Vladislav Levchugov: Tomsk “king of retail”

The general director of the Tomsk group of companies LLC “Lama” Vladislav Levchugov throughout his “working path” regularly gets into different stories that paint him in a not very pleasant light. A recent incident in Novosibirsk prompted us to take a closer look at the path of a well-known Tomsk entrepreneur.

Moreover, now he is just at a crossroads, and the further path already depends not only on himself, for Levchugov was detained together with the head of the Department for the Investigation of Particularly Important Cases of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Tomsk Region Sergey Arefiev. The topic is standard – a bribe; Officers arrested both. While the businessman sits in a pre-trial detention center and thinks about what is coming to him from 7 to 12 years in prison.

The native Tomsk graduated from the local pedagogical university to become a teacher of labor (metalworking), but was fascinated by the elements of the market. Later he studied at the Tomsk branch of the Academy of National Economy as a master of business administration.

In 1992, together with a business partner Andrey Knyazev, he organized the LAMA-AV company. The niche was chosen very correctly – food retail. Later they launched their own production. It is believed that it was Levchugov who was the first to open a mini-market and a hypermarket in Tomsk. Two brands were actively developing: SPAR and Lama. We built the largest shopping and entertainment center in Tomsk – the Emerald City. Lama’s revenue in 2020 was estimated at 16.9 billion rubles. And in the spring of last year, Levchugov began a serious expansion in Novosibirsk by purchasing the Siberian Giant holding.

Levchugov had a lot of plans: he opened a private airfield near Tomsk for small aircraft. Along the way, he headed “Sibaerocraft” with a profile of “production of aircraft.” There is a basis for plans: analysts estimated the net profit from everything under Levchugov’s control at the end of the year at 200 million rubles.

When necessary, he used politics: in 2005-2010 he was a deputy of the Duma of the city of Tomsk of the IV convocation. However, Levchugov’s reputation has developed in public opinion such that it would be better not to show up at public events, not only in politics … Tomsk was shocked by the long-term war for the Fog City shopping center, the essence of which one of the Tomsk media aptly defined as follows : “How to steal a business.” A ten-year war with businessman Oleg Fedoseev ended with the fact that the latter was simply deceived, depriving him of everything. The media said that everything was there, up to the forgery of documents. Fedoseev did not give up, wrote to all authorities, but Levchugov’s influence allowed him to resolve the situation in his favor.

Everyone agrees that everything in this story is very dirty. Moreover, Levchugov has previously clearly demonstrated what he is like and how he understands Tomsk patriotism.

Last summer, in Nechaevsky Lane, he organized demolition of a historical monument – a wooden house, in which a museum could appear, and another store of Levchugov’s empire will appear. And even the airport next to Berezkino in the Tomsk region opened, ignoring the numerous protests of local residents.

Now Vladislav Levchugov has time to think about it…