TAX AUTHORITIES OF PRIKAMYE REGION DRIVING BEREZNIKI AIRPORT TO BANKRUPTCY

Bankruptcy petition against the organization managing Berezniki airport located in the Perm Territory was submitted to the Arbitration Court by II FTS No. 21. Tax authorities require the company to pay 485 thousand rubles of debt and 96 more thousand as a penalty. The court left the claim without progress until October 19, since the applicant did not submit any evidence of insolvency to the court.

Tax authorities have already tried to drive the airport, located in Berezniki (9 km from Solikamsk), to bankruptcy in 2018-2019. Then the organization's debt exceeded 2.6 million rubles. However, at that time, the main debt was promptly repaid, and the case itself was closed by March 2019.

In fact, the airport has not been operating for a long time - it has not had a permit for flights for 20 years.

The transport hub, created in 1983, once served the population of the Kama region. The flights From Berezniki were operated to the capital cities, Samara and Anapa. The terminal was designed to serve 50 people per hour.

In 2008, the Perm businessman Alexander Fleginsky became the owner of the airport and the adjacent facilities (motor depot, repair warehouses, boiler room). He acquired the asset for almost 62 million rubles and planned to carry out its reconstruction and establish air links with Moscow. The leadership of Uralkali and Silvinit showed a commercial interest in this project, and support at the level of regional authorities was provided by the ex-head of the region, Viktor Basargin.

However, it was not possible to obtain a permission to resume flights. The 1.5-kilometer runway turned out to be unclaimed, as well as a parking space for aircraft (an area of   21.5 thousand square meters). The reconstruction required significant investments for the installation of navigation and lighting equipment.

As a result, the territory was surrounded by the fence and guards with dogs.

In 2019, the deputies of the regional Legislative Assembly decided to buy the airport from Fleginsky for 78 million rubles. MPs voted for the allocation of funds from the budget to finance the transaction in March. However, by 2020, due to a change in the economic situation, it was decided to reduce the investment project and the idea was abandoned.

Formally, it was not related to the accusation of Fleginsky of committing a crime under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Since 2017, its investigation was carried out by the FSS, and later by the investigators of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - it was about the illegal receipt of a loan from one of the commercial banks. As a result, the case was dropped, and no signs of money theft were revealed.