MOSCOW, June 6 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko) - Former Deputy Minister of Culture Grigory Pirumov and other defendants in the so-called case of restorers have paid about 163 million rubles in damages ($2.3 million), the Moscow City Court told RAPSI on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the court extended the detention of Pirumov, who stands charged with embezzling 100 million rubles ($1.8 million) of public funds allocated for restoration of cultural heritage objects, until September 15.

Head of the Center of restoration Oleg Ivanov and director of the Ministry’s department of property management and investment policy Boris Mazo will also remain in jail for the same period.

Investigation into the case has been prolonged until October 2017.

In March 2016, Pirumov, Ivanov, and Mazo as well as head of BaltStroy Dmitry Sergeyev and the company’s manager Alexander Kochenov, businessman Nikita Kolesnikov, head of a state-owned “Directorate for construction, reconstruction and restoration” Boris Tsagarayev and project manager of companies “Stroykomplekt” and “Baltstroy” Vladimir Svanbek have been arrested and put in detention in the so-called case of restorers.

Kolesnikov was later put under house arrest while Kochenov was released on ten million rubles ($176,500) bail.

Moreover, the court ordered seizure of assets belonging to Mazo and Pirumov.

In November 2016, Komersant newspaper reported that some of the defendants, including Deputy Culture Minister Grigory Pirumov, pleaded guilty.

Investigation has presumably started basing on a report by the Auditing Chamber on restoration of the Izborsk Fortress in the Pskov region presented yet in 2013; however, it may also involve such cultural heritage sites as the State Hermitage in St. Petersburg and the Novodevichy Convent in Moscow, as well as works carried out at the Ivanovsky Convent in Moscow, and a theater in Pskov, as reported earlier.

In December, Dmitry Medvedev, the Chairman of the Russian Government, relieved Pirumov of his post.