Who squeezes business. How business is squeezed out in Russia

Entrepreneur Dmitry Potapenko's speech criticizing Russian officials at the Moscow Economic Forum caused delight in Russian social networks. The managing partner of the Management Development Group, which includes the grocery chains Prodeko, Gastronomchik, Orange, Merchants, Housekeeper, the network of cafes and canteens Real Meat, Real Fish, Pizza Uno, Canteen No. 1, is far from the first time making outrageous statements, but this time he hit a sore spot. In an interview with The Secret, Potapenko reflects on why the situation is approaching a boiling point and compares current officials with bandits from the 1990s.

At the end of your speech at the International Economic Forum, you said that “tax, customs and economic security agencies are much worse than bandits from the 1990s.” Can you somehow prove it with numbers in your hands?

The amount of bribes and protection from bandits and security officials is approximately the same - 30-40% of the proceeds. The only difference is that the lads milked illegally, so it was possible to fight them off.

- How?

We were strong guys and knew how to talk well with people, including divorcers. Well, despite the fact that I am an intelligent boy, I also had a green jacket. Washing, rolling, talking, using alternative roofs, including law enforcement, we managed to work in the 90s with minimal costs.

- That is, law enforcement agencies then played on the side of business?

No, they didn't play on either side. Only personal connections worked. I have several dans in different types of karate, we have trained, among other things, OMON, RUBOP and state security units. When the next scumbags came to us, we called the boys. They came to the meeting, took out ksivas and asked the question: “What do you need?” Since the bandits are adequate people, they lagged behind us.

- It turns out that the state did not interfere in the life of business then?

Then there was a squabble of political factions. The officials had one task - to divide the portfolios. And if you're doing nail polish, you don't have time to dig up potatoes.

- Who is easier to resist - bandits or officials?

Can't choose. There were a lot of scumbags among the bandits who just started shooting and blowing up. The economic problem turned into a personal one, and the debt was not returned. When the scumbags shot each other and lay down on the Alley of Heroes, middle management in banditry took up business instead. These people were quite adequate. They did not use physical violence. Although God forbid to romanticize them, because they still remained bandits.

A holy place is never empty. The state bandits quickly came to the place of the scumbags. Or the bandits themselves became the state. For example, in the 90s I "interacted" with a very famous politician who is now in the highest echelons of power. He then told me: "You are commercials, you are sweet, you need to be milked." Now he is in great favor with both the authorities and the people. Judging by the way he works with the enterprises he sponsors, he has not changed much since then.

- Are officials different from bandits?

The scheme and attitude to business as a cash cow have not changed. You just don't need a green jacket anymore. The suits and watches worn by our officials are significantly more expensive than those attributes of a beautiful life that the bandits used.

- Why did the business overlook the moment when the officials replaced the bandits?

What does overlooked mean? The job of a business is to serve the customer. He served, hoping that some mythological character would come to power and equip the Russian state. Like, I’ll throw you a “bulletin” once every four years, but you do me a favor. True, what is good, the citizen does not want to formulate. When he hires migrant workers to do his own kitchen, for some reason he draws plans, picks up curtains, kicks out workers for imperfections. But when it comes to the state, he is waiting for the appearance of a certain Vasya, Petya, Putin or Navalny, who will “do it beautifully.”

Unfortunately, people with state thinking, moral, ethical, financial, historical responsibility, who would have realized the power not as a source of income, did not appear. And it will not appear until people do the same with the authorities as they do with guest workers in the kitchen. The approach should be many times clearer and tougher. What do you want to get from the state machine? Specifically, seven verbs with nouns, without the words "good", "beautiful" and "bad".

The business, as you said, serves the customers, and the customers form consumer protection societies. Why don't entrepreneurs unite for their own protection?

Entrepreneurs are loners. Directly or indirectly, we are competitors with each other, and, unlike ordinary citizens, we have something to lose. For ten years I have been wandering around the regions and telling small entrepreneurs: let's standardize purchase tariffs, let's do this, let's do that. Promotion - only within the framework of statistical error. We are incapable of negotiating and do not know how to formulate what we ourselves want. When I walk into an audience and ask 150 people who has a sales plan in terms of sales for the same day next year, three or four hands go up. I try to kick myself and other entrepreneurs, but I understand perfectly well that I am busy with a hopeless missionary work. I do this more for myself than for real change.

- Why is there no habit to look far?

This is a typical Russian-Soviet trait - the lack of vision and goal setting. A few can formulate a goal and take responsibility for their decisions, and not blame Obama, Obama's mother and Merkel.

There are businessmen who are much cooler and more authoritative than me to fight off anyone. They also keep quiet, but not because of fear, but because of the question “So what?” Here Navalny made this investigation about Chaika. And from above they said to him: “So what?” Believe me, behind the Kremlin wall they know much more about each other. You won't surprise them with all this garbage. Even if the film "The Seagull" is shown on Channel One, nothing will fundamentally change. Well, people gasp. What's next? What, people will go to the street? Yes, he is generally purple - if only they gave a ration.

- In principle, can business oppose something to the state?

We don't have a state. There are people who have come to power to do business. And there are top 500 RBC companies, among which are non-state businesses - only within the framework of a mathematical error. In the 1990s, Russia's budget depended on oil and gas revenues by 6–8%, and now it is 55%. Add the rest of the raw materials there - and it turns out that, apart from raw materials, we don’t download anything.

The number of entrepreneurs who work in a competitive field is constantly decreasing. Shopkeepers can't do anything, as the example of truckers shows. A business that is not affiliated with the state has only one chance to survive. It is described in the play "Glass of Water" by Eugene Scribe. There, two ladies are fighting for one beautiful young man - the queen and her favorite, a saleswoman from a jewelry store. The old courtier says: “A small state cannot fight against a big one. It can only win when two big states are at war with each other.” A young schemer pits the queen against her first lady. While they are chopping, she gets her lover. So it is with small and medium businesses. Power is not a monolith, but a ball of kissing snakes. The only chance to slip through is when the strong start to cut each other. Exactly like with bandits in the 1990s.

- Over the past ten years, the attitude of officials to business has not changed?

The only difference is that now business is being squeezed out with the help of the law. At the IEF, I told Vladimir Gutenev that tax authorities check companies under three years old. And the deputy, the face of power, answers me: “Why do you register new companies every three years?” I would like to ask the question: “So we still live according to the law or according to concepts?” Gutenev actually justifies the violation of the law by the authorities. You either put on shorts, or take off the cross.

- How do you keep in business for more than 20 years, if everything is so bad?

Probably, if I had kept silent, I would have been a bigger businessman. And so I have a diversified holding with different companies. We dive to the fullest. This is the only way to survive.

You really speak often and everywhere, including at the pro-government forum on Lake Seliger. Was that a way to get an indulgence and stay in business?

What indulgence, what are you talking about? Yes, it was organized with the money of taxpayers, but the entrepreneurs who were present there were also extremely critical of what was happening there. They came for connections, and I - to chat with them. If I do not have to make deals with my conscience and praise the authorities, I use every opportunity so that entrepreneurs do not feel in the dark and alone.

- What is the role of an entrepreneur in post-Soviet times?

Huckster, speculator, lackey, bastard. In fact, I always tell my colleagues that I will stab and kick them, that you are doing little and poorly, but you are still the most beloved and respected fellow citizens for me. Because entrepreneurs are the salt of the Russian land. They create a country. The rocking of the bowels, which belong not to us, but to the conquests starting from Prince Vladimir, is not our merit.

- The government doesn't think so.

Do not use the word "state". There are certain characters. A character came, he has a pipe and money from it. And an entrepreneur, if he develops and builds up the same muscles as he does on the rocking of the bowels, will become his competitor. What the hell does he need? An entrepreneur is a competitor of an official for the thoughts of the masses.

Why do you urge not to use the word "state"? The same anti-sanctions, "Platon", prohibitive rates on loans were introduced by all institutions of power at the same time.

This was done by real people! Anti-sanctions just wanted to cut the market. For example, the ban on the import of Norwegian fish is clearly beneficial to Maxim Vorobyov's Russian Sea company. Of course, we did not hold a candle, but we can guess. "Papa" signed the list of forbidden products that was slipped to him, because he no longer cares about the Russian economy. He, as a person with egocentrism and who has already given cancer to everyone in his country, wants to be respected in the foreign market. This requires an army and navy, not entrepreneurs.

- Has society's perception of an entrepreneur changed since the 1990s, when everyone was called exclusively speculators?

Now it's better, but not much. Yes, it doesn't matter. Give me the first TV button and in a couple of months we will be lynched, shops and restaurants will be set on fire. The people were completely controlled. The USSR would not have collapsed if the communists were smarter and would give out televisions when they joined the party.

Cover photo: Dmitry Potapenko / Vkontakte

We all know that the fate of business in Russia is as complicated as one can even imagine. Moreover, business is squeezed out not only from small traders, but also from large companies.

Few of us know why a large number of Russian air carriers went bankrupt very quickly.

It was a provocation designed to make people believe in the effectiveness of sensational revelations, allegedly after his investigation, Putin decided to fire Yakunin, which means Navalny was right. However, the deception was exposed.

You can also recall an article in Moskovsky Komsomolets dedicated to Sergei Zheleznyak. In it, he and his family members were credited with a yacht and wealth. This information was refuted, which Zheleznyak himself talks about in his interview. Family members of businessmen often appear in information attacks, it is their social networks that are viewed in detail, all movements and connections are checked, provocative photos from weddings are merged, and so on.

With a lot of money and connections, pragmatic American managers clear the way for their companies to the Russian market.

IN THE CRADLE OF THE REVOLUTION OF Dignity

Dnipro anti-corruption official and former successful businessman Konstantin Biltzan openly stated on social networks: “There was no such level of corruption and lawlessness that is now happening in the Dnieper at the suggestion of Mayor Boris Filatov, neither under Kuchma, nor under Yanukovych! So-called unprecedented level of freedom of mayhem!»

Business issues are resolved not according to the law - and not according to the concept. By chaos. And the dignity of the decisive ones is determined by the dignity of the banknotes, which are rewarded in cash or by being converted into real benefits such as apartments, cars and other attributes of the “gentleman's set” of modern “gentlemen of fortune”.

How low have we fallen, once believing in such a power! Or was it not from faith? Just - by agreement? Or is there some other category of motivations that determine such a choice as possible?

Anyway, today we ON THE EVE OF A SERIES OF LOUD SCANDALS

Ukrainian law enforcementalready prosecuted for corruption and abuse of powera whole galaxy of top officials of local governments

Among them : ex-deputy of the Dnipro City Council Yuri Alyoshkin - improves his health in the Dnepropetrovsk pre-trial detention center; Mayor of Irpin Vlodimir Karpyuk; ex-head of the Department of Trade of the Dnipro City Council Alexander Kakhovskiy - under investigation; ex-mayor of the satellite city of Kiev Vishnevoe Mykola Lyashenko, head of the legal support department of the Dnipro city council Artem Pavlov, ex-director of the department of humanitarian policy of the Dnipro city council Gennady Glyadchishin and other officials of lower ranks were brought to administrative responsibility for committing offenses related to corruption.

But there are also those officials whom the National Police, SBU, NABU and SAP have not yet reached. But this is for now.

...Everything in our city is not as simple as at first glance from the outside.

On the second (stare and from the spot!) The city is already ready, perhaps, to explode due to too much patience and readiness to work, work, work for the good of the Motherland, if only to preserve, albeit fragile, non-confrontation of territories, confessions, classes, ..

Today we understand that silent patience hides the factor of indulgence in lawlessness, from which our fragile stability is ready to collapse.

It's time to think!

Dnipro is a city of special importance for Ukraine and not only. It was laid as the third capital of the Great Russian Empire. South. Was called Yekaterinoslav (1786 - 1796, 1802 - 1926). During the reign of the son of Catherine II, Paul I, it became for a short time (1796 - 1802) Novorossiysk, which left, as we saw later, a significant imprint on the fate of the area. Dnepropetrovsk (city - worker) has established itself as the capital of ferrous metallurgy + a forge of personnel already on the scale of the USSR, and in independent Ukraine - as a city, not the first, but not the second.

Today we have something like neither two nor one and a half, and since the time of Catherine II we have in succession only Potemkin villages ... Nevertheless: the 4th largest city in Ukraine (978 thousand inhabitants, and more recently it was up to 1189 thousand) remains in all respects a tasty morsel for the indigenous and not only.

Yekaterinoslav-Novorossiysk-Dnepropetrovsk-Dnepr did not become the southern capital of the state. This also left a significant imprint on the line of fate of the area, since our regional center was constantly trying to catch up. Especially desperately - in the last half century.

The status received by right did not prevent, however, many local residents from openly supporting marginals with anti-Ukrainian views and still thinking in Soviet categories.

And still does not interfere. It is convenient for them, apparently, to feel like partisans in the temporarily occupied territory.

…This is the city.

Being at the head of such a complex and significant regional center for the country has always been considered a landmark in the fate of a person. The city as a whole, and each citizen individually, depends on the fate of the person at the head of the Dnieper. From our faith in this person depends on him and ... The city, of course! Our wonderful, beloved and unique!

Business man or business man?

What is the essence - and what is the definition?

Let's put it this way: Dnipro mayor Boris Filatov is a man of action. If the case, of course, promises a good profit. He will not "fire" on small things like a banal bribe, like his former subordinate Alexander Kakhovsky. He's not a bribe-taker, but a businessman. Unless he is a businessman-businessman who uses not quite legal methods and "schemes".

So what? After all, they chose who they chose!

...Two years ago, as it seemed to most voters, forever stuck in the era of "dashing 90s" and "raspberry jackets" Dnepropetrovsk will finally get a good mayor.

Why did it seem so?

For fourteen years the city was commanded by a man who was an ideal football fan, but not a business executive, and even more so - not a politician. And no one complained, because the commander did not help anyone, but did not interfere either.

But the newly come to the mayor's office ...

During the two years of his mayoral term, Boris Filatov turned Dnepr into a real commercial company, honing in practice the methodology of hostile mergers and acquisitions (they call it raiding). He made the regional center a city "for his own".

Who is in it now - again, like partisans living in the temporarily occupied territory?!

Numerous “superfluous”, which prevent one-handedly ruling the ball in a unique area, where, under any authority, a narrow circle of people pleasing to the “vertical” is formed. It exists like the old feudal ladder or "democratic centralism". Only here in our performance, the rules of the game are spelled out vaguely. The rules are hard to follow.

That is why people who are quite capable of working competently, efficiently and law-abidingly in modern economic conditions become almost enemies of the people. Consider everything said through the prism of a specific situation.

First Press Business

After Maidan 2014, the new mayor of Dnipro, Boris Filatov, consolidated his power in the city as a supporter of the REVOLUTION OF Dignity. First of all, he took up the Kasner family ...

Fast forward to November 14, 2017. Mayor of Dnipro Boris Filatov issued an official appeal to the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, Artem Sytnik, demanding an objective investigation into the illegal developments carried out in Dnipro by the infamous Kasner brothers. Boris Filatov noted that it is worth checking not only the actions of the Dnipro Mayor's Office, but also carefully studying the activities of the Bureau's employees themselves. The most daring example of the arbitrariness of the Kasner brothers, according to the mayor, is the building at: st. Vladimir the Great, 13b (former Plekhanov), better known as "Cuttlefish on Plekhanov".

Law enforcement officers have been studying this case for more than a year. In the summer, the scandalous construction site was visited by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko.

The Mayor's Office of the Dnieper, by the decision of the session, recognized the unfinished building in the city center as the property of the territorial community and transferred the building to the balance of one of the public utilities. The high-rise building was planned to be reconstructed for low-income citizens or demolished. Now NABU employees, on charges of one of the relatives of the Kasner brothers, are incriminating employees of the Dnipro mayor's office with alleged raider seizure of property.

“NABU employees came to the mayor’s office and are now interrogating city council employees, accusing them of raider seizure of other people’s property. Kasner’s father-in-law, a 70-year-old pensioner named Prokofiev, the “owner” of a 14-story unfinished building in the center of the Dnieper, wrote a statement to the NABU, and it was taken into production,” Boris Filatov said in his appeal.

Boris Filatov called the actions of NABU a crazy phantasmagoria and called on the agency to check all participants in the scandalous case without exception. “Please check the legality of not only my actions and city hall employees, but at the same time the Kasner brothers, corrupt judges, notaries certifying non-existent documents, and at the same time strange, to put it mildly, actions of your subordinates who actually came to the defense of illegal developers destroying our city. Even if your employees in the interests of the Kasner brothers show me suspicion, I will still fight for the Dnieper against the scoundrels who distort my city,” the mayor of the Dnieper wrote.

As you know, during the turbulent events of 2013-2014, the Kasners seized a number of land plots, property and communications that were in municipal ownership. Only during the year, several new buildings were erected in the Dnieper without permits. The so-called construction work was accompanied by arson of property of citizens and intimidation of “titushki”, as well as bribery of law enforcement officers and court decisions.

Boris Albertovich, how do you like the availability of permits presented by Alexander Dobrovolsky's lawyers for everyone to see? What, eyesight fails again? Or did you look at the wrong place again?

Now the Kasners need to be dealt with, because... Well, the old man at the head of some property - is this serious ?!

Very cool... But where does it say that a pensioner, an age-old citizen of Ukraine, cannot be an owner at all?

The main electorate of Filatov, as we see, is the age and the most desirable during the elections, since they cannot help but vote. This is how our senior citizens are brought up. For all that, they are waste material, these very seniors. Something like incompetent persons. But according to the law, only those who, due to any serious reasons (in particular, ailments), cannot be capable are recognized as incapacitated.

Perhaps, everyone who is objectionable to Boris Albertovich today should be recognized as incompetent?

... From the REVOLUTION OF Dignity to 2017, as we can see, the distance is short, but in terms of eventfulness, count the year as 10, if not more. The changes in the power of the city are too rapid. Although - all familiar faces ... It seems to be ...

But it all happened before our eyes!

Mayor Boris Filatov is usually criticized for excessive spending of the city budget on holding celebrations, buying gifts for his potential voters, tendering, coupled with populism and political PR.

Criticism of the mayor... For example: two expensive jeeps and a Mercedes, taxed at the expense of the city, show us the power of power. They explain to us who is the real boss in the city, who decides business issues of any level. And 500 thousand km of air travel in the company of the Deputy Mayor of Dnipro Mikhail Lysenko, resulting in an amount of about 5.4 million hryvnias. from the city budget - this is in the order of things for a business person and his associates involved in big business.

Therefore, criticism for a wasteful attitude to budget money is unfair. Officials of the Dnieper City Council help the mayor to solve business issues, so he buys expensive jeeps for "officials in need" and allocates millions of hryvnias for the purchase of housing (by the way, without a tender).

For two years of work, Boris Filatov's team worked out a methodology for hostile mergers and acquisitions, and also distributed roles. Boris Filatov himself provides a political "protection", his deputies Mikhail Lysenko or Alexander Sidorenko carry out operational management of the performers in the next project to "squeeze out" someone else's business. Most often, the beneficiary of a raider takeover is the business empire of the mayor himself, but sometimes Filatov & Co fulfill orders from all-Ukrainian clients.

Let's go back to the same example above.

After the Maidan, as the new mayor of Dnipro, Boris Filatov, consolidated his power in the city, the first thing he did was take on the Kasner family - and already in August 2016, the first deputy prosecutor of the Dnipropetrovsk region Roman Soskov, the same one who was removed from his post in March of this year on suspicion of drunk driving, issued a resolution that canceled the decision to close the criminal proceedings against Alexander Kasner.

The criminal proceedings themselves were not transferred anywhere, but to the Main Investigation Department of the National Police in Kyiv. Then the Prosecutor General's Office took over the procedural leadership in the Kasner case, which immediately gave the Dnipro prosecutors a number of instructions, in particular, to collect evidence of "illegal actions" of Alexander Kasner. The essence of claims to it, in comparison with last years, has not changed.

In February 2017, some acquaintances and employees of the Kasner family were called as witnesses and questioned by law enforcement officials. Finally, on June 9, the troops of the Main Investigation Department of the National Police landed in Dnipro, which conducted searches at Alexander Kasner himself and his relatives. The searches were led by GSU investigator Oleg Hromadsky. On May 15, the corresponding sanction was given by the judge of the Pechersk District Court of Kiev, Vyacheslav Pidpaly, known for very often satisfying the requirements of law enforcement agencies, even if they are somehow justified.

In addition, on June 23, 2017, the senior investigator of the Main Directorate of the National Police of Dnepropetrovsk region Andriy Goncharuk registers a new criminal proceeding under No. 12017040000000770 under Part 4 of Art. 190 of the Criminal Code (“fraud on an especially large scale”). The essence of the claims against the Kasners does not change again, they are, as before, blamed for the manipulation of documents in order to obtain the right to build.

By the way: the investigator Andrei Goncharuk is a very curious person. In 2014-2015, he already investigated two criminal proceedings against the Kasners' business, but on December 11, 2015, he closed them due to the lack of corpus delicti.

Now, at the direction of the prosecutor's office, he has become active again.

Andrei Goncharuk belongs to the category of men whose wife earns much more than her husband. In 2016, he earned UAH 99,162, and his wife is an entrepreneur as much as UAH 238,000 thousand. The family owns a residential building, two apartments, several other properties, two land plots, a motor boat, a Ssang Yong jeep and two trucks, as well as UAH 274,000 and $21,000 in cash.

The presence of such assets makes him one of the richest investigators in Ukraine.

So the mayor's people, through political pressure on the court and the opening of new criminal proceedings, decided to squeeze out the business assets of the Kasner brothers in order to attach the mayor himself to the business empire. Mayor Boris Filatov personally advertised the extraction of these business assets on the air of the media controlled by him, arguing that:

only thanks to the “transfer of these assets to the balance of the utility company” was it possible to avoid the onset of a possible accident associated with the collapse of the “unfinished building on the street. Plekhanov 15 k.

True, the mayor of Dnipro did not mention that the investors, represented by the Kasner brothers, undertook to transfer 1000 m2 in this unfinished sports school.

In addition, it was promised to transfer about a dozen apartments to veterans of the ATO, and not pseudo-ATOS from among the near-Filatov municipal varta.

…Now the business asset is unfinished in the city center by lawlessness recognized as an ownerless object and illegally transferred to the balance of one of the KP controlled by Filatov.

By the time Filatov proves himself as the owner, this asset will pass through the chain of resales from one buyer to another.

The beneficiary of the operation to capture the unfinished building on the street. Plekhanov 15 k, according to Konstantin Biltzan, mayor Boris Filatov.

"... I am a king, I know better than the serfs ..."

Two years ago, voters thought that our city would finally get a good mayor with European and democratic views in the person of Boris Filatov.

As a result, we got a satrap trying to sit on the maximum possible number of chairs, luring someone else's electorate under his wing (moreover, sometimes by extremely clumsy methods).

During this time, Boris Filatov, unexpectedly for the devoted part of the electorate, decided to chop the branch on which he sits with a saber. Consciously or unconsciously - the question is already another. Yes, and served it with the sauce "I'm a king, I know better than the lackeys." It is strange that a person who came to power thanks to the ideals of the REVOLUTION OF Dignity suddenly betrayed these very ideals.

And he betrayed - it is clear for what: personal enrichment and enrichment of those who are pleasing, close to him.

During the two years of his mayoral term, Boris Filatov managed to quarrel with those who brought him on their own hands, figuratively speaking, right into the chair of the mayor. At the same time, he managed to surround himself with his former ardent opponents - ex-regionals.

The session of the Dnipro City Council, which took place on the date of the second anniversary of the mayor of Dnipro, Boris Filatov, would have passed quietly, in a calm atmosphere and in a family way, if it were not for the arrival of the capital’s “pill” in the person of NABU detectives.

Accident? Coincidence? A sign of fate, or maybe a bell?!

Most likely, this is the hour of a well-deserved payback: for lawlessness, for raiding, for public insults of activists by half-wits, for the destruction of small and medium-sized businesses, for total corruption and unlimited power, which finally blew the roof off and cut off the connection with reality to our mayor.

I hope that this direct hint to some real politicians of our city, who overestimated their capabilities and connections in the capital city of Kyiv, will be understandable without translation, - notes Konstantin Biltzan.

A small digression from the interview of the ex-businessman, and now the Dnieper politician - an anti-corruption officialKonstantin Biltzan criticizing officials of the Dnipro City Council caused delight in Ukrainian social networks.

- Konstantin, who, in your opinion, was easier to resist - bandits or officials?

Can't choose. There were a lot of scumbags among the bandits who just started shooting and blowing up. The economic problem turned into a personal one, and the debt was not returned. When the scumbags shot each other and lay down at the Zaporozhye and Sursko-Litovsk cemeteries, middle-level banditry took up business instead. These people were quite adequate. They did not use physical violence. Although God forbid to romanticize them, because they still remained bandits.

A holy place is never empty. The state bandits quickly came to the place of the scumbags. Or the bandits themselves became the state. For example, in the 90s I "interacted" with a very famous politician who is now in the highest echelons of power. He then told me: "You are commercials, you are sweet, you need to be milked." Now he is in great favor with both the authorities and the people. Judging by the way he works with the enterprises he sponsors, he has not changed much since then. Our mayor Boris Filatov somehow reminds me of him.

- Are officials different from bandits?

The scheme and attitude to business as a cash cow have not changed. You just don't need a raspberry jacket anymore. The suits and watches worn by our officials are significantly more expensive than those attributes of a beautiful life that the bandits used.

- Why did the business overlook the moment when the officials replaced the bandits?

What does overlooked mean? The task of a business is to build quality, produce products or, for example, serve a client, etc. He did this, hoping that some mythological character, a real statesman, a patriot of his country, would come to power and equip the Ukrainian state. Like, once every five years I’ll throw a “ballot” into the ballot box, but you do me a favor. True, what is good, the citizen does not want to formulate. When, for example, he hires builders to make repairs to his house or apartment, for some reason he draws plans, picks up curtains, and kicks out workers for imperfections. But when it comes to the state, he is waiting for the appearance of a certain Vitya, Petya, Saakashvili or Filatov, who will "do it beautifully."

Unfortunately, people with state thinking, moral, ethical, financial, historical responsibility, who would have realized the power not as a source of income, did not appear. And it will not appear until people demand from the authorities the same way as from the builders who produce for them repair in a house or apartment. The approach should be many times clearer and tougher. What do you want to get from the state machine? Specifically, seven verbs with nouns, without the words "good", "beautiful" and "bad".

The business, as you said, serves the customers, and the customers form consumer protection societies. Why don't entrepreneurs and businessmen unite for their own protection?

Entrepreneurs and businessmen are usually loners. Directly or indirectly, businessmen are competitors to each other, and, unlike ordinary citizens, businessmen have something to lose.

- Why is there no habit to look far?

This is a typical Ukrainian-Soviet trait - the lack of vision and goal setting. A few of the current politicians can formulate a goal and take responsibility for their decisions, and not blame everything on Putin, the war in the Donbass, etc.

And what do we get as a result? Trust me, the AP knows a lot more than you and I think. You won't surprise them with all this garbage. Even if, for example, the film Filatov & Co is shown on 1 + 1, nothing fundamentally changes. Well, people gasp. What's next? What do you think, people in the Dnieper will go out into the street? Yes, he is generally purple - if only they would give a ration of "lentil stew".

- In principle, can business oppose something to the state?

We don't have a state. There are only people who have come from business to power to do big business. The number of entrepreneurs who work in a competitive field is constantly decreasing. Small and medium-sized businesses in the Dnieper can do nothing, which is a good example with kioskers. A business that is not affiliated with the state has only one chance to survive. So it is with small and medium businesses. Power is not a monolith, but a ball of kissing snakes. The only chance to slip through is when the strong start to cut each other. Exactly like with bandits in the 1990s.

- Over the past ten years, the attitude of officials in the Dnipro towards business has not changed in any way?

The only difference is that now business is being squeezed out with the help of the law.

- How did you successfully stay in business for more than 15 years, if everything is so bad?

Probably, if I had kept silent and yielded, I would have been an even bigger businessman. And so I had a diversified business with different companies. We dug to the fullest, and also maximally “lined with documents”. Most importantly, we worked absolutely transparently and legally. It was then the only way to survive.

- As a way to get an indulgence and stay in business?

What indulgence, what are you talking about? Some were looking for connections, but I did not want to make deals with my conscience, serve corrupt officials and security forces and praise the authorities, I used all existing legal opportunities to protect my legitimate business: lawyers, lawyers, journalists, a private security agency, etc.

- What is the role of an entrepreneur and businessman in post-Soviet times?

Huckster, speculator, lackey, bastard and finally commerce. In fact, I have always said and will continue to say to my former colleagues that I will stab and kick them, that you are doing little and poorly, but you are still the most beloved and respected fellow citizens for me. Because entrepreneurs and businessmen are the salt of the Ukrainian land. They create and raise our native country.

- The government doesn't think so.?

Do not use the word "state". There are specific corrupt characters. A character came, he, for example, has a mayor's chair and money from the city budget. And an entrepreneur or businessman, if he develops and builds up the same muscles as he does in large-scale construction, will become his competitor. What the hell does he need? An entrepreneur or a businessman is a competitor of an official for the thoughts of the masses.

Has the public perception of an entrepreneur or businessman changed since the 1990s, when everyone was called exclusively speculators?

Now it's better, but not much. Yes, it doesn't matter. Give the authorities the first button on the TV - and in six months you will see how small and medium-sized businesses will be lynched, shops and restaurants will be set on fire. The oligarchs will not be touched by the authorities. The people were completely controlled. As they say: "People hawala." The USSR would not have collapsed if the communists were smarter and would give out televisions when they joined the party.

We all understood everything: with one hand, the mayor of Dnipro, Boris Filatov, through "tame" top officials, controlled by the media, corrupt security officials and judges, drove the Kasner brothers into debt, stupidly spending budget funds. With the other hand, the mayor invites large investors to fruitful cooperation.

I wonder: who else from the representatives of medium business will lead after this?

Mayor Filatov motivates his voters by the fact that he is a real business executive and supposedly puts things in order in the city.

Such a real-politician!

If the owner or businessmen persist, Filatov & Co has such a method as initiating criminal proceedings in reserve. So, in relation to the Kasner brothers and their close circle, employees of the Main Investigative Directorate of the National Police of Ukraine initiated custom-made criminal proceedings.

Business cut down - people fly

Mayor Filatov's people use the worked out scheme to "squeeze" business from the Dnieper businessmen, the Kasner brothers, who are well-known developers in the city. Proven methods from the accumulated arsenal of tools were used:

- administrative resource. First, due to the alleged lack of permits to start construction at one of the construction sites, the Department of Architecture and Construction Control of the Dnipro City Council, which is personally subordinate to the mayor, stopped all work at all construction sites. Then Mayor Filatov, with the help of his people in the judicial and law enforcement system, arrested construction sites and at the same time blocked the registration of new contracts and the attraction of funds from new equity holders.

- legal red tape to drive into debt. By order of the mayor, 5 controlled organizations and institutions immediately filed against the business assets of the brothers of businessmen in various courts, including in the Dnepropetrovsk region, with various claims.

- criminal proceedings. And in pursuit, at the suggestion of Filatov, several criminal proceedings were initiated against the brothers of businessmen and their close circle at once.

There is a standard scheme of raider capture through bringing to bankruptcy and pressure with the help of criminal proceedings. The Kasner brothers themselves in private conversations note that the attack on their business assets started after they refused to transfer their assets to the control of people close to the mayor.

But the seizure of the unfinished building on the street. Plekhanov 15 k for the mayor's people - only the first prize in the course of this raider takeover. And the main goal is to make other developers more accommodating using the example of the story with the Kasner brothers.

That is: in this case, the mayor's people act by analogy with his projects before the mayor's term, when the "hostile takeover" was unfinished on the street. Plekhanov 15k - only the first step towards the "squeeze" of all assets.

True, this time the scheme to “squeeze out” business threatens with a social explosion.

Filatov and his people created problems not only for the Kasner brothers, but also for about 50 ordinary Dnipro residents who invested up to 20 million hryvnias in the construction of the Kristall residential complex. And the Dnieper is already among the “record holders” in terms of the number of long-term construction and deceived equity holders throughout Ukraine.

It is clear that the mayor of Dnipro does not give a damn about investors, unless the deceived equity holders do not reach the Presidential Administration with their problems. But in this case, by and large, there is nothing to be afraid of. The mayor of Dnipro and his business partners should be afraid of only one option: when Petro Poroshenko gives Sytnik and Lutsenko the command to sort things out. And NABU and SAPO, pulling the same thread, will pull out the entire heap of business projects of the mayor of Dnipro, including the purchase of jeeps, the construction of the New Bridge, and a series of cases of "squeezing" someone else's business.

Time shows that Filatov chose the right strategy, placing his people in key positions - not only in the departments of the Dnieper City Council, but also in the prosecutor's office and the police.

Recently, public figure Konstantin Biltsan wrote an appeal to President Petro Poroshenko, NABU Director Artyom Sytnik and Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko, in which he revealed some of the schemes used by Filatov's people for raider seizures and when making money on tenders.

And Biltsan, a Dnipro resident, wonders why the affected owners “have repeatedly applied to regulatory authorities, law enforcement agencies and relevant departments, the government of Ukraine, ministries ...”, but “all complaints are returned to the very people we complained about.”

So: on the one hand, the city is business and economically developed, but on the other, it is quiet and calm. Mechanical engineering, metallurgy, business centers and, of course, hardworking people.

Or maybe quiet just because law enforcement officers have not yet come to grips with the Dnieper?

If the National Police, SBU, NABU, SAP become interested in what is happening in Dnipro, then a whole series of high-profile scandals will blow up the usual silence.

EXTRA BUSINESSWILL FIND A WAY TO SETTLEMENTUNDER APPLICABLE LAW -AND THE SECOND WILL NOT BE?

Private solution of a private issuewill only give rise to a series of new questions.Loud scandals will remain a series with "To be continued",if we do not make a demand for a change of power in the announcement.

THE POWER OF THE MAYDAN EXTRACTION
GENERATED WAR -
IN THE CRADLE OF THE REVOLUTION OF Dignity
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO FIND THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION ABOUT THE WORLD
AS THE MAIN GUARANTOR OF THE MAIN HUMAN RIGHT
- FOR LIFE -
- WORTHY PERSON -