From the history of Vyborg shipbuilding

It is interesting that many high-profile initiatives, advertised, costing many billions, supposedly invested in Vyborg and the region, end quietly...
Nobody even remembers them.
I probably wouldn’t have remembered either if a new stage of life in Vyborg shipbuilding had not now begun - the transfer of the Vyborg Shipbuilding Plant from private owners to the state holding JSC United Shipbuilding Corporation.
As for the owners of the plant, both local and non-local, then, according to the capital’s colleagues, they are all worthy of the pen of Mario Puzo and, perhaps, will become heroes of movie sagas. In the meantime, information about them can be gleaned from numerous newspaper and Internet publications, with an emphasis on Kompromat.ru.

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Here is a small, not even an investigation, but a listing of the events accompanying the failure of a major economic project in which Putin, the Minister of Industry and Trade Khristenko, and the former and current owners of the VSZ (they are also the former and current fathers of the city and region) are tied up.

From the history of modern shipbuilding in Vyborg

At the height of the global economic crisis, in March 2009, the Vyborg newspaper brought sensational news to residents of the city and region - the construction of a shipyard is planned in Primorsk, promising to give the region 1,500 new jobs! The project was estimated at 38.5 billion rubles.
Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Viktor Khristenko said that the project of a new shipyard in Primorsk, proposed by the Vyborg Shipyard, will be the first to be supported within the framework of the federal target program for the development of civil marine equipment. Khristenko noted that this project “is the most prepared.”

Journalist Margarita Zakharova in the article “New project: what, where, when?” wrote that “The protocol for approving the construction of a new shipyard in Primorsk has already been signed by all relevant departments, and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin also approved it.”
The newspaper material described the beauties and advantages of the project, which involved unprecedented comfort, technology and social advantages of creating a shipyard located on an area of ​​two hundred hectares. The ships will be built under a roof, the control mechanisms for special equipment will be automated, the working premises will be made warm and, for external perception, silent, the shipyard specialists will live in new houses designed for 2,100 residents, the construction of houses will proceed in parallel with the construction of the shipyard itself. On the territory of the settlement under construction it is planned to build a kindergarten, a school, a medical unit - all three facilities will have a swimming pool, as well as a sports complex, a shopping center, two dormitories with 400 beds each, a hotel... A share of the apartments in the new building will be transferred to the ownership of the Primorsky settlement to improve the living conditions of local residents. All social facilities will become the property of the city.
Training of workers to work at the Primorskaya Shipyard will take place at the Vyborg Shipyard, as well as abroad: in Finland and Germany.
The completion of three years of construction was scheduled for these days.

Related

About 10% of the population of Primrosk - more than 500 people - took part in public hearings regarding the construction of the shipyard. Not everyone agreed with the blasting and resettlement of 50 houses. The press wrote about the atmosphere of the hearings: “Mr. Karatun (Yuri Karatun, general director of a local construction organization and chairman of the board of directors of Primorsk) gave everyone three minutes for questions and speeches. For those who criticized the shipyard, three minutes ended after just one or two, and for those who praised it, it didn’t end at all. Any shouts from the audience in support of the criticizing speakers were suppressed by a group of strong young people gathered in advance in the front rows.”
Project coordinator Nikolai Allekov noted that only Primorsk is suitable for the future shipyard. Of course, other options were also considered, for example, a spot north of Primorsk, but the wind pattern there is such that when the north-west wind blows, excitement arises: “This interferes with the production process, problems arise during completion. And the wind can last for weeks.”
Thus, 200 hectares of forest park area were used for proposed development...
(VIDEO at the bottom of the page)


Love for native aspens

VSZ became the investor for the development of 200 hectares of forest park area.
This is not the first time that plant management officials have shown interest in developing attractive areas.
In 2007, the newspaper "Business Petersburg" studied a loud scandal - LLC "Peterhof Merchant Harbor" bought 18.5 hectares at auction for the construction of all necessary infrastructure facilities at its own expense with the opportunity to subsequently buy the land at a symbolic price of 600 rubles per 1 m2 or renew the lease agreement for 49 years at a preferential rate.
Didn't fulfill obligations. A debt of 1 billion rubles arose from unpaid fines and penalties for late payments.
The government and the regional administration forgave this debt in a fantastic way.
According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities as of September 2005, in addition to Algorithm LLC, which is backed by the Cyprus offshore company First Quantum Petroleum, and the international company Smashing Holding Ltd., the founders of Peterhof Merchant Harbor LLC include eight individuals, some of whom, Apparently, it is connected with the Vyborg district of the Leningrad region (see diagram).



Thus, the founders of Peterhof Merchant Harbor LLC included current members of the board of directors of Vyborg Shipyard OJSC (VSZ) Natalya Belikova and Alexander Petrov. They were elected at an extraordinary meeting of shareholders in December 2006, and re-elected at a general meeting of shareholders in June 2007. According to the list of affiliates of VSZ OJSC as of March 31, 2007, the shares in the authorized capital of Natalya Belikova and Alexander Petrov each amount to 4.2%. In September 2006 Alexander Ulanov became a shareholder of JSC VSZ: his share in the authorized capital was 9.6%. Also, the founders of Peterhof Merchant Harbor LLC included Elvina Patraeva and Lyubov Tsoi. According to Vyborg media, they are close relatives of the head of the Vyborg district municipality, Konstantin Patraev, and municipal official Oleg Tsoi...
200 hectares of Primorsk look no worse than 18.5 hectares of Peterhof.

VSZ shipyard investor

The following facts will tell you something about the high interest of the Vyborg Shipyard (VSZ) in the development of the Primorsky project: at the annual meeting held on May 22, 2009, the shareholders of JSC VSZ approved the conclusion of a transaction, according to which the company acts as a guarantor for the loan to LLC Primorskaya shipyard" in Vnesheconombank for an amount of at least 27.2 billion rubles. The shareholders also approved another major deal, under which VSZ OJSC acts as an investor under an agreement with Primorskaya Verf LLC with an additional agreement to it with a total investment volume of VSZ in the amount of 7 billion rubles. Let me remind you: at this time the plant itself is going through hard times - a significant part of its workers are unemployed and sit at home, receiving 2/3 of their salary.
However, as the INFOLINE agency reported, the construction of the shipyard will take place as part of the creation of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), a state holding, to which, therefore, the private owners of VSZ OJSC and Primorskaya Verf LLC initially intended to sell the shipyard to the state.

Nationalization-privatization

One of the first decrees issued by the newly elected President Putin, who had previously approved the construction of the shipyard, was an order on the “withdrawal of the state from the capital of companies in the ‘non-resource sector’”, which include JSC United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), State Corporation Russian Technologies, and, of course, JSC United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC). That is, at first Putin decided to nationalize private enterprises, but, after a short time, privatize them again.
What are the goals of such actions?
Well-known columnist Yulia Latynina, using the example of the UAC, explains: “The development of the aircraft (the recently scandalously crashed Superjet) cost, according to experts, $7 billion versus $1-1.5 billion, which cost its closest competitors. The plane was three years late and turned out to be three tons heavier than promised, but, apparently, from the point of view of the economics of the ROZ (cut, rollback, skid), the project was successful... ...It is not difficult to guess that if the assets of the UAC are privatized, then it could easily happen that the government will retain the costs of developing the Superjet, while profits from future sales will be in the hands of future asset owners.”

High interests

From a published audio recording dated 10/19/2009, St. Petersburg, Fontanka embankment, 132, office of Rosinvest LLC, transferred by VSZ shareholder Sergei Kolesnikov to The New Times journalist:

Dmitry Gorelov (hereinafter referred to as DG) : Why are we building this plant (“Primorskaya Shipyard”) - so that it will one day pay off... officially conclude contracts, have orders...
Nikolai Shamalov (NS) : If we hadn’t counted on orders, we wouldn’t have received anything, no loans, understand?
About Igor Sechin and Vladimir Putin:
DG : /…/ Further, the issue was agreed on the participation of Igor Ivanovich.
NS : And what is the answer?
DG : “Of course, we must... I’ll call Igor Ivanovich.”
NG : Him?
DG : Yes. Mikhail Ivanovich ( that’s what we called Putin - Sergei Kolesnikov ) should have called Igor Ivanovich.
NG : In what part?
DG : So that Igor Ivanovich, in the form of USC, which is controlled by him (United Shipbuilding Corporation, which was headed by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin from May 2008 to early October 2011. - The New Times), became a shareholder in the new shipyard at 10%... Mikhail Ivanovich should give instructions to Igor Ivanovich that Dima and Kolya will come and explain the situation to him, not over the phone... Well, maybe... over the phone... that he becomes a shareholder, becomes the board of directors... in the summer this issue was agreed upon with Mikhail Ivanovich , and the go-ahead was received, to which they said: “I’ll call Igor.” I gave it 3-4 days to get going, I called Igor Ivanovich, he was on a business trip, then he left to treat his knee...

Verfe- and non-verfestroy

VSZ continues to actively invest money in Primorskaya Shipyard, so in mid-2010 the General Meeting of Shareholders of the plant easily parted with 44 million rubles, aimed at “transferring the next payment to Primorskaya Shipyard LLC in accordance with the investment agreement.”
All this economic policy leads to the fact that in 2011 the company’s net loss according to Russian accounting standards (RAS) increased 3 times and amounted to 846 million 948 thousand rubles and the refusal to pay dividends to shareholders.
A piquant moment in the political economy of the Vyborg shipbuilding industry is the fact that the shareholder of VSZ is Rosinvest LLC; it owns 23.82% of the authorized capital or 25% of the company’s ordinary shares. The most famous project of Rosinvest can be called the construction of “Putin’s Black Sea Palace” in Praskoveevka near Geledzhik. A quarrel between two major shareholders of VSZ, Putin's close friend Nikolai Shamalov and Sergei Kolesnikov, led to the latter's flight to the United States, and a series of major revelations of financial and political machinations made by Kolesnikov.
After the revelations, it was decided to liquidate Rosinvest - in March 2011, the famous “Putin’s palace” was sold to Alexander Ponomarenko, the Vyborg shipyard was sold to the state-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation for 1.8 billion rubles in February 2012 (the cost of the contract for the construction of two icebreakers, the order for the construction which VSZ received, 8 billion). Primorskaya Verf was declared bankrupt in January 2012...
And between the two initiators of the construction of the Primorskaya Shipyard, Nikolai Shamalov and Dmitry Gorelov, previously united by Rosinvest, a major quarrel began over money with the involvement of the prosecutor’s office, as reported by the Vedomosti newspaper.

Today

Today Primorskaya Shipyard is bankrupt. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities extract, reflecting the current state of affairs at the shipyard, the main type of economic activity of this “serious step forward in the development of the settlement, thanks to which Primorsky residents will be able to forget about the economic crisis” (head of the Primorsky settlement Valery Shkoldin) is “Preparation for the sale of their own residential real estate” and “Providing intermediary services in the purchase, sale and rental of non-residential real estate.”
According to case No.: A56-69197/2011 “On declaring the debtor bankrupt” in the Arbitration Court of the city of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, both the plaintiff and the defendant are Primorskaya Shipyard LLC, which is bankrupting itself.