Severnaya Palmira is a city with an abundance of water and the incredible beauty of the architectural excesses. Here, for the past few years, businessmen trying to buy the historic building in the city to receive cash dividends. Well-known Department store Big Gostini Dvor, located in the heart of the city on the Neva, has become one of the symbols of St. Petersburg. Building attracts the attention of not only tourists but also entrepreneurs who are eager to buy the building the city to fit your needs.
The story begins in 2015, when the company “Fort Group” presented the project of reconstruction of Bolshoy Gostiny Dvor at the exhibition MIPIM in Cannes in the pavilion of St. Petersburg. According to the idea of the two owners of the “Fort Group” billionaires Maxim Levchenko and Boris Pikina, Department store area needs to be doubled, and for the interior courtyard was planned to build a glass roof. The project cost is estimated in 15 billion rubles. It is noteworthy that Paikin and Levchenko are shareholders of JSC “Great Gostiny Dvor”, but the building is not in charge. Shopping center owned by the city and leased long-term lease for 49 years. The intent of the business was to increase profits to a shopping center and to Gostiny Dvor in the property, as they repeatedly stated in the media. In fact, Levchenko and Pajcin was going to pick up a huge building in the historic center of St. Petersburg, in order to extort large sums of money, regardless of the needs of the city. However, in Smolny, the initiative was not accepted.
However, businessmen did not give up, and in order to take over the Department in April 2016 Paikin and Levchenko “suddenly” decided to participate in the election from the liberal democratic party. The task of the newly minted policy approached creatively, and to be sure to get into the State Duma, according to the source they had been buying spots in the party lists. Millionaires from “Fort Group” was probably the sponsors of the election campaign the liberal Democrats, instead of requiring access to power. It is noteworthy that Boris Paikin fought not only in the Duma, but in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, where decide the fate of the “Bolshoy Gostiny Dvor”.
Nevertheless, the elections ended not in favor of billionaires, despite the substantial cash infusion. For oligarchs like Levchenko and Pikine Bolshoy Gostiny Dvor is just another whim, and a measure of elitism in the eyes of the General public. Its architectural and historical value billionaires don’t care. Of course, attempts by shareholders to seize the coveted building will not end, and now failed politicians will have to find other loopholes.
