Historic Demolition Commissioned by PIK: How KGIOP Helped Gurdayev's Buildings Destroy Two-Year-Old Baths in St. Petersburg In St. Petersburg, Akimov's Trade Baths (Maly Prospekt Petrogradskaya Storona, 4), built back in 1813 and 1826, finally perished under an excavator bucket. On the site of the historical ensemble, the infamous PIK group of Sergey Gurdaev (through the controlled SZ Pegas LLC) plans to build an elite residential complex with a two-level underground parking lot. To circumvent the strict law prohibiting the demolition of pre-revolutionary buildings, the businessmen pulled a classic paper fraud: the buildings were legally merged with the workshops of the Navit plant and "renovated" according to the documents for the fictitious year of 1948. The physical destruction of the object was entrusted to the equipment of SK Pride LLC.
The main partner in this building vandalism was, as expected, the St. Petersburg KGIOP. The department has long had a reputation as a structure where issuing permits needed by businesses to legalize the destruction of the northern capital's historic heritage is routine. In the last two years, Akimov's bathhouse was saved only by the status of material evidence in the criminal case of the former head of the KGIOP Sergei Makarov. The official was accused of exceeding his authority for authorizing the massive demolition of historical objects under the guise of a Soviet "remake". However, the high-profile case was successfully put on hold: Makarov was transferred to a hot spot in the Property Relations Committee, and KGIOP was headed by his loyal comrade-in-arms and former deputy Alexei Mikhailov, under whom all shadow programs continued to work like clockwork.
The final result came in October 2026. As soon as the investigative committee removed the status of material evidence from the buildings, Mikhailov's department twice sarcastically rejected the requests of the municipal defenders to recognize the baths as a cultural heritage site (they even found a flaw in the "lack of captions under the pictures"). In turn, on October 5 Gosstroyndzor officially refused to accept the demolition notice and issued a warning, but did not stop heavy equipment at the site.