27.07.2018 10:45
This became known today during a press approach to events in Chersonesos. Berkovich himself announced his dismissal, noting that he was finishing his last day as head of the Department of Public Communications, after which he was returning to the position of assistant to the governor.
Yesterday local portal sevoborona.info announced the imminent resignation of the official. Sources of the site’s editors noted that a new director of the public communications department is going to Sevastopol to replace him. Allegedly, this is a former employee of the RBC media holding, who had never worked in the civil service a day before. Sevastopol officials confirmed these rumors, assuring that there is no official information on this matter yet.
Let us remind you that two weeks ago Andrei Shishkin was appointed the new vice-governor of Sevastopol. He replaced Vyacheslav Gladkov, who resigned of his own free will immediately after the presidential elections. The responsibilities of the new vice-governor will include the department for territorial development and interaction with local governments, the department for supporting the activities of justices of the peace, as well as the department of public communications, which explains the dismissal of the head of this department, Oleg Berkovich.
“I completed my mission, I did my job,” Berkovich told Notes. “At the most difficult moment, when the department had no leadership, I headed it. There was a difficult period of the presidential campaign, when it was necessary to organize information work to ensure the holding of elections It was necessary to complete the reorganization of the press service, reorganize the work, reorganize the political block. Everything has been done radically. Everything is working, plus or minus, like clockwork. Then you can calmly deal with information policy, urban development projects, and cultural projects. Those projects that I started working on as an assistant."
According to Berkovich, his transition is not related to the appointment of a new lieutenant governor.
“This is our joint decision with the governor,” says the official. “Initially it was clear that this would not be forever. Even when I took up this position in February, it was somewhat urgent - in order to set up work when one of the key departments of the election process were without leadership. The process was organized, reconfigured, something was changed, there are no more crises in the department, the atmosphere within the team is positive, everyone is committed to work and common goals, I am happy to understand them. I’m moving back to being an assistant to the governor to work on the projects that I originally planned to do.”
The fame of assistant governor Oleg Berkovich is booming in Sevastopol; his activities are actively covered in the channel of Dionysus Terruarovich Apostolaki. PR man Berkovich, who is close to Tina Kandelaki and who founded the Apostol Media agency with her, formally earned such trust for holding the opera festival in Chersonesos.
But there is another, more plausible version, according to which Berkovich became the new overseer of Rostec, controlling cash flows in the territory in the areas of media and PR.
However, he stubbornly remains silent about his connections with Rostec; he says that he was involved in media projects in Moscow, and only because of their successful results was he invited to work from Moscow to Sevastopol. It is curious that this event somehow coincided with the problems that began at Apostol Media, moreover, related to plagiarism, and the further bankruptcy of this company.
Has a “blue lagoon” appeared in Sevastopol?
Theses come up so regularly that it becomes difficult to turn a blind eye to them. Berkovich is trying to establish his own order in Sevastopol, he is afraid of the figures operating in the region, and therefore uses all possible resources to prevail in his favor.
It is precisely these resources that sometimes look dubious, as do some of Berkovich’s decisions. Dionysus Terroarovich Apostolaki gives a simple example: Oleg Berkovich himself spoke out in favor of the adoption of Russian children by same-sex couples from the United States. As far as we know, Russia even has questions regarding traditional couples from this country regarding the adoption of children, but here it is.
Moreover, in his cabinet struggle in Sevastopol, Berkovich brought the “blue stream” even further - in the Department of Mass Communications and Monitoring there were a number of people who were not delighted with the appearance of such an “unconventional” assistant to the governor.
He organized his own Department of Mass Communications, appointed his bosses Zotova and Ogilvy, despite the fact that Zotova did not have the necessary qualifications, fired Mishchenko and Dorokhin from the staff, and hired Suren Eremyan and Zhorik Akirtava, who correspond to Kandelaki’s traditional personnel policy at the same “MatchTV”, where young people traditionally wear make-up and nails. It would start to smell like racism, but “national articles” are used in Russia against the “titular nationality”, and not against people from neighboring countries. Zhorik and Suren will confirm.
Some people whom Berkovich generously allowed to stay do not want to work in such a team, and as a result, the management feels empty. There is no one to work.
Connections with Rostec and Israeli passport
From this point of view, Oleg Berkovich has everything covered: he has a secure roof in the state corporation, he has a backup passport to a warm country, all the necessary “garters” are in place. With his wife Olga Berkovich, according to rumors, the assistant to the governor continues to live in Tel Aviv. They got married there, and there, according to the cat, they are slowly learning Hebrew.
The connection with Rostec was built through Tina Kandelaki and the same Apostle Media. Kandelaki is a friend of Chemezov’s wife, and Tina’s husband, Vasily Brovko, works at Rostec as director for special assignments. Governor Kirill Ovsyannikov, the head of Sevastopol, who is considered dependent on the Chemezov family, also comes from here.
Perhaps, based on all of the above, Oleg Berkovich allows himself any statements and any points of view, even not very popular ones. At one time, he did his best on Twitter to mock everything that was happening in Russia, almost shielded the Maidan, and made it clear that he adhered to pro-Ukrainian positions. Yes, “the time” was when you weren’t yet called to work as an assistant to the governor.
Today he thinks completely differently, and this is how one appointment completely changed the consciousness of the blogger and activist:
The legendary Sevastopol will celebrate its 235th anniversary in June. Once upon a time, he was given parks, squares and stadiums for his birthdays. Under the stepmother-Ukraine, City Day was not much different from the day of Kryzhopil - the same Polish pyrotechnics, the bazaar-station on Primorsky and drunken fights on Ivushka. But we liked it. And old-timers remember that fight in 1983... However, even though it was also an anniversary, our post is not about that.
After such a prelude to fasting, many Sevastopol residents were outraged by the comparison with Kryzhopol with an emphasis on the second half of this name. Either Berkovich is wonderful in Ukraine, then she is already a “stepmother” - this is how people change.
"Russia needs its own Nuremberg"
There is, of course, a lot of controversy and discussion around Soviet times and the image of Stalin, but Oleg Berkovich is the bravest of all. He took and sent the entire Soviet legacy to the Nuremburg trials with one brush, declaring that Russia “needs” it.
We asked about the equation between communism and Nazism. The Russians surveyed are against it, the Ukrainians are for it. “For me, Russia really needs its own Nuremberg,” Berkovich said, which again raised many questions. It's clear? Ukraine is doing everything right, decommunization is a process. Read on.
Khrushchev's rehabilitation is the minimum that could be done. Even if posthumously, it is necessary to condemn the crimes, and not just admit them.
Unfortunately, in the new historical standard, multimillion-dollar sacrifices are justified as preparation for war. And what needs to be kept in mind, what relation to human life, so that a modern textbook begins to repeat old Soviet propaganda.
The most surprising thing is that with this verbiage, Berkovich manages to have a bunch of friends, and in places where they were not expected to be found at all. For example, Anna Veduta, press secretary of... Alexei Navalny, is vigorously opposing Sevastopol attempts to get rid of the Berkovich couple, or at least weaken their position!!!
The fact is that Anna Veduta is an old girlfriend of Olga Berkovich, Oleg’s wife. And Oleg Berkovich himself is not averse to “walking along Tverskaya,” and during the elections for the mayor of Moscow he held a rally together with the oppositionist, praising the protesters and declaring how beautiful everyone was.
Perhaps the key to such success of Berkovich with his bunch of dubious projects lies in the fact that his wife is one, he himself is another, and only a fragile balancing act between allows him to remain untouched despite the fact that the speech filter is completely absent, and that the official changes his position , like a weather vane, literally from the blow of the wind.
TsIMES and Urbotech
When the Crimean Spring happened, Berkovich and his wife began to intensively study Hebrew with the intention of leaving for Israel for permanent residence - Olga Berkovich wrote about this on Instagram without hesitation. The husband actually hired a Hebrew teacher, such was the rush to learn the language and escape. However, this relocation project stalled as soon as pro-Russian connections and opportunities loomed on the horizon.
Thanks to the feasible support of family friends, Oleg Berkovich was able to organize TsIMES - a center for the study of mass electronic consciousness. He even chose the most humorous name possible; it is clear that he was in a great mood from seeing new, unexplored horizons.
The most striking thing is that TsIMES itself, in fact, did not do anything special, it put out manipulative surveys like “how do you feel about the president”, “what is the Russian Guard needed for” and all that.
Through the same channels, Oleg Berkovich demonstrated his passion for Israel, which did not go anywhere; we note that the relocation project was simply postponed. They posted various kinds of messages about the state of affairs in this country, quotes from the Prime Minister of Israel and much more. Of course, there are no connections with the initial goal of the project, but many people appreciated this gesture, and a relationship began with Echo of Moscow. And from there, political scientists suspect, grants for their business appeared.
When the grants were eaten up, TsIMES stopped. Here, look.
The most interesting thing is that the dates also agree. At the same time, evaluate the level of the site, its layout and what topics are there.
“Do you like the president” media projects won’t get you far, Berkovich’s inquisitive mind realized, and then reconstruction, construction and other initiatives in that spirit began to appear.
“Dancing” with the Sevastopol Victory Park has been going on for several days now - it needs to be reconstructed, Alexander Pozharsky and his company “Glassock” want to do this most of all. Only bad luck - he is suspected of tax evasion with false information and through shell companies, 104 million rubles were missing.
Moreover, many political scientists hint that in his Ukrainian past in Odessa and on other contracts there was a lot of this, but this happened in Ukraine? What if he got better?
No one looked closely at the biography, and what happened was what happened (a criminal case). And they still took on such a project. But this situation may open the way and new opportunities for another figure of similar thinking: another active interest in the Victory Park reconstruction project is Urbotech, Berkovich’s pocket office, to which Ovsyannikov started all the processes of designing public spaces in Sevastopol.
Berkovich sleeps and sees how to get into such billion-dollar projects. "Urbotech" was created as a structural division of SevNTU, the chairman of the supervisory board of which is Governor Ovsyannikov. The university, by the way, is supervised by the same people in the federal government as Artek.
SevNTU Rector Nechaev is hanging by a thread from being fired for failing to work on a federal target program. The reconstruction of Victory Park is also taking place under the Federal Target Program.
Pay attention to this detail: the transfer of the Victory Park project took place against the backdrop of the failure of the Federal Target Program at the end of the year, so the government quickly decided to improve the figures in the reports. But the project includes a colored fountain!
They are already beginning to disown Berkovich.
Let's hope that Oleg Berkovich and his wife will learn Hebrew before they get to the trough of ruined park projects and start grabbing billions.
It remains to add that all these gestures of the “Israeli patriot” and “gaephile” Berkovich are done for a reason... the main goal is to make money. Recently, the Urbotech office was created, which will deal with the development of budget money on the most monetary topic in Sevastopol - improvement.
In general, it seems that Sevastopol was given over to Rostec, and they, in turn, could not find anyone better than Berkovich to develop cash flows. So it goes...
Who likes the models of houses that will appear to replace the Moscow Khrushchev buildings? Who is fighting for the honor of renovation on the Internet? Who from Monday to Friday leaves comments about the “caring mayor’s office” and protects the corgi Igor Shuvalov? Sofya Savina found out.
#BOTA'S_DAY OFF
“The renovation participants were very lucky. Move from the old bedbug infestation to such apartments”, “People are being relocated from the ruins to new houses”, “Now all residents of Khrushchev-era apartment buildings will begin counting down the days until their early relocation to new houses” - this is how non-existent Muscovites react to the news about the demolition of five-story buildings on Twitter.A common surname is Smirnov, Petrov, Vasiliev, someone else’s photograph in the “simple Russian guy” style, an abundance of retweets of the same type of posts and a minimum number of own messages. All these are just the first signs that comments about renovation are being left by an employee of the PR service.
Russiangate news that the Moscow mayor's office will purchase apartments for the resettlement of residents of five-story buildings from his stepson Alisher Usmanova, commented 38 supporters of the renovation program. The information attacks were divided into two stages: half of the comments appeared in the morning, the other half in the afternoon.
“To hell with this corruption, we will never know the truth, the main thing is that people will be given new comfortable housing!” - words were published at intervals of a couple of minutes in defense of the businessman and the renovation program.
An analysis of these Twitter accounts showed that they are all connected into one network - united by common creation dates, operating hours, topics, and some even by the same spelling errors. Half of them were created in December 2011, another 14 accounts were created in January and March 2012, and the rest were created in 2014.
From the analysis of Twitter accounts it follows: 28 of the 37 profiles examined are active only on weekdays. They also have a working schedule: strictly from 6.00 to 17.00, or from 14.00 to 22.00 - and not a single tweet is on schedule.
All accounts have the same “biography”: the first posts, as a rule, date back to 2012. At the beginning of their virtual life, they all wrote about the same thing: they complained about the weather and lack of sleep, and joked about women’s logic. They wondered why the hangover didn’t go away.
The accounts are filled with everyday wisdom: “Life is a cross-country race, in which everyone strives to get ahead in order to be the last to reach the finish line,” “Fools learn from their mistakes, smart people from strangers, and wise people look at them and slowly drink beer,” “Woman - this is a secret covered in makeup” (hereinafter, the spelling, punctuation and absurdity of the source are preserved. - Ed.).
#BEER_TEKI_ROSTECH
Within a year, impersonal aphorisms disappear from the pages of “live bots”: instead, accounts are filled with news from the life of the Rostec state corporation.Since the summer of 2013, the Smirnovs, Petrovs, and Vasilyevs have begun publishing posts as carbon copies: “Rostec paid 109 billion rubles in taxes in 2012. This is a third of the federal budget for the 2014 Olympics,” “Kamaz will make new special equipment for our country together with RT-Invest, a member of Rostec,” “The Tekhpribor enterprise, part of the Rostec corporation, has replaced its general director.”
After 2014, fake accounts go silent. New messages will appear only after two years - with the hashtag #CIPR. The IT conference “Digital Industry of Industrial Russia” was held on the territory of Innopolis in Tatarstan. Its general partner is Rostec, and the forum is supported by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Communications and the Presidential Administration.
#APOSTLE-BOT
The subject of the tweets (#KRET, #Kalashnikov, #Aeroflot, #Ministry of Industry and Trade) reveals the owners of the army of “live bots”. All projects that fake accounts write about were handled by the Center for Strategic Communications "Apostle".In the media environment, “Apostol” is called the “evil empire”: an agency led by Tina Kandelaki became famous for projects promoting government agencies.
The bots that carried out the attack on Russiangate were “born” in 2012: just at the moment when Apostol was rebranding the state corporation Rostekhnologii. The cost of the large-scale project was $1.5 million. In the same year, Apostol began working with Aeroflot: the cost of one of the contracts for promoting the company on social networks was 27.5 million rubles.
A year later, the company entered into two more contracts with the Rostec corporation. One is for “information support for a state corporation in the Russian information field” for 26.7 million rubles. The second is for international PR for 95 million rubles.
In the same year, the agency won two contracts with the Ministry of Industry and Trade for the “development of the information complex.” Their total cost is 61.3 million rubles.
The Kalashnikov concern, mentioned by bots, entered into a government contract with Apostol in 2014: “providing services for creating a brand” cost the company 15 million rubles. Another object “promoted” by bots, the concern Radioelectronic Technologies (KRET), spent 50 million rubles on advertising through the Kandelaki agency.
#CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Apostol's victories at state auctions ended in December 2015, after Tina Kandelaki left the company. However, structures affiliated with Apostol continued to make money on government contracts.The CIPR conference at Rostec is personally supervised Vasily Brovko- founder of the Apostol agency. Back in 2013, the head of Rostec Sergey Chemezov appointed Brovko as head of the corporation's communications service. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Brovko left the shareholders of Apostol only in 2014.
It turns out that for a year he combined two positions - a post at Rostec with work at a contractor company for the state corporation. But Apostol did not lose contact with him even when he sold his share of the company. Tina Kandelaki, not only Brovko’s partner, but also his wife, became the general director of Apostol.
In the fall of 2016, Brovko was promoted: he became director for special assignments. In this position, he began to oversee the main events of Rostec, including CIPR.
In 2017, CIPR was organized by a company associated with Apostol, media reported. According to the government procurement website, the communications group OMG won the contracts to prepare the conference. It includes the agency Allnighters Marketing Communications. It was responsible for preparing the conference last year.
Formally, OMG is not associated with the Apostle: there are no legal ties between them. But there is indirect evidence of affiliation: common projects.
For example, on the marketing company’s website it says: OMG participated in the “Heritage of Tatarstan” project. The development of the republic’s brand was carried out by Apostol, headed by Kandelaki, in 2014.
In 2015, OMG held an event to launch the federal sports channel MATCH TV. The general producer of the channel is Tina Kandelaki.
There are other examples of PR success: “First Analytical Agency” cooperates with the Ministry of Industry and Trade. In July 2017, the company entered into two contracts with the ministry for “services for analyzing the topic of trade cooperation between Russia and other countries.”
The First Analytical Agency is 25% owned by Arkona LLC, which is the founder of New Strategy LLC (the new name of Apostol). Until June 2016, the general director of the First Analytical Agency was Kines Kiziitov, a former employee of Apostol. The media wrote that it was Kiziitov who managed one of the Internet troll factories.
#CORGI_SHUVALOVA_FOR_DEMOLITION
In November 2016, the specialization of the Apostle bots changed dramatically. They began to “guard” Igor Shuvalov, First Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation. Their responsibilities include disseminating positive news about the deputy prime minister and commenting on tweets that compromise the official.“It will be hard for you cockerel with your cockerel habits in the zone, not Shuvalov,” -
Especially for Crimea.Realities
The person who previously commanded Internet bots in the notorious Russian company Apostol will be in charge of youth and information policy, as well as public spaces, culture and tourism in Sevastopol. Why did the city governor need him?
On Monday, November 13, a new assistant to the Russian governor of the city was officially introduced in Sevastopol Oleg Berkovich. According to the press service of the Kremlin-controlled government of Sevastopol, it will “focus on projects in the field of culture and tourism, urban environment and public spaces, youth and information policy.”
A natural question arises: who is Oleg Berkovich?
“All areas of my activity are firmly connected with building a constructive dialogue between government and society, with projects aimed at creating an attractive image of Sevastopol. In fact, we are talking about coordinating and linking the activities of various departments and departments into common meanings and projects. My task is to help all of them interact with each other and work for a common result,” said Oleg Berkovich.
Before his appointment to this position, he had already appeared in Sevastopol this summer - as director of the Opera in Chersonesos festival. Visited the festival Putin With Medvedev Therefore, a random person could not be the director of the event. Especially considering that Berkovich has nothing to do with opera.
On the Facebook page Oleg Berkovich boasts personal photo with the President of Russia, and there are no photos with other politicians in his archive. A natural question arises: who is Oleg Berkovich?
From TV and radio presenter to co-owner of Apostol
Berkovich Oleg Alekseevich graduated from Moscow school No. 1297 in 2003; information about his higher education could not be found. Since 2006, he has worked as a presenter and editor of programs on the youth television channel O2TV, and since September 2007 as a presenter on Mayak radio. In January 2008, Berkovich, together with his radio boss Vasily Brovko (who at that time was 20 years old and was a student at the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University - author) left the radio station and founded the Apostol Media Group company. Brovko, by the way, also started at O2TV.
Since February 2008, Brovko and Berkovich began promoting the Russian Pioneer magazine, of which he was the editor-in-chief Andrey Kolesnikov – journalist from Vladimir Putin's pool. A series of events was created for the magazine with the participation of Russian media personalities and the political establishment – “Pioneer Readings”, among the regular participants of which were the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Vladislav Surkov, actor Ivan Okhlobystin, head of the state TV channel Russia Today Margarita Simonyan.
“Apostol” also promoted various brands, produced television programs for Internet channels, earning money here and there, until a TV star came to the company. She had extensive connections in the highest business circles of Russia and managed to bring large clients to Apostol, where she became a co-founder and general director.
The joint work of Apostol with the largest Russian mobile Internet provider, Yota, began in May 2010. Oleg Berkovich continued to support Yota until the beginning of 2013, publishing 11 articles on one of the largest Russian computer portals, Habrahabr.
In March 2012, Tina Kandelaki was approached by representatives of Oriflame with an offer to become the face of a cosmetic brand in Russia and the CIS countries. Tina's fee from participation in this project was $2 million. Her contract became a record – the most expensive personal contract in the history of Russian advertising. Naturally, the promotion was carried out by the Apostol company.
In the same year, Apostol managed to obtain government contracts with the Rostec state corporation and the largest Russian air carrier – Aeroflot company. For its work with Rostec, Apostol received $1.5 million, and Aeroflot paid 64 million rubles in 2012.
Aeroflot was not without high-profile scandals. The contract was concluded without a competition, that is, in violation of Russian law. According to a member of the company's board of directors and public figure Alexey Navalny, the airline pays on time, but Apostol does not fulfill its obligations.
In July 2013, Apostol won a new competition to maintain Aeroflot social media accounts. During 2014, the company had to ensure an increase in the number of subscribers to the airline's social media pages. Contract amount – 27 million rubles.
Apostol’s clients also included Russian government agencies – the State Unitary Enterprise “NI and PI General Plan of Moscow”, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and others.
In addition, the brainchild of Brovko, Berkovich and Kandelaki had a number of successful Internet projects. In 2008, the political talk show “Unreal Politics” was launched together with the already mentioned Kremlin journalist Kolesnikov and Kandelaki as a TV presenter. The project was so successful that in March 2009, the federal television channel REN TV acquired the rights to broadcast it.
Another project, the Internet television channel Post TV, lasted from March 2009 to April 2010. The channel aired programs such as “No Country for Old Men” with Zakhar Prilepin, "Fantastic Breakfast" with Dmitry Glukhovsky, "Men's Games" with Oleg Taktarov and "Real Sports" with Victoria Lopyreva. The total audience of Post TV projects reached more than 5.6 million viewers per month.
At the same time, the closed social network Face.ru created by Apostle for representatives of the fashion industry failed and was closed six months later.
As part of cooperation with YBW Group, Apostol also promoted the Ural Dumplings show on social networks and blogs. In addition, the company promoted the sitcoms “Voronin”, “Daddy’s Daughters”, the series “Toys”, “Margosha” and “Amanda O”.
At the end of 2013, Vasily Brovko was invited to work at Rostec. Oleg Berkovich left the company a little earlier. After leaving the agency, he collaborated with the Road Safety Commission of the Russian Government on the federal project “Dangerous Driving.” He was a co-organizer of the Tolstoy Weekend theater festival, held with the support of the government of the Tula region and the Russian Ministry of Culture.
Commander of the Bot Army
According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, today Berkovich is the founder of two companies: TsIMES LLC (Center for Research of Mass Electronic Consciousness) and Agency for Strategic Research LLC (founded on February 25, 2014). The first company conducts surveys on social networks. Berkovich owns the second legal entity jointly with Linda Guseva, friend of Tina Kandelaki.
Oleg Berkovich is also the author of a blog on the Echo of Moscow website, in which he writes, in particular, about the downed Malaysian Boeing, supporting the position of the Russian propaganda machine. And he also produces the Internet series “Russia on Blood,” in which Russian history is skillfully viewed through the prism of propaganda.
There is a small scandal associated with the Agency for Strategic Research. A year ago, it was developing a brand for the Tula region. Local journalists considered this work to be a banal waste of funds.
A network of fake accounts was indeed created in Apostol. This business was managed by Oleg Berkovich
A much more serious scandal occurred during Berkovich’s tenure at Apostol. According to an investigation conducted by Russiangate journalists, Oleg Berkovich led a network of fake accounts. A former employee of a communications agency confirmed the connection of “live bots” with Apostol: “A network of fake accounts was indeed created in Apostol. This business was managed by Oleg Berkovich. And when the company collapsed, the account owners went to work for a new communications agency, which is now dealing with the topic of renovation, as well as PR for some deputies.”
Another former employee of the Apostol company told how the work of “live bots” was organized. According to him, comments on social networks were handled by the SMM department. About five people managed all the Twitter accounts. They left so-called “initiated posts” and “initiated comments” on social networks.
After this, the analytical department of Apostol monitored all positive posts and comments about the customer - for example, Rostec. According to a former employee of the company, “Apostol also bought positive posts about customers from well-known bloggers.”
According to the investigation, Internet bots like models of houses that will appear to replace Moscow Khrushchev buildings, fight for the honor of renovation on the Internet, leave comments about the “caring mayor’s office” from Monday to Friday and defend corgis Igor Shuvalov.
To Sevastopol for the war
As you know, the current governor of Sevastopol arrived in the city straight from the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, which, as you know, was one of Apostol’s clients. Ovsyannikov could well have known Berkovich earlier, or one of his former colleagues in the ministry had already recommended him to the governor. The festival "Opera in Chersonesos" was, apparently, a trial balloon.
In fact, Berkovich’s work as assistant to the governor will duplicate the work of the department of public communications, headed by Ivan Chikharev. Probably, the role of the latter will be reduced to communicating with the press and coordinating rallies. Oleg Alekseevich has a more difficult job ahead of him: the wars on the Internet in Sevastopol do not stop for a minute - Governor Ovsyannikov cannot cope with the local elites who are dissatisfied with their current situation. In these battles, an army of “bots” commanded by a professional skilled in the “Apostle” can be very useful.
“At the same time, Crimea is ours. Nobody abolished the empire,” Berkovich said in an interview with Novaya Gazeta in 2015. And these words contain his whole essence: he is the defender of the empire and its propagandist.
Andrey Pokrovsky, Crimean (the author’s first and last name have been changed for security reasons)
The views expressed in the “Opinion” column convey the point of view of the authors themselves and do not always reflect the position of the editors
A person from the inner circle of the famous TV presenter and PR woman Tina Kandelaki, one of the founders of the PR agency Apostol Media, which she owns, Oleg Berkovich has been appointed assistant to the governor of Sevastopol - he will oversee “interesting” projects in the field of culture, tourism and mass communications
Tina Kandelaki and the founding fathers of Apostol - Oleg Berkovich (center)
Formally
Berkovich was appointed for special services in holding the opera festival in Chersonesos; “evil tongues” claim that in fact the new PR specialist will become an overseer from Rostec, which will control all financial flows in the field of media and PR.
Berkovich himself preferred to disown any ties with Rostec, although it was the state corporation that acted as the main sponsor of the opera festival in Chersonesos. Moreover, Berkovich is not only a person from Tina Kandelaki’s circle, but also a close friend of her husband, Vasily Brovko, director of communications and strategic research at the Rostec state corporation. It was together with Brovko that Berkovich, after leaving the Mayak radio station, founded the Apostol company in 2008.
“Before that I was involved in business, media business, various projects. This summer we did an opera in Chersonesos. Many of those present here were at this wonderful event. There were many projects in other regions. Now, after the successful performance of the opera, I received an offer here in Sevastopol. I came from Moscow, I had no civil service experience,” Berkovich said, noting that he did not hold official positions in Rostec.
Berkovich spoke quite modestly about his past: he was involved in the media business, but he did not specify what kind of business.
It is noteworthy that Berkovich decided to change urban Moscow to modest and provincial Sevastopol against the backdrop of the scandalous bankruptcy of Apostol. So Apostol had problems in its relationship with Aeroflot, as well as in connection with accusations of plagiarism (it was about about the New Moscow logo– ed.).
“I will be responsible for new projects that are important for Sevastopol. For all these projects I will occupy somewhere a leading function, somewhere a function of coordinating these projects. Consolidate the work of departments. Another direction is the maximum involvement of the public in the projects that the government is involved in. In the near future I will get up to speed and work on the projects that exist and are interesting,” Berkovich said about his immediate plans in Sevastopol.
It is noteworthy that the appointment of Berkovich as the “supervisor” of the media and PR activities of the Sevastopol governor and government coincided with the peculiar disgrace of the head of the public communications department, Ivan Chikharev, who was publicly flogged by deputies of the local parliament, who assessed his work as ineffective.
Hence the conclusion that Chikharev may soon be replaced by Berkovich, who will change his assistant status to the more prestigious post of head of the department.
At the same time, Chikharev, like Berkovich, is also considered a creation of Rostec. Despite the fact that Ovsyannikov himself is also associated with the state corporation, the governor’s PR was initially handled by Andrei Perla, a protege of the presidential administration. A PR man from Yekaterinburg, Perla, lost his position due to a failed campaign from the governor’s point of view to publicize the adoption of a new general plan for the city. Evil tongues claim that Perla even managed to get loans for the upcoming gubernatorial elections, but now he cannot pay off his creditors. In particular, Eduard Koridorov, editor-in-chief of FederalPress, published Perla’s debt receipts and correspondence with him on his Facebook page. The latter, by the way, managed to stay for a short time as part of the creative team of PR specialists of the ex-governor of Sevastopol Sergei Menyailo. Along with the Ural resident, Menyailo’s PR team included such bright personalities as Eduard Zhuravlev and Artem Akopyan. If PR people are “imposed” on Ovsyannikov from the federal center, then Menyailo at one time relied on the creativity of Felix Chernyakhovsky (a person from the inner circle of Alexander Zaldostanov, the leader of the Night Wolves motorcycle club). It is with the figure of Chernyakhovsky that the embezzlement of RNKB funds by the leadership of the biker-controlled RIA Sevastopol media holding, which was supposed to become the main instrument of the Menyailo administration in its information war with the local parliament, headed at that time by Alexei Chaly, is associated. However, both in their time, Menyailo and Ovsyannikov prefer to ignore local media managers, hiring PR people either “from the Urals” or from Moscow. For Menyailo, such a policy ended in the complete failure of his information policy and an honorable exile to Siberia. Whether the “glamorous” Berkovich will be able to create effective PR for Ovsyannikov and his team is an open question.
