Five years ago, the Ministry of Internal Affairs deprived him of his Russian passport Demyan Kudryavtsev and returned the document at the end of 2021, on the 50th birthday of the media manager.
From Damian Kudriastev – transliterated from an Israeli passport – he again turned into Demyan Borisovich Kudryavtsev in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (which is reflected in the Kontur.Fokus and Spark databases). In the Spark database, data from Rosstat is linked to the cards of legal entities, therefore Star Chef, Yasno and Etikal LLC, where Kudryavtsev is now a co-founder, have changed the citizenship of the owners: from the beginning of 2022, all partners in these projects – Russians. Previously, one of the co-owners of these LLCs was designated as a foreigner, an Israeli citizen. And it was Kudryavtsev.
Apparently, his citizenship was returned to him in December, right on his 50th birthday (born December 17, 1971). Kudryavtsev is fond of travel, literature, writes in Russian: in February he published a book of poetry, Latin Lessons. He declined to comment for this article.
Under the Israeli name, the media manager has repeatedly participated in the activities of foreign legal entities, including offshore. However, recently he has been quite actively investing in Russia. Earlier, Oktagon wrote that Kudryavtsev could make money on the repair of state-run children’s rehabilitation centers and on renovation through a stake in Etical LLC, which he owns. Also, since the fall of 2021, the businessman has 30 percent in the Urban Media project, among the co-founders of which is director Timur Bekmambetov (50 percent).
On September 16 last year, Kudryavtsev received 90 percent of the Wowhaus architectural bureau. It designed for businessman Alexander Mamut the Strelka Institute of Media, Architecture and Design on Krasny Oktyabr and the Pioneer cinema on Kutuzovsky Prospekt. The Wowhaus portfolio also includes the Praktika theater on the Patriarchs, facilities in Gorky and Sokolniki parks, Krymskaya and Vorobyovskaya embankments, and so on. Kudryavtsev is associated with Mamut, in particular, by membership in the Pirogovo club. It hosts sailing races, horseback riding, golf and tennis, wealthy people. In addition to Mamut, among them are Anton Vaino, Denis Manturov and others. The media have repeatedly written that one of Mamut’s key assets is wide connections.
Mamut is also a media manager and also received the Lenta.ru publication in 2014 under a combination of circumstances (just like Kudryavtsev became the owner of Vedomosti). Earlier, Lenta.ru accused Wowhaus of tax evasion. At the end of 2021, Vauhaus LLC received a contract for consulting services from the Perm authorities for 17.5 million rubles without a tender. In 2020, the company won a contract for landscaping from the Tyumen administration, although it offered an amount three times larger than the nearest competitor: 46.5 million versus 17.5 million rubles. In 2019, two design contracts from the capital’s Moszhilniiproekt for 82 million rubles.
The Interior Ministry stripped Kudryavtsev of his Russian citizenship in 2017. The main department of the department for migration issues won the case on the recognition of false information provided by them to obtain a Russian passport. The media manager himself pointed out that the persecution by the migration department began from the moment he participated in the deal to acquire Vedomosti. The Kudryavtsev family took over the newspaper, The Moscow Times, and several other publications in 2015, buying assets from Sanoma, Dow Jones, and Pearson, as part of a new law restricting foreign media ownership.
At the beginning of 2020, Kudryavtsev and coal billionaire Dmitry Bosov (who died in May of the same year), who turned out to be his partner in Vedomosti, sold the business newspaper to the founder of the FederalPress Internet portal Ivan Eremin. Many saw the shadow of Rosneft behind the deal, followed by a conflict in the editorial office of Vedomosti: journalists accused the new editor-in-chief Andrei Shmarov of interfering in the internal politics of the publication. Some of the employees left the newspaper, creating the VTimes* online publication – the Ministry of Justice recognized it as a foreign agent, so in October 2021 it was relaunched as VPost.