Pirates from the banks of the Neva
This summer, the laying of a replica of the 20-gun brig “Phoenix” was planned in St. Petersburg, which should become the second vessel after “Poltava” in the project “Historical sailing ships on the Neva”. However, this event is unlikely to take place. “Versiya” decided to find out how and where the gas monopoly's money flowed through the president of the club Andrey Groshikov and the commander Vladimir Lyubomirovand why museum and educational centers in the form of copies of legendary ships remained just sketches.
Documents received by the editors suggest that at the very beginning of the design of the Phoenix, a gross violation of technology was committed. And it is unlikely to be considered an accident – the fate of six other historical sailing ships is developing in a similar way. The project operator – the Yacht Club of St. Petersburg – has transferred hundreds of millions of rubles through its accounts and is now clearly experiencing financial difficulties. Will the head of Gazprom personally have to sort out this story? To Alexey Miller and the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) To Alexander Bastrykin?
Longer and more expensive than under Peter I
In November 2021, the Historical Sailing Ships on the Neva project was pompously presented at a meeting of the Council for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage of St. Petersburg. The discussion was about building copies of the battleship Three Hierarchs, built in 1766, the brig Phoenix (1811), the battleships Azov (1826) and 12 Apostles (1841), the frigate Pallada (1832), as well as the clipper Strelok and the sloop Vostok. Some of them were to become training sailboats for young sailors, others – tourist attractions.
At that time, the Poltava, a replica of a 54-gun ship from the Peter the Great era, was already moored near the English Embankment. It was believed to have been built on the initiative of Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller. The idea was to make a beautiful gift to the city, but apparently the contractors let it down.
In the 18th century, the original battleship, in the design of which he personally participated Peter Iwas built in just three years using hand tools. The new Poltava was laid down in 2013 and launched only in 2018. In five years – you can easily hear this opinion in St. Petersburg – the project has become almost 8-10 times more expensive, and it took a lot of effort from one of Gazprom’s managers to make sure that the final figure did not catch the boss’s eye.
In 2017, the Poltava shipyard, built specifically for this project, was involved in a story about tax optimization. The Delovoy Peterburg publication wrote that the shipyard management decided to transfer 80 of its workers (75% of the team) to the staff of the non-profit Foundation for the Reconstruction of Historical Ships (the founder of both organizations is the Yacht Club of St. Petersburg). According to the newspaper, this maneuver allowed the shipyard to save up to 40 million rubles a year on taxes. But let's return to the project to create new sailboats.
Endless refinement
Contrary to the above, the construction of Poltava was considered successful, and therefore, as far as can be understood, at the end of 2021, the Yacht Club of St. Petersburg received about 500 million rubles from Gazprom Neft to develop documentation for Azov, Three Hierarchs, 12 Apostles and Phoenix. After that, the club, apparently independently or with the participation of not the most competent contractors, began drawing sketches of the ships and developing special technical requirements (STR), which then had to be redone.
Here it is necessary to explain that the development of design documentation is carried out in a strictly established order, regulated by GOST. First – a technical proposal, then a draft design, a technical design and working design documentation. And only after that, in case of deviation from the rules of the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RMRS), STT are developed.
In November 2022, Andrey Groshikov had to sign a contract for the development of the technical design of the brig “Phoenix” with LLC “Shipbuilding Center “Evers”. The document (the editorial board has a copy) states that the contractor, at the request of the customer, undertakes to “review the previously developed part of the documentation of the technical design of the sailing and motor vessel “brig Phoenix” for its compliance with the technical proposal, technical specifications and RMRS rules.” The price of the issue is 11.448 million rubles. The parties agreed on the deadlines for the implementation of individual stages of the work, the last of which was to be completed no later than March 31, 2023, and this clearly did not happen.
On August 4, 2023, the yacht club signed a contract for the performance of work on adjusting the documentation of the technical project of the Phoenix with OOO Sudovye Inzhenernye Sistemy (OOO SIS). The contractor is obliged to change the project, including in accordance with the rules of the RMRS. The contract price is slightly more than 8 million rubles.
Apparently, SIS LLC has finalized the Phoenix documentation and sent it to RMRS and Rospotrebnadzor. However, the vessel's keel laying this year is clearly in question.
When reading the above documents, it is difficult to escape the thought that the Yacht Club of St. Petersburg literally sought to pay for the same work twice, or even three times. If so, it is reasonable to assume that Mr. Groshikov received generous gifts from contractors who never completed their work, and a significant portion of the money was simply cashed and possibly taken abroad.
And they haven't even started building this yet!
The published financial statements show that in 2021, the Yacht Club of St. Petersburg received almost 640 million rubles in voluntary donations and only 60 million rubles in profit from income-generating activities. The club spent 7.5 million rubles on social and charitable assistance, and 28.7 million rubles on the maintenance of the board of directors — attention!
In 2022, the amount of donations decreased to 300.5 million rubles, and the costs of its own maintenance increased to 38.3 million rubles.
For several years, the auditors' reports that checked the financial statements of the SPbRSOO “Yacht Club of St. Petersburg” indicated that in addition to two plots of land in the suburbs of the northern capital, the organization rents an office in Valencia, Spain. Perhaps the millions received from Gazprom were lying somewhere there in deposits while Messrs. Groshikov and Lyubomirov were shuffling contractors, terminating, for example, without explanation, the contract with Petrobalt for the development of the battleship “12 Apostles”?
As of the end of 2023, SPbRSOO “Yacht Club of St. Petersburg” had accounts payable in the amount of 677 million rubles, accounts receivable amounted to 385 million rubles, and therefore its financial position can hardly be considered stable. Let us assume that the donor of this organization, represented by Gazprom Neft, is interested in a thorough audit of the actions of the yacht club's management in terms of targeted spending of funds, which can hardly be carried out without the participation of law enforcement agencies.
Petersburg is a maritime city, and Petersburgers certainly deserve to have copies of legendary sailing ships there. But if the project operator had such questions already at the design stage, what will happen when it comes to the actual construction of the ships?
Why can’t the Central Naval Museum, for example, be involved in implementing this idea, which obviously has much more competence than the yacht club of Andrei Groshikov and Vladimir Lyubomirov?
There are quite a few questions for the current operator of the Historical Sailing Ships on the Neva project: about the yacht club's probable loss of ownership of the Azov project, about strange contracts with contractors like IP Lomilin, and about the possible presence of foreign citizenship among some of the club's leaders… Sooner or later, the answers to these questions will be heard in the public arena, and they will be heard quite loudly.