There is one Chochua, or battle for cement, going into battle

Today, a court hearing was held on the claim of businessman Merabi Chochua and the Mosstroytrans corporation belonging to him to The Moscow Post.

Mr. Chochua, apparently, was afraid that the governor of the Trans-Baikal Territory, Alexander Osipov, would change his mind about including Mosstroytrans factories for the production of cement and lime in the territory of advanced development (TOP) "Transbaikalia." The total investment in the project is 10 billion rubles, and, one must think, most of the money will be allocated from the budget.

Everything would be fine, but the reputation of Chochua and related companies can hardly be called cloudless, which we told in the investigation "I would know the trick, I lived like Chochua." But Merabi Profilievich does not seem to appreciate our approach, and now wants our publication to admit that it slandered a respected businessman.

Are you selling a "Slavic closet"?

And it all started with a call to the Editorial Office, literally a couple of days after the article was published. The person with the voice of the Swedish professor was consistently interested in who owns the publication, who ordered the publication, and hinted that the forces that he was ready to undo well to the Editor-in-Chief that the article would be deleted. Having received a refusal to this offer, and having learned that neither he nor his client needed a "Swedish professor" in this life to "order," promising trouble to the publication, and soon a date in court retreated to the vastness of the silence of telephone communication.

And here was the first day of the trial. Initially, the plaintiff, among other things, demanded the removal of the entire article, but now, apparently realizing that it is necessary to backtrack, he asks to cut out only the fragments associated with it. Of course, we will not do what, because the task of that material is precisely to ask questions to officials who are not particularly mean in choosing partners.

So, Mr. Osipov, we consider it our duty to remind who Mr. Chochua is and with what people in the market and stories at different times associated his name.

Let's start with, perhaps, the most painful for the latter. We made this conclusion from the fact that Chochua's lawyers rely on her most in court. So: there was such a hotel opposite the Kremlin with the sonorous name "Russia." Due to the mass of reasons that do not make sense to list now, it was decided to demolish it.

According to media reports, they did this as early as 2015. And they started long before that. As RIA Novosti wrote in 2012, the main work was carried out from 2006 to 2010, but in 2012 something else was completed by the FPK Satori company, where Merabi Chochua has been the general director since 2013. She also performed work in 2006. In 2015, Vladimir Gusarov, who had already replaced Chochua as head of the company, said in an interview with Moscow Perspective that work was still underway in Russia. It is unlikely that they stopped for the period of leadership of the Chochua company.

Why do we talk about it in such detail? Because Chochua's lawyers in court, in fact, are trying to "excuse" their "ward" from participating in the demolition of the hotel. And, apparently, for a reason.

Dismantling of "Russia." Photo: https://www.interfax.ru

From ordinary criminals to organized crime groups

FPK "Satori," despite large contracts and all-Russian recognition, in 2019 was recognized as a bankrupt, and at that time its new general director Oleg Sukhorukov was prosecuted on suspicion of especially large-scale fraud and abuse of authority. The situation for the construction market is classic (for the 90s) - deception of equity holders for millions of rubles.

Sukhorukov withdrew this money through the "Kubyshki companies." And there is an assumption that all the aforementioned comrades-CEOs were, as they say, in the same boat. During its existence, at least five directors have changed at Satori.

There is another interesting detail: the fact is that the company of the scandalous entrepreneur Shalva Chigirinsky, who is associated with criminal groups, invested in the demolition of Russia. The money of the Moscow government was also invested in the project. Even before Chochua came to Satori, the company demanded 33 million rubles allegedly underpaid for work from Chigirinsky's company, and received them. The further fate of the funds is unknown, but we assume that the money could have been withdrawn, including in favor of the management of the subsequently declared bankrupt Satori. This means that we do not exclude participation in these schemes of Chochua.

Is Gusarov all equal?

Journalistic work involves gathering disparate facts and drawing conclusions. At the same time, we do not at all claim that Chochua was "gilded with a pen" on a large private-state project, which, as a result, due to Chigirinsky's financial problems, had to be funded by the Moscow government. (Which is confirmed, among other things, by the businessman's lawyers themselves, all the same, for some reason demanding to delete the publication or, as a minium, its part and proving their position, the conclusion of a specialist of very strange content, where the person preparing it writes that the phrase "But the beautiful plans of the head of the region may not come true, because"Mosstroytrans "can hardly be called a company that is not in doubt" denigrates the business reputation when it is not even a statement).

However, the information collected suggests that many who managed to "profit" from this project, and the eye first of all falls on the company's management during the dismantling of "Russia."

By the way, the founder of Satori was about the chairman of the board of directors and the owner of part-time - Andrei Gusarov. Chochua himself spoke about this if the official website of the company does not lie. Gusarov somehow managed, despite the fact that Satori was declared bankrupt, to "roll back" the company to the state of operation - if you believe the data of Rusprofile. Moreover, it now has the legal successor of Satori LLC, registered at the ZPIF Development and Development. Not very transparent, right?

Andrey Gusarov. Photo: screenshot from the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXdKvDWhFQc

It beggars belief that he did not know what was happening under his very nose. Over the period of existence, the company has replaced at least five directors, who probably acted on the direct instructions of the founder and owner of the company.

So why "righteous anger," Merabi Profilievich? Are we really at the very point in the question of the implementation of the project to demolish "Russia"? And how the gernalists may not raise questions about the fact that it was Mostroytans, whose owner worked in the scandalous Satori, who was allowed to build factories on the territory of advanced development, where budget money will almost certainly be involved.

Photo: Rusprofile.ru

Photo: Rusprofile.ru

Photo: Rusprofile.ru

Moreover, interim measures have been imposed on 18 objects of the Mosstroytrans Corporation's property, the financial stability of the company on the Rusprofile website is qualified as "low," and 10 out of 15 state contracts, the supplier of which the company is. Still under execution, despite the fact that some of them are overdue.

So, respected comrade with the voice of the "Swedish professor" you are your "client" poduimata. So far, the competent authorities have not become interested in him.