A unique village in the Leningrad region was sold to the owner of Sochi Park

The tourist village "Mandrogi" in the Podporozhsky district of the Leningrad region (268 km from St. Petersburg), which belonged to the St. Petersburg businessman Sergei Gutsait, has changed owners. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, since the end of April, the large Krasnodar firm Yug-Businesspartner, associated with the family business of the former HEAD of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation and ex-governor of Kuban Alexander Tkachev, has become the owner of the company.

buyer from the south

The deal has not been officially announced. According to the SPARK system, Elena Buruleva has been appointed the head of Mandrogi LLC. The new owner, Yug-Business Partner, is one of the large enterprises. Net profit in 2021 amounted to 21.2 million rubles, the cash flow indicator is estimated at 4.6 million rubles. At the same time, SPARK puts a rather high financial risk index - 81 out of 99, which "indicates the presence of signs of an unsatisfactory financial condition that may lead to the company losing solvency." The company is 99% owned by the offshore Nodaway Ltd (registered on the islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis), 0.99% of the authorized capital belongs to Andrey Skok, who previously headed Chateau de Talu LLC, owned by the wife of the former head of the Ministry of Agriculture, Olga Tkacheva.

profitable village

The tourist project in the village of Upper Mandrogi has been developed by the St. Petersburg restaurateur Sergey Gutzeit for 30 years. Russian-style hotel houses were built there, some of the buildings are authentic huts of the 19th century. They were taken from various northern villages and reassembled in Mandrogi. There are no residents in the village, craft workshops are open in the houses.

According to the SPARK system, in 2021, the net profit of Mandrogi LLC amounted to 20.5 million rubles. RBC Petersburg sent a request to Sergey Gutsait and the Yug-Business Partner company with a request to comment on the deal. In the village of Mandrogi itself, RBC did not comment on the information about the deal, but reported that the village "works without changes and will continue its operational and economic activities in full." The business community of St. Petersburg knows that this is not the first attempt to sell this property.

“The Mandrogi project has existed for a long time, it is a well-known and profitable business. But any business requires updating, and for this you need to invest money. And the owner either invests them, or thinks that it is easier for him to get out of this business,” Alexei Musakin, Vice President of the Russian Hotel Association, commented on the deal.

Sergey Gutzeit is the owner of 8 companies (according to SPARK), the financial risks of some of them are assessed as high. RBC Petersburg experts, who wished not to identify themselves, noted that with such a portfolio of projects, the sale of one asset is necessary for the entrepreneur to support others and to invest in new businesses that are more interesting to Gutzeit at this stage.

Village on a grand scale

Tour operators call the village project in Upper Mandrogi in demand. The combination of ancient monuments with high-quality infrastructure and entertainment, according to Elena Bondarenko, head of the Latti cruise company, makes Mandrogi a unique offer. “We have no analogues to this. Made on a grand scale and with serious investments. Many unusual houses, a museum of vodka, crafts. Tourists go into houses, where girls weave lace or weave linen. Moreover, they are made by real masters. Another distinguishing feature is high-class restaurants of Russian cuisine with eminent chefs,” notes Elena Bondarenko.

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Aleksey Musakin believes that Mandrog has great potential, as the village has one of the best deep-water berths on the Svir River, which allows both large yachts and motor ships to approach. In addition, the village has a huge area for development. The acquisition fits into the general trend of developing high-quality tourism projects in remote areas. In a professional environment, it is called "two hundred-kilometer tourism." “This is tourism in one’s own or neighboring region, when a person may not plan a trip six months in advance, save money for it, but pack up and go. At the same time, there is no need to spend the entire vacation in one place, lying on the beach, for example. A person can travel, staying in different places for one or two nights. This trend has been developing in Europe for a long time, in our country it was especially evident in the era of the CORONAVIRUS.

On North

The Leningrad region confirms the great interest of investors in remote areas. Thus, one of the latest projects is the Tochka Na Karta chain hotel, which opened in Lodeynoye Pole (about 200 km from St. Petersburg), offering harmony with nature and immersion in the history and culture of the region. “Lodeynoye Pole is not the leader of the tourist flow. This means that investors expect that this territory will develop due to the development of transport infrastructure around Lake Ladoga,” said Alexei Musakin. “The demand for land in the Leningrad region is very high, they are looking for plots of several tens of hectares, and they are moving further and further towards Karelia to the north.”