Millionaire with a gun

Hunting in Russia is becoming an expensive pastime for a select few. The most attractive hunting grounds are increasingly being taken over by businessmen and officials who are willing to spend millions of rubles a year on their maintenance.

“Hunting is an expensive and problematic hobby,” says a source close to the co-owner of Rossiya Bank. Nikolay Shamalov, whose fortune Forbes estimates at $500 million. The businessman and his three partners annually invest several million rubles in the hunting grounds they own in the Priozersky district of the Leningrad region. The President of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin and his partners and the children of the Governor of the Leningrad Region spend the same amount on maintaining their lands in the neighborhood. Valeria Serdyukova, banker Peter Aven, owner of NLMK Vladimir Lisin. And also officials, deputies and businessmen who directly or through structures close to them rent hunting grounds in five regions located near Moscow and St. Petersburg.

How they divided it

To obtain a license, it was enough to submit an application and win in a non-monetary “competition of intentions”: the winner was the one who promised to invest more in the land. Who should be awarded the victory was decided by the competition commission, consisting mostly of local officials. “Naturally, we saw who the regional administration officials supported,” recalls a Tver hunter who participated in such competitions.

How this happened can be judged by the story of the chairman of the board of the Yaroslavl regional hunting society, Anatoly Durandin (the transcript is on the society’s website): “Endless checks began, in the office of the Rostov branch in the summer of 2006, grenades were first found, later in the house of the chairman of this society - live ammunition<...>And an employee of the Poshekhonsky Prosecutor’s Office went to the office of the Poshekhonsky Hunting Society for more than a year as if going to work - in the morning he came before the company’s employees and waited for the door to open.” Yaroslavl hunters eventually abandoned 600,000 hectares, which were put up for open competitions (although they still have 2 million hectares left).

Military hunters of the Leningrad region have lost a lot, states Sergei Bolshikhin, assistant to the head of the “Zapasnoye” hunting base in the Priozersky district of the Leningrad region. “We basically only have bases left, and we no longer have our own lands,” he says.

“In 2001, the Bezhetsk District Society of Hunters and Fishers received 143,700 hectares in the Tver region for 10 years, and all this time, plots are constantly being cut off from us,” complains the chairman of the society, Nikolai Filipovich. According to him, attempts to take away land from refugee hunters are made once every two years - the governor cancels his decree, the Tver hunting department revokes the license, and the society restores its right to hunt in court.

In the interval between the trials, refugee hunters almost lost 35,800 hectares - the plot was put up for competition in 2005, and it passed to the Dubakinskoye company of the then vice-president of Lukoil, Alexei Smirnov. The society managed to protest this competition in court. Until 2000, Dubakinskoye itself belonged to the Military Hunting Society of the Moscow Military District, and then, together with the Tver lands, it went to Lukoil. The press service of Lukoil told Vedomosti that this was a personal project of Smirnov, a native of Bezhetsk. “When Dubakinskoye was owned by the military society, it was a sad, ruined enterprise,” said Smirnov. “I had a helicopter, and when we flew around the farm and counted how many moose there were, there were only 16 of them. Now there are more than 500 moose in Dubakinsky.” The former top manager of Lukoil is convinced that the state and public organizations have shown themselves to be ineffective owners.

On April 1, 2010, the hunting law came into force, which was supposed to change the rules of the game: land is now awarded at open auctions for real money. But most of the tenants prepared for this in advance - they won competitions that assigned the land to them for 49 years. For example, in the Tver region the then governor Dmitry Zelenin On March 30, 2010, he signed 16 orders on the provision of forest plots with a total area of ​​220,085 hectares “for the use of wildlife in the form of hunting” for 49 years. The companies won this right in open competitions held shortly before. A week before, on March 22, 2010, Zelenin signed 15 orders to provide 205,514 hectares. Similar competitions on the eve of the entry into force of the new law were held in Leningrad, Pskov, Yaroslavl and other regions. In fact, tenants staked out plots in this way for almost a century - the same law provides that they will then receive another 49 years by preemptive right, without an auction.

Hunting is not a business

The hunting farm buys a license to hunt elk from the state for about 3,000 rubles, and a wild boar for 750 rubles, says Yuri Poluiko, chairman of the board of the Tver “Eger” (600,000 hectares on lease). In private hunting grounds, a trip to an elk will cost 30,000 rubles. plus 3000 rub. per day for accommodation and food. The difference goes to cover the costs of feeding animals, maintaining huntsmen and game wardens, and equipment. But the money from the vouchers is not enough. In “Eger” they were able to earn only 5 million rubles from vouchers in 2010. with expenses of 200 million rubles, says Poluiko.

Hunting farms are kept not for business, but for recreation. That's why they try not to let strangers here. “We tried to sell tours, but it didn’t suit us morally. You come to your farm - and there are strangers who have bought vouchers. There were excesses, drunks while hunting. Therefore, now we keep the hunting farm only for ourselves and our friends from the shooting club,” says Sergei Ivankin, co-owner of the Kudeversky hunting farm in the Pskov region.

“Ordinary hunters are not allowed there [to Shamalov’s lands]. We have wealthy people who are willing to pay for wild boar and elk hunting, but they do not sell vouchers. They keep quotas for themselves,” says Bolshikhin. “There are publicly accessible lands for them (according to the law, 20% of the lands in the region must be accessible to everyone. - Vedomosti),” explains Shamalov. In the Melnikovsky Society (Yakunin and his partners hunt here) you can buy a ticket for a duck, but it costs much more than from the Military Hunting Society of St. Petersburg, adds Bolshikhin.

At Rumelko-sporting, Lisin’s Tver hunting estate, everyone is allowed to hunt a hare or duck, says company director Eduard Kulishkin. But the club does not sell vouchers for elk and wild boar.

Bezhetsk hunters can theoretically hunt ducks and geese in Dubakinsky. “But there the cost of one dawn is 10,000 rubles. We don’t have such salaries,” Filipovich is outraged. The owner of “Dubakinsky” Smirnov, however, assures that benefits have been established for refugee hunters.

Relaxing with your own people often benefits business. “Hunting is a way of informal communication with the right people,” this is how the top manager of a Moscow food holding formulates this idea. In 2008, he and his partner leased more than 30,000 hectares of land in the Tver region. “In the world, hunting has always been a meeting place for friends and colleagues, where various problems can be discussed in an informal setting. Only in Russia for some reason they view this negatively and consider it corruption,” agrees one of the owners of the hunting farm. “But this is not a classic hunt, but something else. I was in “Zavidovo” once, I won’t go there again. I’d rather hunt in Belarus,” says the owner of a large grain company.

How much land does a hunter need?

“Hunting is attractive because you forget everything else. It makes you concentrate only on the hunt, so you don’t think about the bank and everything else. This is the most important thing,” Aven’s friend quotes him as saying.

Aven is a keen hunter, but Alfa Bank got the Zalesye hunting farm by accident, due to the bankruptcy of its previous owner, Tverkhimvolokno. Together with Lisin, Aven in 2010 also bought the Yaroslavl hunting farm “Los” (110,000 hectares, previously registered with the FSB) at an auction by the Federal Property Management Agency. But an acquaintance of the banker claims that the company was given to VTB, which was also in the deal. A VTB representative did not confirm this information.

Personally, Mikhalkov, as he told Izvestia, owns 10 hectares in the Vologda region and 70 hectares in the Nizhny Novgorod region. There he built estates with stables, a barrier and signs “Private territory. No entry allowed." The lease of adjacent lands is issued to public organizations of hunters - Nizhny Novgorod "Temino" (37,000 hectares) and Vologda "Temino-Severnoye" (92,861 hectares), the founder of which was Mikhalkov and the employees of his Trite studio.

Vadim Somov

“This is an attitude towards life and nature, what does a personal hobby have to do with it? There is no self-indulgence at Cordon; we do not allow animals to be brought to the brink of destruction. Everything is done to connect people with nature,” says Somov.
The non-profit partnership “Cordon” was founded by Somov, “Kirishinefteorgsintez” and several citizens, including the chairman of the regional committee for the protection, control and regulation of wildlife objects, Alexey Kozhaev, who was fired at the end of September 2011. The territory leased by Cordon practically coincides with the borders of the Kirishi district. Vadim and Denis Serdyukov, owners of the Intersolar and TPG Capital holdings
104,500 ha
Volkhovsky, Lodeynopolsky, Priozersky and Lomonosovsky districts of the Leningrad region

“Hunting is more of a hobby than a business. “I don’t even like hunting,” Vadim Serdyukov admitted to Delovoy Peterburg in 2006.

The sons of the Governor of the Leningrad Region Valery Serdyukov are accomplished businessmen, their areas of interest include timber processing, production of metal structures, construction and tourism. Since 2006, the brothers have divided business. Hunting grounds were also divided. Denis has 40,000 hectares left, Vadim has 64,500 hectares. Vasily Ekimovsky, Deputy Governor of the Vologda Region
91,000 ha
Kirillovsky and Vytegorsky districts of the Vologda region

“The Ministry of Emergency Situations has nothing to do with the hunting farms [created by the former head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations in the Vologda Region, Ekimovsky]. Anyone can hunt with us,” says Sergei Cherkasov, chairman of the Nikolskoye hunting society.

In 2005, the then head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations for the Vologda Region, Major General Vasily Ekimovsky, together with two deputies, established the Nikolskoye hunting society, which received 55,000 hectares in the Kirillovsky district, not far from the base of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The second section of Nikolskoye, 36,000 hectares, also turned out to be next to the Vytegra Ministry of Emergency Situations center built on the shore of Lake Onega. Vladimir Lisin, owner of NLMK
49,300 ha
Kashinsky district of Tver region

“Vladimir Sergeevich [Lisin] likes to hunt birds more - black grouse and geese, for this he recently got himself a pointer,” says Eduard Kulishkin, director of the Rumelko-sporting club.

“The Rumelko-Sporting sports and hunting club was founded by Lisin and lawyers Nikolai and Konstantin Gagarin (who are on the boards of directors of the businessman’s companies). Rumelko received the first 8,100 hectares for lease in 2002. In the spring of 2010, the club won a competition for another 41,200 hectares. Vasily Solovyov, businessman, son-in-law of the governor of the Vologda region
254,150 ha
Cherepovetsky, Ust-Kubinsky, Sheksninsky and Kirillovsky districts of the Vologda region

“On average I make about 60 trips a year. Since there is a lot of work and little free time, most of my hunting trips are short in time,” from an interview Vyacheslav Pozgalev magazine "Hunting and Game Management" in 2006.

Former hockey player of the Severstal club Soloviev married Pozgalev's daughter Maria in 1995. Now Soloviev is the founder of more than 30 Vologda companies involved in the trade of liquefied gas, timber, construction and radio broadcasting.

Two of them also rent hunting grounds. In “Areal” (108,450 hectares), Soloviev owned 25% of the shares until 2009, another 25% - from the regional Fund for Regional Support of Projects and Programs of the Vologda Region. In the Center 911 company (105,700 hectares), Solovyov owns 30%. Director of the 911 Center Mikhail Konopsky says that Soloviev does not provide assistance to the hunting farm.

Another 40,000 hectares were received in 2008 by the Vologda Club of Hunters and Fishermen, among whose founders Solovyov is also listed.

The governor is considered one of the most enthusiastic hunters in the region. In an interview with the magazine “Hunting and Hunting Management,” Pozgalev boasted that his list of trophies included 37 bears, about 40 moose, more than 30 wild boars, etc. Pozgalev’s press service reported that the governor does not hunt on Solovyov’s hunting grounds.

Hunting and politics

Our readers know where to buy Novaya Gazeta: everyone probably has their own kiosk of printed materials where they can see our publication. And you are unlikely to be interested in the path the newspaper takes from the editorial office to your hands. Meanwhile, along this path, income and expenses are formed, that is, the budget of the publication. From which we pay the best journalists...

Our readers know where to buy Novaya Gazeta: everyone probably has their own kiosk of printed materials where they can see our publication. And you are unlikely to be interested in the path the newspaper takes from the editorial office to your hands. Meanwhile, along this path, income and expenses are formed, that is, the budget of the publication. From which we pay for the work of the best journalists, high-quality illustrations, website operation and all other services for our audience.

Therefore, the choice of a printing house and distributor is extremely important for any publishing house - since it is from such seemingly practical partners that the degree of efficiency and quality of delivery of the results of our work into your hands depends.

Several years ago, among our partners was the Delovoy Mir group of companies, working in the field of publishing and distribution of printed materials. This group, which today unites several dozen interconnected companies, was founded in the late 90s by the family of retired military man Leonid Yeshchenko and over the years of work has gained a reputation as a reliable counterparty. However, in recent years, complaints have arisen about the effectiveness of the group’s work, including from Novaya Gazeta.

In 2009, Novaya Gazeta entered into a contract for the supply of periodicals with one of the group’s enterprises, Formula Business World CJSC (“FDM”). We regularly shipped a certain number of copies of the newspaper to a network of metropolitan kiosks owned by our partner.

The first two years of cooperation turned out to be mutually beneficial: the newspaper was sold, we received our share of the proceeds, and the distributor received his. At the end of 2011, difficulties arose: FDM began to accumulate a debt to the editors, which at the beginning of the next year, 2012, exceeded 1 million rubles. Don’t let this amount confuse you: it may not be impressive in the context of our publications about the theft of billions of budget funds, but Novaya Gazeta is far from Gazprom.

Since there was a negative trend in the process of repaying FDM’s debt to the editorial and publishing house, we terminated relations with Delovoy Mir and went to the arbitration court to forcefully collect the debt from the counterparty. The correctness of our step was confirmed not only by rumors on the market, where everyone was gossiping about the problems of Yeshchenko’s “empire,” but also by a banal study of Formula’s balance sheet: if at the beginning of 2010 the amount of the company’s fixed assets amounted to 130 million rubles, then at the end of the reporting period - only 34 million, and in 2011 - decreased by multiples; Revenue fell, net profit decreased, accounts payable increased...

Without waiting for the company to declare itself insolvent, at the beginning of 2013 we filed a lawsuit to declare FDM bankrupt and introduce a monitoring procedure. The capital's arbitration court issued a ruling recognizing our claims as justified, introduced a bankruptcy procedure and approved Lyubomir Knyaginitsky as a temporary managing specialist of the NP "Central Agency of Anti-Crisis Managers" (CAAM).

Creditors

Within a month after the publication of information about the beginning of the bankruptcy procedure, the register of creditors of the “Business World Formula” already included over 40 organizations, and not only commercial ones: Federal Tax Service No. 6 in Moscow declared a requirement to include 5.4 million rubles in tax arrears. Soon the total amount of claims against the debtor amounted to about 100 million rubles.

Meanwhile, the arbitration manager studied the financial and economic activities of the enterprise and found out that by the beginning of bankruptcy, there was nothing, or almost nothing, behind the legal shell of the “Business World Formula”: in the absence of any property, the company had shares in dependent companies (which are now “emptied "), as well as 200 thousand rubles in a deposit account; Among the assets were accounts receivable in the amount of 300 million rubles, but they were not documented. According to the interim manager, FDM deliberately reduced its business activity on the eve of the introduction of bankruptcy proceedings: the volume of revenue in 2012 was significantly lower than the same indicators in 2010 and 2011, the company spontaneously sold off its own property.

The last point aroused the greatest interest: as a result of the analysis carried out by Mr. Knyaginitsky, transactions were identified that were concluded on conditions that did not correspond to market conditions, which was the reason for the insolvency of Formula Business World CJSC and caused damage to the company.

The temporary manager managed to obtain from the Central Database of the EITS UGIBDD of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for Moscow a response about the deregistration of 221 vehicles that were on the balance sheet of FDM in the period before January 29, 2013. Subsequently, the transport was sold to organizations and individuals, some of them were associated with the debtor. Thus, part of the rolling stock went to Gorskie Ustya LLC, which, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, belonged to Leonid Yeshchenko.

Disappearance of a two-story building

Another transaction is the alienation of a property after the bankruptcy procedure has been introduced. The story is this: as a result of the reorganization of Formula Business World CJSC in 2009, a new entity was separated from the structure of this company - Your Comfortable Office CJSC, which, on the basis of the separation balance sheet, received a two-story building with an area of ​​640.3 square meters free of charge. m in Moscow (Lesnoryadsky Lane, 18). Since this transaction was registered by the Moscow Office of Rosreestr only in January 2013, the temporary manager intends to challenge it. For reference: the cost of this building may be approximately 72 million rubles (this is the cost of fixed assets of CJSC “Your Comfortable Office” - according to the company’s accounting records for 2012 according to RAS).

Lubomir Kniaginitsky believes that during the transactions there was “unfair behavior aimed at withdrawing the debtor’s assets in order to deprive creditors of funds.” And Mr. Knyaginitsky estimates the damage caused to the debtor, and therefore to his creditors, from the transactions at 100 million rubles. It is noteworthy that creditors submitted claims to FDM for approximately the same amount. The interim manager believes that there could have been foul play on the part of several creditors, since companies associated with the debtor were included in the register - Nedvizhimost DM LLC and First Printing Plant LLC (they filed claims for 33 million rubles under the contracts sublease and loan respectively).

Both creditors, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, are affiliated with the Yeshchenko family and, as Knyaginitsky believes, could create an artificial debt in order to receive money during bankruptcy proceedings when the controversial objects are sold: “The facts of sublease can be falsified, if only because Real Estate LLC DM” was not in 2012 a tenant of the sublease item it “leased” in favor of “FDM” - the premises. The legal nature of the lease and loan agreements specified in the request of First Printing Plant LLC is equally questionable.

The demands of these persons have already been established by the Moscow Arbitration Court, since representatives of the creditors proved the existence of such legal relations as rent and loan. Knyaginitsky considers this evidence to be at least incomplete: “I have had this in practice: people draw up colossal debts, the court establishes their requirements, and then it turns out that these debts have long been repaid by offset and a large construction project in Mytishchi was paid for them. I don’t know yet whether anything was given to the applicants: the management of Formula Business World CJSC is hiding the full package of documents necessary for analyzing transactions.”

The fact of concealment of documents was also confirmed by the court, which removed the director of FDM from managing the company. Next in line is the reaction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where Lyubomir Knyaginitsky sent a statement about the presence of signs of deliberate bankruptcy in the actions of the company’s management (Article 195 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

The role of Yeshchenko in history

When we wanted to contact Leonid Yeshchenko and discuss the current situation, his grandson Vladimir came to our editorial office. This happened by chance - on the day of the meeting of creditors, which took place on our territory. At the meeting, Lyubomir Kniaginitsky raised the main question: which manager should go into bankruptcy proceedings, the start of which the court set for October of this year?

Novaya Gazeta supported the current interim manager Knyaginitsky, and Vladimir Yeshchenko and his colleagues from related companies insisted on their candidacy. Our candidate won, although the elections were difficult: opponents managed to form a considerable package of votes. The day after the meeting, Vladimir Yeshchenko admitted that his side worked with other creditors (he himself came by proxy from one of the creditors not associated with the group - Hirst Shkulev Media LLC): “I won’t hide, we took some steps - We called several creditors and agreed on the assignment of rights to claim the debt. I don’t agree with some of the current manager’s conclusions, and I also think that his goal is to sell one controversial property (a two-story building - Ed.) at a reduced price.” However, Mr. Eshchenko’s comments about working with creditors turned out to be not so interesting - his story about how a once stable family business found itself below the bankruptcy line after outside intervention was much more interesting.

According to Yeshchenko: “My grandfather, the founder of our group, is 73 years old, he has not been active for a long time. My father has not lived in Russia for more than 15 years and also does not manage a business. Until recently, I had no connection with him either - literally a year ago I started working at the holding: I delved into the papers, studied the situation. It turned out that they simply “killed” us - they bankrupted the group, withdrawing the most liquid assets. This was done by our hired managers, who were once given the right to manage the holding.”

Vladimir Eshchenko does not name the names of these managers, because “the authorized bodies are now dealing with this,” but, according to our information, at the beginning of this year, the Eshchenko family had a misunderstanding with the management of their holding - Sergey Orishchenko and Tatyana Tezyakova. According to Yeshchenko, through dummies, “two former managers whom we trusted” exercised control over the company.

As a result of the corporate conflict, creditors suffered, says Yeshchenko: “When we went bankrupt, our assets were given to competitors for pennies, and some were transferred to offshore companies. Our distribution activities have already been curtailed, people have been laid off. The current situation in which creditors find themselves drawn was created artificially, but not by us. We regret".

If you analyze the changes in the Delovoy Mir group of companies, you can see an interesting detail: during 2011 - 2012, shares in companies owning real estate in Moscow were transferred to Bofil S.A., Trank Holding and Europe Investments Construction Company, registered in Luxembourg. The beneficiaries of these companies remain in the shadows: according to the official gazette of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, offshore companies are administered by citizens of Luxembourg and France (although at certain periods there were also Russian names).

Yeshchenko confirmed that these are the same “offshore companies” to which a significant part of the group’s property was transferred, but refused to develop this topic.

Despite the difficult situation, Vladimir Yeshchenko said that he does not intend to “let the bankruptcy situation take its course”: “Even now, when the creditors have decided on a new bankruptcy manager, we have a desire to pay everyone off. We always want to leave gracefully."

If this is really the case, we ask Vladimir Yeshchenko to contact us and explain what has been preventing a normal dialogue with creditors over the past year. Well, if Mr. Yeshchenko wants to tell us about the history of the takeover of his family’s business, which really became news in the distribution market, you are welcome to the investigation department of Novaya Gazeta.

Russians undoubtedly know Leonid Eshchenko as the publisher of popular glossy magazines, the president of the Delovoy Mir Publishing House group of companies. At the same time, many residents of the Tver region first heard about Leonid Nikolaevich in connection with the construction of ultra-modern hunting bases and airstrips in the most remote corners of the province.

At first, Tver villagers, distrustful of the new settler, talked about school buses purchased with Yeshchenko’s funds, about the work carried out to strengthen the banks of the Rybinsk Reservoir, and finally, about agricultural farms being built using overseas technology. A passionate admirer of bear hunting, a philanthropist who distances himself from politics, Leonid Nikolaevich, even after several “Tver” years, is incomprehensible and mysterious to the average person.
Lifting this veil of mystery, our newspaper today publishes on its pages an exclusive interview with Leonid ESHCHENKO.
- Leonid Nikolaevich, please tell our readers about yourself.
- I was born in 1940 in the Poltava region of Ukraine. And at the age of seventeen he left his small homeland and entered a military school. Until 1989, he served as an officer in the missile forces and at that time also received an economics education. Then he began to engage in publishing. Since 1992, I have headed the Delovoy Mir Publishing House group of companies.
- When did you start hunting and why do you prefer bear hunting?
“My colleagues, military hunters, got me interested in hunting. I have led primary hunting groups for many years. Gradually, hunting turned from fun into a second profession for me.
I like bear hunting for its originality and unpredictability. For long hours in the twilight-night time, waiting for the animal to come out to the food field or bait, you can see a lot of interesting things in the surrounding life of the wild nature, realize and re-evaluate a lot, enrich your thoughts and soul.
In a den, bear hunting is associated with a certain risk, and here the hunter is especially required to have good physical and shooting training.
- Until now, Prince Shirinsky-Shikhmatov was considered the record holder for the number of bears killed in the Tver province. Did you manage to surpass his record and what cases do you remember most?
- Indeed, I managed to surpass the prince’s record and get more than two hundred bears from the tower and in the dens. Naturally, the largest bears and those cases when it was necessary to save people were remembered more than others. It happened that wounded animals rushed at the rangers, and then the fate of a person depended on the accuracy of the shot.

- Will intensive hunting lead to the extinction of the brown bear in the Tver forests?
- The bear population is adversely affected not by hunting as such, but by illiterate human economic activity. If, along with hunting, biotechnical measures developed by scientists are carried out, the number of animals will increase. This is exactly what happens on hunting grounds, where the number of bears even exceeds the optimal level, which allows for guaranteed trophy shooting based on the licenses obtained.
Hunting and fishing bases are equipped with watercraft, tractor and snowmobile equipment. To control the land and count the number of animals, there are helicopters and motorized hang gliders. Housing for personnel, storage facilities for equipment, feed and seed stock are being built at the bases.
On our farms, clearings are systematically cleared, overgrown fields and clearings are plowed up and sown with fodder crops, which significantly enriches the food supply for wild animals. The number of wolves has been reduced to zero, and poaching is practically excluded. By the way, we provide significant assistance to poor, struggling local communities of hunters and fishermen. You need to live in friendship with your neighbors and observe hunting traditions. To prevent the same poaching, people in the outback must be well-fed, provided with work, and confident in the future. Today we have taken custody of a number of preschool institutions, schools, hospitals, and nursing homes. Hundreds of local residents work on our farms, receiving decent salaries for the region. And starting this year, we are developing agro-industrial production near hunting bases. Now in the Penovsky district a project is already being implemented to create a large livestock breeding complex for meat production. An even more significant complex will be built in the Sandovsky district with the help of Canadian specialists.
- Who can be considered the successor of your ideas?
- My son Ruslan, just like me, is engaged in entrepreneurial activities. He inherited from me a passion for hunting.

Recorded by Boris GUROV
Photos from the personal archive of Leonid Eshchenko

TVER REGION ON COINS

Do you think you are Russian? Were you born in the USSR and think that you are Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian? No. This is wrong.

Are you actually Russian, Ukrainian or Belarusian? But do you think that you are a Jew?

Game? Wrong word. The correct word is “imprinting”.

The newborn associates himself with those facial features that he observes immediately after birth. This natural mechanism is characteristic of most living creatures with vision.

Newborns in the USSR saw their mother for a minimum of feeding time during the first few days, and most of the time they saw the faces of the maternity hospital staff. By a strange coincidence, they were (and still are) mostly Jewish. The technique is wild in its essence and effectiveness.

Throughout your childhood, you wondered why you lived surrounded by strangers. The rare Jews on your way could do whatever they wanted with you, because you were drawn to them, and pushed others away. Yes, even now they can.

You cannot fix this - imprinting is one-time and for life. It’s difficult to understand; the instinct took shape when you were still very far from being able to formulate it. From that moment, no words or details were preserved. Only facial features remained in the depths of memory. Those traits that you consider to be your own.

System and observer

Let's define a system as an object whose existence is beyond doubt.

An observer of a system is an object that is not part of the system it observes, that is, it determines its existence through factors independent of the system.

The observer, from the point of view of the system, is a source of chaos - both control actions and the consequences of observational measurements that do not have a cause-and-effect relationship with the system.

An internal observer is an object potentially accessible to the system in relation to which inversion of observation and control channels is possible.

An external observer is an object, even potentially unattainable for the system, located beyond the system’s event horizon (spatial and temporal).

Hypothesis No. 1. All-seeing eye

Let's assume that our universe is a system and it has an external observer. Then observational measurements can occur, for example, with the help of “gravitational radiation” penetrating the universe from all sides from the outside. The cross section of the capture of “gravitational radiation” is proportional to the mass of the object, and the projection of the “shadow” from this capture onto another object is perceived as an attractive force. It will be proportional to the product of the masses of the objects and inversely proportional to the distance between them, which determines the density of the “shadow”.

The capture of “gravitational radiation” by an object increases its chaos and is perceived by us as the passage of time. An object opaque to “gravitational radiation”, the capture cross section of which is larger than its geometric size, looks like a black hole inside the universe.

Hypothesis No. 2. Inner Observer

It is possible that our universe is observing itself. For example, using pairs of quantum entangled particles separated in space as standards. Then the space between them is saturated with the probability of the existence of the process that generated these particles, reaching its maximum density at the intersection of the trajectories of these particles. The existence of these particles also means that there is no capture cross section on the trajectories of objects that is large enough to absorb these particles. The remaining assumptions remain the same as for the first hypothesis, except:

Time flow

An outside observation of an object approaching the event horizon of a black hole, if the determining factor of time in the universe is an “external observer,” will slow down exactly twice - the shadow of the black hole will block exactly half of the possible trajectories of “gravitational radiation.” If the determining factor is the “internal observer,” then the shadow will block the entire trajectory of interaction and the flow of time for an object falling into a black hole will completely stop for a view from the outside.

It is also possible that these hypotheses can be combined in one proportion or another.