Developer Tapashidi received at the airport

Few of the Russian developers are fanned by such a number of scandals with sometimes completely absurd details as the owner of Limon LLC and a number of other businesses, Pavel Tapashidi. A few days ago, he landed in yet another one – information appeared on Telegram channels that he was allegedly detained at the border control at Sheremetyevo Airport at the request of the Voronezh police. Tapashidi later denied the detention. But there is no smoke without fire, right?

It is not clear what it was. Law enforcement officers do not disclose details. Perhaps they talked to him without drawing up a protocol. And the reason could be a large-scale project for building 300 hectares of cottages in the Semiluksky district of the Voronezh region (it is considered a suburb of Voronezh), presented last summer by Pavel Tapashidi and the head of the district, Gennady Shvyrkov, to the governor of the region Alexander Gusev.

The project already at the planning stage raises questions. 25 thousand apartments are to be built – both low-rise and high-rise buildings, social infrastructure, an amusement park and even the local Arbat, investments at the first stage are estimated at 3 billion rubles. Judging by the financial information about his structures, Tapashidi simply does not have that kind of money. He is the owner of Limon LLC, Limon Plus LLC and several other organizations involved in the construction of residential and non-residential buildings. Almost everyone is in a difficult situation.

At the end of 2021, Limon Plus LLC had a negative balance of asset value, it may have debts in excess of 40 million rubles. The company’s loss is over 9.2 million rubles, and the LLC itself officially has only one employee.

Key Limon LLC is doing better but lacks financial information for 2021. In 2020, the Company earned almost 300 million rubles, showing a profit of 7.9 million rubles, while in the previous period it vegetated at a loss of 11 million rubles. What caused the jumps with considerable revenue (annual growth almost doubled), it seems, is a financial secret.

The position of the other companies of Pavel Tapashidi also does not look simple: Dionis LLC (engaged in the demolition of buildings) has neither revenue nor profit, and the value of assets of 11 million rubles is limited to the authorized capital of the same amount. The situation is similar, like a blueprint, with the Moscow OOO Elinas with the same type of activity and parameters.

Doesn’t smell like agriculture

However, the key issue in the story of the cottage settlement near Voronezh seems to be this: how exactly did Mr. Tapashidi get the land on which he planned the construction. What if this is what interested the security forces?

We are talking about a site in the Semilkussky district of the Voronezh region with an area of ​​300 hectares. near the village of Gubarevo. It is reported that Tapashidi workers are already operating there. But it looks like he doesn’t even have money for them. Local telegram channels said that the entrepreneur allegedly does not pay them a salary, and has debts for renting an office in Semiluki.

In the history of the land, it is difficult to pass by the figures of the head of the district, Gennady Shvyrkov, and the governor, Alexander Gusev, whose person the official is considered to be. Previously, Shvyrkov was Mr. Gusev’s competitor in United Russia’s gubernatorial primaries. Before Shvyrkov, the head of the district was Irina Kokoreva, whom he replaced. They are people from the same team.

Under Kokoreva, local land was actively sold. As can be concluded from the message on the city-semiluki.rf website, back in 2017, the administration of Kokoreva sold a site, on parts of which, it seems, construction will begin. 22 hectares went under the hammer at a price of 22 million rubles. Belgorod businessman Alexander Dudka, a longtime partner of Mr. Tapashidi, became their buyer.

In order to organize the sale of this land, Irina Kokoreva, apparently, managed to change the head of the Gubarevsky settlement. After all, the land was evaluated and put up for auction as agricultural. And the former head of the village of Lepshina, as far as one can understand, demanded to sell it for construction, that is, not for 20 million, but for at least 100.

At that time, Dudka acted as the director of two Tapashidi construction companies – PSK Glavbelstroy and Limon Plus. Given this, it is clear that no one thought to sow and plow there. Now there is a massive building project.

It seems that such buyouts have continued, the site has grown. As they write in the telegram channel “Accents of the Middle Band”, allegedly it was the local administration that helped the Belgorod merchants. A plot of 300 hectares for development Tapashidi and his partner Alexander Dudka bought, again, as agricultural land. The cost of such land is at least five times lower than that of plots for housing construction.

Gennady Shvyrkov, the head of the Semiluksky district, who diligently promotes this project to the governor, could earn much more money for his municipality if he sold the land for future residential development. But why, if you can earn a multiple of more?

But it is impossible to build there even today. After all, it is still agricultural land.

Train of scandals

Tapashidi himself is from Karaganda, but he prefers to do business in Moscow, Voronezh and the Belgorod region. There he has repeatedly got into corruption scandals. In 2019, he became a defendant in a case of bribes, which, presumably, could have been received by the head of the administration of the Belgorod district of the Belgorod region, Anatoly Popkov, a close associate of ex-governor Yevgeny Savchenko.

According to Kommersant, the official, who until the end of 2017 headed the regional fund for supporting individual housing construction, was charged with taking a particularly large bribe from Pavel Tapashidi. The case was immediately transferred to the Central Office of the TFR, and no further details were disclosed.

A few years earlier, Tapashidi claimed that his company found it “extremely difficult to work with the administration of the Belgorod region” because they allegedly “do not understand how to behave with investors.” He complained about the too long transfer of land from one category to another – apparently, “special relations” with the district administration could speed up this process.

On the local portals, they allegedly referred to the words of Tapashidi himself, in which he could confirm the transfer of the bribe, and in the already mentioned Kommersant material, the name of the former partner of the developer, businessman Sergei Ivanenko, was mentioned, who, presumably, was an intermediary in the transfer of money.

In that story, it was about Pavel Tapashidi’s project for the development of the Limon microdistrict in Dubovoye, Belgorod District – almost the only major project of the developer that was eventually implemented.

Already after its commissioning, in 2022, there were serious questions to engineering networks – problems with sewage, which spilled over the entire area.

Later, Tapashidi appeared in another corruption case. After the developer applied, the security forces detained Sergey Martyshov, the former senior detective of the regional department of the GUEBiPK UMVD.

Showdown with partners

Tapashidi is already surrounded by many scandals. Several plots are connected with the above-mentioned Sergei Ivanenko. There was a conflict between businessmen over a loan of funds issued by the owner of Limon LLC in the amount of 4 million rubles, the situation had to be resolved in court. In the same 2019, the court recognized the claims of Pavel Tapashidi as justified.

Prior to that, Ivanenko was sentenced to four years in prison for fraud. And after that, Tapashidi could aim at the land and country house of the latter, which at that moment was owned by the Moscow artist Irina Potselueva.

Potselueva, who arrived at her site, discovered that strangers lived in the house, who changed the locks on the doors, and could also steal some things. From the materials of the Fonar.tv portal, it can be assumed that Potselueva’s house came from another developer, Vyacheslav Pristan, and the woman is only a nominal owner.

In fact, the plot was bought by her son-in-law, lawyer Alexander Evdokimov, who, possibly, helped Pristan in resolving a number of issues and for this he could ask to sell him a plot much lower than the market value.

According to investigators, in March 2019, Evdokimov offered to solve Tapashidi’s problems with building permits for multi-apartment residential buildings in the Severny-3 microdistrict and Dubovoye for 5.5 million rubles. For 2019, Tapashidi gave Evdokimov the entire amount in parts, but his problems were not resolved. The investigation believed that with this money Evdokimov bought the plot from Pristan, writing it down to his mother-in-law, which could become the basis for Tapashidi’s claims to the object.

But a much bigger scandal is that in September 2021, already the ambassador began proceedings against Tapashidi and Potselueva for the site that was in the pre-trial detention center, Alexander Evdokimov, unexpectedly for everyone, took his own life. However, many simply do not believe in the version – Evdokimov was threatened with not such a long time, and even then only if guilt was proven. But he could tell the investigators a lot.

Against the backdrop of all these exciting events, few were surprised by reports of the alleged detention of Pavel Tapashidi at Sheremetyevo. After all, the project of a cottage settlement near Voronezh was “signed” personally by Governor Gusev, and so far its implementation is neither shaky nor rough.