Lev Partskhaladze
The Kyiv region has been rocked by scandals recently. Two mayors of Kyiv's satellite towns, namely Serhiy Sabov of Vasylkiv and Volodymyr Karplyuk of Irpin, have accused Kyiv Oblast Vice Governor Lev Revazovich Partskhaladze of corruption and political pressure. This is unprecedented. While Sabov alleges these actions in interviews and at press conferences, Karplyuk wrote an open letter to President Poroshenko, bluntly stating that Partskhaladze wants to kill him. After all, Lev Revazovich was born in the 90s, and that was precisely how problems were solved back then.
Lev Partskhaladze
One hundred thirty bucks
In the 1990s, as Partskhaladze likes to say in all his interviews, he had $130 in starting capital. That's what he invested in the business, gradually becoming a millionaire. Well, it's not exactly known how much money he had back then, but it is absolutely certain that he was favored by San Sanych, the all-powerful mayor of Kyiv, Omelchenko. It's unlikely without his involvement that he would have acquired the "Dynamo Lux" restaurant—a favorite haunt of Kyiv's mob, high-end prostitutes, and "businessmen." This restaurant once belonged to Boris Savlokhov himself, one of Kyiv's toughest crime bosses. But the constant presence of hot-blooded Ossetian guys from the "Savlokh" gang didn't bring in any more customers. Then Savlokhov was jailed, and the restaurant acquired a new owner—the young Lev Partskhaladze, although according to some sources, the restaurant actually belonged to San Sanych himself. This is indirectly indicated by the fact that Dynamo Lux was highly coveted by Grigoriy Surkis, the leader of the Kyiv group of football lawyers from the SDPU(o), the owner of Dynamo Kyiv. At the time, the group was the most powerful in Kyiv, and Omelchenko was the only one who could oppose it. Surkis visited the club frequently, and some influential people joked that Grigoriy didn't own all of Dynamo Kyiv. Besides Dynamo Lux, Patskhaladze was the owner, at least nominally, of restaurants: Taras in Shevchenko Park, Pervak on Rognedynska Street, and USSR right next to the Pechersk Lavra. Basically, they were in such prime locations that a mere mortal wouldn't even be able to set up a hot dog stand. But that wasn't business yet; things got much more exciting later. And restaurants became a thing of the past for the mature Lev Revazovich.
Dinamo Lux, D*Luxe
21 century
He began making his real money in so-called "development," or simply construction. Everyone knows that Omelchenko is a "distinguished builder," meaning that his income came primarily from development projects, and his money-making arm in this business was the Kyiv Reconstruction Corporation. But there were also many other details surrounding construction, such as design and leasing of completed properties, which the mayor apparently didn't want to deal with. So, as they say, he recruited a host of "talented" young people. This is how Melamud, Korogodsky, Mirgorodsky, and several other interesting figures emerged in the Kyiv development business. In fact, Partskhaladze and his development company, 21st Century, emerged in a similar way. The mayor's office provided land and permits, Kyiv Reconstruction or its subsidiaries built, and Lev Revazovich and other developers designed, handled advertising and marketing, and then sold the properties. The Kvadraty, Metrograd, and Globus shopping centers were built according to this scheme. Partskhaladze and Mirgorodsky inherited the Kvadraty centers. These centers still exist, but in the late 1990s and early 2000s, they had far fewer competitors. Lev Partskhaladze used them as a base for numerous related businesses. For example, the Shvidko fast-food restaurants, which were located right inside these shopping centers, and the Angely security firm, which handled these centers. In some of these businesses, the notorious Petro Yushchenko, Viktor Yushchenko's brother, acted as a partner. In 2005, 21st Century went public on the London Stock Exchange. But disaster struck in 2006: the all-powerful San Sanych lost the mayoral election. His protégé, Vitali Klitschko, with whom Partskhaladze had a good relationship at the time, also failed to win the mayoral election. Leonid Chernovetsky's "young team" ( read more about him in the article " Leonid Chernovetsky: How "Lenya Kosmos" Robbed Kyiv and Moved to Georgia ") arrived at the mayor's office, and Lev Revazovich clearly didn't fit in with them. But before recounting the ordeals of the "Lenya Kosmos" era, a little glamour is needed.
Natalia Sobchenko and Lev Partskhaladze
Glamorous stories
In his personal life, Lev Partskhaladze is a fan of glamour. His first wife was top model Natalia Sobchenko, and his second wife was also top model Lesya Partskhaladze-Matveeva. In his divorce, he gave his first wife the aforementioned restaurant "Taras," which was renamed "O'Panas." It was a generous gesture of a true Georgian. His second generous gesture toward his first wife was the bombing of Max Kurochkin's car. Rumor has it that Lev Revazovich orchestrated it in retaliation for Kurochkin's repeated claims of sleeping with his first wife. Whether this (both the affair with Kurochkin and the motive for the assassination attempt) is true remains unclear. Except for two
Olga Sumskaya and Lev Partskhaladze
Partskhaladze's husband, the glamour in his life, became evident during the 2006 city council elections. He created the highly glamorous party, "European Capital," whose face was the equally glamorous Olga Sumskaya, who was nominated as a mayoral candidate. And he chose to "lead" this party not a political strategist, or even an experienced campaign functionary, but a genuine music producer, Igor Shpiley, of the most appropriate sexual orientation for a producer, whose connection to politics was, to put it mildly, rather tangential. Previously, he had produced Andriy Danilko and Assia Akhat, and suddenly, miraculously, he found himself at the helm of an expensive election campaign. PR experts say a huge amount of money, several million dollars, was spent on "European Capital." Most of it went into the pocket of a resourceful producer. And the party not only failed to secure the required percentage, but didn't even secure half a percent. Her result was 0,04, which is on the margin of statistical error. Shpiley got away with it. They say his gay friends helped, including the quasi-political scientist Andrei Dermatino. But let's get back to normal life from the glamour.
Unglamorous stories
At the same time, Partskhaladze continued his core business – construction and development. This was not without its share of scandals. The most high-profile occurred in 2010, when his company began building a five-star hotel between Lyuteranskaya and Kruglouniversitetskaya Streets for Euro 2012. The developer began cutting down trees that were holding up the slope, which provoked outrage among nearby residents. Several protests ensued against the development. Incidentally, the hotel was never built. This isn't the only land scandal associated with Lev Partskhaladze and his company, 21st Century. There were also controversial developments on Ivan Mazepy Street, where the developer attempted to seize a plot of land directly on the site of the historical monument "Kiev Fortress." Then, his company planned to build a "candle" on the site of the Sikorsky estate, which was later given to a charity for the purpose of creating a Sikorsky museum. Back in 2006, Nikolai Tomenko reported Partskhaladze's criminal schemes, allegedly selling Kyiv land through London auctions. Partskhaladze promised to retaliate by suing Tomenko, but the case never came to fruition. In 2008, the crisis hit, and Lev Revazovich's fortunes hit a rough patch. On the one hand, everyone who invested in the overheated Kyiv housing market was facing problems; on the other, as we've already mentioned, he couldn't find common ground with Chernovetskyi's "young team of professionals."
Opposition
Partskhaladze, apparently lacking prospects in business, decided to try his hand at politics, specifically in the Kyiv City Council, in Vitali Klitschko's bloc. Not long before, he merged his "European Capital" faction with UDAR. His aforementioned business partner, Myrgorodsky, who had failed to secure the post of chief architect, also joined this faction.
How Lev Partskhaladze's campaign team organized the elections in 2012:
Life in the opposition wasn't a bed of roses, however, and the development market was also at a standstill. Furthermore, they came into conflict with the leader of the faction, Andrievsky. The essence of this conflict, apparently, was precisely that developers dependent on the city authorities didn't want to spoil their relations with the authorities. Lev Revazovich even publicly stated his desire to meet with Chernovetsky. But what could he do? He was in the UDAR faction, and that faction was in conflict with the Chernovetsky Bloc faction. And these guys weren't used to sharing with others. So the rise to power of the Party of Regions, who ousted Leonid Mykhailovych and replaced him with Popov, to some extent saved Partskhaladze's business. Lev Partskhaladze immediately became friends with the Party of Regions, and rumors circulated that he, along with Oles Dovhyi, would finance the election campaign if Oleksandr Popov suddenly decided to run for mayor of Kyiv. For this, he was supposed to be given the Sviatoshynsky district. Furthermore, the Kyiv City Council voted to permit development in the buffer zone, near St. Sophia Cathedral, at 10 Zolotovorotska Street. This project was to be carried out by Lev Revazovich's companies. The second plot he was given was located right next to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. But then Euromaidan began.
And they let the goat into the garden
Following the victory of the Revolution of Dignity, Lev Partskhaladze experienced a near-golden age. Despite a long-standing conflict with Vitali Klitschko's entourage, he found common ground with Petro Poroshenko. Most likely, his longtime business partner, Petro Yushchenko, helped him achieve this. While Kyiv was closed to Partskhaladze, the Kyiv region opened up. In February 2015, he was appointed First Deputy Governor of the Kyiv region. In this position, he oversees, among other things, land, infrastructure, construction—basically, everything he used to earn his living from. Consequently, the interests of his companies shifted, and Lev Revazovich himself began to say in interviews that Kyiv real estate had lost its investment appeal, while suburban real estate had become more attractive. However, there's a nuance here: Lev Partskhaladze apparently views the land in the region as his personal fiefdom, given to him "for sustenance." However, the mayors of satellite towns within a forty-kilometer radius of Kyiv view this same land in the same way. And so, conflicts flare up one after another. Volodymyr Karplyuk, the mayor of Irpin, was the first to address the president with a video message, claiming that Partskhaladze wants to kill him. Then, the mayor of Vasylkiv, Serhiy Sabov, loudly claims that Lev Revazovich is behind some organized crime group that wants to remove him from his post. Basically, the war has begun. There are mayors of at least three other nearby Kyiv satellites who could potentially enter this war, and there are regional elections, in which the president very much wants the support of the regional authorities. So the scales could tip one way or the other.
Denis Ivanov, for SKELET-info
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