Badri Patarkatsishvili died in London

Famous businessman and former Georgian presidential candidate Badri (Arkady) Patarkatsishvili died in London at the age of 53.

Representatives of Patarkatsishvili’s press service in Tbilisi reported this to ITAR-TASS today. Patarkatsishvili’s associates confirm the information, noting that “they have not heard any complaints from Badri about illness.”

According to them, “according to preliminary information, Patarkatsishvili died today of a heart attack.”

Badri Patarkatsishvili's long-time business partner Boris Berezovsky, who currently lives in London, also confirmed to Interfax the fact of the death of the Georgian businessman. “Badri died at about 11 pm London time (02:00 Moscow time). The death was completely unexpected. Now the London police are looking into this,” Berezovsky said. [...]

Let us remind you that on January 16, the Tbilisi City Court made a decision on two months pre-trial detention entrepreneur Badri Patarkatsishvili. Since Patarkatsishvili is outside Georgia, the court decision against him was made in absentia.

The Prosecutor General's Office of Georgia has put Patarkatsishvili on the wanted list. In a statement issued on Wednesday in Tbilisi, the prosecutor's office notes that "this decision was made due to the fact that Patarkatsishvili is avoiding appearing before the investigative authorities."

The prosecutor's office noted that for formal procedures, first of all, it is necessary to determine its location. Only then can a request for extradition be made to the relevant country.

On January 10, the Georgian Prosecutor General's Office reported that Patarkatsishvili was brought "to criminal liability as accused of conspiracy to overthrow state power in Georgia, preparing an attack on a political official and preparing a terrorist attack." The case against Patarkatsishvili was initiated under three articles of the Criminal Code of Georgia.

Badri Patarkatsishvili ran for president of Georgia in early elections that took place on January 5. He waged his election campaign from abroad, where he has been since November 3, 2007. As a result, according to the Central Election Commission, he received 7.1% of the votes in the elections.

At the end of December, it was reported that Patarkatsishvili tried to bribe the director of the Special Operations Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Irakli Kodua, so that he would support the coup. The entrepreneur allegedly promised the official $100 million as a reward. A criminal case regarding the “conspiracy” was opened on December 17.

Let us recall that on August 6, 2002, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case against Boris Berezovsky and two former LogoVAZ managers - Patarkatsishvili and Yuli Dubov. On October 15, 2002, decisions were made to charge them with theft on an especially large scale through fraud.

In 2001, he was also accused of organizing the escape from custody of the former first deputy general director of Aeroflot, Nikolai Glushkov, and was put on the international wanted list. [...]

Last week a scandal erupted in Georgia. It is associated with published by the local newspaper "Aliya" recordings of a conversation between Badri Patarkatsishvili and the head of the special department of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Irakli Kodua. Most of the recording is devoted to internal Georgian affairs. However, the “Russian” piece of the printout is no less interesting. The Kommersant-Vlast magazine, analyzing the transcript, suggests that “Putin will not be able to forgive the Georgian authorities for the very fact of publication, especially on the eve of the presidential elections in Russia.”

The next day after publication in "Aliya" the site appeared on the Internet translation of the transcript into Russian. However, upon careful examination, it turned out that in some places the translation text does not fully correspond to the text published in the Georgian newspaper.

There is a clear pattern in the differences: in the Internet version of the translation, all passages that may seem offensive to the Russian president are softened. According to Vlast, this may be necessary for Patarkatsishvili himself, who is counting on Russian support in his opposition activities. But another option is also possible: Georgian law enforcement agencies skillfully added particularly offensive passages to the text specifically in order to quarrel Patarkatsishvili with the Kremlin. [...]

Patarkatsishvili about how Putin came to power: “Pissing in the toilet” - Berezovsky came up with this...

In particular, in the transcript, translated by Vlast, Patarkatsishvili tells Kodua about how Putin came to power.

“I want to tell you an episode from my life. Maybe you haven’t heard, but I brought Putin into politics! How did I bring him? He was in St. Petersburg, worked as Sobchak’s deputy, protected my St. Petersburg businesses. He wore one dirty greenish suit. and walked through life. When Yakovlev won the elections there against Sobchak, Yakovlev invited him to stay, but Putin acted like a man and did not stay - he left the mayor’s office with Sobchak. He called me twice a day and begged: Badri, transfer me to Moscow - I don’t want to stay here. I went to Borodin - Pal-Palych, who was then the head of Yeltsin’s household. He is a good guy - my friend. I came to him and told him about Putin, that he was a smart guy and could transfer him to financial control department? “Do you want me to make him my deputy?” he said. I called Putin, he arrived the same day, then became director of the FSB, then prime minister.

We had a LogoVAZ club. Putin came to me for lunch every day. We had a restaurant there (on New Square), a bar... Something else. We had a normal relationship, and in the end Berezovsky drew attention to him. He decided to appoint him head of the FSB. So off we go... Then the question of who would be prime minister was decided. We knew that the prime minister was the future president, and he was our candidacy. So we are his...

Our conflict began with Kursk. Do you remember when the submarine sank? There were 100 kids there, all 18-20 years old. The Norwegians had the opportunity to pull them out and save them, but the Russians did not allow them, they say, we have military secrets there. In general, Berezovsky called Putin 18 times a day and gave him advice. The famous phrase “to soak in the toilet” - Berezovsky suggested it to him, it was a performance - that’s how he won the elections... So, when the Kursk sank, we looked for it for two days, 48 ​​hours, but could not find it. If they had found them, those kids would have been saved. What the hell military secrets are worth drowning 100 guys in the 21st century? But we couldn’t convince these degenerate generals then, and Putin, it turns out, was at that time walking on a yacht in the sea near Sochi!”

Biography of Arkady Patarkatsishvili

Arkady Shalvovich Patarkatsishvili was born on October 31, 1955 in Tbilisi into a religious Jewish family. He graduated from the Georgian Polytechnic Institute. He worked at the Tbilisi worsted and cloth factory "Soviet Georgia". He rose to the post of deputy director.

In 1990, he became director of the Caucasian regional representative office of LogoVAZ JSC; since 1993 he lived in Lyubertsy, Moscow region, since 1994 - in Moscow.

From May 1992 to May 1994 - Deputy General Director of LogoVAZ JSC, from June 1994 - First Deputy General Director of LogoVAZ JSC.

Since 1994 - Deputy General Director of JSC LogoVAZ; also headed the Lada-Engineering company, part of Logovaz; was vice-president of the Russian Automobile Dealers Association (1994-1995); served as Deputy General Director of the Public Russian Television (ORT) TV channel for commerce; was the first deputy chairman of the board of directors of OJSC Public Russian Television.

Patarkatsishvili became Chairman of the Board of Directors of JSCB United Bank (Moscow) in October 1996.

Since June 2000, he served as executive director of ORT; in June 1999 he joined the board of directors of MNVK TV-6 Moscow; in March 2001 he was appointed general director of TV-6; On May 14, 2001, at a meeting of MNVK shareholders, he was elected chairman of the board of directors. Married, has two daughters; is interested in antiques.

According to a number of media reports, Patarkatsishvili arrived in the Moscow region from Tbilisi at the beginning of 1993 with the support of his friend Otari Kvantriashvili, who helped him register in Lyubertsy, and then, in 1994 in Moscow (Kvantriashvili, a crime boss, was killed). There was also information in the press that he was an adviser to Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze.

Patarkatsishvili was the head of the competition commission for the sale of a 51% stake in Sibneft. The commission refused to accept applications from representatives of ONEXIMbank and Alfa Group.

The Russian Prosecutor General's Office sent an international investigative order to the Georgian Prosecutor General's Office with a request for the arrest and extradition of former ORT financial director Badri Patarkatsishvili in March 2002.

Somewhat earlier, Badri Patarkatsishvili returned to Georgia, where he was born and raised. Arriving in Tbilisi, Patarkatsishvili stated that he was a citizen of Georgia, not Russia, and therefore could not be extradited by Russian law enforcement agencies under any circumstances; this would be a violation of the country’s constitution.

Patarkatsishvili began building the media-art-sport-holding "Art-Imedi" ("Imedi" means "hope"). He bought the formerly famous Tbilisi “Dynamo”, the basketball club “Dynamo” (Tbilisi), financed wrestlers, swimmers, chess players, and transferred a significant amount for the construction of the cathedral in Tbilisi.

On December 17, 2004, he was elected president of the National Olympic Committee of Georgia. On October 6, 2007, the Executive Committee of the National Olympic Committee of Georgia suspended Badri Patarkatsishvili's presidential powers.

In 2004, he was elected head of an international consortium for the construction of a sea oil terminal in Kulevi (Khobi region of Georgia), with a capacity of 12.5 million tons. Since 2005, he has been one of the shareholders of the Kommersant-Ukraine newspaper.

At the beginning of 2006, he acquired the business assets of Boris Berezovsky, including the Kommersant Publishing House.

Patarkatsishvili, who was a presidential candidate in Georgia in early elections on January 5, 2008, was put on the wanted list by the country's Prosecutor General's Office on charges of organizing a state conspiracy and attempting to eliminate a person holding a political position.

Married. Has two daughters - Liana (born in 1980) and Iya (born in 1983).

We thought for a long time whether it was worth devoting so much newspaper space to this tangled and dirty story, and we even decided: let the oligarchs and various adventurers sort out their conflicts themselves. But what began to happen to our correspondent in Minsk left us no other choice: only published information is a guarantee of the safety of a journalist.

Service memo

To the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta from my own correspondent for Belarus Irina Khalip

On Sunday, November 23, 2009, the day after I sent the text of the investigation about the case of Emmanuel Zeltser, including exclusive details and documents, to the editor, a letter with the following content was sent to my email address (the author’s spelling and punctuation were preserved):

From: Drug Drug This email address is being protected from spambots. You must have JavaScript enabled to view it.
Date: November 22, 2009 5:43 pm
Subject: greetings from Boris
Irka, if you don’t remove the article, you will meet with Anna Politkovskaya, or tomorrow with stoned niggas.
With love, BA."

I called Boris Berezovsky in London and said that I had received a threatening letter on his behalf. Berezovsky assured me that he was not involved, and suggested that the special services were acting.

On Monday and Tuesday, at the request of the deputy editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, I collected additional information for the material. On Tuesday, November 25, at 20.53, a call came to my mobile phone from the number +275178254009 (pay phone). An unfamiliar male voice said: “Were you warned, bitch? If the article does come out, you don’t have to leave the house anymore.”

On Thursday, November 26, in the evening, I received a telegram from Moscow with the following content: “HERO OF EUROPE IT’S NOT ABOUT FAL PALYCH BUT ABOUT VLADIMIROVICH HENNESSY DRINK TO YOUR SON’S HEALTH IF YOU DON’T PITY YOURSELF.”

If this may seem like something out of the “load oranges in barrels” series, then I’ll explain: we were talking about “Pal Palych” in my telephone conversation with the deputy editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta: he remembered that Emmanuel Zeltser was Pal Palych Borodin’s lawyer in New York. Regarding Hennessy: on Wednesday, November 25, my husband called me and asked what I should buy in duty-free, I asked for Hennessy. And finally, on Thursday, November 26, my son fell ill, and I called several times about his condition. That is, the telegram demonstrated: all my actions are under control.

I have been threatened before, but each time it happened after one or another publication. Threats that began before publication, and even contained details of my telephone conversations, indicate that the text was intercepted and read when I sent it by email. No one knew that I was working on this topic except the management of the newspaper, with whom I discussed it on the phone. This allows us to conclude that those who make threats have the ability to listen to my telephone conversations and intercept my email. Moreover, the threatening letter arrived at the mailbox that I had set up no more than a month ago for confidential, not work, correspondence.

Irina Khalip

This serial detective story began on November 14, 2007, when Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili, while in New York, allegedly signed a will, according to which he was appointed executor half-brother Joseph Kay. On February 12, 2008, Patarkatsishvili died suddenly in London. Immediately after the announcement of the will, Boris Berezovsky, who was not mentioned in it, announced that he was entitled to half of Badri’s property - according to an oral contract, although they officially divided the joint business a year and a half before Patarkatsishvili’s death. On March 12, Kay’s lawyer Emmanuel Zeltser and his assistant Vladlena Funk were arrested by the Belarusian KGB in Minsk, where they arrived on Berezovsky’s plane, on charges of using false documents. On April 4, the widow of the deceased, Inna Gudavadze, and her daughters filed a lawsuit in New York court against Kay and Zeltser (at their place of residence), and Kay filed a lawsuit in Tbilisi court, under whose jurisdiction was the last will of the Georgian citizen. The trial court, which concluded on February 20 of this year, and the Georgian Court of Appeal, which took place on July 1, recognized the authenticity of the will and Kay’s right to be the executor of the will of the deceased. The judge postponed the trial in New York until Zeltser is released. And he accepted only one document - the “Agreement of the Parties, Approved by the Court,” registered in the New York federal court on May 5, 2008 under the number 08-cv-03363_doc _18. According to this document, “Joseph Kay, while this proceeding continues, will not represent publicly or to third parties that he or Emmanuel Zeltser has the authority to act on behalf of the estate of Arkady (Badri) Patarkatsishvili until such time as any court of competent jurisdiction recognizes the opposite." Now the trial has been postponed again until January 22, at the request of the plaintiffs.

This dotted line touched the attention of those who followed the events surrounding the legacy of Badri Patarkatsishvili. But his legacy is an iceberg. On the surface is the Imedi television company. No one knows what is under water, including the heirs. On the surface there are civil lawsuits with potentially criminal overtones. And under the water there is a dark block in which a British lord and a Belarusian KGB officer, Berezovsky and Lukashenko have tightly merged, Georgian wife with Russian wife , American diplomats with Belarusian guards. I talked to almost all the participants in this conflict, and this is the picture that emerged.

Greetings from Berezovsky

American lawyer Emmanuel Zeltser spent almost a year and a half in a Belarusian prison, although he was sentenced to three years - for using false documents (his assistant Vladlena Funk, who served a year, was convicted under the same article) and attempted commercial espionage. Zeltser was in a KGB pre-trial detention center, in a Ministry of Internal Affairs pre-trial detention center and in colony No. 15 in the city of Mogilev. He went on a hunger strike in protest, but never approached the Belarusian authorities with a request for clemency. Because he didn't plead guilty. He, sentenced to three years in prison, was released on June 30, when a delegation of American congressmen and senators arrived in Minsk. At a meeting with Lukashenko, they asked about Zeltser, the leader replied: “I never thought that this person would become an issue in relations between our states... If this is very important for America and our relations and will contribute to the normalization of our relations, I will sign today decree".

That same evening, US Consul Caroline Savage arrived at the Mogilev colony and took Emmanuel Zeltser away. At five o'clock in the morning he flew from Minsk to Vienna, from there to go home to New York. As Zeltser said, before departure, a certain M. (the editor's surname is known), a friend of Boris Berezovsky, who often carried out his instructions, suddenly entered the plane. I entered without luggage. He sat down in the next chair. He feigned surprise on his face at the seemingly unexpected meeting and, when the plane took off, he spoke confidentially: “Boris is very sorry about what happened to you. This is a misunderstanding. He would like to meet and talk with you." Zeltser closed his eyes and pretended to fall asleep. And “slept” until Vienna. In Vienna, M. for some reason did not get off the plane. Probably, Zeltser suggests, he went to Minsk on the same flight to report the failed conversation.

Road to prison with a transfer in London

On March 11, 2008, Emmanuel Zeltser and his assistant Vladlena Funk were sitting in a London restaurant with Boris Berezovsky. Seltzer represented Joseph Kay. From London, Zeltser was supposed to fly to Kazakhstan. But Boris Berezovsky, according to Zeltser, insisted on an immediate trip to Minsk: Badri had invested about $160 million in Belneftekhim, and he needed to go there immediately before the Belarusian regime pocketed this money.

Zeltser said: “Boris, I will certainly come to Minsk, but later: tomorrow I’m flying to Kazakhstan.”

By the end of the dinner, Berezovsky unexpectedly agreed: okay, if you don’t want it, don’t. And after coffee, Emmanuel and Vladlena, according to them, felt bad. Some kind of twilight state. Berezovsky kindly offered his car. They were brought to the airport, straight to Boris Berezovsky's plane.

“I really didn’t think well,” recalls Emmanuel Zeltser. - Or rather, it did everything automatically. When the car stops, it means we need to get out. There is an airplane ramp in front of me, which means I need to climb up it. We'll probably fly somewhere. I didn’t even try to figure out where exactly - I fly often. I vaguely remember a British customs officer entering the plane and wishing me a safe journey. Then I fell asleep. I woke up when the pilot entered the plane and said that in ten minutes we would land at Minsk airport. Even then I was not surprised - I was still not thinking well. I thought, well, maybe I was going to Minsk, but I don’t remember why.” (Emmanuel Zeltser outlined the story of his flight to Minsk in an unconscious state in his testimony given under oath at the US State Department after returning from a Belarusian prison.) When the plane landed, not border guards entered the cabin, but people in civilian clothes and took Zeltser and Funk to prison KGB.

Right to two calls

Now, in his office in the center of Manhattan, Emmanuel Zeltser, recalling this whole story, is perplexed: “I don’t understand why Boris needed all this fuss about my humble person. Building a stage set, hiring actors, and scheduling a day for the performance is a costly project. Both in terms of time and means. And he didn’t get anything as a result.” Boris Berezovsky recently told Vanity Fair that it was impossible to stop Zeltser legally: “It would take years and years and years.” In an interview with Novaya Gazeta on June 19, 2008, he said: “If Belarusian law enforcement agencies are even the least bit professional, they will stop the fraudster.”

In the KGB prison, Zeltser, according to him, was beaten for two days. The arrested person was required to make two phone calls. The first is to New York to Joseph Kay. The second was to the London Halkin Hotel, where Zeltser stayed and where all his belongings, including a laptop, were left. Kay should have been told to immediately fly to Minsk - it seems like millions and billions were discovered there and the presence of an executor is necessary. Having called a London hotel, Zeltser had to demand that all documents be taken out of his room, for which Lord Goldsmith's representative would come (Peter Goldsmith is Boris Berezovsky's lawyer, former Prosecutor General of Great Britain). The main thing, the Belarusian KGB officers said, is that among the documents there should be the original of Badri Patarkatsishvili’s will.

Emmanuel Zeltser called and repeated what the KGB officers demanded to say. Joseph Kay listened to his interlocutor and said: “By the way, Valentina gave birth yesterday.” "Is it true? - Zeltser answered. “In that case, give her my congratulations!” It was a conditioned signal. Valentina is a real woman, a mutual friend, who actually gave birth only six months before the telephone conversation. Both had long since congratulated her on the birth of her child. Congratulations meant that Zeltser was calling under pressure. Naturally, Kay did not even want to think about any trip to Minsk - if he arrived in Minsk, he would immediately be placed in a prison cell. As for the hotel, apparently, Zeltser’s call did not bother anyone there.

Trap for a lawyer

Back on March 3, 2008, three weeks after the death of Badri Patarkatsishvili, when Emmanuel Zeltser was not even thinking about a trip to Minsk, letters were sent to the Prosecutor General of Belarus Grigory Vasilevich and the Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Naumov on behalf of Lord Goldsmith (Debevoice & Plimpton LLP) and his colleagues Michelle Duncan (Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft LLP) - British lawyers with whom Badri's widow entered into an agreement.

Here's what it said: “We act in the interests of Inna Gudavadze, wife of the famous Georgian businessman and politician Badri Patarkatsishvili. Since his death, certain individuals have attempted to obtain information regarding his assets and business interests, both in the UK and elsewhere, on the basis of invalid and, we are sure, fraudulent documents. These individuals are attempting to gain illegal access to all of Mr. Patarkatsishvili's assets using these false documents. We bring this to your attention because we are confident that Mr. Patarkatsishvili had or could have assets under your jurisdiction, and it is very important to preserve them for his legal heirs, who are his wife and children. We hope for your prompt response in the event that Messrs. Kay, Zeltser or Fishkin try to gain illegal access to assets.” In general, traps and traps were placed in Belarus in advance. All that was needed was to lure Zeltser. If Kay himself had come to London for negotiations, he would probably have woken up on the plane. Or lawyer Alexander Fishkin, who notarized the will. All three names appear in the lord's message - just to be on the safe side. But it was Zeltser who came to London. On March 19, Prosecutor General Vasilevich will receive another letter from Goldsmith’s company: “We are interested in cooperation on behalf of our clients... We know that Michelle Duncan is meeting with your representative today about Zeltser, and we hope that the meeting will be productive. We would also be happy to answer your questions."

KGB officers and lords

Later, Lord Goldsmith will do another strange thing: he will agree to a meeting with Belarusian KGB investigator Sergei Vorobyov. He, having arrived in London in May last year, wrote a letter to Goldsmith: “My name is Sergei Vorobyov, and I am an official representative of the Belarusian authorities, temporarily located in London. The purpose of my visit to London is to collect information on the case of Emmanuel Zeltser, who is under arrest in Belarus. Last week I already interviewed several witnesses. Since all my attempts to reach you have been unsuccessful, I am writing you this letter from my personal email address. In your letters to the Prosecutor General of Belarus dated March 19 and May 6, you kindly offered your assistance and that of your clients in the investigation of the Zeltser case. I would like to invite you and your client Inna Gudavadze to a meeting with me at the Belarusian Embassy in London at any time convenient for you on May 19 or 20. I want to assure you that there is no basis for the allegations of mistreatment of Seltzer made by his brother Mark. Although there is no evidence other than Zeltser's brother's allegations, these accusations have been circulated by a number of official and unofficial sources."

As follows from the letter, Goldsmith refused possible contacts with the KGB. That’s why Vorobyov couldn’t get through on the phone - the lord simply didn’t answer calls. And he ignored letters sent from the KGB. Hence Vorobyov’s last attempt: “I am writing to you from a personal address, I beg you to respond.”

And Goldsmith finally came to the embassy. I contacted the lord and asked him why he met with a KGB representative whose working methods and principles categorically contradict the principles and values ​​of the British aristocracy? And she received a response signed by Caroline Villiers, a public relations specialist at Debevoise & Plimpton: “None of the representatives of our firm or persons associated with it ever agreed to a meeting or met with the attorney general.”

In fact, the Prosecutor General did not offer to meet. We will assume that the phrases “representative of KGB Sergei Vorobyev” and “Prosecutor General Grigоry Vasilevich” sound the same. And when asked whether Lord Goldsmith admits that in the story of the arrest of Zeltser there was a well-planned operation invented by Boris Berezovsky, the answer was this: “The firm does not and has never received instructions from Boris Berezovsky.” When asked whether Lord Goldsmith's representative actually took the will from the Halkin Hotel and where the document is now, Caroline Villiers replied: “No one from our firm or anyone connected with it took the said documents.”

Those documents were not in the Belarusian court either - Zeltser left them in the hotel room. So the trial regarding forged documents and the guilty verdict were nothing more than another act of the performance. But after a year and a half, according to Zeltser, Boris Berezovsky handed over to a British court several boxes of papers allegedly printed from the same laptop that remained at the Khalkin Hotel.

What does the British court have to do with it? Yes, despite the fact that Boris Berezovsky recently began a process there - already against Inna Gudavadze, who abandoned previous agreements with him.

I called Boris Berezovsky with a request to comment on Zeltser’s words and my participation in this story. Boris Abramovich declined to comment and said that he could not comment on anything until the end of the trial.

All parties now use computer printouts, which are not documents in any court in the world. This also applies to that ill-fated New York will. In any case, no one can confirm or deny its authenticity. But the question arises: what was there to start a real war - with chases, arrests, torture in prisons, fake trials? Answer: nothing.

Badri's will - a myth of the 21st century

As stated in the will allegedly signed by Badri Patarkatsishvili on November 14, 2007, the executor of his will, Joseph Kay, “after paying all debts, taxes and expenses, is obliged to distribute all my assets as follows in accordance with my confidential instructions: Inna Gudavadze - 25%, Olga Safonova - 25%, my daughters Liana and Iya - 10% each, my son David - 10%, my beloved mother - 5%, my sisters Mzia and Nana - 5% each, my brother Jacob - 5%.” Nothing more. And the preamble says that Badri is afraid of being killed after the presidential elections in Georgia - by signing the will, Patarkatsishvili was a candidate for the presidency of Georgia.

The first thing that catches your eye is the definition of kinship next to each surname, except for Gudavadze and Safonova. Because calling two women wives at once is illegal in Georgia, whose citizen Badri was, and in the USA, where the will was drawn up, and in the UK, where his second residence was located, and in Russia, where he was married to Safonova. So Badri preferred to do without indicating the degree of relationship.

Inna Gudavadze knew about her husband’s second marriage. And she knew it was illegal. So soon after Badri's death filed a lawsuit in Russian court to declare the marriage with Safonova invalid, and the marriage was annulled. But in the Wedding Palace of St. Petersburg, under number 1253 dated May 16, 1997, there was a record of this marriage. However, this is not important either. The important thing is that in the will Olga Safonova remained the heir - regardless of whether she was officially recognized as a relative of Badri.

And in this bigamy lies the answer to one of the most important questions: why, in fact, did billionaire Patarkatsishvili need a single lawyer, Emmanuel Zeltser, if the same huge law office of Lord Goldsmith was working for Badri? It’s simple: for almost 15 years Zeltser was not only Badri’s lawyer, but also his secret attorney, who could be trusted with something “delicate.” For example, would Lord Goldsmith, the former British Attorney General with political ambitions, deal with the will of a bigamist? Hardly. But Zeltser didn’t ask any questions.

So courts in different countries are going around the myth that the last will became Badri Patarkatsishvili. Moreover, there is no original document. And not a single court in the world recognizes it as genuine or fake. And the inheritance itself became a myth in almost two years after his death. Badri, like many businessmen in the post-Soviet space, hid his name, diverted money to offshore and trust companies, registered companies under dummies - in Cyprus, Panama, the Netherlands, and the Cayman Islands. The huge offshore empire, which he owned jointly with Boris Berezovsky, was divided into two trusts a year and a half before Badri’s death: the Hotspur Trust, which went to Berezovsky, and the Octopus Trust, which went to Patarkatsishvili. And after Badri’s death, Berezovsky entered into an agreement with Inna Gudavadze, who agreed to give him half of her late husband’s assets.

At that moment they needed each other: Berezovsky at least knew where to look for Badri’s hidden money, but Gudavadze had no idea about it. But she had the opportunity to sue for deprivation of rights to the second family’s inheritance. So the alliance was mutually beneficial. And Joseph Kay is not an heir at all, he is an executor. His duty is to find those hidden assets and distribute them to Patarkatsishvili’s heirs and creditors. The performer can only claim to be paid a very decent fee.

In the meantime cases on claims are heard in courts of different countries Berezovsky and Gudavadze to Kay, and now Berezovsky to Gudavadze - those same trusts and offshore companies in which Patarkatsishvili’s name does not appear anywhere are happily creeping into the pockets of the very intermediaries in whose names these companies were formally registered. If the courts drag on for several more years, the inheritance (after Badri’s death, his assets, according to various estimates, ranged from 2.6 to 6 billion dollars) may in fact be left only with the Imedi television company, for which it is pointless to fight, because to any formal owner, it has long already de facto belonged to the Georgian state. And everything else will gradually turn into a myth for the grandchildren.

In business circles, this Georgian businessman was a colorful, authoritative figure. They called him the richest resident of Georgia. Badri Patarkatsishvili had a huge sphere of interests: he financed sports clubs, was a sponsor of chess players, wrestlers, and swimmers. He created the media holding “Art-Imedi”. Many people took him into account; his partner was Berezovsky himself, who for a long time was considered the “gray eminence” of the country. Like his companion, Badri spent the last days of his life in London.

Badri Patarkatsishvili. Biography

Patarkatsishvili was born in Tbilisi in 1955 on October 31. His parents were Jews: father Shalva, mother Natela Patarkatsishvili. His parents were deeply religious people and from an early age they taught Badri Patarkatsishvili to attend synagogue. Due to his unusual origin for Georgia, Badri’s peers did not like him from childhood. The relationship was also complicated by the fact that the boy, from childhood, was too childish about cases of humiliation from classmates; he did not strive to show his “I”. Badri managed to make a career in the Georgian Komsomol; in the future he even became a member of the Communist Party. After Patarkatsishvili graduated from the Georgian Polytechnic Institute, he began working at the Tbilisi worsted cloth mill. He began his public activities as deputy secretary of the Komsomol organization. Subsequently he became deputy director of the enterprise. After the Union collapsed, Badri Shalvovich was the initiator of the transformation of the enterprise into JSC Maudi.

"LogoVAZ". Connection with Berezovsky

Already in the 90s, Patarkatsishvili, by the nature of his activities, was associated with the affairs of the Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky. In 1990, Badri took the post of director of the regional Caucasian representative office of LogoVAZ. In 1992 he was already deputy. General Director of LogoVAZ. Berezovsky and Badri Patarkatsishvili were already influential people at the time they met. Badri was the author of a monograph on pricing in the Soviet Union. Boris Berezovsky was already a Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. At the plant, Berezovsky had the task of improving management methods, and Patarkatsishvili provided him with all possible assistance in his work.
Businessmen made their first millions on sales of Zhiguli cars. They did not forget about the interests of the head of VAZ Kadannikov; part of the profit invariably went to him. This is how Badri Patarkatsishvili began his career, whose fortune by the end of his life was estimated at 13 billion dollars. In 1993, Badri and his family moved to Lyubertsy, and in 1994 to the capital itself. In 1994-1995, his activities were associated with Russian Automotive Leaders, where he worked as vice president.

Activity

After successful cooperation at the automobile plant, Badri Patarkatsishvili did not close his ties with Berezovsky. Gradually, business interests began to move to other areas, including Russian television. Badri Shalvovich is appointed to the position of deputy general director for commercial affairs (in fact, treasurer of ORT). Also in this structure he becomes the first deputy head. During this period, Badri Patarkatsishvili was a very significant and authoritative personality. His photos appeared quite often in the business press. Soon he will be the chairman of the commission for the sale of a controlling stake in Sibneft. It was thanks to Patarkatsishvili that most of the company’s securities went to Boris Berezovsky. Later, the TV-6 channel aroused interest among the oligarchs, and Patarkatsishvili began to head the directorate. A little later, he buys the Kommersant publication from Berezovsky, the amount of this agreement was one hundred million dollars.

Return to Georgia

In 2001, Badri Shalvovich Patarkatsishvili returned to Georgia. In Russia, in June 2001, the Prosecutor General's Office charged him with the fact that Badri was the organizer of the escape of Nikolai Glushkov, a high-ranking official from Aeroflot, who was taken into custody. And in October, Patarkatsishvili was already accused of fraud in the case of car theft at AvtoVAZ. In July 2001, the oligarch was put on the international wanted list, but the Georgian side did not intend to extradite him to the Russian authorities. During the same period, Boris Berezovsky, with Putin coming to power, fled from Russia to England. Thus the paths of the business partners diverged.

Business in Georgia

In 2002, Badri Patarkatsishvili created the first media holding, Imedi, in Georgia. During that period, he became the owner of the capital's circus, Tbilisi basketball and football clubs. He actively began to finance swimmers, wrestlers, and chess players. Badri invests considerable funds in the reconstruction of the ancient capital of Georgia, Mtskheta, as well as in the construction of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. In addition, Patarkatsishvili provided the Tbilisi mayor's office with an interest-free loan of one million dollars when Moscow was given a warning about stopping gas supplies due to unpaid debts. In 2003, Badri Shalvovich became president of the Federation of Georgian Businessmen. In 2004, he was named “businessman of the year” in Georgia. In 2004, he became president of the Olympic Committee of the Republic of Georgia. In 2005 - President of World Jewish Television. In 2006, Boris Berezovsky ceded his stake in Kommersant to Patarkatsishvili.

Against the Saakashvili regime

In 2006, Badri Patarkatsishvili began his speeches in Georgia against the existing Saakashvili regime. In the structure of the president, he was called at that time the “unofficial boss of the opposition force” that then existed in the country. In the fall, a protest demonstration was organized against the system existing in Georgia in front of the legislative building. Badri took part in it not least. Law enforcement agencies intervened in the situation. The oligarch then publicly stated that he was ready to part with his capital just to overthrow dictator Saakashvili. Soon, the Tbilisi prosecutor's office initiated criminal prosecution. The accusation was an attempt to overthrow the power of the existing President Saakashvili.

London

After such accusations, Badri Patarkatsishvili left Georgia for London. He sold part of the assets of the Georgian media holding to Western partners and sought to reduce political and commercial risks. In 2006, Patarkatsishvili sold all shares of Kommersant to Russian businessman Alisher Usmanov. According to some sources, Boris Berezovsky and Badri Patarkatsishvili were going to buy out the London football club West Ham. In March 2007, Badri made a public statement that he had actually left Georgia, that he would no longer be involved in politics and business and would only remain involved in charitable projects. In October of the same year, Patarkatsishvili resigned from the post of head of the Federation of Georgian Businessmen. He stated that this federation has become a useless structure and no longer performs the function of an intermediary between the authorities and businessmen, as it was originally.

Elections

Patarkatsishvili Badri Shalvovich, whose biography is replete with significant events, decided in the fall of 2007 to change his life. On November 28, the Central Election Commission of Georgia gave information about the nomination of Badri Patarkatsishvili for early elections as a candidate for the post of head of state. The elections were scheduled by the incumbent president for January 2008. In December 2007, the Prosecutor General's Office of Georgia, represented by Nick Gvaramia, announced that it was closing the criminal case against Patarkatsishvili due to the fact that, as a presidential candidate, he became the holder of immunity. At the end of December, shortly before the elections themselves, a video was shown on Georgian television that greatly discredited Badri Shalvovich, his rating dropped significantly, and in the elections he managed to gain only 7% of the votes, reaching 4th place. Mikheil Saakashvili won the elections that year, gaining 53% of the votes.

Last days of life. Family

Badri Shalvovich Patarkatsishvili spent the last months of his life in England. The businessman died in 2008 on February 12 at about 11 pm in his London mansion. The cause was given as a heart attack, but it is worth noting that he had never complained of such illnesses before. Badri's father Shalva Patarkatsishvili also died unexpectedly of a heart attack; he was only 48 years old at that time. After an autopsy, a pathology was established that could have caused sudden death, but no symptoms of heart disease were found. One way or another, a special commission was created in London; it was supposed to determine the true causes of the businessman’s death. The investigation also determined the cause was a heart attack.

A little information regarding the heirs of Patarkatsishvili. In 1979, Inna Gudavadze became Badri’s legal wife. The businessman never divorced her. The marriage produced two daughters: their names are Liana and Iya. Secretly from his wife in Russia in 1997, Badri Patarkatsishvili and Olga Safonova got married. From this union a son, David, was born. In 2008, after the death of Badri Shalvovich, by a court decision the marriage was declared invalid. This decision satisfied the claim of Badri Patarkatsishvili’s first wife, Inna Gudavadze. Representatives of Gudavadze were pleased with this decision. They explain that the lawsuit had nothing to do with the division of the inheritance. Inna fought exclusively for her own reputation and honor. At the same time, Safonova’s lawyers present this litigation precisely as a struggle for inheritance and, for their part, question the legality of Badri Patarkatsishvili’s first marriage.

Boris Berezovsky estimated her fortune in a London court at $6 billion, but the former housewife and her two daughters have yet to prove their right to Patarkatsishvili’s numerous assets and learn how to manage them.

“The girls and I, with our large families, had absolutely everything, and we didn’t need anything. Until 2008 [Patarkatsishvili died in February 2008] it was paradise. As it turned out, paradise on the edge of a volcano,” recalls Inna Gudavadze.

For the meeting with Vedomosti, she chose the Arcadia residence in Tbilisi, on the territory of which Patarkatsishvili’s grave is located. “We regularly come from London to Georgia. We visit the grave, families, friends, monitor assets,” says Gudavadze. In fact, the main residence is considered to be the former Tbilisi Wedding Palace; Patarkatsishvili bought it when he was forced to return from Russia to Georgia in 2001. “This building is one of the 20 most interesting buildings in Europe,” says Gudavadze’s eldest daughter Liana Zhmotova. The former Wedding Palace became for Patarkatsishvili an analogue of the famous LogoVAZ reception house in Moscow, in which he and Berezovsky met with partners.

A garden was laid out next to the former palace, in the depths of which another residence was built, where the meeting with Vedomosti took place. Arcadia can also claim to be one of the most interesting buildings. The central hall resembles King Arthur's round table; the impression is only enhanced by the stonehenge installed in the hall, opposite which on the wall there is a menorah, one of the oldest symbols of Judaism. On the opposite wall is a grapevine, which is one of the symbols of Georgia. And on the walls in four languages ​​- Georgian, Russian, Latin and Hebrew - the inscription “peace to him who enters” is Gudavadze’s idea. The next room contrasts sharply with these symbols - it is “Arab”. “These are all completely Badri’s ideas. He couldn’t travel [abroad], so he recreated the world in miniature in Georgia,” says Gudavadze. But in the most prominent place are not pagan and religious symbols, but photographs of Patarkatsishvili. Large ones are on the wall, smaller ones are on the shelves. The picture is exactly the same in the businessman’s estate on the top of the mountain, where we continue the meeting - one gets the impression that the former owner of this house is looking attentively at you from anywhere in the hall.

"Man of his word"

Patarkatsishvili has always been in the shadow of his partner Berezovsky. But when it came to litigation - Berezovsky tried in a London court to sue Roman Abramovich for almost $5.6 billion for shares in Sibneft and Rusal - it turned out that many transactions were concluded under Patarkatsishvili’s word. It was he who, in half a day, convinced the general director of Sameco, Maxim Ovodenko, to withdraw his application to participate in the loans-for-shares auction for the sale of the state stake in Sibneft. Patarkatsishvili negotiated the consolidation of aluminum smelters, which later became Rusal. “Without Badri, I would never have climbed there. Someone was killed there every three days. I didn’t need such a business,” Abramovich explained to the London court. And when Berezovsky and Patarkatsishvili spent money on intermediaries when transferring to England the $1.3 billion received from Abramovich for Sibneft, the businessman convinced the owner of the oil company to compensate these commissions as well. The additional payment amounted to $377 million. “Why did I agree at all? He [Patarkatsishvili] was convincing. He could convince me. In general, after every meeting with him, I left with additional expenses,” Abramovich said in court.

Berezovsky, in a conversation with Vedomosti, did not hide the fact that he came up with projects, and it was Patarkatsishvili who implemented them.

How did he manage to find a common language not only with businessmen and senior officials, but also with criminal authorities, and was Patarkatsishvili himself such an authority? Gudavadze objects indignantly: “This is a very incorrect question. Of course it wasn’t, what are you talking about! Badri was a man of his word. That is, if he gave, if he promised something, he kept his word.”

“He was just a very charismatic person. There are such people. It’s probably immodest to say that about dad. Nevertheless, when he entered the room, he filled it with himself. Some kind of serious force was felt. And it doesn’t matter who you communicate with - this power is usually respected and people talk to such people a little differently. In my opinion, he could read a person quite well,” adds Liana Zhmotova. Patarkatsishvili’s partners also previously noted that the businessman knew how to be friends and be responsible for his words. He was absolutely natural both in negotiations with “invading” bandits and in conversations with global media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, recalled Channel One General Director Konstantin Ernst. And the former general director of ORTIgor Shabdurasulov told how banks issued loans with just one word from Patarkatsishvili.

After Patarkatsishvili’s death and several years of litigation, it became clear that most of the business projects considered to be under Berezovsky’s control could belong not to him, but to the Georgian billionaire. In Georgia, Patarkatsishvili’s fortune in 2007 was estimated at $12 billion, placing him at the top of the ranking of the richest Georgians in the world. The real fortune of the businessman who died in 2008 was more difficult to assess - all of his business was managed by offshore lawyers and nominee directors or partners of Patarkatsishvili. The businessman himself, like his partner Berezovsky, tried not to leave traces in the constituent documents, so it was possible to find out about their participation in specific projects only from them themselves.

Secular duties

Inna Gudavadze, who now has to collect her husband’s assets and sue all over the world for them, is completely different from a businesswoman or a model from the cover of a secular magazine. In appearance, she is a homely, cozy woman, very far from business, simply receiving guests on her Georgian estate.

Vedomosti's question to Gudavadze and her two daughters, where they worked before, causes some confusion. “I worked as a technical translator in Tbilisi for 19 years,” Gudavadze finally recalls. But this was back in the days of the USSR, when Patarkatsishvili and Berezovsky themselves were far from business.

According to Gudavadze, she helped her husband only in charitable and landscaping projects. She recalls that she participated in only one transaction - the purchase of the Kommersant publishing house in 1999. According to Gudavadze, she helped convince founder Vladimir Yakovlev that the newspaper's policy would not change after its sale to Berezovsky and Patarkatsishvili.

Patarkatsishvili’s daughters, Iya and Liana, graduated from the foreign languages ​​departments of MGIMO and public relations at the Russian State University for the Humanities in the early 2000s, but did not have time to work in their profession. In 2006, the Patarkatsishvili family was forced to leave for London. Offshores, trusts, business schemes with nominal ownership for subsidiaries were the same dark forest as for Gudavadze.

“Badri was happy to share his victories and projects with me - it brought him joy,” says Gudavadze. But the businessman’s widow had no idea about the business itself - the names of the companies, how much it cost, how much was invested. “I wasn’t interested,” she says. “We didn’t see any lawyers or bankers, we never communicated with them. Badri had many guests here, in Georgia, in “Arcadia”, he received a lot of people. I had social duties - to receive and treat,” continues Gudavadze.

“Badri deliberately kept them [Inna and his daughters] away from the business, he protected them,” says Irakli Rukhadze, former head of the Georgian division of the Salford fund (managed Patarkatsishvili’s assets), Gudavadze’s adviser. The businessman says that he was a frequent guest of Patarkatsishvili and his wife Inna was always “a housewife, hospitable and caring.” Berezovsky treated his partner's wife in the same way - as a simple housewife. “At those meetings at which I had the opportunity to express my opinion to him [Berezovsky], I expressed it, but he did not take me seriously as an opponent,” states Gudavadze. “But I didn’t think it was possible to tell my husband who to be friends with or not.”

Five Years' War

On February 12, 2008, Patarkatsishvili died unexpectedly at his estate in the suburbs of London. “They [Inna and her daughters] found themselves completely without funds for some time; there was no money even to organize Badri’s funeral,” recalls Rukhadze. Bank accounts, like companies, were managed by Patarkatsishvili’s managers and partners. “Inna and her family knew that Patarkatsishvili owned specific companies, but when she contacted them, they told her that “Badri had already donated this company, sold it, he never owned it, etc.,” continues Rukhadze. According to Gudavadze, this was the most difficult time for the family: “At that time it seemed to me that I was in control of myself, but, as it turned out later, I did not have an adequate idea of ​​​​what was happening.” Without hesitation, she and her daughters signed an agreement with Berezovsky, in which the family agreed that he owned 50% of Patarkatsishvili’s assets. Following Berezovsky, Patarkatsishvili’s cousin Joseph Kay flew to England, calling himself the businessman’s executor and heir. And in addition, Gudavadze was informed that Patarkatsishvili has an illegitimate son. Then came another blow - Kay accused Gudavadze and Berezovsky of Patarkatsishvili’s death and filed a lawsuit in New York (his accusations were not confirmed).

How Gudavadze managed to withstand these blows - the widow does not want to remember. She seems to be a fundamentally unemotional person who is difficult to anger (at least during the interview it was not possible).

A long five-year war began in the courts with Berezovsky, Vasily Anisimov, the Georgian government, distant American relatives, Patarkatsishvili’s former business partners and simply swindlers who began hunting for the assets of the deceased oligarch.

“Our salvation is that, perhaps, we did not understand this from the very beginning, how global our problems were. At some point it was even a little strange,” recalls Gudavadze. She calmly tells how the family rented out a luxurious English estate and moved to live in rented apartments, sold a plane (it was given to Patarkatsishvili by Abramovich) and a small wooden yacht in Georgia, for which they managed to get $300,000. With the money they received they had to live and start a long and expensive litigation in the courts of Georgia, England, Liechtenstein, USA, British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar.

True, the first money appeared earlier: in March 2008, Rukhadze sold the Georgian Standard bank, which was managed by the Salford fund, and part of the $50 million in proceeds went to the Gudavadze family. He and Gudavadze say that they managed to find documentary evidence of Berezovsky’s divorce from Patarkatsishvili in 2006. According to it, Berezovsky received from his partner all the money for the sold shares in the joint business and no one owes anyone else. “After which we broke off relations with Berezovsky,” says Rukhadze. The businessman’s widow is convinced that all the troubles in the family were due to Berezovsky’s political projects, including Patarkatsishvili’s attempt to become president of Georgia in 2008 (see inset).

Gudavadze hired one of the most expensive lawyers in England - former Prosecutor General Lord Peter Goldsmith, a team of advisers and took up unusual work.

“For the last five years, my daughters and sons-in-law and I have been coming to the office at eight in the morning and sorting out all the documents until the evening. All these disclosures of companies, documents obtained during preparation for the trial with Boris Abramovich and in other courts,” says Gudavadze. According to her, at the same time she had to learn to read reports. “I couldn’t understand why the trust was mine, but nevertheless I couldn’t manage the company. I already know that now,” she says. The Gudavadze family provided the court with all the documents they could find, even invitation cards helped. “Even an invitation note could tell us something,” says Gudavadze.

“She had this approach: I don’t know anything, but I have time and while the trial is going on, I will find out everything. It’s impossible to lie in a London court,” says Rukhadze. According to him, Gudavadze is very meticulous and demands that advisers explain to her and chew over every little detail. After which Gudavadze gathers his family members, explains everything to them and they all decide together what to do.

First victories

The prospect of getting on the Forbes list is scary for Gudavadze, and she considers the size of her possible fortune to be greatly overestimated. “I really don’t like being in the public eye,” she says. “Can we close our eyes and pretend we’re not here?” It is still really difficult to estimate the value of the assets returned to the family; apart from the assets that were previously managed by Salford, the rest do not generate profit or require additional investments. Some of them - the Tbilisi Circus, the Mtatsminda amusement park, the Imedi TV channel - are more likely to be charitable projects rather than assets.

The first industrial asset that Gudavadze and her family managed to return was the Rustavi Metallurgical Plant. Last year, Gudavadze and then-Deputy Minister of Justice of Georgia Tina Burjaliani signed a settlement agreement under which the family of Patarkatsishvili’s heirs ceases all legal proceedings with the Georgian government. Then it seemed that an exchange had taken place - the authorities returned the plant to Gudavadze on the promise not to lay claim to the former opposition TV channel Imedi and the Mtatsminda entertainment park, which the family demanded to return.

Gudavadze says that everything was different: “Since in Georgian jurisprudence there is no such thing as nominal ownership, then whoever owns the asset is the owner. Since this asset was partly registered in the name of one of Badri’s friends and subordinates, we did not have a direct claim, although every peasant in any village knew that this channel belonged to Badri. Therefore, I had to go to the commercial arbitration court.” When the trial began, Gudavadze realized: if she wins, she will not get the TV channel back, but will be reimbursed for the money that Patarkatsishvili spent on the TV company. “We were faced with a moral choice - we wanted to return a normal independent television channel to the country, but we would only receive monetary compensation, and the money would come from the pockets of Georgian taxpayers,” she recalls. Therefore, the family agreed to withdraw the claims and reach an agreement with the Georgian government.

The TV channel and Gudavadze Park were returned anyway a year later, when billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili became Prime Minister of Georgia. “Ivanishvili knew that there were a lot of unfair seizures of property in Georgia, and not only by the state. Therefore, he urged everyone: “Don’t bring those who took it dishonestly to court proceedings. Whoever took the property, return it back. It will be simpler and more correct. Do this, and then we won’t persecute you,” Gudavadze quotes the new prime minister.

In October 2012, Saakashvili’s associate Georgy Arveladze sold 90% of Imedi to the Gudavadze family for a symbolic 3 lari ($1.8), followed by Patarkatsishvili’s American cousin Joseph Kay who returned 10% for 1 lari. The TV channel will be managed by the eldest daughter Liana. The family has not yet decided which relative will manage the remaining returned assets.

According to Gudavadze, she also managed through the courts to establish control over development projects in Spain and the USA, which were managed by Kay. This is the fashionable Fisher Island on the coast of Miami and the Benahavis Hills Country Club village, located near the fashionable Spanish resort of Marbella.

Wingspan

Gudavadze admits that some small assets were stolen. Thus, nothing remains of the Georgian textile factory “Maudi”; its equipment was long ago sold for scrap. It is unclear what happened to the tobacco and sugar factories in Georgia that Patarkatsishvili once bought. “Nowadays it’s harmful to eat sugar, you know, that’s why we don’t really chase sugar,” Gudavadze jokes.

The second and one of the most important victories was over Berezovsky, who in a London court tried to win 50% of the inheritance of the Patarkatsishvili family, the value of which the businessman estimated at $6 billion. In September, Berezovsky renounced all claims against Gudavadze and signed a settlement agreement with the family. According to Gudavadze, Berezovsky himself proposed to end the proceedings and he no longer lays claim to the family’s assets and commercial benefits from their sale. What then is Berezovsky's commercial interest - Gudavadze refuses to say, citing the confidentiality of the agreement.

The legal war did not end there. Now Gudavadze is suing another Georgian businessman, Vano Chkhartishvili, regarding the Kulevi oil port and a number of other assets. Also in court, Gudavadze is trying to find out what happened to the joint projects of Patarkatsishvili and Anisimov. Berezovsky previously stated that, together with Patarkatsishvili, he lent Anisimov $500 million to purchase 25% of the Mikhailovsky GOK. In a London court, Berezovsky tried to sue Anisimov for 10% of Metalloinvest, into which the mining and processing plant shares were converted. But in October he withdrew the claim. Berezovsky's place in the London court was taken by Gudavadze. “I know that Badri and Vasily Vasilyevich [Anisimov] were partners and had joint projects. We are trying to get some information from Vasily Vasilyevich. So far unsuccessful, and we were forced to go to court so that such information would be provided to us. I hope we will resolve these issues with Vasily Vasilyevich and complete this story,” says Patarkatsishvili’s widow. A source close to Anisimov confirmed that Gudavadze filed a lawsuit for disclosure of information. “We are ready for the trial, all the documents were already disclosed when the trial with Berezovsky was going on,” says Vedomosti’s interlocutor.

In addition to the London court, she will have to remember the Russian ones. In October, as part of one of the criminal cases against Berezovsky, the Basmanny Court of Moscow seized the Russian and Ukrainian assets of Salford - the Lipetsk Edelweiss, the Kostroma Holy Source and the three largest mineral water plants in Ukraine. Gudavadze suggests that someone is trying to take advantage of the situation and take over her business in Ukraine.

In any case, Inna Gudavadze feels confident and says that asking questions like “how did you decide to compete with Berezovsky and Saakashvili themselves” is the Russian (in the sense of unproductive) approach. “We feel a little different in London. You think: “Am I right?” And it doesn’t matter that you have the state on the other side. If I go to court, I feel comfortable in this regard, the smartest Q.C. [Queen's Counsel] and lawyers say that everything is correct, now let's go to court, everything will be fine, we will cope with them. It gives you a certain wingspan,” says Patarkatsishvili’s widow.

M. Stulov/Vedomosti

Source

http://www.vedomosti.ru/library/library-persons/news/6709981/poka_idet_sud_ya_uznayu_vse_inna_gudavadze_vdova_badri

Outcasts of Russian business: Details of the big game for elimination Alexander Soloviev

Bigamist, or Twice Outcast Badri (Arkady) Patarkatsishvili, LogoVAZ, ORT, Sibneft, Kommersant Publishing House, Imedi and much more

Bigamist, or Twice Outcast

Badri (Arkady) Patarkatsishvili,

LogoVAZ, ORT, Sibneft, Kommersant Publishing House, Imedi and much more

On June 20, 2001, the public relations center of the Prosecutor General's Office turned to businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili, in fact, with a real ultimatum. He was asked to appear at the Prosecutor General's Office within a week (or at least contact the investigator).

Living according to concepts - for me it means living according to conscience. And laws were created for the same thing.

Badri Patarkatsishvili

While trying to escape

“In case of failure to appear before him, the full measures provided for by the criminal procedural legislation will be taken,” law enforcement officers warned. In fact, this meant that in a week Badri Patarkatsishvili could well be put on the wanted list and then arrested (which, however, was not completely excluded in the event of his voluntary appearance for interrogation).

The entrepreneur was a witness in the case of the attempted escape from custody of former Aeroflot top manager Nikolai Glushkov. According to law enforcement officials, on April 11, 2001, at about 10 pm, the accused Nikolai Glushkov left the building of the capital’s hematology center, where he was being treated under round-the-clock guard. At the exit from the center, he was detained by FSB officers who had operational information about the impending escape. According to their version, Nikolai Glushkov’s friends, Badri Patarkatsishvili and Boris Berezovsky, were preparing the escape.

The next day, through the mouth of his lawyer Semyon Aria, Badri Patarkatsishvili responded to the prosecutor’s office. Refuting the claims of law enforcement officers, the lawyer argued that his client had already been summoned for questioning once, back in April. At the same time, an explanation was sent to the Prosecutor General’s Office that he was on a long business trip and would return to Russia only in September. Badri Patarkatsishvili did not receive any other subpoenas.

Pointing out that the public announcement of the connection of a well-known businessman with criminal activity is at the very least incorrect, the lawyer added on his own behalf that “the investigation has no procedurally admissible evidence of Mr. Patarkatsishvili’s involvement in the escape case.”

However, the investigators needed the week-long period announced by the Prosecutor General’s Office not only to wait for the voluntary appearance of the suspect and thereby avoid possible difficulties in finding him. During this time, an examination was carried out of the wiretapping of Badri Patarkatsishvili’s telephone conversation with the head of the security service of the ORT television company, Andrei Lugovoy. The interlocutors allegedly discussed options for Nikolai Glushkov’s escape. Experts confirmed that it was Badri Patarkatsishvili who spoke. This was enough to charge him with organizing the escape. The second interlocutor, Andrei Lugovoi, was arrested on June 28 on the same charges. He had to spend more than a year in prison.

Five years later, Andrei Lugovoi, now a State Duma deputy from the LDPR, will be involved in the notorious case of a cup of tea with isotopes in the bar of the Millennium Hotel. However, that story has nothing to do with Patarkatsishvili. Badri Shalvovich himself, who, according to his press service, was on a long business trip abroad, made a predictable decision - not to return to Russia. The Prosecutor General's Office immediately put him on the international wanted list, bypassing the federal one.

Patarkatsishvili accepted Georgian citizenship, and the request for his extradition sent by the Prosecutor General's Office in November 2001 to Georgia was not satisfied - Georgian laws (like Russian ones) prohibited the extradition of their citizens to law enforcement agencies of foreign states.

Berezovsky's top manager

Before becoming the right hand of Boris Berezovsky and discerning - in his own words - a potential prime minister of Russia in an ordinary employee of the St. Petersburg mayor's office, Vladimir Putin, Arkady Patarkatsishvili made a career in the Georgian Komsomol and in industry. In the late 1980s, he became the head of the Zhiguli car service station, and in 1990, the director of the Caucasian regional representative office of Logovaz JSC. That same year he met Boris Berezovsky.

The first half of the 1990s became a period of professional capitalist growth for Badri Patarkatsishvili within (and beyond) the LogoVAZ empire. If Berezovsky was, rather, a strategist responsible for the “political cover” of business, then Patarkatsishvili, having moved to Moscow, became an increasingly acumen top manager.

From May 1992 to May 1994, Badri was Deputy General Director of LogoVAZ JSC, and from June 1994, First Deputy General Director. Since 1994, he headed the Lada-Engineering company, part of LogoVAZ; was vice-president of the Russian Automobile Dealers Association (1994–1995).

In December 1995, CJSC Oil Finance Company, of which Badri was a co-owner and chairman of the board of directors, bought a 51% stake in Sibneft. In 1996-1999, Patarkatsishvili headed the board of directors of the United Bank. It is also believed that he, together with Boris Berezovsky, owned 25% of Russian Aluminum.

Since the mid-1990s, Patarkatsishvili has been involved in his partner’s media business. He served as Deputy General Director of the Public Russian Television (ORT) TV channel for commerce; was the first deputy chairman of the board of directors of OJSC Public Russian Television. Within six months, having established control over the television channel, he became its director of commerce and finance, and at the peak of his career, chairman of the board of directors of Channel One. At the same time, Mr. Patarkatsishvili first encountered Russian law enforcement agencies. In March 1995, he was interrogated in the case of the murder of the general director of the ORT television company Vladislav Listyev. There were versions in the media that the murder was organized by order of Boris Berezovsky, who wanted to control the channel’s advertising revenues. He was not charged then.

In 1999, the TV-6 channel came under the control of Boris Berezovsky. In March 2001, Badri Patarkatsishvili, being the executive director of ORT, also became the general director of TV-6. Other Russian media assets of the two businessmen were the Kommersant publishing house, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Novye Izvestia and TV-Park magazine.

But politics, which Patarkatsishvili had long avoided in Russia, found him on its own. On December 7, 2000, as part of the Aeroflot case, Nikolai Glushkov was arrested and placed in the Lefortovo detention center. According to Patarkatsishvili himself, this case was initially directed against Berezovsky. Depending on Berezovsky’s relationship with the authorities, it was either closed or resumed again. When Berezovsky helped Putin in the elections, the Prosecutor General's Office closed the case. When I went against Putin, I resumed it.

The partners realized this quickly. As well as the fact that one of the main elements of the policy of “equidistance of oligarchs” will be the seizure of control over the media, and over TV in the first place. They decided that their media assets represented a bargaining chip with the authorities, and the quality of these assets provided a strong negotiating position. The Kremlin’s demands, as Patarkatsishvili claimed, boiled down to the partners “selling the media empire, and Berezovsky stopping political activities.”

Badri Patarkatsishvili: “I appointed myself general director of TV-6”

– <…>I continued negotiations with government officials regarding the release of Glushkov from custody and received preliminary consent on the condition that Glushkov immediately leave the country.

– With whom exactly from the authorities?

– With Sergei Ivanov, he was then still the Secretary of the Security Council<…>and acted on Putin's instructions. I was asked to engage in any business, but it was contraindicated to engage in politics and mass media<…>I appointed myself general director of TV-6, based only on the fact that if we still have to negotiate with the authorities, then it is better to do it with me.

Vagit Alekperov was “appointed” as the buyer of TV-6 (again according to Badri Patarkatsishvili). But it was not possible to come to an agreement with him, and the confrontation between the entrepreneur and the authorities moved into the “open phase.” Glushkov was caught trying to escape, and Patarkatsishvili moved to Georgia, although he continued his efforts to get his friend out of prison.

As a result, on October 30, 2002, the Basmanny Court of Moscow, at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office, issued a warrant for the arrest of Badri Patarkatsishvili in the case of the theft of about 2,000 cars during LogoVAZ’s settlement with AvtoVAZ and the administration of the Samara region in 1994–1995. The entrepreneur was again put on the international wanted list.

The richest Georgian

By that time, Badri Patarkatsishvili enjoyed enormous authority in his homeland. His active involvement in Georgian business aroused genuine enthusiasm among both the Georgian authorities and the business community. Badri’s money and authority allowed him, in addition to everything else, to act as a kind of mediator, an arbiter in many issues where the interests of authorities and business intersected.

In Georgia, he was mainly involved in the media business: he created the Imedi television company, bought shares in the Mze and First Stereo television companies. Together with Boris Berezovsky, he acquired shares in the Bary Discovered Partners fund, which owns a number of food industry enterprises in Georgia and Serbia. He owned 49.9% of the Georgian mobile operator Magticom, shares in the football and basketball clubs Dynamo (Tbilisi), and through the British company Media Sports Investement controlled 51% of the shares of the Brazilian football club Corinthians.

In Georgia, Patarkatsishvili became increasingly active in social and political activities in the early and mid-2000s. He headed the Federation of Georgian Businessmen, bought the capital's circus, financed wrestlers, swimmers and chess players, invested heavily in the reconstruction of the ancient Georgian capital Mtskheta and in the construction of the new Holy Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi. In 2002, Patarkatsishvili provided the Tbilisi mayor's office with an interest-free loan of $1 million to pay for Russian natural gas when Moscow threatened to cut off gas supplies to Georgia due to rising debt.

On December 17, 2004, Patarkatsishvili was elected president of the National Olympic Committee of Georgia. In 2005, he became president of the newly created World Jewish Television. Patarkatsishvili's candidacy for this post was put forward at a meeting of the World Congress of Jews held in Jerusalem.

Even another conflict with law enforcement did not particularly affect his position. In February 2005, the Brazilian prosecutor's office began an investigation into possible financial irregularities in the Corinthians football club, of which Badri Patarkatsishvili was an investor along with Boris Berezovsky. According to investigators, the club was used for money laundering.

But Badri’s reputation in Georgia was impeccable, and his positions seemed unshakable.

By 2007, he owned 70% of the shares of the Georgian media holding Imedi (then the holding was valued at $300–400 million), 78% of the shares of the Rustavi-2 TV channel, 51% of the shares of the Mze and First Stereo television companies. In total, he controlled 80% of the Georgian television market.

The assets of the Bary Discovered Partners fund were estimated at $1 billion. The fund owned the Georgian Glass and Mineral Waters corporation (producer of the Georgian mineral water “Borjomi” and the Ukrainian “Mirgorodskaya” and “Morshinskaya”) with a turnover of more than $120 million, the Bamby confectionery factory and the Imlek dairy plant in Georgia. In 2007, the Georgian Times estimated Badri Patarkatsishvili's fortune at $12 billion.

He still had shares in Russian assets and authority in Russian business and government circles. It was through Badri that in 2006 Boris Berezovsky sold the Kommersant publishing house to the Kremlin-loyal entrepreneur Alisher Usmanov.

Badri Patarkatsishvili: “I was convinced that the power I dreamed of had come”

I’m not the person who suddenly stood up and started fighting against Misha. When he came to power, I took and gave 51% to Mze. I would say: give me Imedi, I would give Imedi too. I would have given it, because then I was convinced that the power I had dreamed of had come, which would do everything for the country to develop normally and move normally. I believed Zura, absolutely, and we spent nights thinking about how to build an economy<…>And the economic program that was actually made by me was to reduce taxes to 32%, VAT, and so on. He begged Misha to issue an amnesty for business and said that business should breathe freely. Then the country will develop. I paid three million for the program, it was prepared in Canada. Then he spat on everything, because he realized that it made no sense.

Oppositionist

But in March 2006, Patarkatsishvili criticized the Georgian authorities, accusing them of extorting “rents from business,” and went into opposition to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. In response, Badri was called a secret sponsor of the opposition, and a new round of confrontation between the entrepreneur and the authorities - this time Georgian - turned out to be inevitable.

It developed generally according to the same scenario as in Russia. Patarkatsishvili was demanded to transfer his media holding to the state. He refused - already from London - and in 2006 sold the shares of the Imedi TV channel to the Australian media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, later ceding the entire company to him.

In March 2007, Patarkatsishvili from London announced the cessation of political and economic activities in Georgia. For six months the conflict subsided, but in the fall of 2007 the situation in Georgia began to heat up. On November 7, the entrepreneur took part in a mass opposition protest in front of the Georgian parliament, and after the brutal dispersal of this rally, he called on the opposition to unite to fight Saakashvili and promised to spend all his money “to liberate Georgia from the fascist regime.” The response was not long in coming. On November 9, 2007, the Georgian Prosecutor General's Office opened a criminal case against Badri Patarkatsishvili, who was in London, on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the government.

A week later, the Tbilisi City Court, at the request of the prosecutor’s office, suspended the broadcasting license of the Imedi television company created by Patarkatsishvili and seized its property.

In December 2007, Patarkatsishvili became one of the opposition presidential candidates, but in the January 5 elections he took only third place. The day before, incriminating evidence began to appear in the pro-government Georgian media. Thus, the prosecutor's office released an audio recording of a meeting between Patarkatsishvili and the head of the operational department of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Erekle (Iraklia) Kodua, which allegedly took place in London on December 23. According to the recording, during this meeting Patarkatsishvili instructed Kodua to arrest the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Vano Merabishvili, promising him $100 million “for active participation in the coup.” Patarkatsishvili called the film a provocation, although he did not deny the fact of the meeting with Kodua. After that, he was charged again with “conspiracy to overthrow state power in Georgia, preparing an attack on a political official and preparing a terrorist attack.”

At the beginning of February 2008, a real scandal broke out in Georgia. Immediately after the prosecutor’s office released the recording of Patarkatsishvili’s conversation with Kodua, Badri’s supporters said that the recording was edited incorrectly, parts were taken out of context, and that the full recording of the conversation would be published, from which it would become clear that Patarkatsishvili was not preparing any coup.

On February 2, Colonel Kodua was awarded the rank of major general for special services. And already on February 5, the Aliya newspaper, published in Georgian, reported that a disk with a note was found in its mailbox: “Here is the full recording of the conversation between Patarkatsishvili and Kodua. Will you publish it? "Aliya" published.

In Georgia, the transcript became the number one topic. Not least because the full version deals not only with internal Georgian problems, but also with Russia, or more precisely, with its presidents, Yeltsin and Putin. However, Badri spoke little about them. In particular, it was then that he outlined his role in the political career of Vladimir Putin.

Badri Patarkatsishvili: “Fuck the post of minister, I need money”

– I was offered the post of Minister of Economy in Russia. Because fifty of the best economists worked for me. I created an entire institute that worked on how to circumvent the laws. What laws did the state pass then? When it was accepted, I spoke and said which way should be taken in order to circumvent the law, without breaking anything and achieving the goal. Many of the then new schemes in Russia were invented by me. And when Putin came, he offered me the post of Minister of Economy. I answered him: are you crazy? To hell with the post of minister, I need money...

Mostly the conversation was about Georgia. In particular, that an assassination attempt is being prepared on Patarkatsishvili himself. About where exactly Badri differs from Saakashvili, about Imedi, about democracy, economics, politics in Georgia.

Death and inheritance

A week after the publication in Aliya and the day after the articles in the Russian media, Badri Patarkatsishvili died at his home in the town of Leatherhead near London. Late in the evening of February 12, he told his family that he was not feeling well, went to his bedroom, fell and died. English police, citing preliminary autopsy results, reported death from natural causes - a sudden heart attack. But the death of the twice-disgraced oligarch looked so suspicious that it required an additional thorough investigation, the result of which - death as a result of coronary heart disease - did not convince everyone, however.

Before the relatives had time to bury the deceased (Arkady Patarkatsishvili’s funeral took place at his Tbilisi residence on February 28, 2008 with a large crowd of people and turned into an impromptu rally of the Georgian opposition), a real war broke out over his inheritance.

Three days after the death of Badri Patarkatsishvili, the deceased’s maternal cousin Joseph Kay (Georgian native Joseph Kakalashvili, who emigrated to the United States) presented his widow Inna Gudavadze with copies of the will and power of attorney for the right to dispose of all assets. The widow accused him of fraud, forging a will, and sent letters warning about an attempt to seize assets to the authorities of the United States, Great Britain, Georgia and Belarus. On February 20, the Georgian Mze channel reported that Mr. Kay was conducting negotiations in Tbilisi as the administrator of the property of the deceased. Later it turned out that at this time he reorganized the Imedi TV channel.

On March 12, Joseph Kay's lawyer Emmanuel Zeltser was arrested in Belarus. He was accused of forging documents and attempting to fraudulently seize the Belarusian assets of Badri Patarkatsishvili. On March 19, Inna Gudavadze reported that “impostors” declared themselves the owners of Imedi and were “trying to sell it to the government.” On March 21, Joseph Kay said that he “legally” bought the shares of the TV channel from Mr. Patarkatsishvili’s trusted representative, businessman Giorgi Dzhaoshvili.

On March 22, Boris Berezovsky told the Rustavi-2 TV channel that he could also lay claim to shares in Georgian assets, the management of which he had previously transferred to Badri Patarkatsishvili.

On April 4, Inna Gudavadze and her daughters filed a lawsuit against Joseph Kay and Emmanuel Zeltser in the federal court for the Southern District of New York. They said the defendants were trying to seize an inheritance worth about $1 billion and asked to identify the true heir. During the proceedings, the parties agreed that Mr. Kay would not lay claim to the disputed assets until the end of the process.

On April 7, Joseph Kay and Emmanuel Zeltser's brother Mark filed a complaint with a New York court that Boris Berezovsky and the Gudavadze family lured Emmanuel Zeltser to Minsk, where he was arrested. On April 10, the imprisoned lawyer was transferred from the pre-trial detention center to a psychiatric clinic.

The summer of 2008 was spent in judicial battles. The Tbilisi City Court recognized Joseph Kay as the executor of Badri Patarkatsishvili's will. The first wife of the late entrepreneur, Inna Gudavadze, in the Khamovnichesky Court of Moscow, achieved recognition of his marriage with Muscovite Olga Safonova in 1997 as invalid, thus reducing the number of applicants for the inheritance.

In 2009, Boris Berezovsky, claiming half of the deceased’s assets, also turned to a London court on the issue of dividing Patarkatsishvili’s inheritance. The Tbilisi court put another ellipsis in the inheritance case in February 2009, not confirming Mr. Kay’s right to dispose of Mr. Patarkatsishvili’s inheritance, but recognizing him as the executor of the will, which gave him the opportunity to manage the same Imedi. Patarkatsishvili's family challenged this decision, but the appeal court upheld it.

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