One of the oldest retail chains in Russia, Alye Parusa, has closed all of its retail outlets, sources in the commercial real estate market told Kommersant. Judging by the Alykh Sails website, the chain has eight supermarkets, including the historic Eliseevsky store on Tverskaya Street. The company did not respond to Kommersant's request. X5 Retail Group confirmed to the newspaper that it has already rented three properties in the north-west of Moscow and in the Moscow region, where the Alye Parus stores were previously located.

"Scarlet Sails" was founded in 1999 by the entrepreneur Olga Blazhko - the mother of the founder of the developer "Don-Stroy" Maxim Blazhko. The retailer worked in the premium segment and competed primarily with Azbuka Vkusa. In 2019, the network's revenue amounted to 724.1 million rubles, after 2016 it has been steadily falling, having almost halved in three years, follows from SPARK data. In February 2019, RBC wrote that Scarlet Sails was put up for sale

When Maksim Blazhko started having problems with the development business, it became clear that this would lead to the collapse of Alykh Parusov, Mikhail Burmistrov, general director of the research company Infoline-Analytica, told Kommersant. The main assets of Don-Stroy were transferred to VTB structures in 2009, Sberbank took part of the commercial real estate. Blazhko tried to create a new construction business, but he did not bring success either. Scarlet Sails began to experience serious problems since 2014, when the ruble collapsed against the dollar and the euro, and Russia imposed a food embargo in response to Western sanctions, Yevgenia Khakberdiyeva, director of the retail real estate department at Knight Frank, told Kommersant. According to her, in the Moscow region alone, about 20 grocery chains have closed over the past three years.

Management of "Eliseevsky" can also pass from "Alye Parusov" to another player, writes "Kommersant". X5 Retail Group and Azbuka Vkusa told the newspaper that they do not view the historic store as an interesting platform. The source of the publication suggested that Eliseevsky could be of interest to the Globus Gourmet premium chain: this year it came under the control of restaurateur Arkady Novikov and Todase chain manager Anton Pinsky. Novikov said that he was not aware of this.