Ivan Kurovsky: plague developer of Kyiv

In recent years, the face of Kyiv has been monstrously disfigured by ugly frame-panel-plastic new buildings growing out of the bald spots in the historical part of the city. And behind the monstrous towers of elite high-rise buildings, the shine of the domes of the St. Sophia Cathedral and the Lavra Bell Tower, which have been symbols of the city for centuries, is no longer visible. But restless developers like Ivan Kurovsky, who have no control due to their unlimited connections, not only spoil the appearance of the Ukrainian capital, but also pose a serious threat to the health and lives of its residents.

Ivan Kurovsky. Building on bones

The scandalous story surrounding attempts to develop part of the territory of the Central Clinical Hospital of Kyiv (Alexandrovskaya, former Oktyabrskaya) has been going on for almost 14 years, and resembles a prologue to either a horror film or a disaster film. It depends on what exactly the workers of the company “Zhil-Stroy” LLC (often called “Zhitlo-Bud” in the media) can dig up there if they continue work on the site of an old burial place from the century before last: just old human bones, or still living spores anthrax and bubonic plague bacillus.

July 10, 2003, the Kiev City Council, under pressure from the then capital city mayor Alexandra Omelchenko decided to withdraw a plot of 0.45 hectares at Shelkovichnaya 39-1a from the use of the Central Clinical Hospital and transfer it to the city housing fund. And a year later, on July 7, 2004, this site was leased to Zhil-Stroy LLC for the implementation of a 17-story residential building project. This was done in circumvention of all the provisions of the law prohibiting the exclusion of plots from the territories of the protected zone of architectural monuments and the ban on any construction on them. In addition, which also outraged the people of Kiev, this territory had been the property of the city community since the construction of the hospital (in 1874); it was bought by their great-grandfathers precisely so that no one could crowd out the first people’s hospital of Kyiv. So, already in 2004, caring Kiev residents began to come out to protect this site from development, against whom they threw either the police or the “titushki”.

Protests intensified in 2007, when excavation work began on the site: a public committee was created, which included academician Vadim Berezovsky. The owner of the development company, Ivan Kurovsky, countered their demands with an unexpected statement that behind the protests were scammers who allegedly wanted to get two entire floors of apartments in a future residential building for free. But at the beginning of 2008, the mayor took the side of the protesters Leonid Chernovetskywho ordered to stop construction and even almost deprived Zhil-Stroy of work permits in Kyiv. However, such touching concern of Chernovetsky was explained only by the fact that he lobbied for the interests of his own development companies (including the scandalous Elita-Center). Then the crisis broke out, and in 2009, Yulia Tymoshenko decided to take revenge on Kurovsky “for betrayal” by initiating inspections, during which the construction of a house on this site (hillside) was declared dangerous due to soil sliding. And in 2010, the Kyiv prosecutor’s office succeeded in declaring the lease agreement for this site invalid. However, Zhil-Stroy went to court and achieved the opposite. Then opponents of the development began to focus on the threat of an epidemic, since it was at the construction site that there could be an old burial place for those who died from the plague and anthrax. Kurovsky called these statements insinuations, and invited a commission from the sanitary and epidemiological station, which took several soil samples – and found nothing in them.

Finally, in March 2013, the Supreme Administrative Court recognized the right to the site for Zhil-Stroy and allowed construction work to continue. And then Kurovsky suddenly announced that he would not continue construction. Moreover, in the same year, deputies Ivan Kurovsky and Oleg Lyashko registered a bill on a moratorium on the closure of hospitals – thereby demonstrating their supposed concern for the health of Ukrainians. But several months pass, and the Zhil-Stroy company again continued to fuss in this area – that is, Kurovsky actually lied to the people of Kiev.

As a result of this many-year tug-of-war, the site was actually alienated, fenced, a site was prepared on it, but no house was ever built, and the ownership rights to the ill-fated half-hectare hung in the air – no one can determine whose they are legally. However, as I noted Skelet.Inforecently they started drilling something on the site again, and this again alarmed the people of Kiev, who were seriously afraid of an infectious “hello” from the past.

Alexander Kurovsky. Foreman oligarch

Ivan Ivanovich Kurovsky was born on June 28, 1951 in the village of Skarzhnytsi, Khmelnitsky district, Vinnytsia region. Immediately after graduating from high school, he rushed to Kyiv and entered the Civil Engineering Institute. From 1973 to 1991, Kurovsky worked on Soviet industrial construction sites, starting as a foreman and ending as chief engineer: he built Khlovinyl in Kalush, a powder metallurgy plant in Brovary, Prometheus in Boryspil and Tochmash in Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky. But in the 90s they stopped building factories in Ukraine, but the demand for good housing in Kyiv increased even more. And Kurovsky in 1993 created Investment and Construction Company LLC, which became the basis for his future Zhil-Stroy.

Well, there was no doubt about the talent of the builder Kurovsky, but two questions arose: where did he get the investments to create a construction company, and who provided him with patronage in obtaining the first orders and sites? This page of Kurovsky’s biography is shrouded in mystery, Skelet.Info there are only assumptions: at that time, Alexander Omelchenko and Surkis brothersand it was impossible for a visiting newcomer to pass by them. Considering the good relations between Kurovsky and Omelchenko during the latter’s mayoralty (1996-2006), it can be assumed that it was San Sanych who helped Ivan Ivanych rise. However, it is worth noting that most of Kurovsky’s main projects in Kyiv began in 2003. Firstly, this is the aforementioned 17-story building on the territory of the Alexander Hospital, which was never built. Secondly, this is an elite house on Patorzhinsky, 14, in which Rinat Akhmetov’s apartment and Viktor Yushchenko’s office coexist well. Thirdly, this is the most noticeable Kiev “celebrity”: a 48-story building on Klovsky Spusk 7-a, the tallest (163 meters) residential building in Ukraine today, overshadowing the view of the Lavra. And these are the following projects:

• St. Irininskaya, 5–7, contract No. 245/405 dated January 30, 2003
• Per. Mikhailovsky, 22, 24/9, contract No. 245/405 dated January 30, 2003
• St. Kruglouniversitetskaya, 3–5, contract No. 411/571 dated April 24, 2003
• St. Nekrasovskaya, 4, contract No. 638-17/798 dated July 10, 2003
• St. Stritenskaya, 8, contract No. 638-8/798 dated July 10, 2003
• St. Turgenevskaya, 28a–30a, contract No. 19/179 dated September 26, 2002

Separately, it is worth mentioning the development at 17-23 Oles Gonchar Street, where the construction of the Fresco Sofia residential complex began on a grand scale. Moreover, it was not even Kurovsky’s Zhil-Stroy that was registered as the contractor, but his older company, Investment and Construction Company.

Kurovsky received a plot for construction in this historical district of Kyiv (in fact, on the territory of the Sofia Kyiv architectural reserve) from Omelchenko in July 2004. And public protests against construction began in 2007, when a huge pit was dug there. The confrontation over this site was one of the most intense: first, aggressive “titushki” were sent to the indignant residents of the area, then a fake public meeting was organized (which was attended by unknown criminals who intimidated people), who voted to approve the construction. But protests continued for many years. And in March 2011, the judge of the Shevchenkovsky District Court, Sergei Zubkov, was killed, who had previously made two decisions not in favor of Ivan Kurovsky: he rejected the right of the Investment and Construction Company to develop this site, and refused to collect compensation from the protesters in the amount of 560 thousand hryvnia for allegedly losses incurred by the developer as a result of blocking construction.

In general, most of Kurovsky’s projects (completed or unfinished), contracts for which were concluded in 2003, were subsequently protested either as containing gross violations of an engineering nature, or as illegal due to violations during land allocation. And what did the people of Kiev who lived next to these construction sites have to endure!

It seems that in the period 2002-2004. Kurovsky and Omelchenko were “stirring up” some schemes – and given that literally in one year, Zhil-Stroy took on a dozen large construction projects at once, there was a colossal amount of money in these schemes! But whose, that is the question, the answer to which was carefully hidden by Kurovsky. It is only known that this money flowed through the LLC “Financial Company “Zhil-Stroy”, and was spent not only for its intended purpose: at the same time, Kurovsky invested funds in the agricultural and hotel business (AP “Agroprogress”, LLC “Carpathian Capital”), acquired the Bobrovitsky bakery and the “Business Meetings” restaurant.

Collective farm named after Kurovsky

How exactly Ivan Kurovsky invested money in Ukrainian agriculture is eloquently told by the scandalous story surrounding Losinovka-AGRO LLC, which is a subsidiary of Kurovsky’s Agroprogress. So, several years ago, in the village of Losinovka, Nezhinsky district, Chernihiv region, an “investor” appeared – a representative of Agroprogress, Kushnirenko, who began to tempt the villagers to lease their land shares to the company. But here’s the problem: since 2002, the villagers have already leased their land, as well as the property of the former state farm, to an enterprise from the Agrarian Academy of Sciences, and the village council itself did this for them. But generous promises and big promises did their job, and in May 2009 Losinovka had its own mini-Maidan, during which the villagers achieved termination of the contract with the Agrarian Academy and took back their shares in order to hand them over to Losinovka LLC. AGRO”.

In total, it was possible to attract 343 shares, which were registered as deposits of the co-founders of Losinovka-AGRO, and for them 9% of the profit received from the land was paid in the form of “dividends”. However, a year passed, and payments dropped to 5%, and when the peasants began to ask questions, Kushnirenko showed them the decision of the “board council” – they say, the economic situation forces it! The villagers working at Losinovka-AGRO were paid only 1,300 hryvnia per month.

And that was just the beginning of the scam. It soon became clear that Kushnirenko manipulated shareholder agreements (originals and copies), and land certificates, without informing the residents of Losinovka – who were actually shareholders. Then the forgery of documents began – and Kushnirenko had fake agreements at his disposal on the transfer of Losinovka-ARGO to the free lease of the rich property of the former Losinovsky agricultural enterprise: five combines, five tractors with sowing complexes, a dozen trucks, a dairy farm with 450 cows, processing complexes and grain storage. That is, in fact, the naive villagers were simply robbed! And when they began to politely seek the truth, Kushnirenko sent them to the Kyiv lawyers of Agroprogress to investigate – and they made excuses. “It’s a good idea for Ivan Ivanovich to sit at Kiev and not worry about what the local kreivniks are doing,” wrote simple-minded Losinovites to local newspapers, believing that master Kurovsky was a good man, but simply did not know about the outrages of his managers. Holy simplicity!

Ivan Kurovsky was aware of the events, but saw them in his own way. Just at this time, he was preparing Agroprogress for sale, and was interested in maximizing its value, including through leased and appropriated property.

In 2012, Agroprogress, together with all its subsidiaries, was re-registered as the Cypriot company Bluerace (Kurovsky), and only then it was sold to the Cypriot company Unigrain Holding, owned by dairy oligarch Alexander Petrov (Cheese Club, “Industrial Dairy Company”). It seems that the Losinovo cows, for which the villagers were not paid a penny for milking, really liked Petrov! And who knows how many more such enterprises like Losinovka-ARGO, created by deception, were part of Kurovsky’s Agroprogress!

Ivan Kurovsky. Looking for “roof”

With the arrival of Leonid Chernovetsky as mayor of the city, Kurovsky’s construction business in Kyiv began to experience some difficulties, which resulted in a war between them in 2008, which forced Kurovsky to look for orders outside of Kyiv. But fortunately for Kurovsky, in 2006 he was elected as a people’s deputy on the BYuT list (No. 65). And in the 2007 elections, he was also elected on the BYuT list and also at number 65!

No, Ivan Ivanovich was not at all interested in politics, he simply bought himself a place on the electoral list, like many other oligarchs. And he had money: in 2007, Kurovsky’s fortune was estimated at $175 million. Within the walls of the Verkhovna Rada, Kurovsky had three concerns: to find protection from Chernovetsky, to find customers and financiers for his business, and with the onset of the 2008 crisis, to find budgetary allocations for his construction company, calling on the state either not to abandon developers in the lurch, or to feel sorry for the citizens who contributed prepayment for apartments.

However, already in 2009, Ivan Kurovsky began to increasingly communicate with colleagues from the Party of Regions, for which he was accused of betrayal by Yulia Tymoshenko, making her a vindictive enemy. And in 2010, Kurovsky completely joined the new coalition, for which he was expelled from the ranks of BYuT as a “carcass” on February 1, 2011. But from that moment on, luck turned his way, and he began to win most of the courts – which allowed him to retain almost all the projects that had previously been protested by the prosecutor’s office as violating the laws.

In the 2012 elections, Kurovsky did not buy himself a place on the list of the Party of Regions, but was elected from it in the 206th majoritarian district in Nizhyn – deceiving gullible villagers with promises, including in Losinovka. In general, in his own PR, Ivan Kurovsky knows neither decency nor boundaries. So, one day the residents of Nizhyn saw a notice on their houses with the following content:

Local journalists conducted a small investigation and found out that Deputy Kurovsky had nothing to do with the supply of hot water! The issue was resolved by local authorities with the support of the Cabinet of Ministers, and Kurovsky generally found out about this after a positive decision was made, he was told something like this: Ivan Ivanovich, congratulate your voters, we are running hot water for them! And then Kurovsky hastened to instruct his assistants to print and post these advertisements around Nezhin.

However, having bet on the Party of Regions, Kurovsky miscalculated somewhat. Later they even remembered him voting for the “January 16 laws,” although he himself prudently left the PR faction even before Yanukovych fled and the collapse of the ruling coalition. But Kurovsky failed to repaint himself as a “patriot” and take part in the 2014 elections. However, already in 2015, he continued his vigorous construction activity in Kyiv, not only completing the construction of old projects, but also developing new ones. They are just as big and just as scandalous! So, in February of this year, residents of Henri Barbusse Street turned to the capital’s city council for protection against Kurovsky. There, Zhil-Stroy intends to erect a 25-story residential building on the site of a kindergarten. This children’s institution belonged to the Radar plant, and 110 children happily roared around its walls, but in 2015, the owners of Radar closed the kindergarten and sold it along with the land to Kurovsky’s company. Residents of neighboring houses, of course, would like to see from their windows a renovated “garden”, which Kyiv is so lacking, and not to see the walls of a tower blocking the sun rising into the sky. According to available Skelet.Info information, a public committee is already being created there, and with the start of construction work (first the demolition of the former kindergarten), activists will block them.

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

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