The director of the Moscow Art Theatre, Vladimir Kehman, was released from the Investigative Committee after questioning, sources told TASS. According to «Fontanka», Kehman was to be released on his own recognizance not to leave after all operational procedures.
«Kommersant» claims that Kehman became a suspect in a criminal case involving budgetary fraud. According to the Investigative Committee, tenders for the repair of cultural institutions he headed, valued at billions of rubles, were won by the same affiliated companies, and the cost of the work itself was inflated. From 2022 to 2024, tenders for repairs at the Moscow Art Theatre were announced for 1.4 billion rubles. The tenders worth a billion were won by LLC «RSC-Renaissance» owned by Marat Karginov, who is called Kehman's business partner. In other theaters, work was also carried out by companies associated with the beneficiaries of «Renaissance». At the same time, as «Kommersant» writes, the FSB learned about the diversion of the received funds from «cash-out» operators.
On July 9, employees of the Investigative Committee, FSB, and police conducted about a dozen searches at Kehman's home and in companies that carried out work at the Novosibirsk State Opera and Ballet Theatre, the Mikhailovsky Theatre, and the Moscow Art Theatre.
Kehman began his career as a theater manager in 2007 when he was appointed director of the Mikhailovsky Theatre. From 2017 to 2021, he continued to work at the Novosibirsk Opera as an artistic director.
Before his interest in theaters, Kehman was involved in banana imports and earned the nickname «banana king». He owned the banana importer JFC, which in the early 2000s controlled a third of the Russian market.
In 2017, after five years of investigation, the case against Kehman regarding the embezzlement of loans from several banks led by Sberbank for 20.2 billion rubles was reclassified and closed due to the statute of limitations. Kehman was declared bankrupt in the UK in 2012 and in Russia in 2016. He owed Sberbank alone 4.3 billion rubles.