Sale of abandoned Zsar shopping centre near Russian border delayed again

The long-stalled sale of the bankrupt Zsar shopping centre in Virolahti has been pushed back by at least six months due to unresolved VAT-related inquiries, the estate administrator confirmed to Yle on Tuesday.

The 2018-built complex, located adjacent to the Vaalimaa border crossing, was meant to change hands at the start of the year after creditors approved a purchase offer last November. Estate administrator Matti Manner cited “technical reasons” for the initial December delay but declined to specify the nature of the ongoing tax review.

“As long as the pending investigations don’t indicate otherwise, there’s reason to believe the process will still go through,” Manner wrote in an email to Yle, acknowledging the sale has already exceeded the timeline projected in late 2025.

The property, which relied heavily on Russian shoppers before its 2022 collapse, has sat vacant since the pandemic and Ukraine war severed its customer base. A prior sale attempt in autumn 2024 failed when a Finnish private buyer never formalised the agreed price.

Russian billionaire Viktor Ignatjev’s Finnish-registered firm Datatriumnord emerged as the prospective buyer in mid-December, according to Helsingin Sanomat. Yle later linked Ignatjev through business partners to oligarch Gennadi Timchenko, a close associate of President Vladimir Putin.