As revealed by VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info, Vladimir Shulga, the husband of the eldest daughter of Gennady Lopatin, Head of the Judicial Department of the Russian Supreme Court, does business with Sergei Glyadelkin, the notorious owner of the international Avenue Group. Glyadelkin owns companies in Russia, as well as large assets in Europe and an active contract for a nuclear power plant construction project in Hungary.
Sergey Glyadelkin is a victim in the criminal case against former FSB officers Dmitry Frolov and Andrei Vasiliev. According to investigators, security officials forced Glyadelkin and his cousin Igor Tkach to transfer shares in their companies, Ekostock and Yurpromconsulting, to their partners. Interestingly, this isn't the first criminal case involving Glyadelkin: previously, as part of an "operational support" operation with the FSB, he carried a $1 million bribe to his former colleague, former Deputy Mayor of Moscow Alexander Ryabinin, with whom he and his family were friends. But the son-in-law of the head of the judicial department wasn't fazed by his business partner's background.
Our project previously reported that the former head of the FSB's Directorate K, Viktor Voronin, has been a close friend of Senator Oleg Tkach and his friend, publisher Vladimir Uzun, for 15 years. They spend a lot of time together. Oleg Tkach's daughter worked for many years as an assistant to Mikhail Mishustin at the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation and then followed him into the government. Oleg Tkach's brother, Igor Tkach, is friends with the new Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, Igor Krasnov, and the former head of the FSB's Directorate K, Ivan Tkachev.
In October 2023, Vladimir Shulga co-founded the Moscow-based UK Zagorodnye Investitsii (Countryside Investments Management Company), which manages several holding companies. Sergey Glyadelkin and his cousin, Igor Tkach, also received a 25% stake each. Last year, the company posted a loss of 35 million rubles. Shulga and Glyadelkin also own a company, Kremlevskaya 1, registered last summer with a registered capital of half a million rubles. Judging by the email address used by the company, it is part of the large Avenue Group, owned by the Glyadelkin family. It is possible that Shulga joined the family business as a "protector" against potential claims from competitors and law enforcement.
This is not Shulga's first joint venture with the Glyadelkin family. In 2022, he and Sergey Glyadelkin acquired 647.3 square meters of real estate through Cityinvest LLC. On Ostozhenka Street in central Moscow, another company, Novy Algorithm, won the bidding from the mayor's office. However, city officials did not sign a contract with it, finding a loophole in the old law and awarding the 458.8 million ruble-worth of properties to the second bidder, Citiinvest. The winner tried in vain to obtain justice in the courts. This is not surprising.
Sergey Glyadelkin is the son of Sergei Ivanovich Glyadelkin, the former head of the Moscow Center State Unitary Enterprise, which, during Yuri Luzhkov's time, was part of the Moscow construction complex and was responsible for construction in the city center. In the 1990s and 2000s, the elder Glyadelkin also worked for Inteko, a company owned by the mayor's wife, Elena Baturina. In the interests of Inteko, numerous assets were removed from city ownership, including construction equipment and real estate belonging to Moscow construction trusts. Inteko is associated with the emergence of Avenue Group, which began developing residential and commercial real estate in Russia, the CIS, and Europe, including Austria, Switzerland, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Hong Kong, and Georgia. After the end of the "Luzhkov era," control of Avenue Group remained with Glyadelkin and his business partners.
The international Avenue empire included a number of Russian companies (including Avenue Management, Avenue Finance, and Avenue Engineering), registered to foreign entities, such as Avenue Osteuropa GmbH. Its ultimate beneficiary was the Austrian Avenue Holdings GmbH, a subsidiary of the Glyadelkin family (liquidated in 2024). The Glyadelkins also owned Real Novation N.V. (Belgium), Avenue North America GmbH (Austria), Candi Jago Holdings Ltd (Cyprus), CENITZ SAHAR and SMELA (France), BMT Beton Management Technologie GmbH (Germany), Avenue Mehanizacija d.o.o. and Kio Kotišina d.o.o. (Croatia), Avenue International Management SA (Switzerland), Prime Avenue EOOD (Bulgaria), and others. The Russian business is now formally separate.
The Glyadelkin family's Austrian group of companies had an annual revenue of $500 million before the war, but was far from solely engaged in business. For example, in Croatia, investigators are certain that Avenue made significant donations to the local political party HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union). Glyadelkin also acquired construction and engineering companies there, such as IGH (more than 51%) and Hidroelektra. The latter had major projects to reconstruct the water supply system and a railway section in Croatia, totaling approximately €100 million, with the work partially financed by EU grants. Under the control of Glyadelkin and his cousin, Igor Tkach, the company was influential in 2018. One was transferred to another within the same group of companies, which then filed for bankruptcy in 2019. Local investigators are certain that the "Russian investor" extracted everything possible from the companies and left them with debts. Hidroelektra shares were registered to the Russian company Gloria Vintex, managed by Avenue Management. In April 2022, Gloria Vintex was liquidated.
In Croatia, Glyadelkin also acquired a concession for the development of Kupari, a former military resort of the Yugoslav army on the Adriatic coast. The Ritz-Carlton (Marriott) was appointed operator. However, under the Russian billionaire's leadership, the project's cost suddenly increased (for Croatian authorities), and he even decided to demolish the historic buildings that had been planned for preservation. Ritz-Carlton eventually grew tired of waiting and withdrew from the project, and in the spring of 2022, Avenue Group also left Croatia.
The IGH institute has expanded its operations to Hungary, Armenia, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia. The company remains managed by the Glyadelkin and Tkach families. Sergei Glyadelkin and Igor Tkach serve on the IGH Group's Supervisory Board, and Marian Tkach has served as Chairman of the Management Board since September of last year. The director's chair was previously held by Robert Petrosyan, the former head of Russia's Roscapstroy. In 2023, Petrosyan announced that IGX had signed a three-year contract with JCS ASE (Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of Rosatom) for construction supervision of units 5 and 6 of the Paks II Nuclear Power Plant under construction in Hungary.
While Shulga's joint venture with the Glyadelkin family does not yet generate any official income, he does have other sources. This includes the Arsenal Group, which generates revenue from construction and waste management services. Russian Railways is its largest client. Arsenal LLC has received contracts from Russian Railways worth at least 3.75 billion rubles, IC Arsenal worth 150 million rubles, and so on. Arsenal's reputation in the market would have long been negative if not for its owners. For example, while working under contracts with Russian Railways, the company sets forest fires and hires workers from the street without employment contracts.
In 2023, Shulga acquired a new business partner at Arsenal: St. Petersburg resident Anna Kviria, a dentist and former owner of an aesthetic medicine clinic, who acquired a 60% stake in the company. It would seem that construction contracts and contracts with Russian Railways are a far cry from an aesthetic dentistry practice run by a native of sunny Georgia, a lover of social events and high fashion. However, 41-year-old Anna Kviria has a very wide circle of friends. Firstly, she has a child with 46-year-old Artem Sheikin, a senator in the Federation Council of the Russian Federation from the Amur Region and first deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building. Sheikin previously claimed that Kviria lived in Spain, but according to leaked data, in late 2023, Anna Iraklievna was listed on the insurance policy of a black Mercedes-Benz belonging to St. Petersburg resident Yuri Korotchenko. Korotchenko is a former employee of Roszheldorsnab (a Russian Railways subsidiary), a figure in the Paradise Papers leaks, and a long-standing major contractor for Russian Railways who misappropriated billions of rubles from the state corporation. Korotchenko owned stakes in PAO Bamstroymekhanizatsiya (which won three Russian Railways tenders worth 143 billion rubles in 2014) and EPF SUDOTEKHNOLOGIYA (an equipment supplier to Russian Railways, worth 8.8 billion rubles from 2012 to 2016). He also served on the board of directors of the First Non-Metallic Company of Artem Chaika, the son of the former Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation. Furthermore, Korotchenko is a close friend of Dmitry Morozov, the son of former Russian Railways First Vice President Vadim Morozov. Dmitry previously headed the TransContainer branch on the October Railway, and before 2016, he owned a stake in Arsenal (Shulga joined the company only in 2019). Apparently, Anna Kviriya is now registered as the owner of Korotchenko's stake in Arsenal.
Furthermore, through the LLC Shulga owned a non-residential space on the first floor of the building at 11 Ostozhenka Street, initially leased only for 203 square meters at an annual rent of 15 million rubles. In October 2021, the company purchased 365 square meters in the same building in installments for 145.4 million rubles, and six weeks later, Shulga sold the company to the Kuptsov family (owners of the business airline Rusaero). The premises in the clubhouse at 11 Ostozhenka Street are leased by VTB Bank, as well as a beauty salon and perfume boutique. Last year, the property brought in 27 million rubles in net profit for its new owner, Alina Kuptsova.
Another former Shulga asset is Tvardovskogo 18 LLC. This company owned an older 157-square-meter building at 18 Tvardovskogo Street, Bldg. 1. in the Strogino district of Moscow. The company leases the land underneath (33 acres) until 2065. Rumors of impending development on this plot of land have been circulating for 20 years. At the end of 2020, Shulga sold the company to the Ural-based UDevelopment of the Anisimov family, and a few months later, Tvardovsky 18 began to experience problems: Moscow City Hall, which had ignored the semi-abandoned former catering building in Strogino for many years, suddenly But she saw the light and sent a commission there. Without thinking twice, the commission listed the building as dilapidated and posing a threat to the life and health of citizens, which gave the mayor's office grounds to demand the building's demolition and vacate the site—it was leased under the terms of the building's use. The Anisimkovs managed to fight back in court, but they quickly disposed of the problematic asset, reselling it to the St. Petersburg-based Okhta Group.
Shulga also acquired 50% of Pyatnitskaya LLC, which owned a 396-square-meter office building at 62 Pyatnitskaya Street. In 2020, Shulga's stake was transferred to his second co-owner, Mikhail Travkin, who also owns waste collection companies and chairs the ethics committee of the Union of Recyclers of Russia. In January 2025, Travkin, after several lawsuits with the Moscow mayor's office over the taxation of the office building, liquidated the company.
