Manor Divnomorskoe under Putin Palace in Gelendzhik – the most famous winemaking project Gennady Timchenko, an oligarch who often acts as a nominal holder of Putin’s assets. As The Insider found out, through his relatives and managers, Timchenko is connected with at least two other wineries – in the Krasnodar Territory and in Tuscany. Through the chain of denominations and his son-in-law, “Putin’s wallet” easily bypasses European sanctions, producing and selling wine in Italy and the United States.
Winemaking is a long-term business: the vine begins to produce grapes of the desired quality only in the third year after planting, and premium wines need further aging. But even these factors cannot explain how a working winery has been making losses for twenty years of its existence and does not close. “Domen Burnier” was founded in 2001, one of its investors was the Russian Commercial Bank in Zurich, which allocated two tranches in the amount of 6 million francs. If this loan was repaid, third-party sources were used for this. According to the statements of two legal entities of the winery, Grand Vino LLC and Burnier Wine House LLC ended with a negative balance for the last 10 years out of 11, and the total amount of losses amounted to 1.134 billion rubles. Perhaps this was the main reason for the partial sale of the business.
Both Malyavin, and Muravitsky, and Norenko are associated with companies that are not at all associated with Swiss wines or Kuban autochthons. Malyavin and Norenko are the founders, and Muravitsky is the director of Double-U.S. Capital Ventures, associated with the Volga Group, which manages the assets of Gennady Timchenko. Double-U.S. Capital Ventures is the founder of F.B.S., whose CEO Olga Kiryanova was the CEO of Businessstrade Volga Group. In addition, Malyavin was the general director of Belona LLC, owned by Timchenko.
Son of the Franks Gleb he never lived in poverty, but after his marriage in 2010 to Ksenia Timchenko, the daughter of an oligarch, gifts of fate fell on him like from a cornucopia. A year after the wedding, Gleb became a co-owner and member of the board of directors of the Russian Fishery Company. By the beginning of the war with Ukraine, Timchenko’s son-in-law became the sole owner of RRK and made it the largest pollock producer in Russia. He also owned the Russian Crab Group of Companies, the largest crab catcher in the country. After the imposition of sanctions, Frank Jr. got rid of from these assets, formally rewriting them to the managers of their own companies.
Two years after the wedding of Gleb and Xenia, and a year after the purchase of Riecine, a generous stream of investments spilled onto Tuscan soil. In 2012 Was built the new building of the winery, the vineyard area has increased to 21 hectares.
The Riecine tank park is constantly replenished with new fermenters, such as trendy vats made of special concrete from the French company Nomblot. The winery’s consultant is Carlo Ferrini. He is one of the world’s top professionals, was awarded the title of the best winemaker of the year by the Wine Advocate and works with top Italian estates such as Brancaia, Fonterutoli and Tenuta San Leonardo.
Unlike her son, Svetlana Frank was not subject to sanctions and can freely dispose of her European property. The family, which owes its prosperity to Timchenko, sells wines in the US through Arizona-registered distributor Societa Agricola Riecine SS LLP. Rene Burnier, who sold his stake in the Russian winery to Timchenko structures, can also import Krasnodar wines to Europe through his own distributor Artvino Sarl and develop Domaine Renaud Burnier on more fertile Swiss soil.
Behind the fence – 323 hectares, a spa complex on the coast (3,200 sq.m.) with a tasting house nearby (2390 sq.m.) and a modern winery (8000 sq.m. outbuildings). “Picturesque vineyards occupy a vast sheer plateau on the Black Sea coast,” it says on the estate’s website. By the way, to create this picturesque agricultural landscape, the owners of the estate, to the indignation of environmentalists, cut down a grove of protected Pitsunda pine. In this estate, Navalny discovered an aquadisco – a complex of fountains with light and music accompaniment, as well as a helipad.
But, as Open Media found out, the fountains (as you can see in the photo below, they have already been built) are just children’s toys, a real water park will appear on the estate!
The estate announced a mass recruitment of people for a new construction site – a water park, a person familiar with the Divnomorskoye development plan told Open Media. A Serb foreman named Dejan is recruiting workers for a new construction site, our correspondent was convinced: he called the foreman under the guise of a job seeker and found out that in addition to the 20 workers already hired, another 50 people were needed, but only Russians without a criminal record, in no case Muslims […].
“Where we work, there is a closed facility, you understand,” the source explains. You can work without a contract, getting more – 250 rubles per hour instead of 180 rubles with official registration. Before admission to the construction site, the FSB will check for seven days, and it will also be necessary to pass the “corona” test, says a potential employer. Work for a year, or even more, he assures.
The tradition of paying salaries “in an envelope” has existed at Divnomorskaya for a long time – at least, two of its former employees, who agreed to talk anonymously, say so. “I got a job around 2008-2009,” recalls our interlocutor named Ivan. – They said about the salary that they are officially ready to show no more than 10,000 rubles. But in reality, up to 40,000 came out.
At that moment, when Ivan got a job, the vine was barely planted, and the facilities were just under construction. Employees often said among themselves that “Putin is in charge of the project”, they say, we are building a “Putin winery”. Putin himself – at that time the prime minister – in Ivan’s memory appeared with an inspection twice. Both times, workers were evicted from the facility with paid days off, and security guards were instructed to be especially vigilant.
Another former worker, Igor, says that even inside the winery there were internal checkpoints. For example, he himself was connected with the vineyards and did not have the opportunity to go to the chateau under construction. Igor finally saw what a luxurious complex with a water disco looks like only in Navalny’s film.
The vineyards, Igor continues, were commanded by Italians – young, friendly people who spoke Russian well. They planted an imported vine – not typical for these places. A drip irrigation system was used, water was supplied under each bush. But Ivan was most impressed by two things. Firstly, a lawn planted directly on the roof of the winery. “Is it so that it was not visible from the air?” the worker is perplexed. Secondly, the winery and the chateau were connected by pipes through which wine flowed. “We took three polyethylene pipes, it seems, of a hundredth diameter, they led them from the factory directly to the tasting house (located next to the chateau). It turns out to be 0.5 km somewhere, although it’s downhill,” recalls our interlocutor. “I saw the tasting house itself only with a rough finish, but even then it seemed to me that it was such a beauty, just some kind of hermitage.”
The salary for the winery was brought in cash, this was done by people whom the hard workers called “fshshniks”. “Strong guys, athletic, in suits, with ties. I can’t say, I haven’t seen their certificates. But everyone around said: look, the fsshniks have arrived, which means that now the salary will be, ”recalls Igor.
The Divnomorskoye estate is not the only property of Timchenko and Kolbin near Gelendzhik. Their NP “Development of Agrarian Initiatives” through the companies “Axis Investments” and “Apex-South” since 2019 also owns the wine-making farmstead “Old Provence” in the village of Krinitsy. The courtyard became famous after Navalny’s investigation – it was for this complex that vases, chandeliers and a toilet brush were purchased for 700 euros.
“Old Provence”, a winery under construction in the village of Krinitsa, is one of the objects farthest from Gelendzhik Airport, it will take almost an hour to drive. You are heading towards Krasnodar, before reaching the village of Pshada, turn towards the sea. Before entering Krinitsa, turn right onto the bridge over the Pshada River. Immediately after the bridge, you will run into a semicircular, paved square, surprisingly contrasting with the surrounding desolation, a broken road and trailers of workers. The square ends with an openwork gate, behind which you can see neat vineyards and a picturesque road going into the distance. If you continue driving along the fence, you will see rows of solar panels in a field. Behind them you can see almost toy houses surrounded by lawns, the landscape is reminiscent of the south of France or Italy. However, VAZs – “six” of workers and concrete blocks in the middle of the road will return you to Russia.
Tourist beware! When we, being on the road, filmed through the fence the vineyards in Praskoveevka owned by Azure Berry, an employee of the private security company with a sheep-dog appeared almost immediately, demanded to stop filming and wrote down the license plate number of the car. Literally half an hour later we were stopped by the traffic police. They took the documents not only from the driver, but also from all the passengers, and then checked them for almost an hour in various databases. Over the next days, this situation repeated itself four times: the guards of the vineyards and wineries wrote down the number of the car and soon we were stopped by traffic police inspectors. In addition to personal documents, the employees demanded to show a contract with a car rental, they tried to check the VIN under the hood and under the front seat, each time it all took about an hour. […]
