Singing restaurateur on two chairs
Ivanov, who does not remember his relatives. The leader of the SBPC group and at the same time a restaurateur, Kirill Ivanov, refuses to perform in Russia on principle, but at the same time, his firms unprincipledly earn millions for a state-owned company.
A year ago, the frontman of the St. Petersburg group “SBPC” and at the same time a well-known restaurateur Kirill Ivanov opposed the special operation and canceled all performances in Russia. Now Ivanov is preparing for concerts in Europe, while his restaurants in St. Petersburg continue to serve state-owned companies.
The 38-year-old leader of the Russian indie group SBPC (The Biggest Prime Number) Kirill Ivanov stated his position 4 days after the start of the special operation: “I am against the war. You have to repeat this all the time. It must be said that it is war in Ukraine. And no matter how painful it is to admit it, our country started it.”
At the end of his proud message, Ivanov added: “I don’t care about the dollar, visas, planes, the future, I don’t care about everything.” Despite the alleged disregard for visas, the group still planned a number of performances in Europe. In particular, during the tour in March 2023, SBHR will give concerts in Budapest, Vienna, Berlin and Amsterdam.
“We don’t perform in Russia now, because I can’t imagine what it’s like to go on stage and not say anything about the war. We try to arrange performances around the world, ”- explained Ivanov “Medusa”**. I would like to ask the “principled” Ivanov: how does his restaurant business function in Russia, serve customers, earn millions – and not a word about the war?
By the way, as part of taking care of his image, Kirill Ivanov has been actively cooperating with Meduza for a long time. The Latvian edition constantly advertises new albums of “SBHR”.
“It feels like (we didn’t count on purpose, of course), none of the musical groups had as many premieres at Meduza as the SBHR had,” wrote “Jellyfish”.
When in April 2021 the Ministry of Justice added the publication to the list of foreign agents, the artist Ivanov wrote down encouraging appeal and wrote a song: “This is incredible stupidity, injustice, nonsense and nonsense. <...> I would like to dedicate the song “At rest” to Meduza. I would really like to see Meduza and all of us finally left alone.”
But, declaring his desire to be finally left alone, Ivanov is a little disingenuous. After all, then he will stop receiving money from Russia, from government agencies.
AFFILIATED SEALS
In his native St. Petersburg, Ivanov is known not only as the leader of the SBPC musical group. Back in the early 2010s, he started several catering establishments – the Society of Clean Plates restaurant and the Mishka bar. Chef Alexander Berkovsky became Ivanov’s business partner. Clients of the Society of Clean Plates and Mishka receive checks with the inscriptions LLC Kotiki and LLC Unicorns. Ivanov owns an 80% stake in Seals, and 50% in Unicorns.
“The name of a legal entity is a thing that has nothing to do with marketing, except perhaps with “marketing” aimed at tax. It just shows our attitude to life, it seems to us that we are doing something fun and enjoyable, ” explained the appearance in the documents of “Seals” and “Unicorns” Berkovsky.
OOO “Kotiki” is responsible for the dance “Mishka bar”. “It’s always crowded and sincere here: branded shots are poured at the bar at quite affordable prices, they serve delicious salads and sandwiches, and you can meet a local celebrity at any table,” describe institution in the media.
The Society of Clean Plates is owned by LLC Unicorns. In the description of the restaurant said: “We are the largest professional service company for the provision of catering services and visitingrestaurant service in St. Petersburg. Both companies are mainly engaged in the delivery of food to offices, as well as delivering boxes of food to private customers.
In “Clean Plate Society” are included 8 corporate canteens for employees of Yandex, state-owned Sberbank and Gazpromneft. The catering company has been winning tenders for organizing corporate catering for several years in a row.
In turn, Kotiki LLC participated in open public procurement, Prigovor.ru found out. In 2019, the company won the tender of the Federal State Budgetary Institution “Administration of the Sea Ports of the Baltic Sea” for off-site restaurant service in the amount of 227 thousand rubles.
In 2021, the revenue of Unicorns amounted to 70 million rubles, Kotikov – 167 million. In the spring of 2020, during the isolation period, Unicorns LLC received grants as a small business as a business support measure, in total – 184 thousand rubles.
Personally, Kirill Ivanov and his group also had government purchases. In 2018, the artist participated in the creation of an image video for advertising an ice rink at VDNKh. For this he was paid 300 thousand rubles. In 2020, the SBHR performed at the Drugoy festival of new culture in Arkhangelsk for 385,000 rubles.
… One of the albums of the “SBPC” group is called “I think they didn’t come up with a word for this.” But for how Kirill Ivanov behaves, they came up with a few words, the most suitable of them is “b-in” (prostitution) …
Author: Alexey Velarov
**Meduza, a legal entity registered in the Republic of Latvia, SIA “Medusa Project”, registration number 40103797863, registration date 06/10/2014 – media, included by decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated April 23, 2021, to the register of NPOs under No. 219, performing the functions of a foreign agent