The head of Sberbank German Gref was rude to taxi drivers at the airport of Gorno-Altaisk

Editorial “Layout” June 10, 2024 |

In response, local residents are demonstratively getting rid of Sberbank cards

On June 8, the Siberian Express telegram channel published a video in which the head of Sberbank German Gref rudely reprimands taxi drivers at the Gorno-Altaisk airport. In response to this, local residents began to demonstratively get rid of cards belonging to Sberbank. “Layout” tells about the incident in more detail.

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German Gref did not like the way taxi drivers work at the airport owned by Sberbank

In the published video, a man resembling German Gref is outraged that taxi drivers are standing in the wrong place and criticizes their appearance. When they asked him to introduce himself, he said that he was the owner of the airport, and his last name was Gref. The businessman called taxi drivers “some kind of gang” and said that “a separate place needs to be made for them.” At one point, he pointed to the driver, who was wearing shorts, flip-flops and sunglasses. “What is this? Look at him,” said Gref. He tried to take off the man’s glasses and also said that he would “never in my life” get into his car, to which he replied: “Well, for God’s sake, I won’t put you in.”

“You won’t work here anymore, understand? You open your mouth again and you will never be here again. Understood? My friends, if you gather like this again, there will be no one here anymore,” Gref threatened the taxi drivers.

In the video, Gref claims that the Gorno-Altaisk airport belongs to him, but in fact it is owned by Sberbank. In April 2024, the bank bought a 60% stake in the airport from the investment company AFK Sistema. Before this, Sberbank owned another 40% of the shares.

As the Agency found out, the video could have been filmed on Saturday morning. On this day, an Embraer Legacy 650 with tail number RA-02875, on which the head of Sberbank is probably flying, took off from St. Petersburg and landed in Gorno-Altaisk at 8 a.m. local time. A few hours earlier, the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum with the participation of Vladimir Putin ended. Gref also participated in the forum.

Local residents cut up Sberbank cards

A few hours after the video with Gref appeared, Altai activist Aruna Arna published videos of local residents cutting up Sberbank cards. “I think it’s high time to remind German Oskarovich at whose expense he makes a splash and builds his business,” writes Arna.

“A valid Sberbank card.” This is Gref's answer to this. This is how we'll fucking deal with your cards. People, I advise everyone to do the same. And don’t hire these people for a job…” said the author of one of the videos.

“I’m destroying the Sber card. I am closing all Sberbank accounts. Goodbye, goodbye, Gref. There’s no place for you in Altai,” says the woman who filmed another video.

A number of Russian bloggers and journalists responded to the incident. So, Ksenia Sobchak supported Gref. “It’s okay, they’ll cry on social networks, in Gorno-Altaisk they’ll swear and curse the snickering Muscovites, let’s wait a month or two and we’ll be able to drive without fear of being surrounded at the exit after the flight by a flock of hungry pigeons in caps and rosaries. No “chiefs”, “commanders” and “respected”,” she wrote.

In addition to Sobchak, pro-Kremlin political scientist Sergei Markov and propagandist Kristina Potupchik spoke out in support of Gref. The latter, however, stated that the conflict between a businessman and taxi drivers “looks so-so from the outside,” and “the head of a major bank should not personally explain to taxi drivers that they should not walk around without pants.” “I was in Gorno-Altaisk. <…> Very nice and simple people live there, but they live poorly. And yes, unfortunately, they think that since no one owes them anything, then they shouldn’t either - hence these cowards, dirt, rudeness, rudeness,” Potupchik wrote.

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Among those who criticized Gref was blogger Ilya Varlamov. He said that the situation at the airport was “very ugly” and called Gref a “capital gentleman.” “Gref flew to Gorno-Altaisk, saw taxi drivers in slippers and short shorts and decided to restore order. Whatever the taxi drivers there are (I have no sympathy for them), Gref’s behavior in the image of a backstreet thug looks much worse. <…> I have to upset Gref’s fans. It won’t be possible to restore order like that,” Varlamov wrote.

Journalist Alexander Plyushchev suggested that the video “leaked” from Gref himself. So, according to Plushev, the businessman wanted to redirect attention from the story of the death of actress Anastasia Golikova at a party in Tsarskoe Selo. “Among other actors, she was on an overturned pontoon; the actors fell into the water; it was not possible to save the girl. What kind of performance (or whether) was planned there is unknown (nothing like that is listed in the archive of events in Catherine Park), but, apparently, Putin was also in Tsarskoye Selo that day,” wrote Plushchev.

Let us remind you that we previously told you that the head of Sberbank, German Gref, hid information about himself in the Yandex search engine.

PHOTO: Sberbank CEO German Gref at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum REUTERS/Anton Vaganov

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