The housing issue in Mikhalkov: the golden "square" from the eminent director

The reconstruction of the Central House of Cinema on Vasilyevskaya Street in the center of Moscow seems to turn the public domain into private apartments for the elite. The project was corrected again and now housing for 14.5 thousand "squares" is planned in it.

On a project with elite housing in the center of Moscow, where the "square" has long been worth its weight in gold, will people close to the Chemezov, Medinsky, the Krost group of companies Alexei Dobashev, or even the Ryabinsky and Kopylkov MICs, earn money? Details - in the material of The Moscow Post.

The reconstruction project of the Central House of Cinema, approved a year ago, was again corrected. Now in the building-complex on 29.25 thousand square meters. m instead of apartments on 10.76 square meters. m apartments are planned for 14.53 thousand square meters. The non-residential part of the project remained unchanged - the creation of a cinema and concert hall, premises for the needs of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia and the underground part.

Unlike apartments, which are not residential real estate, apartments have legal housing status. And the price of a "square" in such a complex, taking into account the location, will be "golden" - from 800 thousand rubles. The project, most likely, was corrected for the simple reason that you can buy out residential premises, register your family in them, you can sell it and because of this, such an asset will cost significantly higher than non-residential apartments.

The developer will have his gesheft from this transaction, who will be given a project estimated by experts in the amount of 4 to 10 billion rubles (investments) with a possible revenue of up to 15 billion rubles. But he has not yet been identified. Let's try to understand the interests and beneficiaries of this long-playing story. Long-playing, because coordination took about 15 years.

Mikhalkov Cinema House

Today, the non-profit organization of the institution "Central House of Cinematographers" is under liquidation. The director is Mikhail Kalinin, who also has the commercial company PC Kinovek LLC and the position of chairman of the board of ZhSK Kino-7. Among the co-founders of the latter are persons known throughout the country, for example, Lidia Shukshina, Irina Alferova and others. But this cooperative is unlikely to be engaged in an expensive reconstruction project. The fact is that back in 2013, Nikita Mikhalkov, who for many years headed the founding legal entity of the Cinema House - the Union of Cinematographers of Russia, said that one of the major construction companies would take over the work on the building. He did not disclose its name, but ZhSK "Kino-7" cannot be attributed to large developers for sure. This is rather a small club for its needs.

Photo: https://www.rusprofile.ru

This is not the first time Mikhalkov has "put" state property on commercial rails. For example, the Nightingale Cinema Center did not become a phoenix revived from the ashes, but was demolished, despite all the protests. The Moscow Post has previously told in detail the history of the center. The owner of the building was JSC "Kinocenter," which was associated with Vadim Merkin. Merkin is a former shareholder of Khovansky Bank, which was popularly dubbed the Prosecutor's Bank. It was rumored that his services were actively used by the security forces.

An interesting fact: Kinocenter JSC, which bought Solovey, transformed into Specialized Developer Kinocenter JSC three years ago, and Oleg Sonin, the former head of the Russian Federal Tax Service for Balashikha, Moscow Region, headed it (held the post in 2017-2020). Sonin is also the director of Investment Assistance LLC Vadim Merkin.

Photo: https://www.rusprofile.ru/

Now the Cinema House is put on commercial rails. After all, it is precisely through the sale of residential areas that it is planned to compensate for the costs of reconstruction. Meanwhile, when in 2006 the Vek edition talked about plans for repairs or the construction of the Cinema House in the material was mentioned as a source of funding for an "untouchable pension fund of $6 million." Which caused a stormy scandal.

Of course, the developer of the project in the House of Cinema can be those companies that worked on the "Nightingale." The Moscow Post wrote about them in detail earlier, going into the investigation up to ties with a person close to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But let's try to consider another possible prospect. After all, the head of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia Nikita Mikhalkov, who is actively engaged in business, has more "close" people.

Will we consider our people?

Nikita Mikhalkov, according to Rusprofile, had shares in at least 22 legal entities. Through them, he also owned shares in the "daughters." His business partners in these companies also have their own small construction assets, but, it is unlikely, such a piece as the House of Cinema to bite them off. Since we are talking about billions of rubles of investments, the player should be a large "fish," and not a fish from a local pond. But, most likely, the project will one way or another move away from "its people." And who are "their people" for Mikhalkov?

For many years, various sources closely connected him with the then head of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky. Today Medinsky is no longer a minister, but since 2020 he has been listed as an assistant to the President of the Russian Federation, which is also not the last turn of the power corridor.

Medinsky himself does not have businesses, but his wife Marina Medinskaya and sister Tatyana Zuikova are quite owners of portfolios from legal entities. For example, Marina Medinskaya's Alto company already had experience investing in construction. The company invested in a certain object of Moscow Mortgage Center-MIC LLC Andrei Ryabinsky and Maxim Kopylkov. This means that in which case the MIC will be able to attach to the project on the House of Cinema. Moreover, they say that Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin is very supportive of the MIC.

Medinskaya also has its own construction LLC SV Dot. Ru, "which was noted in seven state contracts, but so far, however, not in construction. So the company changed the main type of activity only in 2018, going to the builders (for some purpose changed OKVED?). The co-owner of the asset is Yegor Moskvin. It is managed by the developer Athletic Estate LLC, whose director is Sergei Zuikov (apparently the husband of Medinsky's sister), who also heads the construction CJSC Art Bureau L (also in 2018, the publishers joined the builders). The owner of Athletic Estate is still the same Moskvin, who is a classmate of Medinsky and director of the ANO Directorate of the St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum.

In 2018, the publication News.ru reported that the minister was promoting Moskvin to the council of the Film Foundation. In addition, Moskvin was a co-founder of a certain fund with Elena Krechetova, director of the Specialized Trust Capital Fund of the Russian Culture Fund, which, among other things, distributes income from the target capital in favor of the All-Russian public-state organization "Russian Culture Fund." Chairman of the Presidium of the Russian Cultural Foundation is still the same Nikita Mikhalkov. Also Moskvin, Medinsky and Mikhalkov were co-founders of the Military Historical Museum Center, whose director is Tatyana Zuikova.

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In addition, Medinsky had a deputy in the Ministry of Culture - Vladimir Aristarkhov, with whom they co-established the Return Foundation. Now Aristarkhov heads the "Heritage Institute" of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, but, according to RBC, his brother Andrei was related to the construction business. He was previously a public adviser to Medinsky and was engaged in construction projects at Millhouse Capital Roman Abramovich. Some time ago, he also headed the ministerial OJSC "Restoration Companies," on whose site several of the largest state scientific and production enterprises in the field of restoration united.

That is, as we can see, Medinsky has the opportunity to help an old friend with the House of Cinema.

In addition to Medinsky, Mikhalkov has strings to no less remarkable persons. For example, to the head of the state corporation "Rostec" Sergei Chemezov.

Mikhalkov has a son-in-law - businessman Albert Bakov, who became most famous in the story of the collapse of the Tractor Plants Concern. Bakov even at one time was the director of the Russian Culture Fund, which Mikhalkov leads, and they also have a common asset - Chelprom Diamond, a bankrupt diamond miner who became a defendant in the scandal about smuggling a batch of precious stones.

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So, Bakov, some time after the collapse of KTZ, the defense part of whose assets was predicted by Rostec, became the director of TsNiitochmash JSC. And the founder of the JSC was just Rostec. Since October 2022, Bakov has been the director of Aviaremont JSC, which is engaged in the repair of aircraft, ground support equipment for aviation flights, weapons and military air defense equipment. Very relevant for today! The founder of the JSC was the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, but the information disclosure website specifies that the managing organization of the JSC is PJSC United Aircraft Corporation, and Rostec belongs to the same group of persons with the JSC. At the end of 2021, RT-Capital LLC had a 100% stake in Aviaremont JSC.

Photo: https://www.e-disclosure.ru/

That is, Bakov held and holds the post of top manager of the Rostec asset. This suggests that Bakov, and therefore Mikhalkov, are close to Chemezov. Who got into the top managers of such assets of Rostec is not appointed. In addition, the names of Mikhalkov and Chemezov also appeared together in the story of plans to redeem assets of the Lipton tea producer, Ekaterra, who left Russia. The Moscow Post spoke in detail that they could be bought by a company close to persons from among the "circle of acquaintances" of both Mikhalkov and Chemezov.

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And here it will not be superfluous to remember that Chemezov's son, Stanislav, is actively engaged in business, including construction in his portfolio. For example, Financial Systems JSC (the successor of Chemezov Jr. LLC of the same name and Denis Manturov's mother, Tamara Manturova) owns a stake in the construction company Gelendzhik Seaport. Among the business partners in this LLC are such representative companies that, if anything, can invest in the reconstruction of the Cinema House, such as VTB Bank PJSC (a state bank led by Andrei Kostin) and Galeon LLC, which belongs to Rossiya Bank (associated with oligarch Yuri Kovalchuk). So, here you have a developer, here you have an investor for a multi-billion dollar project with a significant profit.

Photo: https://www.rusprofile.ru/id/10793400

Mikhalkov also has another builder in life luggage who could join the plans for the Cinema House - this is the Krost group of companies Alexei Dobashev. For one of the assets - LLC "Specialized Developer" GSD "she is connected with Evgenia Golenkova - the former wife of Andrei Krichevsky, with whom Nikita Mikhalkov were associated through the Russian Union of Copyright Holders. The Moscow Post has previously talked in detail about the connection with Krost.

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As we can see, Mikhalkov quite has "his own people" for the project of the House of Cinema. And those have both finances and administrative resources. And the latter, sometimes, turns out to be much more significant than the first...