Lukashenka sells out factories to Russian oligarchs

A Russian billionaire Andrei Melnichenko refused the offer of the Belarusian ruler to buy a chemical plant.

An oligarch Andrei Melnichenko sometimes visits Belarus. Last time the native of Belarus not only visited his grandmother Maria Melnichenko who lives in Homel, but met with Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Face to face the oligarch and the Belarusian leader discussed a variant of buying a Belarusian plant by the oligarch. “Komsomolskaya Pravda v Belarusi” asked Maria Melnichenko, the grandmother of the successful Russian businessman for an interview, and learnt why the tycoon met with Lukashenka.

The most striking parts of the interview are the following:

- Does Andrei visit you often?

- What should he do here? We can discuss everything on the phone.

- Does you grandson is in charge of a bank which is close to the Kremlin?

- Who?! He is not the Chairman of the Board of Directors of MDM Bank long ago. He has his chemicals company.

- Does he arrive with guards?

- Why should he be guarded? Who knows who he is? Millionaires are wearing torn jeans.

- What recent rumours about your grandson are untrue?

- People write about his fiancé, that her name is Kokotovich, but she is Aleksandra Nikolic. A picture of a different model is published in newspapers. They wrote the wedding took place in France, and cost 50 million dollars. Nonsense! The expenses were not more than 15 millions. They have misrepresented everything.

- When your grandson visited Homel last time?

- He was here on May 3 last year at my 80th anniversary, but there were no limousines or guards! He and his wife arrived on a plane at 3 a.m. they stayed for a night in the 3-room flat in Volatauskaya Street, though I made a bed for them too. They visited me in the morning:”Grandma, we didn’t want to disturb you late at night!”

- Have he met with Alyaksandr Lukashenka?

- Yes. Lukashenka wanted Andrei to buy Homel chemical plant. That hasn’t succeeded. And especially now. Nobody needs fertilizers, nobody needs anything during the crisis.

Andrei Melnichenko is the youngest dollar billionaire according to Finance magazine ($5.9 bilion). However, according to the Forbe’s magazine his fortune as of January 1, 2008 was $10.3 billion.

He was born in 1972. He studied in Homel secondary school 11 until the 9th form. He studied physics department of the Moscow State University. In 1993 he was one of the co-founders of MDM Bank, and became its owner in 1997. He graduated from Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics majoring in Finance and Credit. Today he is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of EuroChem - Russia’s largest fertilizer producer and a Member of the Board of Directors of SUEK (Siberian Coal and Energy Company).