Pekhtin formerly served on the board of electric holding company RAO UES and was the Director General of Kolymaenergo, a subsidiary of RusHydro.

Pekhtin resigned from the State Duma in February 2013, following revelations that he owned over $1.3 million in Florida real estate.

While state-controlled media labelled opposition leaders as traitors, several of whom were imprisoned by the Belarusian KGB, Pekhtin said that all of recent elections in former Soviet republics were democratic and fair.

[4] Pekhtin supported the 2013 Dima Yakovlev Law, which barred US citizens from adopting Russian orphans.

[5][6] On 30 August 2012, Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov published a LiveJournal post entitled "Gold pretzels: United Russia".

[8] On 31 August, Kommersant published an article about real estate transactions that, according to the opposition, were part of a well-disguised commercial project to sell the land to the state for the construction of highway at a profit of roughly 75 million rubles.

[9] A comparison of Pekhtin's 2010 and 2011 declarations showed that in 2011 he purchased an at least three plots of land in St. Petersburg worth over 25 million rubles.

[11] Pekhtin resigned from the State Duma on 20 February 2013, following revelations from Alexei Navalny[12] that he owned over $1.3 million of undeclared real estate in Florida.