According to the correspondent of The Moscow Post in Bashkiria, last Sunday in Ufa, equity holders of the Dom na Lenina residential complex recorded a video message to Radiy Khabirov and the regional Ministry of Construction with a request to complete the construction of a high-rise building, which they have not been able to move into for the fourth year.

The owners of the apartments demanded that the authorities of Bashkiria and the Garden Ring Group of Companies, who undertook to complete this and other long-term construction projects, stop mocking them and put into operation a house in which almost everything is ready.

In the meantime, representatives of the developer continue to accuse Kirill Badikov, the head of the Gosstroy company, of stopping construction, “inheriting” from whom “Garden Ring” inherited long-term construction. Badikov himself, who has been in jail for almost a month, categorically denies the claims of his opponents.

Outwardly, the situation is too reminiscent of a blackmail method that Sadovoe Koltso can use against the authorities of Bashkiria in order to achieve more favorable conditions for cooperation and finally gain full control over the remnants of Gosstroy’s property.

However, if you take a closer look at the information about the leadership of the head office of the Garden Ring, it becomes partly clear where such business methods can come from.

“Manipulating public opinion”

Recall that The Moscow Post has already talked about the situation that developed after the Garden Ring stopped construction at three sites: the Hermitage. City Council, Lenin House and White River. Explanations were contained in a press release, which was published by “Garden Ring” at the end of March. From the now-circulated press release of the Garden Ring, it followed that Kirill Badikov alone was to blame for the current situation, who “unilaterally terminated contracts for the completion of facilities.”

These justifications of the “Garden Ring” sounded unconvincing, partly because Badikov himself managed to give a very detailed interview on the eve of his arrest, in which he outlined his position based on a pile of documents. The interview was published by Prufa almost three weeks after Badikov’s arrest. As a source close to the situation noted in an interview with The Moscow Post correspondent, it is very likely that this interview became a kind of bargaining item between Badikov and his opponents and came into being when he failed to reach an agreement.

Kirill Badikov believes that he failed because he “lost operational management”, carried away by politics. A photo: ufacity.info

Recall that initially, after the conclusion of an agreement with the Garden Ring, Badikov’s company retained the formal status of the developer, and the Garden Ring is officially considered an investor. It is quite possible that such a status of “Garden Ring” did not suit. It can even be assumed that initially the company received certain guarantees from the officials of Bashkiria that it would become a full-fledged mistress of the situation when it was possible to get rid of Badikov in one way or another. Of course, there is no official confirmation of this version, but the spontaneous development of events itself suggests such assumptions.

Moreover, the “Garden Ring” comes from Krasnogorsk, near Moscow, where Radiy Khabirov worked as mayor before returning to Bashkiria. And soon after the appearance of the “Garden Ring” in Bashkiria, local developers suddenly began to receive refusals one after another to build on previously approved sites. Ivan Zorin, a former employee of the Zhilstroyinvest company, spoke about this in detail.

Badikov insisted that the “Garden Ring” manipulated public opinion and everything that is happening now is nothing more than their PR move, made with certain goals. He denied that he canceled the general contract. According to him, allegedly, on the contrary, back in the fall of last year, he proposed to terminate the old contracts and immediately conclude new ones – with the adjusted schedules and obligations of the Garden Ring.

The reason for believing Badikov in this case is the fact that this is not the first time that representatives of the Garden Ring resort to such an “ultimatum”. About a year ago, they already suspended construction work at the facilities in order to achieve the allocation of a compensation site.

Moreover, they did not hide this fact, Mikhail Feldman, the managing partner of the Sadovoye Koltso Group of Companies in Bashkiria, spoke openly about this in an interview with the Bashinform agency. “Already in the spring of 2021, it became clear that the issuance of compensation plots was being delayed. And we felt a serious financial burden on the company – by that time, the investments of the Garden Ring Group of Companies had already exceeded 500 million rubles. Therefore, we were forced to stop until the situation with compensation was clarified plots,” Feldman said.

The degree of readiness of the facilities, on which Sadovoye Eolko stopped work, is rather high. A photo: ufacity.info

Having stretched out in this way for several months and made it clear to the authorities that they did not intend to make concessions, the representatives of the Garden Ring finally achieved their goal, and at the end of August they received the first compensation site, after which they began to build more actively.

In this way, they demonstrated that they are able to “build” both the Bashkir Ministry of Construction and the Ufa mayor’s office, and, if necessary, the leadership of Bashkiria.

“They’re just peddling our misfortune”

The feeling that the events of the last two months, taking place around the former Gosstroy facilities, are orchestrated is also enhanced because, when talking about deceived equity holders, the authorities are talking not with them, but with lawyer Zulfiya Gaysina. She has nothing to do with them, but at the same time regularly attends all meetings devoted to their problems. Gaysina was a member of the first composition of the Human Rights Council under the head of Bashkiria and supervised these issues in it, and now, apparently, by inertia she continues to conduct this work.

Presumably, in this way the authorities “killed two birds with one stone” – they ensured the presence of a loyal member of the public and freed themselves from communicating with overexcited real estate investors.

Discussing the current situation, the authorities carefully avoid the fact that the bulk of the houses inherited by “Garden Ring” from “Gosstroy” are already in a high degree of readiness. For example, the same “House on Lenina” needs only finishing the facade, glazing, waterproofing the foundation and a number of other works, the cost of which is not so high that it would be impossible to entrust them to another developer, if the Garden Ring suddenly decided to stand in the pose of an offended child.

Here, work was left for a maximum of a couple of months, but the Garden Ring stopped construction. Photo: sadovoe-kolco.ru

However, this issue, judging by the reports from the meetings of the Ministry of Construction, was not even considered. One gets the impression that the authorities of Bashkiria, first of all, are concerned about not accidentally offending the representatives of the Garden Ring, and they are much less worried about the hardships of equity holders.

So, in the comments under their Sunday video message, published on the page of social activist Albert Rakhmatullin, equity holders reported that the authorities suggested that they think about receiving monetary compensation through the equity holders protection fund. “What kind of compensation, if the house is almost ready, the administration does not explain. According to the current situation, compensation is allocated to those whose houses are built by less than 30%. They are simply selling our misfortune!” shareholders are outraged.

Fragmentary comments by representatives of the Ministry of Construction of Bashkiria also leaked to the media. Thus, on April 13, during a recent live broadcast at the Central Administration of the Republic, Deputy Minister of Construction and Architecture of Bashkiria Artem Kovshov said that “a legal solution to the problem of deceived equity holders in relation to Gosstroy is currently being sought, which will allow the investor – the Sadovoye Koltso group of companies – become the official developer of the three properties”.

Deputy head of the Ministry of Construction of Bashkiria Artem Kovshov consistently defends the position of the “Garden Ring”. A photo: bashinform.en

“There is only one way out – for the investor to take these objects, but the transfer must be voluntary, the owner cannot be forced. Negotiations are underway. Ministry of Construction “VKontakte”.

And something else about the “Garden Ring”

It is also indicative how the representatives of the Garden Ring are behaving in the current situation – their statements are received in the media and social networks in a dosed manner, as if in accordance with some kind of hypothetical media plan. And sometimes their content lags behind current events.

Mikhail Feldman continues to insist that Kirill Badikov is to blame for everything. Photo: sadovoe-kolco.ru

So, for example, in mid-April, the head of the regional investigatory committee for Bashkiria, Denis Chernyatyev, said at a press conference that the investigation did not prevent the completion of construction of facilities, the work of a new investor, and the actions of the Ministry of Construction of Bashkiria to protect the rights of equity holders.

Meanwhile, the managing partner of the Garden Ring in Bashkiria, Mikhail Feldman, continued to repeat the comment that Badikov, who by that time had been in jail for more than two weeks, was hindering the construction.

We also add that the criminal case on which Badikov was detained concerns the completion of another facility – the Moskovsky residential complex, which the Garden Ring initially agreed to complete, but then, apparently, having calculated the costs, refused. The entrepreneur, according to investigators, withdrew most of the funds through shell companies. At the same time, this, too, according to the source of The Moscow Post, may indirectly indicate that the criminal case against Badikov was not initiated by chance. “Surely, if desired, it would be possible to accumulate invoices against Badikov during the completion of the other three facilities that Garden Ring is still building. However, this did not happen. Perhaps, because along with the accusations against Badikov, some facts testifying against the “Garden Ring” itself.

This assumption was indirectly confirmed by Badikov in his interview. “Gosstroy facilities” we transferred to the amount of approximately 1.823 billion rubles. To complete it, 2.8 billion were needed, but in the UK they “turned up” to 3.5 billion. the figures can be safely divided by two, but they needed all this to obtain compensation plots for MIPs (Large-scale investment project program – ed.),” Kirill Badikov said in an interview.

It becomes even more interesting after studying the information about the activities of the head office of the Sadovoye Koltso Group of Companies and its management, whose example, in theory, is followed by the regional manager Mikhail Feldman.

It is known that the founder of the Garden Ring Group of Companies, Sergei Kolunov, became a State Duma deputy last year. Prior to this event, he was the founder of 20 companies. As expected, after his election to the deputies, Kolunov transferred shares in some of them to trust management. But not all, but only those that are heard. At the same time, deputy Kolunov, according to Rusprofile, remained the founder of Catalina, SK Realty, SKN-Tetris, Tradecom, Savin House and a number of other companies. I wonder what the relevant commission in the State Duma thinks about this.

Obviously, the activities of the representatives of the Garden Ring Group of Companies themselves are far from perfect and require the closest attention, including from the controlling structures.

Source: The Moscow Post