Let us continue our story, though.

Moscow, morning of February 6, Friday. I remember it as if it was just now, the voice of one of my VympelCom friends: “This is it: buses… OMON in masks… VympelCom is f****d.” Then a miracle happened: there were no searches. Meanwhile, the search of VympelCom in Moscow planned for February 6 did not happen, although on the morning of that day there were OMON buses parked in front of our offices on Ulitsa 8th of March and on Krasnoselskaya. If you remember, on that very morning, in the metro, between the Paveletskaya and Avtozavodskaya stations, there was an explosion, a terrorist act. OMON was gone as if scattered by the wind. Saturday, Sunday…The following two days were Saturday and Sunday. The fatherland, including the prosecutors and OMON, were resting. We awaited the coming of the next week with horror. My friends, just in case, took the rest of my archives out of VympelCom offices. This took the whole day and half the night.
I read the Moscow press. There are numerous publications from that time in the Appendix. All of them cite one reason for the raid: the conflict around MegaFon. One of VymepelCom’s shareholders and a high-ranking bureaucrat were the two sides engaged in the conflict. VympelCom, its other shareholders and investors had nothing to do with this conflict.
I knew that this shareholder usually spent his weekends in Paris, where he had family. I called him up and went over to his home. During the short meeting his unasked question was hanging in the air: “Why are you here?” I didn’t know that myself. Why, really? He did pour me a glass of cognac, though – at my request.

Another week comes… And still no sight of the OMON. Instead, in the beginning of the week in front of our office on Mayakovskaya, a flock of joyful youth appeared, bearing a poster “So Long, Bee Line.” The photo you see is from a newspaper. This is the scariest photo in my archive.

A few more days passed. On February 15, for the first time, news of the prosecutor’s office closing the criminal case appeared on the news wires. The press appeared puzzled. Some wrote that the order to “shut down” came from above, and from much higher up than the obvious instigator was positioned. In short, for details – read the press.
On February 17 I returned home. There’s always a silver lining: in these ten days I dropped four kilos. And the company, $400 million. But we were starting to pick up again. All is fine.