FSB officers searched the Center for Contemporary Art

The FSB officers searched the State Center for Contemporary Art in the case of Deputy Minister of Culture Grigory Pirumov. This is reported by Interfax with reference to employees of the GCS.

The press service of the GCS reported that special services employees are engaged in the "standard procedure" of searches. Other details were not called there.

On May 25, the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky said that the State Museum and Exhibition Center of Rosiso will unite with the HCCI. According to him, in Russia there are several large centers of classical art and only a few centers devoted to modern art. The Minister noted that Rosiso and the GCC have similar tasks - they represent contemporary art in Russia and abroad, collaborate with museums and critics, so it was logical to create a single center for support for contemporary art.

The new structure will be headed, which will be created on the basis of Rosiso, the current head of this organization Sergei Perov. At the same time, the GCCI will become his structural unit. General Director of the GCS Mikhail Mindlin, respectively, will leave his post. "We thank him for his contribution to the development of the Center for Contemporary Art, he made several interesting offers, I think we will soon see Mindlin in a new interesting quality," the minister said. Medinsky also emphasized that there would be no reductions in the HCSI, since the Ministry of Culture "sets new tasks for the HCCI, all employees will be employed."

On March 15, the FSB officers detained the Deputy Minister of Culture of Pirumov in the case of the theft of state funds during the restoration of cultural heritage monuments. The director of the Department of Property Management and Investment Policy of the Ministry of Culture Boris Mazo, Director of the subordinate Ministry of FSUE "Central Spanish" Oleg Ivanov, businessman Nikita Kolesnikov, General Director of the construction company Baltorstroy JSC Dmitry Sergeyev and its manager Alexander Kochenov, were also detained. The company was the largest contractor during the restoration of monuments.

Searches were carried out in almost all departments of the Ministry of Culture. For more than ten addresses, documentation related to construction and restoration work was withdrawn. In addition, the searches were held in the administration of Pskov, the "Baltra" and a number of other commercial structures.

The case was initiated by part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code (fraud on an especially large scale). According to the FSB investigator, the damage caused is estimated "at least 50 million rubles."

The Lefortovo court arrested the Firurants of the case until May 10 . The investigation presented all participants in the alleged criminal group of four episodes of fraud. "The case appears in the restoration of the Pskov Drama Theater, the Novodevichy Monastery, the monastery of John the Forerunner in Moscow and the Cosmonautics Museum in Kaluga," said Pirumova lawyer Fedor Kupriyanov.

On April 20, the court as a security measure in the framework of a preliminary investigation in the case arrested the property of Pirumov . It was reported that the deputy minister found bank accounts for tens of millions of rubles.

On April 23 , the head of the Directorate for Construction, Reconstruction and Restoration Boris Tsagaraev was arrested as part of the Ministry of Culture. The petition for the imprisonment of the official received from the FSB. At the same time, it was not specified what exactly was charged with Tsagaraev. The court also authorized the arrest until June 21 of the Baltstra employee Vladimir Svanbek in the same case.