Lev Partskhaladze. Glamorous builder of Kyiv politics

Recently, the Kyiv region has been rocked by scandals. Two mayors of satellite cities of Kyiv, namely the mayor of Vasilkov Sergei Sabov and the mayor of Irpen Vladimir Karplyuk accuse the vice-governor of the Kiev region Lev Revazovich Partskhaladze of corrupt practices and political pressure. Something like this has never happened before. And if Sabov declares these actions in interviews and at press conferences, then Karplyuk wrote an open letter to President Poroshenko, in which he directly states that Lev Partskhaladze wants to kill him. Well, Lev Revazovich comes from the 90s, and then problems were solved in exactly this way.

One hundred thirty bucks

In the nineties, as Partskhaladze himself likes to say in all his interviews, he had 130 bucks in starting capital. It was precisely this that he invested in the business, gradually becoming a millionaire. Well, it is not known exactly how much money he had then, but it is absolutely known that San Sanych, the all-powerful mayor of Kyiv Omelchenko, favored him. It is unlikely that without his participation he would have received the Dynamo Lux restaurant – a favorite place for the Kyiv gang, expensive whores and businessmen. This restaurant once belonged to Boris Savlokhov himself, one of the coolest Kyiv authorities. But the constant presence of hot Ossetian guys from the “Savlokha” brigade there did not increase his number of visitors. Then Savlokhov was imprisoned, and the restaurant had a new owner – young Leva Partskhaladze, although according to some sources, the restaurant actually belonged to San Sanych himself. This is indirectly indicated by the fact that the leader of the Kyiv group of football lawyers from the SDPU (o) Grigory Surkis, the owner of Dynamo (Kyiv), really wanted to get “Dynamo Lux”. At that time, the group was the most powerful in Kyiv and Omelchenko was the only one who could resist it. Surkis often came to the club, and some fairly influential people joked that Grisha did not own all of Dynamo. Well, besides “Dynamo Lux”, Patskhaladze was the owner of at least nominal restaurants: “Taras”, in Shevchenko Park, “Pervak” on Rognedinskaya, “USSR” near the Pechersk Lavra. In general, in such “fat” places where a mere mortal couldn’t even set up a stand with hot dogs. But this was not yet a business; then everything became much cooler. And restaurants became a thing of the past for the matured Lev Revazovich.

21st century

He started making real money from so-called “development” or simply construction. Everyone knows that Omelchenko is an “honored builder,” in the sense that he mainly received money from construction projects and his money “pump” in this business was the Kievrekonstruktsiya corporation. But there were still many different little things surrounding the construction, such as design, leasing of constructed areas, which, apparently, the mayor did not want to deal with. Therefore, as they say, he brought in many characters from “talented” youth. This is how Melamud, Korogodsky, Mirgorodsky and some other interesting characters appeared in the Kiev development business. Actually, Partskhaladze and his development company “21st Century” appeared in the same way. The mayor’s office gave land and permits, Kievreconstruction or its subsidiaries built, and Lev Revazovich and other developers designed, did advertising and marketing, and then sold the space. According to this scheme, “Squares”, “Metrograd”, “Globe” were built. Partskhaladze and Mirgorodsky received “Squares”. These centers still exist, but in the late nineties and early 2000s they had much fewer competitors. On their basis, Lev Partskhaladze opened a large number of related businesses. For example, fast food restaurants “Shvidko”, which were located exactly in these shopping centers. Or the security company “Angels”, which was involved in these centers. In some businesses, the well-known Pyotr Yushchenko, brother of Viktor Yushchenko, acted as a partner. In 2005, “21st Century” entered the London Stock Exchange. But in 2006, disaster struck – the all-powerful San Sanych lost the elections. His protege Vitaliy Klitschko, with whom Partskhaladze had good relations at that time, also did not become mayor. The “young team” of Leonid Chernovetsky (Read more about him in the article Leonid Chernovetsky: how “Lenya Cosmos” robbed Kyiv and moved to Georgia), and with them Lev Revazovich was clearly not on his way. But before we talk about the ordeals of the times of “Lenya-Cosmos”, it is necessary to add a little glamor.

Glamor stories

In his personal life, Lev Partskhaladze is a supporter of glamor. His first wife is top model Natalya Sobchenko, his second wife is also top model Lesya Partskhaladze-Matveeva. During the divorce, he gave his first wife the already mentioned “Taras” restaurant, which was renamed “O” Panas.” It was a broad gesture from a true Georgian. His second broad gesture towards his first wife was the explosion of Max Kurochkin’s car. According to rumors, it was organized by Lev Revazovich in retaliation for the fact that Kurochkin told everywhere that he was sleeping with his first wife. Whether this is true (and the affair with Kurochkin, and the motive for the assassination attempt) is still not clear. Except two

husband, the glamor in Partskhaladze’s life manifested itself during the elections to the city council in 2006. He created the most glamorous party, “European Capital,” whose face was the no less glamorous Olga Sumskaya, and she was nominated as a candidate for mayor. And he took the “steering” of this party not from a political strategist, or even an experienced staff functionary, but from a real music producer, the most correct sexual orientation for producers, Igor Shpiley, who, to put it mildly, had a rather indirect relationship to politics. Before that, he was producing Andrei Danilko, Assia Akhat, and suddenly, by some miracle, he found himself at the head of an expensive election campaign. PR people say that crazy amounts of money, several million dollars, were spent on the “European Capital”. Most of them went into the pocket of the resourceful producer. But the party not only did not receive a passing percentage, but it did not even receive half a percent. Her result is 0.04, that is, on the verge of statistical error. Shpiley had nothing to do with it. They say gay friends helped, in particular almost political scientist Andrei Dermatino. But let’s return from glamor to normal life.

Unglamorous stories

At the same time, Partskhaladze continued his main activity – construction and development. There were some scandals here. The loudest happened in 2010, when his company began to build a five-star hotel between Lutheranskaya and Kruglouniversitetskaya streets for Euro 2012. The developer began cutting down the trees that held the slope, which caused outrage among residents of the surrounding houses. There were a number of protests against this development. By the way, the hotel was never built. This is not the only land scandal associated with Lev Partskhaladze and his 21st Century company. There were also scandalous developments on Ivan Mazepa Street, where developers tried to “squeeze out” a plot of land right on the site of the historical monument “Kiev Fortress”. Then his company decided to build a “candle” on the site of the Sikorsky estate, and this building was given to a charitable organization with the aim of creating a Sikorsky museum. And back in 2006, Nikolai Tomenko announced the criminal schemes of Partskhaladze, who allegedly sells Kyiv land through London auctions. Partskhaladze promised to sue Tomenko in response, but this case did not end in anything. In 2008, the crisis hit, and a black streak came in the affairs of Lev Revazovich. On the one hand, everyone who invested money in the overheated Kyiv housing market had problems, on the other hand, as we already said, he did not find a common language with Chernovetsky’s “young team of professionals.”

Opposition

Partskhaladze, apparently having no prospects in business, decided to try his hand at politics, namely in Kievrad, in Vitali Klitschko’s bloc. Shortly before this, he “poured” his “European capital” into “IMPACT”. The same faction included his already mentioned business partner Mirgorodsky, who did not receive the post of chief architect of the city.

How Lev Partskhaladze’s headquarters organized the elections in 2012:

Life in the opposition is not easy, however, and the development market was also stagnant. And, in addition, they came into conflict with the leader of the faction, Andrievsky. The essence of this conflict, apparently, was precisely that the developers, dependent on the city authorities, did not want to spoil relations with the authorities. Lev Revazovich even publicly declared his desire to meet with Chernovetsky. But, what can you do, he was in the UDAR faction, and the faction had a conflict with the Chernovetsky Bloc faction. And these guys are not used to sharing with others. So the coming to power of the regionals, who removed Leonid Mikhailovich and replaced him with Popov, to some extent saved Partskhaladze’s business. Lev Partskhaladze immediately became friends with the Party of Regions; there were rumors that it was he, together with Oles Dovgiy, who would pay for the election campaign if Alexander Popov suddenly decided to run for the post of mayor of Kyiv. For this he should have been given the Svyatoshinsky district. In addition, the Kiev City Council voted on development in the buffer zone, near Sofia Kievskaya, on Zolotovorotskaya Street, 10. This project was to be carried out by the structures of Lev Revazovich. The second plot that was given to him was located right next to the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. But then Euromaidan began.

And they let the goat into the garden

After the victory of the Revolution of Dignity, almost golden times came for Lev Partskhaladze. Despite the long-standing conflict with Vitali Klitschko’s entourage, he found a common language with Petro Poroshenko. Most likely, his long-time business partner Peter Yushchenko helped him in this. True, Kyiv was closed to Partskhaladze, but the Kyiv region opened. In February 2015, he was appointed to the post of first deputy governor of the Kyiv region. In this position, he oversees, among other things, issues of land, infrastructure, construction… In general, everything on which he is used to making money. Accordingly, the interests of his companies shifted, and Lev Revazovich himself began to say in an interview that real estate in Kyiv had lost its investment attractiveness, and suburban real estate had become more interesting. But there is one nuance here: Lev Partskhaladze, apparently, perceives the land in the region as his patrimony, given to him “for food.” However, the mayors of satellite cities within a forty-kilometer zone from Kyiv perceive this same land in exactly the same way. And so, conflicts break out one after another. Vladimir Karplyuk, the mayor of Irpen, was the first to address the president with a video message. He stated that Partskhaladze wants to kill him. Then the mayor of Vasilkov, Sergei Sabov, loudly declares that Lev Revazovich is behind a certain organized crime group that wants to remove him from this post. In general, the war has begun. There are mayors of at least three other closest satellites of Kyiv who could potentially enter this war, and there are regional elections in which the president would very much like the support of the regional authorities. So the scales can swing in one direction or the other.

Denis Ivanov, for SKELET-info