The joke with Oleg Schwartzman, who reported himself to be acting on behalf of the Kremlin’s families, is getting too long. The 35-year-old businessman appears to be wanting to take back his interview in the Kommersant, but it’s not likely to be possible. The matter is not that of Schwartzman. The matter is that the average people and even members of expert community had wanted for long to hear something like that about state raids, smooth re-privatization and servicing President’s Administration. Well, the largest business newspaper, whose authority can lend significance to words by any man from the street, have given people this pleasure.
In further course Schwartzman is of no importance. I don’t think there were illusions about his significance. Five years ago his place of residence was registered in the hall of residence of Moscow State University at the address: Kravchenko Str., 7. Of course, he has gone a long way since then and the firms, with whom he is connected, bear names similar to more famous companies. For example, there is public corporation Russkaya Neftyanaya Gruppa (fittingly, Russian Petroleum Group) which is part of holding Transpromservice, while Schwartzman has a close corporation Russkaya Neftyanaya Gruppa. Also there is a close corporation Russkaya Almaznaya Gruppa (Russian Diamond Group) and Schwartzman has Ltd Company with similar name.
As for Finansgroup, its founders were Schwartzman with his wife and a businessman from Lipetsk City. No Kremlin structure has ever been behind those people just for the reason that bio-additives are not in the business profile by Deputy Chief of President’s Administration Igor Sechin. Besides, the schemes securing presence of high ranking officials in the market are usually built in more intricate ways.
But the point is that people don’t want to go into details of complex constructs. They want to hear something simple and understandable. They would like to see someone nicely dressed come to the illuminated stage and say loudly: “I service offshore accounts of the President, his wife, his aunt and cousin sister”.
Such things only may happen in a movie. Such a movie was presented to us by Kommersant who made that public discussion of the issue arise.
Why appearance of Schwartzman before people looks so verisimilar? Well, if he didn’t exist he should have been made up. Those whose money he allegedly makes arrangements of, have created themselves the conditions for his materialization in our space. Why Schwartzman is impossible when possible are the firms like Prana (a little known firm that won the competition for Yukos office) and Baikalfinansgroup (that bought the main Yukos assets being registered at the address where a pub is situated in Tver City!), the firms like EuralTransGaz (gas intermediary between Russia and Ukraine that was founded in a backwoods Hungarian village) and then Rosukrenergo (about 50% stock holders of which both Presidents didn’t know or pretended not to know for long)?
Though, Schwartzman was discarded at the end, but having read the interview, people felt for a moment it can be true. The matter is that the atmosphere is conductive to such assumptions.
