Mikhail Alexandrovich Men (; born 12 November 1960) is a Russian statesman and public figure, entrepreneur, musician, composer, producer. Deputy Chairman of the Culture Committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federation (1995–2000). Deputy Governor of the Moscow Oblast (1999–2002), Deputy Mayor of Moscow (2002–2005), Head of Administration (Governor) of the Ivanovo Oblast (2005–2013), Minister of Construction Industry, Housing and Utilities Sector (1 November 2013 — 18 May 2018), Auditor of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation (20 June 2018 — 2 June 2021), Full State Councilor of the Russian Federation, 1st class, Candidate of Philosophical Sciences.
Biography He was born into the family of a priest and theologian, Father Alexander Men (1935–1990). His mother was Natalia Fyodorovna Grigorenko (1933–2021).
During his school years, he played the lead role in the film Deniskin's Stories, based on the stories of Viktor Dragunsky.«Ведомости», № 204 (1731), 30.10.2006.
While at school, he graduated from a music school with a specialization in classical guitar. He performed as a member of VIA "Shkolniye Gody", where he composed his own music and performed as both a singer and bass guitarist.
Education In 1978, immediately after graduating from high school, he entered the Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas, but he did not finish his studies there. Later, he underwent professional retraining at this university by the program "Economics and Management at oil and gas enterprises".
1980—1982 — service in the armed forces (units of Pacific Fleet's Dalvoenmorstroy in the cities of Vladivostok (Primorsky Krai) and Sovetskaya Gavan (Khabarovsk Krai). He was an Honors student of military construction. During Men's military service he specialized "Tower crane operator". After his dismissal, he entered and graduated from the directing department of the Moscow State Art and Cultural University. Later, he also graduated from the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration with honor Diploma in Jurisprudence. In 2001, he Mikhail Men defended his PhD thesis for the degree of Candidate of Philosophical Sciences in theme "Value orientations of personality in the context of the mutual influence of religion and other phenomena of spiritual culture"
The beginning of labor, social, political and creative activities From 1983 to 1991, he worked in cultural institutions in Moscow and Moscow Oblast. In parallel with this work, Mikhail Men launched a number of musical projects. In 1986 together with the guitarist Alexey Tumanov they created the rock band Most. Mikhail Men co-wrote most of the songs, also he recorded vocals and played bass guitar on the band's first album. Later he created the project "Morskoy Patrul" with the famous musician, participant of VIA "Nadezhda", Yuri Stozharov.
In the early 90's, having assembled the old line-up VIA "Shkolniye Gody", he released old songs of the group as a separate album. Together with the famous songwriter Alexander Yelin, they produce the rock band "Primadonna", which won Grand Prix at the All-Union Music Competition "Miss Rock-88".
In 1990–1993, Mikhail Men was a chairman of the Board of the humanitarian and charitable organization "Alexander Men Foundation". He studied at special courses at the VIPKLESPROM Liedership Training Center on the basics of foreign economic activities, engaged in entrepreneurial activities.
In 1993 Mikhail Men was elected as a deputy of the Moscow Oblast Duma from Sergiyevo-Posadsky District. He worked until 1995 as a member of the Committee on Local Self-Government. He was trained by course "The political and economic system of the USA" at Center for Inter-Parliament Cooperation (Washington, USA).
State activities
Deputy of the State Duma In 1995 he was elected as a deputy of State Duma of the second convocation in 104th electoral district (received 18.24% of the votes). Men was a Deputy Chairman of the Culture Committee by Stanislav Govorukhin, member of the deputy group "Yabloko".
Vice-Governor of Moscow Oblast In September 1999, he was included in federal list of electoral association"Yabloko" at No.3 in Moscow Oblast in regional part of the list for participation in elections to the 3rd State Duma.
Later, in November 1999, Men was registered as a candidate for the post of vice-governor of Moscow Oblast, paired with a candidate of governor Boris Gromov.
On 19 December 1999, Gromov and Men took second place and advanced to the second round together with Gennady Seleznev and Vladimir Kashin.
On 9 January 2000, in the second round of elections, Boris Gromov and Mikhail Men were elected to the posts of governor and vice-governor of Moscow Oblast, respectively.
In March 2000, Men announced his withdrawal from the "Yabloko" association.
Due to changes in regional legislation, on 1 November 2002, Mikhail Men announced an early resignation of vice-governor of Moscow Oblast.
Deputy Mayor of Moscow For three years, from November 2002 to November 2005, Mikhail Men worked as deputy Mayor of Moscow in interregional cooperation and sports. From 2003 to 2005, he headed the Commission on Human Rights by Mayor of the capital and Moscow Clemency Board.
Governor of the Ivanovo Oblast On 22 November 2005, deputies of the Legislative Assembly of the Ivanovo Oblast approved the candidacy of Mikhail Men for the post of Head of Administration of the Ivanovo Oblast, submitted by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. 32 deputies voted for, none against, two were absent.
Mikhail Men became the third member of Yuri Luzhkov team (after former Vice Mayor Valery Shantsev (Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast) and Vice Speaker of the State Duma Georgy Boos (Governor of the Kaliningrad oblast), appointed by the Kremlin administration to the governor's post.
Since late 1990's, the heads of regional administration have been called governors by journalists, but at the official level only in 2007 Mikhail Men established a name of governor.
From 1 December 2008, to 25 May 2009 — Member of Presidium of the State Council of the Russian Federation.
On 19 October 2010, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev submitted to the Ivanovo Oblast Duma the candidacy of current region's head, Mikhail Men, to give him governor's powers for a second term. By the decision of the Ivanovo Oblast Duma's deputies Mikhail Men's powers were extended.
On 16 October 2013, Men prematurely, at his own request, resigned from the post of Governor of the Ivanovo Oblast. On 1 November of the same year he was appointed Minister of Construction Industry, Housing and Utility Sector.
Results of activities Among the results of Men's activities as governor was the elimination of wage arrears in 2011.
From 2005 to 2012, the average salary in the region tripled; regional airport was reconstructed; a bus station building in Shuya was finished.
At the same time, the governor was criticized for insufficient work with investors, with obvious results of work: for example, investors were attracted to the housing and utilities sector of the region for the construction of 16 new boiler houses.
In 2011, in order to modernize the local poultry producer Ivanovsky Broiler, a loan of 700 million rubleswas allocated from regional fund for small and medium-sized businesses at a subsidized interest rate.
In 2020, the Prodo group, which was controlled by managers of Millhouse Capital investment company, and was the owner of Ivanovsky Broiler, repaid the loan by paing 710 million rubles to the budget of Ivanovo Oblast. The repayment of the loan was confirmed by Governor Voskresensky.
Later the loan paid will become a reason for claims against Mikhail Men.
Among the cultural changes, there is an initiativeto raise money and buy out the Andrey Tarkovsky archive at Sotheby's auction in November 2012 (the archive was bought for 1.3 million pounds and transferred to the Andrey Tarkovsky HouseMuseum in Yuryevets). Promotion of the Ivanovo city of Ples, thanks the construction of tourist infrastructure and international festivals - fashion festival "Linen Palette. Ples on the Volga" and the "Mirror" film festival; creation of state professional recording studio "Ivan-Records" for young musicians in this region.
Job ratings as governor In 2004, Vyacheslav Nikonov, president of "Politika" Foundation spoke about Men's appointment:The introduction by President of Russian Federation about candidacy of the Deputy Mayor of Moscow in the metropolitan government of Mikhail Men for the Governor's post of Ivanovo Oblast is explained solely by business qualities of the Vice Mayor, and not by any political considerationsIn 2013, political scientist Alexander Kynev said that because of the Governor, the political system in Ivanovo Oblast has degraded and:Behind the outwardly decent formal image of a complacent governor with a legendary surname, there was a hard tightening of nuts and reliance on imported Moscow region cadres
Ministry of Construction, Housing and Utilities of the Russian Federation On 1 November 2013, the Ministry of Construction, Housing and Utilities was established by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation. New department was headed by Mikhail Men.
As the newspaper Kommersant wrote, Mikhail Alexandrovich Men was remembered by the constraction market for numerous reforms in a field of shared-equity construction. He began to work on preparing for the rejection of its use.
In February 2018, Ministry of Construction proposed that developers start using escrow accounts, where co-investors' money should be kept until the end of construction. According to Ministry's plan, developers working with escrow accounts should be exempt from the need to make contributions to the compensation funds of shareholders. During Men's work as a Minister of Construction, Housing and Utilities of Russian Federation, one of the largest Russian developers, Mikhail Balakin's SU-155, was forced to leave the construction market, which in 2015 announced its inability to complete the construction of 71 houses and its obligations to 27 thousand participants in shared-equity construction. The Ministry of Construction has developed a scheme for the rehabilitation of the SU-155, the main obligations of which were assumed by state bank "Russian Capital".
Over the years of management, there has been a dynamic in housing commissioning. 2014—2017 became a record for the Russian housing construction market — the volume of housing commissioning in 2014 amounted to 84.2 million m2, in 2015 — 85.3 million m2, in 2016 — 80.2 million m2, in 2017 — 79.2 million m2. During the period of leadership of the Ministry of Construction by Mikhail Men from 2014 to 2017, about 4 million mortgage borrowers improved their living conditions. Mortgages became available to 33% of families by 2016, with the value of this indicator not exceeding 5% in the early 2000s. In 2017, about 1.1 million loans worth more than 2 trillion rubles were issued, which is almost 27% more in quantitative terms and 37% more in monetary terms than in 2016, mortgage rates decreased to the level of 9.79%.
Under the Minister Mikhail Men, licensing of the management of apartment buildings was introduced, which at the first stage led to weeding out 13% of management companies. Already after the introduction of licensing, 653 licenses were terminated, 21 licenses were canceled. According to the GIS of housing and communal services, as of May 2018, there were 21146 licenses in the country. The Ministry of Construction, under my leadership, managed to raise the rate of resettlement of emergency housing from 1 million "squares" in 2013 to 3 million in 2014 and subsequent.