The success story of Sergei Pugachev turned out to be an outstanding hoax. Having created for himself the image of the main banker of certain “Orthodox security officials,” Pugachev found access to huge money, which will be sought abroad for a long time. As a result, 80 billion rubles sank into oblivion, and the two largest shipyards in St. Petersburg fell out of the government’s declared course of reviving the shipbuilding industry.

ANNA VASILYEVA

Last week, the struggle of the Central Bank and the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) to repay the debts of former Russian banker Sergei Pugachev was crowned with two victories. First, interim measures were imposed on the Château de Gareau in Nice. The castle belongs to the family of Sergei Pugachev, and just two years ago Pugachev and his new wife Alexandra Tolstaya invited Tatler photographers there to “capture their quiet Tolstoyan happiness.” Secondly, interim measures have been imposed on the shares of the Severnaya Verf company. This happened due to the fact that the Moscow Arbitration Court upheld the claim of the Bank of Russia against the companies owning shares in this enterprise. The shares were collateral for loans issued by the Central Bank to the International Industrial Bank, which was declared bankrupt at the end of 2010.

However, all these small victories do not matter much. The total amount of Pugachev’s debt to creditors exceeds 80 billion rubles. If the castle is sold, it will be possible to get €8 million for it at best. Mr. Pugachev owns two more castles on the Cote d'Azur, there is also a chain of Hediard gastronomic boutiques, as well as real estate in the UK, but the sale of all this property will not cover the debts, the property is registered not Pugachev, and lawyers have not yet been able to get to these assets.

As for the factories, each month of litigation brings them only new losses. In theory, the Northern Shipyard, together with the Baltic Shipyard, should have become part of the United Shipbuilding Company (USC) a year ago, which could significantly improve the financial situation of the enterprises. But there is no end in sight to the litigation at these two plants. USC has already stated several times that it managed to establish control over these enterprises, but in reality control was established only over the Baltic Shipyard, and then through bankruptcy proceedings, and there is practically no point in this control, since the enterprise, after Pugachev’s six-year presence there, has multimillion-dollar debts. The Northern Shipyard, which is more interesting for USC and has serious orders, will most likely not be transferred to USC even after the Central Bank’s victory last week; the story with arbitrations at various levels will drag on for the plant for many more months.

It is believed that Pugachev’s plans to develop St. Petersburg shipyards were hindered by the crisis, but his team began withdrawing money from the enterprises long before 2008
Photo: Mikhail Razuvaev, Kommersant

The Great Hoaxer

The story of Sergei Pugachev himself is practically Gogolian, except that the main character is a much darker man than Khlestakov. However, the scale of this hero’s hoaxes is wider: Pugachev managed to penetrate not only the Russian elite, but also the European one. Now both of them are vying with each other to expose him.

Sergei Pugachev appeared on the business horizon in 1992, when he created Mezhprombank on the basis of the Northern Trade Bank. Pugachev was distinguished from other businessmen starting out at that time by his desire for mystery, while there were always rumors of a certain kind around him. It was believed that he was the “presidential banker”, the Yeltsin family kept their personal accounts with him, and he was very close to the presidential manager Pavel Borodin. The latter, however, was true: in those years Mezhprombank provided loans to the presidential administration, and Borodin, in turn, attracted large companies to the bank as clients. Pugachev never gave interviews, and the press circulated various rumors about his past: either he worked as a freight forwarder at the Pribaltiyskaya Hotel in Leningrad, or as a courier at Stroybank. In 1995, Pugachev ran for State Duma deputy on the list of the Party of Russian Unity and Accord (PRES), which, however, failed to overcome the five percent electoral threshold. But the very next year, when Mezhprombank became one of the largest Russian banks, Pugachev, in the autobiography attributed to him, claimed that he was an adviser to the head of the presidential administration. He will attribute this position to himself again in 2002, however, this time the information was officially refuted, recalling that this post is occupied by Alexander Voloshin. Nevertheless, in October 1998, Pugachev, along with Finance Minister Mikhail Zadornov and several other businessmen, went to Washington in order to enlist the support of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank after Russia’s August default. Pugachev’s presence in the delegation was explained by the fact that he was the head of “one of the most successful banks”: by the time the default was declared, Mezhprombank got rid of government short-term bonds, paid all debts to Western investors in September and, despite the economic crisis, increased its assets.

With the change of president, for some reason the title of “presidential banker” remained with Pugachev. Rumors persistently circulated about a “common confessor with Putin” and about “Orthodox security officials” who accumulate financial flows precisely in Mezhprombank. In February 2001, Pugachev bought the Moskovia TV channel, whose broadcast now constantly includes both ordinary church chronicles and programs with aggressive Orthodox-patriotic propaganda. Sources familiar with the real situation claim that no influential “common confessor” and no group of “Orthodox security officials” existed in principle, and rumors were spread by Pugachev’s entourage. But PR turned out to be effective, for example, in Tuva. Like other major bankers, since the beginning of the 2000s, Pugachev has been aiming to acquire serious assets in the real sector. And in the distant Siberian republic, Pugachev bought the Yenisei Industrial Company (EPC), which had a license to mine a rare type of coal at the Elegest deposit with reserves of more than 800 million tons, and in December 2001, Tuva made him its representative in the Federation Council.

Whatever the relationship between Sergei Pugachev and Vladimir Putin in the past, today Putin denies these relations
Photo: Reuters

On the top

Where there was actually continuity in the warm relationship with Pugachev was in the management of presidential affairs. Pugachev developed a relationship no less productive than with Pavel Borodin with the next manager, Vladimir Kozhin. In many ways, he should be grateful to him for the short, from about 2002 to 2008, flourishing of his business career.

Sergei Pugachev acquired a large piece of land on Rublevka, including the territory of the famous N1 stud farm, the former owners of which, the owners of the Akron enterprise, during the long history of the struggle for control over this asset, accused a number of high-ranking Russian officials, including Vladimir Kozhin, of raiding. Following this, in 2004, the presidential administration gave Pugachev’s structures a project for the reconstruction of the Middle Trading Rows on Red Square. The project included the construction of a fashionable hotel complex "Kremlevsky" with an area of more than 70 thousand square meters. m.

The third development project was planned in St. Petersburg. In 2005, Pugachev acquired two shipbuilding companies - the Northern Shipyard and the Baltic Shipyard located on Vasilyevsky Island. At this time, the state was just creating the United Shipbuilding Company, the western cluster of which, in theory, was supposed to include these two enterprises. In this story, Pugachev was shown a special attitude: while assets were taken away from other private shipyard owners almost by force, they actually made a deal with Pugachev. He promised to move the production of the Baltic Plant to the territory of the Northern Shipyard in a few years, freeing up the lands of Vasilyevsky Island for commercial development. To implement all these plans, Pugachev pledged the most expensive asset at that time - land near Moscow - against a loan of $2.4 billion from VEB. Subsequently, during the crisis, this asset depreciated, VEB took away the land, and the entire structure of the business collapsed.

Thus, there is reason to believe that Pugachev intended to implement everything exactly as planned, and he was simply knocked down by the crisis. There is, for example, a concept developed at the Central Research Institute of Shipbuilding Technology for the demolition of workshops simultaneously with the modernization of the Northern Shipyard. But there is also other data. So, for some reason, Pugachev, immediately after purchasing the Baltic Shipyard, began renting out several of its own workshops, land plots, a floating crane, and also a key facility - a deep-sea berth. The head of the USC, Roman Trotsenko, having familiarized himself with the state of affairs at the Baltic Plant, claims that from the very first months Pugachev began to transfer current assets from the plant to offshore companies, and now the Baltic Plant’s accounts payable amount to 13-15 billion rubles, “which does not provide any opportunity place orders here." Vladimir Putin, who visited the plant last year, also knows the culprits. “Of course, here, at the Baltic Plant, losses were concentrated,” Putin told the workers. “And profits were recorded at another enterprise. The profit center was transferred to another enterprise! What else could have happened here?!”

Countess Alexandra Tolstaya believes that her current life partner compares favorably with other Russian oligarchs in that she “made himself”
Photo: Reuters

Countess Tolstaya, nephew of the Queen and Prince Albert

Pugachev began settling abroad long before the crisis. As well as property in France, he acquired the Luxe TV channel in 2006, which broadcasts in Britain, Western Europe, Asia and Russia, and then bought a number of luxury goods companies, including French grocer Hediard, which he reportedly paid for £750 million To finally fit into the circle of the European elite, Pugachev allocated money to his youngest son Alexander to purchase and revive the French newspaper France Soir, and also held gala evenings from time to time. To one of them - to the Elysee Palace in Paris - he invited his new acquaintance, the nephew of the British Queen David Linley, who was his neighbor in one of the French mansions. Sergei Pugachev became friends with him on a bear hunt in Siberia. Having strengthened friendly relations, Pugachev, through Mezhprombank, issued a loan to Linley in the amount of £400 thousand, thanks to this he joined the board of directors of Mr. Linley’s company, which produces exclusive furniture and interiors. “Pugachev is not only my friend, but also a person I admire,” Linley said in an interview with the British press. It is unknown whether it was out of friendship or vice versa, but the exclusive furniture makers did not return the loan to Mezhprombank. Another friend of Pugachev, whose reputation suffered from this friendship, is Prince Albert II of Monaco. A year ago, the former head of Monaco's intelligence services, Robert Eringer, wrote a letter to the head of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, that the influential IOC member Prince Albert accepted valuable gifts from the influential Russian oligarch Pugachev, and therefore did not have the right to vote in 2007 for Sochi 2014, but - voted. Indeed, in 2007, Albert went to Pugachev’s native Tuva for fishing and hunting, dined in the Kremlin, but most importantly, according to Robert Eringer, Pugachev built a three-bedroom “dacha” for the prince in Monaco.

Since 2009, Pugachev finally moved abroad. This was facilitated by changes in the banker’s personal life: his new chosen one was Countess Alexandra Tolstaya, the daughter of the famous British historian Nikita Tolstoy. For some time the couple was very popular in glossy magazines - mainly due to the famous surname and remarkable biography of Alexandra: she studied at a private English school, at the University of Edinburgh, then somehow suddenly married a Tatar from Tashkent, a professional groom, then taught a little English to Russian oligarch, and now she has become his wife. For some reason, the articles persistently mentioned Anna Karenina, “who also exchanged Karenin for Vronsky”: it seems that it’s all about the horses that appeared in the biographies of both heroines. In an interview, Alexandra Tolstaya happily talked about how different her new companion was from all the other Russian oligarchs, because unlike “Abramovich and Deripaska, he built his own business,” and also praised his passion for design, “for the art deco style " and numerous hobbies - bream fishing, hunting and playing the guitar.

However, after a penalty was imposed on part of Pugachev’s assets, the European press ceased to be full of touching articles about the wonderful couple.

Employees of the Baltic Plant have reason to dislike the former owner of their enterprise
Photo: M. Sergeev

Miracles in the state sieve

The Deposit Insurance Agency is still spending a lot of its own money to find Pugachev’s money. DIA employees are amazed how a man who, back in 2010, was included in the list of the richest people in Great Britain with a fortune of £750 million, suddenly found himself penniless. According to DIA employees, most of Mezhprombank’s property has been transferred to third parties. The most striking example, in their opinion, is the shares of the Yenisei Industrial Company in Tuva. It is known that Pugachev recently sold this asset to the owner of the Russian Copper Company, Igor Altushkin, and the former son-in-law of his namesake Alla Pugacheva, Ruslan Baysarov. However, the DIA did not see any money from this sale. “We can’t even understand what this is,” says First Deputy General Director of DIA Valery Miroshnikov. “The asset simply disappeared! We just saw EPK shares on the bank’s balance sheet as collateral. And now we see shares of some offshore company.”

However, the state has no one to blame for everything that happened except itself. During the crisis, Mezhprombank received an unsecured loan from the Central Bank for 32 billion rubles. At the end of 2009, the Fitch rating agency noted that 87% of loans issued by the bank were not secured by collateral. An inspection by the Central Bank showed that the bank’s management was actively engaged only in the withdrawal of funds. And yet, Pugachev again managed to agree with the Central Bank on the restructuring of this loan secured by the Baltic Plant and the Northern Shipyard. Now Mr. Pugachev’s lawyers do not want to give up not only the mortgaged shipyards, but their plans still include defending the rights to build a hotel on Red Square. In the summer of 2009, when Pugachev’s resources—both fictional and real—were exhausted, the Kremlin terminated the investment agreement with him for the reconstruction of the Middle Trading Rows and transferred this contract to the Federal Security Service (FSO). Pugachev's representatives are suing, demanding compensation for "3.6 billion rubles already spent on reconstruction."

For shipyards, bills and the Fatherland