Just A Russian Scandal

Russians Tatyana Bakalchuk, and her husband Vladislav Bakalchuk, are the founders in 2004 of the website Wildberries .....

Wildberries

 ... it wasn't exactly an innovative site, but rather a Russian copy of Amazon, a bit like the Chinese Taobao (eBay lookalike) or Alibaba (Amazon lookalike), but it made her a billionairess worth £6.1 billion.

She was firmly in control and he owned just 1%. Which she begrudgingly gave him, to conform to Russian laws forbidding sole owners from creating 100 per cent subsidiaries - although some reports state that he was already a millionaire having sold an I.T. start-up for $5million before she founded Wildberries. 

However in June 2024, Wildberries announced a new venture with Russ Group, Russia's biggest outdoor advertiser, which Mr Bakalchuk violently opposed, claiming that it was a “huge mistake,” and that his “family business” had fallen into the hands of crooks, and that his wife had been “manipulated”.

But the merger deal was one that Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally approved (hmm!), and one month later, Mrs Bakalchuk announced her and her husband would divorce. While Mr Bakalchuk then appeared in a video with Chechen warlord leader Ramzan Kadyrov, alleging that his wife was 'doing business with a strange company under the guise of a merger that takes the business away, and withdraws assets'.

To outside business eyes, the deal was hardly a merger of equals, as Wildberries is both far bigger than Russ, and set to grow rapidly for years to come. Outdoor advertising, on the other hand, is a relatively small and potentially declining industry ... so Mr Bakalchuk possibly had a point. 

Then in September 2024 things took a strange and darker turn, when a group of armed men tried to storm the Wildberries offices in Moscow, setting off a gun fight between office security, the armed men and the police, in what Tatyana Bakalchuk called a botched attempt to seize the commerce giant by force. At least two security officers were killed in the gunfire, and Mr Bakalchuk was arrested along with his armed entourage.

Vladislav Bakalchuk’s lawyers later said in a message on his Telegram account, that he was “detained for 48 hours” and charged with murder, attempted murder, assault of a law enforcement officer, and vigilantism ... Vladislav claimed on Telegram that 'unknown people... provoked an armed conflict' as he arrived at the offices for planned negotiations - denying carrying any weapons (although how a gunfight ensued if his group weren't armed, he failed to clarify). 

Wildberries issued a statement that said Mr Bakalchuk and his men had tried to illegally enter Wildberries offices. 'Police officers and business centre security officers were injured by the actions of the people accompanying Vladislav Bakalchuk. The illegal entry attempt was carried out at two company addresses at once, which proves that no negotiations were planned.'

According to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index in 2021, she was the 40th richest woman in the world and the first self-made woman billionaire out of Russia. How this all works out is hard to know, Russia is lawless in many respects, and Mrs Bakalchuk may well be being robbed of her fortune in a con of some sort, but equally Mr Bakalchuk shouldn't be able to storm a building with an armed retinue.

After the shoot-out, Mrs Bakalchuk announced that she would return to her maiden name of Tatyana Kim.

NB: Wildberries in the news this week and last, as its distribution hubs are being hit by Ukrainian attacks.