Illegal Redevelopment Brought Down The Ceilings On Gorokhovaya Street. The House Has Become A Hotbed Of "mini-studios"

Photo: Sergey Nikolaev /

In the apartment at 46 Gorokhovaya Street, where the ceilings collapsed, the owner of a huge 200-meter apartment illegally demolished interior partitions. The result is the collapse of the ceiling. The two former communal apartments below have already turned into “studios”, how consistent they are and how much the overall load on ceilings and communications has increased is a big question.

On the evening of August 11, a rumble was heard in the house 46 on Gorokhovaya Street — the interstory ceiling between apartment No. 6 on the 4th floor and the attic collapsed. Repairs were underway in this apartment, and, according to preliminary data, workers demolished the interior partitions. The collapse has already become a criminal case for violating safety rules during construction work — under Article 216 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, you can get up to 3 years in prison.

The correspondent of Fontanka managed to visit the collapsed apartment. He found discrepancies between the apartment plan in the statement from the ERG and the reality. In addition to the missing non-load-bearing walls, there was also no fragment of the load-bearing wall.

Photo: Sergey Nikolaev /

The press service of the Central District said that “the cause of the collapse was uncoordinated redevelopment work carried out in a room on the 4th floor.”

According to Maria, a resident of the house, former communal apartments in the building are actively being turned into studios. This fate has already befallen the apartments on the second and third floors. These apartments and the “bad” apartment No. 6 are located exactly on top of each other. According to Maria, the same people were engaged in the renovation of three apartments.

“They slowly, one by one, bought out all the apartments. We talked to these people. [They] park in our yard, we know [these] people. They are all the same people.
They make repairs, post ads for the sale of apartments, then buy the next apartment and repair it there too,” Maria said.

The residents of the house sounded the alarm in the spring, when work began in three apartments. “According to information from the staff of the housing and communal services, there were also no requests for approvals on expanding the number of consumers of communications,” says the appeal, which was sent to officials by concerned residents of St. Petersburg in early March. The applicants also expressed confidence that the arrangement of studios may be illegal. GJI responded to the appeal: the question has been redirected to the administration of the Central district. At the same time, she recalled that, according to Article 28 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation, there must be an act of the acceptance commission formed by the district administration for redevelopment. If there is no act of the acceptance commission, the redevelopment is considered illegal.

In April, the district administration informed that it would check the information received, an inspection of three apartments was scheduled for May 8, and the owners were notified by telegram. Fontanka asked the administration to clarify what the outcome of this check was.

According to the interlocutor, the Meters group of companies is engaged in cutting studios in house 46. According to the website, she positions herself as a company engaged in the arrangement and sale of studio apartments in the center of St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Now Gorokhovaya 46 is no longer listed on the site, but the Internet remembers everything, and this object is easily in the cache. In addition, two owners of the “studios” in this house confirmed to Fontanka that they bought the premises from the company “Meters”.

By phone, the company “Meters” confirmed that the company has objects for sale in this house.

Photo: screenshot of the site web.archive.org

If you walk through the ads for buying or renting studios at 46 Gorokhovaya Street, you can find several dozen offers.

For example, in one of the archived ads there is a plan of the entire apartment on the second floor, taking into account the fragmentation of the studio. According to this information, there are 11 studios. Judging by the layout, the plan shows apartment No. 2.

Photo: screenshot of the site spb.domclick.ru

However, an extract from the Federal Register dated August 12 shows that the apartment was originally an eight-room apartment. The plan in the documents is “old”, from the time when the apartment was a communal apartment. The new “wet zones” (bathroom) are also not marked in the plan. However, the situation is similar on the apartment plans above — at No. 4 and No. 6.

Photo: screenshot of the website rosreestr.gov.ru

Kirill Zakharyan, a lawyer, a member of the presidium of the St. Petersburg Association of Homeowners and Their Associations, explained in a comment to Fontanka that the absence of “wet zones” in each of the studio rooms in the apartment plan, which is in the extract from the ERGN, is a reason to doubt the consistency of the redevelopment and a reason to check.

On the website of the group of companies, in the section of St. Petersburg projects, the data of LLC “Construction Company “Meters” are indicated. According to SPARK, the company is equally owned by Irina Denisova and Shagana Baghdasaryan. The latter is also the CEO of the company. A similar ownership and management structure exists for LLC “Investment Company “Meters”, which is listed in the section with Moscow projects.

According to Fontanka, the apartment in which the collapse occurred belongs to Shagana Baghdasaryan. The editorial office called Baghdasaryan to clarify whether she really is the owner, but the girl, having heard the topic of conversation, hung up the phone. The number of the second co-owner of “Meters”, Denisova, was unavailable.

Emergency response work is currently being carried out in the premises where the floors collapsed, the administration of the Central District reported. “Specialists are conducting an inspection and strengthening of structures in the part of the building where the collapse occurred. Emergency services have cut off water and gas supplies to ensure the safety of citizens,” the officials added.

Now no one lives in the apartment over which the ceiling collapsed, the press service of the district added. Based on the results of the initial inspection, it was decided that there were no prerequisites for settling the house. The technical expertise is provided by the management company (Zhilkomservice No. 2 of the Central district).

Splitting of communal apartments in the “studio”

In St. Petersburg, offers of “investment” studio apartments in the city center are multiplying like mushrooms after the rain. Usually, a communal apartment is bought for this, after that it is redeveloped and cut into studio rooms. Such projects in the old foundation regularly cause protests from local residents.

In fact, the buyer is not even buying a room, but an unallocated share in the apartment. And redevelopment is often illegal. First of all, due to the fact that it is officially possible to put a “wet” zone either over non-residential premises or over the same “wet” zone.

Periodically, officials and deputies begin to talk about the need to combat the cutting of communal apartments into separate studios. In February 2024, the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg even adopted in the first reading a draft federal initiative: to tighten conditions for cities of federal importance — Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sevastopol. The idea was warmly welcomed in Parliament and it was proposed to increase fines for illegal redevelopment. However, after that, the initiative movement stopped.

Zakharyan told Fontanka that in St. Petersburg the situation with the cutting of “studios” from former communal apartments is complex.

The interlocutor recalled that apartments and communications in the historical center are already loaded today. And the redevelopment of communal apartments into separate studios is a multiple increase in the load on load—bearing structures and communications.

The expert noted that now the fight against illegal redevelopment has actually been shifted to the shoulders of management companies. However, they do not have a line of expenses for the courts and the fight against redevelopers, and this money has to be pulled out of other items. The expert stressed that this function should be performed by the executive branch: when a signal is received from a management company or a HOA about redevelopment, the state apparatus should be launched and severely suppress such work even at their start. Currently, there is no such response system in St. Petersburg, and trials on illegal redevelopment can last for years.

Irina Korbat,