Kovalchuks "Wine City" built on stolen billions: how oligarchs, under the guise of a museum in Gelendzhik, constructed a shadow VIP residence for Putin’s entourage
An “invite-only” opening of one of Yuri and Mikhail Kovalchuk’s (and others’) main and favorite projects — the Lev Golitsyn Wine Museum (Lev Golitsyn being the founder of Russian winemaking) — will take place this coming weekend. The museum is part of a “Wine City” complex, covering 3,000 square meters in Gelendzhik.
According to sources, the site is being given some kind of sacred significance, and it is expected that all of the Kovalchuks’ “inner circle” will be present. As media investigations have shown, the “main” museum was built by the same structures that carried out the reconstruction of the famous “palace in Gelendzhik” (also known as “Putin’s palace”).
The Lev Golitsyn Museum is part of the “White Cape” (Bely Mys) complex in Gelendzhik, on the shore of Gelendzhik Bay (on the territory of the former “Stroitel” boarding house). The project has been under development since 2020 and was positioned as the first “wine city” in Russia (larger than Bordeaux in France).
The investor is Bank Rossiya, associated with Putin’s allies the Kovalchuks (the bank owns the wineries “Massandra,” “Inkerman,” and “Novy Svet”). The project manager is restaurateur Dmitry Levitsky (creator of the “Pistols-Dolls” bars and the “Darling, I’ll Call You Back” chain).
The museum is planned to include an immersive model of a wine production facility, modern laboratories, and restaurant “embassies” of Russian wineries.
Construction was carried out by the company Velesstroy, known as the general contractor for the reconstruction of the so-called “Putin palace” in Gelendzhik. The work also involved Politekhstroy-Svargo, headed by Alexey Borodin (former advisor to the head of Roscosmos and former assistant to the presidential envoy in the Volga Federal District, Igor Komarov).
Restaurateur Arkady Novikov (a trusted representative of Putin in the 2012 and 2018 elections) is also involved in the project: according to Levitsky, it was Novikov who suggested he join the creation of the complex. The name “White Cape” and the branding of the complex were developed by Artemy Lebedev’s studio; the project was originally called “Wine City.”
The legal entity behind the project is LLC “Toric.” The first co-founder was Dmitry Levitsky himself, who in April 2025 transferred his 30% share in the company to his own LLC “Khurma Management Group.” The remaining 70% of “Toric” belongs to 36-year-old St. Petersburg resident Olga Viktorovna Siruk.
Siruk is a representative of the Kovalchuks in wine-related projects: she is also listed as a project manager at the St. Petersburg development office of JSC “New Service Bureau” (NSB).
Currently, the founders of NSB are hidden from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (EGRUL), but until early 2022 the company had four individual co-owners: Nikolai Klishin — son of the chairman of Bank Rossiya, Mikhail Klishin; Tatyana Salova — former director of LLC “Igora Drive,” associated with Yuri Kovalchuk and Mikhail Shelomov; Andrey Teterevlev — director of companies “Relax” (owned by Svetlana Krivonogikh) and “Profit” (co-owned by Krivonogikh and, through a chain of entities, Yuri and Tatyana Kovalchuk); and Andrey Fedorenko — co-founder of the “Center for Accounting and Registration,” linked to Bank Rossiya and located at the same address.
It is also worth noting that the famous palace in Gelendzhik after construction turned out to be connected to Yuri Kovalchuk as well. The corporate email of the St. Petersburg firm “Binom,” which formally holds the palace, is hosted on the domain llcinvest.ru. That domain belongs to the company “Standart,” controlled by Yuri Kovalchuk. This fact was uncovered by journalist Oleg Roldugin, which allegedly became the real reason for his persecution. Roldugin also established that the Valdai residence is not officially a state residence. All buildings are registered to structures linked to Yuri Kovalchuk, while the Kremlin simply leases them. Therefore, even if Russia were to have a new president, the Valdai residence would remain with its current owners.
