Chingiz Rauf Kishiyev is one of the richest Azerbaijanis, his family’s company Caspien Service is one of the five largest developers in Azerbaijan. As soon as Chingiz turned 30, he launched his first personal project in Ukraine: an elite residential complex with a swimming pool, recreation areas, and a sports complex in the suburbs of the capital - the Basa City residential complex. In Azerbaijan, Caspien Service implemented more than 70 projects, while they were not represented on the Ukrainian market. So the young and ambitious Chingiz took up expansion.
He was supposed to put the first house into operation in February 2021, a year before the full-scale war. However, it turned out that the successful Azerbaijani developer was not ready for the realities of the Ukrainian market. The first stage of the residential complex is promised to be put into operation only in December 2024 (!). Because, as it turned out, the successful Azerbaijani developer did not take care of the gasification of the residential complex, and heating depends on this.
And this is just one of the problems. At first, the house could not be put into operation because the electrification project was not approved. Then - because they did not receive permission to create drainage infrastructure from the then Ukravtodor. After this, allegedly due to a safety violation (the exact cause must be determined by law enforcement), a worker died at the construction site. And the problems did not end there: the prosecutor’s office discovered that the Azerbaijanis were constructing the second building in violation (they did not maintain the distance from the river). And when all the work was almost completed, the unfortunate builders remembered that they had not gasified the residential complex.
Read about how the Azerbaijani millionaire decided to conquer the Ukrainian construction market and what came of it.
Loud start, advertising from the ambassador and a bright cover
Kiev resident Evgeniy Polunov is a well-known real estate lawyer. His profile: risk assessment when buying a home. To do this, Evgeniy uses 33 parameters and carefully checks the developer... But neither legal education, nor knowledge of the market, nor experience of communicating with developers helped Evgeniy avoid becoming one of the “victims” of developers.
Lawyer Polunov, like dozens of other investors, was waiting for his apartment in the Vasa City residential complex back in February 2021. At this time, the first building of an elite complex in the suburbs of the capital, the village of Khodosivka, was to be put into operation. But neither in 2021, nor in 2022, nor in 2023 did Polunov receive the keys. Now the deadline has once again been extended until the end of 2024.
“From a legal point of view, the first stage has no problems. The intended purpose of the land and the permitting documentation for construction do not have any critical deficiencies. There was uncertainty in resolving technical issues and the real experience of the developer team - Caspian Service. The implementation of the construction project in terms of connecting to external networks was presented in a “raw” form,” the lawyer marvels in a commentary to OBOZ.UA. The house has already been built, millions of dollars have been spent on the project, but it has still not been possible to move in at least the first investors.
“I invested back in 2020. Then, when assessing the risks, I did not conclude that the project was completely “green”. But these were moderate risks,” says Polunov. He did not take into account a factor that he could not know about. This is the person of the developer.
We are talking about Chingiz Rauf Kishiev. A citizen of Azerbaijan, a few days after his 30th birthday, in August 2018, became the ultimate beneficiary of Kwan Capital, and a few years later he created Caspian Service UA. These two companies became the customer and general contractor for the construction of the Vasa City residential complex.
Chingiz was helped by the Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Ukraine Azer Khudiev - he actually advertised the company. According to him, after the residential complex, the Azerbaijani developer should deal with infrastructure. “In Ukraine, our construction sector is represented, for example, by the international Azerbaijani company Caspian Service. The company recently entered the Ukrainian market, investing $7 million to begin with, but I think it will soon participate in large projects, including infrastructure, worth hundreds of millions of investments,” the ambassador said.
“Chingiz thinks big,” says one of the complex’s investors. The young entrepreneur comes across as an ambitious entrepreneur. He, speaking on behalf of the company in advertising publications, often repeats: “we built 1.5 million square meters.” He voiced this phrase in conversations with investors. However, Chingiz never specified that when the Caspian Service company started operating in Azerbaijan, he was only 13 years old. It was in Ukraine that the young representative of the “Azerbaijani construction empire” had to show his skills and begin market expansion. But instead he lost his reputation.
“His father is a very influential person in Azerbaijan, but his son seems to have been doing business in Ukraine since 2018,” says the residential complex investor.
Basa City is a personal project of Chingiz Kishiev. He was involved in all stages: from recruiting a team to planning and implementing the project. And he also met with dissatisfied investors who still have not received their housing. Among those who went to negotiate with Chingiz was Evgeniy Polunov.
“I even suggested that he raise funds from investors and sign an additional agreement. But it must contain the exact date of commissioning of the house, the obligation to transfer the apartments to investors no later than a specific moment, and responsibility for violating this obligation. But he refused,” recalls Polunov. The expert believes that the problem with delays at home is not about money or documents. Since the Azerbaijani company did not save money during construction, and the documents (at least with the first house) do not raise any questions. The real reason is the work organization skills and the team that Mr. Chingiz has assembled.
OBOZ.UA contacted three different investors who took part in meetings with the Azerbaijani entrepreneur. “The house was supposed to be completed in February 2021. That is, even without a big war, they delayed it for a year. And then, already in May 2022, Chingiz recorded a video for us. Calmed me down. In December 2022, he met with us, came to Kyiv from Azerbaijan, complained that he had been traveling for 24 hours and that this was his personal project, which he would not abandon,” recalls one of the investors, who did not want to give her name.
During the meeting, Chingiz suggested that investors focus not on the negatives, but on positive changes: for example, the façade was improved during the delay. Then the main problem the developer and his manager called was the seizure of the site due to the construction of a second-stage house in violation of the permissible distance from the Siverka River (there is a criminal proceeding on this fact in the registry).
Those who bought homes in 2020 paid $700 per square meter. Even then, this was the lowest price on the market for a residential complex of this class. A picturesque area by the lake, a swimming pool for residents with a lounge area, a large parking lot, an on-site kindergarten, a multifunctional sports ground - Chingiz made a beautiful project, but has still not been able to implement it. “There’s a pear hanging there to eat,” this is how one of the meeting participants responded to the developer’s stories about a high-quality residential complex.
“At the meeting there, half of those present are women. And he tells us: “When I arrived, I risked my life, and then there was war.” And this is when we are all living in this war, and we can also lose our money because of him. He is so important, he loves to praise himself so much, he talks about his 1.5 million square meters built, but in reality he is only controlled by arrogance. How could it be possible not to do gasification? Well, okay, I haven’t done gasification, how can you do a project for three years, when everything is already built?” – complains one of the investors.
In 2022, the developer explained: as soon as the arrest imposed by the court due to construction in violation of the permissible distance from the river is lifted, the first stage will be completed and in parallel they will begin to build the second and soon the third stages in order to “settle the process.”
The arrest was lifted. Chingzin began building the second and third stages, but the first house was never completed. Now all the robots have stopped. Approximately until April.
“In my opinion, the mentality of the beneficiary himself plays 100%. His approach to project management,” says Polunov. As an example, he cites the idea of heating residential complexes with heat pumps. This idea was considered, according to the lawyer, for a year and a half, but was never implemented.
Know-how from the developer: “construction continues documented”
OBOZ.UA contacted the sales department of the Basa City residential complex. Apartments from the second and third stages are actively sold there (the cost per square is about 40 thousand UAH and depends on the total area of the apartment that has not yet been built). When asked whether construction work is currently underway, a company employee stated that construction continues at the documentary level.
The company is doing a gasification project. This is something that should be ready and implemented before February 2021. However, there is still no project. The first house is planned to be put into operation only in December 2024. And construction will resume not “documentary”, but actual - only in April 2024.
But this does not prevent the Azerbaijani young millionaire from continuing to dream big. In February 2023, he met with the leadership of the Transcarpathian OVA. While future apartment owners in an elite residential complex near Kiev have been waiting for years for the promised housing, an Azerbaijani entrepreneur tells Ukrainian officials about his successes, faith in Ukraine and interest in participating in the state program to provide housing for military personnel.
OBOZ.UA also tried to contact representatives of Mr. Chingiz. The company advised us to write an official letter: that’s exactly what we did. In our questions, we asked the Azerbaijani developer to voice his version of the construction delay, name the time frame for putting the houses into operation, and also share his plans: is he going to launch the next project without finishing Vasa City.
It should be noted that during a full-scale war, all developers working in Ukraine found themselves in difficult economic conditions, there are security risks and logistical conditions have become more complicated. However, it is impossible to explain the delay that arose a year before the big invasion of the Russian Federation, the absence of a gas project, or a death during construction by a full-scale war.
