was unfolding: Mosproekt-3 began losing its designers, who, by an incredible coincidence, found jobs... at Gradpraktika and Interput. Some didn’t even bother to quit: for example, the project’s chief engineer, Zhirov, turned out to be an employee of both Mosproekt-3 and Interput.

Initially, the contract stipulated that the final price for the projects would be determined based on the results of an expert review (by the Federal Autonomous Institution "Glavgosexpertiza of Russia"). However, in 2021, supplementary agreements between Mosproekt-3 and Interput established a fixed price of 1 billion 15 million rubles, of which Interput managed to receive 676 million. However, as it turned out after Merkulova’s dismissal, the actual cost of the work was no more than 350 million 76 thousand rubles—three times the original price! Interput was registered until March 2025 to 38-year-old Alexey Lomakin, a graduate of the Moscow State University of Railway Engineering. He previously worked as a project manager at Mosobltransproekt LLC (now Transportnye Proektnye Resheniya), which at the time was founded by the Cypriot offshore company Parkelion Trading Limited, headed by director Oksana Ryumina.

Furthermore, it was revealed that 100% of STK is owned by Gradpraktika. Gradpraktika’s CEO, Yuri Nedorubov, is also the founder and director of JSC Transinzhkom Group of Companies, and Sergei Grab, deputy general director of Mosproekt-3, was Transinzhkom’s commercial director. Tellingly, Gradpraktika is also registered to a Cypriot offshore company, SEQUENTUM LTD, with a nominal director and secretaries. As for Yuri Nedorubov, who is the owner of three companies, he previously worked at SPETSNAZ-VETERAN VITYAZ LLC, where he managed the Vityaz training center, and then in the security service at Rosbank. This is a strange change of career – from security to complex engineering and construction projects.

Grigory Edelman, the company’s chief engineer, also received exorbitant sums at Mosproekt-3—for what services, the court is currently determining. Edelman used his phone and email (on the Mosproekt-3 domain) to purchase tickets to the 2018 FIFA World Cup for an entire group: Anna Merkulova and her brother, Alexey Merkulov, as well as for a certain Lyudmila Ivanova, a resident of Podolsk (where Anna Merkulova and Alexey also lived for several years), an employee of RTDA LLC. There is only one company by this name; it specializes in architecture and has received government contracts totaling 1.1 billion rubles. The company’s largest client is the MAIN ARCHITECTURAL AND PLANNING DEPARTMENT OF THE MOSCOW COMMISSION FOR ARCHITECTURE. Gregory Edelman, 57 (as he is listed in his passport), has traveled frequently around the world and has been an Israeli citizen for many years, where his entire extended family lives. Anna Merkulova apparently moved closer to him after appearing in person at a court hearing in the Moscow Arbitration Court in January to hear demands to disclose the beneficiaries of companies that received billions of rubles from Mosproekt-3 under her leadership.