We received this
document from the Communications Ministry while preparing our stock offer. The most important subject of this document is the promise not to splinter the market any further, not to issue any more licenses. Only under this condition could we count on survival. The friendly tone of the letter is also quite remarkable.
Only a few months would pass, and the policy would change again, this time in favor of Rusiko, which belonged to AFK System.
In the course of preparing this change, the Moscow government adopted a most interesting decision; it’s a song of a decision. Strange that there was no CLASSIFIED stamp on it. We got hold of it by chance.
Polite people avoid asking about the fate of decisions like this one.
Even though the Communications Ministry’s licensing policy changes destroyed VympelCom’s ability to compete, we still conducted useless negotiations on all levels and wrote letters of complaint. Although to many it was agonizing. Take an admiring look at these magnificent samples of correspondence with the Ministry. Nobody writes like this any more. And, even more so, nobody replies like this any more.
An amazing reply!It is obviously disingenuous. But note the date on it: this reply was written the DAY AFTER our letter was sent. The reply, of course, couldn’t have been sent without Bulgak’s approval. In it, the bureaucratic worries over the problems of business are evident, as are attempts to find the right arguments for decisions made under pressure from Moscow world’s power brokers, which was almost impossible to avoid back then.
I was ready to growl… Only several years later, in 2000, having run into the worthy representatives of a new generation of bureaucrats, did I realize the professional and moral difference between these two generations.
Mr. Bulgak, Mr. Marder, and other signatories of the above letter: I respect you, and I love you! This is now; back then I didn’t feel like that.
Then it seemed clear that the only way to survive was to gain access to GSM-900, in order to play on a level field with our competitors. Everyone thought it was impossible. Not a single person at VympelCom, not even Goldin or Augie Fabela, not even Frontin believed we could break through this mighty wall. Nevertheless, we plunged into the fight: endless meetings, useless talks. Here is a sample of one of the letters on the subject:
Alexander Yevgenyevich Krupnov is long retired. When we meet on occasion, we hug and are glad to see each other.
Valery Victorovich Timofeev hasn’t been within the Communications Ministry structure for a long while. He works in Geneva, on a UN committee. We still call each other on holidays, are glad to hear each other’s voices and wish each other good…
And we never received a reply to our last letter…
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