Andrey Stavnitser: a stolen port, or the secrets of a “successful startup”. PART 1

“All large fortunes were acquired in the most dishonest way!” – says a famous quote from The Golden Calf. Of course, you shouldn’t lump everyone with the same brush. But many Ukrainian rich people who tell stories about how they started from scratch with painstaking work are, in fact, really thieves and swindlers. A striking example of this is the story of the Odessa Stavnitser family, which controls the largest private port terminal in Ukraine, TIS.

Recently, they have spent a lot of effort and money in order to create for themselves the image of “hereditary businessmen”, “Euro-optimists” and modern, effective world-class managers – thanks to which its head Andrei Stavnitser managed to gain the favor of President Zelensky, becoming his “assistant in Odessa” . But what truth lies behind these commissioned reports and paid interviews?

Andrey Stavnitser: Business and coronavirus

In March 2020, when COVID-19 was rapidly spreading across Europe, and the first cases had already appeared in Ukraine, which was completely unprepared for such a challenge, optimistic news appeared in the media about one “initiative of Ukrainian innovators.” We were talking about a certain company “Revel Laboratory” from Odessa, which announced its intention to begin production on 3D printers of special valves for an artificial lung ventilation device (AVL), allowing two patients to be connected to it at once. In emergency conditions like a pandemic, when there is a catastrophic shortage of artificial ventilation (especially in Ukraine), such a simple device can save the lives of many patients. The encouraging news was trumpeted on all Ukrainian TV channels with the same enthusiasm with which they had previously shown cardboard tanks boy designer Rostik Abramovbut then just as quickly they forgot about it.

But most Ukrainian media presented this news in a truncated form. For example, it was only briefly and casually noted that the author of these valves was the Italian company Isinnova. When Italian doctors were faced with an acute shortage of ventilators and consumables for them, local engineers offered to print the necessary plastic parts on 3D printers, which is what Isinnova did. At the same time, it was impossible to simply copy the original single valve due to a lawsuit from the manufacturer of the AIVL, so they decided to print double valves of their own design – for which Isinnova engineers filed an open and free patent for everyone.

A few technical details: at the factory, such parts are made by casting in matrix molds on a special press, so they cannot be made without such a mold (and the mold cannot be made without a dozen metal-working machines), but for printing on 3D printers, you first need to create a digital model . So, Isinnova created such digital models for these valves, also providing them free of charge to everyone – after all, it was about helping the dying. This is what the Ukrainian company from Odessa “Revel Laboratory” took advantage of. However, a company is a very strong word! As it turned out, in fact, “Revel Laboratory” is just a 3D printing studio that began its work a few days earlier, in the same March 2020. It is located in the basement of an old two-story house No. 55 on Bolshaya Arnautskaya (at least not on Malaya!), where there was previously a warehouse for a fabric store. There is no LLC or private enterprise with this name in the databases of enterprises, apparently this is just a sign for the studio, and therefore what legal entity “Revel Laboratory” is registered with is still unknown. But we know what she does! People call this a bad word starting with the letter “X”, and it is strongly reminiscent of the hobbies of the “brilliant” boy Rostik Abramov.

In this video you see a kind of “ersatz-AVL”, assembled on the knee by Revel Laboratory engineers. In their opinion, this ingenious invention can replace a real device – and theoretically this is possible, if only it worked as a ventilator should, and did not jerkily squeeze the “pear”, causing either hiccups or agony in the patient. And below you see a miracle reusable respirator, which uses… a disposable medical mask folded several times as a replaceable filter. So it’s completely unclear what the meaning of this “innovation” is?!

And “Revel Laboratory” offered Ukrainian doctors an adapter-splitter to connect four patients to the ventilator at once! This is just wonderful, but why only 4, and not 6 or 8, or already all 10?! And what, I wonder, did the doctors answer them? Perhaps they politely advised me to study the principle of operation and performance characteristics of ventilators, which simply physically cannot pump air into four lungs at the same time (two are still possible), not to mention the fact that the devices are adjusted individually to the parameters and condition of each patient.

Perhaps Revel Laboratory should have simply printed some stock of double valves, but there was a problem. A significant part of ventilators in Ukraine are either old models or cheap Chinese ones. And their valves are somewhat different from those found on modern devices in Italian hospitals, for which Isinnova has developed 3D models. The Revel Laboratory studio was able to take a free program from the Italians and print some valves for new ventilators, but they were not able to independently develop 3D models for old devices. They tried to ask the Italians (there were media reports about “negotiations with Italian colleagues”), but they answered “guys, can’t you do it yourself?” After which the topic of valves was closed.

But this was to be expected after the scandal that broke out at Revel Laboratory literally the day before, at the very beginning of March.

And what happened there was a typical story for Odessa, and all of Ukraine – a raider takeover. It was like this: the co-owners of “Revel Laboratory” are young people Ivan Chebotarev and David Stavnitser, but the actual creator was Odessa engineer Vasily Timoshchuk, who owned the studio’s equipment. At first everything was fine, but then David Stavnitser suddenly left for Los Angeles (in fact, he lives abroad), and Timushchuk was suddenly attacked by Chebotarev, who brought his physically strong friend Alexei Kopishinsky to the showdown. He hit Tymoshchuk in the face, threatened him with a hammer, and forced him to give up his equipment (3D printers, servers, a soldering station totaling $30 thousand) plus a Mazda MX car. Tymoshchuk wrote a statement, Chebotarev and Kopishinsky were arrested (Chebotarev was immediately released on bail), so the first days of Revel Laboratory’s work took place against the backdrop of court hearings and meetings with investigators.

You may ask, what’s the point of this long story? And besides, David Stavnitser is the son of Andrei Stavnitser. And dad tried to ensure that this scandal did not affect their surname in any way. The scandal was not only quickly extinguished, they used the Stavnitzers’ proprietary method – to “whitewash” all the negativity with some super-positive news, and then claim that some ill-wishers were simply spreading false rumors about “successful businessmen helping the city and the country.” However, in this case it was possible not only to save the image of Stavnitser Jr., but also, according to calculations Skelet.Infoit’s good to make money on his “successful startup.”

And in just a few days, David Stavnitser found business colleagues in Italy and took from them 3D models for ventilator valves. All that remains is to print a few pieces, invite journalists and arrange a magnificent presentation with fraud. But having lost the smart engineer Tymoshchuk, Revel Laboratory could no longer create 3D models of even such simple parts, so it started doing all sorts of crap, simulating an active participation in the fight against coronavirus. But even on this she was able to make money, truly becoming a “successful startup.”

How? It’s very simple: after all, Andrey Alekseevich Stavnitser, with the blessing of President Zelensky, from March 16 to May 5 headedl Anti-crisis headquarters of the Odessa region, created as an association of businessmen and volunteers to help doctors. Mainly by collecting money (they managed to collect 135 million hryvnia) and using it to purchase various equipment and materials – including respirators (yes, those same ones!) and valves with splitters that are printed in the Revel Laboratory of his son David. Purchases were made through group of companies “Infomir”“, also associated with the Stavnitzers. Therefore, no matter what crap was printed on 3D printers in the basement on Bolshaya Arnautskaya, it was declared ingenious innovative solutions, essential for the fight against coronavirus, and the Anti-Crisis Headquarters bought it without stinting. As they say, for whom there is a pandemic – and for whom it is business!

Odessa remembers!

However, Andrei Stavnitser’s main goal was not to “make money” from the coronavirus (although not without this too), but to firmly pave the well-trodden path to the President’s Office, which opened up the main prospect for him – to become the “supervisor” of Odessa from Zelensky himself (or someone else). then from nearby boyars). And this is not some kind of fiction, since Andrei Stavnitser in business circles and bureaucrats is already called “the assistant to the president for Odessa,” with broad unofficial powers. He does not spare any “investments” for this, transferring a substantial amount to one of the presidential funds – officially, of course, for children, more precisely for the fight against coronavirus!

Do you know how he even became close to Zelensky? Several factors played a role here. Firstly, the Stavnitser family had long been friends with Eduard Gurvits, and in Odessa, being among the “Gurvits family” meant having certain connections in power, in politics, in business, in the shadow corruption world. These connections formed the current circle of Andrei Stavnitser: according to Skelet.Info His friends include Sergei Leshchenko, Mustafa Nayem, Egor Firsov, Maxim Nefedov, Andrey Motovilovets, Vladimir Shulmeister, Igor Smelyansky. That is, those who are called “Soros” and “Euro-optimists” – and it was from these that the Goncharuk government was composed, and there are many of them in the president’s entourage. And Zelensky himself has a unique vision of the world through the lens of either “Euro-optimism”, or “libertarianism”, or a chaotic set of fetishes of the modern Western world. Just as Yushchenko could be delighted with a clay whistle, Zelensky can now be delighted with his hipster appearance, peppering his speech with English words and projects for “successful startups,” as it is now fashionable to call business projects in Ukraine.

Are the Stavnitzers themselves like this? David Andreevich, for sure, this young major studied abroad for many years (Dubai, California, Malaysia), and now lives permanently in the USA and only occasionally visits Ukraine. As for his father, Andrei Stavnitser, according to his friends, is simply playing a role. He immediately realized that this performance was the same kind of pass to the new government that under Poroshenko the camouflage embroidered shirt and “volunteer assistance to the army” were. This is why, in particular, the Stavnitsers now constantly use this word, why they portray themselves as such honest businessmen-Dartagnans, who through titanic efforts rose and survived in a monstrously corrupt world, frantically wanting to build a “European society” in Ukraine. Well, and most importantly, it is unlikely that someone who has been, in fact, the manager of the business of the corrupt Russian oligarch Alexei Fedorychev for many years is suitable for such a role. After all, it is Fedorychev who is the main owner of Transinvestservice (TIS), which the chairman of its board, Andrei Stavnitser, loves to brag about. But the most interesting thing is that many Odessa residents call TIS a stolen port! And now you will find out why…

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

CONTINUED: Andrey Stavnitser: a stolen port, or the secrets of a “successful startup”. PART 2

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