According to Pozhidayev, the Moscow government has ordered 21 designer ships, each 22 meters long and carrying up to 50 passengers. The vessels “are battery powered and have an autonomy of up to seven hours of navigation, and their design allows you to navigate in small ice, which makes them suitable for year-round operation,” the company president explained. Now electric ships carry passengers from the Kievsky railway station to the pier “Heart of the Capital” on Shelepikhinskaya embankment. Eight ships named after the capital’s rivers sail along this 6.5 km route: Sinichka, Setun, Presnya, Filka, Skhodnya, Ramenka, Yauza and Neglinka. In the first two weeks of operation, they carried over 22,000 passengers. According to the Moscow Department of Transport, by the end of the year it is planned to launch another Pechatniki route – Avtozavodsky Bridge, and the routes will be gradually extended.
If the Yevtushenkov company only builds court for the Moscow mayor’s office, then their colleagues in Forbes list have long been organizing recreation routes on the Moscow River and beyond. Owners of the Kyiv Ploshchad group Zarakh Iliev (No. 43 in the 2023 ranking, $2,900 million) and God Nisanov (#44 in 2023, $2,900 million) back in 2009 created a whole pleasure fleet of Radisson Royal, which then ran mainly along the standard route lasting two and a half hours from the Royal Radisson Hotel (the former “Ukraine”, owned by Nisanov and Iliev) to Kotelnicheskaya embankment. Fleet totaled five ice-class yachts built in Turkey for a total cost of $10 million. In 2011, they carried 200,000 passengers with an average load per flight of about 130 people.
In 2012, the first Primavera superyacht entered service with the Navy, with a larger main saloon area and a first-class passenger cabin on the upper deck. Partners now have five of these premium floating restaurants at their disposal. Kievskaya Ploshchad did not disclose the amount of investment in superyachts. In 2019 the fleet is back replenished also built in Turkey 10 river trams, 44 seats each. They cost the owners of “Kievskaya Ploshchad” €5 million. The new pleasure boats are collectively called the “Flower Flotilla” because they are brightly colored and bear appropriate names, such as “Astra”, “Orchid” and “Fuchsia”. “The special purpose of the Flower Flotilla is regular 50-minute cruises in the very center of the capital – a great way to get to know Moscow,” Forbes was told in the press service of Kievskaya Ploshchad.
Starting with the organization of yacht excursions, accompanied by breakfasts, lunches and dinners, in 2017 Kievskaya Ploshchad began to hold poetry evenings dedicated to Moscow, and a year later – theatrical voyages “Dinner with a Classic” based on the works of Russian authors. Guests enjoy the works of the classics – from masters of English literature to Russian writers – performed by professional actors and taste dishes from different eras, Forbes was told in the press service of Kievskaya Ploshchad. There are more than 600,000 people on the flotilla’s flights every year.
Unlike the owners of the hotel flotilla, the billionaire Roman Trotsenko (No. 38 in the 2023 ranking, $3,200 million) owns since 2004, the entire Moscow River Shipping Company (MRP), it has more than a hundred ships, 14 of them are cruise ships operating under brand “Mosturflot”. They specialize in multi-day river cruises. Mosturflot ships reach Kazan, Astrakhan, Rostov-on-Don and even the Solovetsky Islands.
In the 2010s, MCI modernized most of the cruise fleet. For example, at his “Nobel Brothers Shipyard” in Rybinsk, using elements of the hull of an Austrian ship built in 1984, a new luxury ship for 112 passengers was created, named “Alexander Grin”. In 2012, this floating five-star hotel entered the cruise itineraries. And in 2016, the laying of the first river-sea class motor ship took place at the Lotos shipyard in Astrakhan. The lead ship of the project was named Peter the Great. It is planned that after surrender commissioned in autumn 2023, this 270-passenger luxury liner will cruise to the Caspian Sea and the Lower Volga.
In addition to the professional cruise fleet, MRP is also engaged in servicing ships in its yacht port and two yacht clubs. In 2022, according to SPARK-Interfax, MCI’s revenue amounted to 2.1 billion rubles. The company did not answer questions from Forbes for this article.
Building a yacht club is a complex and expensive business. As Andrei Boyko, the founder and CEO of Burevestnik Group, which distributes ships and builds yacht infrastructure, estimated in an interview, creating infrastructure alone can cost an investor at least $6-7 million.
Members of the Forbes list are also interested in other types of water activities. For example, the chairman of the board of directors of the ESN group Grigory Berezkin (No. 157 in the 2023 ranking, $ 750 million), a fan of water skiing, created his own club Alfa in 1993 on the basis of the Soviet water ski club Aurora (based on the Oktyabr stadium in Krylatskoye). Two years later, in 1995, the club moved to Strogino, where a unique structure was built to smooth the water surface. “Together with [одним из] Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, we have developed and patented a unique wave protection system,” Berezkin told in one of interview. Alfa hosts competitions and championships in water slalom, ski jumping and figure skating.
Berezkin, meanwhile, is building what is claimed to be the world’s first indoor surf park in Mnevniki with the city authorities. According to SPARK-Interfax, the Moscow company Mosinzhproekt (88%) and Berezkin’s Surf Park (12%) own the Volna surf park. Back in 2021, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on their VK page: “In 2023, we plan to build the world’s first indoor center with a wave generator for surfing in Khoroshevo-Mnevniki. A pool the size of five football fields will have two-meter waves, a sandy beach, palm trees and bright lights.” According to him, the area of the surf park will be 50,000 square meters. m, on its territory up to 80 people of different levels of training will be able to simultaneously conquer the waves. According to residents of Mnevniki in the local Telegram chat, construction has already begun.
Another entertainment facility, Dream Beach Club, was built and put into operation in June 2023 in the Nagatinskaya floodplain near the Dream Island amusement park. “This is the largest outdoor beach area in Moscow and Russia with outdoor heated pools, which will simultaneously accommodate about 2,500 people,” told metropolitan mayor. Construction in the waters of the Kozhukhovsky backwater began in September 2022 and was carried out at the expense of the funds of the creator of the Island of Dreams, the Regions Group of Companies (the company belongs to the sons of a State Duma deputy Zelimkhan Mutsoev Amiran and Alikhan, his brother Amirhanu Mori and family friend Alexander Karpov; in 2016, the Mutsoev family was in 10th place in Forbes richest clans ranking with a fortune of $950 million). In a complex of 41,000 sq. m includes the largest outdoor pool in Russia (1700 sq. m), a children’s pool with water slides, a children’s dry pool with fountains (340 sq. m), a wave pool (675 sq. m) and a VIP pool (430 sq. m. ).
However, the press service of Komarov told Forbes that the club “has not been related to him for a long time.” SPARK-Interfax states that the Pestovo Resort company and the Golf Estate management company (now Fininvest) associated with the club were owned for some time by the former Minister of Industry, President of the AGR Viktor Khristenkoand now their owners are closed-end mutual funds.
“Khristenko is only the president of the Pestovo club,” explains Kochetkov.
The Agalarov Golf And Coutry Club of Araz Agalarov, like Pestovo, has an 18-hole course in the Istra district of the Moscow Region, which “will suit players of any level.” The Agalarov Estate cottage village, together with the golf course, cost Agalarov $ 1 billion, wrote Forbes, and the release of the village plots for sale in the first quarter of 2017 helped to increase the cost of luxury real estate in the Moscow region, increasing the average supply budget to $2.9 million (83% more than at the beginning of the year). The press service of Crocus Forbes replied that, since “the golf club is located in a gated community,” they cannot share information about it.
Golf club “Tseleevo” in the Dmitrovsky district of the Moscow region belongs to another member of the list – Oleg Deripaska (No. 54 in the 2023 ranking, $2,500 million). club building, according to Forbes, cost the owner $ 30 million, and the CEO of the club said that the price of real estate near the club has doubled. The complex consists of 140 houses, a hole golf course, a golf academy, a polo club and a ski resort. The club hosted the Russian stages of the European Challenge Tour, it received awards from the prestigious international World Golf Awards in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019. Deripaska’s representative did not answer questions from Forbes.
Roman Abramovich (No. 16 in the 2023 ranking, $9,200 million) Skolkovo owns a golf club of the same name. The $25 million field opened in 2014, and by 2016, the Skolkovo club, designed for 500 permanent members, was able to provide more than half of the occupancy, which is considered a very good result. The club is part of the project, which also includes the Skolkovo Park residential complex with an area of 500 hectares. The press service of Millhouse, which manages the assets of Abramovich and his partners, did not respond to a request from Forbes.
