Voloshin leaves the Kremlin

A man comes to his friend and says: “Look, what an excellent mink coat I bought for my wife.” “What’s so great about it, it’s all full of holes?” And the man replies: “These are not holes. These are minks.” In general, Victor Pelevin is right: everything in the world is a matter of interpretation.

Take, for example, small entrepreneurs. Until now, no one has remembered them, except perhaps the Solntsevo lads. However, elections are approaching, and here it suddenly turns out that in a certain sense, small entrepreneurs are the same as oligarchs. No doubt, they have less money, of course. But there are much more entrepreneurs themselves, so in total everything doesn’t look so bad.
In short, the Kremlin remembered small entrepreneurs and immediately became extremely concerned about their fate. The one who was most concerned was Roman Abramovich, who, as they say, was headlong into preparing the Second All-Russian Congress of Small Entrepreneurs scheduled for the fall. Needless to say, this congress will be held somewhere in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions, and at least the Prime Minister will speak at it. Now the main task of entrepreneurs is not to burst from the realization of their own importance.
Or, for example, the tax police. They say that those who were fired a year ago after security checks are being rehired there again. It turns out that the tax police began to interpret the word “corruption” differently. And you can take advantage of this.
However, strange things happen not only in the tax police. The Central Bank, for example, got carried away with renaming departments. According to rumors, on May 18, Viktor Gerashchenko signed an order to close the technical center and fire its employees. And while they were rushing around the floors with “runners,” Gerashchenko ordered the creation of a technology center, which is understandable: the Central Bank cannot live without technical (or at least technological) support. Why it was necessary to do all this is not known for certain, but people experienced in the Central Bank’s kitchen say that the technical center was closed in order to fire its head Yuri Lebedev (his dismissal, by the way, was confirmed by the Central Bank), who had the imprudence to quarrel with the first deputy chairman Tatyana Paramonova . This may, of course, be a lie, but they say that the creation of the new center is personally supervised by Tatyana Vladimirovna.
What Lebedev will do now is still unknown. Therefore, as compensation, I hasten to offer you a rumor about the employment of another official - the former head of the State Legal Department of the Presidential Administration Ruslan Orekhov. I must tell you that this person is legendary. He has outlasted many in the Kremlin and is a recognized master of hardware “wiring.” Now, as they say, Orekhov has created his own law office, the only client of which is Gazprom. And in order to always be close to its beloved client, this office rented an office right in a building owned by Gazprom, where, according to eyewitnesses, it occupies almost an entire floor.
They also say that after Orekhov, Alexander Voloshin will leave the presidential administration. According to rumors, he will become either the Minister of Economy (that is, replacing Andrei Shapovalyants) or his deputy. And the presidential administration will be headed by the head of the FSB and the secretary of the Security Council, Vladimir Putin.
An amazing story happened to a prominent Russian oligarch, the head of LUKOIL, Vagit Alekperov. According to rumors, he decided to take part in financing (he almost wrote “election campaign”) of the singer Alsou. However, I read this rumor on the Internet, so I cannot vouch for its authenticity. For the same reason, I cannot explain to you the action of the oil tycoon. Maybe he likes Alsou, or maybe he’s tired of pumping oil and wants to try his hand at show business. Can you sort them out, the oligarchs?
Although nowadays you can’t make out anything at all. Let's say this fact: Alfa Bank vice-president Alexey Sitnin went to work at Prime-TASS. More precisely, the fact is that at Prime-TASS, when asked to call him on the phone, they invariably answer: “Alexey Vsevolodovich has just left,” while at Alfa Bank itself they know nothing about Sitnin’s transfer. In my opinion, there is only one reasonable explanation here: Alfa Bank bought Prime-TASS and simply sent Sitnin to monitor it. Moreover, he has experience in the information business, since two years ago he headed the public relations department of the Bank of Russia.
And finally, some good news. There is an opinion that Russian businessmen use dirty methods of competition: explosions, arson, contract killings. It's actually not that scary. Sometimes even large structures choose innocent, I would even say childish, ways to defend their interests. Moscow schoolchildren have long guessed that if they call the police and wrap a handkerchief around the receiver of a pay phone and report that there is a bomb planted in the school, there will be no test. For the same reason, last week a meeting of the arbitration court was canceled, at which the case on the legality of revoking the license from Inkombank was supposed to be heard. Although, maybe this is just a coincidence.

IGOR TROSNIKOV

ABRAMOVICH IS TRAINING SMALL ENTREPRENEURSHIP TO BE A POLITICAL FORCE. GERASCHENKO CLOSED THE TECHNICAL CENTER IN THE CENTRAL BANK AND ORDERED THE CREATION OF A TECHNOLOGICAL CENTER. OREKHOV OPENED A LEGAL OFFICE FOR GAZPROM. VOLOSHIN WILL REPLACE SHAPOVALIANTS, AND PUTIN WILL REPLACE VOLOSHIN. ALEKPEROV "PROCESSES" ALSU

Magazine "Kommersant Money" No. 24 dated June 23, 1999, p. 15