Nakhimov Plaza, the trade and office center at 9 Vainer St. in Yekaterinburg is still being put up rather slowly. Aston Group has claimed earlier that the building would be finished in the summer of 2008; however, even the outer walls haven’t been fully finished yet.

A billboard located next to the construction site reports the building was to have been commissioned as early as the last quarter of 2007.

Aston Group acts as the broker for the building and, according to Chairman Vyacheslav Trapesnikov, all the delays have been caused by the limited area of the construction site. At the same time, the observers claim there might be another reason for delay, namely, the fact that the group’s general contractor is Premierstroy, a builder closely related to Noviy Grad, the notorious local developer that has recently gone bust. Premierstroy is currently run by Dmitriy Belenkov, who also acts as deputy director of SPEC – a company quite closely related to Noviy Grad. Both SPEC and Noviy Grad own a half-finished apartment block at 72 Khokhryakov St. that was to have been commissioned in 2000. Dmitriy Belenkov was reported to announce at the co-investors’ meeting that another 50 million RUR were needed to finish the construction process. He allegedly said this money could be found at Premierstroy, for example, through using some of Plaza’s financing.