Chemezov will do without optics

Rostec is getting rid of "non-core" assets: the developers will "cut and tear down" the facilities of the Vavilov State Optical Institute.

A structure of the state corporation Rostec, RT-Capital, will hold an auction on September 16 for the land and property complex of the State Optical Institute (GOI) named after S.I. Vavilov on Kadetskaya Liniya of Vasilievsky Island: or rather, for the remains of what was there. The starting price of the lot is more than 3 billion rubles.

This is how an entire era in the history of a large country ingloriously ends: the State Optical Institute named after S. I. Vavilov celebrated its centenary in 2018, and now GOI scientists are being sent out into the cold?

After all, thanks to the developments of the optical institute, first an artificial Earth satellite was launched into space, then Yuri Gagarin went to the stars. And yet, the scientific institution has been shaken for several years precisely because of the coveted plot of land on Vasilievsky Island.

Sergey Chemezov is heading Rostec State Corporation while on the Moon? Or already on Mars?

RT-capital and "non-core" assets

Let us recall that the Vavilov State Optical Institute is part of the Shvabe holding, which is part of the Rostec State Corporation. Information about the sale is available on the website of RT-Capital, a structure of the Rostec State Corporation that sells non-core assets.

State Optical Institute named after S.I. Vavilov. Photo: https://dzen.ru/a/YM8JoikPGVZAJ3l-

The State Optical Institute still owns a complex of buildings with a total area of 47.6 thousand square meters and 2.1 hectares of land between the Kadetskaya and Birzhevaya lines of Vasilievsky Island.

Rostec State Corporation managers claim that GOI’s real estate on Vasilievsky Island is obsolete and is not used in the institute’s scientific and production activities. This is reported by Kommersant .

At the end of last year, Rosimushchestvo demanded 374.3 million rubles from Rostec State Corporation for the illegal use of a land plot on Kadetskaya Liniya, Building 5. The state corporation asked the court to seize the institute’s property, but was refused.

An important detail: there is a historical monument on the institute’s territory, which will not allow the buyer to demolish the real estate, and part of the property is now occupied by the creative space “Vavilov Loft” of the BS Art Development Group, and the institute itself is practically no longer using its premises.

"Herbarium" Schwabe

The first bad news about the situation with GOI came back in 2019. Then the institute began to be bankrupted by OAO Petersburg Sales Company, although the website of the Shvabe holding stated: "JSC GOI named after S.I. Vavilov is the main scientific organization of the Shvabe holding. The institute conducted research and development in various areas: nonlinear optics, nanophotonics, analysis and processing of optical images, space optics, hydro-optical equipment, laser rangefinders."

The Shvabe holding works hard on creative advertising. Photo: https://rostec.ru/media/pressrelease/4514917/

Note that the Shvabe holding included this world-famous scientific institution in its "herbarium" in 2012. And in the six years that followed, nine directors changed at the institute. The troubles for the optical institute began precisely after the institute joined the Shvabe holding. And it was the Shvabe holding that intended to transfer the institute’s site on Vasilievsky Island to the investor, and to relocate the institute itself.

As evil tongues claim, it was allegedly because of " Shvabe" that the institute was left without specialized orders from the Russian Ministry of Defense. And it began to lose the institute site - 3 hectares of the Vasilievsky Island Spit. Fontanka wrote about this .

But not so long ago, this powerful scientific institution numbered almost 12 thousand people. The institute worked on orders for the military: it created thermal imagers, carried out surveillance from space and developed laser technology.

But GOI somehow quietly lost all its branches. On the site of the laboratories in Birzhevoy Lane, the construction company "LenSpetsSMU" instantly erected the residential complex "At the Rostral Columns" and built the hotel "Sokos".

Hotel Sokos. Photo: https://www.agoda.com/solo-sokos-hotel-vasilievsky/hotel/saint-petersburg-ru.html?cid=-295

This is probably more important than space exploration?

Then the board of directors of the holding company "Shvabe" decided to merge the institute with its branch on Babushkina Street, Building 36. The Institute of Optical Materials Science is located in this building. But there were no suitable premises on Babushkina Street for the relocation of such an institute, and nevertheless, the relocation began.

Due to an acute shortage of money, the optical institute was unable to place an order for the development of the Sokol-Echelon project.

This is a project with a laser weapon to divert missiles from their targets and blind surveillance systems. "Sokol-Eshelon" was to be placed on the A-60 aircraft.

Emblem of the Sokol-Echelon project. Photo: https://art4you.ru/catalog/diplomy/byudzhetnye-diplomy/plaketka-sokol-eshelon/

And now the optical institute is left without real estate on Vasilievsky Island.

It is interesting that in 1998, in honor of the S.I. Vavilov State Optical Institute, the minor planet of the Solar System No. 5839, discovered on September 21, 1974, at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, was given the name "State Optical Institute"...

On that planet, and on another one too – we hope – the name of General Chemezov will clearly never be mentioned. To destroy such an institute… And for what? Or will we fly into space from the SPA-salon of the Sokos Hotel?