Despite constant scandals, Donstroy continues to pump money from state-owned banks and corporations

The names of the head of Roskosmos Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin, the oligarchs of the Rotenberg brothers, the president of VTB Bank Andrey Kostin, the chairman of the board of Sberbank German Gref and the chairman of the supervisory board of the same bank Igor Siluanov are known to everyone.

And everyone understands that this is the highest cohort of leaders of the Russian Federation involved in governing the country and making key decisions. Elite, so to speak.

But there is another common denominator that connects all these people. And it is called simply and modestly – “Donstroy”. Donstroy is a real estate development and construction company primarily based in Moscow. And all these people are somehow involved in this company-developer of the capital. Someone – directly, like Kostin or Gref, someone – indirectly, like Rogozin or Sechin. But at one time or another, all these names (like many others) surfaced in connection with the history of Donstroy.

To understand what will be discussed further, you need to give a brief historical background on the Donstroy company. This, as mentioned above, is the developer of the capital. It was founded back in 1994 by partners Maxim Blazhko and Dmitry Zelenov, who owned it until at least 2009-2010, when management changed in the company as a result of debt restructuring.

And the owners changed, but the only official data on who became the ultimate beneficiary of the company (or, more precisely, the Donstroy hodding – the structure acquired a bunch of subsidiaries and affiliated companies in the course of its activities) is unknown. Some five legal entities are named, but their founders and owners are safely hidden, and this information is carefully hidden in Donstroy itself. Even the names of these legal entities are hidden, which, to put it mildly, is somewhat strange.

So, in 2009, Don-Stroy (then the company was called that, with a hyphen in the middle) accumulated a lot of debt. Basically – before the state-owned VTB and Sberbank. The first – “Don-Story” owed about 500 million dollars. The second – 20 billion rubles (at the then dollar rate, mind you). In connection with the restructuring of these debts, several companies were withdrawn from Don-Stroy. In particular, the debt to VTB was repaid by selling to the bank a subsidiary of Don-Stroy – CJSC Don-Stroy Invest – for 500 rubles. Exactly five hundred rubles, we give the amount in words.

The debt to Sberbank was repaid by transferring another subsidiary of Don-Stroy – DS Development LLC, together with the Moscow business center Nordstar Tower with an area of ​​147 thousand square meters built by Don-Stroy, also for “a symbolic few hundred rubles.

After that, they sort of sorted out the debts, and Don-Stroy itself began to act under the name Donstroy, without a hyphen in the title. And the management (as well as the owners) has changed in it – since 2010, Alena Deryabina has been the general director of the company. Prior to that, she worked as one of the top managers at VTB Bank and was part of the so-called “inner circle” of its head Andrei Kostin. Deryabina worked at VTB as an adviser to the vice president, head of the non-financial assets department and vice president. So it is not difficult to guess who is one of the current beneficiaries of the Donstroy holding, even if there is no documentary evidence for this.

Which of the top managers of Sberbank went to work at Donstroy is not known for certain. But somehow it’s not very hard to believe that the head of Sberbank Gref and his closest assistant Siluanov were altruists who wrote off 20 billion rubles to Don-Story out of pure philanthropy. So here, too, you can build very strong assumptions.

By the way, we recall that 92% of VTB Bank belongs to the state, and the owner of 50% + 1 share of Sberbank is the National Wealth Fund of Russia. So there are interesting questions here too. But let’s not speculate – let’s leave it to those who have more accurate information.

Let us just recall some of the financial results of the Donstroy holding. At the end of 2020, the profit of JSC IC Donstroy amounted to 117,000 rubles with a revenue of 15.2 billion rubles. Another holding company, Don-Stroy Invest JSC, showed revenue of 22.3 billion rubles in 2020. But at the same time, the losses amounted to 6.2 billion rubles.

Recall that all this is managed by a former employee of VTB Alena Deryabina. Which also makes me think. Especially considering that these structures have a permanent credit line at VTB Bank. This is despite the fact that the amount of claims against Donstor’s structures is at least 160 million rubles. And these are just those that are already in the execution stage. And how many more in the courts is unknown.

Here is such a story with banks, Kostin, Siluanov and Gref.

Now let’s touch on the Rotenberg brothers. At the time of perturbations in the ownership structure of Don-Stroy and the transfer of its assets to Sberbank and VTB, the name of a certain Roman Gromozdov surfaced. Which, as of now, has a considerable influence on the decisions made by the general director of Donstroy, Alena Deryabina. Gromozdov is a fairly large businessman. But the main thing in this story is that he is part of the Rotenberg entourage. And, in fact, is, if I may say so in this case, “looking” for their share in Donstroy. At the same time, the Rotenbergs assist Donstroy in obtaining orders from VEB, Rosneft and Roskosmos.

As for Igor Sechin, Rosneft is connected with Donstroy through the KL Development company, whose founder until recently was SK Donstroy JSC. To date, its official owner is Special Construction Company Otdelfinstroy and Partners LLC, owned by two legal entities – LLC SZ Otdelfinstroy and JSC SZ KSK Group. In turn, the holder of the register of shareholders of JSC SZ KSK Group is the company Reestr-RN, which is part of the structure of Rosneft.

If everything is confused with the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, with the help of companies that own each other, then with the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, everything is simpler, clearer, and more frank. A vivid evidence of his involvement in the activities of Donstroy is the story of the land plot located in the center of Moscow, on the street. Sergey Makeev, 7, at the place of the former registration of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Design Bureau Motor. Today it is already a liquidated structure, which was previously part of the structure of Roskosmos and was controlled by the Center for the Operation of Ground-Based Space Infrastructure Objects (TsENKI).

But at one fine moment, it suddenly turned out that Specialized Developer Makeeva LLC was registered along Sergey Makeev Street, 7, the founder of which was the Don-Stroy Invest company. And FSUE “Motor” was liquidated.

It is worth mentioning here that Motor owned a land plot of 4.8 hectares, located in by no means the worst place in Moscow. The scandal caused by the details of this simple and ingenious scheme leaked to the media disrupted the plans of Kostin and Rogozin to build several new skyscrapers on this site, but something tells me that it did not cancel them altogether. In addition, it is known that Donstroy, some time before the start of the implementation of the scheme, ordered an assessment of the future construction site. So with Rogozin, as was said, everything is much more vulgar and primitive.

Returning to the beginning of the material, this is only part of what connects the Rotenbergs, Sechin, Rogozin, Kostin, Siluanov, Gref with the Donstroy holding.

Now it is worth mentioning the holding’s construction projects themselves. Because, although Donstroy claims that they are building “elite and high-quality” housing, the reality is somewhat at odds with the developer’s statements.

According to Donstroy itself, the company “is one of the five largest developers in Moscow and specializes in the construction of business-class residential complexes. It is a leader in the construction of high-rise residential buildings. During its activity, the company has built more than 40 residential complexes with an area of ​​more than 4 million square meters.

Among the most famous objects of Donstroy are Triumph Palace, Scarlet Sails, the Heart of the Capital quarter, Symbol residential complex, Smolensky De Luxe, Barrin House, Grand DeLuxe on Plyushchikha, Maple DOM, Setun Valley”, “Falcon Fort”. And, again, according to the statements of the management of “Donstroy” – all this is “elite and high-quality housing”, made in compliance with “all the requirements of urban planning documentation.”

However, the reality is somewhat at odds with the assurances of the company’s PR people. One of the most high-profile scandals is the “House on Mosfilmovskaya”. To which Donstroy, in violation of the terms of the project, added nine extra floors. They even began to be demolished in accordance with the instructions of the Urban Planning and Land Commission under the Government of Moscow in 2010, but then for some reason the commission reversed its decision. Just at this time, as you remember, Donstroy changed owners. Here is such a coincidence.

However, it is worth emphasizing another obvious nuance – money is money (and nine extra floors are several tens of thousands of additional square meters), but this is also a colossal additional load on the structure of the house. So how else everything will end there and whether the skyscraper will collapse at one fine moment under this weight – the question is not completely clear.

Moreover, as it turned out, Donstroy is inclined to save on the materials from which it builds its houses. As well as the specialists who build these houses. So, in 2016, an elevator broke in the “elite” LCD “Scarlet Sails”, as a result of which a resident of this residential complex died. As it turned out, the person servicing the elevators had neither the appropriate qualifications nor any idea of ​​what he was doing. Moreover, he was not officially registered at all to work in the Criminal Code, which served the Scarlet Sails and belonged to the Donstroy holding. The practice for Russia, of course, is common, but that’s just “Scarlet Sails” – one of the most expensive and elite residential complexes in the country.

In addition, as the press wrote then, the fitter turned out to be an ordinary “switchman”, who was quickly appointed guilty in order to hush up the case and no one was interested not only in the condition of the LCD elevators, but in everything else in it – the supporting structure, walls, communications, electrical wiring. Which is very similar to the truth. Because three years later, in December 2019, two people died as a result of a fire in the utility room in the same Scarlet Sails. By the way, the case was hushed up again.

At the same time, keep in mind that not hard workers from the former Rogozinsky “Motor” live in Scarlet Sails, but people are by no means the last in this country. But the scandals quickly subsided. This means that they were extinguished at the highest level, which again leads us to the beginning of the material and the names mentioned there.