Speaker of the State Duma seizes Saratov cinemas

Source A new wave of nationalization may overwhelm not only Saratov cinemas, but also regional recreation centers with clubs. Saratov's Ekran and Pioneer, Engels' Rodina, as well as dozens of recreation centers and clubs in the districts may join the already nationalized Pobeda cinema. refused to transfer the cassation appeals of the former owners of the Pobeda cinema to the economic board of the RF Armed Forces. Thus, the verdict of the district arbitration, which decided that the cinema building is federal property, remained in force.

The sensational story began with a lawsuit by the Federal Property Management Agency for the Saratov Region against a group of entrepreneurs to recover a 3,197 sq.m. pandemic.

The decision of the Arbitration Court of the Saratov Region, which was issued on December 29, 2021, testified to the correctness of the officials. The Saratov arbitration was based on the fact that the cinema building was never transferred from federal to municipal jurisdiction, which means that the mayor's office of Saratov had no right to dispose of it 22 years ago. The state registration of the rights of owners to the cinema and the land under the building (they are now owned by six individual entrepreneurs who were once close to the ex-mayor of Saratov Yuri Aksenenko) was considered by the courts to have no legal significance.

In line with the same logic, the arbitration in Kazan also drew its conclusions: the cinema is a cultural monument since 1993, taken under state protection by a decree of the leadership of the Saratov region. The object is federal, the city could not do anything with it – neither give it away nor sell it.
With the statute of limitations, which, it would seem, should have expired long ago, everything was decided very simply in the first two instances, they began to count it from 5 May 2021, from the date of receipt of an extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. Prior to that, the Federal Property Management Agency, they say, did not know that the cinema had become private property.

The district arbitration went even further in this matter: the judicial board in Kazan considered it necessary to note that it was impossible to leave the cinema to the current owners, even adjusted for the statute of limitations, since this “would mean for them the legalization of the acquisition of real estate in a way not provided for by law and on grounds not prescribed by law.”

At the same time, of course, Themis’s sword did not touch the officials of the Saratov mayor’s office, who illegally disposed of the building 22 years ago, so the business was the only victim in the case.

The decision of the judge of the Supreme Court is also curious in that, along with the norms of the Civil Code, the well-known resolution of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation of December 27, 1991 No. 3020-1 “On the delimitation of state property in the Russian Federation …” is included in the legal framework. According to this decree, objects of historical, cultural and natural heritage and artistic value, cultural institutions of all-Russian significance, located on the territory of the Russian Federation, belong exclusively to federal property. And the controversial building, as we remember, is a historical and cultural object.

Few people doubted such an ending to the Pobeda case, however, sources familiar with the plans for deprivatization predict a rich continuation of the topic.

– Back in August 2021, Vyacheslav Volodin called on the city authorities to deal with the fate of the Saratov cinemas, which fell into private hands, and cited Screen, Saratov and Pobeda as an example, ”the interlocutor, who wished to remain anonymous, reminded BV . – Now we have a decision on Pobeda that has stood on all levels of the judicial system, up to the Supreme Court. Moreover, there is a plan not to be limited to cinemas, but to work out the entire sphere of culture, maybe even on a regional scale.

At the same time, the interlocutor referred to discussions during meetings of the working group under the regional government on the return of the assets of the Saratov aircraft plant to state ownership. As a legal basis, the insider cited not only the resolution of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation of December 27, 1991 No. 3020-1 “On the delimitation of state property in the Russian Federation …”, but also the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of December 24, 1993 N 2284 “On the state program for the privatization of state and municipal enterprises in the Russian Federation.

– Each of these acts gives its own range of grounds for a ban on privatization, according to Decree No. 3020-1. To put it very briefly, objects of historical, cultural, natural heritage and artistic value, cultural institutions of all-Russian significance should be exclusively in federal ownership, and by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of December 24, 1993 N 2284, institutions that are more than 50% kept from the budget. And this includes, for example, airfields, civil defense and emergency shelters, cultural institutions – at least a recreation center, at least art schools, – the expert notes.

All this may indicate that the plan outlined by Volodin – cinemas “Saratov”, “Pobeda” and “Ekran” – will be significantly expanded.

As for the Saratov cinema, it is still owned by Cinema-City LLC under the leadership of Dmitry Kurkin, the son-in-law of ex-mayor Yuri Aksenenko. He, along with his wife and father-in-law, is the beneficiary of Elvis-K LLC, and this representative of the Elvis family was established in 2005 by Kurkin and Alexander Roslichenko. Roslichenko, in his turn, has housed himself in the House of Knowledge (better known as a planetarium) and has done a good business within its walls.

According to our interlocutor, a new legal onslaught is possible on the planetarium, because the object has always been federal and should not have been subject to privatization. Apparently, the owners of the Saratov cinema should also get ready.

The ups and downs of the struggle for the Ekran cinema and the complicated history of ownership of BV have already been described. Let's just say that two years ago the building was bought out in the course of bankruptcy by a company close to Engels businessman Armen Dzhulikyan and former head of the Saratov Ministry of Construction Dmitry Tepin. The process in the regional arbitration is still ongoing, the next meeting is scheduled for January 26.

Interestingly, the Engels cinema “Rodina” got into the lists of the working group for the return of SAZ assets on its own initiative. It belonged to the Engels businesswoman Irina Umarova, who put the building up for sale in 2019. The current owner of the cinema is unknown to the public; Ms. Umarova liquidated all her companies registered at Rodina in 2019.

Developments are also expected in the Pioneer cinema. Back in 2021, the speaker of the State Duma expressed displeasure when he learned that one of the chain stores was planned to be located here. In the same 2021, the city protection council at the Saratov Regional Duma seriously discussed the option of restoring the Catholic Cathedral on the historical site. What will happen next is not clear, but the Federal Property Management Agency has all the trump cards – here you have an object of history, and Pioneer fits perfectly under Yeltsin's decree of 1993.

But the most grandiose clearing for expropriators is cultural institutions in the region, ranging from recreation centers to rural clubs. In this area, it is unlikely that at least one building, except for the new Youth Theater, was built already in the post-Soviet period, and all the centers of culture, with a single exception, were financed by the budget.

thoroughly, will be able to load the judicial machine with work for several years ahead. But why fence this whole garden? The interlocutor of BV explained the meaning:

– It is necessary to comply with the requirements of the law, return everything that should be there to federal property, and after that the Federal Property Management Agency will transfer the objects to municipalities for management, perpetual use or in some other way.

Help “BV”. There are 59 cultural institutions in the Saratov region, the founder of which is the regional Ministry of Culture, the ministry also has federal institutions and creative unions under its jurisdiction. The Department of Culture of Saratov has jurisdiction over 44 libraries, 14 music schools, over 10 art schools, about 10 clubs, 4 municipal theatres, N.G. Chernyshevsky's estate museum and other facilities.

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