LUXEMBOURG’S BANK IS BANKROTING “THE STREETS OF BROKEN LANTERNS” SERIES PRODUCER COMPANY

Judge of the AC of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region A.A. Kalayjyan adopted a crucial act, which have launched the bankruptcy process of the “Progress Studio” LLC on February 4, 2020. It would seem that there is nothing unusual in this case, except for the special plaintiff. It is a commercial bank, registered in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The interesting fact is that it was “Progress Studio” that was shooting the popular television series “The Streets of Broken Lights” for many years.

Recall that the series was first shown on television exactly 25 years ago. Over the years, almost five hundred episodes have been shot (475 episodes). The series has received many awards, including special awards from leading national legal associations, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and TEFI. Could back in 1995 the future screenwriter of the series Andrei Kivinov assume how successful his project would be? After all, later he will become a champion, as the longest series in the history of domestic television.

Technically, the studio’s bankruptcy reason is prosaic: the lack of money to repay the creditor’s debt (616 326 575 rubles 64 kopecks). The series stopped to attract the mass audience long time ago. The last season was shot in 2018, and the studio switched to idle mode. Data from open sources suggests that only one employee officially worked at Progress Studio (E. Bartanova CEO). 2018^th the company ended with a loss of more than 1.2 million rubles.

In addition, the studio was the part of the Gusinsky’s media holding, which has been experiencing serious difficulties recently. One of the holding's structures, the Moscow company “Forward-Film”, was declared bankrupt in 2018 due to the debts of 1.1 billion rubles. Even then, it was clear to “Progress - Studio” that the bankruptcy was just a matter of time. It is possible that all structures of New Century Distribution GmbH, which were previously owned by oligarch Gusinsky, will gradually go bankrupt. 

As for the plaintiff, the East-West United Bank S.A. is a foreign bank, co-owned by Vladimir Yevtushenkov’s “System” company. Investments of the latter in the media market are widely known. Last year, “System” sold a 2 billion rubles stake in the “United Russian Film Studios” (URFS) to “MTS”. In 2012, more than $ 100 million was invested in their creation.

Unlike the “Progress - Studio”, which apparently has no tangible assets, ORCs own equipment, pavilions, decoration workshops and a studio for the post-production phase. So, in fact, the current bankruptcy is a small episode in the economic relations between Yevtushenkov and Gusinsky.