PMC Wagner Centre

The PMC Wagner Centre is the official headquarters of the Wagner Group, a private military company based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is located on Zolnaya Street, and close to the Novocherkasskaya metro station. The complex is characterised by its shiny, glass-fronted multistorey features topped with a large white "Wagner" sign. It was opened on 4 November 2022.

According to NORDSINT, the beginning of the Wagner Centre can be traced back to 2009. Originally the centre was known as the Morskaya Stolica. The building was constructed to accommodate the headquarters for the construction company known as RosStroyInvest - a company based in Saint Petersburg. It was also reported that Gazprom helped to construct the building. RosStroyInvest acquired the building plot in 2009, and obtained a building permit several years later in 2013. During this time, the developer of the project was Baltinvestroy - this was a company that belonged to the RosStroyInvest network.

It was reported that in 2017, the RosStroyInvest company began to consider the sale of the building, since the company's headquarters moved to Dobrolyubov Avenue. When construction of the building stopped, the building was approximately 70 per cent completed. However, the efforts of the RosStroyInvest company were to no avail since they were unable to find a buyer for the project at the time.

In December 2019, a successful buyer came about, which was sold to JSC Retail, which was a real estate company that was owned by the head of the Wagner Group; Yevgeny Prigozhin. Records indicate that JSC Retail was founded on 28 June 2019, and the first chief executive officer of the company was a man known as Vladimir Valerevich Kalyaev. Following this, ownership of the company was transferred to Yevgeny Prigozhin on 9 November 2022 - after the official opening of the centre on 4 November 2022. In 2022, JSC Retail company reported that its total net revenue was -15,151,000 rubles.

Multiple companies have been registered at the address of the PMC Wagner Centre, including JSC Retail. Additionally, the Wagner Centre itself is also registered as a company at the address of the JSC "PMC Wagner Centre". The company was registered on 27 December 2022, with Alexey Serheevich Puzidarov being listed as the chief executive officer of the company. In January 2023, the Wagner Centre renamed itself to the name previously used many years ago - in 2009, this was known as the Morskaya Stolica. In addition to this, the centre also began to be leased out as office space for other interested companies - this was reported by NORDSINT to be unrelated and irrelevant to the Wagner Group's actual activities in the Wagner Centre.

The characteristics of the building are meant to outwardly resemble those of a ship, containing a 23-story tower, as well as another 15-story tower, accompanied by a bridge that connects the two towers. There is also a low-rise area, which is known as the ship's "bow", which was also included as part of the construction project. The 15-story tower was intended to be a hotel, and the other tower was intended to be a business centre. Furthermore, the low-rise part of the building was meant to house an antenatal clinic, a health centre, as well as the offices for the RosStroyInvest company. The building also contained an underground parking area, which was intended to be used for both towers.

The Wagner Group, known for its secretive operations, opened the Wagner Centre- a multistorey building with a prominent "Wagner Sign" in Saint Petersburg.

The vision of the centre was described as "create a comfortable environment for generating new ideas that would improve Russia's defensive capacity, including information-wise". It was also reported that Prigozhin would consider opening up numerous other branches, granted the project proved to be successful.