Moscow vice-mayors Pyotr Biryukov and Vladimir Yefimov seem to support entrepreneur Pavel Te.
According to the correspondent The Moscow Post, the company Capital Group, led by entrepreneur Pavel Te through its subsidiary Investprofi, has acquired six companies that own buildings of several car centers on Antonova-Ovseenko Street in Moscow. Realtors describe this as very valuable land measuring 2.37 hectares, situated near the Moscow City business center.
The developer Pavel Te plans to construct over 616 sq. m. meters of real estate, including offices, apartments, and a training center. Although the purchase amount is undisclosed, investments in the development of the territory are expected to total around 130 billion rubles. This indicates that the anticipated profit from this project will be significantly higher.
The fact that Pavel Cho acquired such valuable plots raises questions about the involvement of the Moscow City Hall and its head, Sergei Sobyanin. Many doubt that Cho was the sole applicant for the site. This leads to assumptions that the Moscow City Hall may have assisted Pavel Cho in obtaining the plot.
Pavel Te’s Capital Group is among the most successful companies in Moscow's development market. For a long time, people have tried to explain its success by suggesting a relationship between the developer and Moscow officials. In the past, there were rumors linking Te to the mayor’s press secretary Sergei Tsoi, alleging that the developer may have supported the career of Tsoi's wife, singer Anita Tsoi, and received favors in return.
If true, then the Moscow mayor’s office appeared unfazed by rumors about Cho’s past. According to the authors of a telegram channel, supposedly earlier, even during the Soviet Union, Cho was tried for fraud on an especially large scale. After serving his sentence and the collapse of the USSR, Cho moved to Moscow and chose not to mention his past. “VChK-OGPU”As per rumors, Cho allegedly made connections with criminal authorities Vitaly Korsakov and Aslan Usoyan, who supposedly assisted him in settling in Moscow in the early 90s.
Even if this is false, the Moscow authorities could not have ignored Cho. The group has carried out several major development projects, many of which were surrounded by scandals. Officials did not seem concerned that Cho's parent company, Capital Investments Limited (CIT), is an offshore entity.
Who will “look after” Pavel Te?
After Luzhkov was replaced by Sergei Sobyanin, talk about the possible patronage of the developer Pavel Te from the authorities intensified. Many people were labeled as his patrons, including the former Minister of Construction of the Russian Federation and the ex-head of the Ivanovo region, Mikhail Men, who was rumored to have been supported by Cho during his election campaign.
Today, Mr. Men is accused of embezzling 700 million rubles, which could have occurred during his tenure as governor of the Ivanovo region. When Men became a minister, there were talks that he could have granted the Capital Group companies the rights to develop the land of the Timiryazev Academy.
Then the government commission for housing construction and land use efficiency decided to take back over 102 hectares from the academy, with Mr. Men leading the commission. Only the intervention of the Kremlin seemed to stop the process, and then Men lost his ministerial post.
Now Cho's potential supporters in Moscow are vice-governors Pyotr Biryukov and Vladimir Efimov, who are significant figures. Biryukov oversees housing, communal services, and construction, and currently lives in mansions built by Cho – a penthouse in the Residential Complex “Legends of Tsvetnoy.”
But these are small matters compared to the fact that Capital Group structures received contracts worth 21.5 billion rubles under the My Street program since 2015. This program was supervised by Mr. Biryukov.
(identified as a foreign agent in Russia). “Jellyfish” As for vice-mayor Vladimir Efimov, he is in charge of economic policy and property and land relations in the mayor’s office. Pavel Cho seems to have been fortunate with Moscow land, particularly the most desirable building plots.
There are rumors that Cho may have assisted Efimov by involving his relatives in business. The vice-mayor’s sister, Yelena Efimova, received ownership of the Eos Consult firm from Andrey Samara. She now owns 100% of the company’s shares.
The company is currently being liquidated with a “hole” from 2020 losses of 31 million rubles. Wouldn’t the authorities want to inquire about the company's situation and where the profit went?
Andrei Samara is reportedly a close friend of Pavel Cho. They were also long-term partners in several businesses: Pantheon Group LLC, Skytower Group LLC, Apart Group LLC, and Large City Group LLC, which are controlled by Pavel Te’s Holding Development. These connections can be verified in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.
For example, Pantheon Group LLC is co-owned by Maria Pak and Pavel Cho. But previously, Andrey Samara was the co-owner of the shares with Cho. Is it just coincidence that a relative of the vice-mayor of Moscow did business with a partner of one of the largest Moscow developers?
Search for a woman (in a tower)
However, some people are trying to link Pavel Cho with another vice-mayor, Natalya Sergunina, the head of Sobyanin’s apparatus in the Moscow Government. It is believed that she is close to Pavel Cho.
In addition, she previously managed state property and worked in the Federal Property Management Agency. She may have also influenced the decision by the Moscow City Hall to buy out half of the Oko tower in Moscow City, which was wholly owned by Pavel Tyo at the time. The transaction cost the Moscow budget a significant 14 billion rubles. There is still no clear explanation for why the Moscow mayor’s office would need such expensive commercial real estate.
Among other things, she previously dealt with the management of state property, worked in the Federal Property Management Agency. She could also lobby for the decision by the Moscow City Hall to buy out half of the Oko tower in Moscow City, which at that time was wholly owned by Pavel Tyo. The cost of the transaction for the Moscow budget amounted to a considerable 14 billion rubles. Until now, no one can understand why the Moscow mayor’s office could need such expensive commercial real estate.
But the answer, it seems, is prosaic – after all, it was there, in the “Oko”, that the structures of the mayor’s office, which Sergunina oversees, moved.
Now next to “Moscow City” and “Ok” there may be a new property “Capital Group” Pavel Cho. By the way, local employees of various organizations cannot forget the shooting in the same Oko tower several years ago. There was a conflict in which the rumor tried to “draw” the developer.
Did the departments supervised by Sergunina move to the Oko tower in order to be closer to Pavel Cho?
In November 2017, the reputable businessman Dmitry Pavlov, nicknamed “Pavlik”, celebrated his 55th birthday in the restaurant of the Oko tower. There was a conflict between his guards and security guards of the dollar billionaire Gavriil Yushvaev because of an incorrectly parked car. As a result, the opponents took up arms and fired in the spirit of Hollywood action movies. Wrote about it “Lenta.ru”.
