VympelCom’s delegation stayed at the Waldorf Astoria for several days before and after the IPO. Consider that for some it was their first trip to the United States, and right away they were honored guests at the Stock Exchange, and – the Waldorf Astoria!
Here is a picture from one of the banquets that was given on the day of the IPO in one of the famous restaurants of that famous hotel.
On the extreme left is Constantin Kuzovoi, a vice-president and acting president during my long trips in preparation for the IPO. Further, from left to right: financial director Tatyana Filonova, financial analyst Vladimir Bitiutskikh, administrative director Constantin Ashitkov. I don’t remember the man on the extreme right, but next to him is Igor Milashevsky, a participant in one of the most fateful and dramatic projects in the company’s history – the GSM project.

And this is how he looked nine years later, in the summer of 2005 at one of the water reservoirs near Moscow, in the company of other people associated with VympelCom. I was also there, but you can’t see me (Check out how in all those years the quality of the amateur photography improved thanks to advances in photo technology – not the photographer’s improved skills).
Do you know what Igor Milashevsky had become by the summer of 2005? You’d never guess… Communications Minister of the Chechen Republic. He participated in yet another dramatic project.
God be with you, dear Igor!

I’m just showing you all the company feasts. At the same time, the company was in a state of perpetual crisis – before and after the IPO, during all these years. Now I am going to tell you about one of them.

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