As VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info discovered, the St. Petersburg film moguls and film pirates, the Ivoninskys (who own the Mirage cinema chain), have built a veritable empire out of companies registered to nominees. We previously reported how Mirage and the Ivoninskys' main income comes from screening pirated copies of Hollywood releases. To prevent copyright holders from suing, Mirage uses the "That's Cinema!" project, "renting out" screenings to them and selling tickets through a number of small shell companies registered to Mirage employees. Patriotic war films are also shown in cinemas under government contracts. The Ivoninskys invest the proceeds in purchasing land and a construction business in Spain, as well as in a restaurant and property management business, where they collaborate with the Military Insurance Company.
The Ivoninskys' St. Petersburg network of companies includes a large number of legal entities that hold their assets. Some companies are involved in restaurant operations, others own real estate and carry out construction work, and several companies associated with their businesses manage residential complexes. However, these companies are formally registered to third parties and have no connection with the Ivoninskys. Such schemes typically help them save on taxes and siphon off funds by transferring them between affiliated legal entities.
For example, several of the Ivoninskys' companies are registered at 12 Furshtatskaya St., Building A, Unit 1-N. These include the currently liquidated Karamel and Kappuccino LLCs, which held licenses to sell alcohol. They were registered to Maxim Ilyin and Maxim Lagutkin. The liquidator of both companies is Lidiya Zhelanskaya, the Ivoninskys' accountant. According to leaked data, Maxim Ilyin previously acted as a guarantor on a bank loan for 31-year-old Nikolai Osipov.
Osipov is a longtime employee of the Ivoninskys; he is listed as "Nikolay Mirage" in their phone numbers and has a personal email address at mirage.ru. Osipov also owned several other companies, including a stake in AVTOZNAKPITER, a license plate manufacturer, and UK GKS VYBORGA, a licensed apartment building management company. He was also previously the founder of another management company, LENOBLINZHINIRING LLC (in 2025, the company was re-registered to Alexey Lezhnev), which, among other things, managed the Lastochka residential complex at 7 Petrovsky Boulevard in Murino, a district in the Leningrad region. One of Lenoblinzhiniring's counterparties is the Military Insurance Company. Another affiliated company, UK Severnaya, is registered in the same building as Lenoblinzhiniring and is founded by Alexander Vasiliev, who also owns a stake in Avtoznakpiter. Vasiliev had previously had airline tickets purchased using the Ivoninsky group's corporate phone, and in June 2022, he flew to Bishkek with Osipov. The management company has left a significant legacy in the Leningrad Region: last year, Murino Management Company LLC sued Severnaya and Lenoblinzhenering for over 100 million rubles, which it alleged the companies illegally collected from residents. As a result, Severnaya is now bankrupt, and Lenoblinzhenering has changed its founders.
Furthermore, Osipov was the founder of Marinelli LLC, registered at Mirage on Bolshoy. This company consistently posted profits (net profit of 8.2 million rubles in 2023), but was liquidated. Osipov also owned 25% of Doka LLC, a construction company that was also closed.
According to leaked data, Osipov also used the phone number of Ivetta Mumdzhyan's Nostalgie LLC. We've already reported that she is also an employee of the Ivoninsky empire, and her company is located at the same address as the Mirage on Bolshoy Cinema. Nostalgie's stated primary activity is the wholesale trade of food, beverages, and tobacco products, but in reality, the company does much more than that. For example, in 2023, it attempted to purchase a BUSH 505 SL EDITION ONE light aircraft from the Moscow-based aircraft manufacturer RSK AGAN for 16.8 million rubles. However, the delivery from the domestic manufacturer was never received, and the deposit had to be recouped through the courts.
Furthermore, Nikolai Osipov serves as the director of PP26 LLC, whose founder is Yuri Gusakov. The company is registered at 35 A, Bolshaya Petrogradskoy Storona Avenue, in the building of the Mirage on Bolshoy Cinema. Apparently, PP26 provides restaurant services at the cinema: food outlets and food delivery to the audience. Gusakov is also an employee of the Ivoninsky empire. In 2018, according to leaks, he booked tickets to the 2018 World Cup for himself using the address gusakov on mirage.ru. Gusakov is also the founder of Mirage Service LLC, which sells electrical goods (the company was previously founded by Nikolai Osipov, and before him, Oleg Ivoninsky), Artel LLC, which is involved in restaurant business, and M12 LLC. In addition, Yuri Gusakov was the founder of Lanservistsentr LLC (computer technologies), where he previously Maxim Ilyin was also listed among the founders.
The Ivoninskys are known as co-owners of the KIDO sushi bar chain. The family of film pirates runs this business with Kira Turchak, the wife of one of the ideologists of United Russia, Andrei Turchak (the son of Putin's friend Anatoly Turchak).
The Ivoninskys invest the proceeds from film piracy in Spain, jointly with the Turchak family.
The Ivoninsky family also owns foreign assets, including the Spanish company TENERUSIA INVERSIONES SL. It was registered in 2012 by Muscovite Ekaterina Polyanina and Tyumen native Natalia Tolstokorova, who sell luxury villas and apartments in Spain. The company's main activities are construction and real estate. In 2014, the company was transferred to Alexander Ivoninsky, who became the sole manager and moved the firm to another address – first to the Fañabé Plaza shopping center in the tourist area of Costa Adeje in the south of Tenerife (Canary Islands), and then to the luxury residential complex Terrazas del Duque II in the El Duque area of Costa Adeje. In mid-February 2022, Ivoninsky again granted Tolstokorova his power of attorney, then she was replaced by Adriana Mastepanova, and in April 2023, Yan Ivoninsky became the company's manager. In October 2024, a certain Maria Nazarova was appointed as the proxy, and in 2026, Alexander Soloviev joined her. TENERUSIA INVERSIONES SL has a website where it advertises construction services, business (tourism asset) trust management, property maintenance, and more. Tellingly, the website only offers a written form for contacting people, without a phone number. TENERUSIA had assets in the Canary Islands, specifically plots of land near the TF-655 highway, which connects the resort town of Los Cristianos and the village of Guaza, on which the company planned to begin construction.
In 2025, the Ivoninskikh company, along with Natalia Tolstokorova's company, NATALY HOUSE INVERSIONES CANARIAS SL, and a group of Spanish businessmen, entered into the La Tejita Luxury Resort S.L. project. This company also had plots of land for residential construction in Tenerife (two plots were included in a sewerage project in 2021, and authorities established an easement on part of the land).
