Fishing owners of the NWRC are exposed in financial and criminal scandals and generously give money to children abroad
The North-Western Fishery Consortium (NFRK), led by partners Gennady Mirgorodsky and Dmitry Ozersky, is one of the key suppliers of crab and fish products both on the Russian market and abroad. It began, as Mirgorodsky himself claims, with a curiosity.
At the end of the eighties of the last century, the future billionaire worked as a television director and exchanged rubles from Murmansk fishermen for the currency necessary to buy video cameras. One day the fishermen took the rubles and washed them down. And in order to pay off Mirgorodsky, they gave him two old trawlers and a share in a fishing company.
Under a false flag
The fishing company has grown into a thriving enterprise. According to the data on the website, the NWR produces 45 thousand tons of fish products, ten thousand tons of Kamchatka crab and 7,100 tons of snow crab Opilio per year. And around this there are a lot of companies and firms of various sizes, cleverly masking cash flows from outside observers and tax authorities. As experts write, the consortium received a quota for catching crabs worth a billion, but the volume of catches by the silent glanders increased tenfold! Thus, control over the northwestern part of the market was obtained for almost nothing. And this quota was extended absolutely free of charge for many years. Another common practice among similar crab fishermen is that they go to sea under the flags of foreign countries and uncontrollably sell their catch in foreign ports.
“All these documents that are issued for foreign flags are aimed at creating the appearance of legal activity. That is, there, in principle, everything is done for money, and for money they will register for you whatever you want,” notes Sergei Koshchenko, head of the border department of the FSB of Russia for the Sakhalin region. But ai-luli in business turned out to not last forever.
Stand for kids
Businessmen began to complain about a significant drop in profits. Indeed, the State Duma adopted a law on auctions for quotas and obliged enterprises to build ships at Russian shipyards. Trading under foreign flags, exporting valuable marine resources abroad, has become very difficult.
And then, unexpectedly for many, there was a big deal. The owners of the SZRK sold part of the quotas for the resource to the Antey Group of Companies, owned by Igor Mikhnov and his partner Arkady Pinchevsky.
At the end of September 2021, Mikhnov-Pinchevsky acquired Zigrand LLC, which was previously part of the assets of Ozersky and Mirgorodsky with the right to catch more than three thousand tons of crab until 2033.
“Zigrand” was one of the two main companies in whose accounts the money of Ozersky and Mirgorodsky was mainly accumulated. Its fishing fleet operates in the southern part of the Arctic Ocean – the Barents Sea. Consists of processing vessels equipped with live crab processing factories. Why sell such a valuable asset?
They say that clouds began to gather over him – too many schemes were circling around.
For example, in 2019, Zigrand filed a lawsuit … against North-Western Fishing Company – Murmansk LLC. It turns out that we are on our own. The plaintiff demanded that the loan agreement in the amount of 855 million rubles be invalidated. Roughly speaking, they lent it to themselves, but they forcibly returned it to themselves. Not for fun, of course. However, let the investigation look into the details.
At the end of December 2018, the FAS reported that it suspected Zigrand and the Artikservice company of conspiring in the distribution of production quotas for crab fishing in the Barents Sea. Antimonopolists received data according to which two companies deliberately refused to compete at the auction, as a result of which the initial prices on four lots rose very slightly. For comparison, other companies bidding for other lots made price offers 8-12 times higher than their initial cost. And – what a coincidence! During the investigation, it was established that Arcticservice and Zigrand have a common infrastructure and are located… at the same address.
And one more touch. If Mirgorodsky at least conducted business on his own behalf, then Ozersky, as one can understand, formally registered the company in the name of his daughter and son. According to the documents, Daria and Daniil (probably referring to Ozersky’s son) were the same founders as Gennady Mirgorodsky, with equal shares. At the same time, daughter Daria is clearly as far from business as a mechanic from a ballet tutu. And Daniil had barely finished school then.
However, there is no need to worry about them. They live far from their homeland in London and feel great. Dasha graduated from Sotheby’s Institute of Art – tuition there costs from £52,410 (more than 6.2 million rubles). Specialist in Asian art. Daniil graduated from Bayes Business School. Master of Science – Investment Management. He has worked as a venture capital analyst at London-based Leafy Tunnel and as a private equity analyst at CEECAT Capital. I wonder how they feel about SVO? I should ask dad.
In the service of the “night governor”
Since the “goldfish” is now difficult to catch, Mirgorodsky and Ozersky announced their desire to enter a non-core business. Namely, to the methanol complex in Ust-Luga, Leningradskaya Luga by Vitaly Yuzhilin. He has been working with petroleum products for a long time, but for him methanol is something new. The Fish Kings took a 25% share of UK Rushim, which is the management company of RushkhimKom.
Mirgorodsky manages it through his wife Maria, and Ozersky through his company Stolichnaya Trust Company LLC.
The organization was specially created for a new methanol complex project, which should include a plant with a capacity of 1.7 million tons per year, a methanol pipeline and a shipping terminal. It was planned to build the complex by 2023, and the amount of investment was estimated at a billion euros.
But what’s interesting is that the organization was created in 2016 and since then there have not been more than five thousand rubles in its accounts.
Mirgorodsky and Ozersky argue that the fishing and crab business has become not so profitable, so, they say, they got into another area – they are spinning as best they can. But they are clearly becoming poor. One gets the impression that by showing stunted income in key assets, they are pouring money into small ones.
Thus, Stolichnaya Trust Company LLC had revenue of 22 million rubles, and profit of 2.5 billion rubles. Exactly the same amount is in the accounts of one of Gennady Mirgorodsky’s companies, Moscow Capital LLC. Three billion rubles of net profit lie in the accounts of Zigrand LLC. And so on. An interesting idea is suggested by the financial indicators of the North-Western Fishing Consortium, which, with zero revenue, has a profit of 20 million rubles, and in the story about its founders, almost all of its companies have already been liquidated. Just like the Association of Fisheries “North-West”, in the history of the founders of which there are 11 companies and 9 of them are liquidated or in the process.
So why methanol? Experts believe that our couple represents the interests of the notorious Ilya Traber, who is called the “night governor of the Leningrad region.” Ust-Luga is usually associated with his name. Traber is a man from the “nineties” who supposedly “controls” the entire Leningrad region for many years. And in certain circles he has the nickname “Antique”. This is not just a “roof”, but unique connections and opportunities for access to resources and their movement. Well, everyone can imagine for themselves what methods of doing business are in Antikvar’s arsenal.
If this is so, we can assume that Traber wants to take over the methanol business for himself, competing with a company that is going to build a similar plant in Ust-Luga.
Then Yuzhilin, Mirgorodsky and Ozersky acquired Pechory LNG, which indicates their plans to operate in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, where the fields are actually located.
In addition to the methanol production plant, there are plans to build a gas pipeline to the coast of the Barents Sea. And here Traber involuntarily comes to mind again – the “port” business is included in the immediate sphere of his interests.
“Gene on White”
A few more words about Mirgorodsky – oh, what a colorful character! All sorts of scoundrels are spreading rumors about him that he allegedly makes money by transporting substances. Yes, as soon as the tongue turned to blurt out such a thing about the former director, an intellectual who made the first music videos for the cult rockers “DDT”, “Alice”. He considered himself a dissident, but the fair-faced ones have clean hands.
But there are strange people who believe such a story. And they almost call him “Gena on White.” Yes, maybe he drove a white Zhiguli – nothing like that!
Mirgorodsky is still no stranger to creativity. He produced the musical “Pola Negri” in Russia, a large-scale project in which 3D rear projection technology was used for the first time in the world. Became a shareholder of the Fancy Show company; in the 2018/19 season, the company sold tickets for approximately six hundred million rubles. In 2020, Fancy Show and the telecommunications company Mobile Telesystems released the successful musical Chess for 180 million rubles. MTS receives a 35% share of the net profit of the musical “Chess”.
The remaining 65% comes from the Fancy Show.
Mirgorodsky’s interests in the Fancy Show are represented by his wife Maria Vasilievna, who owns 35%. As we have already written, many assets are recorded on it. For example, 26% of the capital of Virma LLC (a fishing company in Arkhangelsk) is more than that of the husband, who has “only” 24%. Ozersky’s partner has 50%. Last year, the company’s net profit amounted to 997.5 million rubles.
However, let’s return to art. The Mirgorodsky spouses are not at all embarrassed that the general director of their company, as the media write, is a former criminal, Dzhabarov Aziz Narimanovich. In the 2000s, he was convicted under Article 162.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – “Robbery on a large scale.” He also has a criminal record under 158.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Theft by a group of persons on a large scale.” Upon release, he turned to business. He is the general director of MDM Show LLC and Fancy Show LLC. Until July 2022, he also headed MDM Production LLC. His musicals are market leaders at the box office. These are productions such as “Cats”, “The Phantom of the Opera”, “Mamma Mia”, “Chicago”, “Ball of the Vampires”, “Beauty and the Beast”, “The Sound of Music”, “Ghost”, “Chess”, “Nothing” Be afraid, I’m with you.” At the same time, Dzhabarov’s social networks have a permanent status of “No to war.” His attitude towards the SVO is no secret to anyone. Having enormous influence in the show business environment, Dzhabarov has the opportunity to directly and indirectly agitate for the defeatist scenarios of his employees and his environment. Is it any wonder, any wonder, that most of show business is against SVO.
Russian mentality is alien
Well, okay, this is a companion, but here’s what her daughter Agnia Mirgorodskaya told about the billionaire’s wife Maria Vasilyevna.
“We speak Lithuanian at home,” Agnia told the portal rus.tvnet.lv. “And in terms of self-awareness, I feel more like a Lithuanian.”
And further.
“My mother was always a European-oriented person, so my thinking always did not fit into the Russian mentality, I often felt like an outsider,” Agnia Mirgorodskaya told L’Officiel Baltics magazine.
She turned out to be a good daughter. Since the spring of 2016 he has been living in Riga. Before that, she spent more than a year in New York and eight years in London. Founder, founder, director and commissioner of the Riga International Biennale of Contemporary Art (aka RIBOCA).
However, with the beginning of the SVO, strong pressure began to be exerted on the biennale, they say, it is financed by a Russian billionaire, how is this possible! Agnia began to wag and say that “her husband, American businessman Robert William Pokoroy, gives the money.” But it turns out that in fact only 150,000 euros came directly from Pokora’s business.
As a result, she was forced to announce the cessation of work and began raising funds for Ukrainian refugees. Naturally, we don’t know which part will go to them and which, for example, will be used to finance Russophobic structures.
Here are Agnia’s posts on the network:
“This exhibition was intended as a celebration of art, respect and unity, but it does not seem possible for us to work on it at a time when heinous crimes are being committed in Ukraine. We strongly condemn the Russian Federation’s attack on Ukraine and are unanimous with all who call for an immediate end to the war.” April 13, 2022
“We remain committed to supporting peace and unity, continue to strongly condemn the Russian attack on Ukraine, and stand united with all those calling for a swift end to the war.” July 7, 2023.
A prominent Russian businessman and loving father gave approximately five million euros for this exhibition.
Well, and for a snack – about the restaurant. Mirgorodsky owns the Fancy Crab eatery in London. There, the British are treated to juicy Kamchatka crab and wine from family friend Evgeniy Chichvarkin, recognized as a foreign agent in the Russian Federation. Mirgorodsky’s youngest daughter Alisa hangs out a lot with Chichvarkin, because she also lives in London.
The average bill at Fancy Crab is about £50, which, by London standards, is quite affordable, and even surprising for Kamchatka crab. But why be surprised if the restaurant receives crab directly from the Russian consortium SZRK. Therefore, prices are two to three times lower than others.
In 2017, Gennady appointed his sister Nina Mirgorodskaya (“Nina Mirgorodskaya”) as director of the company (and she’s also in London – imagine!). And in July 2022, he transferred management of the restaurant and a controlling share in the business to her – 75%.
This is what they are – Russian fishing producers. This is where the money earned in Russia goes, in the era of the Northern Military District and the historical confrontation with the West. This is who will get the inheritance made on the diagrams – children to whom Russia is alien and unpleasant. I would like to hope that the time of entrepreneurs who received the opportunity to integrate into a great country for decades for next to nothing is already running out.
