Translated material
Mr. Nobody
Former top manager Arkady Rotenberg, Ruslan Goryukhin, has been living with his family for many years in Switzerland. During this time, he managed to buy two vast estates in France, two five -star hotels in Germany and the palace in the center of Munich, which accommodates offices, expensive shops, restaurants and apartments and cost about 300 million euros.
At the same time, Goryukhin was never included in the list of rich Russians according to Forbes, he was the hired manager of Arkady Rotenberg for many years. Where did Goryukhin get that kind of money and did he not represent the interests of the billionaire Rotenberg, who was urgent in Russian state contracts?
Such issues arise after studying the correspondence of managing Rotenbergs, to which “important stories” gained access. From the documents it is clear that the sanctions did not replace the long -standing friends of the Russian president from a big business - they simply ceased to be mentioned in public official papers.
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This article is part of the Archive of the Rotenberg Files. What are these projects and where are other articles?
The “Rotenberg Archive” is a leak of more than 50 thousand letters and documents of the management company Evorp, which worked mainly for Boris and Arkady Rotenbergs. “Important stories” shared these data with the leading world media, as a result, more than 60 journalists from 17 publications worked on the project.
Thanks to the "Archive of the Rotenbergs" we learned:
as manager of the Rotenbergs helped them save foreign palaces and invest in the West, despite sanctions (read here );
As the structure of Arkady Rotenberg, it allocated millions of euros to buy an alpine chalk, where the eldest daughter of Vladimir Putin and her former civil husband from the Netherlands rested (read here );
as the chosen ones of the brothers - citizens of the USA and Latvia - helped Rotenbergs and family assets in difficult sanctions times (read here );
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Buying of villas and palaces
The naval resort of Saint-Rafael on the azure bank of France has been known since the time when families of rich ancient Romans came there on vacation. In the 18th century, Napoleon landed there, returning from his Egyptian campaign. During World War II - American troops. And in 2013, a man appeared on the same coast associated with one of Vladimir Putin's closest friends. The little -known businessman from Russia Ruslan Goryukhin bought Cicada’s villa with an area of 600 square meters for several million euros. m and a plot of almost half a hectare, with a terrace and a balustrade near the rocky beach of the Mediterranean Sea.
This was not the only and not the most expensive purchase of Boryukhin in Europe. In the picturesque environs of the capital of French perfumes - the city of Graus - he acquired Shato de la Ruri. Luxurious five -star Hotel Sofitel in Frankfurt and Hotel Das Stue in Berlin. And also - the historical palace in the center of Munich: the deal was estimated at about 300 million euros. The last acquisition shocked the Germans. From the Munich Palace of the XVIII century on Maximilianstrasse, directly opposite the Bavarian opera - hence its name “Palais at the Opera” (Palais an Der Oper) - only the facade remained. Inside, the building was completely reconstructed . Seven aboveground and three underground floors with a total area of 32 thousand square meters. M now, apartments, offices and the most expensive restaurants and shops are accommodated, including one of the largest flagship of the Louis Vuitton luxury brand in Europe. Now real estate experts are evaluating the palace of a billion euros.
The fact that the final owner of the palace was listed, Goryukhin became known in 2021 thanks to the "Archive of Pandora"-a leak of documents of the largest registrars of offshore companies, which received the international consortium of journalists-investigators (ICIJ).
Scheme of ownership of the palaceThe Opera Palace belonged to the German company Opera Real Estate, which was owned by three companies from Luxembourg with the “musical” names of Opera House Music, Opera House Classic and Opera House Melody. They, in turn, were controlled by the Luxembourg Opera House. And its owner was hiding behind two offshore companies from the British Virgin Islands: Nobilis Consulting and her maternal Melody Consolidated. The owner of the latter was Ruslan Goryukhin.
Is there a connection between RG-Development and the purchase of a palace in Munich?RG-Development and Ruslan Goryukhin in 2014 were listed in the list of affiliated persons of the large Russian company Rotenberg-the Mosenergo fuel and energy complex-along with the company Lenhate Global CJSC. As noted in the list, they entered the same group with her. The company with the same name - Lenhart Global Investments Ltd - structured a large -scale transaction on the purchase of the Munich Palace. According to Spark-Interfax, Lenhart Global CJSC had the website Lenhartglobal.ru. The site belonged to Lenhart Global Investments Ltd. And its Moscow branch was located in the same building with Lenhart Global CJSC.
Investing hundreds of millions of euros in real estate is a scope worthy of the Russian oligarch. But Goryukhin never entered the lists of wealthy Russians according to Forbes. For many years he worked as a hired manager of a friend of the Russian president - billionaire Arkady Rotenberg.
The influential German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung connected Goryukhin with Rotenberg and mentioned the Moscow company RG-Development, the official owner and leader of which was Lorukhin. The newspaper repeated what the Russian business press wrote about for many years.
“Arkady Rotenberg created a new development company,” at the beginning of 2014, RG-Development Vedomosti , RBC and the Interfax news agency reported. The same was the same by Kommersant and the Russian Forbes .
Neither Goryukhin nor Rotenberg sued the Russian press about this. German journalists were less fortunate. In 2021, in Germany, Goryukhin sued the sueddeutsche Zeitung and demanded that Rotenberg be the founder of the RG-Delopment.
“The assertion that the applicant [Goryukhin] founded the development company along with Mr. Rotenberg does not correspond to reality. The applicant confirmed with the help of written indications under the oath that he was one founded by the company and that Mr. Rotenberg was never a shareholder or employee of the company, ”the decision of the German court says.
What is wrong here, it is clear from the correspondence of the property managers of the Rotenbergs - employees and heads of the Russian Criminal Code of Evorp, these documents were at the disposal of “important stories” and OCCRP.
Invisible Rotenberg
The complimentary biography of Goryukhin says that the top of his career is Stroygazmontazh and RG-Delopment.
Stroygazmontazh Goryukhin headed the company from 2008 to 2014. She was one of Gazprom's largest construction contractors and officially belonged to Putin's friend, Arkady Rotenberg.
RG-Development is also a large company: in 2021 it entered the ten largest Russian developers in the mass housing segment.
What is known "RG-Development"The RG-Development built seven large multi-storey residential complexes in Moscow with a total area of hundreds of thousands of square meters and is currently building another five. Its revenue in 2021 exceeded 25 billion rubles. Then the RG-Development entered the top ten largest Russian mass housing developers according to the Russian Forbes.
RG-Development received plots for construction from the largest Russian state-owned companies.
In 2021, the State “Russian Railways”instructed the “RG-Development” to manage the construction of the Russian Railways City complex in Moscow for 700 thousand square meters. m, where it was planned to place a new headquarters of Russian Railways, as well as other office centers, sports facilities, trade and entertainment institutions.
The manufacturer of Russian weapons, the Rostec State Corporation sold the RG-Delopment group of 2 hectares in the east of Moscow (there used to be the Orion enterprise, which also produces night vision devices). Rostec is headed by Putin's old friend, Sergey Chemezov.
But with its structure of ownership, it is more and more complicated. Soon after the creation of the company, many Russian media wrote about it, calling Arkady Rotenberg the main owner. At the same time, RIA Novosti directly referred to the RG-Development press release, where there was a quote for Rotenberg: “We are ready to actively consider projects at different stages of development, interesting from the point of view of their location”, etc. (publication is available in the archive).
But in the Russian registry, Rotenberg was never the owner of the RG-Development. At first, the only owner of the company was Ruslan Goryukhin, and then he was replaced by the Cyprus Jetbox Holdings, which stated that "neither Arkady Rotenberg nor [his brother] Boris Rotenberg, nor their families were never the beneficiaries."
Documents that have at the disposal of “important stories” allow us to understand how it works with Putin's friends: it is not necessary to appear on paper at all. You can make sure that all the issues that the company's owners should solve will necessarily be consistent with your people.
Communication through approvals
On paper, the owners of the “RG-Delopment” have changed many times.
How did the formal owners of RG-Development changeAt the end of 2013, Ruslan Goryukhin was its owner.
In 2014, he was replaced by Cyprus Jetbox Holdings, which managed not to leave a single financial report in the commercial register of Cyprus and was already eliminated.
In 2016, the main owner was the Russian company Rocket Capital, which was liquidated with missile speed a year later.
In 2017, the owner of the Lontano Investment Fund became the owner.
In 2019, information appeared in the Russian media that the owner of the van ZPIF Lontano, lawyer Sergei Shumya.
But from the correspondence of the managers of the Rotenbergs it is clear with whom they actually coordinated all the issues.
So, in March 2017, the head of the corporate law department of the RG-Development sent a letter to the Rotenberg manager with a certificate “On the Procedure for Agreement”. From the letter it is clear that until 2017 any issues that the company's owners were supposed to resolve were agreed on NPV (Enpivi Engineering), even the draft protocol of an extraordinary general meeting of owners. Enpi Engineering belonged to Igor Rotenberg (son of Arkady). Igor fell under US sanctions in April 2018, and to EU sanctions only in 2022.
In 2016, the managers of the Rotenbergs requested Enpivi Engineering data “On Changing a group of people” of the developer (a list of associated people and companies, including owners). Formally, in the documents of the RG-Delopment, Igor Rotenberg was never mentioned as the owner.
Sberbank unilaterally offers the RGD to close all current accounts in Sberbank, because we, in their opinion, are a company affiliated with persons from the "sanctions list"
The “coordination” of issues for general meetings of the owners of the “RG-Delopment” was double and even triple. Until 2017, “a package of documents to the NPV was sent to agree to the Corporate Department of the Stroygazmontazh LLC,” wrote the head of the corporate law department of the RG-Development. Stroygazmontazh belonged to Arkady Rotenberg and his brother Boris and fell under US sanctions back in 2014, and the European Union in 2018.
Ruslan Goryukhin, who assured the German court that Arkady Rotenberg was not the founder, employee or owner of the “RG-Delopment”, had to know about the real state of affairs. By August 2017, the practice of "coordination" has changed. And the head of the management company of the Rotenberg family, in a letter to the general director of the RG-Development, recalled: “Once again, we draw your attention to the need to comply with the procedure for coordinating each of the issues on the agenda of the general meeting of the participants of RG-Development LLC with R. E. Goryukhin.” At the same time, the biography of Goryukhin and the official documents of the RG-Delopment report that he left the company in 2015.
In the correspondence of the managers of Rotenberg, there are other evidence that the RG-Development was connected with Putin's friends. So, in 2017, the Rotenberg managers prepared a plan for how to optimize the structure of the RG-Development in order to quickly pay dividends and not increase taxes. The certificate of this was agreed with Stroygazmontazh. In the same year, RG-Development decided to accept the target loan from Stroygazmontazh for 1.3 billion rubles.
Fund and girlfriend
From the correspondence of managers, one can find out that in 2017, even Sberbank controlled by the state recommended closing the RG-Development accounts, since, according to the bank, the company was associated with a sanctions.
Support “important stories” so that we can tell how Putin's patriotic friends arrange their lives in the rotten West to support“Sberbank unilaterally offers the RGD to close all billing accounts in Sberbank, because, in their opinion, we are a company affiliated with persons from the“ sanctions list ”. They sent us an application for closing, ”complained an employee of the RG-Development.
In the same year, the main share of the ownership of the RG-Development was packed in the closed share investment fund Lontano. In 2019, the Russian media published publications that lawyer Sergei Shumya became the owner of the RG-Development through the tax investment fund. He gave several interviews as the owner of the RG-Development. But, judging by the correspondence of the managers of the Rotenberg and the documents that they exchanged, the main beneficiary of the company at least in 2017 was another person.
In the document “for official use” of the Main Directorate of the Central Bank of Russia in the Central Federal District, which was sent by the managers of Rotenberg, the beneficiary of Lontano was named Latvia citizen Maria Borodunova. Two sources call her the civil wife of Arkady Rotenberg. A lot of real estate in Russia and Europe has been issued on Borodunov - you can read more about this here .
Later, ZPIF Lontano moved to the Office of the Criminal Code of the RVM Capital Criminal Code Sergei Orlov. In the past, he was an adviser to the old acquaintance of Putin - Vladimir Yakunin - at the time when he headed the Russian Railways. In 2020–2021, Borodunova received income from the RVM of more than 1.8 billion rubles.
To Europe through Cyprus and Ukraine
The complimentary biography of Goryukhin says that he left the big business and moved to Switzerland with his family back in 2014-2015. And this is strange, because in the comments of Novaya Gazeta in 2017, a representative of Goryukhin stated that he lives on Rublevka in a huge mansion in the PDSK “INEK”. The estate was called in the documents “object 0” (“object zero”). The sources of Novaya Gazeta then reported that the large estate could be built for Arkady Rotenberg, and the New Gazeta checked this data by sending a journalist with a letter to the gates of the closed village. Seeing a letter for Rotenberg, security at the gate was indicated to the journalist how to get to the estate, which, according to the documents of the Russian registry, belonged to Boryukhin, and the letter for Rotenberg was accepted there. The representative of Goryukhin then denied any attitude of Putin's friend to this real estate.
In the correspondence of the managers of Rotenberg, there are documents about how 10 hectares of forest, which are adjacent to this estate, were rented from forestry. In 2013, the tenant of some forest plots was Goryukhin. These arbitration vessels show that since 2014, the company “Nostremus”, which belonged to the Cyprus Julson Investments, has become the tenant of the forest plots adjacent to the INEK PA. Its owner was earlier than Olpon Investments Arkady Rotenberg. The Nostradamus company was also associated with people who intersected with Maria Borodunova through different Russian firms.
“Important Stories” and OCCRP found out that in 2016, Goryukhin received a Cyprus passport. Moreover, as a Ukrainian - and the Latin spelling of his surname has changed a lot. Instead of Goryukhin, as previously mentioned in the documents of his European companies, he became known as Khoriuukhin.
A former employee of the Russian state -owned company, living in Cyprus, shares the opinion that this is a common practice for status Russians who do not want to attract attention.
Dmitry Velikovsky participated in the preparation of the article
Editor: Maxim Solus