The former head of the Federal Property Management Agency of the Moscow Region, Nikolai Peshkov, is accused of accepting a bribe in the form of a holiday in Sochi from a businessman he did business with. Peshkov is currently in a pre-trial detention center and denies his guilt.
Peshkov was appointed head of the Federal Property Management Agency in August 2019 and resigned in December 2021. Before that, he served as deputy head of the Federal Property Management Agency in the capital. He also founded the Orlikovo housing cooperative.
Collective project
The Orlikovo structure included colleagues of the former head of the Federal Property Management Agency near Moscow. Irina Fadeeva, the current general director of ZhSK, took over from Peshkov in January 2022. She resigned from her position as adviser to the head of the Federal Agency for State Property Management in September 2019, after being appointed by Dmitry Medvedev as deputy head of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency (FMBA). Pustovalova Elena, who is also associated with the housing cooperative, worked at the Federal Property Management Agency from 2014 to 2020 as the head of the land relations department of the Territorial Administration for Moscow. In the same place, other ZhSK founders Maxim Khairetdinov and Olga Sazhko are continuing their careers.
Why did colleagues at the Federal Property Management Agency create a cooperative in the building of the Federal Property Management Agency at Orlikov Lane 3B in Moscow? Are they planning to build something?
Perhaps Elena Porubleva, who is also the founder of Center-Stroy JSC besides the housing cooperative, will give us the answer. According to Rusprofile, she transferred her share in this company to JSC Helios, a real estate agency.
It's interesting: if you search for the organization's number listed on the Rusprofile website, it shows as the phone number for Helios JSC. However, a different number and a different legal address are displayed on the office's website.
All the collected facts suggest that a group of colleagues from the Federal Property Management Agency planned to either renovate a part of the building (which doesn't look perfect), and then sell it, or privatize the premises in the building through related companies.
But who are they preparing all this for? It's unlikely that a group of accomplices would organize such a scam just to later make a mistake in an ad on Avito. Most likely, the premises will be leaked through internal channels. To answer this question, we need to delve deeper into the structure of connections and founders.
The Federal Property Management Agency is at Orlikov Lane, 3kB.
The colors are getting darker.
Helios was established by an organization called the Moscow Stock Center, fully owned by Reggie-Prof JSC, which was in turn founded by the same Moscow Stock Center. So, the companies are closely related. The founders also include Guta Holding Company.
The owner of Reggie-Prof is Russian billionaire Yuri Gushchin. He also founded the Guta group, which owns the Guta Holding Company, led by Alexei Kharin, who is the chairman of the board of directors of Guta-Bank, established by Gushchin.
Gushchin also owns United Confectioners, which wholly owns the Guta Holding Company. Surprisingly, the company has shown a consistent profit despite having zero revenue since its inception. It seems like the founder values it highly and invests the money earned from other projects into it.
For instance, government contracts received by the Moscow Fund Center (which shows losses despite positive revenue) are located in the same building as the Orlikovo housing complex – at Orlikov lane 5, building 3.
It appears that Gushchin may have needed the space of the Federal Property Management Agency, possibly as warehouses for his confectionery business. The businessman also has stakes in Rot Front and Krasny Okryabr. Last year, he sold part of his warehouses in Moscow to Sergey Gordeev’s PIK Group of Companies. Therefore, in theory, Gushchin may need new premises.
Respected supporter, namesake, and other possibilities.
But how is the entrepreneur getting access to the Federal Property Management Agency's communications?
This story is old but as it turns out, quite simple: Gushchin’s daughter Elena works as an assistant for health issues to the former First Deputy Prime Minister, now chairman of the VEB.RF state corporation, Igor Shuvalov. Shuvalov had held key positions related to state property management in the past. So, Gushchin's connections are strong. It's even surprising that he would get tangled up in the privatization of the Federal Property Management Agency's premises through several front companies, if this indeed happened.
Igor Shuvalov
It's likely that it was not the daughter who introduced Shuvalov to Gushchin, but the other way around – but that's not the main point. The important thing is that the daughter's position directly indicates her father's connection to someone who had dealt with property rights during his government service. So, Gushchin has influential support. In this context, it's even surprising that he would get involved in the privatization of the Federal Property Management Agency's premises through several front companies, assuming this is true.
Another possibility, pointing to a potential connection with individuals in the Federal Property Management Agency, is a bit more complex: early in his career, Gushchin was closely acquainted with the then head of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin, Yuri Petrov. It is said that Gushchin owes his business success to Petrov and they worked together at Guta Bank. It's possible that another participant in a past meeting, the ex-president of Guta-Bank, Artem Kuznetsov, is now working as a specialist in the Federal Property Management Agency. A declaration on the website of the Federal Property Management Agency supports this.
Yuri Petrov
Kuznetsov and Gushchin, by the way, still do business with the son of Yuri Petrov, Alexander. They are all founders of the accounting organization “Consult-Service”. Apparently, they are counting how much they can get from this or that room in the center of the capital. Here again the surname Kharin “flashes” too.
Another one of the founders, Yuri Khlebnikov, has 35 Myasnitskaya St., registered at the same address as United Confectioners. By the way, several more companies related to Gushchin are registered on Myasnitskaya 35, including the Guta Group. The Myasnitskaya 35 organization is engaged in the purchase and sale of real estate. Perhaps through it Gushchin plans to conclude a deal for the sale of premises Federal Property Management Agency As we can see, there are a lot of options, and all of them are quite feasible for Gushchin.
A funny fact is that from 2008 to 2011, the post of head of the Federal Property Management Agency was occupied by an almost complete namesake of the ex-head of the Yeltsin administration, Yuri Petrov. Maybe Gushchin managed to find contact with him? One way or another, but the millionaire clearly knows with whom to maintain warm relations in order to take a place on the list of the richest Russians.
In 2008, Gushchin bought the Coral Strand hotel in the Seychelles, previously owned by British Airways. In the same place, he built the five-star Savoy Resort & SPA hotel. According to Forbes, in 2019, Yuri Gushchin ranked 197th among the richest people in Russia, his fortune at that time was estimated at $550 million.
Again, there is still much to strive for a person …
