Lucrative Prague business of the Russian oligarchy
The parking lot on the border of Vinohrady and Strašnice in Prague in the Hagibor locality is still full of trailers with Amazon e-shop logos. In the future, however, the land will be turned into a construction site for a large office and housing project. After all, its first phase is already being built in the neighborhood. The owner of the land is the company Vinohradská Properties, its final majority owner is Mikhail Arustamov, a Russian oligarch with ties to the entourage of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The developer of the project is the Crestyl group, which gradually purchases from Vinohradská Properties according to the progress of the preparation of the individual stages of the entire project. Currently, Crestyl has already taken over more than half of the area.
While the transactions between Crestyle and Vinohradská Properties are not new, the fact that the final owner of the current land owner is Arustamov was not known until now.
The engagement of the former vice president of the state operator of Russian oil pipelines, Transneft, was revealed only by the register of real owners.
“Of course, we check everything carefully every time we buy a piece of land. Among other things, also from the point of view of the Act on Certain Measures Against the Legalization of Criminal Proceeds and the Financing of Terrorism, i.e. from the point of view of the fact that none of the shareholders or ultimate owners of the contracting party is listed in the sanctions lists or is not a shareholder or partner of a company that is on these lists listed. And so far nothing like that has really happened,” said Crestyl’s spokesperson Ondřej Micka.
The fact is that, according to available information, Arustamov is not on the sanctions lists. According to the register of real business owners, he also has the citizenship of Cyprus, a member country of the European Union. Arustamov resides in Switzerland.
However, it is also a fact that Arustamov is a person with ties to the highest levels of Russian business and politics. In 2007, Arustamov became the vice president of the Russian Transneft. He chose the then new head of the company Nikolay Tokarev as his right hand man.
Tokarev is a former officer of the Soviet KGB secret service. He served in the German Democratic Republic in the 1980s. There, too, an intelligence officer with another Soviet, Vladimir Putin. Their friendship continues to this day. At the beginning of February, Tokarev received a state award from Putin for services to the homeland. Immediately after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Tokarev was put on the sanctions lists of the EU, USA and Great Britain.
Transneft
- Transneft is a Russian company based in Moscow, owned by the Russian government. It mainly deals with the transportation and export of oil. The largest network of oil pipelines in the world has a length of 50 thousand km.
Slavic house
As already The list was written by the News in March, Tokarev is part of the leadership of the International Association of Oil Transporters based in Prague in Slovanské dům. And it is there that the paths of Tokarev and Arustamov converge again. Arustamov is one of the ultimate owners of the Prague Communication and Social Center. This company rents Slovanský dům from Prague for a long time, pointed out in April sever iRozhlas.cz.
Prague businessman Daniel Farnbauer is also in charge of the tenant Slovanské dom, co-owned by Arustamov. He is also on the supervisory board of Arustam’s Vinohradská Properties, which owns land on Hagibor.
Neither party said how much Arustam’s and Farnbauer’s company is selling the land to Crestyla for. But the money probably travels further from Vinohradská Properties. The parcels are mortgaged by several offshore companies, as can be seen from the entries in the land registry. Among them is Oskrot Holdings from Cyprus. According to the Cyprus Commercial Register, the owner of Oskrot Holdings is once again Arustamov.
The editors of SZ Byznys also sent questions regarding the transaction with parcels on Hagibor to Farnbauer and to Arustam’s business of the virtual operator 3ton, which in the Czech Republic is majority owned by a Russian. But no one responded to the questions.
Building for billions
The construction of Crestyl in Hagibor is currently one of the largest development projects in Prague. The first two apartment buildings are already standing and approved. Currently, the first phase of the office part of the project is also being built there. Crestyl’s partner at this stage is EP Real Estate of billionaire Daniel Křetínský. The Křetínského media house, Czech News Center, will move into the newly created offices there.
Altogether, five apartment buildings and six administrative buildings will be built on Hagibor. The project will include a square and a central pedestrian boulevard with shops and restaurants leading from the Želivského metro station. The total investment will exceed nine billion crowns. The shape of the public space around the project is created under the supervision of leading landscape architect Michel Desvigne from France.