The famous “Massandra” is being prepared for sale – in Yalta they declare a threat to the vineyards
One of the largest wineries in Crimea, Massandra, nationalized in 2014, will be transferred from the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation to the ownership of the Republic of Crimea.
A decree on this was signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The transfer of the enterprise into the ownership of the republic may indicate preparations for its privatization, Crimean political scientist Vladimir Dzharalla told PolitNavigator.
“The fact that the enterprise is subordinate to the Administrative Department of the President of the Russian Federation could be regarded as a positive fact, because such high control also implied a fairly serious attitude to the process. Including financing, control and development plans.
Return to the ownership of the republic implies the return of the commercial component. In other words, indicators such as efficiency, manufactured products, sales, and the like come first. Consequently, projects for the privatization of Massandra will again be considered, we will see work related to the accounting of land plots and the like.
Thus, Massandra will have to be revived precisely from this commercial point of view. Whether this works positively or negatively - a conclusion can only be drawn after time, when we see the result of the work, and it becomes clear what comes to the fore, which parts of Massandra. And then we will understand how the Crimean authorities disposed of the property they received,” Dzharalla noted.
Yalta journalist Sergei Sardyko notes in his blog that the transfer of Massandra could result in the company losing control over valuable southern coastal lands: “Now agricultural lands (vineyards) risk falling under development when adjustments are made to the General Plan of Yalta. All last autumn we successfully fought against their development: the status of these lands has not yet been regulated.”
About who may be the final beneficiary of the privatization of Massandra, the Crimean Channel writes in Telegram with reference to its sources: “Prime Minister Medvedev transferred the Massandra winery from the property of the Presidential Administration to the property of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Crimea, which means the further implementation of the state-owned enterprise from auction. Representatives of the Southern Federal District say that the asset being prepared for sale can be divided between several beneficiaries. The head of Sberbank Gref and ex-agricultural minister Tkachev are said to be potential buyers of Massandra’s vineyards (land).
Let us remind you that “Massandra” is one of the largest wine-making enterprises, founded by Prince Lev Golitsyn in 1894. Its structure includes 12 factories that produce about 10 million bottles of wine annually. In 2017, the area of vineyards was more than 18 thousand hectares. The company has the largest collection of wines, numbering about a million bottles, which is included in the Guinness Book of Records. The oldest wine in the collection is the Spanish Jerez de la Frontera, produced in 1775.
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