Over the past five years, several historic prison complexes have passed into private hands. Entrepreneurs buy former prisons and turn them into museums, open hotels, restaurants, beauty salons and ballet studios in them.
Sometimes real wars of a regional scale break out around their restoration, as in Borovsk in the Kaluga Region. How businessmen and the state are developing former prisons – in the Forbes gallery
The most high-profile prison deal of 2025 was the sale of the former pre-trial detention center “Kresty” in St. Petersburg for 1.136 billion rubles. In February, the new owner of the complex was the development group of companies KVS of Sergey Yaroshenko and Vladimir Trekin. The businessmen promise to organize a museum here that will preserve the history of the place, a hotel complex, restaurants, galleries and public spaces.