Abramovich’s sukko will be built by Legis near Shvets
It appears that Veniamin Kondratiev and Anapa's Mayor Vasily Shvets have decided to hand over the village of Sukko to Roman Abramovich and his partners for development. The administration of Anapa, led by Mayor Vasily Shvets, has announced a new significant project: the integrated development of the territory of the village of Sukko covering 50 hectares. This will include the second stage of the Holiday House residential complex, road, and social infrastructure.
Considering the large number of unfinished projects by Veniamin Kondratiev, this project may face a similar fate. Additionally, the Legis developer, managed by RKS Development, has been found to have connections with Roman Abramovich’s partners.
Who could have used influence to acquire a piece of valuable land near the resort village?
It turns out that the developer “Legis” is linked with the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, specifically with his closest partners in “Evraz” Alexander Abramov and Alexander Frolov.
Legis is owned by two companies – OOO Megapolis and OOO R-SI-P. Both are heavily indebted to the state as they are pledged to Sberbank of Russia. LLC “ER-SI-P”, which is possibly using dummy companies, is owned by the Moscow LLC “Invest AG”.
However, the major stakeholders of the financial LLC Invest AG are Roman Abramovich’s closest partners in Evraz, billionaires Alexander Abramov and Alexander Frolov. It seems that the financing of a large project in Sukko, a real resort located 15 km from Anapa, is going through their line.
Both Abramov and Frolov are considered to be “junior” partners for Abramovich. Recently, Abramovich has been focusing on investing in the Krasnodar Territory.
In February 2021, the entrepreneur established the South Estate company, specializing in real estate management. Later, in December 2021, another structure of Abramovich, Finestate Co, owned by his Millhouse holding company, acquired the Kristall hotel-boarding house in Gelendzhik which was previously owned by the family of the former mayor of Gelendzhik Sergey Ozerov.
The latter was connected to the governor of the Krasnodar Territory, Veniamin Kondratiev, and was involved in a development scandal. In August 2022, the Arbitration Court of the North Caucasus District rejected the complaint of IK Kolos LLC, which challenged the decision of the court to annul the lease agreement for a 7-hectare plot at the entrance to Gelendzhik.
The firm “IK Kolos”, led by the son of Sergey Ozerov, had planned to construct high-rise buildings on the site. It was revealed that the green area with Pitsunda pines in the resort zone could not be leased without agreement from the Russian Federation authorities. The issue of IK “Kolos” reclaiming rental payments remained unresolved and the case was sent for a second hearing on this matter. This was reported by “Kommersant”.
Based on the information above, it is highly likely that Mr. Ozerov, possibly acting through his son, could work in the interests of Roman Abramovich and his partners in expanding into the Russian South. Among other things, Abramovich is looking at Russia’s largest water park in Gelendzhik, as per Oktagon.
There may be similarities between the situation involving the former mayor of Gelendzhik, Ozerov, and the current mayor of Anapa, Sergei Shvets, who proudly announced an agreement with Legis LLC for the development of the village of Sukko. It's hard to imagine that such a major decision could happen without the knowledge and approval of the regional governor.
… and Sagiryan who joined them
The management company for the Sukko development project, RKS Development, is owned by another partner of Mr. Abramovich, controversial financier Igor Sagiryan. Last autumn, RKS-Development, together with Invest AG, Evraz shareholders Alexander Abramov and Alexander Frolov, announced a large construction project in Nakhabino – over 100 thousand square meters of housing.
Meanwhile, Igor Sagiryan and his projects have been involved in scandals several times. Previously, The Moscow Post suggested that he may have been linked to the withdrawal of funds from the NPF 'Prosperity', where Russian Railways employees invested.
Before that, he worked in the organizations of the infamous Troika Dialog investment group, which in 2010 became involved in a criminal case related to off-exchange transactions with related companies. RBC previously reported that it worked with a network of more than 70 offshore companies.
Among other things, they tried to attribute to Sagiryan a special relationship with the founder of the Hermitage Capital fund, Ulyam Browder, who was convicted twice in Russia for financial fraud and tax evasion.
Anapa “multi-move”
Meanwhile, under the mayor of Anapa, Vasily Shvets, who grandly announced the Sukko development project, the seat has been unstable for a long time: the local residents were very dissatisfied with the city authorities' policies (which includes Sukko). He took office in 2020, having worked in the team of the previous mayor, Yuri Polyakov.
However, he left amidst a scandal – an audit uncovered numerous illegal actions by officials and deputies. This primarily involved illegal construction permits (including in the specially protected natural area of Anapa Bay), as reported by Kommersant.
In the same year, the former deputy head of the Anapa administration, Oleg Kostenko, was accused of embezzling municipal property worth more than 7 million rubles. And this is just a small part of the scandals associated with the Anapa administration.
But the 'clean-up' seems to have not been finished. Because in 2021, under the leadership of Mr. Shvets, the city authorities adopted a new General Plan for the city's development, which caused a lot of anger among the people.
Its key feature was the transfer of significant areas from the categories of residential development to recreational areas. At the same time, their cadastral value of these plots turned out to be sharply reduced – they say that some have ten times.
To simplify, it turned out that the government may suddenly decide to build some sanatoriums, hotels and spas on these lands, and people will be offered to buy their plots. But the price will not be the same as it could be before. This caused a real scandal. Residents felt that the public hearings held by the Shvets administration were a mere sham.
The mayor of Anapa, Vasily Shvets, had to answer uncomfortable questions from the townspeople.
One of the settlements that affected the new General Plan was the village of Sukko. And now the following picture is emerging: the developer (Legis) associated with Roman Abramovich’s partners and its management company (RCS Development) decided to start complex development of Sukko – two stages of an elite residential complex, road infrastructure. Abramovich’s partner Igor Sagiryan will manage this property.
At the same time, parts of the territories of Sukko were transferred to the category of recreational ones through the General Plan “pressed through” by Shvets – now you can build hotels, recreation centers, and anything on them. And at this time, Roman Abramovich himself, through his companies directly, increasingly enters the Krasnodar Territory.
Veniamin Kondratiev and Vasily Shvets decided to give Sukko to Abramovich?
Thus, expensive hotels and everything connected with it, up to the water park, may soon appear next to the Holiday House residential complex in Sukko. The calm and measured life of the inhabitants of the village will end, and someone in the administration of Anapa, or even the Krasnodar Territory, can get pretty rich on this.
