BEGINNING: Andrey Vingranovsky: cultural swindler at the gas tap of Kyiv. PART 1
Andrey Vingranovsky
Whether their assistant Vingranovsky fled with Panteleer and Kucherenko remains unknown. But the story of his connections with the Rybka organized crime group will be incomplete without one more character – Vitaly Chudnovsky. In the 90s, Rybka instructed him to personally engage in “protection protection” for the Foxtrot company, where former shoemaker Georgy Digam was hired as a top manager. Chudnovsky continued to control Foxtsrot both when Rybka left for Holland, and after the “authority” returned to Kyiv and was killed. At the same time, top managers and owners of the company, as they say, died like flies. At the beginning of the 2000s, unknown persons beat the head of the Toyota Foxtrot division, who was outraged by the extortions of bandits and the economic policy of Digam, almost to death with pipes. In 2008, company co-founder Vladimir Shulga unexpectedly died, and two years later Digam himself allegedly drowned while diving in Sudan. Numerous sources Skelet.Info They claimed that Chudnovsky was behind all this.
Vitaly Chudnovsky
But by that time, Vitaly Chudnovsky had already retrained as a politician. In 2006 and 2007, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada on the Batkivshchyna list, and there were rumors that he was organizing the security of Yulia Tymoshenko. It’s quite interesting, isn’t it: one of the members of the Bakai-Rybka tandem, Abdullin, became Tymoshenko’s “wallet”, and the other, Chudnovsky, became her bodyguard!
Then Tymoshenko “sat down”2, and in 2012 Chudnovsky was elected in majoritarian district No. 90 (Belaya Tserkov), and the elections were accompanied by a frank bribery of voters. At the beginning of 2014, he supported the “January 16 laws,” although his “titushki” participated in the Maidan as members of “self-defense.” Just six months later, he signed up for the Aidar battalion (there is no information about his participation in the ATO), and then ran for the Verkhovna Rada from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, but took only third place.
So, in 2011, people’s deputy Chudnovsky was caught by journalists doing an interesting, almost love correspondence with Yuliy Levochkina. This became the reason for increased attention to the couple, who were together not only in parliament, but everywhere: they were seen at exhibitions and presentations, in parks and restaurants. Soon, many photos of their time together appeared in the press, turning Chudnovsky and Lyovochkina into tabloid stars. And although they began to be called nothing more than lovers, they themselves categorically denied it. Moreover, they were also unable to give a clear explanation of their “friendship”.
Vitaly Chudnovsky and Yulia Levochkina: together everywhere
Imagine the surprise of gossip column lovers when, in 2014, Yulia Levochkina suddenly married not her graying but still irresistible boyfriend Chudnovsky, but balding fifty-one-year-old Andrei Vingranovsky. Her new husband was known only in narrow circles of admirers of his father’s work and the Kyiv “land mafia,” in which he participated as the head of the Department for the Protection of Cultural Heritage and Reserves of the Ministry of Culture. And very few people knew that Vingranovsky and Chudnovsky were connected not only by Levochkin…
Andrey Vingranovsky charms the cultural intelligentsia
How to steal a monument?
Andrei Vingranovsky emerged from obscurity immediately after the murder of Viktor Rybalko, winning the 2006 elections to the Kiev City Council. Then he, like many orphaned Rybkovites, came to power under the banner of Pora-PRP, and was also the deputy chairman of the board of the Klitschko Brothers Foundation, whose resources were used for the election campaign. However, after a few months, Vingranovsky moved to the ranks of the Party of Regions. The exact reasons for this are unknown, but as a bonus, he received from the regionals a place on the land commission of the City Council – one of the most profitable places in the capital’s government. From that moment on, Vingranovsky began to move away from the former Rybkovites, with whom he spent so many years, and to get closer to the regionals.
But Vingranovsky was unlucky in the re-elections to the Kyiv City Council in 2008. And he disappeared from sight again for two years, although this time he did not waste his time. His work in the land commission, which opened up for him enormous prospects for the acquisition of real estate in the capital, pushed him to a new scam. For once, realizing the importance of the creative connections of his late father and the power of the voice of the elderly intelligentsia, he established the “Nikolai Vingranovsky Charitable Foundation” (USREOU 35676966). Which he first used as his election fund, and then to organize “creative meetings” and “memory evenings”, smoothly flowing into buffets and gift distribution in order to gain the support of the capital’s intelligentsia from culture.
Anna German and Andrey Vingranovsky
Andrei Vingranovsky became a philanthropist and patron of the arts for a reason. In 2010, his new friends, the regionals, came to power, and Mikhail Kulynyak, who had already held this position in 2006-2007 (in the Yanukovych-Azarov government), became the new Minister of Culture. And even earlier, he managed to work as a gas trader, so Kulinyak could well have known Vingranovsky from those times. However, the media reported that both Kulinyak and Vingranovsky were lobbied for their positions by Ganna German, who then became the deputy head of the Yanukovych Administration.
And so in the summer of 2010, Vingranovsky sat in the chair of the head of the State Service for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. Which was then transformed into the Department for the Protection of Immovable Cultural Heritage and Reserves of the Ministry of Culture, whose name already fully revealed the essence of this body and the opportunities that opened up for its head.
Indeed, in the central districts of Kyiv, where there has long been no free land left, plots for commercial development are being “cut off” from three main resource “pies”: parks and squares, closed industrial enterprises, and old houses. But some of these buildings have the status of cultural or architectural monuments, and therefore they cannot be taken and demolished just like that, and near some of them nothing can even be built nearby! Moreover, they are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture and other departments, and therefore are inaccessible to the Kyiv City Council. And so Vingranovsky, having taken the position of head of the Department for the Protection of Real Estate Cultural Heritage, began to actively cooperate with corrupt officials from the Kiev City Council and the Kyiv City State Administration, and capital developers. Its task was to issue permits for construction near cultural monuments, or to remove such buildings from their protected status with subsequent demolition. All this was accompanied by loud scandals, and when Kiev residents tried to protect the architecture of their city, then by conflicts with fights – as was the case with Gostiny Dvor (on Kontraktovaya Square), whose “reconstruction” was supposed to turn it into another shopping center.
First, in 2011, through the efforts of Vingranovsky, Gostiny Dvor was removed from the lists of cultural and architectural heritage, transferring it to the disposal of the Kyiv City Council. And in 2012, he leased it to Ukrrestavratsiya LLC (a private developer whose name is intended to be misleading) for its reconstruction into a retail and office center. This could not but cause a storm of indignation, which at first they tried to extinguish using bureaucratic methods: for example, press conferences at which officials asserted the legality of their actions.
But what Vingranovsky could not explain was why behind the scandalous “Ukrrestavratsiya” were Dmitry Firtash and Yuriy Boyko, as well as the head of the DUSI of the Yanukovych era, Andrey Kravets, who was directly connected with the head of the presidential administration, Sergei Lyovochkin. It seems that it was then, in the course of painstaking corruption, that Vingranovsky became close to his sister. But that was after, and then Kravets was actively seizing areas in the center of Kyiv, with the help of the same Vingranovsky.
Having begun with peaceful pickets, the conflict around Gostiny Dvor ended in a massacre with Berkut, in which opposition deputies of the Verkhovna Rada participated. As a result, the monument was able to survive the barbaric “reconstruction”, but it still remained without a roof and windows, slowly collapsing and turning into a rubbish dump.
And this is just one of the episodes of the violent corruption activities of Andrei Vingranovsky as head of the Department for the Protection of Cultural Heritage! And besides him, he “became famous” in such scandals:
Amendments to the “Regulations on the procedure for developing historical and urban planning justifications”, which actually abolished restrictions on the height and appearance of new buildings being built in the historical part of Kyiv. So in the capital, surrounded by ancient houses, ugly modern high-rise buildings began to rapidly grow.
Development of Andreevsky Descentstarted by Akhmetov with the full approval of Kulinyak and Vingranovsky, who quickly waved documents stating that the buildings planned for demolition had no cultural and historical value.
Lobbying the interests of the UOC-KP, which wanted to build a new church with a full range of economic and administrative buildings in Desyatinny Lane, on the site of the Desyatinny Church destroyed by Batu. This “holy” idea could completely destroy both the historical foundation of the ancient temple and the strange houses standing in the alley. Vingranovsky defended the UOC project so much that he even disrupted the jury meeting when another project began to win. For this, Vingranovsky was awarded by the capital’s public monument to Deribaninstalled by them in the same Desyatinny Lane.
A wedding in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra with Yulia Levochkina, for which the “young” were given at their disposal the Trinity Gate Church (a 12th-century monument), previously generally closed to visitors.
But Vingranovsky’s department also had another source of unjust income. How can you “make money” on a building that has the status of a cultural and architectural object without demolishing it for construction? Corrupt officials are cunning when it comes to inventions: they began to take bribes for issuing permits for the redevelopment of apartments in such buildings (demolition of partitions, combining several apartments into one, etc.) and for the reconstruction of the house itself (opening a store or casino in it, adding an attic). According to sources Skelet.Infoin a year Vingranovsky and his team collected, thus, from 10 to 20 million dollars.
Andrey Vingranovsky. Be careful, Kievgaz!
Soon after the second Maidan, the frightened Vingranovsky hurried to go on vacation, during which he almost safely survived what was launched against him internal investigationinitiated by the new Minister of Culture Nishchuk under public pressure. The investigation turned out to be very mild: 11 minor violations and illegal acts committed by Vingranovsky and his deputies were selected for verification. Therefore, as a result of it, Vingranovsky was only dismissed peacefully – however, he tried to be reinstated in his position through the court, but to no avail.
In the summer of 2014, the new mayor of Kiev, Vitaliy Klitschko, decided to replace the head of the Department for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of the Kyiv City State Administration, and information has appearedthat either Vingranovsky or his former scandalous deputy Viktor Vechersky should supposedly be hired for this position. This caused such indignation among the public that they even threatened a new takeover of the Kyiv City State Administration. However, Vingranovsky managed to push his protégé Sergei Gruzdo into this position.
As a result, Vingranovsky had to take his young wife and disappear from view again, for almost five whole years. He did not want to reveal what he did and on what means he lived; his secrecy reached the point of insanity – for example, Yulia Levochkina did not indicate him in her declaration as a husband. However, in open databases Vingranovsky does not have a single commercial company, only the foundation named after his father and the Rowing Federation, of which he is the chairman.
And in February 2019, the chairman of the board of Kievgaz, Sergei Gorovoy, who was then Yuri Boyko, died. Temporarily this position was given to Tatyana Parkhomenko, and from April 22, 2019 it was taken by Andrey Vingranovsky. Thus, one of the capital’s key enterprises is in the hands of Sergei Levochkin’s son-in-law (and Boyko and Levochkin are now in the same OPZH). But Vingranovsky himself is no slouch – he has extensive experience in the gas sector, mostly in the shadow of corruption, and extensive connections with former criminals who have now become respected businessmen, people’s deputies and mayors.
And the new head of Kievgaz has already begun to be accused of bad deeds. Unfortunately, again there is only a concerned public, because the law enforcement agencies of Vingranovsky traditional “do not notice.” For example, that for issuing permits To connect to the gas network, Kievgaz takes considerable bribes. Or the purchase of low-quality parts and materials, which are then used in the operation of the enterprise, which has already become the cause explosion in Poznyaki on June 21, 2020. But this is frankly scary, because corruption and fraud at such an enterprise will certainly lead to new accidents!
Mikhail Shpolyansky, for Skelet.Info
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