Theater instead of bananas: will Kehman work at a construction site?

A contract in the amount of 341.4 million rubles for the repair of the Puppet Theater of Fairy Tales in St. Petersburg will be signed with the winning RSK-Renaissance LLC. This information is on the website of "State Procurement".

Given the contractor's ambiguous reputation, as well as its likely hidden beneficiaries, it can be assumed that everything can go by no means as smoothly as officials apparently expect. Details - in the material The Sankt-Petersburg Post.

Reputation is not a "stigma"

There are two companies under the name RSK-Renaissance LLC. Both were registered in Moscow in 2017 with a difference of seven days. The general director and founder of the "early" is Vadim Yuryevich Filonenko, the second is controlled by Marat Dmitrievich Karginov. Both firms have government contracts. According to Rusprofail, the agreement was concluded with the Karginov office. Nevertheless, the presence of an almost complete clone leads to suspicions that he may be used as a "scapegoat" in the event of a contract failure and may have been created for this. But about it later.

Filonenko is not some iconic figure, and does no other business. Karginova, on the contrary, can be called a very successful mass entrepreneur, however, mainly in St. Petersburg. During the period of its existence, Zhilkomexpert received 17 million rubles in government contracts, and many other companies are not in poverty.

Photo: Rusprofile.ru

At the same time, they often become participants in court cases - as recently as in 2022, the Capital Repair Fund of the Leningrad Region revealed shortcomings after the work of the Karginovsky Stroy-Expert, but in order for the company to fulfill its obligation to eliminate them, the state organization had to go to court.

Photo: https://kad.arbitr.ru

The company was also accused of improper fulfillment of its obligations.

Despite the mass of contracts, the company's revenue jumps with incredible dynamics - according to the latest data, the company owes creditors many times more than it has funds in circulation. The question arises - where does the money go?

State order from Kehman

At the same time, Karginov's companies continue to receive contracts from the state. This is not the first time a businessman has undertaken (more precisely, to his company) an obligation to work with theater buildings. His Stroy-Expert Group of Companies fulfilled contracts at the Mikhailovsky Theater when Vladimir Kekhman was its artistic director. The same theater was involved by the authorities of the Perm Territory in the development of the concept of the new building of the Perm Opera and Ballet Theater, the contract for which ended up with the same Stroy-Expert.

True, there was no scandal here - UKS Prikamye filed a lawsuit against the St. Petersburg company for reasons: violation of deadlines and poor-quality performance of work. As a result, the company was fined and suspended from its execution. At the same time, initially they wanted to build the theater at the expense of the federal budget, and after the departure of Stroy-Expert, there were suddenly private investors.

Theater project in the Perm Territory. Photo: https://mydecor.ru/news/architecture/opera-v-permi-id6855514/

Interestingly, when rumors spread about Kekhman's loyalty to Stroy-Expert, he said in an interview with "Moskovsky Komsomolets" that he had nothing to do with her, immediately starting to contradict himself.

"I have known the head since he made a unique repair in Mikhailovsky, in almost four months he changed 580 windows in the building, and the theater functioned all this time. He is just an amazing builder, today there are no such people, "the journalists of the publication quote him.

So there is reason to believe that the theater operator may be behind the successes, despite all the scandals, of Karginov's companies.

Many-sided

He is a very unique personality - the former head of the largest banana supplier JFC, was declared bankrupt in England and Russia, his debts totaled about 20 billion rubles. In 2012, Kehman even became a defendant in a criminal case on particularly large-scale fraud in the field of lending and legalization of criminally obtained funds, but escaped responsibility due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.

There were rumors that along with bananas, traffic of prohibited substances could go through JFC - they did not find confirmation, as well as refutations, and now it is hardly possible to establish something. The firm is closed.

Despite the bankruptcy, Kehman continued to lead a bohemian lifestyle, and it has been speculated that he may have withheld some of the assets. "Kommersant" wrote about this.

At least one of the theater's assets - a house in Pushkin worth 95 million rubles, went to a certain Elena Sannikova, who, as it turned out later, did not transfer the value of the property to the organizer of the auction. In such cases, property with a discount (25% in this situation) is proposed to be bought by the mortgagee, who turned out to be Kekhman's former partner Sergei Rukin. How convenient!

As "Versiya" reported, the artistic director was also involved in the story of the bankruptcy of F Logistic and the subsequent alteration of 4 mdrd of the inheritance. The fact is that F Logistic is 25% owned by Kekhman's former subordinate to JFC, Vladimir Sayapin. With him, the owners of the offshore company AYESJI PARTISIPATIMAATSHAPPIY BI.VI, where, logically, billions of funds could go. Could bankruptcy be intentional?

And now Kehman makes money on familiar companies that save on the quality of work that he promotes to the "public procurement camp" in order to share budget "surpluses" with its leaders?

"Contribution to Culture" from Medinsky

The success of Kekhman himself, who somehow got into a grain position, first in St. Petersburg, and then in Moscow - when, without losing the post of artistic director Mikhailovsky, he became the general director of the Moscow Art Academic Theater. Gorky, some tend to explain the patronage of the former Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky. After all, it was under him that the former businessman took high posts.

Vladimir Medinsky. Photo: https://rg.ru/2017/07/04/vladimir-medinskij-vpervye-otvechaet-kritikam-svoej-dissertacii.html

By the way, according to the federal law on bankruptcy of citizens, a person who was declared bankrupt cannot hold senior positions for three years. In 2016, Kekhman became bankrupt - in 2017, he became his artistic director from the post of general director of the Novosibirsk Theater, and Medinsky personally commented on his resignation by owls "Vladimir Abramovich left of his own free will. Deals with a number of creative issues. Vladimir Abramovich is a creative person, as we know".

And in 2018, the former minister even rewarded Kehman for his "contribution to culture". Which one - did not explain.

But Kekhman's contribution may have seriously affected the activities of Marat Karginov. Only, judging by the theater house that was traded at the auction, is it worth a lot to maintain. Karginov also needs bread and butter. So how much money from the fairy tales allocated for the repair of the Puppet Theater in St. Petersburg will go as intended is an open question.