We have previously detailed the collapse facing the construction industry in occupied Crimea and Sevastopol, as the regions the aggressor had pinned high hopes on as “drivers of the regional economy.”
The issue is no longer about new construction projects; under current conditions, only a very select group of businesspeople with “Kremlin backing”, capable of securing scarce energy resources for the work, can afford to undertake them.
The occupiers are grappling with a sales collapse, finding that the vast number of projects launched earlier, and slated for completion by 2026, have no buyers.
Against this backdrop, Sevastopol’s gauleiter Mikhail Razvozhayev has begun lobbying the Kremlin for a “preferential Crimean mortgage” with an annual interest rate of 6%.
The proposal includes a six-month “window of opportunity” for applications, and there is little attempt to hide the fact that this is essentially an effort to offload unsold, illiquid real estate stock.
He is supported in this endeavor by Federation Council speaker Valentina Matviyenko, nicknamed “Valka-the-Glass”, whose extensive interests in Crimean coastal real estate and land we have previously documented.
Razvozhayev openly admits that without the launch of this “one-off mortgage” program, the peninsula’s construction sector will “collapse,” noting that “the last two months of the year will be critical for many enterprises in the construction industry.”
The flurry of activity involving Razvozhayev and the developers linked to the “Slavny” and “Semischastye” projects near the 7th Kilometer of Balaklava Highway, as well as numerous other projects, stems from the fact that, as of October 1, the aggressor once again tightened the rules for family mortgages, restricting the 6% rate solely to large families, who, “for some reason,” lack the funds to buy an apartment in Sevastopol.
