market 7 kilometer
Odesa Regional Council deputies Denis Voloshin and Viktor Dobryansky, it turns out, possess a wide arsenal of corporate raiding techniques and a wild imagination. In their attempt to wrest the 7th Kilometer market from its current owners, these well-known Odesa rich kids tried everything from courts at various levels, to raids by "titushki" (bourgeois mobsters), to staged performances, to sham shareholder meetings. But Promtovary Rynok LLC, the owner of the 7th Kilometer, held firm.
However, Voloshin and Dobryansky were not satisfied – Europe's largest (75 hectares) industrial goods market, which employs over 60 people, was simply too lucrative a morsel. Unable to overcome the shareholders' resistance, the rich-and-rich deputies changed their tactics.
On September 9, a large team of prosecutors and tax inspectors arrived at the 7th Kilometer market. They conducted searches, seizing invoices and other documents, not at the market's management office, as had previously been the case, but at the retail outlets.
Soon, identical (word for word!) news stories appeared on several websites controlled by Voloshin and Dobryansky, headlined, "The Prosecutor's Office Conducted a Written Search at the 7th Kilometer Market," according to the press service. But just read the first paragraph, and everything becomes clear: "The Investigative Department of Internal Affairs, the Prosecutor's Office, and the Tax Service in the Odessa Region are conducting a comprehensive inspection of the 7th Kilometer industrial market. This was reported by the press service of the Odessa Region Prosecutor's Office. According to the Prosecutor's Office, a written search was conducted at the 7th Kilometer market on August 27…"
Yes, that's exactly what it says – August 27th. The would-be PR people for the raiding deputies sent out the old "temniks" to their paid journalists, without even bothering to change the date. And they, in turn, simply earned their money.
It's logical that the Odessa Regional Prosecutor's Office website makes no mention of the September 9 search. However, there is an older report from August 27.
It's clear who orchestrated the bizarre attack by the prosecutor's office and tax authorities, and then "disguised" it as a recent event in the media. But why?
According to Obozrevatel's sources, Voloshin and Dobryansky are attempting to wrest control of the retail outlets from their owners, only to sell them back to them later! Currently, the stores and stalls that were inspected are not operating. Their owners are suffering losses, their salespeople are losing wages, and their regular wholesale customers are leaving. There's only one option left: to buy back their own outlets.
The raiding MPs resorted to such harsh methods of "extortion" in the style of the wild 1990s not only out of greed. They urgently needed money for a new "project." Previously, they collected tribute to continue legal battles with the shareholders of "7th Kilometer" and to pay off the "titushki" (bourgeois mobsters) who regularly raided the market. But recently, the guys decided that Odesa was too small for them; it was time to go national. So they decided to run for parliament. The rich kids boast that they've "solved everything" and are now "two minutes away" from Kyiv. All they need is money. Meanwhile, they openly name the MPs who supposedly "pushed" them onto the "regular party list." According to our sources, the MPs in question have never even heard of Voloshin and Dobryansky.
Incidentally, to add credibility to their campaign for the Verkhovna Rada, the rich raiders have stooped so low as to try to obtain the documents of ATO veterans in eastern Ukraine. They were recently spotted at two district military enlistment offices in Odesa.
However, such cynicism shouldn't be surprising. At one point, Viktor Dobryansky even went so far as to disinherit his mother and grandmother from the company's shares, which had been bequeathed to them by one of the founders of 7th Kilometer, Viktor's grandfather, Dobryansky Sr. When drawing up the will, the entrepreneur told his relatives that he didn't trust his grandson and wasn't prepared to leave his business to him. However, he didn't lose his nerve—and with the help of lawyers, he subsequently removed his mother and grandmother from the market's shareholdings, transferring all ownership to himself.
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