Everything about this character is seamless: his face, his clothes, his money.
© Online publication «Oryoltimes»
United Russia deputy Sergei Kutenyov burst into the political life of the Oryol Region swiftly and quite spectacularly. Just as swiftly and spectacularly, he exited it.
In the summer of 2020, the astonished gaze of Oryol residents was met with billboards on which Sergei Kutenyov’s face and surname had been pasted over (though Kutenyov’s torso, as well as his first name and patronymic, were left uncovered!). Thanks to this, from the very start of his political career he acquired the nickname “The Man Without a Face”.
The fact is that in 2020, the general director of the Expert-Kabel cable plant, Sergei Kutenyov, was nominated by United Russia as a candidate for deputy of the Oryol City Council. During the election campaign, billboards featuring Sergei Kutenyov’s image and his surname, paid for by Expert-Kabel, were put up around the city.
Most likely, due to his limited electoral experience, the United Russia candidate did not even suspect that during an election campaign all such materials are considered pre-election campaigning and must be paid for from the electoral fund. Information about the violation appeared online — and the very next morning, the candidate’s face and surname had been pasted over on billboards across the entire city.
Naturally, such trifles could not affect the election results: on 13 September 2020, the entrepreneur became a deputy of the Oryol City Council.
However, Sergei Kutenyov’s political career ended rather quickly: as early as 2023, one criminal case was opened against him, and in 2025 — a second. But let us take things in order.
The life and fate of Sergei Kutenyov
Sergei Nikolayevich was born on 29 April 1983 in the city of Volgodonsk, Rostov Oblast. In 2005, he graduated from the South Russian State Technical University, while working in parallel as an electromechanic at the lift section of the municipal unitary enterprise “Gorodskoye Khozyaistvo”. After obtaining his higher education, Sergei moved to Moscow, where for almost ten years he worked as an engineer, head of the electrical installation preparation department at Expert-Elektrika LLC, and head of the supply department at Expert-Energostroy LLC, while simultaneously trying, without much success, to trade in office equipment in his native Volgodonsk.
At the beginning of 2014, the co-owners of Expert-Energostroy LLC, the Cheremisin brothers, established the Cable Plant Expert-Kabel LLC in Oryol Oblast. The new LLC was registered on the premises of a former fire station of the long-defunct Oryol Steel Rolling Plant, alongside Pelmennaya No. 1, Alfakabel LLC, a customs broker, ZhBI-Stroy LLC, Prior LLC and other flagships of the Oryol economy. A 10% stake in the freshly created expert structure was allocated to Sergei Kutenyov, and he was appointed to the position of general director.
And then Sergei Nikolayevich decided to go into power. However, this aspiration was, by all appearances, mutual: power also wished for him to enter it.
In October 2019, the chairman of the Oryol Oblast Council of People’s Deputies, Leonid Muzalevsky, visited the production site of the Expert-Kabel cable plant, and following the meeting presented the plant’s general director, Sergei Kutenyov, with a United Russia party card and… the medal of the Oryol Oblast Council of People’s Deputies “25 Years of the Oryol Oblast Council of People’s Deputies — for contribution to the development of legislation in Oryol Oblast”. What exactly the entrepreneur’s contribution to the development of regional legislation consisted of remained a mystery, but, as Moscow journalist Alexei Bogomolov later wrote, “we believe that a substantial and tangible contribution was indeed made”.
And no one was surprised that as early as 9 June 2020, the political council of the city branch of United Russia approved the list of candidates for the upcoming September elections of deputies to the Oryol City Council of People’s Deputies, where the second name on the “top” list of United Russia candidates was that of Sergei Kutenyov, a man practically unknown in regional political circles.
However, Kutenyov had begun his campaign to promote his beloved self back in May: billboards appeared across the city with the menacing slogan: “You know me!” The most curious were the posters placed around the city featuring a photograph of Kutenyov, along with a sick child in a wheelchair and their mother. The accompanying text expressed gratitude to those who had bought the wheelchair — not some super electronically controlled one, but the most ordinary kind — naturally implying that Kutenyov himself had generously provided for it.
Also during the 2020 election campaign in Oryol, a non-profit organisation, the “Social and Cultural Foundation for Development and Innovation”, was registered, subsequently calling itself, with disarming frankness, the “Kutenyov Foundation”. The foundation’s activities, with their creativity, often made Oryol residents freeze and wonder: “Mum, what was that?” How else can one react, for instance, to a billboard with a portrait of Ivan Turgenev and his supposed profound thought “I do not share anyone’s opinions, I share recyclables” (apparently, an edited and improved version of the words of Yevgeny Bazarov, the hero of the novel “Fathers and Sons”: “I do not share anyone’s opinions, I have my own”)? Or to the idea of marking the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Decossackisation at the grave of the Russian military commander of the late 18th — early 19th century, Alexei Yermolov? Compared to this, the installation around the city of tin houses with a portrait of Sergei Nikolayevich inside, the inscription “Bibliokutenyov” and an appeal to leave unwanted books there seems like an innocent prank.
Nevertheless, the entrepreneur achieves his goals: first he becomes a city deputy, and a year later — a deputy of the oblast council, also on the United Russia party list. The elections of deputies to the oblast council took place on 19 September 2021, and in October of the same year Kutenyov became deputy chairman of the oblast council and chairman of the committee for industry and housing and utilities.
It should be noted that Sergei Kutenyov likes collecting positions: expert of the Council for the Development of the Digital Economy under the Federation Council, expert of the Chamber of Young Legislators under the Federation Council, chairman of the Council of the Oryol Chamber of Commerce and Industry, member of the presidium of the Oryol branch of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, member of the Coordinating Council for Industry of Oryol Oblast under the Governor of Oryol Oblast, chairman of the board of trustees of the NPO “Social and Cultural Foundation for Development and Innovation”, expert of the Izborsk Club, president of the Chess Federation of Oryol Oblast, member of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society — this is far from a complete list of the titles with which the newly-minted Oryol politician likes to introduce himself.
But sooner or later, a fly may be found in the ointment.
The collapse of the schemer
On 3 October 2023, a search and seizure of documents took place at the Expert-Kabel plant, and the press service of the Investigative Committee reported the opening of a criminal case against the United Russia deputy. The matter concerned tax evasion in 2018–2019 — just before the start of Sergei Kutenyov’s rapid political career, which he combined with managing the enterprise.
According to the investigation, Kutenyov had created several firms that existed only on paper. Subsequently, a scheme of fictitious document flow began operating at the Expert-Kabel plant, which made it possible to alter tax and accounting reports, shifting risks onto other controlled firms. All this allowed VAT to be minimised and corporate profit tax to go unpaid.
As a result, over two years the enterprise underpaid the state by 297 million roubles, to which a further sum of around 160 million roubles was later added in the form of penalties and fines.
And already on 5 October, the Presidium of the Oryol regional branch of the United Russia party unanimously adopted a decision to suspend Sergei Kutenyov’s party membership.
Sergei Kutenyov was charged under point “b” of part 2 of article 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation — tax evasion on an especially large scale (it should be recalled that the especially large scale threshold at that time started at 12 million roubles). However, a miracle occurs: in mid-2024, the deputy pays over 460 million roubles in tax debts, including penalties and fines — and the case is immediately closed.
But, by all appearances, what happened did not serve as a good lesson for Sergei Nikolayevich. Or perhaps — on the contrary, it did. And so in June 2025, the newspaper “Kommersant” reported that “the Investigative Committee of Russia’s Directorate for Oryol Oblast has opened a criminal case against the general director of a local company engaged in the production of cable products, on charges of tax evasion on an especially large scale (point ‘b’ of part 2 of article 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, punishable by up to five years of imprisonment)… According to the investigation, in 2020–2021 the head of the enterprise created a scheme of fictitious document flow by shifting tax risks onto two organisations controlled by him. The defendant illegally minimised value-added tax and failed to pay profit tax. The damage from his actions amounted to 443.4 million roubles.”
The Oryol political scene held its breath: will the case follow the same scenario as a couple of years earlier, will Sergei Kutenyov manage to avoid a close encounter with the Russian Themis this time too? As a well-known Russian journalist-foreign agent likes to say in such cases, we shall observe…