Terraski is a cottage settlement in Kstovsky District of Nizhny Novgorod Region, on top of a hill near the village of Shava, 38 km from Nizhny Novgorod [1][7]. The settlement was conceived as a dacha-style third zone of the year-round TerraSki resort, with a 70-room hotel, ski slopes, and a yacht club on the Kudma; it was built by a specially created company, Investment Company "Roza Vetrov" LLC, using money from future dacha owners [2][12]. The houses in the settlement went up, but the resort around them never took shape as planned: in the summer of 2009 construction stopped, the developer was declared bankrupt, and in 2015 the company was liquidated [13][16][17]. The ski part began operating only in 2015, under a new owner and under the name "Terraski Park" [18][19].

Location

The settlement occupies the summit and upper terrace of a hill from which the valleys of three rivers can be seen: the Volga, the Kudma, and the Shava. The boundaries of the development are the natural, forested slopes of the hill; nearby is the village of Shava with ordinary individual housing [1]. The low height of the houses and the gentle slope of the terrain are arranged so that the view of the water opens up from most plots [1].

The road from the city runs along the Kazan Highway to Kstovo, then continues along the same highway through the center of the town, crossing the Kudma and the Shava, to the sign "Shava1" and a left turn; then through the whole village to the second left turn, onto a paved road. The distance from the settlement to Nizhny Novgorod is 38 km [7][27].

The hill is visible long before one arrives: it first appears from the descent near the village of Vetchak, just past Kstovo, and then returns to view along the open stretches of the highway. The compilers of the settlement's website compared it to the bow of a giant ship cutting through open expanses, and separately described the cloud that, in certain weather, settles on the summit [1].

Under certain weather conditions a cloud descends onto the hill, gently covering the houses, buildings, and the people there. Just like on holy Mount Tabor on the day of the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord.

— Website of the Terraski settlement, "About the Cottage Settlement" section [1]

Name

The resort's name is TerraSki, "ski territory." The terraced approach to the layout, dictated by the terrain of the hill, was considered by the project's authors to be reflected in the Russian pronunciation of the name, "Terraski" [2]. The same name was given both to the dacha part of the complex and to the ski park that opened much later [18][19].

Concept: Three Zones of One Resort

The complex was designed as three recreational zones with shared technological, operational, and administrative management and a single club system: a sports zone for weekend visitors, a hotel zone for guests staying overnight, and a dacha zone for permanent residence [2]. According to an address from the project's authors to prospective buyers, the resort's total area was about 70 hectares; the address was signed by Leonid Morozov and Maria Sviridova [3].

The limited liability company "Investment Company 'Wind Rose'" (OOO "Investitsionnaya kompaniya 'Roza vetrov'") was created in September 2003 specifically for this project; its founders were listed as private investors and the travel company "Roza Vetrov — NN," which had by then been operating for eleven years and had taken Nizhny Novgorod residents, among other destinations, to ski resorts around the world. To support the construction and operation of the dacha portion, a dacha non-profit partnership, "Silver Rain" (Serebryany Dozhd), was registered [2]. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (EGRYuL), the company was registered on September 2, 2003, with a charter capital of 50,000 rubles; 80% of the shares belonged to Tatyana Morozova, with 10% each held by JSC "Roza Vetrov NN" and one other private individual [17].

The project was announced as having the support of the regional administration and of the Kstovo District administration, on whose land the site lay [2].

The three zones of the TerraSki resort under the 2007 project
ZoneWhat was plannedCompletion date under the project
SportsThree ski runs descending from an artificial acceleration hill (20 m high, 30 m wide, 150 m long); a central run with an 85 m drop over 580 m; artificial snowmaking and evening lighting; a four-seat chairlift and a drag lift by Doppelmayr (Austria) / SKADO (Samara); equipment rental and repair; an extreme sports park in a wooded ravine; a yacht club on the bank of the Kudma with moorings for motorboats, a lifting device, and hangars for winter boat storage [2][4]December 2007 [2]
Hotel70 rooms in cottages and a five-story building (economy, standard, comfort, luxury) with 140 main and 40 extra beds; a 220-seat restaurant; a fitness center with a swimming pool, four saunas, and a gym; an outdoor pool; a 150-seat conference hall and a 70-seat disco bar; the service level was advertised as four-star, with a Holiday Village club hotel concept [2][5]First phase — December 2007, second phase — May 2008 [2]
DachaA private cottage community for year-round residence, connected to the hotel's utility systems — water supply, sewage, electricity, security, and landscaping — and oriented, through club cards and discounts, toward the services of the other two zones [2]End of the first phase — November 2008 [2]

The settlement: land, houses, utilities

The settlement's territory covers 35.8 hectares, and development proceeded in two phases. The first occupied 10.8 hectares at the top of a hill and was divided into 46 land plots. The second is located on 25 hectares, consists of three sections separated by birch alleys, and is divided into 97 individual plots; between the ski-jump run-up hill and the second phase, the plans called for a training slope, open sports grounds with grandstands, bathhouses and VIP cottages for the hotel, as well as a grocery store and a sporting goods store [1][6].

In all, about one hundred forty houses were being built in the settlement, all in a uniform Alpine chalet style. The two-story cottages were intended for year-round residence, with floor areas ranging from 189 to 377 m². The houses were built according to the recommendations of the project's architects: the color schemes of the facades, roofs, and outer fencing of the plots were set uniformly [1].

The land had a land-use designation "for dacha construction," which permits permanent buildings with subsequent registration of ownership of the house and residency registration; the plots range from 15 to 24 sotkas (0.15 to 0.24 hectares), and each had a land survey file and an ownership certificate issued. The settlement received the status of a dacha non-profit partnership [1].

The settlement's utility networks were originally part of the hotel complex's infrastructure — and this is what tied the fate of the dacha owners to the fate of the resort [1].

  • water — from a water intake facility with artesian wells, ionized and softened to drinking-water standard, distributed through polyethylene pipes [1];
  • gas — an underground low-pressure gas pipeline running across the territory of the settlement [1];
  • electricity — supplied by underground cable from a step-down transformer; the interior grounds are lit by lamp posts, the perimeter by mast-mounted lights [1];
  • sewerage — a pumping station and pressure collector discharging to biological treatment facilities, with a separate storm drainage system [1];
  • paved roads and sidewalks inside the settlement and along its perimeter, fencing of each plot and of the entire territory, and security [1];
  • under the club system, residents of the dacha settlement were to receive access to the hotel and the ski complex on preferential terms from the moment those facilities opened [1].

What the dacha owners were promised

The dacha zone was sold together with a promise of resort life: in summer, walks, jogging along the alleys, bicycles, quad bikes, jet skis, a yacht and rowboats, and fishing on the local body of water; in winter, a ski run with a lift, a ski base, and snowmobiles. For fitness and spa enthusiasts, a sports and wellness complex was planned, with gyms, bathhouses, and saunas, while the settlement itself was to have a children's play area, a sports field, and an ice rink that would turn into a soccer field in summer [1].

The settlement's website explained its high standards for architecture and materials by pointing to the emergence of a "new type of consumer" of such housing — sophisticated and demanding; the project's stated goal was to recreate the atmosphere of an Alpine village through architecture while preserving the variety of inner courtyards and the landscaping of individual plots [1].

The 2007 sales record

Sales of the "Roza Vetrov" plots began in late December 2006. By early April 2007, 44 of the 46 plots in the first phase had been sold — at that time, Terraski was called the record-holder for sales pace among Nizhny Novgorod suburban settlements. The land was not cheap: in March 2007, one sotka (a hundred square meters) went for 122,000 rubles [7].

The liquidity of the plots was explained by the fact that sales had begun when construction was already in full swing on the site: a hotel was going up and utilities were being connected. In most other settlements in the Region, sales began when there was nothing on the territory, and sometimes the land had not even been surveyed [7].

In April 2008, the company expected to complete the entire project in 2009, and the ski and hotel complexes as early as 2008 [8]. According to Kommersant, more than $40 million had been invested in the project, and more than 140 cottages were being built with the money of future dacha owners [13].

We are offering not just a piece of land in an empty field, but a philosophy of life outside the city. Our clients get the chance to live in nature and relax: in summer, to swim in the river; in winter, to play sports at the fitness center and on equipped ski slopes. And most importantly, they are completely certain that the settlement, the utilities, and all these sports facilities will actually be built, and they understand who will maintain and operate them

— Maria Sviridova, director of the Roza Vetrov company, April 2007 [7]

Who bought

In 2009, Kommersant listed among those preparing to become homeowners in TerraSki a number of well-known Nizhny Novgorod officials, deputies, and businesspeople: Svetlana Utrosina, head of the city administration's finance department; Dmitry Birman, a City Duma deputy; Vladimir Krupnov, head of the Novakard company; Andrey Cheremisinov, general director of the Seti NN television station; Igor Makarov, general director of MICEX-Volga Region; and Regional Legislative Assembly deputy Alexander Tabachnikov [13].

It was precisely the makeup of the buyers that made the settlement's story high-profile: the 2009 conflict went beyond a private dispute between co-investors and the developer and reached the Regional Prosecutor's Office and the presidential envoy in the Volga Federal District [11][13].

Land violations at the construction site

In March 2009, the Rosselkhoznadzor (Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Supervision) office for Nizhny Novgorod Region and the Mari El Republic reported the misuse of agricultural land during the construction of an artificial stagnant reservoir for the TerraSki complex. The plot, about 5 hectares in area, belonged to the CJSC Zaprudnovskoye, and the work on it was carried out by IK Roza Vetrov without permits; the fertile layer of soil was stripped from an area of about 2 hectares, moved, and removed along with the earth. Both organizations were fined a total of 50,000 rubles and issued orders to correct the violations; the fines were paid [9].

In May of the same year, an unscheduled inspection revealed a similar violation during the construction of a gravel road connecting the settlement under construction with a public road: the fertile layer was destroyed over more than 0.2 hectares. Maria Sviridova, general director of OOO Terraski Servis, was fined 2,000 rubles under Part 1 of Article 8.6 of the Administrative Offenses Code of the Russian Federation and issued an order [10].

Autumn 2009: construction comes to a halt

By the spring of 2009, as the summer residents' appeal put it, construction had "begun to stall," and by the end of summer it was clear that the investment company was on the verge of bankruptcy: debts had piled up to suppliers, contractors, and the summer residents themselves, for work that had been paid for but not carried out. By that point the construction readiness of the settlement exceeded 60% [11][12].

According to the co-investors, the company's majority shareholder, Tatyana Morozova, verbally agreed to hand over management to the newly created dacha partnership "Silver Rain," but the negotiations dragged on for months, after which the company filed for its own bankruptcy [12]. In October 2009, Wind Rose entered into settlement agreements with two shareholders, the married couple Krivitsky: under a claim of 2.8 million rubles, one of the parties received four land plots with unfinished facilities of a sports and entertainment complex and construction materials worth about 60 million rubles; under the second claim, of about 5 million, it received assets worth almost 120 million [15].

On November 17, 2009, a general meeting of the summer residents approved the text of an appeal to the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President in the Volga Federal District, Grigory Rapota; earlier, similar appeals had been sent to the Region's prosecutor, Valery Maksimenko, and to State Duma deputy Roman Antonov, and later a number of creditors filed complaints with the Economic Crimes Department (OBEP) of the Nizhegorodsky District and lawsuits in courts of general jurisdiction. The appeals spoke of the company's assets, valued by an independent appraisal at 440 million rubles, being siphoned off to satisfy claims of about 6 million, and of property worth more than 20 million rubles being removed from the construction site [11][12].

The company's co-founder Maria Sviridova, who headed the "Silver Rain" partnership, described what was happening as a raider takeover and asked the court to annul the settlement agreements. According to her, the two shareholders received five land plots with a total area of 14.5 hectares, together with unfinished real estate and utility networks [13][15]. The company's total debt, according to Ildar Murtazin, one of the landowners, exceeded 270 million rubles, and most of it consisted of obligations to participants in the shared-equity construction [13].

I can assess this court decision as "the best of the worst." The introduction of bankruptcy proceedings will allow the deceived co-investors of IK "Wind Rose" to challenge the company's actions in court — in particular, the conclusion of a settlement agreement with one of the dacha-owner creditors and the transfer of all of the company's assets in his favor

— Maria Sviridova, chair of the board of DNT "Silver Rain," November 23, 2009 [14]

Courts and the developer's bankruptcy

From there, the story followed court dates: the dispute was resolved in the arbitration court and in the courts of general jurisdiction [13][15][16].

The project was never completed as originally conceived: the hotel, ski slopes, and yacht club for which the plots had been bought were left unfinished, and in 2015 the land under the sports zone went at auction to a new investor [18].

Chronicle of the Conflict and Bankruptcy
DateWhat Happened
October 2009The Nizhegorodsky District Court approves two settlement agreements between Roza Vetrov Investment Company and the Krivitsky spouses [15]
November 17, 2009A general meeting of dacha owners approves an appeal to the presidential envoy to the Volga Federal District [11]
November 23, 2009The Nizhny Novgorod Region Commercial Court introduces a supervision procedure against the company; Eduard Eremeev is appointed interim manager [14]
December 22, 2009The Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court overturns the rulings approving the settlement agreements as violating the rights of third parties; the cases are sent back for a new hearing [15]
July 9, 2010The Commercial Court declares Roza Vetrov Investment Company LLC bankrupt and opens bankruptcy proceedings for a period of six months; Oleg Kotelnikov is appointed bankruptcy trustee [16]
July 9, 2015The company is struck from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities due to liquidation, based on a commercial court ruling concluding the bankruptcy proceedings [17]

The Mountain's Second Birth

Dmitry Yepishin, a businessman from the Moscow suburbs, bought about 30 hectares for the ski area at an auction after the previous owner went bankrupt. His company Parkland began building the resort in late 2014 and estimated its investment at 486.7 million rubles of private funds, expecting to recoup it in 8–10 years; in 2015 Parkland applied to the regional Ministry of Investment Development for the project to be granted priority status. According to the investor's description, the center was to have four main runs from 700 m to 1 km long with a vertical drop of 104 m, a training slope, a tubing run, a four-seat chairlift, two T-bar lifts and a belt-type baby lift, with a capacity of up to 8,000 people a day [18].

The Terraski Park ski complex in the selo of Shava began operating in 2015 [19][23]. In early 2016 it was written about as a newly opened active-recreation park with runs for professionals, beginners, and off-piste enthusiasts [19]. On December 30, 2018, Governor Gleb Nikitin skied on its slope [20].

In 2018 the resort was bought by the Shashkov couple: the purchase was registered in the husband's name and the legal entity in the wife's, who was the complex's longtime director; in winter the park employed about a hundred people [22][23].

Those who play sports are never cold. The weather right now is simply ideal for New Year's, for the holiday, for sports, for skiing

— Gleb Nikitin, Governor of Nizhny Novgorod Region, December 30, 2018 [20]

The 2023 Closure and the Return

In November 2023, Terraski Park announced it was closing on the eve of the season. The complex's director, Ekaterina Shashkova, linked the shutdown to the division of property in a divorce that had dragged on for a third year: under the appellate court's ruling, the land and buildings of the resort went to her ex-husband, the court split the legal entity in half, and she considered the rent for the site unaffordable. She said she was obliged to settle accounts with the staff and refund prepayments for season passes and programs, and she removed equipment and the petting zoo's animals from the grounds [22].

Owner Maxim Shashkov told Kommersant that the resort's life-support systems had been put out of action: the lift controls, gas boilers, and water pumps were damaged, pipes were frozen, the fencing was breached, and the snow groomers and snow cannons had disappeared from the site. He linked this to a conflict with his ex-wife and said he could not predict whether the complex could be restored in time for the 2023/24 season [21]. The two sides gave differing accounts of what had happened, and each stated an intention to remain in the ski industry [22][23].

By early January 2025, the park was operating again: the lift was running on the slope, and tubing and snowmobile rentals were available [24].

The settlement today

The Silver Rain dacha non-profit partnership, created for the dacha part of the complex [2], outlasted both the developer and the resort's first owner. In April 2019 it was renamed a gardening partnership, and in March 2023 its legal form changed to a property owners' partnership. The partnership remains active; its registered address is Shava village in Kstovsky District, Solnechnaya Street, building 1, and since March 2024 its board chairman has been listed as Alexander Karaulov [25].

In the 2000s, sales and construction were handled from Nizhny Novgorod: the office of the Silver Rain partnership, which ran construction and the sale of dacha plots, was located at 18 Minin Street — phone (831) 436-93-53, accounting (831) 432-79-33, email info@terraski.ru; the travel company Wind Rose — NN, responsible for selling the complex's services, was based in the neighboring building at 18/3, with an entrance from Nesterov Street [26]. The settlement's own website, terraski.ru, with an interactive map of the plots, a forum for dacha owners, and a photo chronicle of the construction, operated until the end of the 2010s; its pages have been preserved in the web archive [1][6][26].

Neighbors

The hill with "Terraski" stands at the junction where the Shava and Kudma flow out toward the Volga; the village of Shava lies farther down the slope. Administratively this is Kstovsky District, and the nearest town is Kstovo [1][7].

On the Nizhny Novgorod market for suburban real estate, "Terraski" remained an example of a settlement that was sold not as a plot of land but as a promised way of life, and an example of what happens when the promised infrastructure is left unfinished [7][13].

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — website of the Terraski settlement, "About the Cottage Settlement" section (web archive copy, 2014) (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — website of the TerraSki resort, "About the Project" section (web archive copy, 2007) (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — address from the project's authors to buyers (web archive copy, 2007) — From the Project's Authors (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — description of the ski zone and yacht club (web archive copy, 2007) — Infrastructure (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — description of the hotel zone (web archive copy, 2007) — About the Hotel (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — interactive map of the settlement (web archive copy, 2012) — Online Map of Terraski (archive)
  7. nta-pfo.ru — NTA-Privolzhye, April 11, 2007 — overview of the suburban settlements market
  8. nta-pfo.ru — NTA-Privolzhye, April 14, 2008 — plans for completing the project — IK "Roza Vetrov" plans to fully complete the TerraSki project in 2009
  9. nta-pfo.ru — NTA-Privolzhye, March 23, 2009 — Rosselkhoznadzor inspection of the reservoir construction
  10. nta-pfo.ru — NTA-Privolzhye, May 15, 2009 — Rosselkhoznadzor inspection of the road construction
  11. nta-pfo.ru — NTA-Privolzhye, November 18, 2009 — appeal of dacha owners to the presidential envoy — The Serebryany Dozhd dacha partnership sent a letter addressed to Rapota (archive)
  12. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — November 18, 2009 — contents of the co-investors' appeals and background on the project (archive)
  13. Kommersant (Privolzhye) — Kommersant (Nizhny Novgorod), November 24, 2009 — analysis of the conflict surrounding the settlement (archive)
  14. nta-pfo.ru — NTA-Privolzhye, November 23, 2009 — introduction of supervision over the developer — The supervision procedure has been introduced for OOO "IK "Roza Vetrov"
  15. nta-pfo.ru — NTA-Privolzhye, December 22, 2009 — regional court ruling on the settlement agreements
  16. nta-pfo.ru — NTA-Privolzhye, July 9, 2010 — declaration of the developer's bankruptcy — Arbitration Court declares OOO IK "Roza Vetrov" bankrupt
  17. rusprofile.ru — Unified State Register of Legal Entities extract for OOO IK "Roza Vetrov" (INN 5263041750) — OOO IK "Roza Vetrov" Nizhny Novgorod (INN 5263041750) (archive)
  18. Vedomosti — new investor in the ski section — Businessman from the Moscow suburbs builds a ski complex in Nizhny Novgorod Region for 487 million rubles (archive)
  19. nta-pfo.ru — NTA-Privolzhye, February 4, 2016 — on the newly opened park "Terraski Park" — Rostelecom provided communication services to the active recreation park "Terraski Park"
  20. nta-pfo.ru — NTA-Privolzhye, December 31, 2018 — the governor on the Terraski slope — Gleb Nikitin, after skiing down the slope, urged Nizhny Novgorod residents to take up sports
  21. Kommersant (Privolzhye) — Kommersant (Nizhny Novgorod), November 24, 2023 — shutdown of the resort — Terraski Park ski complex in Nizhny Novgorod Region under threat of closure (archive)
  22. NN.RU — NN.RU, November 25, 2023 — both sides of the property dispute over the resort — "This scheme only came to light in court." How a family split led to the closure of the Terraski Park resort (archive)
  23. GTRK "Nizhny Novgorod" (Vesti) — Vesti-Privolzhye, November 2023 — chronicle of the resort's ownership — Why did one of the largest ski complexes in Nizhny Novgorod Region close? (archive)
  24. NN.RU — NN.RU, January 1, 2025 — overview of operating slopes — Where to ski, tube, and sled: the best slopes of 2025 (archive)
  25. checko.ru — Unified State Register of Legal Entities extract for SNT Serebryany Dozhd (INN 5250032318) — Kstovsky District, selo of Shava
  26. web.archive.org — contacts of the developer and the partnership (web archive copy, 2012) (archive)
  27. web.archive.org — directions to the settlement (web archive copy, 2014) — Getting to the Terraski cottage settlement from Nizhny Novgorod (archive)