Translated material
Battle for Balaklava: how oligarchs from Putin’s circle get land in Crimea
The Rotenberg brothers took possession of the plots through state auctions, litigation and pressure on local entrepreneurs
Over the past year and a half, brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg have taken possession of at least 10 plots of land in Balaklava Bay, Vorstka found out. There, billionaires from Putin’s inner circle are building a yacht marina on his instructions. The Rotenbergs bought the plots of Ukrainian businessmen at Russian state auctions. And they took possession of the real estate of local entrepreneurs with the help of officials and security forces, who are bombarding local owners with lawsuits, citing violations of the laws of Ukraine and its constitution. At the same time, criminal cases were opened against employees of the Russian cadastral service, who refused to remove the real owners of the plots from the register.
“Layout” tells how entrepreneurs fought for their property on the peninsula and who, ten years later, finally took away their assets.
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War as a reason for nationalization
In 2022, a new wave of nationalization of private property began in Russia. Under various pretexts, property is taken away from both foreign and Russian owners. This is also happening in the annexed Crimea and Sevastopol, whose authorities reported several thousand objects seized from Ukrainian owners. This was legalized in the fall of 2022 with a law that allows the nationalization of the property of foreigners “connected” with unfriendly states . “Previously, in Crimea we tried to avoid the nationalization of private property. Therefore, many Ukrainian citizens continued to have businesses in the republic after our return to Russia,” explained Vladimir Konstantinov, Chairman of the State Council of Crimea at the end of 2023. “We are talking mainly about those who fall under the definition of ‘oligarchs.’ The funds they earn in Crimea are used to kill our military.”
The Crimean authorities immediately admitted that they were planning to sell the nationalized facilities to Russian entrepreneurs, “who will not stupidly siphon money out of them.” They also promised that privatization would bring significant revenue to the local budget. “The money is not small, the assets there are good. In this regard, there is complete optimism,” said the head of the State Council of Crimea.
Until 2022, the seizure of property in Crimea was already large-scale. The largest health resorts and the best plots went to the oligarchs from Vladimir Putin’s inner circle - the brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg , Timchenko , Kovalchuk . But not all the objects they wanted were easy to obtain.
Rotenberg Bay
One of the Rotenbergs’ largest projects on the peninsula is the construction of a yacht marina in Balaklava Bay in Sevastopol. It began in 2018 on behalf of Vladimir Putin as part of the federal program for the development of Crimea and Sevastopol . In the same year, the Rotenbergs' company Stroygazmontazh won the tender to design the marina; construction was carried out by their company Mostotrest, which was involved in the Crimean Bridge. The construction site is a narrow bay about a kilometer long, surrounded by hills. On a narrow strip of land there are embankments - Tavricheskaya and Nazukina. Before construction began, they were mostly occupied by dilapidated buildings, long-term construction projects, and closed industrial enterprises. By 2030, this place is planned to be transformed: 600 yacht moorings will be surrounded by a promenade and real estate for vacationers.
But the obstacle to construction was the owners of real estate in the bay - local residents and businessmen from mainland Ukraine. The authorities filed their first claims, which mainly related to illegal construction, in 2014. In 2015, plots began to be confiscated by special order of the government, under the pretext of returning to the military plots that had been sold by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. The process did not go quickly. The authorities laid claims to the plots gradually, and property owners sued for them for about 10 years or are still suing. Things accelerated with the start of the yacht marina project and then a full-scale war . So the Rotenbergs took possession of most of the large objects around the bay. Over the past year and a half, they have taken possession of ten plots of land there that they had previously seized from the owners. In addition, the Rotenbergs are buying up plots that were on free sale. Purchases are made to the companies Port Lamos and Deli Christo, controlled by the Rotenbergs.
How Port Lamos and Delhi Christo are connected to the Rotenbergs
Expand ↓“Port Lamos” and “Deli Christo” through the companies “Yuginvestproekt” and “Yug Holding” belong to the Management Company “Fin-Partner”. 9% of Fin-Partner belongs to Center-M, which belonged to the Rotenbergs from 2009 to 2021. They transferred their shares to Alexey Sorokin. 85% of “Fin-Partner” are registered on it. According to business registers, Sorokin was the founder and general director of only Rotenberg companies. The shares of Sorokin and other individuals who own and previously owned Fin-Partner since 2015 have been pledged to Mosoblbank, which was owned by the Rotenbergs until the end of 2023. SMP Bank, which owns Mosoblbank, was sold to the state bank PSB.
How Ukrainian business lost assets in Crimea
Among other things, in 2024, the Rotenbergs were finally able to take possession of the real estate of Ukrainian politician and entrepreneur Andrei Senchenko, who had been fighting for it since 2010. From 2006 to 2014, he was a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from Yulia Tymoshenko’s party, participated in Euromaidan, spoke out against the annexation of Crimea and for the blockade of the peninsula. Until April 2022, he headed the National Association of Defense Industry Enterprises of Ukraine. Moreover, after the annexation, according to local media, he retained assets in Crimea. His company “Golden Symbol” was registered in Russian jurisdiction and owned a yacht club of the same name. 25% of the “Golden Symbol” from January 2021 were registered in the name of his son Dmitry, from July 2022 - all 100%.
This company was suing local authorities over ownership of the property. Including for the hunting lodge of Prince Yusupov on Tavricheskaya Embankment and for a site with abandoned buildings with an area of more than 1000 sq.m on November 7 Street. In 2024, they were put up for auction on the GIS Bidding portal, which was won by the Rotenberg company Port Lamos. For a dilapidated former princely property with an area of 274 sq.m. the final price was 211.5 million rubles, for the plot - 37 million. The purchase price for Yusupov’s house is very high, the head of the Crimean real estate agency told Vorstka. He adds that such a price is not economically justified given the required multi-million dollar reconstruction of the building . In his opinion, such projects will pay off for a very long time and make sense only as part of an investment project for the construction of a marina. “This is a landmark object for the whole of Crimea, which will change a lot in Balaklava in terms of tourism, raising its level and prices,” the expert said.
Also, after the start of the war, Senchenko’s company lost its yacht club, as the authorities terminated the berth lease agreement concluded in 2022, and in 2024 they demanded that the yachts be removed from the pier. True, Senchenko had similar problems with local authorities before the annexation. Back in 2010, when his comrade-in-arms Yulia Tymoshenko lost the elections, Senchenko accused President Viktor Yanukovych of a raider takeover of this yacht club.
In the summer of 2023, the Rotenbergs bought at auction an unfinished hotel for 105 million, which was seized from Ukrainian businessman Alexey Plyas. As justification for the sale of the property, only a scan of a newspaper was posted on the GIS auction website, where an advertisement was published for the sale of the seized property of debtors, including Alexey Plyas. In 2016, the court declared the building illegal and ordered it to be demolished at its own expense; in case of refusal, the amount spent on demolition was to be recovered from the Place. According to the registers , he owns several companies in Ukraine. In 2022, the authorities planned to spend 286 million rubles on demolition and reimburse budget expenses through the sale of the Plyas property. In the summer of 2024, the hotel building with an area of 1244 sq.m. demolished , they were located on a plot of 3500 sq.m.
Carnegie Center expert on Ukraine Konstantin Skorkin confirms the statements of Crimean officials that projects of large Ukrainian businessmen were working on the peninsula after annexation. They also had the opportunity to defend their property in the courts, since unofficial contacts between representatives of the Ukrainian and Crimean elites remained until 2022, Skorkin says. As an example, he cites the Russian-appointed governor of the Zaporozhye region, Evgeniy Balitsky, who was a member of the Ukrainian parliament and did business in Crimea. Even after the start of the war, journalists found business in Crimea with an ally of Vladimir Zelensky. “After 2022, all ties, of course, ended abruptly; here it was necessary to finally decide - with Ukraine or Russia . And the Crimean leadership shows a gesture of loyalty towards Moscow on the issue of property,” says Skorkin.
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Conspiracy against locals
If there is a convenient law to confiscate the property of Ukrainian businessmen from 2022, then additional efforts are still required to obtain the property of local residents, even for billionaires from Putin’s entourage.
Crimean businessman Vladimir Ovanesov in 2022 appealed to the local court with a demand to restore his ownership of the buildings at Tavricheskaya embankment no. 28 - 29, which he bought from a private individual in 2006. Before that they belonged to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. From the case materials it follows that the Balaklava Development Project State Unitary Enterprise, which is also involved in the marina project, sold this property to the Rotenberg Port Lamos company under new cadastral numbers. Ovanesov also demanded that they be removed from the register; the court refused to satisfy his demands for several contradictory reasons. The judge considered the deal to sell the property of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine illegal. The court based its opinion on several laws of Ukraine and its constitution. The court also stated that Ovanesov’s property was seized in accordance with the order of the Sevastopol government of 2015. In 2016, Crimean media called it secret, since the order was not published anywhere, and property with reference to it was suddenly confiscated for the owners.
The Balaklava Development Project enterprise also filed a claim in the arbitration court against the local branch of the State Cadastral Service of Russia with a demand to remove from the register the numbers under which the buildings were registered in Ovanesov’s name. At first, the service refused the State Unitary Enterprise’s request to delete these numbers. In this case, a lawsuit can be considered an use of administrative resources, notes Ilya Shumanov, director of Transparency International Russia, in a conversation with Vorstka. “That is, a government organization is suing another government service - in the interests of Rotenberg. This is a rather rare case in the Russian judicial system when people simply come and demand that old cadastral numbers that actually existed and were obtained as part of legal succession be reset ,” says the anti-corruption expert. The scheme with cadastral numbers can be characterized as a raider takeover, Shumanov believes.
But in the spring of 2022, the Sevastopol arbitration rejected the claim of the State Unitary Enterprise. The arbitration referred to the 2014 law on the continuity of property rights for previous owners, and also noted that a change in the cadastral number should not lead to a change of owner. As a result of the decisions of the arbitration and city courts, a legal conflict arose, notes Shumanov. The first did not recognize the ownership rights of the Rotenberg company, and the second - of Ovanesov. According to Shumanov, the difference in court decisions can be explained by the fact that arbitration courts in Russia are less corrupt. In addition, representatives of the local elite may be behind the objects desired by the Rotenbergs , so arbitration, at a minimum, tries to persuade the influential parties to the conflict to reach an amicable or more legal agreement. Local media wrote that Ovanesov was the director of a restaurant associated with the former governor of Sevastopol Dmitry Ovsyannikov.
But the Rotenbergs refused to agree to a settlement agreement. Ovanesov was put on the wanted list in connection with the initiation of a case under the article of fraud on a large scale for “the fact of unlawful registration of ownership of real estate objects” belonging to the government of Sevastopol.” Among the suspects are also employees of the department of state registration of rights and cadastre of Sevastopol. Pro-government telegram channels reported this at the end of 2023. According to them, a criminal case was opened regarding another property of Ovanesov - at Nazukina embankment, 37. Allegedly, after the object was included in the demolition plan for the construction of a marina in 2020, Ovanesov “persuaded” the Rotenbergs’ company Mostotrest to buy the building for 100 million (with a cadastral value of 25 million). It is unknown whether the case went to court; “Verstka” was unable to find it in the file cabinet. The Investigative Committee of Sevastopol reported on the initiation of cases against employees of the cadastral service in 2021 and 2022 . Telegram channels claim that the case is being conducted by the military prosecutor’s office and the FSB. “Verstka” found a civil case regarding this property, which also began at the end of 2023. The decision of the first instance states that the Property Department filed a lawsuit against Ovanesov demanding to collect 12 million from him for the use of real estate at Nazukina, 37 “without any legal basis.” The department justified this position by the fact that in 2013 the court of appeal satisfied the demands of “the deputy military prosecutor of the Ukrainian Navy in the interests of the state represented by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine to Ovanesov” to return the object to the military.
The extract from the Unified State Register states that an individual (probably Ovanesov) owned the property from August 2020 to October 2022. At the same time, according to telegram channels, the authorities ordered to include the building in the property register of Sevastopol. It was not possible to find such an order in the public domain. The extract states that ownership was transferred to Sevastopol and the Balaklava Development Project State Unitary Enterprise, which at the end of 2023 sold the facility to the Rotenberg Port Lamos company.
Another example - with the Crimean company Syabry - shows what kind of “legal” agreement with the Rotenbergs the local courts and officials are pushing the business towards, Shumanov believes. The company, operating in Sevastopol since the early 2000s, has been suing for real estate at 32 Tavricheskaya Embankment for about ten years. Its ex-owner Leonid Sushko is a former deputy of the Balaklava District Council from the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine. In 2015, the building was seized by the state, after which Syabry rented it from a government organization, according to court records. At the same time, the courts continued for about 10 years regarding the authorities’ demand to demolish the “unauthorized” buildings on the site. The decisive trial for the company began in 2022. The Department of Economy demanded that the company be prohibited from making transactions with the facility. The arbitration court refused the department and imposed a ban on registration actions with the object so that the “disputed” object would not be alienated by third parties. Then the case was constantly postponed until, in August 2024, the Rotenbergs’ “Port Lamos” was brought in by a third party. A month later, this company becomes the owner of Syabry. “The Rotenbergs attracted an admin resource, organized legal red tape and a ban on registration actions,” says Shumanov. “It’s obvious that the deal was made under pressure.”
According to the registers, Sushko no longer belongs to any companies, he closed his individual entrepreneur in 2022, and since 2023 he has been suing in Sevastopol with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which refuses to register a 2004 Bentley car with a Ukrainian registration certificate. We were unable to contact him; they did not answer the old number “Syabrov”.
Secret deals and auctions continue
The privatization of one of the oldest cinemas in Crimea, Rodina, caused a scandal that showed that local authorities could secretly sell real estate to the Rotenbergs . Local deputies in August of this year complained to the prosecutor's office that the property department sold the building in circumvention of the public privatization program of state property. The department responded that it had sold the Port Lamosu building and that an auction was not necessary. The prosecutor's office did not find any violations, stating that the auction actually took place . The local deputy was only able to find out the starting price at the auction for a plot of about 1000 square meters - 5 million rubles. “Vorstka” also failed to find this lot in the auction register. The Rotenbergs were not mentioned in the complaints from deputies and local media.
In the area of Balaklava Bay, the Rotenbergs also acquired through auctions real estate that was previously registered with the FSB. This is a part of the street on November 7 (site 3) with an area of 4315 sq.m., on which there are abandoned buildings.
Port Lamos also bought two lots that were listed on classifieds websites. In the bay on Nazukina embankment, 17, the Rotenberg company bought a restaurant building with an area of 500 m2 to rebuild it into a hotel, Forpost reported . In 2020, the building was put up for sale for 80 million. Also, according to the publication, in Sevastopol on Novaya Street, 16, Port Lamos bought a plot of 9 thousand square meters for the construction of apartments, which was previously sold at a price of 47 million rubles.
The process of consolidation by the Rotenbergs of real estate in Balaklava Bay is far from complete. Real estate auctions continue. The State Unitary Enterprise “Balaklava Development Project” is filing various lawsuits against businesses in Balaklava. A few years after the completion of the marina for budget money, the real estate acquired by the Rotenbergs in such ways should become an even more valuable asset.
Cover: Anna Key
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