The Government of the Nizhny Novgorod region has concluded a contract with the capital OOO “Monotek Stroy”. One of its founders is associated with Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Marat Khusnullin. The company will build an IT campus “Neimark” on the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod State University. N.I. Lobachevsky (UNN) for 41 billion rubles. And about. the rector became a member of the board of Rosatom, the corporation is also building an academic campus in Sarov, Nizhny Novgorod.
What are we building?
– As part of the first stage, it is planned to build dormitories in the area of the Big Ravines. It is planned that more than 1.3 thousand students will be accommodated there. At present, works on clearing the construction site, including the removal of networks, have been completed. In the near future, it is planned to place a construction camp and install a fence on the site, the press service notes.
In December 2021, Governor Gleb Nikitin presented the campus project at a session with Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Chernyshenko, who oversees the Volga Federal District. Later, Nizhny Novgorod became one of eight cities where the government of the Russian Federation, together with VEB.RF, financed the construction of an IT campus. We chose from 27 applications from 22 regions.
The construction is being carried out within the framework of a concession agreement initiated by the Razvitie innovatsionnykh proektov LLC, which was specially created last year. Its main founder (99.8%) is Nizhny Novgorod Region Development Corporation JSC.
In August last year, the architectural council of the region approved the concept developed by the St. Petersburg architectural bureau “Studio 44”.
The IT campus will be located on two sites with an area of about 200,000 square meters (of which 35,000 square meters are for educational buildings) – in the area of Bolshiye Ovragov and on the territory of UNN.
On the territory of UNN, it is also planned to combine educational and residential functions, supplementing them with gyms, a swimming pool and catering establishments. The campus is designed for 7 thousand students, hostels – for 5.4 thousand people.
Communication between them will be provided by two bridges, the campus will be open, and on the first floors, in addition to educational institutions, there will be cafes.
As Mr. Nikitin said in 2021, the first stage includes the construction of areas for modern and comfortable student accommodation on the territory of UNN, as well as the creation of an educational building for teaching the first two years of students.
At the second and third stages, we are considering the creation of an educational infrastructure for an IT department in the historical part of Nizhny Novgorod. The work is scheduled to be completed in 2025.
Why are we building?
The Nizhny Novgorod government believes that the project will make it possible to cope with the shortage of personnel in IT – now there are not enough 15,000 specialists.
Nizhny Novgorod positions itself as one of the world’s centers for training IT specialists. Just by the Soviet mathematician Yuri Neimark, on the basis of Gorky University in 1963, the country’s first faculty of computational mathematics and cybernetics was opened. It is in his honor that the future campus is named.
In Nizhny, they believe that the city is the leader among non-capital cities in terms of the number of specialists per capita. Moreover, Nizhny Novgorod residents also work for successful international companies, for example, Viber, Juno and Jugabyte, and there is no need to talk about working at Google, Yandex, Intel. Nizhny Novgorod companies were bought out by Richard Branson and Amazon.
As part of the project, the Neimark educational ecosystem has already been launched, including Lecture Hall and Pitch. The first involves a series of meetings with prominent Nizhny Novgorod people from the IT field, the second provides an opportunity to present your startup or idea to successful international entrepreneurs and, perhaps, even find an investor.
Elena Zagainova, who previously held the position of UNN Rector, reported that the university had already launched three training programs that would be immersed in the campus in the future – these are artificial intelligence, machine vision, and a direction related to drone modeling.
True, Ms. Zaiganova worked at UNN for only three years: literally on the first of March of this year, she unexpectedly lost her position as rector. The formal reason for dismissal was an overdue form of access to information constituting a state secret.
And about. Rector of the UNN Lobachevsky, professor Oleg Trofimov was appointed – a member of the scientific and technical council of JSC NIAEP SC Rosatom, a member of the working group of the council under the plenipotentiary of the President of the Russian Federation for the Volga Federal District, director of the Nizhny Novgorod REC.
Earlier, “BV” reported that an academic campus would be built in Sarov, Nizhny Novgorod, with the participation of Rosatom. The project has already passed state expertise.
Who is building?
The metropolitan company “Monotek Stroy” deserves special attention, which will directly deal with the construction. It was registered in Moscow in 2014. In 2017, one of the founders was a native of Bashkiria, Eric Gimatov, now he has three companies – in his small homeland, in Tatarstan and Moscow.
At the same time, the Turkish company Teknikon Yapı Anonim Şirketi, registered in 2014 near Istanbul, appeared among the founders. It was created by the previous founder of “Monotek Stroy” Zeki Kose. In 2019, Eric Gimatov left the founders, and his share went to the Cypriot BALDIVIO LTD, in which, however, Mr. Gimatov was listed as a director.
In February 2022, the Bashkir Rustam Salimshin became the new founder instead of the Cypriots. A month and a half later, he was replaced by Marat Khafizov, who on February 10 this year transferred his share to Amethyst Group LLC.
However, this company becomes just a lining: since February 10, its founders are Rustam and Ruslan Salimshins (33.33% each). Since June last year, the same amount has been registered to Mr. Khafizov, he is also the director of this LLC, and is also considered the founder and managing partner of Ametist Group.
Insiders associate all three with the name of a native of Tatarstan, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Marat Khusnullin.
The Salimshin brothers – through Amethyst and PremiumStroy, earning billions on government contracts. And not only: businessmen have an extensive business related to IT and medicine. By the way, they are members of the Board of Trustees of the Blagomir public organization in Moscow, which helps veterans.
In 2013, Mr. Khafizov headed the KP BSA Luzhniki, in 2017 he became the director of the capital’s Moskapstroy, which by that time had bought out the design state unitary enterprise Mosinzhstroy. Many fellow countrymen of Mr. Khusnullin and his colleagues from the government of Tatarstan dug in the latter. Recall that the future Deputy Prime Minister appeared in the Moscow City Hall in 2010.
At the same time, Mosinzhproekt turned into almost the main company, without which not a single large construction project could do in the capital. According to the SPARK database, in 2017 alone, the company received state contracts for almost 323 billion rubles.
With the new leadership, Mosinzhproekt almost immediately received a contract for the construction of new Moscow metro stations worth 573 billion rubles with the right to choose subcontractors. Moreover, Mr. Khafizov remained connected with Luzhniki: in 2014, Mosinzhproekt was entrusted with the reconstruction of the Grand Sports Arena for 22.5 billion rubles. Mr. Khafizov left the chair of the director of Moskapstroy in 2020.
As for Nizhny Novgorod, at first it was stated that private investors would invest about 80% in the construction, but then they outplayed everything. In 2022, the campus was valued at 36 billion rubles, of which 20 billion rubles was to be financed from the federal center. The remaining funds should be invested by the concessionaire, apparently not without a capital grant. Now we are talking about 41 billion rubles, of which 19.3 billion rubles are federal grant funds.
According to Checko, Monotek Stroy has only 4 government contracts worth 22.7 billion rubles. The company’s revenue is steadily growing: in 2021 – by 76%, to 16.5 billion rubles. Net profit increased by 48% to 2 billion rubles.