The Bank of Moscow disclosed today, without comment, that in obtaining court orders in Moscow and Novosibirsk to seize Vadim Varshavsky’s salary and Moscow apartments, it has also obtained legal sanction for “the restriction of V.E.Varshavsky’s departure from the Russian Federation.”
By John Helmer in Moscow
Vadim Varshavsky, the owner of the bankrupt Estar group of midsize, specialty steel mills, has been hit with court bankruptcy orders in Moscow and Novosibirsk to sequestrate half of his salary as a member of parliament, and at least two apartment residences he maintains in Moscow.
The orders by the courts are in relation to debts claimed by the Bank of Moscow, which is owed more than Rb364 million ($13 million) in defaulted loans to the Estar trading unit and to Novosibirsk Metal Works (NMZ), one of the mills in Varshavsky’s Estar group. NMZ was transferred on a 5-year lease to Metallservis, a metal trading company owned by Oleg Tyurpenko, in July. But creditors have continued pursuing Varshavsky, who had given his personal guarantee to secure the Bank of Moscow loans.
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We interrupt this news bulletin to bring
you a broadcast from Captain Obvious
on location live above the Kremlin
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By John Helmer in Moscow
Ronald Knox’s “ten commandments” that summarize all stories in the detective genre were published in 1929. Here they are:
1. The criminal must be mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to know.
2. All supernatural or praeternatural phenomena are ruled out as a matter of course.
3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
5. No Chinaman must figure in the story. (more…)
By John Helmer in Moscow
There is no evidence currently available that Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin has anything like the hot-line to God which enabled Noah of biblical fame to master the surge of the Black Sea, and with the help of the birdie — the first spy satellite on record – to make it safely to land.
What is known about Noah’s Black Sea strategy has been the subject of controversy among believers for several thousand years. More interestingly, since 1997, academics have speculated that during the glacial meltdown between about 15,000 BC and 5,000 BC, the Black Sea level dropped below the level of the Aegean and Mediterranean, causing a surge northward through the Bosphorus. The surge, according to one geological report, was a big one – 200 times the volume over Niagara Falls, each day for 300 days.
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By John Helmer in Moscow
High River Gold (HRG:CN) is being prepared for a sale, along with other goldmine assets of the Severstal Resources group belonging to Alexei Mordashov, to a Chinese buyer.
At least, that is what Moscow sources report as the rationale behind a proposed swap of equity for loan, announced by HRG and the Troika Dialog-Standard Bank group last week. This proposal has drawn immediate opposition from independent minority investors in HRG, who have complained to the Toronto Stock Exchange that the transaction is a sweetheart deal at an advantageously low price for the new shareholder.
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By John Helmer in Moscow
Russia’s state-aid agent for struggling shipyards, the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), is to have another chief executive after the current one, Alexander Buzakov (right figure), was ordered out by the chairman of USC’s board, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin (left figure).
A newspaper leak, published in Moscow on Monday, reporting that Buzakov had aroused Sechin’s ire, without identifying the cause, has mystified St. Petersburg shipyard sources. One told Fairplay that poor financial control may be one of the reasons. Another suggested that the new holding is unwieldy, and impossible to put on a sound financial footing. The shipyard union in Kaliningrad and a St. Peterrsburg shiping expert say they believe Buzakov is being scapegoated for trying to halt the diversion of state cash through the corporation.
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