Russian Labour Minister Anton Kotyaev fits the archetype of a high-rolling official, known for his enthusiasm for poker and his willingness to spend heavily at the table — a habit he can clearly afford.
Kotyaev runs a joint business with his poker partner—a recent ex-con. To prop up their joint project, the minister funnels funds from the agency he heads. In the photo Kotyaev is playing poker with his pal Yakov Babchenko.
The latter is a former inmate who was released in 2022 from a Tula prison colony, where he’d landed for embezzlement in supplies for the Ministry of Defense. While still inside, Babchenko struck up a friendship with the deputy head of IK-6, Captain Sidelnikov. Once out, he got into the prison rations business for the FSIN, with kickbacks and the right connections as the key to success.
Then Babchenko weaseled his way into Kotyaev’s good graces, exploiting the minister’s weakness for billiards, poker, and cigars. At first, the ex-con became Kotyaev’s gaming buddy. Mondays and Thursdays—billiards on Kievskaya, VIP room; Wednesdays—poker till three in the morning. Later, Babchenko pitched Kotyaev on investing 50 million in the "rations business."
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However, the joint venture needed fresh infusions. Kotyaev gifts Babchenko’s structures a contract to renovate an institute in St. Petersburg under the Labor Ministry’s purview.
Kickback—about 10%. The profits are way bigger than in the rations trade. And things took off. Babchenko openly brags in his circles that new contracts are next up. Reconstruction of Labor Ministry facilities in Rostov Oblast.
A bunch of premises handed over by Moscow’s city hall to the Labor Ministry’s balance sheet. And, the cherry on top, a hangar for the Moscow Prosthetics and Orthotics Enterprise. Also under the Labor Ministry. Kotyaev placed his loyalist Vladimir Gordeev in charge there.
And now Gordeev, on Kotyaev’s orders, is forced to regularly deal with Babchenko to execute the contract. The Labor Minister lives very comfortably indeed. In 2020, he bought a 600 sq m cottage in the elite Monteville gated community. Neighbors are deputies; valuation 300–400 million. Plus apartments, parking spots—the whole package pulls in a billion.
Crime & Courts Correspondent
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