A billion picture

The “Restorer case” was replaced by the “Hermitage case”. The defendants are the same

In a new criminal case related to theft of money in the Ministry of Culture, former deputy minister Grigory Pirumov and businessman-builder Nikita Kolesnikov were again arrested. Together with another deputy Vladimir Medinsky - Boris Mazo, he was charged with fraud on half a billion rubles in the construction of a fund for the Hermitage.

On the morning of May 16, the Chekists from the Service for the Protection of the Constitutional Original and the fight against terrorism came home to Grigory Pirumov with a search. The Investigative Committee publishes a photo with the interiors of the official’s apartment: satin sofas on gilded legs, patterned parquet, billiard table, tapestry, painting. And expressive pictures with the ex-official values ​​found in the ex-official: a box with a clock, a box with pearls, a box of gold, a pack of five thousandth bills on the desktop. Pirumov was taken into custody and taken away, and after the daytime the court authorized the arrest. The former deputy minister of culture barely managed to come to his senses from the previous criminal case - and landed under a new one.

Simultaneously with Pirumov, entrepreneur Nikita Kolesnikov was detained, whom he calls the head of the Rospan group of companies.

The third person involved in the new case about the theft in the Ministry of Culture was another former subordinate to Vladimir Medinsky-the ex-head of the Department of Property Management Boris Mazo. Last year, all three were convicted of the theft of restoration, but the courts left them free.

Now, according to the Investigative Committee, Pirumov, Maso and Kolesnikov, the theft of money allocated for the construction of buildings of the State Hermitage is charged.

This huge 13-story glass complex was supposed to grow in the north of St. Petersburg opposite the existing building by March 2019. The project was prepared by the Bureau of the Dutch architect Rem Kolkhas. In December 2015, the museum concluded a contract for 3.6 billion rubles with Mehstroytrans, controlled by Kolesnikov. And if everything went as they were counting on the Hermitage, a funds, exhibition halls and libraries would have begun to be placed in the building in less than a year later.

However, work at a construction site lasted only until the fall of 2016. They stopped at the stage when only 14 percent of the total volume were fulfilled. As Fontanka wrote then, Mehstroytrans simply stopped paying for subcontractors-builders. Although, according to the public procurement site, the Hermitage paid more than a billion rubles of an advance. In July 2017, the contract was terminated through the court. As a reason, the Hermitage indicated "violation of the deadlines for the performance of work." Construction lagged behind, according to the customer’s calculations - for 8–9 months. Now Mehstroytrans is declared bankrupt. In addition to the Hermitage, he has a couple of dozen creditors who filed claims on non -fulfillment of obligations.

According to investigators, Pirumov, Mazo and Kolesnikov, they “organized the conclusion of a state contract” for the construction of a complex for the Hermitage “without a real intention to fulfill it”. Having received a billionth advance, they withdrawn through controlled firms “at least 450 million rubles,” the UK reports.

The Hermitage began the procedure for terminating the contract with Mehstroytrans, when the final phase included the first criminal case against the officials of the Ministry of Culture and their partners-builders. It was excited back in March 2016, the construction of a stock storage faculty for the Hermitage then just began.

Then it was about the theft of 100 million rubles during the restoration of the Novodevichy and John-Baptist monasteries, the museum of astronautics in Kaluga, the Pskov Drama Theater, fortresses in Izborsk and Kaliningrad.

In July 2017, the first sentence was sentenced to the “Restorer case”-Nikita Kolesnikov. As follows from the court decision, in 2013 he agreed with Pirumov and Mazo on the “systemic embezzlement of budget funds”, which will be allocated for the restoration of cultural monuments. In the “Restorer case”, Kolesnikov was the first to deal with the investigation and gave a confession. The court took into account his active repentance and excellent characteristics from the places of work as a "person of high moral qualities." And he sentenced to five years conditionally.

In October 2017, the rest of the defendants received conditional terms. Each of them, as stated in the verdict, "pleaded guilty, repented of his deed, voluntarily compensated for property damage." Pirumov was under arrest during the investigation, the court sentenced him exactly to the time that he had already spent behind bars, and released him.

When the Basmanny Court chose a preventive measure in the new case, the ex-official said that he did not admit his guilty. Whether the accused will now cooperate with the investigation as actively as in the “Restorers' Case,” a big question. They managed to take a break from criminal cases for only six months.