The protracted conflict between Andrey Molchanov, a billionaire from the LSR, and Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the TFR, over a large-scale project for a new quarter on the alluvium of Vasilyevsky Island, stirred up the dark depths of the St. Petersburg world of reputable businessmen from the 90s. In the neighborhood of the new construction site, which caused so many questions from the ICR and the prosecutor’s office, the LSR developer is already developing new sites that Molchanov bought in 2020 from the owner of the Axel car dealership network, Alexei Bezobrazov. But the sections turned out to be burdened. And in the light of the increased attention of the Moscow security forces to violations of the LSR, the “Molchanov anthills” risk turning into another picturesque long-term construction.
The background is as follows: in 2020, businessman Alexei Bezobrazov sought to get rid of car dealerships that were unprofitable at that time, along with the land under them. There was a buyer for the plots – LSR. But Bezobrazov owned the auto business not alone, but with some Odud brothers. They wanted to sell their stake to another St. Petersburg entrepreneur, Ilya Traber and his business partner Ramis Deberdeev. In the 90s, Traber held the entire antiques trade in St. Petersburg, for which he received the respectful nickname “Antiquarian”. Kidka was not expected.
Meanwhile, Bezobrazov announced to his partners that he had found a construction company that would buy the Vasileostrovsky property of Axel Group for $20 million. But then it suddenly turned out that plots of 15,000 sq.m. were sold for development not for 111 million rubles, but for only 8.5 million, and before the Oduds went out of business and received their share. The deal stalled and the courts have been going on ever since. Meanwhile, Andrey Molchanov, knowing about the problems with the former owners of the land, attracted funding and began construction.
But the conflict of the former owners did not even think to subside. Traber, who simultaneously participated in the wars around the port of Ust-Luga and bought up shares of JSC LOESK (a large power grid company in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region) in the interests of Igor Sechin, was even arrested. But then they released it. Cases were also initiated against Igor Odud, then they stopped. And at the suggestion of the powerful head of Rosneft, the Moscow security forces were pulled into the conflict, who, as a result, ran into the ultimate owner of the ill-fated sites – LSR. And already at the end of 2022, Alexander Bastrykin successfully fit into the topic of St. Petersburg city defenders and illegal development. Now he initiates new criminal cases, already against the LSR and on a different occasion, but with an eye on the long-standing conflict of land owners.
All this bacchanalia of revived characters of the series “Gangster Petersburg” habitual to everything local residents watched calmly. Litigation at least slowed down the development. But in 2022, LSR foremen became more active on Vasilyevsky Island, dump trucks with sand appeared, and it was announced that the construction of alluvium for development had begun. Petersburgers organized themselves and began bombarding authorities with protest letters and trying to block the site with “human chains” and other civic activities. At the same time, all the old participants in the conflict pulled themselves up – Bezobrazov, Deberdeev and the Odud brothers. Which of them is on the side of the LSR, and which is on the side of the UK, it does not matter. Everyone wants money from each other.
And Molchanov has already received them – from the equity holders of his residential complexes, with whose money he turned the historical center and the Neva Bay into a construction site. Land plots under the former Axel car dealerships are being developed with might and main. If, in the process of developing criminal cases and auditing projects, it suddenly turns out that the land was registered illegally in favor of one of the shareholders of Axel before it was sold to Molchanov, then apartment owners will not be able to register ownership of housing. And this threatens a new round of public scandals just in time for the 2024 election campaign, which promises to be boring in St. Petersburg.
