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- They put it under glass: The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment did not coordinate the construction of a high-rise hotel on the Curonian Spit
They put it under glass: The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment did not coordinate the construction of a high-rise hotel on the Curonian Spit
The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has refused to approve the construction of a high-rise hotel on the territory of the Curonian Spit National Park, the ministry told Izvestia. The day before, the editorial board became aware of the results of an environmental assessment conducted by the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which indicated that the project was dangerous for 15 species of migratory birds listed in the Red Book. Environmentalists previously called the glass building a "wall of death" for them. A company with millions of losses is trying to implement the project itself, and its beneficiaries are an alcohol dealer and the wife of the chairman of the Council of Deputies of one of the cities of the region. Whether the end has been reached in the case of a possible construction site on the Curonian Spit is in the Izvestia article.
Refusal of approval
The scandalous construction project of a 21-meter-high hotel on the Curonian Spit, called by some environmentalists the "wall of death," has not received government approval, Izvestia found out.
"The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has refused to approve the construction of a hotel complex in the Curonian Spit National Park," the agency said in response to a request from the editorial board.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment justified its position by saying that the key task of national parks is to preserve unique natural ecosystems and biodiversity, and "any economic activity that can damage natural complexes and animals and plants is prohibited here."
The day before, Izvestia learned about the conclusions of an environmental assessment conducted by the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ZIN RAS) in preparation for public hearings on the project. Scientists carried out observations at the site of the future construction site and found that there are migration routes of 15 species of birds listed in the regional and federal Red Books.
— If we talk about the federal Red Book, these are the western forest subspecies of hummingbird, gray goose, golden eagle, golden eagle, white-tailed eagle, magpie, blackthorn and great curlew, — Andrey Mukhin, director of the biological station "Rybachy" of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Izvestia.
The Curonian Spit is located on the White Sea-Baltic Flyway, and many bird routes converge on it. The construction of the hotel threatens them — they will inevitably beat against the facade of the building and die, as they are unable to distinguish between glass, ornithologists are sure.
It is significant that the expertise from ZIN RAS was ordered by the developer company LLC "Spetsavtotrans". As a result, the institute's experts recommended reducing the height and changing the facade of the building, replacing glass with other materials. However, Spetsavtotrans refused to make such changes to the project, as well as to officially accept the inconvenient results of the study, Andrei Mukhin said.
Controversial project
Specialavtotrans began preparations for the implementation of the recreational cluster project on the Curonian Spit in 2022. The land is part of the national park, but the company owns 70% of the rights to it. Another 30% belongs to the fishing collective farm "Worker of the Sea". He owned the land since Soviet times, but then sold part of the rights.
In 2023, Spetsavtotrans and the regional government signed an investment agreement aimed at developing the tourism and recreation sector. The investor planned to equip the lagoon, make a pier, equip a parking lot for yachts and build the same hotel with a glass facade 21 m high. These plans have caused a sharp rejection by environmentalists, mainly because of the altitude parameters that are dangerous for birds.
In March 2025, the Expert Council on Nature Conservation sent an appeal to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment with a request to refuse to approve the investment project. According to environmentalists, it contradicted the Regulations on the protected area of the national park.
"The construction of multi—storey buildings with a large number of glass surfaces and bright lighting along the migration route (and in areas directly adjacent to the central part of the Curonian Spit, in the place of the greatest concentration of migrating birds) will inevitably lead to mass bird deaths," the document said.
The investor publicly promised to comprehensively study the impact of construction on the environment. Oleg Nikolaenko, a representative of the company, announced this at the Curonian Spit Conservation Forum in 2025.
— Calculations are coming to an end now. By the end of the year, the results on birds from ZIN RAS and Moscow State University will be fully presented, and it will be clear what measures we need to take to minimize all this. The most interesting thing is that we have made special glasses, special glass screens, which will be recommended," Nikolaenko noted.
At the same time, he stressed that Spetsavtotrans had already spent 36 million rubles on research.
As a result, the project for the construction of the complex reached the stage of public hearings, which were scheduled to take place from April 22 to May 21, 2026. The developer has prepared the necessary documents for them with an environmental impact assessment (EIA). However, their publication caused a new scandal. After studying 700 pages of documentation, the experts of the Earth Concerns Everyone project of the Nature Protection Association concluded: "The submitted EIA materials cannot be considered sufficient and reliable, and the planned activity cannot be considered as complying with the requirements of current legislation as acceptable for implementation."
Andrei Mukhin agreed with these conclusions.
— The developer has done the EIA in such a way as to show that the construction will not affect anything. From the point of view of the expert community, this is absolutely not the case. According to Russian legislation, such projects cannot be implemented in principle if they lead to a deterioration of the situation in the national park," he said.
As a result, on April 30, Spetsavtotrans officially revoked the documents with the wording "due to the need to eliminate technical errors in the documentation." The hearing was cancelled.
And in early May, at one of their operational meetings, Alexey Besprozvannykh, the governor of the Kaliningrad Region, was critical of the project.
— Decisions have been made. Nothing will be built there in this format while I'm working here," the governor says in a video posted on his Telegram channel on May 4.
However, even after that, the Curonian Spit National Park confirmed its interest in the project.
"The project is under development and approval. <...> The National Park Administration is interested in the recreational development of the villages of Kos, as this will reduce the burden on natural complexes, but subject to the investor's compliance with environmental legislation," the national park stressed in response to a request from Izvestia on May 18.
The editorial board asked the "Special Automobile Transport" to clarify the situation. Judging by his response, the developer still hopes to implement the project and has some documents for this.
"If you want to get reliable information, it's better to come to us and see the supporting documents and the implementation area with your own eyes. "Dry" correspondence can have the effect of a damaged phone," Stepan Klyushun, a representative of the company, replied to the correspondent's letter.
When the editorial staff expressed their willingness to come, the company referred to their busy schedule and asked them to postpone the visit until June.
Who is behind the "Spetsavtotrans"
By itself, the company "Spetsavtotrans" is very interesting. According to the open financial statements, her income for 2025 amounted to only 215 thousand rubles, and expenses — 24.9 million rubles. Thus, the net loss is 24.7 million. The average number of employees is one person. The main type of activity, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, is activities in the field of road freight transport and transportation services.
Spetsavtotrans LLC is owned by two individuals, Vasily Tizlarishvili and Angelina Shaplova. The first one is also listed as the CEO of TV-Stroy LLC. Earlier, the organization received permission to build a five-storey apartment complex on a promising site in the center of the tourist city of Svetlogorsk. This project was also not without an "ecological" resonance. On May 16, 2025, the company received permission to cut down 107 trees at the future construction site. At the same time, the compensatory landscaping project assumes that only 96 hornbeams will be re-planted. Despite the fact that earlier maples, rowan trees, firs, thuja and other trees also grew on the territory.
The plans for the project have caused discontent among local residents — previously the territory was used as a green space for common use. Despite the public outcry, construction continues and is expected to be completed by 2028.
Among other things, Vasily Tizlarishvili is the owner of a network of alcohol sales companies in the region. Thus, the net profit of his company Kartvel LLC for 2025 amounted to 42.6 million rubles, Matryoshka LLC — 3.1 million, Map-Express Plus LLC — 5.4 million rubles. Another legal entity of the businessman, TV Company LLC, was restricted from selling alcohol at 36 locations in the Kaliningrad region, as it neglected the deadlines for reissuing documents required for issuing a license.
The second founder of Spetsavtotrans, Angelina Shaplova, also owns 64% of Kaliningrad Shipping Company LLC. Until 2022, her husband Igor Shaplov, the current chairman of the Council of Deputies of the city of Gvardeysk, a municipality with 14,000 inhabitants located near Kaliningrad, was listed as the founder of Spetsavtotrans.
What's more interesting in this story is that currently, "Spetsavtotrans" and "Worker of the Sea", as owners of the site in Rybachy, are plaintiffs in the arbitration court in a case against the territorial administration of the Federal Property Management Agency for the Kaliningrad region. They dispute the refusal of the department to coordinate the boundary plan of the site. Of note: the plaintiffs claim that the defendant (i.e., the Federal Property Management Agency) creates obstacles in the use of the disputed land plot, on which it is planned to implement an investment project for the reconstruction of hydraulic structures, restoration of the coastal strip and protection of territories from flooding and flooding. That is, there is not a word in the documents for the court about the plans for the construction of the hotel.
The Court of first instance satisfied the plaintiffs' claims. The case is currently under consideration by the Court of cassation.
"The court ruled that this was a technical dispute over borders, which is a fundamental mistake, since it should have taken into account the restrictions established by the legislation on specially protected natural territories," said lawyer, Candidate of Law Alexander Zorin.
That is, despite the fact that the claim was stated as a dispute about removing obstacles in agreeing on a boundary plan, in essence it was about the possibility of commercial construction in a specially protected natural area, which is explicitly prohibited, the lawyer stated.
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