Dzmitry Baskau expands business under the Lepshy brand

Buro discovered that Nikolai Lukashenko’s hockey coach, Dzmitry Baskau, owns two more companies under the Lepshy brand.

Dzmitry Baskau. Source: hockey.by

In September 2023, Dzmitry Baskau registered a new legal entity called Luchshy Khleb, which produces bakery and confectionery products. To date, the company’s portfolio includes a pre-cooking shop and the Lepshy Khleb café in the First National Shopping Mall on Nezalezhnastsi Avenue, as well as two bakeries in shopping centres in the capital: Skala on 5 Piatra Hlebki Street and Chervenski on 6 Mayakouskaha Street.

Dzmitry Baskau owns 60% of Luchshy Khleb. The remaining 40% is divided equally between two Belarusians: Artsiom Vasilyeu and Pavel Turban. According to CyberPartisans, the latter was employed by the Belarusian Ice Hockey Association and also worked as a cook at the hockey club Dinamo Minsk.

The second firm, Luchshy Ekipirovochny Tsentr, was established in late May 2025. It specialises in the retail sale of sports equipment and supplies.

The grand opening of the Lepshy Hockey flagship store, the largest hockey equipment and outfit sales centre in Belarus, took place on October 16. The outlet is located in the Olympic Arena, which is managed by the National Olympic Committee.

Luchshy Ekipirovochny Tsentr has three owners. Artsiom Zavadski owns 34%. According to CyberPartisans, Zavadski has extensive experience in the sporting goods trade. He is also the founder and director of Khokkeyny Kontinent, which runs its own online store selling hockey uniforms and equipment.

Norbert Masalski is the second owner of the Lepshy Hockey store, with a 15% share. Masalski is listed on the books as the CEO of Sport-Luks, another company that sells hockey equipment. In late July 2025, Sport-Luks announced in their Vkontakte community that their store had been reorganised and would move to the Olympic Arena under the name Lepshy Hockey. Norbert Masalski runs a hockey equipment sales business alongside his role at the Belarusian Ice Hockey Association.

Baskau himself owns the remaining 51% stake in Luchshy Ekipirovochny Tsentr. Incidentally, he attended the store’s opening in person and did his best to pretend that he had nothing to do with it. Baskau was presented in the state media as the “Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of Belarus on Education, Science, Culture and Social Development”.

Baskau’s joy at the opening of the Lepshy Hockey store was reflected in the financial results. In less than three months of trading, the Luchshy Ekipirovochny Tsentr firm earned nearly 1.2 million Belarusian rubles (almost 350,000 euros). By the close of 2025, the net profit had reached 74,000 Belarusian rubles, which is equivalent to almost 21,500 euros.

Such financial success for Baskau & Co. was ensured by the Belarusian state, which shifted taxpayers’ money from the public purse into the pocket of the Lukashenko family’s coach. Buro examined Luchshy Ekipirovochny Tsentr’s tender purchases and discovered that, in the first three months of 2025, Baskau’s company secured contracts to supply hockey equipment to various state sports organisations worth almost 450,000 Belarusian rubles (130,000 euros). By the beginning of April 2026, this amount had increased to 675,000 Belarusian rubles, equivalent to almost 200,000 euros (based on the exchange rates of 2025 and 2026). The majority of purchases were made using the single-source procurement procedure. This is considered a simpler, less competitive way to select a winner.

We recently provided an update on the various business ventures in which Dzmitry Baskau is involved, including retail, brewing, and construction.