United Russia General Council Secretary’s family decommissioned defense plants to build commercial real estate, Proekt reports

In the photo: Anatoly Turchak, Vladimir Putin, and Anatoly Sobchak at a Zenit soccer match in the 1990s

Secretary of United Russia’s General Council Andrei Turchak and his family made money from the collapse of the military industry, and turned one arms-producing enterprise into an elite mansion, Proekt investigators report.

Andrei Turchak's father, Anatoly, was Putin's deputy in the 1990s. At that time, he privatized the Leninets defense enterprise which specialized in producing radar and navigation equipment for the Russian army and navy. Journalists have found out that the Leninets buildings are divided among the members of the Turchak family: Anatoly, Andrey's wife Kira and his older brother Boris. Three quarters of those premises are rented out rather than being used in production.

According to an extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the Turchaks liquidated one of the Leninets enterprises, Sistemotekhnika Research Institute, in 2019. The research institute had been active for half a century and until recently was engaged in the production of the Novella military search and aiming system, essential for naval aviation.

Proekt managed to find more than 100 non-residential buildings and 35 land plots with a total area of almost half a million square meters, which are registered to companies associated with Leninets. The market value of a square meter of office space in St. Petersburg before the war was nearly 150,000 rubles ($2500). The journalists note that according to rough estimates the commercial real estate owned by the Turchak family may be worth approximately 50 billion rubles (nearly $850 million at the current exchange rate).

Only about a quarter of the Leninets buildings are occupied by defense enterprises, all the rest have been turned into business centers, warehouses and production facilities for rent. “They pretend they’re engaged in defense business. They imitate the work, but in reality they are simply rentiers,” a former top manager of one of the Leninets defense enterprises told the reporters.

The Turchaks managed to buy a lot of real estate with the money earned from Leninets. The investigators say they own at least 14 apartments, 7 land plots and 5 houses with the total market value of approximately 1.5 billion rubles ($24 650 000)

For example, Andrei Turchak's wife Kira owns two apartments, 157 and 180 sqm, on Petrovskaya Embankment in St. Petersburg. Their market value may currently be as high as 200 million rubles ($3 286 500). She also owns a land plot in the village of Komarovo worth 27 million rubles ($443 681)

Sofia, daughter of Andrei Turchak, bought a 170-meter apartment in the Petrovsky Kvartal na Vode residential complex at the age of 16. Its market value exceeds 56 million rubles. Anatoly Turchak owns an apartment in Ermolaevsky Lane in Moscow worth 205 million rubles ($3 368 700). Turchak's wife Oksana owns two apartments in the Cosmos complex in St. Petersburg. Their approximate value is 224 million rubles ($3 681 000)

The research institute had a testing ground on the shore of Gulf of Finland, not far from Logi, where equipment for detection of enemy submarines was tested. After the liquidation of the research institute the Turchaks built an elite dacha on the site of the testing ground and registered it in the name of Anatoly Turchak's eldest son Boris. Proekt filmed the territory from a drone - there is a large house with a swimming pool on it, worth 200 to 500 million rubles ($3 287 000 - $8 216 000).