The Top 100 NGOs 2013. - Akshaya Patra

saBali resiDenT, ivan,
PrinciPal guiDe aT
The village’s moDesT
eThnological museum.
local ProDuce on sale aT
a cenTral FooD markeT
in minsk.
FeaTure FeaTure
The gloBal Journal + January & FeBruary 2013
and exports oil products bought from
Russia at discounted prices. Chizh has
also diversified into civil engineering,
construction, manufacturing,
restaurants, food production and a
network of hypermarkets – the Prostore
chain. He has been especially prominent
in media headlines in recent times for
building the first luxury Kempinski
hotel in central Minsk, just behind the
Circus and near the unchanged Sovietera
Gorki Park. Although associated
with the Slovenian Riko Group in the
context of that project, Chizh has
failed, however, to escape the EU’s
sanction list.
Blacklisted since March, Chizh is
undoubtedly paying for his close
links with Lukashenko, and, by
implication, for his impressive success.
Yet in compensation for the European
punishment, his boss has just granted
Chizh a 99-year concession over his
native Sabali village. Essentially, this
means that every single square inch of
the land where he grew up ultimately
belongs to him. After years of fruitful
wanderings in the capital, the oligarch
has returned home. He has brought
with him an immense sponsorship
project focused on building a large
complex boasting a hotel, restaurant,
ethno-museum and a host of other
infrastructure. In theory, Sabali will
benefit as a revitalized rural center. At
the very least, the faded paintwork of
the wooden houses will be refreshed.
Belarus is not devoid of successful
private companies. Chizh’s Triple
ranks among the leaders, but many
others follow close behind. Alexander
Moshensky’s Santa Impex for food –
particularly seafood – processing, Pavel
Topuzidis’ Tabak Invest, Alexander
Shakutin’s Amkodor for road-building
machinery, or Anatoly Ternavsky’s
Univest-M group – with activities
ranging from petrochemical exports to
banking, restaurants and construction –
have no reason to be ashamed. Among
these business leaders, only Ternavsky
has been the subject of EU sanctions.
Notably, the other three have significant
investments in neighboring European
countries. The old Belarusian economic
clichés of arms traders linked to rogue
states (such as fellow oligarch Vladimir
Peftiev – blacklisted) and manufacturers
of heavy machinery have faded away.
Now engaged in more conventional
enterprises, most ‘normal’ Belarusian
businesses owe their success to efficient
and skilled CEOs, whose first talent is
to maintain close, loyal and ‘friendly’
relations with their unique common
business boss: Lukashenko. Ironically,
in the few remaining post-Soviet
dictatorships, the Marxist economic
model has been reversed. Political
superstructures today prevail over
the base.
The new bourgeois class of Belarus,
owners of the means of production,
have been reduced to acting as
presidential ‘wallet persons,’ or koshelki
as they are nicknamed in Russian. They
‘The two Baltic
ports profit so
heavily from
acting as the
transit point for
goods imported
by Belarus that
it would have
been commercially
self-destructive
to participate
actively in
stemming the flow.’
cannot even pretend to stand alone as
independent partners or shareholders
in the national wealth. Lukashenko
usually considers these individuals as
simple business managers tasked with
implementing his instructions. Their
dependence is as prodigious as their
efforts to maintain the President’s
confidence. Ternavsky, for instance, has
been obliged to employ Lukashenko’s
daughter-in-law, Anna. He also
sponsors the Presidential Sport’s
Club, headed by Dmitri Lukashenko,
Alexander’s son and Anna’s husband.
Meanwhile, Chizh seems to prefer
playing ice hockey on the same team
as the President. He cannot refuse to
sponsor the cultural resuscitation of
Belarus’ birch-dotted countryside in
ThegloBalJournal.neT
104 105
the south, and when, for mysterious
reasons, several of his top managers
were arrested, he remained silent. The
new Christian cross presented recently
to Sabali by a Polish historical society,
commemorating the Polish-Belarusian
insurrection against Tsarist Russia
in 1863 – and which will hardly be a
tourist attraction in the middle
of the kolkhoz – has a poignant
political meaning.
In Belarus, Lukashenko decides almost
all matters. The 58-year old former
state farm manager assumed power in
1994, and recently described himself
in a widely publicized interview as
“the last and only dictator in Europe.”
Though most infamous internationally
as a result of accusations of torture
and other human rights abuses – often
focused on opposition figures – his
political choices also determine business
strategies. Chizh may have willingly
agreed to allocate some money to his
childhood village so long as he could
also run his business according to his
own interests and economic rationale.
Now on the EU sanctions list, he
has fallen as collateral damage in the
President’s acrimonious relations with
Europe, entrapped within Belarusian
diplomatic strategies.
For Chizh, as for most of his colleagues,
there are obvious advantages in
developing overseas trade relationships
and increasing their presence in
European markets. Yet, they are
increasingly prevented from doing
so. Chizh is officially stigmatized,
along with other not-yet-blacklisted
businessmen, and seen as guilty by
association. Coping with the growing
gap between attractive trading
opportunities in Europe and necessary
political loyalty to the boss in Minsk
has proven especially delicate. No
leading business figures can speak out
against their President – at least not
yet – since they are kept divided by
astute pressures from the political and
security services. Consequently, some
have already opted to resettle in Russia,
where inflation is under tighter control
and local authorities can guarantee
more sustainable economic and political
conditions. But those Belarusian firms
in Russia also operate within a larger
market, faced with – usually – stronger
competitors. As a result, they are
vulnerable to becoming easy targets for