Kyiv, January 20 - RIA Novosti. Roshen Corporation, owned by the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, decided to stop the work of the Lipetsk confectionery factory from April. This was said in a statement.

"Such a decision was made for political and economic reasons ... As it was reported repeatedly earlier, the seizure of the property of the Lipetsk confectionery factory, imposed by the investigative committee of the Russian Federation as part of an initiated criminal case, made the sale of the factory impossible," the corporation noted.

Roshen added that since 2013, production at the factory has halved. The company explains this by a sharp reduction in the range after the ban on the export of Ukrainian Roshen products to Russia by Rospotrebnadzor.

"Due to the decline in production, the factory has constantly carried out massive staff reductions. The remaining staff (about 700 people) have already been informed of the upcoming stoppage of the factory," the statement said.

The company noted that future cuts have already been reported to the Lipetsk Employment Center.

According to Roshen, in 2014-2016, the corporation received and transferred to Ukraine more than $72 million received from the operation of Lipetsk assets.

Roshen is one of the world's largest confectionery manufacturers, producing 450,000 tons of products annually. The corporation includes factories in Ukraine, Lithuania, Hungary and Russia.

Petro Poroshenko, putting forward his candidacy for the presidency of Ukraine, promised to sell Roshen, but the Rothschild investment company still cannot find a buyer.

Earlier, the former Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Renat Kuzmin called on the SBU to initiate a criminal case on high treason against Poroshenko and top managers of Roshen.

An employee of the enterprise of the President of Ukraine noted the terrible quality of confectionery

The other day, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said that all the rumors that his “Russian asset”, the Lipetsk confectionery factory Roshen, continues to bring him income, and most importantly, pay taxes to the treasury of the Russian Federation, are unreliable. According to him, the factory is closed and will not be launched again. And President Putin allegedly prevents Poroshenko from selling it. What is happening with the Lipetsk factory, MK found out

To begin with, we were confirmed that production at the Russian Roshen factory is now completely mothballed. There are no more than ten people on the territory of the factory, mostly security guards. However, it is still in the possession of Petro Poroshenko. According to the Ukrainian president, the confectionery factory was arrested on Putin's orders so that the enterprise could neither be sold nor transferred. Thus, the Russian president allegedly set the Ukrainian oppositionists against Poroshenko, who had reason to accuse him of having a business in the “aggressor country”.

However, the company's problems began only in 2015. In April, the TFR conducted searches “on the fact of fraudulent embezzlement of funds in the amount of 180 million rubles through illegal reimbursement of value-added tax from the Russian budget by Lipetsk Confectionery Factory Roshen OJSC. The Russian Investigative Committee claimed that in 2012-2013 the factory sent fake documents to the interregional inspectorate of the Federal Tax Service of Russia for the Lipetsk region about allegedly completed work on the construction of a confectionery factory for a total amount of more than 1 billion rubles, including demanding a VAT refund in the amount of 180 million rubles. In early 2016, the Moscow City Court seized the property of the factory. This was followed by mass layoffs of employees. In total, more than 500 people were left without work.

Now they are all safely employed. “They were sent to other companies, or organized their own business. Many went to enterprises related to confectionery activities or, for example, to the production of pasta, ”Dmitry Zhukov, First Deputy Head of the Labor and Employment Department of the Lipetsk Region, told MK.

One of the former employees of the plant told us that he was even glad that the enterprise was closed. “The salary was normal, the average for the region was about 25-30 thousand rubles. But the quality of that product was terrible. Much of what was added to sweets was not indicated in the composition, and these were tons of chemistry. Huge amounts of ammonia and a variety of other compounds, some of which look like black snot and other waste products with a corresponding smell, ”he said.

The worst thing, he said, was that all production was waste-free.“This means that after the production of one type of candy, everything that remains in the tanks is dumped into one large tank of about 4 tons. All expired products go into the same barrel, everything that did not pass the test in the laboratory. All this, together with candy wrappers, sticks, a huge amount of starch and chemicals, was ground and used to manufacture products. In this way, sweets "Levushka", "Mad Bee" and so on were obtained. A similar situation with cereals and jam. There was a case when the tank overturned and we collected all this mass directly from the floor. It was just a nightmare,” he said.

By the way, in 2013, the sale of sweets by a Ukrainian enterprise was already banned on the territory of Russia, since they contain our benzopyrene. When checking in the retail chains of Moscow, sweets produced at four Roshen factories were selected - in Kyiv, Vinnitsa, Mariupol and Kremenchug. The audit showed that the products "do not meet the declared parameters" and there are violations "to quality and safety" in it.

In February of this year, Roshen President Vyacheslav Moskalevsky (the company was transferred to the trust management of the Rotshild Trust) said that he would prefer that the factory "go to no one" if it was not bought at a market price. He is ready to sell it for no less than 200 million dollars. Previously, Slavyanka holding and Magnit structures were named among possible buyers. However, these rumors have not been confirmed so far.

Finam Group analyst Alexei Kurenev, in an interview with MK, said that the factory remains attractive for purchase. The new owner can be found both in Russia and abroad. “The company has worked well and has no problems with the equipment. Yes, they have losses, because the cost is now higher than the revenue. If they go to someone strong who has an established sales market, then the issue of revenue will quickly return to normal, ”the expert said, concluding that“ it is quite possible to revive production.

Kyiv, January 20 - RIA Novosti. Roshen Corporation, owned by the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, decided to stop the work of the Lipetsk confectionery factory from April. This was said in a statement.

"Such a decision was made for political and economic reasons ... As it was reported repeatedly earlier, the seizure of the property of the Lipetsk confectionery factory, imposed by the investigative committee of the Russian Federation as part of an initiated criminal case, made the sale of the factory impossible," the corporation noted.

Roshen added that since 2013, production at the factory has halved. The company explains this by a sharp reduction in the range after the ban on the export of Ukrainian Roshen products to Russia by Rospotrebnadzor.

"Due to the decline in production, the factory has constantly carried out massive staff reductions. The remaining staff (about 700 people) have already been informed of the upcoming stoppage of the factory," the statement said.

The company noted that future cuts have already been reported to the Lipetsk Employment Center.

According to Roshen, in 2014-2016, the corporation received and transferred to Ukraine more than $72 million received from the operation of Lipetsk assets.

Roshen is one of the world's largest confectionery manufacturers, producing 450,000 tons of products annually. The corporation includes factories in Ukraine, Lithuania, Hungary and Russia.

Petro Poroshenko, putting forward his candidacy for the presidency of Ukraine, promised to sell Roshen, but the Rothschild investment company still cannot find a buyer.

Earlier, the former Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Renat Kuzmin called on the SBU to initiate a criminal case on high treason against Poroshenko and top managers of Roshen.

An employee of the enterprise of the President of Ukraine noted the terrible quality of confectionery

The other day, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said that all the rumors that his “Russian asset”, the Lipetsk confectionery factory Roshen, continues to bring him income, and most importantly, pay taxes to the treasury of the Russian Federation, are unreliable. According to him, the factory is closed and will not be launched again. And President Putin allegedly prevents Poroshenko from selling it. What is happening with the Lipetsk factory, MK found out

To begin with, we were confirmed that production at the Russian Roshen factory is now completely mothballed. There are no more than ten people on the territory of the factory, mostly security guards. However, it is still in the possession of Petro Poroshenko. According to the Ukrainian president, the confectionery factory was arrested on Putin's orders so that the enterprise could neither be sold nor transferred. Thus, the Russian president allegedly set the Ukrainian oppositionists against Poroshenko, who had reason to accuse him of having a business in the “aggressor country”.

However, the company's problems began only in 2015. In April, the TFR conducted searches “on the fact of fraudulent embezzlement of funds in the amount of 180 million rubles through illegal reimbursement of value-added tax from the Russian budget by Lipetsk Confectionery Factory Roshen OJSC. The Russian Investigative Committee claimed that in 2012-2013, the factory sent fake documents to the interregional inspectorate of the Federal Tax Service of Russia for the Lipetsk region about allegedly completed work on the construction of a confectionery factory totaling more than 1 billion rubles, including demanding a VAT refund in the amount of 180 million rubles. In early 2016, the Moscow City Court seized the property of the factory. This was followed by mass layoffs of employees. In total, more than 500 people were left without work.

Now they are all safely employed. “They were sent to other companies, or organized their own business. Many went to enterprises related to confectionery activities or, for example, to the production of pasta, ”Dmitry Zhukov, First Deputy Head of the Labor and Employment Department of the Lipetsk Region, told MK.

One of the former employees of the plant told us that he was even glad that the enterprise was closed. “The salary was normal, the average for the region was about 25-30 thousand rubles. But the quality of that product was terrible. Much of what was added to sweets was not indicated in the composition, and these were tons of chemistry. Huge amounts of ammonia and a variety of other compounds, some of which look like black snot and other waste products with a corresponding smell, ”he said.

The worst thing, he said, was that all production was waste-free. “This means that after the production of one type of candy, everything that remains in the tanks is dumped into one large tank of about 4 tons. All expired products go into the same barrel, everything that did not pass the test in the laboratory. All this, together with candy wrappers, sticks, a huge amount of starch and chemicals, was ground and used to manufacture products. In this way, sweets "Levushka", "Mad Bee" and so on were obtained. A similar situation with cereals and jam. There was a case when the tank overturned and we collected all this mass directly from the floor. It was just a nightmare,” he said.

By the way, in 2013, the sale of sweets by a Ukrainian enterprise was already banned on the territory of Russia, since they contain our benzopyrene. When checking in the retail chains of Moscow, sweets produced at four Roshen factories were selected - in Kyiv, Vinnitsa, Mariupol and Kremenchug. The audit showed that the products "do not meet the declared parameters" and there are violations "to quality and safety" in it.

In February of this year, Roshen President Vyacheslav Moskalevsky (the company was transferred to the trust management of the Rotshild Trust) said that he would prefer that the factory "go to no one" if it was not bought at a market price. He is ready to sell it for no less than 200 million dollars. Previously, Slavyanka holding and Magnit structures were named among possible buyers. However, these rumors have not been confirmed so far.

Finam Group analyst Alexei Kurenev, in an interview with MK, said that the factory remains attractive for purchase. The new owner can be found both in Russia and abroad. “The company has worked well and has no problems with the equipment. Yes, they have losses, because the cost is now higher than the revenue. If they go to someone strong who has an established sales market, then the issue of revenue will quickly return to normal, ”the expert said, concluding that“ it is quite possible to revive production.

A late autumn bee flies along Dovator Street. The landscape is dusty and gray - not a flower, not a leaf. The bee knows where it flies. She makes a sharp turn over a barbed-wire fence, over an empty factory yard and lands on a rack with trays for finished products, which is about to be rolled into a candy store. But the air curtains block the path of the bee with a powerful stream of warm air, and the rack is rolled into the workshop without it. She flies to the next in the hope that this time it will work. To no avail. Another attempt. More. The bee is noticed by men in blue overalls and begin to neigh.

Here's a fool! There are also insecticidal lamps inside. Even if you leak - in five minutes you go nuts. I would have flown about fifteen years ago, then it was simpler here.

Inside, not only lamps for the destruction of insects. In the warehouse there are skyscrapers of unclaimed corrugated packaging, reels of candy wrappers, two kilometers each. And in the confectionery shop itself, there is perfect creaky cleanliness, where Hebenstreit production equipment sparkles with nickel.

A sucroliner, an extruder, a kegel roller, an egolizer, - the head of the shop, Anzhela Kartseva, introduces me to her German subordinates and immediately goes to the “Slavs”, - the brewing department, the curing chamber, but this section of the conveyor is called strada.

Why suffering?

I do not know. Someone once came up with. Well, it's beautiful.

The Russian and Ukrainian leadership of the Roshen corporation is run by graduates of the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys. No wonder: the production of steel and caramel is technologically different only in scale and small details. Instead of ore - sugar, water and molasses, this is the main composition of any candy. The mass, melted to 136 degrees, is fed in a layer to the conveyor, cooled, folded, rolled into a bundle, formed into a loaf, bubbles are removed from it by an extruder, the filling is pumped, and then - stamping, cold storage, wrapping. All this at breakneck speed. For example, ready-made Lolli pops caramel (analogous to lollipops) shoots at the finish line at a speed of 1500 pieces per minute. And the “Mad Bee” marmalade is so mad that it wraps itself in a candy wrapper in one tenth of a second.

When you enter a working shop, it feels like you are in a children's amusement park - Angela just had phlegm herself, but then her eyes suddenly light up. - It's like thousands of animals are riding extreme carousels, there are Sloth Creamers, then there are Milk Drops and Glass Mix, and here is Kamikaze, - Angela looks around the dead production lines and plunges into nirvanic phlegm again .

“It is winter in the summer park, there is a concert in the summer park. Everything will start just about, it's a pity that there are no spectators.

It turns out that these are the wrong bees!

"Shalena bdzhilka" is really exceptionally tasty. It flies into the mouth one after another and instantly turns into natural juice with a slight sourness. My patriotic stomach resists desperately: "Blood candy, blood candy, blood candy!" But on the wrapper, the muzzle of the insect is not at all aggressive, but rather puffy: eyes in a bunch, mouth on its side. This is usually the look of those who themselves have become a victim of some kind of madness. For example, the general director of the factory, Taisiya Voronina. For almost a year now, she has been living like on a volcano, the eruption of which still does not end.

Maidan came to us in the winter, - says Taisiya Kirillovna. - Checks went one by one: Rospotrebnadzor, Rostekhnadzor, Labor Inspectorate, firefighters, tax. In private conversations, the inspectors honestly admit: people from the deep drilling office came, they were ordered to work you out in full, to dig up at least something, so excuse me. In general, it is surprising how many decent people turned out to be among the inspectors.

Well, how did you accumulate a lot?

And what do you get from us. The accounting department is transparent, the equipment is all new, the raw materials are natural. So, they found fault with trifles, because the task was simply to paralyze the work. The tax office is still sitting there, since December already. But the most unpleasant began in the summer. People have seen enough of TV, pickets, articles in newspapers, a wave on the Internet began all over the country against our products. We have a small stall with sweets near the entrance - it's not even ours, we just rent it out. Some people began to come, to get the saleswoman: you are such and such, casting bullets for the Ukrainian military, you all need to be imprisoned. It got to the point that trucks with the Roshen logo began to throw stones. In Stavropol a month ago, the driver was severely beaten. Moreover, the Dagestanis saved him, repulsed the attackers. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them.

As a result, sales volumes began to fall sharply, - continues the first deputy general director Oleg Kazakov. - If last summer we produced 10-12 thousand tons per month, now we have reduced to 6-8 thousand. They hoped that growth would start again in the fall, now, after all, wholesalers are already buying for the new year, but no - there is no increase. So on September 15th we were forced to stop production, most of the people were sent on paid holidays.

Both Oleg and Taisiya Kirillovna are sure: pickets are pickets, and the specific dose of patriotic passions in the general drop in demand for their products is minimal. Representatives of retail chains admit in private conversations that the purchase of Poroshenko sweets is under an unspoken ban, the heads of local administrations twist their hands.

And who twists their arms? - I'm interested in Kazakov.

We can only guess. But I can well imagine that no one is twisting it. It's just that some governors are running ahead of the locomotive, while others themselves sincerely believe that in this way they are defending the interests of Russia. Although it is difficult to imagine a more domestic manufacturer than our factory.

Absolutely, absolutely wrong bees!

March 3, Kursk.“The regional branch of the Liberal Democratic Party calls on all Russians not to buy Roshen products so that “our money does not go to weapons for militants.” The party members offer the Russians "to give up the goods that are produced by enterprises owned by Ukrainian fascist oligarchs."

The coup d'état in Ukraine was well planned and generously financed by both foreign states and Ukrainian oligarchs. Persons who financed the fascist Bandera and incited them to murder, robbery, ethnic cleansing, must be severely punished. Of course, in the future they will have their own “Nuremberg Tribunal”. But you and I can punish them today,” the message says.

July 30, Cheboksary.“Today pickets were held in the city in order to draw the attention of citizens to the presence on the shelves of shops of sweets produced by the Ukrainian concern Roshen. Activists with posters stood near two shops on Lenina Avenue, as well as near the Shupashkar shopping center. “We call on citizens to stop buying “Maidan” sweets, and sellers to stop selling the products of the bloody President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko,” the action participants comment on their position.

The management of the largest local chain of stores in Chuvashia, Sakharok LLC, has already reacted to the public speech: “At the moment, work with Roshen products has been suspended,” commented representatives of the retail chain. “We are in solidarity with the opinion in relation to Roshen products and the actions taking place in the east of Ukraine.”

June 11, Omsk. Andrey Alekhin, the leader of the Communist Party faction in the Legislative Assembly of the Omsk Region, calls on Omsk residents to ban and send to the landfill all the products of the Ukrainian concern Roshen.

There are no words. This is unprecedented in its cynicism and arrogance. This new president of Ukraine sheds blood on civilians in the South-East of his country, actually kills Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine, and we in Omsk support his business. This is absurd. Bloody and cynical. Our brothers are being killed with our money, and here we are paying for these blood candies. I will definitely initiate a bill so that all Roshen products are immediately withdrawn from Omsk stores and taken to a landfill,” the deputy said.

July 18, Kemerovo.“The shelves of the confectionery departments of the Kemerovo supermarkets Promenade and Laplandia, where previously packaged and bulk Roshen sweets were located, were suddenly empty. Kemerovo residents discovered the loss of sweets the night before. This morning they are gradually trying to fill the shelves with bags of confectionery from other, Russian firms. Representatives of trade institutions did not comment on the reason for the loss of Roshen sweets, but they confidently say that Roshen will not appear on sale again.

In early July, VTsIOM published the results of a survey of Russians about a possible boycott of Ukrainian goods. Such a boycott until the end of the conflict in eastern Ukraine would be supported by 42% of Russians, while 49% of our fellow citizens do not agree with this proposal.”

September 12, Lipetsk. Employees of the Lipetsk confectionery factory, which is part of the Roshen corporation, owned by the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, addressed the citizens of Russia with an open letter:

“Dear Russian customers! Recently, due to the political situation in Ukraine, there has been an extremely negative attitude towards our products. In this regard, we would like to tell you about our factory, about the people who work in it.

The Lipetsk Confectionery Factory began its work in 1966. In the 90s, the difficult economic situation in the country did not bypass our enterprise. Therefore, in 2001, the factory became part of the Roshen confectionery corporation under the Investments in the Lipetsk Region program. Due to investments and profits from the sale of sweets, the reconstruction and modernization of production began, the number of employees over the years has increased from 300 to 1500 people. A new plant was built in the village of Sentsovo.

When in 2013 it was forbidden to import Roshen products from Ukraine to Russia, only the products of our Lipetsk confectionery factory remained on the shelves of Russian stores under the Roshen brand. At the same time, not a single payment as dividends to shareholders was transferred to Ukraine. All the profits received by our organization were directed exclusively to the development of production. All statements that we are financing some unfriendly actions for our country in Ukraine are absolutely groundless.

The Lipetsk Confectionery Factory is actively involved in charity work. Assistance was provided to residents of South Ossetia after the armed conflict, residents of Primorsky Krai and the city of Krymsk after the floods that occurred there. So why did we and our products suddenly become strangers? Why do some people in our sweets, instead of the taste of chocolate and caramel, imagine a political smack? Why is no one boycotting other confectionery products manufactured at enterprises owned by various foreign companies, including those from countries that have imposed economic sanctions against Russia? It turns out that their products are domestic, but ours are not. We strongly disagree with this!

And they probably make the wrong honey!

St. George's ribbon hangs in the car of production manager Olga Pershina. At the same time, she has great respect for both Petro Poroshenko and the president of the Roshen Corporation, Vyacheslav Moskalevsky. And this is not just a tribute to subordination. It is difficult to find a person at the factory who would treat Ukrainian partners negatively. And people have good reasons for that.

I will now give you two numbers and you will understand everything yourself, - says Olga. - In the nineties, before Roshen came here, we were making 500 tons of products per month. Now we do the same in a day. Or rather, they did. to Maidan.

We turn off the highway onto a secondary road and plunge into the red and yellow mess of golden autumn. And when we emerge, we have a huge enterprise in front of us. Clean, new, neat - as if assembled from Lego.

Here we have an electrical substation, that glass building - a boiler room, and behind it - the SBU, - shouting over the radio, Olga says.

Not the SBU, but the SBO, - Olga makes the sound quieter, so as not to imagine. - Biological treatment station. Not only people work for us, but also bacteria. Purify waste to the state of pure water.

This is Sentsovo. Roshen's first major investment project in Russia. Having modernized the main production site in Lipetsk on Dovator Street, the Ukrainian owners of the enterprise headed for the full localization of production. That is, they did exactly what the president and the government have been calling for all these years. 4 billion rubles were invested in the factory in Sentsovo, now there are 30 thousand square meters of production space, 14 conveyors for the production of caramel are operating. Or rather, they worked.

Kolyan, what fascists they are! My aunt lives near Poltava, she supports the ATO, transfers money to them, is she a fascist? And her husband is a Jew at all, so he, a fool, is generally torn to the front, is he also a fascist ?!

Damn, I don't understand this argument at all! Even on the Maidan, everyone was shouting: look, how many Russians, Georgians, Jews are among us - what kind of fascists are we? But why did everyone decide that a Jew cannot be a fascist? A Jew is not a man, is it?!

The workers in Sentsovo now have plenty of free time, and as a result, political disputes in the smoking rooms have escalated.

And my daughter-in-law from Donetsk tells me that all her acquaintances hate the militia, - an overweight woman with a huge mole above her lip joins. - But the Russian military, on the contrary, is loved.

Is it like this?

And the Ukrainian military is also loved. She says that both of them are trying to put things in order. They no longer care what, as long as the order. And the militias are rabble, they have seized power and are outrageous.

If I had been brought here with my eyes closed and the bandage untied only in the corridor, I would have thought that I had ended up not in a factory, but in a hospital. People in light-green surgical pajamas are darting back and forth - these are assembly line workers. Sometimes you come across the leadership team in white coats. To move from shop to shop, you have to wash your hands every time, along the way studying a large color poster depicting all the germs that we wash off our palms, fingers and nails. After the fifth procedure, I already remember all the microbes by name and patronymic, and my hands itch from cleanliness - a very rare natural phenomenon.

Black in-oh-ora-a-an! What are you vye-e-esh-shsha! - tightens one of the "surgeons". Employees orphaned without work sit in a circle and peel off the marriage: sweets - in one bag, candy wrappers - in another. Ears, beards, ponytails, twins, shells - the names of varieties of marriage are even more pleasing than the names of microbes. Just before the stop of production in this workshop, a line of caramel called "Wheels" was launched. Therefore, instead of a clumsy “sorting out”, the shop workers came up with a more cheerful name for their occupation - “tire fitting”.

I now began to watch more TV, there was no time before, - the vocalist jokes. - I watch the news and am indignant: what a bastard Poroshenko is! And then I come to work and think: why is this bastard paying the highest salary in the city? Even during downtime. Yes, every year he raises it himself, without pressure from below. And those who are for the motherland, for Stalin - for some reason they are sure that we will win only if we lose our salaries. Leonidich, cuts will begin there soon.

The cuts have already begun. Now in Russia about two thousand people work for Roshen. The same number - suppliers, contractors, partners. The factory will lay off 500 people. Further along the chain, due to the reduction in production, everyone will get it - corrugated packaging manufacturers, raw material suppliers, carriers, distributors, even agricultural producers who deal in sugar beets. The number of layoffs will at least double. This is not to mention the reduction in tax revenue. Last year, together with customs duties, Roshen paid two billion rubles in Russia.

And in the next one we could pay twice as much, - says the first deputy general director Oleg Kazakov. - After all, in 2011 we started another investment project - in neighboring Kosyrevka. It is even cooler than in Sentsov. Let's go show!

In front of me again is a Lego structure, but this time it is very unfinished. Shiny cladding panels sit next to gray concrete, and perfectly paved terrain sits next to excavations.

70 thousand square meters of production space, 230 thousand tons of products per year - grief in the eyes of Kazakov painfully struggles with delight from the enormity of fucked up plans. - Plus a logistics center for 66,000 pallet places.

What places?

Paleto. This is such a large pallet for storing finished products. After the launch of these capacities, we would transfer the entire Roshen product line from Ukraine to Russia, there would be a complete localization of production. This is another 2,500 additional jobs, and what jobs! Our average salary is 32 thousand rubles, higher in the Lipetsk region only for officials. Add to that the cumulative effect of doubling the volume of all our contractors and suppliers. And now tell me, who is the true patriot of Russia: Petro Poroshenko or, for example, Aman Tuleev, who in Kemerovo declared Roshen "candy non grata"?

Come on, your mournful work will not be lost. Poroshenko will sell his business to one of the Russians, and you will live better than before.

Sell?! Do you think selling such a huge corporation is just going out and whistling? He is already trying to do this, but it makes no sense to sell all this cheaply, and no one takes something at a real price. Who needs such a colossus burdened with huge political risks? Even if it could be sold in parts, by factories, not everyone will buy it. There are simply no players on the Russian confectionery market that are able to buy a plant with a capacity of 400,000 tons per year. Stealing is a completely different matter, please.

What? Already trying?

Not that word.

I got it!

In fact, the problems at the Lipetsk Roshen plant began long before the Euromaidan. And they had nothing to do with politics. Just at some point, politics became an instrument of fierce competition.

The largest manufacturer in the confectionery market is the United Confectioners holding, which is part of the Guta investment group, says Konstantin Vakhonin, CEO of all Roshen divisions in Russia. - "United Confectioners" owns fifteen large enterprises, including "Rot Front", "Red October", "Babaevsky". These are very well-known factories, but from a technological point of view they are significantly behind, their labor productivity is three times lower than ours, all together these fifteen enterprises produce only four times more products than our Lipetsk factory alone.

Roshen's management refers to United Confectioners as "our worst competitors", putting into the word "worst" not only an economic, but also a moral and ethical meaning. Here they are confident that the Moscow predators are betting not so much on the development and modernization of their own production, but on the monopolization of the market.

The main instrument of this struggle is the intellectual rights to Soviet confectionery brands, Taisiya Voronina believes. - Most of them belong to the "United Confectioners", and they are suing for them with anyone who can get serious money. And if the enterprise itself is of interest, then this brand terror can become an instrument of raiding.

The history of the problem is this. In Soviet times, all "Red Riding Hoods", all "Alenki", all "Mishki in the North", of course, belonged to the state. All confectionery factories in the country, without exception, had the right to use these brands, the main thing is to follow the recipe. A similar situation was observed with other products - from processed cheese to vodka. In the 90s, broken production chains grew together as they had to. In the alcohol market, for example, the system of public use has been preserved: those who want to sell vodka under the Soviet brand simply pay a fixed amount to Soyuzplodimport, and everyone is happy. The situation is the same, for example, in the meat market: Doctor's sausage is just a recipe, and not a trademark owned by anyone alone.

In the confectionery industry, it grew together differently. As soon as the law on intellectual property was adopted in Russia in 1992, the Moscow factories, which would later become part of the United Confectioners holding, rushed in time and registered almost all Soviet brands for themselves. For a long time, this circumstance did not really worry market participants: the law only declared intellectual property rights, but did not give the opportunity to seriously punish its violators. However, in 2008, the relevant amendments were made to the Civil Code, and since then, the United Confectioners began to file one lawsuit after another in court.

The Russian confectionery market has been divided into the “party of power” and the “opposition”. The former united around the Association of Confectionery Industry Enterprises (“Askond”), which actually became a tool for defending the interests of the “United Confectioners”. Among the oppositionists, however, were mostly regionals, forced to survive in conditions of fierce competition through active modernization of production. To avoid patent terror from Muscovites, they began to use pseudo-brands. Competitive struggle has become similar to guerrilla warfare. The market was flooded with sweets "Red Magician", "Lastonka", "Korovushka", "Kara-Bum", chocolates "Alinka" and other wonders of nature. Even the Primorsky Confectioner factory, which once invented, developed and launched the famous Bird's Milk, now had to disguise itself as Primorskoye's Bird's Milk. However, this disguise did not save her from a lawsuit. And not only her. United Confectioners has already won several lawsuits against manufacturers of pseudo-brands, and the amounts of penalties amount to tens and even hundreds of millions of rubles.

The fierce war of lobbyists and the discussion about the rules by which the Russian confectionery market should develop are aggravated every year. Supporters of the “communist way” say that common brand use will become a powerful impetus for the development of production, and some market participants will lose a tool for unfair competition. Opponents in response object that under respected brands, the market will be flooded with low-quality products, and indeed, revision of the results of privatization of the 90s is a dangerous thing, it is better not to start playing this game.

One way or another, but the Lipetsk Confectionery Factory also managed to get into a lawsuit from the United Confectioners. The reason was easy to find. From the bowels of Roshen, something called the Singer Swallow fluttered onto the market. In Soviet times, Lastochka and Pevunya sweets were produced, both brands now belong to whoever. But in Lipetsk they decided that "Swallow-Singer" is a separate trademark, and even registered it with Rospatent. The court decided otherwise. The lawsuit against Lastochka for 211 million rubles has already been satisfied, the next step is Pevunya, which could cost Roshen another 70 million.

But in parallel with the arbitration in April last year, United Confectioners initiated a criminal case against us, - continues the first deputy general director Oleg Kazakov. - Under article 180 of the Criminal Code, part 1 - "Illegal use of trademarks." Things went neither shaky nor roll until all this policy around the Euromaidan began. In March, the criminal case was suddenly reclassified to part 3 - the same thing committed by a group of persons by prior agreement. And this is a real term - up to six years. And soon our office was raided - there is no other way to call it.

Eighty people from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB came down, including for some reason from Moscow, - continues the story of Taisiya Kirillovna. - The search went from 9 am to 2 am. Then interrogations went on until the morning. All this, of course, then got into the press - both local and federal. But the main result of this circus is the arrest of funds in our accounts. A billion rubles and fifteen million dollars. Just before the deadline when we had to pay a fine of 211 million for the "Swallow".

The leadership of the Lipetsk confectionery factory is sure that this was an attempted raider takeover. The scheme is really popular: a huge fine is imposed on an enterprise in court and its accounts are immediately frozen in a parallel criminal case - that is, the defendant is deprived of the opportunity to pay this fine. This is followed by the seizure of property with all the ensuing consequences. With regard to single enterprises, such a scheme works flawlessly. But there is a large corporation behind the Lipetsk confectionery factory: the required amount was sent from Kyiv, and the fine was paid on time. In United Confectioners, of course, they claim that they are only protecting their violated rights by all legal means, and they consider reflections on the topic of raiding to be speculation. However, it is possible that this is the case. Now the situation around Ukrainian business in Russia is such that there is someone to run into them besides the Guta Group.

It seems the rain is starting...

But since then the situation has changed a bit, - Oleg Kazakov makes a sly face. - The security forces are not stupid either. They see: Putin and Poroshenko still shook hands. From that moment on, those who wanted to wet us noticeably decreased. Well, how will they reconcile tomorrow? And then the bureaucratic machine will work the other way. They will start looking: who is it here that drove a wedge between the fraternal peoples? Who was doing the redistribution of the market on the sly? The state machine now reminds me of a cobra that hid before a jump and thinks, assesses the risks.

I think we just need to endure it all, sit it out, grind our teeth, - sums up Taisiya Voronina.

Taisiya Kirillovna knows what she is talking about. She has been at the plant since 1969, of which she has been the general director for the last 26 years. Voronina sat in this chair under Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko. She sat in it under Gorbachev and under the State Emergency Committee. Gritting her teeth, she pulled the enterprise through the 90s under Yeltsin, when every day seemed to be the last. But everything worked out, and she continued to sit in her chair under Putin the First, under Medvedev and under Putin the Second. The main thing is not to have to sit during the revolution and the NEP.