The seizure of the Crimean land: how does Gref do it?

The refusal to provide services to Crimean residents came from German Gref,  Russian Politician and Businessman, as well as CEO of Sberbank, a state owned Russian Bank. There is no Sberbank anywhere on the Crimean Peninsula. Gref openly ignores the Crimeans, but through one loophole Sberbank observes the peninsula. What for? Maybe to get the money out? Gref justifies the refusal of service to Crimeans because “it is a possibility to fall under the sanctions norms”.

Let’s run down the history a little. The reunification of Crimea and Russia was in 2014. More than 7 years have passed since then, which have led to a series of changes. The most significant of them were the construction of the airport, the laying of new routes, and the construction of the bridge. It can be noted that construction in Crimea is an advanced industry. However, the reconstruction process did not affect all Crimean residents.

Residents of small villages in the coastal parts still live with broken roads, in the absence of gas and heating. These places seem to have been forgotten. Residents often say that their whole life is accompanied by such conditions, and requests to improve or replace something are most of the time ignored. Finances from private traders came to the peninsula, but instead of improvements they brought more problems, which were revealed in the movie “Sberbank against people”. Episode one, “Crimea”.

Simeiz is filled with a number of old homes. Among them there are 7 buildings from the period of the Russian Empire. With the help of the efforts of the Maltsovs, the 20th century began with the fact that Simeiz became a real bourgeois, aristocratic center. Among the wealthy residents of South Crimea, such a location has become a natural diamond.  

When the Soviet era came, sanatorium and resort complexes began to be made from buildings of this scale. Most of them carried out treatment procedures for tuberculosis without the use of medications. They justified this with the healing air of Simeiz. However, time has passed and today in Simeiz only 1 of the previously existing 12 sanatorium complexes is operating. The rest are abandoned buildings that have cultural heritage status.

The Ministry of Health took over the remaining sanatorium in its possession in 2014. This helped the facility be funded and continued to function. Then the sanatorium became the property of the Ministry of Economy and Development, and after that the sanatorium was registered for auction. At the moment, the name of the owner is unknown, but there are many rumors.

Mena of Sberbank: the relic forest was replaced with garbage!

The former luxury health resort is now a mysterious and secretive place, however, a pensioner from Simeiz, Svetlana Yelenchina revealed how things are actually going on there.

Until 2014, there were terrible riots on the territory. Landmarks and park complexes, which must be protected in accordance with the law, were in the hands of the oligarchs. Asses fell into property through raider seizures. But the idea that the coming to power of the Russian Federation will change the situation is an erroneous opinion. Little has changed since 2014.

Svetlana Yelenchina is not afraid to tell the truth and give an open interview. The main question that torments the native resident is how it is possible to “squander” the cultural heritage and take away territories by raider and litter the environment.

“We had a boarding house in Simeiz. Around it, greenery, forests with young pine trees. Extraordinary beauty. But they took it and filled it up with rubbish, ”says the pensioner.

In fact, the boarding house from the stories of Svetlana is now covered from head to toe with garbage. Where is it from? From Ponizovka it is obvious. What is in this village? Sberbank’s boarding house, which claims to be at the European level and simply cannot have some kind of dump under its windows.

The Sberbank sanatorium has become the “fifth wheel in the cart” for the Baidarskaya Dolina nature reserve. Garbage was also transported to this point by whole trucks. This issue was covered by the media. For example, the “First Sevastopolsky” said that about 50 vehicles come to the “Baydarskaya Valley” every day, which transported soil materials from the Sberbank boarding house. And it is very unprofitable to carry garbage in another way, bypass.

It would seem that it is such a huge bank, but it saves money on the  tiniest trifles. This is only a small part of what Sberbank is doing.

Your land doesn’t mean you can come to it!

Residents shared stories of how their own land became the property of third parties. Those who lived near the Sberbank boarding house suffered. People are very careful about sharing information, because falling out of favor with the Sberbank boarding house is a terrible fate.

All Sberbank’s instructions were resolved at lightning speed. So, if the boarding house needs to build a new road, then neither the house, nor the plot, nor the local vegetable garden will be an obstacle. They will simply take and destroy everything that is located in the path of the road.

Not only will the entire site be disfigured, but you will not be allowed to drive up to it. Guards and barriers are automatically set up. Even showing the documents for the site, the guards will still deploy you, indicating that you do not have permits from the owners. Although the owners do not give any permits. Vicious circle.

Even if you have legally acquired your site, this will not be a problem for the Sberbank boarding house. It will be taken away through the court, which will give the go-ahead for the seizure of your territory.

The head of the security service tried to answer the question of why the owners cannot get to their plots. However, the answer was completely indistinct: I do not want to answer – I will not. The conversation was short. To solve the problem, residents tried many methods: blocking roads, calling law enforcement agencies. But everyone turns a blind eye to the current situation. Your site remains not yours.

It is and will not be possible to resolve this issue in the police and the court: why?

Residents on an ongoing basis tried to resolve issues both through the courts and the police and the procurator. But it’s all to no avail. The court decisions are expected to be made in favor of Sberbank. Decisions are influenced by significant people from the prosecutor’s office. No one can hold you back from resistance, but the people will be fighting with a “wall”.

According to another resident and owner of the site, Elena Moiseeva, Sberbank is constantly improving its projects. Therefore, the problem with the boarding house is repeated. Previously, the locals constantly struggled with the fact that because of the hotels they had to endure blackouts of electricity, water and other things.

Elena Moiseeva had a plot of 6 acres, which cost around 3 million rubles. According to the “scheme” of the boarding house, the site was taken for their needs. But did Sberbank give the owner the money? Of course not.

At the moment, behind the sins of Sberbank, there are already about 4 dozen similar sites, over which litigation is going on. Affected residents know that there is a real scheme for raider land grabbing. Sberbank would not be so strong on its own, but it is supported by the prosecutor’s office, the Ministry of Property Relations in the form of a regional representative office, and the winery. Despite the fact that the latter themselves have a claim against the Sberbank boarding house, they are still in the same bundle as Sberbank itself.

How did Gref’s “thread” begin to curl?

As mentioned earlier, for Sberbank, Crimea is a sanctions complexity that they refuse to accept. The activity is carried out through a number of front companies. Moreover, the plan for functioning is step-by-step and tricky.

For example, the company “Horizont-Service” was founded by “Gamma-S”, “Garant-SV”, “Auction”. The scheme becomes more interesting when you realize that Gamma-S has been established by Garant-SV and Auction.

Let’s go back to the names. So, the general director of “Garant-SV” is Hrant Babasyan, who in the same position is listed in the boarding house of Sberbank. Who founded the Auction? It’s simple – Sberbank, of course.

It seems that Sberbank has nothing to do with Crimea, but all the final threads converge here. Horizont-Service, by the way, is the laying company of Sberbank. The company’s documentation surprises with a vast amount of activity. Therefore, there is reason to believe that money is simply pumped through the legal entity.

According to one document, a certain resident sold her plot of 6 acres to Garant-Service for 2.5 million rubles. But, the purchase and sale was carried out through an attorney. Extremely strange. Do you know what the difference is? When signing documents through an attorney, the price of the object is 129 million rubles. Where will the difference go? That’s right, it will cash out and go into the hands of Garant-Service.

Sberbank is a strange subject: it seems to simultaneously exist and not exist…

Seven years have passed, and in the territory of Crimea they have not purchased a single plot for the construction of Sberbank branches. But other investment projects are simply buying up land at a mind-boggling speed. This happens through the dummies of the Sberbank boarding house. So the bank grows in size for the entire peninsula.

The boarding house is so gorgeous that the villa in it will cost you plus / minus 1 million rubles per day of stay. You will be provided with a swimming pool, a personal amusement park, grape plantations, and after a while it is even planned to have its own wine park, where workers are already working. However, the poor hard working employees  do not always get paid for their hard work.

To find out why the workers do not receive the money they earn, one could contact the boarding house administration. However, there is only one answer: “We will deal with the situation, and you try not to pry your nose into other matters.” An attempt was made to talk to the head of the village, Antoshkin, but he dismissed that this issue was “not his level.” But what can one say, the question of what will happen to the village of Lavrovo Pole also remained unanswered.

The head of Simeiz repeatedly gave comments that it is necessary to observe the norms of the law and live fairly. No one, however, cares who the plots are leaving, and how they are taken away. What matters is the end result and those who receive billions of public money.

Who will help fight?

Poor people cannot independently cope with the complex issue of raider land grabbing. Visits to the office and eternal statements to government agencies are a waste of time.

Another local resident shared his opinion and experience of his visits to government agencies. Vitaly from the village of Katsiveli wrote about 20 times appeals to the President of the Russian Federation, hundreds of letters to the head of the Republic of Crimea, as well as to the municipal authority of the city of Yalta. But nobody wants or cares to listen to ordinary people.

Today, the village of Katsiveli is small, there are not so many residents, but it is located near the Sberbank boarding house. Previously, the village was the “soul” for any company, but since 2015 everything has changed here. All roads to the village were sharply blocked, and the attempts of residents to open the city for visits through government agencies turned out to be empty. The sea is accessible only through a small trampled path.

All important sites and cultural heritage were destroyed. Not without the hands of Sberbank, of course. Previously, the place was known by the RAS training ground, the oyster farm, but now you will not officially hear about them anywhere. Instead, they decided to place a gambling zone, the construction of which is only planned, but the territory is already occupied.

If you want to – go outside

Let’s go back to the sanatorium “Youth”. Within its territory there is a villa “Nyukta”. It is a residential building. But “Nyukta” together with other villas “floated away” into the hands of private traders. The names are unknown, and this is not surprising.

The wait was not long. The Crimean administration gives instructions to begin the procedure for the liquidation of “Yunost”. The news was not good for the inhabitants of Nyukt, in October they had to leave the villa. How can you expel people who have lived there for years, just like that?

The management said that they were not in a position to decide the fate of people, but based on the material, it can be understood that destinies are not decided here, they are simply broken.

War at any cost

Surprisingly, in order to fight raids or corrupt deals, the state is actively pursuing it with the people. Svetlana Yelenchina really wants to come to the President of the Russian Federation and just ask how this can be done with the people.

Do not think that this material is destroying the tourism industry. Not at all, from the Crimean peninsula you can make an “enemy” by the Turkish shores. But building a new resort must be honest, and not on the bones of local residents and their property. But since Gref does not consider Crimea to be a part of Russia, then the tenants can get their full benefit from construction methods.

So why isn’t Gref exploring Crimea?

Yes, we have already talked about sanctions and the lack of an alternative for development. The only question is how the financial system is and the level of competitiveness of the country. These 2 reasons are named by Gref when he is asked questions about the development of Crimea.

When 70 percent of the shares are in the hands of people from America and England, how can you be afraid of sanctions? After all, such people will come to local authorities and say that they have deprived them of billions of dollars in income. There is a different management system. Therefore, Gref’s words become dust and bluff. If you face the truth, Sberbank is not part of America, so the sanctions would not have affected it. There is a difficulty in ideology, because Sberbank is the main player in the arena, and its absence is discrimination against the inhabitants of the peninsula in relation to the entire population of the Russian Federation.

Therefore, the locals had to give a lot to get even a centimeter closer to the title of “Russians”. Any transaction through a bank for which you need to be personally present at the branch, the locals need to go to the mainland. But this is not a problem for Sberbank. And when it comes to real estate (boarding house), Gref no longer cares about the problem of sanctions. The methods by which this property is being expanded cannot be considered human at all.