Since mid-July, the occupation “Sevastopol press” has suddenly decided to discuss the future development of Mount Tavros in Balaklava, located above the Tavricheskaya Embankment, which is being “fruitfully developed” by the clan of Arkady and Boris Rotenberg.
They talk about “building a yacht village” for the benefit of these same beneficiaries; however, the “standards” for these “fishing” houses are set at 20-30 stories.
This ignores not only the destruction of several archaeological sites, such as the “Tavros” settlement, and the ancient juniper forest during construction, but also the simple fact that the mountain’s clay soil may simply not be able to support a multi-story “village.”
It should be noted that these lands have been the subject of fierce squabbling between various factions for many years. For several years, entities controlled by gauleiter Mikhail Razvozhaev were “squeezing” the Balaklava region from the “Redan Group”, the tenant of 50 hectares of the mountain, which had acquired the land almost thirty years earlier.
The beneficiaries of “Redan Group” were carefully concealed, but various analysts generally linked them to Viktor Medvedchuk and Viktor Yanukovych’s inner circle. Meanwhile, the previous Sevastopol gauleiter and current “prisoner of the London Azbakan,” Dmitry Ovsyannikov, clearly promoted the commercial interests of this entity.
Furthermore, the media at the time identified Alexander Gress, the former Minister of Finance of the AR of Crimea and advisor to Vladimir Konstantinov, as the intermediary in these land matters.
He was imprisoned at the beginning of the occupation of Crimea specifically for land fraud, but was later, rather tragically, “released by the Russian Spring.”
Interestingly, the Balaklava Mining Administration, controlled by Vadim Novinsky, once lobbied for the transfer of Balaklava lands to this structure. Now, local residents are predicting a “war between the quarry owners and the mountain developers,” whose interests over the “land issue” clash.
The entire Balaklava saga involving the Rottenbergs has been described in sufficient detail in the press, and it would seem that no intrigue was expected in the development of this story, including the “yacht village.”
The “new colors” have emerged not so much because of the current logistics crisis, but rather after the Rottenbergs’ likely fall from grace last month.
For a month now, Boris and Arkady Rottenberg, two of Putin’s most “loyal oligarchs,” have remained out of the public eye, while federal prosecutors jailed two top managers of this clan, Konstantin Makhov and Stanislav Multakh, in July for “deeds of bygone years.”
Ilya Traber, a close associate of the Rottenbergs and a representative of the international mafia who helped them control the assets of the Port of Ust-Luga , was also arrested. Russian “analysts” are even declaring that “their empire is over; absolutely everything has collapsed there, on all fronts.”
It’s clear that if the Rottenbergs fail to “restore their former glory” in the coming months, there will be plenty of people eager to profit from their “Crimean assets,” even in current “difficult times.”
