Zarakh Iliev and his old partner God Nisanov greet the coming year with restrained optimism, the largest hotels, markets and shopping and entertainment centers of the capital are all of them, “the kings of Russian real estate”.

A new brainchild is being prepared for the opening – the Shchelkovsky multifunctional transport complex with a turnover of up to 30 thousand passengers per day. If the cryptocurrency scandal did not happen, there would be nothing to worry about at all.

Acceleration from Telman Ismailov

There is a unique village in Azerbaijan, Krasnaya Sloboda or Gyrmyzy Gasaba, and in an informal way, the Jerusalem of the Caucasus. Only about three thousand people live there, but there are seven synagogues and many luxurious mansions, mostly empty, since a thriving business requires the constant presence of their owners in Moscow.

The inhabitants of Krasnaya Sloboda are Tats, mountain Jews who speak not Hebrew or Yiddish, but Juuri, which means “Jewish” in translation. As it turned out, in the new Russia, belonging to this people is almost a 100% guarantee of success. The Tat community of Moscow is one of the richest. Over the past decades, at least three characters of the Russian Forbes rating have come out of it. One, however, Telman Ismailov, has already taken off from this rating, as well as from Moscow – he is on the international wanted list.

It was under the wing of the owner of the largest clothing market in Russia – the legendary Cherkizon – that the natives of Krasnaya Sloboda Zarakh Iliev and God Nisanov began their journey.

The seventeen-year-old son of a Krasnoslobodsky shoemaker, Iliev, arrived in Moscow with little commercial experience: while still at school, he began to sew and sell leather caps to fellow countrymen. He started small – delivering alcohol to shops, but soon he bargained with Ismailov several outlets in Cherkizon. And things went. Soon, the equally young God Nisanov joined him, who at first worked for his father, the director of a cannery, and then opened a commission store in Krasnaya Sloboda.

“Kyiv Ploshchad” expands its borders

In 1992, Iliev and Nisanov created the first joint company, Kyiv Ploshchad. Already by 2001, the partners became co-owners of the Cherkizovsky market and the Electronic Paradise market. In 2002, they bought a site near the Kyiv metro station, on which one of the most expensive shopping centers in the country, Evropeisky, was erected.

Obviously, there were other contenders for the site. The head of Rosprirodnadzor, Oleg Mitvol, and State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein tried very hard to identify violations during the construction of the Evropeisky, but to no avail. According to Forbes, Nisanov’s partner with Iliev turned out to be one of the leaders of the Azerbaijani diaspora in Russia, Ilgam Ragimov, who has been close to Vladimir Putin since his student days.

Then the partners took control of the city’s stake in Sadovod OJSC, bought the Grand shopping center, the Ukraine hotel and the Eleron building on Kashirskoye Highway, which was turned into Europe’s largest car hypermarket Moskva.

It was here that Zarakh Iliev’s talent as an inventor first manifested itself. He came up with a special design for a better view of the cars – he hung them on chains. The building was immediately patented. As well as the rotating letters “E”, installed at the entrance to the “European”.

The closure of the Cherkizovsky market in 2009 was a blow to Telman Ismailov. And not only for him.

By the decision of the Basmanny Court, the current Minister of Sports, and then President of the Russian State University of Physical Education, Oleg Matytsin, was removed from office and put on trial. The market was located exactly on the territory of the university subordinate to Matytsin, and he leased to Telman Ismailov a land plot of 66.5 hectares, which was in federal ownership.

investigative committee estimated the damage to the treasury at 120 million rubles, the Izmailovsky court found Matytsin guilty of abuse of office and fined him 20 thousand rubles, but immediately released him from severe punishment due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.

Ismailov could not count on such indulgence and fled abroad.

Former tenants from the Cherkizovsky market went to new sites. In 2010, the reconstructed “Ukraine” was opened under the international brand Radisson, and even with the prefix Collection, which means special exclusivity. The ships of the Radisson Royal flotilla sailed along the Moscow River – ten entertaining icebreaking yachts and the same number of modern floating trams. True, one of the decorative towers collapsed during the reconstruction, but the examination proved that the company strictly complied with all building codes, and the collapse occurred due to errors in the original design.

Following the “Ukraine” partners acquired at a starting price of 5.27 billion rubles. the building of the Radisson Slavyanskaya hotel and turned it into a hotel complex with a business center.

In 2016, they began building a luxury hotel complex on Varvarka, buying two buildings that are under the protection of UNESCO and were almost demolished during the creation of Zaryadye Park. It is assumed that the unique architecture will still be preserved.

One of the four “book houses” on Novy Arbat is also theirs. The three-star hotel that is planned here, of course, is not a luxury one, but the location will ensure good occupancy.

Rogozin’s patronage

In 2012, Iliev and Nisanov opened the Vorobyevsky business center, and two years later, the first Food City agricultural cluster in the country, investments in which were estimated at about $1.2 billion. Very soon Food City became the largest food platform in Russia. In 2018, Kyiv Ploshchad bought the territory of the Left Bank shopping complex in order to build Food City 2 there.

At the same time, the holding acted as an investor in the construction of the South Gate bus station. The transport hub turned out to be so effective that the new project of Kievskaya Ploshchad for the construction of the Nagatinskaya transfer hub (estimated investment of more than $300 million) attracted the attention of the family of the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin.

The company immediately announced that Rogozin’s son Alexei “has a professional education and extensive managerial experience in the implementation of large-scale industrial and infrastructure projects.” It sounded strange: after all, the main experience of Rogozin Jr. is the short-lived leadership of PJSC Aviation Complex named after S. V. Ilyushin, where he almost bought a luxury Audi A8 for 8.5 million rubles. with retractable roof and massaging seats

It is not clear how such a practice could even help in the reconstruction of the Shchelkovo railway station, which is part of the Nagatinskaya transport hub. After all, its new director is a major specialist himself. The former head of the Department of Internal Affairs of the Western Administrative District of Moscow, Major General Andrei Puchkov, is in charge of the station after a scandal with planting drugs on journalist Ivan Golunov and subsequent expulsion from the authorities.

Perhaps, “Kyiv Ploshchad” considered that connections with such a respectable official as Rogozin would not interfere. A similar decision was made in 2017, when the company bought the Olimpiysky sports complex. The co-founder of the project was Artem Dyumin, the brother of the former bodyguard of Vladimir Putin, and now the governor of the Tula region, Alexei Dyumin.

With such friends, it was possible to acquire the Velozavodsky market, and engage in new business, such as a restaurant. After the opening of the Voskhod restaurant and the Zaryadye gastronomic center, the process went on in a big way. In the spring of 2019, after reconstruction, a whole gastronomic quarter “Depot Lesnaya” appeared on the territory of the old Miussky tram depot. The project turned out to be so successful that in the coming year, on the wave of success, Kyiv Ploshchad risked buying the Central Market on Rozhdestvensky Boulevard as well. It is already a fashionable gastronomic cluster: its cafes and restaurants are visited by more than 12 thousand people a day. But the owners are not going to stop there. However, tenants fear that rental rates will be raised and small enterprises will be replaced by large and rich companies.

Cops and sons

The vicissitudes of political life do not affect the development of the business of Iliev and Nisanov. Their long and fruitful friendship with the former mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, grew into an equally warm relationship with his successor, Sergei Sobyanin. Although problems on the horizon arose more than once. In 2008, they tried to “squeeze” the hotel “Ukraine” from the partners, they had to turn to the authorities, and the raiders were arrested. It was not possible to establish customers, but since then such raids have ceased.

And here you can guess about the reasons.

While the Moscow police department in 2001-2009. led by Vladimir Pronin, his son Alexander Pronin successfully worked in the company Zarakh Iliev “Imperial 2000”

Pronin was replaced by another Vladimir – Kolokoltsev, who also has a son, also Alexander and also striving to benefit his native city by working in the structures of mountain brothers.

Since 2010, a network of Italian restaurants, IL Forno Group, has been developing in Moscow. One of its co-owners was Oleg Yusupov, a close partner and distant relative of God Nisanov. Another one – the owner of a third of the shares – Alexander Kolokoltsev (33.4%). Yusupov denies a close acquaintance with Alexander Kolokoltsev, and Nisanov denies the fact of a business partnership with Yusupov, however, there is evidence of the latter’s common business with the Iliev clan. The co-owners of Optima LLC, which claimed to build the St. Petersburg Internationalist Park, are Oleg Yusupov (50%), Zarakh’s son Ben-Zion Iliev (24%) and his nephew Mark Iliev (26%). Yusupov denies a close acquaintance with Alexander Kolokoltsev, and Nisanov denies the fact of a business partnership with Yusupov.

I agree to a medal

The owners of Kievskaya Ploshchad are distinguished by an exceptional variety of interests. Through their efforts, the Moskvarium Center for Oceanography and Marine Biology was opened at the revived VDNKh. The largest aquarium in the world, located far from the seas and oceans. It has more than 12 thousand different fish and other waterfowl. But problems arose during the implementation of the megaproject.

“Even before the sanctions, we ordered fish in Australia for 1.5 million euros,” Nisanov said. – And then there are sanctions, and our fish are not given out. I had to make a company in Istanbul, buy fish from Australia through it and take them to Turkey, and from there to Moscow.” The project cost more than 2 billion rubles

In addition, the partners sponsored the construction of the Kheder Menachem school and the Community Center “Association of Mountain Jews” in Moscow, the world’s first museum of Mountain Jews and other social facilities in their native village. But just in case, they do not forget about Orthodoxy – they even have honorary presidential diplomas for their help in restoring the Naval St. Nicholas Cathedral in Kronstadt. This is understandable – they demanded to invest in the project all more or less money businessmen

But financing the construction of a sports complex for students of the St. Petersburg State Marine Technical University looks like perfect philanthropy. This can only be explained by an inescapable love for the sea. Or for awards: Nisanov, who was born in 1972, received the medal “70 Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945” from the Russian president.

With cryptocurrency to Erdogan

Officially, the owners of Kievskaya Ploshchad have no problems with the law. The problem of claiming Food City for being located near the city garbage dump and cemetery, near power lines and a gas pipeline cannot be called. As well as last year’s security forces raid on the markets “Gardener”, “Food City” and in the shopping center “Moscow”. Exactly the same operations were taking place at the same time in hostels on Neverovsky and Central streets, on Vernadsky and Michurinsky avenues. They were looking for illegal immigrants and those who are wanted. It seems that the law enforcement operations did not entail any consequences for Iliev and Nisanov.

However, people with knowledge say that the raid against migrants is just a cover operation.

In fact, law enforcement officers were looking for illegal “exchangers”, as well as cryptocurrency, with which, according to the Central Bank, “Gardener”, “Food City” and the “Moscow” shopping center, which became “pioneers and leaders in the offer to purchase cryptocurrencies for cash “.

Settlements for these transactions amounted to 600 billion rubles. per month. Cryptocurrency, according to the Central Bank, was bought with the proceeds of the markets, and then it was sent “by e-mail directly to the homeland of these merchants and manufacturers,” mostly to China. In “Kievskaya Ploshchad”, the request of “Ko” to comment on the situation was left unanswered

It was after the described incident that Ismailov’s relatives began to massively buy overseas real estate and evacuate to far abroad countries. Apparently, Nisanov and Iliev also do not exclude such a possibility. According to some reports, the family of Zarakh Iliev has already left Russia. Definitely not in Krasnaya Sloboda.

It is believed that alternate airfields are being prepared in Israel, Great Britain or the USA, but Turkey is also possible, where back in 2007 Nisanov celebrated his 35th birthday at the residence of the then Turkish Prime Minister, and now President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.