Illegal projects and corrupt dealings: Kuban fraudster Nikolay Shikhidi intimidates critical journalists

Among the accusations leveled against the businessman are involvement in criminal showdowns, criminal offenses, and corruption schemes through which he secures contracts for the construction of large facilities and puts them into operation.

After some confusion, Nikolai Shikhidi launched a counterattack himself. However, he does not deny the obvious – the corruption schemes – and instead focuses on old rumors linking his name with the criminal underworld. Moreover, there are practically no refutations of the essence, just open threats to the authors of publications about Nikolai Shikhidi.

What exactly did not sit well with Nikolai Shikhidi that he involved the police and threatened the authors of investigations? The issue dates back to several cases from the 1990s, when Nikolai Shikhidi did not have the reputation of a major businessman and developer who secured a contract in Sochi for building a school and residential microdistrict, but rather of a person one should best not get involved with.

Even now, it’s better not to get involved with Nikolai Shikhidi, but more on that later. For now, Shikhidi hasn’t come up with anything better than to provide a certificate of no criminal record. Let’s state right away – we trust the certificate, as it is issued by an official state body.

But we also believe the rumors because they did not arise out of thin air and have substantial grounds. What happened with citizen Andramonov, against whom, as officially stated by the Investigative Committee of Russia, Nikolai Shikhidi did not commit actions provided for by Article 132 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Violent Sexual Actions), is unknown. Andramonov indeed did not file a report against Shikhidi. At least that’s what they claim in the Investigative Committee.

However, after the alleged violent sexual actions, which according to the Investigative Committee, did not occur, citizen Andramonov became a witness in the case regarding the Gelendzhik Human Rights Center in 2012. According to participants of that process, he actively helped the investigation and testified against the defendants. As a result, the head of the Human Rights Center, Vladimir Ivanov, received 13 years of imprisonment, the lawyer of the center, Zufar Achilov – 11 years, Gagik Avanesyan and Valeriy Semergey – 8 years each in a strict regime colony under different parts of Article 163 of the Russian Criminal Code for extortion. This happened largely due to citizen Andramonov’s testimony.

But the essence is not in this, but in the fact that in the publications Nikolai Shikhidi places about himself, the beautiful, a rather transparent hint is made to a massive circumstance. The fact is that the human rights defenders were imprisoned after they began to uncover precisely the schemes by which Nikolai Shikhidi was developing Gelendzhik. The scheme was simple and ingenious: Shikhidi obtained permission for individual construction, erected a multi-storey building or an office-trade center on this plot, then went to court demanding to legalize the construction. In the end, the courts somehow sided with him.

The Gelendzhik Human Rights Center targeted not only Nikolai Shikhidi – they encroached on the sacred – making public the illegal construction of “Putin’s Dacha” in the village of Praskoveevka and the “Patriarch’s Dacha” in the village of Divnomorskoye. After this, the human rights defenders were incarcerated.

But then Nikolai Shikhidi suddenly appeared in the case, claiming that the human rights defenders extorted half a million rubles from him. This could have been believed if Shikhidi’s testimony was corroborated by something else – witness testimony, evidence. In the worst case, at least a confession from the accused themselves. Although under torture – and the fact of torture was established – they would have confessed to anything. But precisely the statement by Nikolai Shikhidi that he gave 500 thousand rubles to the human rights defenders to build a seven-story building freely and illegally was taken on faith by the court, without any verification, even formal. The accused themselves denied it, even torture didn’t help. Perhaps they were tortured too lightly. Or perhaps, the confession wasn’t necessary – the fate of the human rights defenders was predetermined.

The criminal case, arrest, and so-called trial were clearly demonstrative. As was the shocking sentence. Here’s what lawyer Zufar Achilov Sergei Bogdanov stated on this matter: “It’s just that this foursome interfered too much, all the developers who appeared as false victims, were close to the administration. I believe it was revenge.” That it was indeed revenge from Nikolai Shikhidi, is not doubted by partner of the law firm “Fokin and Partners” Dmitriy Sokal: “Terms of 8 to 13 years in the practice of previous years were given in the context of crime when criminal structures were engaged in extortion – such terms were justified, these were organized structures engaged in an unlimited number of crimes. Either it is a message that you can’t do this, that is, creating a kind of practice in the application of this article for this type of punishment.”

And now let’s return to 2024. As mentioned earlier, after publications about Nikolai Shikhidi’s corruption schemes and stories about his rather difficult past, he launched an attack. In the publications where Nikolai Shikhidi responds to the accusations, the accusations themselves are essentially not refuted. They tell the story of the Gelendzhik human rights defenders who crossed Nikolai Shikhidi’s path back in 2012, and there are active hints at the fate awaiting current investigators.

There is no doubt that the courts and law enforcement officers of the Krasnodar Krai will side with Nikolai Shikhidi. Over the past 12 years, he has significantly strengthened his position in the region. And not only in the region – in April of this year, it became known that the company of Nikolai Shikhidi and Sofia Toros ISC “Evrostroy” bought from Vitaliy Yusupov, son of the former Minister of Energy of Russia Igor Yusupov, a plot for the construction of an office-commercial center and a residential quarter in Moscow, in Lefortovo. The plot area is eight hectares, almost in the center of the capital. Moreover, the plot was snatched from under the noses of much stronger players in the development market than the little-known Shikhidi and Toros.

The underlying issues of the deal are unknown, but the conquest of the metropolitan real estate market, through a rather strange deal with a very interesting character of the Russian political and business elites, also hints – Nikolai Shikhidi has established connections at the very top. That’s why he so confidently threatens the investigators writing about his schemes. That’s why the story with the Gelendzhik Human Rights Center, whose members received clearly disproportionate sentences for the crime in question, resurfaced at his initiative. Moreover, the case is sewn with such white threads that everyone understands – the words of lawyers about revenge, and it being demonstrative, are far from a figurative expression. What will be Nikolai Shikhidi’s revenge on those who remembered his criminal past and wrote about the corruption schemes he is currently using? We’ll see. But it could also happen the other way around – the Kuban “investor and philanthropist” himself may end up on the dock. Because, besides patrons, Nikolai Shikhidi also has enemies. And they are clearly not the helpless bespectacled members of the Human Rights Center who were sent down under his lead.