In fact, it happened a few weeks earlier, when the same package is bought from the founder of the network Pavel Durov general director of OJSC "MegaFon" and co-owner of "YUTV Holding" Ivan Tavrin (№200 in the ranking of 200 richest businessmen of Russia's version of Forbes, the state - $ 0.5 billion) . Tavrina partner in "YUTV Holding" and a major shareholder "MegaFon" is the USM Holding richest Russian businessman Alisher Usmanov (№40 in the global ranking of billionaires on the version of Forbes, the state - $ 18.6 billion), which is now under the control of all the major social networks of Russia (except " VKontakte "is the" Classmates "and" My World ") and its junior partners.

The second shareholder "VKontakte" - fund United Capital Partners (UCP) Ilya ShCherbovicha that spring of 2013 bought 48% stake in the first investors sotsseti Vyacheslav Mirilashvili (№114 ranking in Forbes, the state - $ 950 million) and Lev Leviev and the many months leading a kind of "cold war" with Mail.Ru Group. Founders of "VKontakte" social network no longer own any effect on it, they no longer have. Or not quite right?

"Red toopka "

Novosergievka village located a few kilometers from the ring road around St. Petersburg, next to her - proving ground came into decline in the 90-ies of the Research Institute of high-voltage engineering. One of the buildings near the landfill had once belonged to the institution, and now there is data center "Itsva", from whose work depends on the operation of about half of the social network "VKontakte" server.

Almost from its inception Pavel Durov social network was in direct proportion to the assets of the other two co-founders and early investors "VKontakte", Vyacheslav Mirilashvili and Lev Leviev, and the company "Selektel", which owns a network of data centers. The more people are getting the "VKontakte", the greater the required server storage. At some point, the rapid move from "Selektel" without loss of performance has become simply impossible. This relationship did not like the first outside investor social network Yuri Milner, whose DST became co-owner "VKontakte" fund in 2007. In fact & laquo; Selektel "could arbitrarily increase the price, and" VKontakte "would have to pay.

With the blessing of Milner Pavel Durov I began to develop its own data center, in which the arrangement, according to one version, the invested funds from profit "VKontakte", on the other - their own money from the sale of part of its shares to DST.
Now, as said the chief engineer of "VKontakte" and the half-brother of Pavel Durov Mikhail Petrov, in "Itsve" kept all videos "VKontakte" and almost all user photos.

Today, the owner of "Itsvy" is already a former shareholder of "VKontakte" Pavel Durov, a "Selektel" is still owned by the same shareholders of the former is now the network Vyacheslav Mirilashvili and Lev Leviev. And if the latter quietly live in Israel, not participating in the recent conflicts around the "VKontakte", the remaining CEO of the social network Pavel Durov involved in the war directly. His "Itsva" - a kind of additional insurance in case of emergency, "red button", using which Durov can cause rapid and severe damage to hisVorenus.

Whose $ 20 million?

Place under its own data center, "VKontakte" was chosen in 2010. The proximity of the building to provide the necessary power substation and eventually allowed to increase it as needed. Contractor for the construction of the first phase of the company "Tyre is 5" was selected, recorded in September 2010. A first builders were in an abandoned building in December.

The contractor has been chosen by chance. "These people have built and" Selektel ". Established themselves well, and they are attracted to the project ", - said a source familiar with the process of building the data center. Judging from the photos Petrov, who almost every week to report to his page on the social network on the construction, to the end of March have already been completed basic work, and engineers began collecting server cabinets.

In April, servers, and in August, Pavel Durov were installed already planted young oaks in the alley around the data center.
Since July 2011, "Tyre is 5" and "VKontakte" signed a new contract for five years - up to 2016, but in 2012 Storous mired in litigation. The contractor demanded a "VKontakte" a debt of 17.5 million rubles, and the social network blamed a contractor of illicit enrichment by 133 million rubles.

As the source said, who took part in the construction, the contractor was not able to account fully for the money spent. In the court decisions indicate that in the "Tyre is" and "VKontakte" worked as one and the same person. "Documents from two sides signed George Sizemov" - says the source Forbes. In February 2013 George Sizemov already was listed owner "Tyre is 5" and the CEO of the company - his brother Igor.

However, "VKontakte" failed to prove their case: the court considered proven waste contractor. Representatives of the social network filed an appeal, but the court in October 2013 upheld the judgment. Pavel Durov still claims that the money allocated to "VKontakte" for the construction of the data center have been stolen and he had to invest their own funds, which stayed with him since the sale of part of its share in 2010. Total in the construction of "Itsvy" Durov embeddingyl, in his own words, about $ 20 million.

A source close to the "VKontakte", said that to finish building a data center company "Intech", which is a co-owner Pavel Bondarenko, which some interlocutors referred to Forbes brother close friend Pavel Durov. Bondarenko Petrova just replaced as general director of LLC "Itsva". The formal owner of the legal entity is registered in the Seychelles ICVA Ltd, and is currently the CEO of LLC "Itsva" is Alexey Deriugin.

Durov claims that the proposed Mirilashvili and Leviev as shareholders of "VKontakte" translate "Itsvu" on social networks on the balance of the cost, but they objected. A similar proposal, he said, he had done and the new shareholder - UCP fund. However UCP sure that "Itsva" was built on the money "VKontakte", so pay Durov would be wrong.

Related single chain

Despite the litigation and shareholder disputes, technically "Itsva" is ready to accept data from two data centers "Selektel"; - "Tehnodoma" and on Flower Street in St. Petersburg. "We are talking about approximately 10,000 servers and commute their equipment," - says Petrov. In the data center, the flower will only caching servers for Russian users and switches. The dependence on "Selektel" still remain: two data center in Dubrovka is irreplaceable, says Petrov.

Durov holds and other data centers. His company, Digital Fortress has established a network of data centers around the globe: it, as planned, could use a young project. So, it is already using Telegram messenger, created by Nikolay Durov. Telegram representative in the project twitter blog stated that the messenger uses five data centers - in London, San Francisco, Singapore and Helsinki. In which city is the fifth data center, Telegram representatives did not respond.

The headquarters of the new project Durov brothers, is located in Berlin, but the Telegram have Russian legal entity, registered in St. Petersburg. From the moment in August 2012 and registration before September 2013 by its owner and CEO was Andrew Rogozov, Directorsp to develop "VKontakte". Then the owner of the company was changed to "The Telegraph", registered in Belize, and CEO was a former employee of "VKontakte" Andrey Lopatin. At the time, Pavel Durov called Lopatin, together with his brother Nicholas "major technical minds" VKontakte ". As told Forbes, two sources familiar with the situation, over Telegram run for at least another four former employees of the social network "VKontakte". Durov always claimed that its new messenger of working people who are not members of a social network.

In Durov, while he controls the "Itsvu", there is always an opportunity to "pull the switch."

Contract data center with "VKontakte" is made in such a way that it can terminate unilaterally by notifying the other party in just a month. Over this period, it is practically impossible to carry the server so that it does not impact on the social networking functionality. A video and photo loss 240 million audience "VKontakte" can not survive. UCP has repeatedly hinted at the possibility of prosecution Dbreaker failure protection for any withdrawal from the "VKontakte", including for the development of the project Telegram. The second shareholder of the network, Mail.Ru Group, for Durov can not stand up - from holding their own interests. He slowly but surely moving towards its long-sought goal, the full absorption of "VKontakte", with or without Durov it - now it is not so important. In this Cold War "red button" Left alone Pavel Durov can still come in handy.