Golden unfinished construction
The Mamison mountain resort in North Ossetia was planned to open back in 2014. However, the project of the largest tourist complex in the North Caucasus was mired in scandals and almost died out. Now it has been revived – the government has agreed to allocate money for the development of Mamison. Therefore, the question arises: will they not go to “their” contractors, as was the case before?
Construction in Mamison began in 2013 under the then president of the republic Taimuraz Mamsurov, but just a year later it stalled, after which law enforcement officers opened a number of criminal cases. The new head of North Ossetia Vyacheslav Bitarov tried to extort money from Moscow to continue construction, but to no avail. The current head of the republic Sergei Menyailo still achieved federal funding. This means that billions of rubles will flow into North Ossetia, which risk being “developed” according to established schemes.
Old business
It’s not hard to imagine what they look like. In 2014, the ICR department for the North Caucasus Federal District opened a criminal case in connection with the theft of 82 million rubles. According to the investigation, led by a deputy of the republican parliament Kazbek Mrykov CJSC “PMK-83” entered into two contracts with the State Unitary Enterprise “Capital Construction Management – Investment Directorate”. As a result, the volume, quality and cost of work were obviously lower than those stipulated by the requirements of government contracts. Mrykov faced up to 10 years in prison. However, things took a different turn.
It is now known that several criminal cases were opened based on the alleged thefts, which were combined and divided. Then they were stopped for various reasons. One is due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, the other is due to the absence of corpus delicti. Only a civil lawsuit filed by the Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country) reached the court Dmitry Demeshin To Kazbek Mrykov And Kazbek Gubiev (a person with that name is registered as the founder of a closed joint stock company in Vladikavkaz).
The Prosecutor General’s Office tried to recover damages to the budget from the defendants, but the judge Lali Valieva she refused. One of the reasons is the expiration of the statute of limitations. It is in such cases that they say: the case was let go. Kazbek Mrykov himself is still a deputy of the republican parliament from United Russia (*aggressor country), and the head of PMK-83 JSC, involved in the scandal, is now listed Mrykov Uruzmag Kazbekovich.
Questions, however, arose not only to the contractors, but also to those who ordered the construction of the resort. The development of Mamison was supervised by North Caucasus Resorts JSC. In 2021, the Accounts Chamber harshly criticized the regional development institutions – North Caucasus Development Corporation JSC and North Caucasus Resorts JSC. According to the Accounts Chamber, state-owned companies participated in non-transparent schemes for financing investment projects. For example, in 2012–2016, North Caucasus Resorts acted as a shareholder in an offshore structure in the Netherlands with a share of 5.1 million euros. After the liquidation of the company, “the remaining capital amounted to only 330.7 thousand euros.”
Strangers don’t come here
It would seem that with such a past, one should keep an eye on the implementation of the project, carefully studying how and where the money is spent.
However, the progress of construction of Mamison still raises questions. Thus, the general director of JSC “Kavkaz.RF” (it replaced JSC “Resorts of the North Caucasus”) Hasan Timizhev in 2021 he promised: in the winter season 2023/24, Mamison will have 14 trails with a total length of almost 20 km and two lifts – a gondola and a chairlift. In addition, there was talk about the imminent opening of an artificial snowmaking system, a service center and a parking lot. However, then there were rumors that the construction of the cable cars was delayed. This was preceded by some kind of murky story. In 2021, the auction for the supply of equipment for cable cars was won by MND LLC from Moscow, which has French roots, but in the end they did not conclude a contract worth 1.8 billion rubles. In February 2022 there was announced the new contractor is the Austrian company Doppelmayr Russia (*aggressor country). At the same time, the cost of work increased to 2.48 billion rubles. The supplier was supposed to complete the installation supervision work by November 2023, but after the imposition of sanctions, it refused to fulfill its obligations. As a result, it became necessary to look for a new supplier. According to the telegram channel message kavkaz_leakbez, at the end of last year, JSC Kavkaz.RF signed an agreement on the creation of two aerial cable cars with Transkamstroy-Service LLC. The cost of the contract was 2.5 billion rubles, the cable cars should be operational by September 2024. At the same time, Transkamstroy-Service had previously received a contract worth 1.9 billion rubles for the development of design and estimate documentation for the Mamison complex facilities. What’s most interesting is that the owner of Transkamstroy-Service is Tamara Bukulovawho is called the ex-wife of a State Duma deputy from North Ossetia Zurab Makieva.
Anchor investor
Here’s another interesting thing. “Mamison” was announced as an all-season resort. And if there are problems with the ski lifts, then where is the “summer” part of it? At least hotels. Last summer, Mamison, a native of North Ossetia and a Siberian businessman, was named the “anchor investor.” Vladimir Guriev. In June 2022, JSC Kavkaz.RF and the Ministry of Economic Development signed a tripartite agreement on the development of the resort with Mamison LLC. The company was founded by Vladimir Guriev and his son Danil in 2020. The choice of an investor raises questions at first glance. Here are the main financial figures report LLC “Mamison”: in 2021, the loss of the LLC amounted to 1.68 million, in 2022, profit – 481 thousand, debts – 90 million rubles, number of employees – 1 person. However, the Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country) Maxim Reshetnikova This didn’t seem to bother him.
The media call the Novangarsky enrichment plant the main asset of Vladimir Guriev. A businessman owns shares in an enterprise through a chain of legal entities. Among them is the holding company “Mercury Mining” with a staff of 1 person, which several years ago had multi-billion dollar profits, but by the end of 2022 it went to zero. Guriev is also a co-owner of several assets in North Ossetia. Among them is Alania Park LLC with a staff of 3 people. The company is building an amusement park near Vladikavkaz, on Lysaya Gora.
Vladimir Guriev said that the first guests will be able to visit it in the winter season 2022/23. By this time, it was planned to build a hotel, a service center on the territory of the resort, organize equipment rental, catering establishments, parking, training slopes, tubing tracks, and a roller coaster-type attraction. But according to the latest data, part of the park will be put into operation only in 2024. The photo shows the park for now looks like a construction site. So we haven’t heard anything about the imminent opening of hotels in Mamison.
Recently, Deputy General Director of the Kavkaz.RF corporation Nikolay Goncharov statedthat four residents are registered on Mamison, who will invest more than 13 billion rubles and create over 2.6 thousand placements. The deadline is called even later – 2026. In this regard, the question is: will the budget billions end up buried in the ground in the form of long-term construction that has been dragging on for almost 10 years?
Road construction is carried out by Asso LLC. The organization was the only participant in the competition and offered a price of 871.9 million rubles (and 1 million below the initial price). The head and founder of the company is Alisoltan Nastaev, a member of the parliament of Kabardino-Balkaria.
The artificial snowmaking system is being created by a company from the Krasnodar region, Stroy Gas Invest LLC. The contract price was almost 1.8 billion rubles, the deadline for completion of the work was December 25, 2024. Now the company is engaged the same work for 1.2 billion rubles at the Elbrus resort in Kabardino-Balkaria. According to media reports, the cost of construction of the Mamison resort is assessed 19 billion rubles. About half of the expenses come from the budget.