Maxim Kashirin biography. Maxim Kashirin: “The current crisis is completely different.” Contracts cannot be shown

Head of Simple - RBC: “Even Abramovich looked closely at wineries”

Diageo, Pernod Ricard and other giants managed to stock up wine in warehouses in Russia, but Russian importers are barely surviving, says Maxim Kashirin, president and co-owner of the Simple company.

“PAYED ON THE RATE 60 RUBLES FOR €1”

- When on the evening of December 16 last year the cost of the euro rose to 100 rubles, did you have any panic?

No, exchange rate fluctuations are not a reason to believe that a business has some fatal problems. It is known that there are momentary surges in the market, we have already encountered this. Therefore, that evening I was worried not so much about the course as about how the situation would develop further. Moreover, what happened at the end of 2014 is not so catastrophic compared to the devaluation of 1998. At that time I was already in the wine business and I can say that it was a real disaster - the dollar exchange rate instantly quadrupled. According to the scenario of that crisis, the exchange rate would now have gone from 55 to 220 rubles. for €1! But this, fortunately, did not happen. We took a short break and stopped shipping for a week to make an informed decision and then make a really reasonable price adjustment. And within a week we returned to the same prices that we planned to deliver in mid-December, namely based on the exchange rate of 65 rubles. for €1. That is, we raised the price of our wines by only about 18%, taking into account the fact that before that we had a rate of approximately 55 rubles. for €1.

- How much have prices for your wines increased over the year? If we take the year-to-year ratio as of mid-April.

A year ago, we calculated prices taking into account the exchange rate of 45 rubles. for €1. So consider - we started the year with a rate of 45, ended with a rate of 65. Accordingly, prices increased by 44%.

- Serious growth. How did it affect sales?

By falling.

- How deep?

Hard to say. We ended January in a strong minus, in February the minus was less, and in March sales improved a little. In April, we think the situation will stabilize and the drawdown will be quite small. It was clear that in January there would be a furious drop in all markets: in December the population was getting rid of rubles at such a speed that it was obvious that at the beginning of the year people would no longer have money. Plus, it was the first time there were such long holidays - 12 days of real rest. People spent money, some went on vacation, many, I think, drank and ate at home rather than in restaurants. Therefore, the fall in January was about minus 50%. But for us it was not critical - unpleasant, of course, but nothing more than a hole in the road.

- And if we compare the results of 2014 compared to 2013?

Height. Somewhere around 10–15% in terms of revenue.

We are a very multi-category company - in addition to wine and strong alcohol, we sell large quantities of glass [glasses, decanters, etc.], water and soft drinks. We monitor our market share in value terms for various categories, but we do not measure volumes as is customary - in millions of 9-liter cases, this is not very interesting to us.

- But foreign exchange earnings have dropped significantly? Is she important to you?

Our financial year ended on April 1 - we have not yet had time to sum up all the results and calculate revenue in euros in detail at rates over the course of the year. But I think, even if we dipped in currency, it would be by no more than 5%. The year has been very difficult and uneven. It started for us with the Olympics, where we were partners, we had a big bar in Sochi, and ended against the backdrop of the devaluation of the ruble. Between these points there was the situation in Ukraine with its heavy news background, sanctions. As a result, the year turned out to be very ragged, absolutely unsystematic. We had to change tactics and approaches to channels several times.

- What are the indicators for the financial year?

We don't disclose it. We are a big company. We have been counting hundreds of millions of euros for a long time.

- What is the plan for 2015?

We set a growth target of about 20%, budgeting for a rate of 60 rubles. for €1. We were forced to fix a unified budgeting course, understanding, of course, that the situation could change. If the exchange rate goes down, we will adjust prices downward and believe that demand will increase - thus, we will be able to compensate for the drop in revenue due to price by increasing the physical volume of sales. We will try - even in a crisis, we see new markets for ourselves, new sales channels, we see where we can strengthen and improve our positions.

Simple company
Founded in 1994 by Maxim Kashirin and Anatoly Korneev. Over 20 years on the market, the company has become one of the five largest Russian importers and distributors of wine. The main volume of products is imported from Italy. According to the Federal Customs Service, Simple has been the largest supplier of Italian wines in recent years, occupying a share of about 14% in this category. The company is also one of the five largest suppliers of wine from France, Argentina and South Africa. According to SPARK, in 2013, the revenue of the group’s main company, the Simple Company, amounted to 5.896 billion rubles. Net profit - 1.462 million rubles. In addition to the distribution business, Simple is involved in side projects: the travel company Simple Travel, the publication of the wine magazine Simple Wine News, the development of the Grand Cru chain of wine stores and the Enotria sommelier school.

“NIKITA SERGEEVICH DID NOT CHOOSE US BY RANDOM”

If we talk about new markets and sales channels, it is believed that the quality wine that Simple sells is the capital’s history. How much do you account for in sales in Moscow?

About 70–75% of sales occur in Moscow and 25% in St. Petersburg and the regions. But it is wrong to think that good imported wines are Moscow history. In all cities with a population of over a million, people travel to Europe and America. Yes, there, perhaps, the upper price bar is different - if Moscow is a little unlimited in terms of prices, then at the top the cutoff occurs earlier. I believe that our task for the next three years is to make the proportion of sales in Moscow and the regions at least 65 to 35, and maybe even 60 to 40. I don’t see the possibility, for example, of doubling in Moscow. In the regions I can double and triple, because there we are still weak. We are there, Simple distributes almost all over Russia, but the prospects and opportunities are much larger. However, the period for achieving such a goal is at least 3–5 years.

You have very expensive wines in your portfolio, for example Petrus, prices for which start at 200 thousand rubles. Do you sell a lot in this category per year?

We sell a lot of Petrus, we are one of the largest sellers of this wine in Russia. But these are specific clients, I would not like to disclose them. These are special orders. That is, people do not come to our Grand Cru wine stores to buy Petrus. We carry such expensive things for specific clients, and when these clients understand that there will be systematic purchases, we place orders specifically for them. In general, today many rich people prefer to shop in the West, because everything in Moscow is very expensive. Basically, Petrus and this kind of wine in Russia are sold for special urgent situations - you need to make a special gift, for the visit of a serious delegation.

- But such clients still remain, despite the crisis?

Everything is always on sale.

- A year and a half ago, Simple received an exclusive to sell Nikita Mikhalkov’s line of Tuscan wines...

This is wrong. We are partners, but we do not have an agreement that we are the only seller of this line of wines. Nikita Sergeevich chose us, of course, not by chance - he knows Simple, we have a certain reputation. And in this case, we rather act simply as an importer and distributor who helps our compatriot. So we helped him “get on” with Aeroflot, with which we cooperate, although he also had his own contacts there. During the Olympics, his wine “flyed” on flights to Sochi. We provide similar tactical services to other Russians, those who own farms in Europe and whose wines we help sell. This is more of a service than our core business.

They say that in France and Italy there are now quite a lot of farms that were bought by Russian businessmen.

Yes. And not only businessmen.

- Do you know dozens of such examples?

Hard to say. I think dozens for sure. I can’t say about hundreds, but definitely tens.​

- How much does it cost to buy a chateau in Bordeaux?

How much does it cost to buy a watch? From the ruble to infinity. There is no specific price. Russians buy farms not only in Bordeaux, but also in other regions of France and Italy. The latest trend is Spain - it's cheap there now. Many people buy without understanding this business. Then they suffer losses, invest money in the farm every year, believing that it will pay off someday. But in order for an acquisition to become profitable in the future, you need to understand this - invite experienced consultants, build the right business model, and develop a strategy. Abramovich came in some time ago and took a closer look at the wineries. Do you understand what price level he is interested in?

- In Italy?

Yes. Such people buy status items, where the issue is not even the cost of the wine, but the cost of ownership. A man like Abramovich will not buy an unnamed vineyard in Sardinia because it is next door to his home. He reasons differently: he needs a farm that corresponds to the high level of the owner, which is a real legend. There may be only 100–200 such farms, but they are the only ones worthy of attention. In general, prices on this market vary from 200–300 thousand to tens and hundreds of millions of euros. You can buy a farm in Bordeaux for €3 million, or you can buy it for a billion or more.

- There is a lot of talk now about a new era of Russian winemaking. Everyone is delighted with Krasnostop.

Our people are delighted, because at least they can drink it now.

- Is Simple not considering the possibility of adding something Russian to its portfolio?

Yes, we are considering this possibility. We follow Russian winemaking with interest and we follow Crimea with interest. But we are not ready to invest. As the British say, if you want to go bankrupt, there are two ways: if you want to have fun, play in a casino; if you want to be guaranteed, invest in agriculture. We are looking closely and looking for a farm, a manufacturer that we could take on for distribution, with whom we could enter into such an alliance. But this is difficult, because many Russian farm owners have their own ideas about the market and their own aspirations, which have nothing to do with reality. The farms themselves will not be able to sell their wine without a distributor - it is very difficult and expensive to maintain a distribution machine. Only such serious producers with large investments and political opportunities as Abrau-Durso can afford this. It is necessary for people to lose their euphoria, for them to come down to earth a little and begin to think realistically. To conclude a partnership agreement, we need a quality product, people with strategy and understanding of the market. We are ready to work in tandem.

Maxim Kashirin
Born in 1967 in Moscow. Graduate of Moscow State Aviation Technological University named after. Tsiolkovsky. He started doing business in 1991, opening a small supermarket, where he began selling wine, among other things. “One regular customer introduced me to a guy, Anatoly Korneev, who worked for an Italian company that supplied wine to the USSR for Berezka stores,” Kashirin said in the “Business Secrets with Oleg Tinkov” program. “It was he who suggested creating a wine trading company, and I jumped at the idea.” In 1994, together with Korneev, Kashirin founded the wine trading company Simple (Simple Company LLC). The partners still do business together, being co-owners of the company. “My partner and I have been together for 14 years,” Kashirin told Sekret Firmy in 2009. - This is because we have the same views and approaches to business. Only the sectors of responsibility differ. He is a pure humanitarian, I am a technician. I am responsible for strategy, finance, administration, he is responsible for the product.”
Now Kashirin is vice-president of Opora Russia, head of the committee on trade issues, head of the commission on the alcohol and wine industry.

“THE STOPPED OPENING LIMITS FOR RUSSIA”

When the food embargo was introduced in August, were you afraid that imported alcohol would also be banned? Large international companies operating in Russia, out of fear, filled all their Russian warehouses with products...

Of course, there were concerns, we are normal people. But then it became clear to me that sanctions are being introduced against product groups with very short stocks and very fast purchases with high seasonality. That is, these sanctions should have immediately hit partners abroad. Wine and alcohol in general do not fit these criteria at all. The introduction of sanctions on such goods will not give the immediate desired effect in the near future. The market will feel such sanctions only in about nine months. Therefore, the state most likely chose goods for which the effect of sanctions would be immediate: fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, fresh salads - and immediately a blow to agriculture, to farmers, Europe immediately begins to scream. Well, and the wine, if you don’t sell it right away, it won’t spoil! There is no effect.

- But did you make a reserve just in case?

Russian companies do not have that kind of money. And the Western partners with whom we work are not ready to invest so heavily in creating reserves on the Russian market. We calculated that in order to make a reserve, we need to pay about €15 million in additional customs duties. Almost no Russian company can bear such a large financial burden. And if we talk about large international companies - Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Bacardi, then they simply moved large volumes of their goods from one of their own warehouses in Europe to their own warehouse in Russia. There was no risk for them. At first it seemed that they had done this in vain - they objectively did not need such reserves. But in the end they were the winner: they imported the goods at very reasonable rates - 50–55 rubles. for €1, completely filled the drains and got a good cost price. The rates went up, but they still had the goods at the old price. And at this price they began, in a certain sense, to dump against us on the market. We could not afford this - our goods arrived every day, and every day we cleared them at customs at new rates. It so happened that their, on the one hand, wrong step turned out to be, on the other hand, very correct.

- In connection with our financial situation in Russia, did our Western partners begin to demand an advance payment?

No. The bad news is that Western insurance agencies that insured the debts of Russian importing companies have stopped opening limits for Russia. That is, if I previously took goods on credit, a Western company would insure my debt to the supplier. My partner knew that if I did not pay, he was insured against losses in any case. Now these insurance companies are closing limits either on individual players, quite large ones at that; I will refrain from specific names, or on the country in general. They say: guys, the question is not about you personally, you are good, we have no problems with you, everything is clear, but we are putting a stop to the country. And that’s it, we have a situation where we need to take goods on deferment, but there is nothing to guarantee. Many people won't have enough money to work with advance payment.

Another high-profile story on the market was the bankruptcy of Rusimport, one of the oldest wine importers in the country. Will many wine merchants have to leave the market?

As for Rusimport, this is not bankruptcy, but an attempt to escape from creditors, and a very ugly attempt that has cast a shadow on our entire industry. Alexander Mamedov [the main owner of Rusimport] put all of us, Russian importers, in a very ugly position. By failing to fulfill obligations to Alfa Bank and other banks, he showed that the importing company could do this. Limits began to be placed on our industry. I talked to many bankers, they say: now we are afraid to believe you all, because we take your goods as collateral, we come, but there are no goods. How? This is a scam. Where do you put them? At the same time, Rusimport continues shipments to contractors. I think they are, in a sense, finished anyway. Such things are not forgiven, especially by Alpha. Perhaps they have some trump cards up their sleeves, but globally, I believe, the old “Rusimport” will no longer exist - the market will not forgive this.

As for others, the visible consequences of the current situation will appear later. May, June, July will be very indicative. We will see who will survive and withstand the present conditions. For all those who import with deferred payment, the peak of orders occurs from September to December - during the New Year's sale. And last year, as usual, everyone ordered a lot, but in December, due to the well-known situation, sales were not very good. Then came a bad start to 2015. If you defer, you must pay for the purchased wine in the period from April to July, that is, now. Banks don’t give much money, including because of the story with Rusimport. And many companies have already exhausted their own cash reserves.

“WINE QUALITY DOES NOT MATTER FOR A RESTAURANT”

Everyone is concerned about the issue of wine pricing in Russia. All people who travel to Europe know that wine there is not very expensive - for example, €10 per bottle, but on the shelf in a Russian store it sells for three times as much. Who takes the difference?

I'll explain it to you. Firstly, we pay about 43% of the purchase price in the form of transportation costs and customs duties. Then another problem arises. In Russia, retail is structured in such a way that it claims back payments in the amount of 35–40% of the delivery price.

- At the legally permitted 10%?

The allowed 10% is the official retrobonus, the network’s volume bonus. They process the remaining amounts as marketing and logistics payments. If I have to pay back to the network in the amount of 30–40% of the delivery price, then I must include this amount in the delivery price itself. There is no point in selling below cost. Next, the network asks for a significant discount from the price list - which means it needs to be included in the delivery price. The result is a fairly high cost. After this, I can no longer put wine in a “horeca” [from the English abbreviation HoReCa - hotels, restaurants, cafes] with a price without all these markups. If I give wine to restaurants at a lower price, chain buyers will call me, and they monitor the entire market and say: why are you offering a small restaurant a price less than a large chain? . And no one will be interested in the fact that I don’t pay “backs” there - the price should be the same.

There is also a struggle for discounts in restaurants. Nobody wants to think about the final price for the guest or compare the quality of the wine. It gets to the point of absurdity when the quality of wine for a restaurant does not matter in the grand scheme of things. We constantly raise this story with back payments in the hope of changing the situation in the market - because of it, all goods are very expensive. In addition, many networks make very good front margins. Okay, Metro C&C is around 12–16%, Auchan is 8%, but other networks raise it to 30, 40, 50, 60%. We are trying to explain to them that such high prices are absolutely ineffective. If we lower the price, we will sell twice as much.

- Is there a backlash?

They are not at all interested in this. Retail can throw any alcohol company off the shelf. There are simply products that you really can’t live without. Large corporations - Nestle, Coca-Cola, Danone, PepsiCo, Mars and others - have created a whole pool of brands and created huge conceptual product portfolios, without which retail cannot do without. There is no substitute for these brands. In our case, anyone can be thrown out of retail - they will put in another wine, and you won’t even notice.

In 2017, the imported alcohol market in Russia, which suffered greatly during the crisis due to exchange rate changes, showed growth in all major categories for the first time in several years. In an interview with Kommersant, the president of Simple Maxim Kashirin explained the reason for the recovery in the consumption of foreign drinks, and also told why it has become easier for the company to work with networks and what prevents it from starting winemaking in Russia.

- Are you satisfied with the results of 2017?

Yes, we see growth in almost all categories. Of course, maybe not as turbulent as we would like, but we understand that the market is returning. If back in 2016, according to my observations, not all companies started up at the same rate, then in 2017 everyone began to improve, and the competitive struggle again became more pronounced. At the same time, I cannot say that demand has become much more active. We saw that our consumers from the corporate sector were still restrained in spending before the New Year. Therefore, even the growth that we saw in sales last year is not easy.

- But how do you explain it anyway?

Firstly, by the fact that people are returning to a more natural format of consumption for them. And secondly, the strengthening of the ruble. In 2015, during the period of severe devaluation, there was a serious squeeze on consumption, when people did not understand how to plan their budgets in order to provide a safety net for their families. In 2016, the situation more or less returned to normal, and in 2017, we even lowered prices for the premium part of our portfolio since April, because the exchange rate returned to more attractive values.

- How long?

On average, the portfolio gained 10–12%, if not more. One of the challenges for us was to grow in money in 2017, despite falling prices. To do this, it was necessary to sell more goods. This physically added to our work, since we needed to expand our client base. We coped with this task. Although sales went in waves: for some month everything was good, and then suddenly there was a decline. The summer was still cold, it was pouring like buckets. For example, we expected more from sales through restaurants during this period, but they dropped a little. Then there was the period of October-November, when for some reason unknown to us, we saw that sales were really slow. We had planned sales figures for these months, and we had to fight for them, but December worked exactly according to plan.

- Is this the first time you have reduced prices since the beginning of the crisis?

No, there were reductions before that too. Because we followed the course, and the course changed so dynamically. When we told the client: our prices are at the rate of 90 rubles/€, he froze in surprise. We said: what should we do? Then we had prices of 80 rubles/€. We had to make three or four price adjustments in 2015. It was terrible, because some clients accept the price quickly, for example in the HoReCa segment. What about retail? Wait two months, and then he may not want to accept these new prices at all. But we can't. Do you remember there was a conflict in December 2014 when we stopped supplies online? Not out of malice, but simply I didn’t even know at what rate to sell. The exchange rate was growing like crazy, and we just needed to take a break and wait for it to stabilize.

When you raise prices, retailers are reluctant to accept them, but when, on the contrary, chains are ready to lower prices after you?

The retailer, of course, is happy to broadcast the reduction to the shelf if it is significant. But technologically, the process of changing prices is still long.

- But do you control the process of reducing prices at retail?

The speed of the process is not controlled by us. If the reduction is not very large on our part, then the retailer does not always want to lower the price on the shelf. When there is a big decline, the retailer always goes down too. Those changes in the trade law, which everyone criticized, greatly changed the general form of our dialogue with networks. The dialogue finally began to be built on the principle of a conversation between two merchants. We trade and they trade. And before it was: we sell, and they sell the shelf. Retrobonus paid, did something else - they are always in the black, and you are in the dark. Now the situation has changed: they began to look much more closely at what is happening and how it turns out, and in some cases they began to understand that they could earn much more. What matters is not what percentage markup you have, but how the product is sold. If it just stands on a shelf without moving, then no matter what the margin is, there is no income. This is something that networks have finally begun to think about more and more. We began to look together at how to make a good price for the consumer. Networks that follow this approach begin to have more efficient turnover, they actually stimulate sales and earn more. We had a very constructive dialogue with a number of federal networks. And in 2006 or 2007 we were enemies. Instead of cooperating and looking for normal interaction, all these retro bonuses led to such corruption in the procurement system that retailers began to build a wall between us. We tell them: this is wrong, we have no desire to corrupt, we have a desire to sell more and earn more. As soon as the law changed, all the corruption went away. Today, chains abroad are building very close relationships with manufacturers and distributors, showing them all their cards, saying: we need such and such products, or discussing how we can achieve this product at such a price. This is normal work because, at the core, we all want the end consumer to be satisfied. In Russia, for example, taking a buyer and taking him to a winemaker for production was considered corruption. But it's not right. Without this, your buyer does not understand what he is buying: he has never been to this production - they are making some kind of product for him, and he does not even know that this is a very low-level production. Walmart, for example, sends delegations to its partners to ensure that its suppliers are reputable, high-tech companies that adhere to the highest standards of hygiene and the like. Because Walmart wants to work with the best. How will you see this from your office? And that’s why when we say: let’s take it out, we say: no, no, no, according to the code of our network, I can’t go anywhere. Well, what is this?!

One of the consequences of the crisis was that suppliers and networks got carried away with price promotions. Don't you think it's dangerous to hook consumers on them?

You are right, this situation exists. Naturally, any network without a promotion is not very happy, because it needs the consumer to see that the network cares about him, creates excellent conditions for him: yellow price tag, red price tag, three bottles for the price of two, two for the price of one, etc. In all product categories, the network puts pressure on such promotions. We are obliged to do promos, this is part of the contract with the network, because the network says: okay, I will enter your SKUs, but on the condition that we have such and such a number of promos. For example, this is participation in the New Year's platform, additional points of sale, end displays. If previously many promotions were built into increasing the retrobonus, now everything translates into an additional discount. Sometimes we actually work at zero or with a meager profit: we give everything to the network, because, firstly, we have to do it, and secondly, many people will buy and try our products. We try to make sure that the share of goods sold in promotions is commercially effective for us, because I do not have the same margin as a brand owner who works directly with networks. If you remember, at the end of 2014 and in 2015, global brand owners imported their goods at very low transfer prices, which ultimately allowed them to have very attractive prices on the shelves. And customs could not punish them for this. We would be punished because we are not brand owners, but importers.

- Why would you be punished?

Because when you transport goods at one price, and then your import price suddenly drops sharply, customs says: why did your price become minus 30%? So, come on, come here, the price minus 30% will not work, you will pay the same as the previous price - this is called customs value control. This, of course, is such a very simple presentation, but this is the essence. Customs is responsible for collecting money, and as a result, it tries to ensure that fees are not reduced anywhere. And it’s so difficult to prove to her that you are not a camel, to explain that the supplier is giving us an anti-crisis discount, we have a devaluation in the country, the goods have become twice as expensive. The supplier tells us: ok guys, I’ll give you a 25% discount for one or two years. We run to customs - customs says: no, no, you can do whatever you want, but the import price should not change. But when we are talking about brand owners who produce everything themselves and import their goods here without intermediaries, then customs can no longer suspect them of anything and restrict them.

- Can’t you show the contracts?

It's possible, but it doesn't always work. For example, very cheap wines from the New World can be introduced without control of customs value, but for some reason the same wines from Italy cannot be introduced - additional customs duties will immediately be charged. Discrimination. We would certainly like to see this change. We plan to draw the attention of the Ministry of Finance to this problem this year, to explain that this prevents companies from agreeing on completely different operating principles, receiving special prices for a certain period, and in general this is some kind of anachronism.

- But in 2015, you told me that during the acute phase of the crisis, suppliers were cooperative and gave discounts.

We had anti-crisis discounts, many suppliers provided them to us, but they could not give us the depth we wanted. There were discounts of 10–15%, very rarely - 20%, almost all large suppliers gave. With such discounts, customs clearance was generally normal.

- Are these discounts still valid?

From January 1, all our imports are again at the prices that were before the beginning of 2015. We and foreign suppliers see that the market has stabilized. If there are no sharp fluctuations in the exchange rate, then these anti-crisis measures are no longer really needed. We need a real good price, with which we will continue to work.

There is an opinion that the growth in sales of imported wine was influenced by the reverse switching of consumers from domestic products.

Because Russian winemakers raised prices a little and the balance shifted again. There was a situation when imported wine cost 800–1000 rubles. per bottle, and ours is 300–400 rubles. still. But our guys thought: why sell for 300 rubles if you can sell for 700 rubles? I'm speaking tentatively.

That is, our winemakers overestimated themselves, believing that the demand for their products would continue if they raised prices?

You have to understand that when the demand for domestic wine grew in 2015, patriotic sentiments were very high: drink your own, eat your own. This remains - it’s just that, in my opinion, Russian winemakers are in a rather difficult situation. On the one hand, I can tell them: guys, your wine is somewhat overrated. On the other hand, I understand that they don’t have any special benefits. The state practically does not support them, only now they have begun to provide subsidies for replanting vineyards and planting new ones. And before there was nothing at all. They have just been equated with agricultural producers. In our economic and tax system, it is quite difficult for an agricultural producer to make really inexpensive wine at a cost. I also understand their troubles: it’s not that they are greedy, but they simply don’t know what to do and what to do. They also need to fight off this whole thing. I cannot say that I am familiar with the business models of certain producers and know in detail all their costs, but I understand, by analyzing and communicating with winemakers around the world, what their conditions are, what the government approach is there. Every country is proud of its winemaking. Proud! It's like being proud of your athletes, ballet, opera, science. There, wine is not alcohol or, excuse me, I’m not afraid of this word, booze. These are products that can be exported to different countries as national pride. These are not cucumbers and tomatoes - the attitude towards them is different. When a country is proud of its winemakers, it creates special conditions for them and itself determines the regions and zones in which winemaking should develop. We don't have this yet. We are currently discussing the law on wine and viticulture at a working group in the State Duma, and this is a difficult debate.

- They say that the team at Simple has changed a lot recently. What is this connected with?

Simple has historically specialized in working with HoReCa. When we went online, it happened ten years ago, retail was ahead of us in terms of knowledge and technology. We, as an operator, were too far from understanding retail - we started going there, making a lot of mistakes. We didn’t have an appropriate assortment, we didn’t have an understanding of how to do a promotion, how to create a promotional calendar - it was a whole lot of work. We have changed several teams in retail, and now we have a very high-level team, whose members speak the same language with retail. Over the past two years, we have renewed almost the entire top team, it was a colossal job. When your turnover is already over 10 billion rubles. per year, then you and your management team must have an appropriate one, since the cost of an error is high. My partner Anatoly Korneev and I are still self-taught entrepreneurs. I didn’t have time to study business anywhere, I didn’t work in a Western company and I don’t have the skills, for example, of a sales director with all the courses that teams take in large Western companies. But we have long since reached such a level that we need a team of a completely different level, and it was very difficult to create such a team, because we had to find serious professionals who would meet our DNA, convince them to work for us and make sure that they became a real team. All this is very difficult and slow.

- What is the difficulty of finding people?

Many people don’t want to go into alcohol: they believe that the industry is not the cleanest, not the whitest, there is a lot of regulation, a lot of difficulties for people involved in marketing, communications, a lot of things are not allowed. Sometimes it doesn’t seem very interesting to them, although it is not so. True, the strength of the Simple brand is already very great, and the wine business itself is wonderful - everyone likes the company and its spirit, but not everyone is ready to work in such a specific environment. We also compete for the best professionals with other strong employers in the country.

- In 2016, you said that retail accounts for 35% of your sales. Has this share changed in any way since then?

It was smaller - all retail was then a little less than 30%. I think that by the end of this year we will reach 35%. In two years, we have greatly improved our work with professional wine retail, and have grown very much in federal retail and local chains. Our share of sales through retail is growing, as the share of mass market goods in our assortment is growing. For example, in 2013 the share of such goods in liters was 80%, and in money - 46%, in 2017 - 81.5% in liters and already 51% in money. Because the consumer has undergone a serious switch. For us, a mass market is a product that costs less than €2.5 per bottle from the manufacturer. Anything more is already premium. From the point of view of the assortment in the mass market, Simple has always had a strong position in wines from Italy, but in the wines of France, Spain and the New World we were seriously lagging behind. My task was to make Simple a powerful key player not only in the premium segment, but also in the mass market segment. First of all, we needed to bring the mass market range to the right number of the right wines at the right prices and with an attractive appearance from all the wine regions we needed. We have been doing this work for five years now, it’s not a quick story - finding the right supplier, tasting, getting stable quality, agreeing on a price. We want to be in the top 5 largest importers for each country. Building this portfolio is one of the conceptual tasks that faces me. Now, if you look at the Italian mass market, we are number one there, and if you take other countries, we still have work to do.

- How are the remaining 65% of sales distributed?

Firstly, we have a very large and strong sales channel in HoReCa. Here we are probably one of the strongest players in the country among wine trading companies. We work directly, bypassing distributors, already in five cities of Russia - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Krasnodar and Sochi. This channel accounts for about 25% of sales. Secondly, we also have a large sales channel to B2C clients. These are corporate clients who make purchases for some of their needs: presentations, boards of directors, corporate events, etc. We have a system, something like this VIP Wine Club, where our clients make individual orders through a manager. They buy quite a lot. The store cannot work with them, because they need wines of a different price level, and their purchase volumes are already different. These clients have long outgrown the store format. This channel gives us another 20–25% of sales in monetary terms. The rest comes from distributors and our own wine retail, which is also actively growing.

Customs statistics show that retailers are increasing direct imports of alcohol. This is done, for example, by “Magnit” and “ABC of Taste”. Are you worried that this will negatively impact your sales?

We are not afraid, but we must take it into account. I foresaw this development of events back in 2009. From the very beginning of the crisis, it was clear: the first thing the chains will do in this changed situation is to cut the bones and try to reach producers directly for many classes of goods. It was clear to me that they would begin to sharply increase their imports, reach a certain peak, and then there would be some decline. A consumer, when he comes to a store, wanting to buy a product in a category with an incomprehensible set of brands, looks at the shelf and thinks whether he has seen it before or not. If he liked the product, he will try to find it again. And having come to one or another network and not finding it, he gets the feeling that this is some kind of special product if it is sold only in one place. In the end, the chains will understand that they can’t fill everything with just their product - the consumer will still want confirmation of their choice in the form of a wide representation of the product in retail. Another reason why I don’t see a big threat for us from retail as an importer of wine is that they will mainly work only in the mass demand segment, and besides, they are unlikely to be able to get manufacturers with world brands as partners. level. I doubt that such suppliers who look at the Russian market strategically would want to be exclusive in retail for any one chain, even if it is a very large chain. They want to be widely represented in the market.

- In 2016, you launched your first product - Onegin vodka. Are you happy with its sales?

We are always unhappy with sales. (Laughs.) On the one hand, I am pleased, because we even exceeded the preliminary targets that we set for ourselves, but on the other hand, you see, it is very difficult to plan the first year from scratch, because this is not the product and not the market that I know . “Onegin” was facing tough competition, moving into the super-premium segment, where the main player is Beluga, and there are also other brands that have been represented there for a long time: “Mamont”, Kremlin Award, Belveder, Gray Goose, Imperia, etc. This is new for us category, we had never worked with it - we didn’t know how quickly we could market our vodka, because the brand may be good, but if you don’t know how to work with vodka as a sales team, you can stall. Knowing how to negotiate this category with restaurants is important. There, wine on tap is a separate conversation, champagne on tap is another conversation, the wine list is a third conversation, strong drinks are a fourth, vodka is a fifth, water is a sixth. The restaurant talks to me about each product separately. The team that worked with me to create Onegin were vodka distillers with extensive experience who had previously worked with Russian Standard and Belaya Berezka. But we didn’t have vodka producers in our sales - we are a wine company, so we had conservative forecasts for sales and listings of Onegin. At the same time, we initially did not do any promo anywhere. It was very important for me that our vodka would not be rejected by the market in terms of concept, appearance, or quality. And here, thank God, no problems occurred in any of the terms.

- Have you ever had products that you took, and then faced general rejection of them?

Yes. We had an Italian water called Galvanina, which we sold before we took on San Benedetto. So they took Galvanina - water and water, but it had such a flat taste or something, and it didn’t work, for the life of me. Despite the fact that we arranged it and signed contracts. Can you imagine? It happens: everything is fine, but customers don’t like the taste - and that’s it, they refused to drink it in restaurants, although there are no problems with quality. And in the end we were forced to abandon it, because we realized that we could not do anything. In general, this is, of course, a rare case, but it does happen. That’s why I was worried about Onegin, because everyone knows about vodka, it’s our original product.

- Don’t you think it’s strange that vodka with that name is bottled in Ulyanovsk, and not in St. Petersburg?

The fact is that when we just started releasing it, there was simply no one in St. Petersburg to approach with a proposal for bottling. “Liviz” was in bankruptcy, and “Ladoga” at that time also began having some similar problems. It’s not Rustam Tariko’s place where we should pour ourselves: why does he need us?

- What is Simple's next proprietary product after vodka?

I have a lot of ideas, but I won’t tell you yet.

- Since you are still more of a wine trading company, I will assume that it will be wine.

And there are ideas on wine. It’s just that wine, unlike vodka and a number of other industries, is a very long process. If you start creating something in it today, you will need to talk about the result in seven to ten years. We have a project in Georgia, but we still continue to plant vineyards there. We harvested our first harvest last year, from which we made a test batch of wine as the beginning of the process of studying our terroir. Our specialists look at what happened and how to work with it. Sales are still a long way off.

- When will you plant the first vineyards in Crimea?

We have no land there.

- When will the first land appear?

Good question. Don't know.

At the beginning of 2017, a photo appeared on your Instagram of you flying on a plane from Crimea, and the caption to it: “As always, we are up to something.”

We, of course, look with great interest at Crimea as a very promising winemaking area. What to hide - everyone is looking at it. But there are several problems in Crimea. There is very little free wine-growing land there that the state can sell or lease to you. The market for agricultural land in Crimea has frozen, it simply does not exist. Private owners who bought these lands during the time of the Ukrainian government value it at crazy prices, because they believe that this land is very good for building cottages, houses, settlements, etc. But this is such insanity! Landowners think that someone will build something on these huge hectares. But no one will build anything there, because in the Moscow region they don’t build that much, but in Crimea, who will build on such a scale? And so they are sitting like dogs in the manger, and the government still doesn’t want to do anything about it. The state, I have said this more than once, in order to develop winemaking in a particular region must create special wine clusters there. For anyone to go to Crimea at all, fundamental issues must be resolved. First: land clearing is needed. You cannot take it away, but you can forcefully buy it back if it has not been used for three years. Buy back the land from these careless comrades, give them money and create a bank of land suitable for winemaking. Then investors will appear.

- In Crimea, land auctions are often held...

Yes, but do you think they're all great for winemaking? I have already looked at many sites, because we were asked to advise, and we ourselves were interested in what kind of terroir is in Crimea. I can say that there is a lot of land there, generally suitable for winemaking, but really not very good or interesting. But for lack of anything better, they buy and plant on such lands. Another big issue related to our arrival in Crimea is sanctions. We are a company that does business with international partners. We seem to be looking at Crimea, but we don’t even know how to get there theoretically, even if we are offered a high-quality land plot. How to go there now?

- That is, you will wait until the issue with the status of Crimea is finally resolved in one direction or another.

We just don't yet understand how this can be done. We are heavily dependent on international financial instruments, we work a lot with Western banks, with Russian subsidiaries of Western banks. If sanctions arrive, these banks will close all relations with us. So what should we do then? I really hope and believe that all this will be resolved in the foreseeable future and we will be able to apply our knowledge and energy to the development of winemaking in Russia.

- In addition to Crimea, there is also the Krasnodar region.

We don't want to go there.

- Why?

Same thing: do you see a lot of vacant land there? At reasonable prices?

- They say that almost everything is sold there: vineyards and production.

There is a lot on sale there, we even looked, but it’s all uninteresting to us. Firstly, we don’t want to buy anything ready-made, because we have a greenfield concept. I like to make everything from scratch. Secondly, the Krasnodar region has a complex terroir. We believe that this is a rather risky winemaking area; we don’t want to take that risk: we can’t afford it.

- So for now you will deal with Russian wine only as a distributor?

Yes, we work with Russian winemakers: with Zolotaya Balka, with Raevsky. We have excellent relations with them, we help them in some ways, advise them on some issues. Because we see the market much better than they do. We would consider other winemakers if they met certain criteria.

- What is the share of Russian wine in your portfolio now?

Microscopic, I don't even know. Well, how much does Zolotaya Balka cost, how much does Raevskoye cost? This is up to 500 rubles, up to 1 thousand rubles. This is very little compared to imports: somewhere around zero point tens.

It was expected that online alcohol sales would launch in Russia this year. If this ever happens, how do you think the market will change?

The first thing you need to understand is that the state needs online sales of alcohol not because it is another channel for civilized sales, although this is important. What is important here is something completely different, namely that, according to statistics, only 2% of food products are sold online of total sales, while in the world this share reaches 10–12% and continues to grow! Why don't we sell food products online? Because in addition to these goods, the consumer’s basket lacks heavier, more expensive goods. Namely alcohol. What does this lead to? Moreover, for an online food retail operator, the income from a customer’s order sometimes does not even cover operating expenses. How can we develop here? As a result, this segment of trade is not growing and there is no competition with large retail. After all, only a few can build a large federal chain of stores, but many can create an effective online grocery store in a large city! Hence the lack of price reductions by networks, because they have no one to compete with. They can always agree with each other, but not with hundreds of online stores. And now this is real competition! Accordingly, the consumer does not even have a chance to get goods cheaper, and the state is actually completely cut off from such a global channel as online grocery shopping, which greatly influences pricing in large retail all over the world. Second: you need to understand that the law on the legalization of online sales of alcohol is a law aimed at ensuring that those consumers who want to purchase something interesting or unusual can have this opportunity. After all, in supermarkets the assortment is limited, and the palette of alcoholic products is very large. Here I am primarily talking about high-quality and rare alcohol. And for many small producers, mainly winemakers, it is almost impossible to disappear onto store shelves, and for them this is perhaps the only potential sales channel to the end consumer. This is also very important in light of the state’s desire to achieve significant development of domestic winemaking. Many people mistakenly perceive this law as a law that is aimed at allowing the sale of vodka by the carload on the Internet. No one will do this on the Internet. Moreover, given the regulation and control scheme that we developed jointly with Rosalkogolregulirovanie, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Communications. It will be more expensive for yourself. Moreover, how to compete with the gray and black markets, which sell alcohol online without any law, if legal producers and importers are deprived of this opportunity? Who are we supporting by the absence of this corral? Legal or illegal players? In the USA, for example, some wineries make up to 60% of sales through online subscriptions, bypassing distribution channels. And America does not prevent this, because these guys sometimes have limited access to restaurants and stores.

- What is the obstacle to passing the law?

There seem to be no global obstacles; everyone seems to be generally in favor of the law. It is necessary for someone to submit it for consideration to the State Duma - deputies or the government, and this is what we are working on now. The bill has been agreed upon by everyone in the government, except for now the Ministry of Health, which traditionally has a dissenting opinion, believing that the law will increase the availability of alcohol for young people. According to statistics, the entire alcohol Internet business in the world is a consumer aged 25–45 with a fairly high level of income, these are not 18-year-olds at all. How will the Internet increase the availability of alcohol if you order today and receive it tomorrow? What is the accessibility here? Alcohol is delivered from a licensed warehouse located somewhere not nearby, you also have to go through all the Unified State Automated Information System procedures, and this is not fast at all. We discussed that it would take at least three to four hours to deliver the order. Yes, it’s easier to run to the nearest store if I want to catch up. There is no way e-commerce can be a channel that will increase accessibility. Accessibility is different, accessibility is visual contact with the product at every corner. Now, if we allow the sale of alcohol in tents and stalls again, this will be accessibility.

- You have renamed most of your Grand Cru wine collections to SimpleWine. For what?

The Grand Cru wine library chain began to develop in 2003 as a small network of super-professional wine bars for connoisseurs. The market was such that there was no mass passion for wine yet. Therefore, both the name and format of the wine collection suited the moment. This went on for about eight years. Starting around 2011, the overall picture of wine consumption began to change rapidly. Wine became fashionable, more and more people were interested in it, democratic wine bars began to open in large numbers - in a word, an active movement began. I followed all this closely. By the beginning of 2015, we already had about ten wine bars - eight in Moscow and two in St. Petersburg, as well as two wine bars. I realized that our original concept no longer suited the changing market, and neither did the name Grand Cru. Therefore, we not only rebranded the wine stores, renaming them SimpleWine, but also completely updated the design and concept. We have created high-quality, but at the same time quite affordable wine stores, in which the price of wine starts from about 700 rubles. per bottle and everything is sold at our base list price. These are the kind of wine stores where, in theory, those for whom the choice in supermarkets has become too small and who want to talk with a cavist, start buying in a more meaningful way, and return with feedback about wines to a place where they personally know him well, should come. Only the Grand Cru wine bar on Bronnaya in Moscow has retained its name and lives a separate life, since after the recent expansion and renovation this gastronomic wine bar no longer fit into the new concept of the wine shop chain.

During 2015–2017, we have already opened about 20 new wine stores and will soon open 3 more. Now we have about 30 wine stores, of which 4 are in St. Petersburg, one in Rostov-on-Don, and the rest in Moscow. Probably this year we will open about five more in Moscow and a couple more in St. Petersburg. We want to have seven or eight stores there to completely cover the city. St. Petersburg is specific: geographically, everything there is not like in Moscow; business is growing, but not as fast as in the capital. Then we have the SimpleWine wine library in Rostov-on-Don for several months. It is very important for me to look at the potential of a regional store, how much people will perceive it, what sales will be, how they will grow from year to year. Because from a regional point of view, our store seems very luxurious, perhaps even pretentious, but in reality this is not at all the case. You just need to log in and start communicating with the cavist.

- Will you open in any other Russian cities?

I don’t yet see the potential for opening a wine library in every half-million population: there are not enough clients there. I think that for the next few years it will be Moscow, St. Petersburg, plus cities with a population of over a million, in which there will be two stores per city, in some, maybe three. But this is most likely a task for sometime in 2020 and beyond. For 2018–2019, the task is to complete development in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

- Do you want to develop your own restaurants?

We are not restaurateurs, we have no idea to develop the restaurant business as a business project. SimpleWine & Bar is a point that we opened in order to, seeing people's interest in Grand Cru, give them the opportunity to try interesting food and wine in a more attractive price segment. There, dishes cost on average 400–600 rubles, and a glass of wine starts at 300 rubles, which is very affordable. We have no desire to develop a network of such bars - this is a very difficult business. My first restaurant was opened 20 years ago - the Baskerville billiard club, now called Parkhouse. So there is experience and an understanding of all the associated problems too.

- Not yours anymore?

Mine still is. So I know all the ins and outs of the restaurant business. This is a very difficult business, much less systematic and more subtle. Where the system seems to be clear, but everything must always be correct, it all depends on the person.

- You can enter the restaurant market with more experienced partners.

On the one hand - yes. But on the other hand, since we do not set ambitious goals for making money here, not every partner needs such a project. Maybe we will open another restaurant in Moscow, but everything very much depends on the location and offer. How was SimpleWine & Bar opened on Neglinnaya? We weren't looking for a place. An option arrived, we looked, we thought - indeed, maybe in this place we can do it. When I open my bar, my soul hurts: I start to worry, worry about the floristry, what’s hanging on the wall, what kind of toilet paper, what napkins, what the soap smells like. I’m starting to bother myself with this, because my bar is already a personal story, it’s all between you and me, you know? Either everything is done as it should be, or it falls apart. Arkady Novikov, Alexander Rappoport, Borya Zarkov, Andrey Delos, the Vasilchuk brothers and many others who have large systemic restaurant companies, over the years they have created these control mechanisms, built management teams, a supply system, and therefore they have many projects. But they are practically engaged only in this business. And we're not talking about that.

Kashirin Maxim Sergeevich

Private bussiness

Born on July 15, 1967 in Moscow. Graduated from the Tsiolkovsky Moscow Aviation Technological Institute with a degree in metallurgy and welding technology (1989). He studied at the graduate school of the Moscow State Academy of Fine Chemical Technology named after. M. V. Lomonosov.

In 1994, he founded and headed the wine distribution company Simple. In 1999 he founded the Enotria wine school. In 2003 he opened a chain of Grand Cru wine boutiques. Vice-president of "Opora Rossii", member of the Public Council of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia.

Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, Knight of the Order of Merit of the French Republic in the field of agriculture, was awarded with thanks from the President, the government and relevant departments of Russia.

LLC “Company “Simple””

Company profile

LLC “Company “Simple”” was founded in 1994 by entrepreneurs Maxim Kashirin and Anatoly Korneev. Engaged in the import and distribution of wines, champagne, spirits, bar accessories, glass and crystal products. The non-alcoholic segment is handled by the Simple Waters division. The company cooperates with more than 450 manufacturers from 42 countries. In Russia there is a network of wine stores and wine bars called SimpleWine (22 in Moscow, three in the Moscow region, five in St. Petersburg and one in Rostov-on-Don). In 1999, the company opened the Enotria wine school, and in 2007, the travel agency Simple Travel. Since 2016, the company has been producing premium vodka “Onegin”. Since 2017, Simple Congress has been held for market professionals and Simple Wine Fest for consumers. The company employs more than 1 thousand people. The office of the parent company - Simple Group LLC - is located in Moscow. 99% of its shares are owned by Simple Wine Holdings Ltd, registered in Cyprus; 0.8% - Maxim Kashirin; 0.2% - Anatoly Korneev. The revenue of Simple Company LLC for 2016 was 9.65 billion rubles, net profit was 375.3 million rubles. General Director - Maxim Kashirin.

Interview conducted by Oleg Trutnev

Our correspondent Ksenia Ponomarenko, a business student at Columbia Business School, spends her extracurricular time interacting with influential figures in the Russian business industry. Ksenia’s new interlocutor is the founder of Simple company Maxim Kashirin

Maxim Kashirin is an experienced entrepreneur and the person who instilled in Russia a taste for good wines. Mr. Kashirin began doing business back in perestroika times, successfully overcame the crisis of 1998 and 2008, became vice-president of the influential public organization of small and medium-sized businesses OPORA Russia, head of the Committee on Trade Issues and the Commission on the Alcohol and Wine Industry, and At the same time, he is the holder of prestigious titles - Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, Knight of the Order of Merit of the French Republic and Ambassador of the White Truffle.

You are not new to business. How do you assess what has been happening in the country over the past few months?
Now we are playing this game: we plan our expenses, but we don’t know how much a dollar will cost tomorrow; accordingly, we don’t know how much the product will cost and which companies will remain on the market. The easiest thing is to cut costs, the more difficult thing is to build a new commercial policy and look into the future. Many questions, the answers to which could shed light on how business in Russia should now behave, remain open: what will happen to oil prices, how the situation in Ukraine will develop, how the government and the Central Bank will react to all these processes. In any case, I look at the situation calmly; every crisis has its own opportunities. There is a chance to realize your advantages, change the existing stereotypical commercial and other approaches.

In 1998, we had no shipments at all. Everything collapsed instantly. The crisis happened in August, and only in October did we restore sales. In the spring, improvements gradually began, and in the fall of 1999, sales began in full swing. The current crisis is completely different - I believe it will take 3 to 6 months to clearly see the market and the new economy.

Your company has a tourist destination. Do you think it will be in demand in the coming years or should we forget about gastrotourism?
Everything is not as dramatic as, for example, in 1998, when “I fell asleep - it was 6 rubles, woke up - it was 21 rubles.” Now the situation is different: from 33 rubles we gradually reached 60-65 rubles, there was a sharp jump only at the very end. Today, wages in dollar terms have been lost much less than then. But, on the other hand, the prices were completely different, there were no consumer loans, there was no this horror that exists now.

The summary is the following: there is no need to be afraid, everything will return. I assume that those countries that want to receive our tourists will lower prices or develop special offers. Europe has already realized that there are no more Russians with fat wallets. And thank God! Because of us, everything has become very expensive everywhere. So the crisis is not bad. It forces you to rethink your values. The only thing I fear is that Russia will separate from the world. But I hope it doesn't come to that.

Your products have already risen in price by 25%, is that correct?
Not certainly in that way. From April 1 to December 1, 2014, we did not change prices. Then they planned an adjustment in 2 stages: they managed to partially change prices on December 1, 2014, and the second stage was planned for December 15 (Monday). On Friday, we made an internal recalculation in advance at the rate of approximately 65 rubles per euro (and we were at the level of 52 rubles). On Monday we make this course work and - balls! There was a sharp collapse of the ruble. We had to suspend deliveries to look around for 2-3 days and understand how the situation would develop further. I believe that it is better not to sell products that cost anything at all than to give them away for free or at unreasonably high prices. If this product is liquid, as in our case, and it does not have an expiration date, it is better to wait it out. We will always have time to sell at a loss.

Today we work according to the internal rate, which we record on our website - in the interests of clients, it is deliberately lower than the rate of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. And if the ruble exchange rate goes up, we will reduce prices.

“Europe has already realized that there are no more Russians with fat wallets. And thank God! Because of us, everything has become very expensive everywhere.”

Given this development, which category of wine will be popular?
Cheap and very expensive. People with high incomes, for whom expensive and good wines are part of their diet, will buy them even in a crisis. And the middle segment will be missing. The target audience of this category will either move down or stop buying wine altogether.

Let's go back to your past. Tell us about how you were able to create such a successful and beautiful business despite all the difficulties.
At the end of 1990, I realized that I had to quit graduate school, because my stipend of 130 rubles was enough for a couple of days at most. In theory, I had to leave, but who needed me in the West then? Today they are ready to receive our specialists there - we have proven that we can and are capable. As a result, I started doing everything - there was no initial capital, of course. What can a person who has no money do? Only resell.

If we talk about the wine business, it was not created from scratch. I started out selling computers, faxes and copiers. When there was not enough money, he “bombed” by car. At 22, I already had a child, I needed to feed my family. That is, all this Soviet and post-Soviet activity passed through me. Therefore, I know the value of every penny.

But at a certain point I wanted to build a truly systematic business. If I had a license, the Central Bank still allowed me to sell goods in conventional units, and I decided to open a currency store. I came to one bank with a business plan, which was made simply - on 3 pieces of paper, and received money. This is how a grocery supermarket appeared on Leningradka. At some point, I realized that alcohol was selling very well - it accounted for about 40 percent of all revenue. And by coincidence, at the same time, I met Anatoly Korneev through one of my customers, who came to see me every day. Before that, Anatoly worked in a company that supplied wine to the USSR for Vneshposyltorg, Berezka stores and for serving foreigners. We met, talked and started working together. Since this all started.

I started making wine for three reasons. Firstly, this is a rather aesthetic business, which I always really liked. Secondly, I understood that no one in the country except me would be involved in wine in the near future - this is not a very fast-moving market and not super profitable, and it also requires a fairly deep knowledge of history, culture and languages. Thirdly, I knew that nowhere in the world do winemakers have their own distribution structures; in all markets, wines are sold through local players. And then it was already clear that along with Russia, which at that time was at the very bottom of its economic condition, the quality of life of the population would also develop: new restaurants, new hotels would appear, and people would have the opportunity to travel more. That is, we were in an advantageous position.

During the crisis of '98, my supermarket died. I repurposed it into a baby food store, but it was uninteresting and unprofitable. But the wine business began to expand - in 2000, I began to understand that it was necessary to cut down all unnecessary things and concentrate on wine.

“I understood that no one in the country except me would be involved in wine in the near future - this is not a very fast-moving market and not super profitable...”

You are involved in charity work and have organized a beautiful project called “White Truffle”. Can you tell us about this?
In 2006, on the recommendation of the leading wine-growing families of Piedmont, the Grinzane Cavour commune association awarded me the title of “White Truffle Ambassador” for the promotion of Piedmontese wine and gastronomic culture. This prize is generally awarded only to the best chefs in the world, often awarded Michelin stars, who promote the enogastronomic culture of Piedmont to the world. I was touched and took it as an advance. And to justify the trust, he came up with a charity story called “White Truffle.” For several years in a row, we have been organizing a paid enogastronomic dinner with the best wines of Italy and excellent dishes prepared by the best chefs in Moscow. Wines, truffles, gourmet dishes - all this is free, since the main goal of the project is to raise funds for the treatment of seriously ill children from different regions of Russia. To become a dinner guest, you need to buy a ticket - this way our friends, clients and partners can participate in a common important cause and donate money to charitable causes.

At first we worked with different funds, then we settled on Life Line. And in 8 years they collected more than 20 million rubles and helped more than 80 children from different regions of Russia. I am very glad that the White Truffle charity dinner has become quite a notable event in the life of Moscow. Many people are waiting for it and book tickets in advance.

Finally, I would like to ask you to give a recommendation to everyone who wants to start a business related to winemaking in Russia.
In our country, it is difficult to build a wine business from scratch with private investment - we need state support. Moreover, this is not a fast business. Even if you have vineyards at your disposal, most likely they were all planted in Soviet times and they all need to be uprooted or replanted, because soil and geological factors were not taken into account then. If everything is done according to the rules now, the first turnover will happen only in 7-8 years. Can you imagine how much money and enthusiasm you will need? This is an incredible investment. Why are so many farms being born in the West? Because in the West, many owners gave their properties to famous wine houses for management. And when children were born into their families, they were given appropriate education. Thus, now the generation of forty-year-olds understands wine better than many specialists and can manage their own farms without the interference of large houses. In addition, in Europe the state allocates money to winemakers.

If we talk about importing wine to Russia, then companies that are ready for large investments and have an appropriate team of specialists can enter this market. When we all started, there was no such competition, there were completely different economic conditions, everything was simpler.

Do you believe in Crimean wine?
I believe. This is a unique natural area with great prospects. But the current state of most vineyards in Crimea does not correspond to the potential of these terroirs. It will take years to restore everything and put it in order - this is a huge national project. The Crimean region is larger than French Bordeaux; this project cannot be raised with private investment; the state must seriously and competently participate here. But who will go there now?! As soon as you cross the border, you will immediately fall under sanctions, so everyone is waiting to see what will happen next. I hope that in 2-3 years in Crimea something will begin to change seriously in this area, and we will be able to see the first real results in 10-15 years.

27 millionaire fathers with many children in secular Moscow have a total of more than 100 children (photo)

Even the unpleasant message that a hundred tons of kerosene is stuck somewhere near Barnaul cannot distract the head of the Neftetransservice company from fulfilling his father’s duties. If he is with children, then only with them, and not with a mobile phone. He will crawl on the carpet, play hide and seek and Cossacks-robbers and God knows what else, no matter what the child amuses himself with. “There is no more reverent and loving father than Vadim,” friends say. Moreover, this love has a rare quality for the Central Administrative District: everyday and everyday, and not once a year on the occasion of the heir’s birthday. There are holiday dads, but Vadim is a weekday dad. The Aminovs travel only with children - their romantic trips with their wife Stella can be counted on one hand. The main tradition in this religious family is Shabbat. Before the Shabbat meal at home on Patriarch's Street, Stella and the twin girls light candles, and Vadim and the boys make a blessing over challah and wine. When it comes to pocket money, the Aminovs are also conservative: “We give, of course, but the amount must be justified. We try to explain to the children that part of it must be given to charity. To the kids from an orphanage or to a cat shelter.” Aminov’s favorite advice to his six children, including little Aron, is not to be lazy. As in the song: “Don’t be lazy, it will be good, there will be a pie in the fall.”

Andrey Molchanov, six children. For the New Year, the Molchanovs send touching cards to their friends with their family portrait. Every year a new photo. The costume shoot is being produced by mom Lisa, but busy man Andrei, head of the development company LSR Group, enthusiastically supports the endeavor. The eldest son Yegor graduated first from the Swiss Le Rosey, then from New York University and is about to return home: “My son walked around Manhattan wearing a T-shirt with the Russian flag. He is a greater patriot than many of his Moscow peers,” says his father. The five youngest with Old Testament names - Nikon, Susanna, Thomas, Luke, Seraphim - live a rich cultural life in a house on Rublyovka. Restless mom and dad come up with tours based on their interests: either on a buggy in Peru, or to the Museum of Science and Technology in Munich, or to Real Madrid matches at the Santiago Bernabeu. At Christmas time, the whole team goes to the village of Pidma in the Leningrad region, where Molchanov’s great-great-grandfather was born. There, the author of ZilArt installed a Russian hut with a stove and antique furniture from Abramtsevo and Talashkino. Pastoral entertainment: cutting Olivier, decorating the Christmas tree and sitting for a long time at a large table. In addition to the house, they have a farm there, where before breakfast all the Molchanovs go to collect eggs and pet sheep, cows and rabbits. Their family is located near Moscow, after all, and the younger ones get used to the smell of the barnyard slowly, but the parents do not despair. Molchanov is a believer: “Children must grow up to be fair, help the weak and be strong in spirit. In general, life is a difficult thing, and only faith will help them survive in difficult situations.”

German Khan, four children. The country's number ten Forbes has his main investments in his offspring, in whose upbringing he takes an active part. “I call my dad twice a day,” says his eldest daughter, Tatler debutante Eva. “He believes that family is the most important thing.” The Khans travel a lot together, and the destinations they choose are not for family vacations - they sailed on an expedition to Spitsbergen, scuba dived in the Galapagos, traveled through the mountains to Machu Picchu. “And we’ve never been to Saint-Tropez,” Eva laughs. “Our parents are not interested in this.” A member of the Presidium of the Jewish Congress at home also does not deviate from kashrut. “The whole family watches movies on Jewish themes and reads books in turns. Our favorite film is “And Everything Lit Up,” we’ve seen it eight times. In every city we visit places and synagogues that are important for Jews.” With his wife Angelica and children, the stern businessman is gentle: “He judiciously explains the mistakes of my sister and me. Cranks up a lot, but never screams. Quite harsh, but does not take offense for a long time. If Eleanor returned from the disco later than she promised, dad says: “I was even worse!”

Mikail Shishkhanov, four children. Once upon a time, the head of B&N Bank was seriously involved in boxing. But whenever it comes to his three adored daughters and son, the strong man Shishkhanov becomes kind and caring. History and geography lessons in this friendly family are usually conducted with immersion, be it a tour of Walter Scott's estate in Scotland or the Whitney Museum in New York. Mother Svetlana is the ideological leader of cultural tourism. At the Tatler Ball, Mikail Osmanovich urgently asked to reduce the depth of the neckline on the dress of his eldest daughter Nicole. There is reason to think that he will take equally touching care of other dresses for special occasions in the lives of his girls.

Roman Abramovich, seven children. If Roman Arkadyevich had known at the dawn of his career that he would be the father of seven children, he would not have given up his first business - rubber toys from the Uyut company. A person with his abilities, even with them, would earn himself thirteenth place in the Forbes ranking. He was a dad to Anna, Arkady, Sophia, Arina and Ilya, just like he was a boss to Chukotka. Very good, as evidenced by the Instagram of their mother Irina, the second wife of Roman Arkadyevich. Now he rides on his shoulders and carries Aaron, Leia and Dasha Zhukova in his arms, sometimes entrusting the little ones to Dasha’s faithful knight Derek Blasberg. But he didn’t take away toys from his elders either: after the divorce, Irina received one and a half hundred million pounds of compensation, three houses in London, the Fyning Hill Estate in Sussex, sixth place in the ranking of the richest women in Russia and carte blanche for the children’s expenses. Arkady has his own investment fund "Sigma", the young man is trying his hand at vegetable growing in the Belgorod region. Sophia is studying international business at Royal Holloway College in London, has closed Instagram from trolls, has lost weight to model size, and with her horses Won Ton Ton and Rainbow, is jumping for Russia at international show jumping competitions in London, Monte Carlo, and Paris. The Pope watches from the VIP box and sometimes comes into the stall to give his blessing. Sophia has more than just a sporting interest in show jumping - she serves as an ambassador for the JustWorld equestrian charity, which helps children in Cambodia, Guatemala and Honduras. The eldest Anna, who is known to all London bartenders, is now studying at Columbia University. She spent the last winter holidays with her father, Dasha and their kids in St. Barths, although Irina usually takes the children with her to One&Only Reethi Rah in the Maldives, where the wardrobe maid keeps a sign for this occasion with the inscription Dom semyi Abramovich. In the summer, the two halves of a large family meet more often - all the Abramovichs love Saint-Tropez.

Mikhail Fridman, four children. The head of the Alfa Group consortium is a reasonable person and is in no hurry to officially join the Giving Pledge movement (its participants promise to bequeath at least half of their fortunes to charitable foundations). But he is in no hurry to divide the $13.3 billion he earned with his mind among his heirs. It's not just about good health. Mikhail Maratovich is afraid of ruining the lives of children, turning them into an object of interest for various crooks. He also does not see his children as continuers of the business. Perhaps Mr. Fridman is just an old-fashioned sexist, because Olga Fridman’s daughters Laura and Katya are very smart and lovers of poetry. Laura has a diploma from Yale University, Katya studies there. And the caring father generally wants to protect Oksana Ozhelskaya’s children from adult life for as long as possible and does not make any plans for them.

Boris Rotenberg, five children. In a memorable August interview with Tatler, Boris Rotenberg’s wife, dashing show jumper Karina, said that her husband has too big a heart and some selfishly use it beyond measure. But there is no such thing as too much, and there is always a place in the heart of the co-owner of SMP Bank and the vice-president of the Russian Judo Federation for five children. Boris Romanovich accompanies his daughter Sofia on the guitar when she sings. Daniil takes him to football, hockey and adult auto racing. I’m ready to race children’s cars with Leona. “Dad is in awe of her, and she, like a wise little woman, knows it,” Karina laughs. “You should have seen how they walk hand in hand and dance slow dances.” The eldest sons from their first marriage - sports functionary Roman and FC Lokomotiv defender Boris - already have their own children, and they play with their younger sisters and brother using their own parental experience. Roma teaches them to roller skate, Borya teaches them how to take penalties. If there were all-Russian family “Fun Starts”, the Rotenbergs would definitely win.

Ziyad Manasir, five children. The founder of the Stroygazconsulting holding himself grew up in a large family - he has eleven brothers and sisters. The father, who is busy with work, rarely sees his five children, and therefore spoils them very much. “In our family, Ziyad is kind,” says his wife Victoria, the owner of the Vikiland family clubs, where her own children and another half of secular Muscovites spend their leisure time. - And I’m like a Cerberus, standing guard over order. Usually they ask me for permission, but they expect support from dad.” Dad, of course, supports, but you shouldn’t abuse his trust and kindness: “If a child wants to get something, he must give reasons for his desire. If you have done something wrong, you must be able to admit the mistake, then you can expect a quick pardon. In extreme cases, dad punishes, but everyone knows that you just need to wait out this storm.” To understand how good a father Ziyad is, just look at Ask his eldest daughter Helen: “I’m not perfect, but my dad, God knows, is a man from whom all men should take an example. I know many families who have a “pretty picture”. You look at them and rejoice, and then you find out that the father of the family has several mistresses, and the children spend all their time with nannies. No one will ever be able to say this about our family.”

Alexander Japaridze, five children. When the twins were fourteen, Alexander Yulievich brought them a sign from New York: “Teenagers, if you think your parents are fools, get out of the house, get a job and pay for yourselves.” This was the only offer from a non-godfather, the father of the Russian drilling business, which the students of the Zhukovka gymnasium were able to refuse. At the first call, even those who have long since fallen out of the Georgian nest, all in the same Zhukovka, flock to the head of the clan. And London lawyer, investor and bon vivant Georgy, son from his first marriage with MIREA associate professor of philosophy Anna Gorskaya. And Asya, daughter from her second marriage (with the director of the Moscow festival of Latin American dances Salsa&Kizomba, the punchy blonde Elena). Asya, a fresh graduate of the Faculty of Art History at New York University, has just moved to London to practice at Sotheby’s. It’s not even a matter of the persuasive power of Forbes number fifty-nine, which he has like his drilling rigs, but the talent of a mass entertainer, inexhaustible, like the Samotlor field. Either he takes his family to fish for halibut in Alaska, or to inspect wineries in the Napa Valley. Then he will come up with an idea to sell paintings, books, backgammon, burkas from the family collection at the New Year's table in order to replenish the family charitable fund. Then he will organize the Olympic Games in his chateau near Saint-Tropez. Alexander Yulievich even turned Nana’s wedding with advertiser Anton Demakov into his own celebration. Guests still remember how three years ago in the Provencal chateau de Robernier they waited for the pope to appear almost longer than for the newlyweds to kiss. The wizard arrived, of course, by helicopter.

Sergei Ryabtsov, four children. Although the managing director of the Sputnik group says that “education is much more difficult than managing people,” we think he is being disingenuous. The large family obediently goes out in full force to both Cosmoscow and the marathon in Meshchersky Park. Eyewitnesses report that in the Ryabtsov family the “bad cop” is not the father, but the mother. The maximum freedom that the four daughters allow themselves in the presence of Anastasia is a short skirmish over a place on her Instagram. “The Incredibles” is what subscribers call the Ryabtsovs, not without envy watching the sports victories of the girls and their parents. While the older ones are coping with Ironman or blowing up the virgin soil of the Three Valleys, the younger ones are running, swimming and skiing. It was the Ryabtsovs who received the state order - it wouldn’t hurt to fill the country’s Olympic reserve with future champions.

Grigory Berezkin, four children. The family of the unfortunate owner of Forbes magazine, electric power engineer Grigory Berezkin ($0.7 billion), actively uses everything that moves, except electric cars. The eldest daughter Anna, a graduate of the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University and the business school of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, manages her father’s property - the Metro newspaper. Tatler debutantes Sofia and Arina prefer surf and cute surfers. The head of the family is on the board of directors of Russian Railways, but the Berezkins prefer to ride in style, in vintage cars. The last L.U.C Chopard rally with a spectacular turn by the head of the family in a 1914 Mercedes Phaeton is impossible to forget! And only the youngest son Matvey is so far carefree and not burdened with transport. As in many families, where mom provides the rear and dad is very busy, the family bond is sports - in childhood, trips to Mauritius to catch a wave twice a year were mandatory for the Berezkin girls.

Sergey Sarkisov, five children. There are legends about Sarkisov the father. They tell how in Tbilisi, pretending to be an important Moscow professor, he made his way into the maternity hospital, into the ward of his wife Rusudan and their first-born. And there he was bombarded with a hail of questions from a dozen and a half women in labor. The future creator of the RESO insurance empire consulted them almost without hesitation. They also say that he, having paid twenty-five rubles to the driver-soldier, drove from the airport in an armored personnel carrier (in September 1991, Tbilisi was, to put it mildly, restless) - again to the maternity hospital, to see his daughter Iya. Already a billionaire, having almost exchanged half a century, Sergei Eduardovich became a father again - Rusudan gave birth to his twins Sasha and Misha. And then the capitalist Sarkisov, who always did not have enough time for his family, decided to become Sarkisov the father full time. He practically retired (jokingly handing over the reins to Sergei, who has been terribly interested in graphics, formulas and calculations since his youth). The elder Niki calmly accepted the decision to leave medicine, where he studied for ten years and succeeded. And he not only supported the decision to become a film director and producer, but he himself went to the Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors. Now they are making a movie together, and we hope that it will turn out no worse than that of father and son Douglas. To the question “How do you like your father?” All Sarkisov’s children - from eight to thirty years old - answer in unison: “We’ve never seen anything better!”

Andrey Skoch, nine children. Monegasques are accustomed to the noisy fireworks display that billionaire Andrei Skoch organizes almost every year in honor of his beautiful wife Elena Likhach. Defending the good old Christian values ​​in the State Duma of the new convocation (in the Stary Oskolsky district of the Belgorod region, the fellow countryman was supported by an incredible 73% of voters), the deputy is Christianly generous to his offspring. Not only his own children, but also Daria Popkova, Elena’s daughter from her first marriage, do not deny themselves anything. The MGIMO student boasts on Instagram about the brand new Porsche that met her in Vnukovo after a tiring sail from Portofino to Capri, and about the party at Kalina Bar - at midnight the birthday girl fluttered out of the cake, which was two heads taller than her. Dad doesn’t have much time for fun, but he tries not to miss his children’s birthdays, and on Varvara’s fourteenth birthday he sang “The Blue Carriage” with her with a guitar. Skoch also has children from his first marriage - four twins! - but he carefully hides them from the toothy light.

Vladimir Potanin, five children. Vladimir Olegovich's father turned out to be about the same as his husband. And what kind of husband he is, readers of Instagram and court chronicles know, and better than Potanin would like. Once upon a time, the family of the future owner of Interros, despite the fashionable excesses of the 2000s, was a model of healthy lifestyle: skiing in Courchevel in winter, jet skis in summer, cinema on Sundays all year round. Photos from those times look like they came from posters about spiritual bonds. In 2010, Anastasia, as the eldest, enthusiastically commented to the press on her father’s decision to donate all the billions to charity. The other children nodded in agreement. Anastasia now supports her dad in everything, who does not communicate with either Ivan or Vasily - they sided with their mother in the divorce conflict. But, they say, Potanin enthusiastically plays the role of a strict but fair dad for Varvara, the daughter of his former employee Ekaterina. This will probably be the case until the baby learns to defend his own opinion, which does not coincide with the position of the priest.

Roman Avdeev, twenty-three children. The seventy-third Forbes has only one child less than the age of his oldest brainchild, the Moscow Credit Bank. Nineteen are adopted, including two from his wives' first marriages. By the time of his wedding with his current, third wife, English teacher Elena, Roman had already become a dad twelve times. The youngest - Peter, Anna and Ruslan - are now four. Avdeev works as a receiver without distribution because he is tired of sponsoring orphanages; he considers their system vicious. Eye color and pedigree are not important for Roman Ivanovich, the only criterion is age. Ideally, one to four months: “To start caring right away.” Education, according to Odintsov’s Makarenko, is a pedagogical poem. He gets used to discipline and self-service from the cradle - four English tutors were perplexed for a long time why children should be put on the potty so early. In total, a dozen teachers, nannies, and cooks help the Avdeevs with their household chores. The compulsory program for each child includes English, swimming in the home pool and music. Art school, gymnastics and vocals - according to ability. Only dad has an iPad. Children over four years old walk in the yard on their own, without nannies. The Avdeevskaya Republic SHKID occupies three cottages, each ward has his own room, so Elena’s evening jog is an excellent substitute for going around: she kisses everyone before bed. Dad, who gets up at five in the morning, may already be asleep at this time. He is generally not prone to calf tenderness: “The child does not need to devote a lot of time, only when it is required.” There are no other traditions in the family, except that on their own birthdays, birthday people give gifts to other children. In the summer, the entire camp goes into the Lipetsk sky: in the village of Klyuchi, Lebedyansky district, Avdeev has a dacha and cows.

Alexey Mordashov, six children.“I don’t think I’m a good dad,” the billionaire told Vedomosti in 2008. He “tries to see his children at least once a week, but it doesn’t always work out.” We understand - it’s difficult, Alexey Alexandrovich has six children from three women. And you also need to sit in all the chairs of all the boards of directors - Mordashov owns the largest share in Severstal, participates in the fate of the gold mining company Nord Gold, the mechanical engineering company Power Machines, the tour operator TUI, the holding company National Media Group, the Bank of Russia and the mobile operator Tele2. So, instead of telling bedtime stories to children, we have to fly to the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. True, he took his daughters with him to celebrate Metallurgist Day in his native Cherepovets. Last year, Mordashov personally presented the Miss Severstal crown, and his own Miss, Marina, was at that time taking care of the future of their three common children: she opened the Wunderpark school and kindergarten for them and their neighbors in New Riga.

Andrey Kirilenko, four children. Those who have been to the New York apartment of a basketball player from the Brooklyn Nets still cannot decide what struck them more. A card table at which the eldest sons fight on equal terms with mom and dad in poker? Or a family structure according to the principle “parents are best friends”? But Maria Lopatova, the golden pen of Tatler, does not play with her children on principle - she threw all pedagogy into the basket of her husband, now the president of the Russian Basketball Federation. The eldest, Andrei and Masha, were prescribed educational games, mathematical problems and sports: Fedor - basketball, Stepan - hockey and tennis, and reception Sasha - tennis, dancing, ballet, gymnastics and figure skating. For those who make it to the finals without a single foul, Andrey gives a little play with the PlayStation at the end of the day. For good studies, the Kirilenko family also provides prizes - in addition to the salary of three hundred rubles a day due to children starting from the first grade. But if the referee detects even one violation of the rules, the child will lose a week’s earnings. So, to reach the “ten thousand dollars a day” level, as Andrei did in his fat years, the younger Kirilenko still has to grow and grow.

Alexander Lebedev, four children. The eldest Evgeniy, a secular character of international scale, has long escaped from his father's embrace, but sometimes returns to nurse his brothers and sister. The younger Lebedevs are just at that magical age when you only have to bat your eyelashes a couple of times and you can twist ropes out of your formidable millionaire dad. And the eyes of all three are the color of the waves on Lazurka, like their mother Lena Perminova. And the eyelashes are long, so it’s absolutely impossible to refuse. “At least stop going to work,” the touched father wrote under the photo of Arina’s doll-daughter. He spares no resources for his children’s birthdays and fearlessly takes his family on safari in Botswana and fishing in Corsica. Unless in Indian Varanasi, where the dead are burned right on the street, only the eldest is taken.

Musa Bazhaev, four children. The formidable president of the Alliance group even taught Nikolai Baskov to sing in the language of Imam Shamil, but he cannot unlearn how to speak for his children. To open Pandora's box, just ask Elina, a master's student at MGIMO, a question on Ask.fm. And find out that her dad, whom the family affectionately calls “Dada” in Chechen, forbids her to lick her lips, so she has to do it secretly. You still can’t touch your hair, shake your legs, swallow loudly, put your elbows on the table - Elina is ready to write a book about everything that makes dad furious. Yes, his character is not Nordic. Each of the children is assigned a guard - not a single step without him, even at sea. Not long ago, both daughters ran away from an exemplary saklya. The eldest Maryam, also a master's student at MGIMO, married the son of banker Usman Yerikhanov Magomed in April. And the youngest said “yes” to the son of businessman Alikhan Mamakaev, Bekhan, in September.

Vasily Tsereteli, four children. Vasily grew up on the knees of his grandfather in his Tbilisi workshop, played among the bronze castings of the “Friendship Forever” that had not yet pierced the sky over Tishinka and models of the frieze of the Izmailovo Hotel, which had not yet become home to the Olympians. The new generation of the monumental dynasty is sculpting from clay at the Garage, drawing a red square with chalk on the walls of my father’s MMOMA. They have art at the French Lyceum named after Alexandre Dumas, but this is not enough - on Saturdays children hone their watercolor techniques at the Institute of Russian Realistic Art and walk with terriers and pugs at Muzeon. At home, if Vasily’s wife has any strength left (Kira Sacarello is not only a mother-heroine and companion in her husband’s social life, but also the head of the development department of MMOMA), she turns on punk rock and starts dancing with the young Tseretelis. Kira was once on the Spanish rhythmic gymnastics team, little Empire practices ballet, and dad watches his nymphs' afternoon rest from the sidelines. By the way, from the point of view of museum worker Vasily, cultivating a sense of beauty is important, but not the most important thing. Ever since he met his Kira in English lessons, he values ​​knowledge of languages ​​more - his children will know at least four.

Charles Thompson, six children. Guests of the Tatler Ball know that after the debutantes dance the polonaise and waltz, the Thompson girls will fly out onto the parquet floor of the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions, and dad Charles will film them with a Canon with a slight smile. To social events, textile designer Olga Thompson and her photographer husband bring almost a full complement of children in identical outfits. However, many people can dress girls well, but not everyone behaves like silk. And regarding the Thompsons, the world is unanimous: “An exemplary family.” Their elders know the word “no” very well. When the parents realized that the iPhone was distracting Anastasia from her busy dance training schedule at the Moscow Academy of Choreography, they asked the question: “Do you want to be a great ballerina or, like everyone else, a girl with an iPhone?” She replied: “A great ballerina.” The iPhone was forgotten. Charles is a creative person, but with great pleasure he plunges into routine: he takes himself to school and clubs and constantly comes up with games to keep the family busy. Anastasia is already dancing in “Don Quixote” on the stage of the Bolshoi - the reverent father meets his daughter at the exit. The Thompsons don’t miss important evenings in Bolshoi, and on Sundays in fur coats, scarves and almost felt boots they go for a walk in the center and drop in at Bosco Cafe for tea.

Leonid Maschitsky, four children. The managing partner of the Vi Holding group of companies (which was founded by his father Vitaly Maschitsky) is the father of four charming tomboys. “Leo is strict when necessary,” says wife Clarissa. - But it seems to me that he doesn’t particularly like it. He works so hard that when he comes home, he wants to have fun with the kids, not lecture him.” On weekends he plays PlayStation with his sons, takes the three older ones to lunch (“no girls!”), to the bathhouse and to go-karting, where it is difficult to compete with him - Maschitsky is a pro in racing. But on weekdays the children have a routine. “We have a sign at home,” Clarissa told us, “that shows who behaved this month. The one who cleans the room, washes the dishes after himself, says “hello”, “thank you” and “please”, gets a star at the end of the day. If you collect all the stars in a week, you will receive pocket money for the next week. Luka - five hundred rubles, Rafael - three hundred, Niko - two hundred. And if they study diligently, we give additional encouragement.”

Maxim Kashirin, four children. The owner of the wine trading company Simple sets himself difficult tasks. Both in business (you need to ask suppliers in Rioja how the work is going “to change the shape of the garnacha bushes”), and in family life. He will have to raise real men out of four sons. “My main principle is honesty,” Maxim explains his method. “If you did something wrong, but confessed, the punishment will be mild.” Financial issues in the family are resolved democratically: “Children should not have a lot of money, they will not be able to manage it. I teach you to spend on the right things, save, save. Even limit yourself a little so that you can buy what you want on your own.” The children from his first two marriages have already grown up - Denis helps his father at Simple, Oleg studies at Queen Mary University of London. The younger ones - from his third marriage to the architect Alina - are also not allowed to idle: “Eric, at the age of four, goes to an English-language Montessori school, plays hockey and music. Children should not wander around without anything to do. The father goes to his work, the child goes to his own - to clubs and sections.” Three or four times a year the whole family gathers at home on Mosfilmovskaya. “When I was little, we used to gather with my grandparents like this. Boys need to understand that they are part of a big family.”

Mikhail Turetsky, five children.“A man should be strict with his sons, but with daughters diplomacy and fatherly care are required,” Mikhail Borisovich is sure. So far he has only been able to verify the second part of this maxim. During his marriage to Liana, the daughter of his former American producer, he gave birth to two girls - Emmanuelle and Beate. The mother of the eldest Natalya, who works as a lawyer at the Turetsky Choir, died in a car accident when the child was only five years old. Sarina is Liana's daughter, but the conductor takes care of her like his own. There is also Isabel, but in that direction the parental muses are silent, but the guns in the relationship with her mother Tatyana Borodovskaya still won’t agree. Turetsky's home choir sings (Emmanuelle has already performed in the Kremlin and on Poklonnaya Hill), skis and skates, looks at the inhabitants of the Moskvarium, and climbs rope walls in the parks. Since the age of five, the functions of the personal assistant of the holiday person in the family have been performed by Tatler’s debutante Sarina, now a student of MJ at MGIMO - her father believes that she is “the most flexible.” When the season of Christmas trees and corporate parties begins for the breadwinner, his wife and children listen to the chimes with him. Even if this means flying to Miami, Venice or the Alps. One problem - the choirmaster recently fell ill with tourism with a backpack, tent and kayak and dreams of putting this load on the shoulders of his daughters.

Konstantin Totibadze, six children. Thirteen people - the artist Konstantin Totibadze, Olga and their six children, his brother the artist Georgy with Irina and three children - once lived together in a three-room apartment. And somehow they got along, raising each other in chorus and preparing for the whole crowd. They say it was fun. This vast Moscow-Georgian family lives happily today: with endless Georgian holidays in the brothers’ workshop at Strelka, with Musya Konstantinovna’s new videos, Anton Konstantinovna’s exhibitions and hilarious stories that happen to all these creative children. On September 8th it was Konstantin’s forty-seventh birthday, and Tatler’s debutante Musya wrote an ode on Facebook. She started like this: “My dad was born today. My dad is a great man, like my mother, but now I’m not talking about my mother,” she finished: “Dad is light.” Dad is the mind. Dad is the conscience. Dad is wisdom. Dad is faith, hope and love.” Musya also said that “dad is a man of the finest sense of humor”, that “the children call dad a beaver”, that “when dad plays the piano, he closes his eyes” and that “dad very rarely scolds, but when he scolds, it would be better not to scold " In principle, this is all you need to know about Konstantin Totibadze.

Mikhail Efremov, six children.“You know, I would cheat you,” - ten years ago this was the catchphrase of the People’s Artist when meeting the girls of Mayak. In case of misunderstanding, Mikhail Olegovich calmly explained: “Can you give me a son? Let’s call him Boris, for example.” Then Efremov became calmer, and the need for his son Boris was satisfied by his fifth wife, sound engineer Sofya Kruglikova, who also gave him Vera and Nadezhda and is raising Anna-Maria, born in her husband’s fourth marriage to actress Ksenia Kachalina. Mikhail himself, in the role of a father with many children, does not overact: “I can teach you bad things. But I rather have a policy of non-interference.” He recommends books to his elders - Nikita (son of Sovremennik literary editor Asya Vorobyeva) and Nikolai (son of actress Evgenia Dobrovolskaya) - and listens with maximum understanding to rock ballads in Russian, English and Latin by Anna-Maria. But he doesn’t boast about this in the world; on the contrary, he assures that he constantly wanders around filming and touring - no matter how you look at it, you have to provide for those who depend on you.

Vladimir Solovyov, eight children.“A child has just been born, you take him in your arms and understand that he is already a person. Everything is already built into it. You can only polish something.” Vladimir Rudolfovich knows what he is saying: he was present at the birth of his current, third wife, clinical psychologist Elga Sepp, five times. Having been discharged from the maternity hospital, the host of “Sunday Evening” on the Rossiya channel immediately turns into a Sunday dad. From dawn to dusk, he is torn between one-man performances on television, radio and at the Gorky Moscow Art Theater. And on vacation he writes books, of which he already has twice as many as children. But houses have been built in Peredelkino and on the Pasternak field in Bakovka, and a sixteen-room villa with a boathouse in Como has been furnished for the summer. For each child's birthday, the wife receives a piece of jewelry from her husband. Over the years, the children from the first two marriages became more polished in the image and likeness of their father. Alexander graduated from the London University of the Arts and the Drama Center in St. Martins, produces online advertising for Beeline and Sberbank, documentaries for VGTRK (including Mussolini. Sunset with the voice and script of Vladimir Solovyov) and the official film of the Sochi Olympics " Rings of the World." Polina moved from her desk at the Institute of Television and GITIS to the chair of the presenter of Moscow 24. Pike graduate Ekaterina directs the Moscow Dark Cabaret festival. Only Daniel looks the other way. Secular Moscow still cannot stop its heartbeat after the presentation of the new uniform of the Lomonosov School at the Four Seasons Hotel. A blue-eyed elf with shoulder-length honey curls paraded down the catwalk - thanks to his mother's Estonian-German blood for his appearance. Such a boy would make a gorgeous Andrej Pejic, but the child wants to be Kurt Cobain - on VKontakte he cuddles with a guitar, and only with it.

1. TERMS AND PROVISIONS

1.1. This Agreement is a contract of adhesion. In accordance with Article 428 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, an agreement of adhesion is an agreement, the terms of which are determined by one of the parties in forms or other standard forms and could be accepted by the other party only by accession to the proposed agreement as a whole. This Agreement should be considered as a standard form, accession to which occurs without exceptions and reservations and is provided on an “as is” basis, as well as without drawing up a bilateral written agreement between the parties. Accession to the Agreement (acceptance of the terms of the Agreement) occurs by payment according to the details of REFORUM LLC specified in this Agreement, from the moment of payment the acceptance is considered complete.

1.2. The event is held at the address 143402, Moscow region, Krasnogorsk district, Krasnogorsk, st. Mezhdunarodnaya, 16, PO Box 92.

1.3. Organizer's website is a website located on the global computer network Internet at the address businessreforum.ru, which contains information about the Event, services, including information about any changes in the text of this Agreement, current tariffs for services, and any other information.

1.4. Participant is an individual who is familiar with the terms of this Agreement and has accepted all conditions (Acceptance).

1.5. Other terms not specifically defined by this Agreement are used in the meanings established by the legislation of the Russian Federation and other regulations.

2. STATUS OF THE AGREEMENT

2.1. This “Agreement for the participation of the Limited Liability Company “REFORUM” (hereinafter referred to as the Agreement) defines the conditions under which LLC “REFORUM” provides services to individuals for the sale of tickets to the event, as well as other services specified in this Agreement.

2.2. The publication of this Agreement, including the distribution of its text on the global computer network Internet on the website businessreforum.ru, should be considered by all interested parties as a public offer (offer) on the part of REFORUM LLC.

2.3. This offer is addressed to individuals, residents and non-residents of the Russian Federation, and is valid exclusively on the territory of the Russian Federation.

2.4. The conclusion of this Agreement is made on the conditions provided for the accession agreement in accordance with Art. 428 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, i.e. by acceding to the Agreement as a whole, taking into account the conditions and reservations set out in this Agreement.

3. SERVICES OF THIS AGREEMENT

3.1. REFORUM LLC provides a range of information and consulting services to ensure the participation of an individual in the Russian business forum Atlanta 2016. The event program is contained on the organizer’s website. The location, time, as well as other conditions of the event are indicated on the website businessreforum.ru

3.2. Services are provided in the form of a consulting seminar, the methodology of which is based on a combination of lecture and interactive forms of consultation (answers to questions, practical tasks, group work).

4. RESPONSIBILITIES OF REFORUM LLC

4.1. Ensure accreditation of an individual in REFORUM (provide an individual badge.

4.2. Provide services of appropriate quality in accordance with the requirements usually imposed for the provision of such services, using all its capabilities, professional experience, and the skills of its employees and invited consultants.

4.3. Timely update information about the event on the website businessreforum.ru.

5. RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE PARTICIPANT

5.1. Comply with safety, fire and sanitary standards at the Event. Comply with current legislation, and also not violate the objects of copyright and related rights presented at the Event.

5.2. The participant undertakes not to take narcotic, alcoholic or psychotropic (antidepressants) substances during the consultation days.

5.3. The participant undertakes to compensate for the damage (damage, loss) caused to the property of REFORUM LLC and/or the property of third parties in the amount of 100% of the market value of the property. The basis for such a penalty is an act drawn up by REFORUM LLC, indicating in it the fact of damage to property due to the fault of the Participant.

6. PAYMENT TERMS

6.1. The remuneration for the services provided under this Agreement varies in accordance with the Participant’s package data and the current promotions for the current period. Participant package options and current promotions are posted on the website
businessreforum.ru.

6.2. The Participant pays for services under the Agreement by a one-time transfer of funds to the bank account of REFORUM LLC.

6.3. The cost of the services provided is indicated on the website businessreforum.ru. VAT is not assessed due to the use of a simplified taxation system by REFORUM LLC.

6.4. If the Participant refuses to participate in the event, the payment made by the Participant will not be refunded.

6.5. For timely identification of the Participant’s payment, payment documents must contain the Participant’s full name.

6.6. On the last day of participation in the event, the Participant receives from REFORUM LLC a Certificate of Services Rendered in two copies, signs the Certificate or ensures the signing and mailing of the Certificate to the Contractor within 10 (Ten) working days from the end of the event.
If the Participant does not file written objections within 5 (five) days from the end date of the event, then the services under this Agreement are considered accepted by the Participant without comments.

7. RESPONSIBILITY

7.1. REFORUM LLC provides/provides services on an “as is” basis and does not control and is not responsible for:
- actions/inactions of third parties at the event that directly or indirectly caused damage or otherwise had a negative impact on the Event Participant;
- cases of any, direct or indirect, damage suffered by the Participant as a result of the Event;
- unauthorized access to the Participant’s information by third parties;
- Actions/inactions of the Participant, or third parties, which resulted in harm to the Participant’s health, incl. resulting in death.

7.2. For failure to fulfill or improper fulfillment of obligations under this Agreement, the Parties are liable in accordance with the terms of this Agreement and current legislation.

7.3. REFORUM LLC hereby declares that it does not provide any guarantees regarding the performance of their obligations by third parties providing the Event in terms of services not specified in this Agreement, in particular:
- services providing food (catering);
- technical services supporting the event;

8. PRIVACY

8.1. For the purposes of the Agreement, confidential information means any information and data, written or oral, and all data media containing or disclosing such information and technologies that are disclosed by the Parties to each other in accordance with the Agreement.

9. APPLICABLE LAW

9.1. This Agreement and the legal relations of the Parties arising from it are governed by the current legislation of the Russian Federation.

10. TERMINATION

10.1. Either Party has the right to terminate this Agreement unilaterally by notifying the other Party in writing no later than 30 (Thirty) days before the expected date of termination.

11. PROCEDURE FOR AMENDING THE AGREEMENT

11.1. The current versions of the Agreement, the List and descriptions of services of REFORUM LLC are posted on the Internet website at businessreforum.ru.

11.2. REFORUM LLC has the right to unilaterally make changes and/or additions to the Agreement, change prices for services, as well as the composition and terms of provision of services.

11.3. Changes and additions related to the expansion of the range of services, changes in terminology, changes in the structural content of the Agreement and other similar changes come into force after the publication of the relevant documents on the website businessreforum.ru (preliminary disclosure), from the date specified by REFORUM LLC.

11.4. To enter into force of amendments and additions to the Agreement, changes in prices for services, as well as the composition and conditions for the provision of services, REFORUM LLC complies with the mandatory procedure for preliminary disclosure of information. Preliminary disclosure of information on amendments to the Agreement is carried out by REFORUM LLC no later than 10 (Ten) days before the amendments or additions enter into force.

11.5. Any changes and additions to the Agreement, as well as to the composition and conditions for the provision of services, from the moment of entry into force in compliance with the procedures of this section, apply equally to all persons who have acceded to the Agreement, including those who have acceded to the Agreement before the date of entry into force of the changes.

12. ORGANIZATION DETAILS
Limited Liability Company "REFORUM"
Legal address: 125167, Moscow, st. Planetnaya, 3, building 1, room 2.
Postal address: 127287, Moscow, Stary Petrovsko-Razumovsky proezd, 1/23, building 1
General Director: Voronin Mikhail Mikhailovich
TIN 7714384789
Gearbox 771401001
OGRN 1167746385795
Current account No. 40702810100000126570
Correspondent account No. 30101810100000000716
BIC 044525716 INN 7710353606
Name of bank VTB 24 (PJSC) GU BANK OF RUSSIA for the Central Federal District
Location of the bank 101000, Moscow, st. Myasnitskaya, 35