Translated material
The FSB seized documents in the Hermitage
FSB officers arranged a seizure of documents in the State Hermitage. According to Fontanka, they are seizing materials related to the construction of a new repository of funds.
The construction contract is estimated at 3.67 billion rubles. It was concluded with the Moscow company Mekhstroytrans. In September 2016, Fontanka wrote that the company was actually not conducting any construction, although it received an advance payment of a billion rubles.
Coincidentally, it was today, January 31, that the Moscow Arbitration Court was supposed to consider the claim for declaring Mekhstroytrans LLC bankrupt and appointing an arbitration manager.
- The contract for the construction of a new storage facility for the Hermitage was signed in 2015. According to the project, a 10-story building in the shape of a cube should be built on Shkolnaya Street in St. Petersburg. In addition to funds, it will house exhibition halls, libraries and cafes.
- At the end of January, the director of the Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky, sent a letter to Patriarch Kirill with a request to withdraw the request to transfer St. Isaac's Cathedral to the Russian Orthodox Church. Such a decision, according to Piotrovsky, would allow "to stop the public confrontation" around the transfer of the cathedral to the church.