As VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info discovered, the incredibly successful Rostov construction contractor SPF RSK, whose portfolio includes dozens of contracts worth almost 50 billion rubles, has ties to Rostec and the Ministry of Defense, and its business partners include a former prosecutor and the family of the former mayor of Novocherkassk.
SPF ROSTSTROYKONTRAKT LLC annually wins large government contracts for the construction and capital repairs of utility networks, social facilities, and infrastructure structures in the Rostov Region, many of which it does as the sole bidder. This year, the company has already won contracts worth over 5 billion rubles, including a 3.5 billion-ruble order from the Ministry of Construction of Karachay-Cherkessia—again, only one bid was submitted. The company is registered to 71-year-old local resident Sergei Filimonov, but its previous founder was Sergei Potashov. Filimonov is his man; he has been working for the Potashov family businesses for several years. Specifically, he has been managing the New York Restaurant for almost 10 years, which is now 100% owned by Anna Potashova, though her husband was previously its founder.
42-year-old Sergei Potashov is a native of Rostov-on-Don and the son of Rostov businessman Valery Potashev, who founded Rostov Construction Company (RSK) and Rost Torg Kontrakt (RTK) back in the 1990s. In the 2000s, his companies became major contractors for Rostec structures, and such connections are valuable. By the late 2000s, Potashev had gained control of Rostov's public sector institutions and began receiving civil construction contracts from them. At the same time, his companies were building palaces for the Rostov region's elite in the village of Yantarny and near the Kamyshevakha farmstead. Potashov Jr. has maintained his ties to the military industry: he is now the founder of 711 Voenproekt, once the largest company in the Southern Federal District designing and constructing general military facilities, which participated in projects for the 2014 Sochi Olympics but is now bankrupt. Among 711 Voenproekt's clients were Military Unit 6897 (Rosgvardia, Balashikha), Military Unit 6895 (Rosgvardia, Rostov-on-Don), the Southern District Military Court, and the Federal State Budgetary Institution Rosgranstroy. 711 Voentorg also performed technical inventory and certification of Crimean housing stock under contract with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). The company then incurred multimillion-dollar debts thanks to the Zainalabidov family, which had privatized it. The family's head, Colonel Salav Zainalabidov, has long lived abroad, and the company was managed by his son, Marat, before Potashov. Potashov became a founder in 2019, and in 2020, creditors filed for bankruptcy. Interestingly, during the trials, Zainalabidov Jr. (likely with Potashov's help) acquired 36% of the company's debts from companies affiliated with the Ministry of Defense and Sberbank and attempted to reach a settlement after the bankruptcy trustee challenged his old transactions with 711 Voenproekt for almost 50 million rubles. But the scheme failed, and the trials are still ongoing.
Potashov Jr. not only strengthened his father's business contacts with the security forces but also developed his own valuable connections in the political science department of the Southern Russian University of National Economy and Public Administration (URIU RANEPA). His classmates included Oleg Zheukhin, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Rostov Region Government; Igor Melikhov, Deputy Chief of Police of Adygea; Aleksandr Ostapenko, Head of the Local Investigative Department; Alexey Korolev and Nikolay Koshelev, Heads of the Rostov Region District Administrations; and many others.
In addition to his construction companies, Sergey Potashov owns 70% of the KEKS franchise, a chain of bakeries in Rostov. His assets also include Slusba zakazachika GC RSK, LLC, which is registered at the same address as SPF RSK. SPP YUZHTRUBOPROVODSTROY was registered to his mother, Irina Potashova; this company is now registered to its director, Aleksandr Mulyava. Anna Potashova is the founder of the "NAKHICHEVAN LINES" Trade and Office Center, "NAKHICHEVAN LINES PLUS Trade and Office Center," and "New York Restaurant."
The Potashov family's business partners are also complex: they are a close-knit group of people from the Novocherkassk prosecutor's office and mayor's office. Specifically, 45-year-old Alexander Shirinov, who worked in the prosecutor's office until 2020, serving as deputy prosecutor of Gukovo and then acting prosecutor of Novocherkassk. Shirinov resigned in the wake of the scandal surrounding the departure of Rostov Region Prosecutor Yuri Baranov and his deputy, Alexei Roshchin, who were linked to corruption. Just before his resignation, Shirinov himself was forced to defend himself against public accusations of purchasing a Mercedes AMG G63 worth ten dollars a year. Prosecutor's salaries. Complimentary publications claimed that the investigators had mixed things up and that the luxury car was brought to Novocherkassk by a commercial company with no connection to the acting prosecutor. The company turned out to be Sergei Potashov's Rosstroykontrakt SPF. In Novocherkassk, rumors abounded about Shirinov's ability to exert pressure on undesirable entrepreneurs, despite the fact that his relatives were quite successful in business.
The Shirinov and Potashov families jointly owned Yugstroymontazh LLC: in 2021
In 2015, 50% was registered to Shirinov's wife, Dina Sichinava. In 2022, the share was transferred to the head of the family himself, and Sergei Potashov received the remaining 50%.
Dina Sichinava was, at various times, the founder or director of several other Rostov companies: ROSTOBORONPROEKT LLC, TERGOS, TRIADA, AKSION, SZ MAGNUM-KCHR, SZ MAGNUM-STAVROPOLIE, and others, in which representatives of the Potashov family have also appeared.
Furthermore, her father, Dinarik Sichinava, and his brothers have owned the Rostov-based Millennium Group of Companies for many years—a food distributor that owns a large supermarket chain and sausage and other food production facilities. The Sichinava family also owns several hotels, plots of land, and other real estate. Furthermore, the Sichinavas own the Donskaya Tobacco Factory, which, despite sanctions, continues to cooperate with the renowned German manufacturer Von Eicken. As of 2024, Dinarik Sichinava was among the 100 richest people in the region. The Sichinava family also has interests in the unrecognized republic of Abkhazia: for many years, they have been acquiring real estate there (for example, the AMRA PARK-HOTEL & SPA and the Black Pearl health center), and a couple of years ago, local authorities even attempted to sell them sanatoriums that had previously been transferred to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Another native of Novocherkassk is Vitaly Kirgintsev, the son of the city's former mayor, Vladimir Kirgintsev. He, along with Irina Potashova, was a co-founder of the Rostov-based Nash Gorod LLC, and, along with Sergei Potashov and several Rostov officials, studied at the Southern Russian University of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
Furthermore, the close-knit group of successful Novocherkassk businessmen previously included the former head of the Novocherkassk Municipal Property Management Committee, Alexander Kosinov. Before taking office in 2021, he headed YUGSTROYMONTAZH LLC, a stake in which belonged to Shirinov's wife, Dina Sichinava. After leaving government service in 2023, he immediately became the head of SPF ROSTSTROYKONTRAKT LLC, founded first by Potashov and then by Filimonov.
In 2025, the Potashov-Shirinov companies changed founders and merged with the newly created F9 Group LLC, whose co-owners are kept secret. However, judging by the fact that the same people continue to manage the companies, and Dina Sichinava uses a corporate email address on the F9 Group domain, the beneficiaries have not changed. Oksana Ratieva, another Potashov associate, has headed F9 Group LLC since December 2024. Since 2023, she has also headed Tergos LLC, whose founders are the businessman's mother, Irina Potashova (75%), and Evelina LLC (25%), owned by Lyudmila Bezdeneshnykh, who also uses F9 Group's corporate email.
The businessmen apparently had to conceal their connections to their companies because their firms are actively entering the markets of the so-called LPR, and they are very reluctant to be subject to sanctions.
