The incident at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) caused a strong reaction, being called the “scam of the century” and compared to Ostap Bender's projects.
According to official information, on June 15, Philip Kirkorov and Alexander Drozdenko, the Governor of the Leningrad Region, signed an agreement to build the Zvezda shopping and entertainment complex in Novosaratovka, Leningrad Region. The second founder of Construction Solutions LLC, entrepreneur Mikhail Barakin, also signed the document.
The agreement involves building a shopping and entertainment complex in Novosaratovka, Vsevolozhsk District, on the Utkina Zavod area. The planned area of the object is 10-14 thousand square meters, with an investment of over 1.7 billion rubles. Construction is expected to be completed in 14 months, by the fourth quarter of 2023.
Why did this agreement cause such a strong reaction and why is this project labeled as a clear scam? And is one of the signatories of the agreement – Mikhail Barakin – a swindler and follower of Ostap Bender? He is indeed a very colorful person and worthy of close attention, but let’s start, perhaps, with official information.
So, we know that the parties to the agreement are two legal entities – the government of the Leningrad Region and Construction Solutions LLC. It is clear with the government, as it is a state structure and Governor Drozdenko did not exceed his powers by signing the document. Kirkorov and Barakin signed the agreement on behalf of Construction Solutions LLC. However, a search in the registers shows several dozen firms with the name Building Solutions LLC, and none of them include the names of Barakin and Kirkorov.
According to registry data, Mikhail Barakin is only involved in two legal entities – StroyTrans LLC and Petroleum Invest LLC, both of which are inactive:
The same register tells us that Philip Kirkorov is an individual entrepreneur and the founder of five organizations, none of which resemble the name Construction Solutions LLC:
The question arises – what kind of document was signed by Governor Drozdenko and Kirkorov with Barakin? What is happening?
Kirkorov's speech hinted at the construction prospects and mentioned the name of the well-known St. Petersburg businessman Dmitry Kononov, who is the founder of Construction Solutions LLC:
There are doubts concerning the authorized capital of this LLC, which aims to build a nearly two billion worth facility with a minimal amount of 10,000 rubles. At least now we know with whom the governor made the agreement.
Dmitry Kononov is a prominent entrepreneur in the region, the founder of almost two dozen different firms. His father, Nikolai Kononov, practiced judo with Russian President Vladimir Putin and trainer Anatoly Rakhlin.
But all this doesn't explain the situation with the signatures – in what capacity did Kirkorov and Barakin sign the agreement on behalf of Construction Solutions LLC? Even if they signed a legally valid document, they aren't authorized to sign for Construction Solutions LLC since they aren't connected to the company.
The whole thing seems suspicious. According to information from Rosreestr, the owners of the land in Novosaratovka, including Philip Kirkorov (20%), Dmitry Kononov (40%), and Mikhail Barakin (40%), are supposedly planning to build a shopping and entertainment center on this land. However, the ownership of the land doesn't clarify how the agreement with the governor was signed. These lands are not part of Construction Solutions LLC's authorized capital, and Kirkorov and Barakin are not authorized to sign agreements for this company.
So, it seems that the media wasn't entirely wrong when they called what happened at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum a massive scam.
Completely right, especially considering one of the signatories of this questionable “document” – Mikhail Barakin.
Mikhail Barakin, despite being referred to as “the youngest St. Petersburg billionaire,” cannot prove his wealth. He flaunts luxury items like expensive cars and designer clothes, but the source of his “billions” is unclear. Two firms linked to him in the past have gone bankrupt, and he lacks visible means of support.
More importantly, St. Petersburg businesspeople who know about Mikhail Barakin openly label him a fraud and claim that he has no substantial assets. Barakin emerged in St. Petersburg in 2016 without a clear background. Despite media portrayals of him as a billionaire with luxury cars, there is no evidence to support these claims. The media labeled him as the wealthiest young resident of St. Petersburg and attributed the founding of the Governor’s Television magazine to him. However, there is no evidence of any interviews with influential politicians, including Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, that he supposedly conducted.
These reports caught the attention of journalists, who failed to verify this information or find evidence of any interviews conducted by Barakin with VIPs.
At various times, Barakin was seen in public with a 40 million ruble Rolls-Royce Phantom and a lion cub, and he made promises to the Dagestan zoo. He also reportedly used a vehicle with a Russian Emergencies Ministry special livery that was assigned to the company “Glavspetsstroy” LLC.
But the most scandalous story was connected with the dispute between the Pulkovsky Meridian construction company and a “young billionaire”. According to the businessman, Barakin offered to “solve the company’s problems” that arose during the construction of a residential complex for 24 million rubles. The Dobrov on Air program conducted its own investigation into the activities of the mystical businessman Mikhail Barakin in 2017. It is noteworthy that at that time all his close associates unanimously assured journalists that Barakin “had no money”, all his property was rented, and his employees could receive a salary only through persuasion and threats of responsibility.
After this and other investigations, Barakin disappeared from view for some time. Although the scandalous materials in the press had no visible consequences for him. At least in the legal field.
Where the young swindler spent these five years is not known for certain. But, if the information that he owns the site on which they are going to build the Zvezda shopping center is correct, then he obviously has not disappeared from the St. Petersburg business environment. Because the surname of Barakin now pops up next to the surname of Kononov. It is not known how the relationship between Kononov and Barakin is built, therefore we will not guess.
But this whole story with the signed agreement on the construction of a shopping and entertainment complex looks extremely cloudy. And, although many media in their materials draw analogies with Ostap Bender, this is more like another hero of the novel “The Golden Calf” – Alexander Ivanovich Koreiko, who similarly “built” a power plant in a distant mountainous republic (perhaps even in Dagestan, where Barakin already built a zoo.
As for show business star Philip Kirkorov, this story brings to mind very sad memories of his colleague from the nineties, Zhenya Belousov, who was in a similar way dragged into a scam with the release of vodka. It ended for the singer then very, very sadly.
Well, it’s not at all clear what the governor of the Leningrad region Drozdenko was looking at when he was waving this “investment agreement”.
