Elite residential complexes, land and the “Chocolate Museum” – what Prigozhin’s widow owns

In September 2023, Lyubov Prigozhina submitted a notification to the tax office about the official change of surname. Now in official documents on asset ownership, her last name is Kryazheva.

Fontanka has collected all publicly available information about the business of the widow of the founder of the Wagner PMC.

For the first time, the name of Lyubov Prigozhina appeared in the constituent documents of legal entities in November 2007. She was designated as a co-founder of the HOA “Palace and Park Complex “Northern Versailles”. This is an elite cottage community in Lakhta, the developer of which was her husband’s company, Concord Management and Consulting, and where family members own several houses. By that time, the youngest child, now an 18-year-old owner of St. Petersburg hotels, was barely 2 years old, the older children were already going to school and, apparently, the time had come for 37-year-old energetic Lyubov Prigogina to help her husband in business.

A year later, she not only cared about the convenience of the inhabitants of “Northern Versailles”, but also received from her husband several already operating legal entities. The first such company was Prodtorg LLC in July 2008, with its main activity “Restaurant activities and food delivery services.” Its permanent director was Samuil Zharkoy, who for a long time also headed Concord Management and Consulting (later this position was held by both Evgeny Prigozhin himself and Dmitry Utkin, the namesake of the famous Wagner). “Prodtorg” was liquidated already in 2009 and did not leave much memory of itself. However, Samuil Zharkoy, whom the media calls Yevgeny Prigozhin’s stepfather, was the founder and leader of many more family companies.

A week after “Prodtorg”, Lyubov Prigozhina became the owner of 100% shares in Agat Stroy LLC with the same general director. This was already a more respectable business – construction. The company was spun off from the larger Agat LLC, which Prigozhina received in November 2008. At that time, this company owned 50% of BLINDONALT-INVEST LLC, which was already dying. The latter was one of the most notable projects of Yevgeny Prigozhin in those years. In 2014, Agat received a 100% stake in Hotel LLC, the operator of the Trezzini Hotel on Universitetskaya Embankment. The entrepreneur’s wife retained control over it at least until 2017, and later control of the company passed to the daughter of the Prigozhin couple, Polina.

And in 2009, Agat LLC, as well as Lyubov Prigozhina herself, became the owners of 16.66% of shares in Lakhta LLC. It collected assets that belonged personally to Yevgeny Prigozhin and his partners, for example, German Chazon. Since 2011, Lakhta has owned 100% of the shares in the now widely known construction company Megaline. She became a major contractor at the facilities of the Ministry of Defense, and later the Presidential Administration in 2014, when Lakhta had already been transferred to other people. However, in 2022, Evgeny Prigozhin disavowed the Megaline ownership structure visible in SPARK, publicly declaring in the media that this was his company, in whose projects he personally invested money.

However, judging by the court files, even during the official control of Lyubov Prigozhina in 2012, Megaline had already received such large contracts in Moscow as the reconstruction of the Exhibition Hall of the State Pushkin Museum on Arbat.

In 2010, Lyubov Prigozhina co-founded the “Priidi and Vizhd” charity foundation, which was registered opposite the St. John’s Monastery on the Karpovka embankment and organized pilgrimages to places associated with St. John of Kronstadt. This, of course, has nothing to do with business. Now the fund’s website is not working, but in its cash register for the past year a very modest amount of 417 thousand rubles was noted. In 2020, journalists asked the senior priest of the St. John’s Monastery in St. Petersburg, Nikolai Belyaev, about this fund. He said that “I met the Prigozhin family through Mstislav Rostropovich when their youngest daughter was very ill. “Then Mstislav advised Lyubov to ask for help from someone who always helps the desperate,” said Father Nikolai. After the baby’s recovery, Lyubov Prigozhina became a parishioner of the monastery and baptized her daughter.”

Lyubov Prigozhina’s real breakthrough as a businessman was 2011. Then she simultaneously became a co-owner of not only Megaline, but also 10 other companies. Among other things, two notable assets in the retail field came under its management – the Chocolate Museum chain and, most importantly, the Eliseevsky store. Now both of these companies belong to her 100%. And if the “Museum of Chocolate” is going through hard times (out of six locations, only one remains – on Zhukovsky, and the lease on the flagship store on Nevsky has expired), then Eliseevsky brings quite tangible profits. With revenue of 122 million rubles and other income of 65 million, net profit at the end of 2022 amounted to 73 million rubles. Before coronavirus, revenue was twice as much, but profits were much more modest. What is meant by additional income is not very clear, but in addition to the store itself in a historical building on Nevsky, there are two restaurants, a cafe, and excursions are also offered for 5 thousand rubles per ticket.

A major business project that was implemented while Lyubov Prigozhina was the main owner of Lakhta Park LLC was the construction of a residential complex of the same name near the Northern Versailles and the Lakhta Plaza apartment complex on Primorsky Prospekt. She received them from her husband in May 2016, and in 2020, already built and generating serious profit, she handed them over to her son Pavel.

The fashionable Crystal SPA complex was also associated with her name. Initially, it was located in the Trezzini Palace on the University Embankment, and then registered next door to the Chocolate Museum on Zhukovsky Street. Lyubov Prigozhina managed it from 2011 to 2019, but then the project changed hands and now does not work. And although there were the most enthusiastic reviews about it online, this salon was deeply unprofitable, judging by the latest official reports for 2017, bringing in losses of 34 million and accumulating debts of 340 million, which was fantastic for such an establishment.

In September, the inheritance case of Yevgeny Prigozhin was registered. Official data in SPARK can only tell approximately what assets belonged to him personally.

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