Public activist of the Russian Federation, political consultant, PR specialist Kostina Olga Nikolaevna has been working in the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation since 2008 and presides over the board of a public organization created jointly with Senator A. Alexandrov and the head of the Modern Theater S. Vragova. The organization is interregional, human rights, called "Resistance." Kostina Olga Alexandrovna - one of the main witnesses for the prosecution of convicts Pichugin and Nevzlin.
Family and the beginning of the journey
Kostina Olga Nikolaevna (nee Chistenkova) was born in Moscow on August 27, 1970, grew up in the Vykhino district. Father worked at Sechenov Medical Institute, his mother ran a housing cooperative. She began work at the Student Meridian at the age of seventeen, studying simultaneously at the evening department of Moscow State University (journalism department).
In the fourth year, she dropped out of school, as journalism disappointed her, despite the fact that she had success in this field. In 1989, she participated in the preparation of the USSR student forum, where she was fully responsible for interaction with the organizers and communication with the press. Articles were published in Pravda, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Teacher’s Newspaper, and many other publications.
Forum
At the forum, she met Gorbachev, Dzasokhov, Luchinsky, Yagodin and other high-ranking members of the dying Communist Party. The direction here was issued by the Student Meridian, in which Olga Kostina made a brilliant career.
From a simple employee in the letters department (he is the smallest in any edition) to deputy Yury Rostovtsev - the chief editor - that was the way of this purposeful young girl. Nevertheless, the magazine, which gave the ticket to life, was abandoned by her, because she did not see a further career growth in the field of journalism. Kostina Olga Nikolaevna from here, from the forum, began to strive for politics.
Social work
Already at the end of the 80s of the last century, Olga Kostina’s social activities were already extremely intense. She was the leader of the student movement in Moscow and in 1991 broke up with the Student Meridian, which gave her many connections and acquaintances to continue her social activities.
The USSR Minister of Education G. Yagodin made her his assistant in organizing the International University in Moscow, introduced her to L. Nevzlin, director of relations at the Menatep Bank and the head of the Russian Union of Investors, who will play a very prominent role in Kostina’s life.
Menatep
Thanks to all this, in 1992 Olga Kostina became the press secretary of the investor union and took up public relations under the leadership of L. Nevzlin. In 1994, he invited her to "Menatep" - to M. Khodorkovsky, where she was deputy head of the analytical department.
Then she met her future husband, who led the advertising in a subsidiary of Metapress. A year later, Olga Kostina had to leave the Menatep, because she was unable to fulfill her official duties (opinion of the leaders). Kostina herself says that even then her policy carried away more than the routine of banking relations with the public, moreover, she and L. Nevzlin had a difficult conflict.
reference
Nevzlin Leonid Borisovich - Russian-Israeli public figure and entrepreneur, one of the leaders of the Yukos company, former rector of the Russian State Humanitarian University, president of the Jewish Congress in Russia. Currently hiding in Israel from Russian justice, which was accused of organizing numerous killings. The court was forced to add another six years in prison to life imprisonment.
Pichugin Alexey Vladimirovich - the head of the department of the Yukos oil company, engaged in domestic economic security. In 2007, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for organizing murders and attempts.
Khodorkovsky, Nevzlin and Pichugin are involved in the following crimes:
- June 1998 - the assassination of V. Petukhov, the mayor of Nefteyugansk;
- 1998 - attack on S. Kolesov, managing director of CJSC Rosprom;
- November 1998 - an attempt on the life of O. Kostina, who was formerly an adviser to the chairman of the board of directors of PF MENATEP M. Khodorkovsky;
- 1998 and 1999 - attempt on Evgeny Rybin, director of the oil company East petroleum handelsgas GmbH (Austria) and murder of his driver;
- 2002 - the murder of S. Gorin, a Tambov businessman, and his wife;
- January 1998 - the murder of V. Korneeva, director of the Phoenix company in Moscow.
Mayor of Luzhkov
In 1995, Olga Kostina’s biography was enriched with a new position: she became the head of BOS Soyuz LLP (Public Relations Bureau), established jointly with her husband, Konstantin Kostin. The organization has become the largest advertising agency in the country, engaged in massive public relations campaigns. Among his clientele were both government agencies and large commercial ones.
A year later, Olga Kostina brought the company’s work to the capital level, having interested Mayor Luzhkov with her own program “Moscow - city-state”, which dealt mainly with inter-regional relations of the Moscow government. Yu. Luzhkov received Olga Kostin as a freelance adviser, and the Soyuz biofeedback actually crushed the entire work of the Luzhkov apparatus. Immediately, the mayor allocated more than seven hundred million rubles for reference and informational materials of the biofeedback system.
Competitors
In addition to the Kostins Bureau, mayor Luzhkov had prominent full-time employees involved in public relations: S. Tsoi was the head of the press center , and A. Lysenko was the head of the telecommunications and media committee. But in April 1998, Yu. Luzhkov put Olga Kostin at the head of a new unit - the public relations department.
Here, an ideology was to be formed and the work of the entire structure of the city hall related to information and image policy was coordinated. However, the formation of this management took too long, then S. Yastrzhembsky appeared, and Kostina turned out to be a manager without management. The new curator came to grips with all the PR structures of the Moscow government, including what Kostina so hoped for. The most serious conflicts arose between her and Lysenko and Tsoi.
Nonetheless
At the city hall, an election campaign has begun, which is called the “horse” of the Kostin family. And they were completely connected with the preparation of both the Luzhkov election campaign and the Fatherland that he was forming. All PR support was created by Olga and Konstantin Kostin.
At the same time, the budgets allocated for the PR of this huge enterprise were also not weak, and Kostin won in the struggle for them. Moreover, on their own initiative, a unified PR center was created in Moscow (from AFK Sistema), which applied for absolutely the entire budget allocated for Luzhkov’s elections, and this completely cut off the remaining players in the advertising market from financing, and among them were very large.
Attempt
A strange attempt was made on the life of Olga Kostina. Nobody really understood exactly who ordered it and for what. Rather, for what - there were probably so many options that even Kostina herself was lost in them. So, at the very end of autumn 1998, an explosion thundered near the apartment of Olga Kostina’s parents. No one was hurt, as the explosive device was left in the entrance, where no one was at night.
Already in January 1999, Kostina’s dismissal from the city hall of her own accord followed. She continued to engage in electoral and political technologies with her husband in the biofeedback "Union". E. Limonov was very indignant at the activities of this PR agency, calling him not only “pro-Kremlin,” but also cynically lying. Subsequently, Olga Kostina tried to organize an NBP without Limonov, but her grandfather’s associates did not fail, she did not succeed, except for losing her reputation.
FSB
Many statements, including in the press, indicated that she collaborated (for example, in the personalities: Olga Nikolaevna Kostina “Arguments and Facts”) in the Advisory Council of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, and Olga herself emphasized her role as adviser to the director of this organization - N. Patrusheva.
Deputy Chairman of the Advisory Board, Mikhail Golovatov, however, this fact does not confirm. The council itself ceased to exist in 2001. A. Kondaurov also says that Kostina greatly exaggerates her role: she didn’t communicate with Patrushev, she had some kind of short-term relationship with the Moscow FSB, but his boss, V. Zakharov, stopped talking to her very soon. And who is "dark" here is not clear. Maybe the FSB. But maybe - and Kostina Olga Nikolaevna.
"Resistance"
At the end of 2005, an interregional human rights non-governmental organization was created together with the head of the Modern Theater Svetlana Vragova, Senator Alexei Alexandrov and chaired by Olga Kostina. The main project of the Resistance is to provide psychological and legal assistance to witnesses and victims. The position of a human rights defender and a specialist in upholding the rights of victims has become a new hypostasis of Olga Kostina.
The most interesting thing is that for a number of years Resistance was funded by the state and was the operator of the distribution of grants for many millions of Russian and non-Russian money in order to support non-profit organizations. At the same time, Kostina’s husband, Konstantin, was the deputy chief in the department of internal politics (administration of the President of Russia). What part of the distributed funds was deposited in specially created companies is known only to God, and certainly by Kostin himself.
Media about the human rights activists of the Resistance
The Resistance organization was repeatedly criticized by a number of media outlets who called Kostin a "pseudo-human rights activist," and the company itself was fictitious and pro-Kremlin. Olga, however, does not attach much importance to this, considering the accusations as usual guilty defamation and labeling, she, as a PR specialist in information warfare, is more than known.
Only in 2013, the Resistance was pushed away from the distribution of grants, but so far it has not been possible to expel them from among the applicants to receive them, that is, it has not ceased to be a “grant-eater”. The media do not consider this organization to be a fundamentally new force of the human rights movement, although the already existing ones, the Moscow Helsinki Group and the Glasnost Defense Fund, also do not particularly favor, despite the fact that they are clearly on the other side of the barricades.
Political consultant
The public activity of Olga Kostina until 2008 was that she was directing the special projects of the biofeedback station Soyuz. Official documents presented her as a political strategist and political consultant, while she herself called this political consulting her profession. Further career developed like that. Kostina Olga Nikolaevna - Public Chamber of the Russian Federation since 2008, and by 2013 she is already on the Chamber Council, head of the inter-commission working group (public control over the implementation of family policy), deputy chairman of the security and judicial affairs law enforcement committee, member of the commission on education.
In addition, Olga Kostina is a member of the Presidium on the Public Council of the Central Federal District. He works closely with the Ministry of Internal Affairs as a member of the public council at various levels. Kostina Olga Nikolaevna is not a member of political parties, but she is a member of the commission of the Presidium of United Russia on work with public organizations. In 2012, it was Olga Kostina who became the confidant of V. Putin, the presidential candidate and the prime minister. Almost immediately after the end of the election, she joined the Board of Directors of Transneft and the "personnel reserve" of the President of the Russian Federation. In the city of Mozhga, Kostina Olga Nikolaevna is a well-known lawyer, who is probably the full namesake and namesake of a well-known public figure to whom this article is devoted.