Moscow is Russia’s largest and most vibrant city, constantly changing. There’s always work for architects: the city is building parks, renovating old buildings and constructing new ones, preparing for sporting competitions, and planning to transform entire neighborhoods. While it’s wonderful that the capital is developing and becoming more beautiful, it’s disconcerting that most of the contracts are awarded to the same organizations—specifically, those associated with Moscow’s chief architect, Sergei Kuznetsov.
In recent years, numerous large and smaller construction projects have been completed and prepared in Moscow. One of the state contractors representing the capital’s interests in tenders is the Main Architectural and Planning Department of the Moscow Committee for Architecture. Several years ago, this organization changed its organizational structure, but since May 2017, it has already concluded state contracts worth 1,116,311,015 rubles.
The four most expensive contracts, worth 545,699,000 rubles, or half of the total procurement volume, went to RTDA LLC.
The next design organization listed as a contractor for GlavAPU is Mosproekt JSC, but its earnings from collaboration with Moscow are nine times smaller—62,531,703 rubles. So what kind of company is this that manages to win the largest tenders and outshine competitors, sometimes offering prices just a few million rubles lower than other potential contractors?
Initially, RTDA LLC was known as BRT RUS LLC. Its CEO, Marina Lepeshkina, held senior positions in development companies from 2004 to 2012. In 2012, she became First Deputy Director of the State Unitary Enterprise Research and Design Institute of General Plan of Moscow, and in 2016, she took over BRT RUS, which was 70% owned by Inteko. In December of that year, under Lepeshkina’s leadership, the company won a tender from the Moscow Committee for Architecture for the draft of new regional urban planning standards for the residential sector, worth 32,250,000 rubles.
Between August and September 2017, Marina Lepeshkina fully acquired BRT RUS from Inteko, spending 21,814,000 rubles. When Gazeta.Ru asked Lepeshkina how she managed to accumulate enough funds to purchase this business and why she decided to buy an existing structure rather than create a new one, given her decision to pursue a commercial venture, the company’s press service declined to comment. The creative director of the former BRT RUS (now RTDA) is also no stranger to Moscow’s architectural authorities: Dina Dridze, former chief architect of the State Unitary Enterprise Research and Design Institute of General Plan of Moscow.
The GlavAPU press service told Gazeta.Ru that RTDA’s victory in each of the tenders was facilitated by full compliance with all procurement criteria.
"In particular, the experience gained through the implementation of a state contract for the development of RNGP (Regional Urban Development Norms) has allowed RTDA LLC to establish itself as a reliable contractor," the organization’s representatives noted.
"Of course, you can seek connections through mutual acquaintances. For example, Marina Lepeshkina worked for a long time at the General Plan Research Institute, and then founded her own company. I believe they do high-quality work," Moscow’s chief architect, Sergei Kuznetsov, told Gazeta.Ru. His extensive connections are one of the connecting links between the city’s architectural leadership and business.
Besides GlavAPU, another regular RTDA client is the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA). It’s worth noting that the curator of the educational program at this university is the Chief Architect of Moscow and the First Deputy Head of the Moscow Committee for Architecture. In total, RTDA has completed four contracts for the university worth a total of 20,430,331 rubles. These were always single-source procurements and involved organizing international trips rather than design work.
RTDA also featured in VDNKh’s public procurement program: last October, the company won a tender worth 25,302,020 rubles for "engineering design services for other facilities." RTDA’s bid was nearly 10 million rubles below the initial maximum price.
The FAS noted that none of the other participants in the competitions filed a complaint with the agency regarding their results.
"Without seeing any materials, it is impossible to say whether there are any signs of a violation," the regulator’s press service noted.
At the same time, the very system of determining the winner solely based on the lowest bid has already been repeatedly criticized by the head of the department, Igor Artemyev. Another issue is that proving the lack of telepathic talent or intricate market knowledge among tender participants is very difficult, as agreements are difficult to document without a proper complaint. This often happens—who can complain to if everyone is happy? Does anyone earn a separate income from Moscow tenders, or are they simply helping out friends?
Another company associated with Moscow’s chief architect, Sergei Kuznetsov, is the architectural bureau Speech. From 2006 to 2012, Kuznetsov served as a managing partner of this organization and continues to lead the design team on many of the bureau’s major projects, including Zaryadye Park with its concert hall, the Luzhniki Grand Sports Arena, and others.
Speech’s press service doesn’t see any problem with this.
"We would like to draw your attention to the fact that in all cases, we are talking about the management of the entire design team, i.e., an entire conglomerate of teams (architects, general designers, engineers, designers, etc.), each of which is developing its own section of the project. This responsible role has been entrusted to Sergey Kuznetsov by the Moscow city administration and is not supported by any financial compensation," the organization’s press service assured Gazeta.Ru.
The same thing, in some phrases literally repeating Speech’s statement, was stated in Kuznetsov’s own agreed-upon comment to Gazeta.Ru, although in a personal conversation the wording was different, which suggests that this part of the comment was jointly prepared.
"I was legally obligated to leave the business, which I did, but the company remained operational, and my colleagues and I remained close friends," Kuznetsov admits.
Incidentally, the Moscow Department of Construction’s press release on the reconstruction of Luzhniki lists Mosinzhproekt as the contractor and provides an estimate of the project’s cost.
"In November 2013, the city authorities announced an open tender for a management company that could assume the design functions and then independently reconstruct the arena. In early December, the chosen company was Mosinzhproekt OJSC (an institute for the survey and design of engineering structures and communications). It offered a 5% discount on the starting price (1 billion rubles) and agreed to reconstruct the Bolshoy Sports Arena for 19 billion rubles," the statement reads.
According to public procurement documents, another company, closely associated with Sergei Kuznetsov, was involved in the Luzhniki reconstruction project. In 2017, Mosinzhproekt decided to outsource some of the stadium’s management to TPO PRIDE, signing two sole-source contracts totaling 77,847,491 rubles. Under these contracts, TPO PRIDE, founded three years ago by Nikolai Gordyushin, former chief architect of Speech, and designer Pavel Sysoev, was required to develop a collection of architectural and urban planning solutions, design and working documentation for the construction of an auxiliary locker room, as well as documentation (including cost estimates) for the construction of temporary or auxiliary structures in preparation for and hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Sergei Kuznetsov, in an interview with Gazeta.Ru, however, proudly calls this project his own, as is the case with Zaryadye Park, although the park was designed on the ground by the same Mosinzhproekt, and the concept was developed by the American architectural firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro.
Due to their particular importance, responsibility for the implementation of these projects was also assigned not to Kuznetsov, but to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and his deputy Marat Khusnullin.
Returning to the work of the Speech architectural firm, it is currently updating the master plan for District D1 in Skolkovo, which will house the International Medical Cluster. As a reminder, the Skolkovo Urban Development Council is chaired by the same Sergey Kuznetsov. The firm, however, does not consider this a conflict of interest.
"Sergey Kuznetsov is the chairman of the Skolkovo Urban Development Council, and in this capacity, he regularly reviews projects being developed for the area. There are dozens of them," the press service stated.
Another situation involving two companies linked to Kuznetsov is a competition to design a district development project as part of a renovation program. RTDA was the competition operator, and Speech, the architectural firm, was one of the winners. But here, too, no one sees a conflict of interest. "RTDA LLC is the competition operator; the winner is decided by the competition jury, which does not include the operator," the company’s press service reported.
However, the winners of these competitions are too often associated with Moscow’s chief architect. Another company that has frequently appeared in the press in recent years is the architectural firm Citymakers. As part of a foreign consortium, it won two major competitions: one for the Zaryadye Park concept and one for the Moskva River embankment improvements. In both cases, the competitions were organized with the participation and support of Sergei Kuznetsov. As for Citymakers itself, according to open sources, its average staff is three people, with the office of one of the legal entities (there are two) listed as an ordinary apartment.
Kuznetsov himself sees nothing reprehensible in this atmosphere of love and general friendship.
"When you’re appointed chief architect, you usually start searching within the system for people who are ideologically aligned with you, to somehow consolidate and advance common ideas and goals. Over the course of the work, good relationships develop with many of them, and I don’t see anything wrong with that," he told Gazeta.Ru.
