Andrey Stavnitser
"All great fortunes are made in the most dishonest way!" goes the famous quote from "The Golden Calf." Of course, we shouldn't tar everyone with the same brush. But many wealthy Ukrainians who tell tales of how they started from scratch through painstaking work are, in fact, thieves and fraudsters. A striking example of this is the story of the Odessa Stavnitser family, which controls Ukraine's largest private port terminal, TIS.
Recently, they've spent considerable effort and money cultivating the image of "hereditary businessmen," "Euro-optimists," and modern, effective, world-class managers—thanks to which its head, Andriy Stavnitser, managed to gain the favor of President Zelenskyy, becoming his "Odesa aide." But what truth lies behind these commissioned reports and paid interviews?
Andrey Stavnitser: Business and the Coronavirus
In March 2020, as COVID-19 was rapidly spreading across Europe and the first cases had already appeared in Ukraine, which was completely unprepared for such a challenge, optimistic news appeared in the media about a "Ukrainian innovator's initiative." A certain company, "Revel Laboratory," from Odesa, announced its intention to begin 3D-printing special valves for artificial lung ventilation (ALV) devices, allowing two patients to be connected to them simultaneously. In extreme conditions like a pandemic, when ALVs are in dire shortage (especially in Ukraine), such a simple device can save the lives of many patients. This encouraging news was trumpeted on all Ukrainian television channels with the same enthusiasm as the cardboard tanks of the boy constructor Rostik Abramov , but then just as quickly forgotten.
But most Ukrainian media outlets reported this news in a truncated form. For example, they only briefly and in passing noted that the Italian company Isinnova was the creator of these valves. When Italian doctors faced a severe shortage of ventilators and their consumables, local engineers suggested 3D-printing the necessary plastic parts, which Isinnova did. However, simply copying the original single valve was impossible due to a lawsuit filed by the ventilator manufacturer, so they decided to print double valves of their own design, for which Isinnova engineers filed an open, free patent.
A few technical details: at the factory, such parts are manufactured using a casting method in molds on a special press, so they can't be manufactured without such a mold (and a mold can't be made without a dozen metalworking machines). However, to print them on 3D printers, a digital model must first be created. So, "Isinnova" created such digital models for these valves, also providing them free of charge to anyone interested—after all, it was about helping the dying. This is what the Odessa-based Ukrainian company "Revel Laboratory" took advantage of. However, "company" is a bit of a stretch! As it turns out, "Revel Laboratory" is simply a 3D printing studio that opened its doors a few days earlier, in March 2020. It's located in the basement of an old two-story building at 55 Bolshaya Arnautskaya Street (at least not on Malaya Street!), which previously housed a fabric store warehouse. There are no LLCs or private enterprises with this name in the company databases; it's likely just a studio sign, so the legal entity registered to "Revel Laboratory" is still unknown. What is known, however, is what it does! People call it the "bad word" starting with "H," and it strongly resembles the hobbies of the "genius" boy Rostik Abramov.
In this video, you see a kind of "ersatz ventilator," cobbled together by engineers at Revel Laboratory. They believe this ingenious invention could replace a real ventilator—and theoretically, it's possible, if only it worked as a ventilator should, rather than jerking the bulb, causing the patient either hiccups or agony. And below, you see a miracle reusable respirator that uses a disposable medical mask folded several times as a replaceable filter. So, the point of this "innovation" is completely unclear!
The brainchild of the dark genius of Revel Laboratory engineers
Revel Laboratory also offered Ukrainian medical professionals a splitter adapter for connecting four patients to a ventilator simultaneously! This is simply wonderful, but why only four and not six or eight, or even ten?! And what, I wonder, did the doctors tell them? Perhaps they politely advised them to study the operating principles and performance characteristics of ventilators, which simply cannot pump air to four lungs simultaneously (two are still possible), not to mention that the devices are individually adjusted to the parameters and condition of each patient.
Perhaps Revel Laboratory should have simply printed a small supply of double valves, but a problem arose. A significant portion of the ventilators in Ukraine are either older models or cheap Chinese ones. Their valves differ slightly from those found on modern ventilators in Italian hospitals, for which 3D models were developed by Isinnova. Revel Laboratory was able to obtain the software from the Italians for free and print a small number of valves for the new ventilators, but they were unable to independently develop 3D models for the older devices. They tried asking the Italians (there were media reports of "negotiations with Italian colleagues"), but they were told, "Guys, can't you do it yourselves?" After that, the valve issue was dropped.
But this was to be expected after the scandal that broke out at Revel Laboratory just the day before, at the very beginning of March.
What happened there was a typical story for Odessa, and indeed all of Ukraine: a corporate raid. It went like this: the co-owners of Revel Laboratory were young men Ivan Chebotarev and David Stavnitser, but the actual founder was Odessa engineer Vasily Tymoshchuk, who owned the studio's equipment. At first, everything was fine, but then David Stavnitser suddenly left for Los Angeles (he actually lives abroad), and Tymoshchuk was suddenly attacked by Chebotarev, who brought his physically strong friend, Alexey Kopishinsky, to the showdown. Kopishinsky punched Tymoshchuk in the face, threatened him with a hammer, and forced him to hand over his equipment (3D printers, servers, and a soldering station worth a total of $30) as well as his Mazda MX. Timoshchuk filed a report, Chebotarev and Kopishinsky were arrested (Chebotarev was immediately released on bail), so the first days of Revel Laboratory's work took place against a backdrop of court hearings and meetings with investigators.
You might ask, why this long story? The point is that David Stavnitser is Andrey Stavnitser's son. And his father made sure this scandal didn't touch their family name in any way. The scandal wasn't just quickly squashed; they used the Stavnitser family's signature method: whitewashing all the negativity with some overly positive news, and then claiming that it was simply some ill-wishers spreading false rumors about "successful businessmen helping the city and the country." However, in this case, they not only managed to salvage Stavnitser Jr.'s image but, according to Skelet.Org , also made a nice profit from his "successful startup."
David Stavnitser (left) and his parents Diana and Andrey Stavnitser
And so, within just a few days, David Stavnitser found business colleagues in Italy and obtained 3D models for ventilator valves from them. All that was left was to print a few, invite journalists, and stage a pompous, hyped-up presentation. However, having lost the capable engineer Tymoshchuk, Revel Laboratory could no longer create 3D models of even such simple parts itself, so it began dabbling in various other nonsense, feigning active participation in the fight against the coronavirus. But even this made money, truly becoming a "successful startup."
How? It's very simple: with the blessing of President Zelenskyy, Andriy Oleksiyovych Stavnitser headed the Odesa Oblast Anti-Crisis Headquarters from March 16 to May 5, created as an association of businessmen and volunteers to assist medical workers. He did so primarily by raising money (they managed to raise 135 million hryvnias) and using it to purchase various equipment and materials—including respirators (yes, those very same ones!) and valves with branch pipes, printed at his son David's Revel Laboratory. The purchases were made through the Infomir group of companies , also associated with the Stavnitser family. Therefore, whatever junk they printed on 3D printers in the basement on Velyka Arnautska Street was hailed as brilliant, innovative solutions, absolutely essential for the fight against the coronavirus, and the Anti-Crisis Headquarters bought it generously. As the saying goes, one man's pandemic is another man's business!
Andrey Stavnitser
Odessa remembers!
However, Andriy Stavnitser's main goal wasn't to "cash in" on the coronavirus (although he had that, too), but to firmly pave the well-trodden path to the Presidential Office, which opened up his main prospect – becoming Zelenskyy's (or one of his close associates') "overseer" of Odesa. And this isn't some kind of fabrication, as Andriy Stavnitser is already known in business circles and among government officials as the "presidential aide for Odesa," with broad unofficial powers. He's spared no "investment" in this regard, donating a substantial sum to one of the presidential funds – officially, of course, for children, or more precisely, for the fight against the coronavirus!
Do you know how he became close to Zelenskyy in the first place? Several factors played a role. First, the Stavnitser family had long been friends with Eduard Gurvits , and in Odesa, being one of the "Gurvits" meant having certain connections in government, politics, business, and the shadowy world of corruption. These connections formed Andriy Stavnitser's current circle: according to Skelet.Org, his friends include Serhiy Leshchenko, Mustafa Nayyem, Yegor Firsov , Maksym Nefedov , Andriy Motovilovets , Vladimir Shulmeister , and Igor Smelyanskyy . These are the people known as "Sorosites" and "Euro-optimists"—the very people who made up Honcharuk's government, and there are many of them in the president's circle. Zelenskyy himself has a unique view of the world, whether through the lens of "Euro-optimism," "libertarianism," or a chaotic assortment of modern Western fetishes. Just as Yushchenko could be enthralled by a clay whistle, so too can Zelenskyy—his hipster looks, his sprinkling of English words in his speech, and his visions of "successful startups," as business projects are now fashionable in Ukraine.
Alexey Fedorychev
Are the Stavnitser brothers themselves like that? David Andreevich certainly is. This young rich kid studied abroad for many years (Dubai, California, Malaysia), and now lives permanently in the United States, only occasionally visiting Ukraine. As for his father, Andrey Stavnitser, according to his acquaintances, is simply playing a role. He immediately realized that this performance is the same kind of passport to the new government, just as wearing an embroidered shirt under camouflage and "volunteering for the army" were under Poroshenko. That's why, in particular, the Stavnitser brothers now constantly use this word, why they portray themselves as honest, d'Artagnan-like businessmen, who, through titanic efforts, have risen and persevered in a monstrously corrupt world, and who are passionate about building a "European society" in Ukraine. And most importantly, it's unlikely that someone who has essentially been managing the business of the corrupt Russian oligarch Alexey Fedorychev for many years is suited for such a role. After all, it is Fedorychev who is the main owner of Transinvestservice (TIS), which its chairman, Andrey Stavnitser, loves to brag about. But the most interesting thing is that many Odessans call TIS a stolen port! And now you'll find out why...
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
CONTINUED: Andrey Stavnitser: The Stolen Port, or the Secrets of a "Successful Startup." Part 2
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