Ukrainian footprint in the resort business in occupied Crimea under the Russian flag

The Ukrainian company Sanatorium Coral has a clone registered under Russian law in annexed Crimea. The owners of the clone company are the former wife of ex-regional activist Elbrus Tedeev, the wife of the president of the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management Rostislav Shchekin, and Belarusian fighter with pro-Russian views Viktor Kreidich.

Since 2015, Sanatorium Coral LLC has received more than $2 million from the Moscow authorities. This, lawyers say, can be regarded as a collaboration activity. At the same time, not all the founders of the Russian company recognize themselves as founders: the documents were forged. More details can be found in the joint investigation of “Schemes” and the publication “Bureau”.

Infighting and Nepotism

Sanatorium "Coral" is a six-story pale pink building in the private sector of Evpatoria, in the village of Zaozernoye. From here to the Black Sea coast is about a kilometer.

The boarding house "Coral" was acquired by a private enterprise - the company "BNA" from Rivne in 2005, and five years later the chosen ones of two friends became its co-owners. Faina Tedeeva - then the wife of People's Deputy from the Party of Regions Elbrus Tedeev and Natalya Shchekina - the wife of the President of the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (MAUP) Rostislav Shchekin.

Tedeev and Shchekin are united by sport and nepotism. The first is an Olympic champion in freestyle wrestling, the second is a master of sports and president of the Kyiv Wrestling Association. In the past, the All-Ukrainian Tournament named after Elbrus Tedeev was held on the territory of the MAUP, headed by Shchekin. Faina Tedeeva told Schemes journalists that she divorced the ex-regional nine years ago, but confirmed his long-standing friendly relationship with Rostislav Shchekin: “they are godfathers, the husband (former - Ed.) baptized their (the Shchokins - Ed.) child."

Rostislav Shchekin, People's Deputy of Ukraine Zhan Belenyuk and Elbrus Tedeev, 2023

Together with Shchekina and Tedeeva, Belarusian Viktor Kreidich became a co-founder of the BNA company in 2010. He is also a sports functionary: master of sports in wrestling, prize-winner of the USSR championships, now deputy chairman of the Belarusian Wrestling Federation.

And although Rostislav Shchekin told “Schemes” that Kreidich is a person who “was once familiar” and the family has not maintained relations with him “for a very long time,” the Belarusian wrestler remained Natalia Shchekina’s business partner in Ukraine almost until the end of 2022 .

According to the analytical platform YouControl, Shchekina remained a co-owner of Sanatorium Coral LLC (this name was given to the BNA company that owns the sanatorium after it was renamed in 2013) until November 2022.

“Lvov Banderaites are not our people”

The desire of the Ukrainian partners to distance themselves from Viktor Kreidich after the start of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation can be easily explained: he has pro-Russian views, supports military aggression against Ukraine and takes part in events with the participation of Russian security forces.

From 2018 to 2020, Kreidich was a member of the international public organizing committee for organizing events for the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory. The meetings of this committee were attended, in particular, by the representative of the main military-political directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Colonel Sergei Gusev, and the head of the defense committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Colonel General Vladimir Shamanov.

Viktor Kreidich (left), representative of the main military-political directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation Sergei Gusev (right)

Since February 2022, Viktor Kreidich has been the chairman of the board of the “Russia-Belarus Friendship Society” on behalf of Belarus, and is also a member of the so-called “Council for Strengthening Friendship” “Belarus-Ukraine-Russia-China”.

From these structures, Viktor Kreidich spoke with pro-Russian and anti-Western rhetoric.

“Many people truly love the peoples of Belarus and Russia. Of course, it’s closer to the event, the Lvov Banderaites are not our people. And Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkov are our friends and brothers. We must strengthen and develop this. We hope that with some little help from us we can create a common union. And Ukraine will be there,” Kreidich said a week before the start of a full-scale war.

Victor Kreidich

It was the Russian invasion in 2022 that one of the organizations headed by Kreidich called “a special operation against the threat that Russia saw from the Ukrainian regime.”

Schemes’ sources in the Ukrainian intelligence service said: “counterintelligence work is underway” regarding Kreidich. But does a formal break in relations remove the issue from his long-term partners who are still operating in Ukraine? In search of answers to these questions, Schemes delved into their relationships, starting with the Russian invasion of Donbass, the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and up to March 2024.

Crimean clone and Russian rubles

Important changes in the activities of Sanatorium Coral LLC occurred in 2014, when Russia occupied the Crimean Peninsula.

In November, a clone of a Ukrainian company appeared in the register of legal entities of the Russian Federation - the Russian LLC Sanatorium "Coral" with the same founders. His shares were distributed as follows: 60% for Natalya Shchekina, 20% for Faina Tedeeva and 20% for Viktor Kreidich. The director of the company was Yuriy Pivovarov, both at that time and now the head of the Ukrainian LLC Sanatorium Corall.

A year later, the Russian “Coral” began to actively cooperate with the Moscow authorities: orders poured in for the company.

According to the Russian analytical platform Spark, from 2015 to mid-2022, Coral concluded 25 contracts, 21 of which were fulfilled. The main customer is the “Directorate for ensuring the activities of labor and social protection organizations of Moscow” (Moscow municipal structure), the most common subject of procurement is “provision of sanatorium-resort treatment services.”

According to the calculations of Schemes journalists for the period from 2015 to the end of 2022, the Russian “Coral” received contracts from the Russian authorities for 196.48 million Russian rubles (that’s 2.2 million US dollars). The latest agreement with the Directorate for Supporting the Activities of Labor Organizations was concluded in May 2022. In addition, Sanatorium Coral LLC received Russian government support in the amount of about 20 thousand US dollars during the COVID-19 epidemic.

According to Inna Vishnevskaya, an employee of the research laboratory of the Lvov State University of Internal Affairs, such actions “are considered a criminal offense under Part 4 of Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine “Collaboration activities.” According to her, “in this case we are talking about conducting business activities, which consists of providing tourism services. Interaction with the aggressor state consists in the fact that these contracts were concluded with a state government agency of the Russian Federation and the services were provided specifically at its request.”

In addition, a lawyer from the Regional Center for Human Rights, Ekaterina Rashevskaya, notes that economic activities in the occupied Ukrainian territories may be subject to sanctions.

Objection and appeal to the Russian court in Crimea

“We don’t know anything about what’s happening in the occupied territories,” says Rostislav Shchekin, the husband of the co-founder of the Russian Coral, Natalia Shchekina, whom Schemes spoke to after several unsuccessful attempts to talk to her. And this is the main argument of the defense of both Shchekin personally and Svetlana Mashkova, who introduced herself as a lawyer-representative of Natalya Shchekina.

According to information received by journalists from a source on the administrative border between mainland Ukraine and Crimea, Natalya Shchekina visited the occupied peninsula at least twice after 2014.

In response, Mashkova insists: “Natalya Vladimirovna went (to Crimea - Ed.) on vacation (until 2022),” these trips were not related to Coral, and until 2022 Shchekina did not even know that the Ukrainian company had a Russian clone".

At the same time, journalists found the decision of the Arbitration Court of the Republic of Crimea in Simferopol, which considered the appeal of Natalia Shchekina. After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, she asked to declare the meeting of participants of Sanatorium Coral LLC invalid and to liquidate the enterprise.

Mashkov’s lawyer, in a comment to journalists, says that going to a court unrecognized by the Ukrainian authorities was not the decision of Shchekina, but of her “unnamed representative.” He was allegedly “authorized to find out the circumstances of the illegal re-registration and take measures to suppress the abuse of N.V.’s rights.”

Svetlana Mashkova claims that the minutes of the meeting on the re-registration of the company according to the laws of the Russian Federation contain forged signatures of Natalya Shchekina. But Shchekina categorically refused to provide the court with signature samples for comparison, saying that this was “inadmissible and impossible to do.” At the same time, we note that earlier Shchekina, visiting Crimea for recreation, provided Russian border guards with a passport without reservations. And the passport contains not only the owner’s signature, but also biometric data.

Signed here and signed there

Schemes journalists received the minutes of a meeting dated November 2014, at which a decision was made to register the Russian Sanatorium Coral LLC in Crimea in connection with bringing it into compliance with the legislation of the Russian Federation. It bears the signature of both Natalia Shchekina and Faina Tedeyeva. Victor Kreidich was noted to be absent.

Journalists have at their disposal another protocol of the general meeting of participants of Sanatorium Coral LLC with the signatures of Shchekina and Tedeyeva - about changes to the charter.

Svetlana Mashkova says that the protocols are “falsified.” And Shchekina’s signature too. At the same time, according to the lawyer, her client did not contact Ukrainian law enforcement agencies about this.

But another signatory, Faina Tedeeva, is not so categorical. She admits that she could have signed the protocols: “Maybe my signatures are there, I was still married then. I signed some documents, but didn’t delve into them at all... Did I delve into them? I didn't even read it. It is when? 10 years ago? Are you joking now? It’s better to contact Elbrus with this.”

Elbrus Tedeev did not respond to calls and messages from journalists.

49-year-old Elbrus Tedeev, judging by media publications, lives in Ukraine and is trying to maintain his sports reputation. From time to time he takes part in public events (the mentioned All-Ukrainian tournament in his honor on the territory of Shchekin MAUP), and presents bachelor's diplomas to graduates of the National University of Physical Education and Sports of Ukraine. At the same time, having behind him parliamentary membership in the ranks of the Party of Regions (he called Viktor Yanukovych “tsar and god”) and voting for the pro-Russian Kharkov agreements and dictatorial laws on January 16, 2014.

The journalists also talked with Yuri Pivovarov, who is listed as the director of both the Ukrainian Sanatorium Corall LLC and the Russian Sanatorium Corall LLC. It was he who was authorized at the meeting in November 2014 to provide a package of documents to the Russian tax office. He stated that Shchekina and Tedeeva were aware that in 2014 the company would be re-registered in accordance with Russian law. “They own (the Russian enterprise - Ed.). How would we do this without them? What kind of nonsense is this?” Pivovarov was indignant. Svetlana Mashkova, in turn, called these words false information.

Schemes journalists found the signatures of Tedeeva and Shchekina on documents of Ukrainian companies. Visually they may seem similar, but for professional comparison, experts told journalists, what is needed is not scans, but original documents, and their legal significance can only be proven by an official examination ordered by Ukrainian law enforcement officers.

Kreidich's move

In November 2022, the Russian tax authorities decided to suspend the activities of Sanatorium Corall LLC, and in March 2023, to remove the company from the register. However, in March 2024, Viktor Kreidich approached the head of the Russian interdistrict tax office in Crimea and asked to stop the decision to terminate activities. The tax office agreed.

As of the time of publication of this material, there are no changes in the Russian register of legal entities: the owners of Coral are Ukrainians Natalya Shchekina, Faina Tedeeva and Belarusian Viktor Kreidich.

“I am a citizen of the Republic of Belarus! And I'm proud of it! And I have nothing to do with Ukraine! “I’m not interested in speculation and intrigue,” Kreidich commented to reporters.

Thus, the family of Rostislav Shchekin, who heads the largest economic and humanitarian institution of higher education in Ukraine, MAUP, denies its involvement in the Russian company in Crimea. Despite the fact that the documents contained in Russian registers indicate otherwise.

At the same time, Natalia Shchekina’s business partner, ex-wife of ex-regional Elbrus Tedeev Faina, admits that she could have signed some documents at the request of her husband. Including registering a business under Russian laws on the occupied peninsula.

Sanatorium Coral LLC, whose founders, according to the Russian registry, are both Shchekina and Tedeeva, received millions of dollars from the Russian authorities. And this, according to lawyers, may indicate collaboration.

A professional and legal assessment of this story could be given by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, including those responsible for eradicating Russian influences in Ukraine during the great war.