Hole in your pocket

The most expensive pit in the world, as the pit on Ligovka can rightfully be called, inherited from RAO VSM, has again attracted attention. Firstly, it turned out that the Russian Ministry of Property Relations sold this unfinished building to a group of investors with the participation of Vnesheconombank and a certain St. Petersburg company “Breeze”. And secondly, after a recent visit to Moscow, Valentina Matvienko said that she had agreed with the Ministry of Finance that the city was not responsible for the ill-fated loans taken by RAO VSM, and therefore should not pay for the pit...

The future fate of the pit on Ligovka was discussed a year and a half ago: on September 30, 2002, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Property and RAO VSM entered into a tripartite agreement that the “unfinished work” would be withdrawn to the federal treasury to pay off RAO’s debts.
“High-speed highways,” as is known, borrowed 200 million dollars from English banks for the construction of the Transport and Commercial Center (TCC) under government guarantees, of which they managed to disburse about 65 million. RAO did not intend to repay the loan, and the government is now obliged to return this money. At the same time, this is not the first year that the White House has been trying to recoup its losses from the St. Petersburg budget, but more on that below.
Even when the aforementioned agreement was signed, representatives of RAO VSM said that “in the near future a tender will be announced among potential investors for the development of the territory near the Moskovsky railway station.” The tender, however, took place only a year and a half later - in March 2004. And quite strange: from Vice-Governor Yuri Molchanov, who disseminated the relevant information, it became known only that the starting price of the pit was set at $80 million. The final price and the exact composition of buyers are unknown. Who and how organized the tender, as well as who participated in it, is not reported. Instead, Molchanov says buyers have raised more than $300 million to build a mixed-use center that will include offices, hotels and shops.
All this looks very strange. Back in 1998, when RAO VSM intended to build its “center,” its payback was in strong doubt. There are already enough retail outlets in this place. Hotels are also not very necessary here: St. Petersburg hotels cannot boast of an abundance of clients anyway. There is also little demand for apartments with high-quality service, not to mention the fact that tourists who are willing to pay for accommodation in such apartments prefer to stay in “Europe”, “Nevsky Palace” or in “Astoria”, but certainly not at the station. Demand for office space now slightly exceeds supply...
In general, how investors are going to recoup their investments is difficult to say. Although this is now their concern and their risk. Let them decide whether to build something in an existing pit or bury it and start all over again.
Well, residents of the northern capital, if you believe the words of the governor, need not worry about the debts of RAO VSM, which the Ministry of Finance stubbornly wanted to pin on St. Petersburg. “The city does not bear any obligations regarding this shameful hole, and the Ministry of Finance completely agrees with this,” said Valentina Ivanovna, returning from Moscow.
Well, thank you for the good news, but I would like to see the issue resolved not only in words, but also on paper. For example, see the signature of Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin withdrawing the Ministry of Finance’s claim against St. Petersburg, which has been considered in the arbitration court for the second month. After all, over the past four years, the minister has been saying the exact opposite on this topic: that “Peter is wrong,” and that it is not the federal budget, but the St. Petersburg budget, that should be responsible for the debt of RAO VSM.
If the minister has finally changed his mind, we can only rejoice. After all, everything he said on this topic before had nothing to do with the law: there was never the slightest legal basis for holding St. Petersburg liable for a “high-speed” debt.
The only pity is that we have once again been shown that the most important issues for citizens are resolved not according to the law, but according to concepts - by personal agreement of high officials.
What if we didn’t agree?

Boris VISHNEVSKY
photo by Alexey VYSOTSKY