Chef Dmitry Lukashenko
How are the Fabriq restaurant, the Balcony cafe and the Paul bakery chain connected in Minsk? What do they have in common with the supply of BelAZ trucks to the Russian market and the organization of lotteries? All these are areas of interest of the “Presidential Sports Club”, which is headed by the middle son of Alexander Lukashenko Dmitry. The restaurant business is not the most obvious of them. BRC found out that some of the capital’s establishments, or rather their owners, are in one way or another connected with this government organization. Being involved in the structures of the Presidential Sports Club (PSC) for businessmen often means receiving a state talisman in business and assistance in the form of privileges and benefits. Especially if those involved are close to the Belarusian elite.
The BRC has already published an investigation into how the Lukashenko family is enriching itself with the help of the PUK. For example, the BelAZ Trading House, a state monopoly dealer of Zhodino equipment in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), sells it through private companies of the wives of its managers associated with the wife of their middle son Alexandra Lukashenko Dmitry, Anna. Also, over the years, the club was involved in organizing lotteries, construction and printing.
One of the key characters in this publication is associated with both the Lukashenko family and the Presidential Sports Club. Husband Tatiana Kulakova, the sister of Dmitry Lukashenko’s wife, Vladimir. Since 2011, according to information from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs of Belarus, heads the Tennis Club Unitary Enterprisewhich is part of the structure of the Russian State Public Organization “Presidential Sports Club”.
He also owns part of the capital’s Fabriq restaurant.
Other well-known establishments – “Balcony”, a chain of French cafe-bakeries Paul, Grand Cafe, Blondes and Brunettes (closed at the time of publication) have opened and are also operating not without connections with the presidential sports club. In a conversation with BRC, restaurateur Vadim Prokopyev called their owners “second echelon”:
The BRC compiled a map of cafes and restaurants owned by the entrepreneurs or members of their families mentioned in this investigation.
Connections for growth
The connection with the presidential Tennis Club played an important role in the business of two capital restaurateurs – Ivana Malko And Ilya Rybakov. Their business took off after working at the club and meeting Lukashenko’s brother-in-law Vladimir Kulakov.
Ivan Malko from 2009 to 2011 was listed director at the Tennis Club. His business partner, athlete and graduate of the Military Academy was appointed deputy Igor Lakhvich. At the time of publication of the text, Lakhvich heads the Belarusian Beach Tennis Federation, which was created with the support of the PUK.
According to a source close to Malko, the entrepreneur began communicating with those close to the presidential sports club back in the 2000s: “Malko had courts. These courts were in Sevastopol Park, and in 2000 he sold these courts at a very high price to the “Presidential Sports Club”. And then, from that moment, he began to communicate well with Vitya [Лукашенко]. He communicated well with Dima too [Лукашенко]”
Ivan Malko was looking for an opportunity to enter the close circle of the Lukashenko family long before the official partnership with the presidential sports club, “because there are obviously more business opportunities there.” Malko’s restaurateur and ex-partner Vadim Prokopyev told BRC about this:
According to another BRC source familiar with Ivan Malko, he himself willingly talked about his friendship with the sons of Alexander Lukashenko: “Grown guys, not just girls, sat with their mouths open and listened to Ivan, what a friend he was [Лукашенко]“How he enters all houses and bathhouses, trips and other things.”
In 2011, Malko was replaced as director of the Tennis Club by Vladimir Kulakov. Not enough left to replace Kulakov — became a co-owner travel company PUE “Discount Travel”.
Ilya Rybakov was a co-owner of the Tennis Club from November 2011 to May 2012. his share was 49%. Now the club is completely owned by PSK.
Businessmen entered the restaurant industry in 2005. Then Malko, Lakhvich and Rybakov founded their first company working in this area – LLC “OGK Stolitsa”. In 2009, to OOO OGK Stolitsa joined son of businessman Anatoly Sadovsky Igor and restaurateur Vadim Prokopyev.
At the time of publication of the text, Sadovsky is not listed as the owner of many assets – they are transferred to his wife Lyudmila and son Igor.
The Fabriq restaurant is managed by Natalya Sadovskaya (Yarmolenko), the daughter of Anatoly Sadovsky.
A restaurant empire with a Lebanese flavor
Since about 2010, the development of Malko and Rybakov’s restaurant business has noticeably accelerated. Over the course of 10 years, they became owners (partial or sole owners) of more than a dozen establishments. Among them are the Grand Cafe and News Cafe (opened in 2006), the Rosso espresso bar, and the Blondes and Brunettes club.
Probably, for the opportunity to create a restaurant empire, Malko had to make a deal with the Belarusian authorities – or rather, with the intelligence services. Vadim Prokopyev expressed this opinion in a conversation with a BRC investigator:
Belarusian businessman of Lebanese origin Romeo Abdo also contributed to the development of the affairs of Malko and Rybakov. Some media outlets suggest that he is connected with Lukashenko’s “wallets” – Alexei Oleksin, Alexander Shakutin and Nikolai Voroby. Additionally, Abdo was named in a money laundering scandal in Nepal.
Investigative journalists from the OCCRP international network claim that Romeo Abdo owns BNK Holding. In 2007, the businessman, together with Nepalese investors, implemented several construction projects in Belarus, including a shopping center and business centers – Rubin Plaza and Silver Tower.
Ivan Malko and Romeo Abdo are good friends. A source close to the businessman told BRC about this:
There are other details that indicate that Malko and Abdo communicate not only within the framework of a joint business. In 2013, Ivan Malko drove a Porsche Romeo Abdo to Lithuania. The wives of businessmen – Maria Abdo and Ekaterina Malko are friends.
They holidayed in Saint-Tropez in the same 2013. In addition, Ekaterina visited Maria’s art gallery A&V Art in Minsk.
At the same time, businessmen registered the Simple Projects company; later Rybakov sold his share to Tirmen Development. In March, Malko became a co-founder of International Franchising JLLC. Both companies were engaged in providing services to restaurants.
Tirmen Development is an offshore company in the Virgin Islands, indirectly associated with Romeo Abdo’s companies. He owned six companies of Rybakov and Malko.
In August 2012, Malko became the owner of a share in the company that owns the Balcony and Milano Café establishments – Venedikt Trading LLC.
In 2013, through the Cypriot offshore Malsim Limited, Ivan Malko acquired Savana-Sport Trading LLC, which at the time of publication owned the Paul chain of French cafes. Previously, she also owned establishments under the Russian Kroshka-Kartoshka franchise. In April 2016, through a Cyprus offshore company, Ivan Malko acquired a stake in the company that owns the Union Coffee chain (Kopaliani LLC). In October – part of StealthCenterPlus LLC, owner of Michel café. Later Rybakov became a manager there.
In December 2016, Malko bought another Paul cafe, owned by Union Hospitality LLC. In August, instead of Rybakov, he became a co-owner of Golden coffee (Alneil LLC).
In February 2018, Malko became a shareholder of the Renaissance restaurant (Polivektor LLC). In July, he became a co-owner of Kiko International Plus LLC, which owns another Paul location. Rybakov took over the management of the company.
Three months before Malko and Rybakov joined Kiko International Plus LLC, the company was registered, and then Sergey Kononenko and Dmitry Kirillov left as co-owners. In 2020, it was these businessmen who became involved in the high-profile “sugar case” in Belarus, as participants in a corruption scheme.
In 2019, Malko created a delivery service for groceries from stores and food from restaurants – Delivery Plus LLC.
Ahead of sanctions
According to a BRC source, at the time of publication, Malko and his family live in Spain, but continue to conduct business in Belarus. True, after the protests of 2020, the businessman transferred the largest assets to his wife (according to documents, now ex) and daughter. As of November 2023, shares in all companies that own the establishments of the Union Hospitality Group restaurant group belong to the wife of Ekaterina and the businessman’s daughter Elena Malko, as well as the offshore company in the Virgin Islands Tirmen Development, indirectly associated with Romeo Abdo’s companies.
The businessman’s wife and Tirmen Development own Café de Par, Michel café, the Balcony restaurant and Milano Café in different shares and through different companies. Daughters, together with the same offshore, are a chain of French cafe-bakeries Paul. Ivan Malko himself retains a 3.1% stake in Polivektor LLC, which previously owned the Renaissance restaurant on Internatsionalnaya.
Ilya Rybakov runs Malko’s business in Belarus and manages the companies StealthCenterPlus, Savana-Sport Trading and Venedikt Trading.
Tangible privileges
Being close to the Lukashenko family provides quite tangible privileges. For example, a source from business circles familiar with Malko says that the businessman managed to get premises for the Blondes and Brunettes club thanks to the sports club:
How exactly it could be decided “through the Presidential Sports Club,” restaurateur Vadim Prokopyev told the BRC:
“In the “Presidential Sports Club”, Dmitry Lukashenko’s right hand, nicknamed Red, his name is Andrei Karpovich, I could be wrong, but you can double-check. He was such a savior angel. Very often he helped Malko out of the most unpleasant situations. Malko, accordingly, is grateful to him and paid him in the same coin: he bought gifts, sent him on some trips, did everything that needed to be done.”
Another example is the Podium Star company. She owns the famous metropolitan restaurant Fabriq (about $1.5 million was spent on its creation) and rents premises in the center of Minsk (Pobediteley Ave., 1). Every year, an extraordinary meeting of shareholders considers the issue of a discount on rent for the establishment. To the best of BRC’s knowledge, such meetings have not been held for other tenant companies. This is evidenced by data on the official website of the lessor OJSC Fashion Center.
The current co-owners of Fabriq Sadovsky did not work in the structures of the Presidential Sports Club. However, in 2015, Lukashenko’s brother-in-law Vladimir Kulakov entered Podium Star with a 25% share. In 2019, he brought his sister Anna to Fabriq, who had previously worked at Sadovsky’s “Angels” establishment, and before that at the “Tennis Club”.
Anna Kulakova also has it since 2019 share in the company — Restaurant Gatsby LLCregistered in the village of Korolev Stan, Minsk region.
The building of OJSC Fashion Center, where Fabriq is located, according to media reports, belongs to companies affiliated with the Sadovsky family. In 2019, the then director of the Fashion Center, Igor Selitsky, announced that Fabriq was renting the premises on special terms. He made such a statement after information appeared about his dismissal on December 16, 2019 (although at the beginning of the month Selitsky was awarded a diploma of honor from the Minsk City Council). He threatened to sue Podium Star to collect penalties and fines for late rent payments.
39.99% of the company is owned by the state, and controlled by Bellegprom. 44% of the shares, as the media wrote, belong to Igor Sadovsky’s company Stolichnaya Restoratsiya LLC, Avalanche LLC, which is also managed by Igor Sadovsky, and Marupe LLC, managed by Igor Sadovsky’s wife Marina.
The Sadovskys, according to documents obtained by the BRC, in August 2023 paid about $10.8 per sq. m for rent for premises for the Fabriq restaurant. m. To find out the market price of such premises, we, under the guise of interested tenants, called one of the capital’s largest real estate agencies and asked how much a similar one – with an area of one and a half thousand square meters – cost. We were offered premises on Internatsionalnaya Street for $17.7 per sq.m.
We also studied the prices for similar premises owned by the Main Economic Directorate of the Presidential Administration, and found an offer for $6.3 per sq.m in the center of Minsk. However, these areas are empty – apparently, there are reasons why tenants are not attracted even by such an affordable price.
Offshore partners
After the Sadovskys began working with Vladimir Kulakov, new companies and restaurants opened almost every year. In the 2000s, Anatoly Sadovsky was engaged in the sale of fertilizers.
In September 2015, Igor Sadovsky and his mother became the owners of Stolichnaya Restoratsiya LLC. In November of the same year, the company acquired the share of the owner of the company, which later opened the Gan Bei restaurant – “Restline”. And in December he acquired karaoke restaurant “Angels” (LLC “City Restaurant”).
In October and December 2016, Stolichnaya Restoratsiya took a stake in two companies. Foodstyle owned Golden Coffee establishments. In 2017, Gallery Food also registered an outlet of this network.
In March 2017, Stolichnaya Restoratsiya became a co-founder of Globus Gourmet, and in November the same company with Igor Sadovsky and his partner founded Tsentrokhleb LLC, which owns establishments in the Kinza chain. In March 2018, “Capital Restaurant” became co-owner of Gan Bei restaurants (“Asia Mall”)
At the end of the summer of 2020, Anatoly Sadovsky’s company Stolichnaya Restoratsiya bought 75% of the OGK Stolitsa company, which owns the Grand Cafe, News Cafe, the Rosso espresso bar and the now closed Blondes and Brunettes club. OGK Stolitsa is the same company that was founded in 2005 by Malko, Rybakov and Lakhvich. Another 10% of the company today belongs to the Lithuanian company Asmela and 15% to Oleg Ohrem, a businessman who in the 90s became a participant in a loud scandal with fraud in education.
According to media reports, he is associated with the Latvian part of the Golden Coffee chain. Apart Invest’s financial statements for 2022 indicate that its working capital and capital amount to only €1837.
Gan Bei and Sadovsky’s Golden Coffee were located in the capital’s Green City shopping center, and another Gan Bei was located in the Dana Mall shopping center. In 2022, the businessman sold these assets to his partner Sergei Pushny. Dana Mall is wallet asset Lukashenko of the Karich brothers, where the gallery of Lilia Lukashenko, the wife of Alexander Lukashenko’s eldest son Viktor, is located. And Green City was owned by the Presidential Sports Club until 2018.
In addition to all of the above, connections with the presidential sports club can provide another privilege – stability. For Minsk restaurateurs, the position of a tenant may be problematic if the owner or co-owner of the premises is the state.
As a BRC source said, in the city center, where they opened their restaurants close to PSK, the lease agreement, as a rule, is concluded for no more than five years:
“And after five years, if you don’t have some kind of good roof, then they just kick you out of there.”
Vladimir Kulakov, in a conversation with the BRC, confirmed that this state of affairs could be a problem for businessmen. Also, Dmitry Lukashenko’s brother-in-law, co-owner of one of the most expensive restaurants in Minsk, Fabriq, said that there have been no “roofs” in Belarus since the 90s, and he personally has people who could be these “roofs”. Kulakov also noted that he “has not worked as the director of the Tennis Club for seven years” and the Presidential Sports Club has nothing to do with his business (the Fabriq restaurant), “except if sometimes one of the employees, maybe will come there to eat.”
We sent a formal request to Podium Star LLC and Romeo Abdo, but did not receive a response at the time of publication. Ekaterina Malko, co-owner of the Union Hospitality Group restaurant group, refused to talk to us on the phone, as did Ilya Rybakov and Igor Sadovsky. The latter threatened to write a police report against the BRC.