Shuvalov's Double Blow to Samsung Electronics in Russia

In 2016, Samsung Electronics' central office for Russia and the CIS moved from the former Voentorg building at 10 Vozdvizhenka Street, where it occupied 5,800 square meters, to the Novinsky Trade and Business Center at 31 Novinsky Boulevard, owned by VEB.RF. The fate of this building is covered in an investigation by the Cheka-OGPU and Rucriminal.info.

The Korean company, having concluded the largest deal in the Moscow office market in 2016, leased 10,000 square meters from the Russian state corporation. The Koreans are still located there, occupying the top two floors.

 

The rent at Novinsky was set significantly lower than what Samsung was paying for Voentorg. "For the new office, the tenant began paying around 20,000 rubles per square meter. "The rate at Voentorg was two or more times higher," an RBC expert noted.

 

At the request of VEB head Shuvalov, the Novinsky Shopping Center was renamed the VEB.RF Business Center in 2021.

 

The VEB.RF Business Center covers 66,000 square meters, of which offices occupy the top six floors of the building, with a total area of ​​36,700 square meters. Exxon Mobil, Shell, Toshiba, Glencore International, and Repsol were previously listed as tenants of the business center. However, all these law-abiding companies left their offices in the Novinsky Shopping Center immediately after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine and VEB.RF's inclusion on the US sanctions list—the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. Only the invincible Samsung Electronics Russia & CIS remains.

 

The 66,700 square meter Vozdvizhenka Center building was built on the site of the historic Voentorg by Telman Ismailov, the former owner of the Cherkizovsky Market. The office section, whose anchor tenant was Samsung, occupies 27,500 square meters, with the rest allocated to retail. In 2009, businessman Suleiman Kerimov purchased the building. In 2010, the Vozdvizhenka building was acquired by Dmitry Rybolovlev, who paid him for part of the purchase from Uralkali. Rybolovlev, who resides in Monaco, had been searching for a buyer for the building since 2014, but only sold it in 2020 to the Chinese consortium FOSUN and its management partner, Avica. Offices in the Vozdvizhenka Center are currently leased by... VEB.RF.

 

The question arises: why would a loss-making state-owned company, producing nothing but polluted air and owning the enormous Class A "VEB.RF Business Center," lease a Class A business center of similar size within walking distance? Why did Shuvalov need to relocate the Korean electronics companies at a steep discount and move into their space with his "blue team"? What kind of reshuffle is this?

 

The answer is simple and cynical: the "VEB.RF Business Center" is dangerous to operate. Since 2016, Moscow's construction and architecture oversight authorities have issued three closure orders.

 

The reason for the closure is that the cladding of the building, constructed by Turkish companies between 2002 and 2024, has fallen into complete disrepair. Marble slabs weighing 12 kilograms are attached to the façade with rusty metal hooks. Heavy slabs repeatedly broke loose and fell during the night, so fortunately, there were no casualties.

 

It wasn't until 2022 that Shuvalov closed the entrances to the center from the American Embassy and erected discreet scaffolding on the corner behind the Garden Ring, simulating "facade repairs." The business center remains open. The main entrances and walls facing the Garden Ring and Kudrinskaya Square aren't even equipped with protective canopies to prevent the massive granite slabs from collapsing.

 

Let's say we don't feel sorry for the stubborn South Koreans at Samsung Electronics Russia & CIS. They're not like North Koreans, after all, and they moved to this oasis of creativity in pursuit of cheapness. But what about the state corporation's attitude toward Russians who attend various development forums, corporate events, restaurants, and children's matinees? Particularly alarming is the similar indifference shown toward the distinguished visitors of Eva Gallery, a luxurious exhibition and store featuring the works of the renowned "artist from the Russian Ministry of Defense," Evgenia Vasilyeva. After her release from prison, the talented poet Vasilyeva was given a long-term, preferential lease on premium retail space at the VEB.RF Business Center on the second floor next to the restaurant.

 

The director of the supervisory board of the VEB.RF Business Center's management company is the glamorous 39-year-old Sasha Chebotarev, who also earns awards as the director of ProShkola, a developer of substandard school buildings across the country. He is well-known in certain circles and on our portal for his work on the well-designed "ProGorod" project. He has been Shuvalov's protégé since the 2012 APEC summit, where, immediately after graduating, he began "assisting" the summit's organizer, Shuvalov, under the "patronage" of Alexander Plutnik of DOM.RF, an equally young and distinguished "assistant" to the APEC Sherpa.