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You were still working the time Yukos has started its activities, weren’t you?
What were the changes?
Goluboshkin Vladimir Ivanovich, a veteran of Samaraneftegaz open joint-stock company: Well, the main change was restructuring.
That meant the company had to work not at a loss but with profit.
Restructuring has affected many companies, especially the service ones;
it made their life hard for them, if one is to judge.
You know, they were forced for so called deep waters navigation;
it caused unemployment and even more - in general...
And then things have sorted themselves out.
The crisis has distressed them greatly.
It has distressed all, including Yukos.
During the crisis wages have been reduced, layoffs have begun.
We all have got it on full blast.
Everything went back to normal after the year 2000:
Yukos has gathered strength;
Khodorkovsky realized that fence-mending with masses,
with a trade union as an organization truly upholding
the workers’, employees’ rights was necessary.
And we need a contact here.
A union contract has appeared as a result,
and it has become a normative act for further organization of business.
It means that everything is written down there,
what the employer has to do, what the employees have to do...
All of reciprocal obligations were fulfilled.
Well, things were beginning to tick.
And what was the Yukos’s and personally Khodorkovsky’s role
in the veterans’ movement formation in Samara?
Goluboshkin: I think, of course, Mr. Khodorkovsky’s played first fiddle.
It was he who supported the veterans’ movement creation.
And this idea was implemented very quickly.
A Council as a legal entity has been established already in 2000.
Ivan Grigorievich Fecklov, Hero of Socialist Labour was its first chairman of the board.
He is well-known person, a driller.
Yes, very well-known person in Samara he is.
He used to be a Supreme Soviet member and held many other posts.
He and his team, they were able to organize everything
and establish a legal interaction with the company;
so everything went ahead smoothly.
Nowadays a chairman of the board of Council
is Vladimir Ivanovich Voropaev.
He has already been working for about 30 years most probably,
and continues to do his work now
He worked for "Kuybyshevneft", then for “Samaraneftegaz”
dealing with social issues in real earnest.
He is deeply involved in the same matters today as well,
since there is a mountain of various complaints
related primarily to the shares, you know.
And now he's really concerned in ensuring these shares
would be realized and rehabilitated in some way in the end.
That is because the shareholders, well,
don’t have a bean, they have nothing.
There are a fairly large number of Yukos’s shareholders among us,
and when Yukos has left the arena, all their stocks were lost.
If to talk seriously, after all, President Vladimir Putin has said publicly
that the bankruptcy of Yukos could not be allowed.
But, alas, they were able to allow it…
Well, as about me ... I'm a pensioner, I have nothing to fear,
so I think that, well, of course, they made a mistake.
Yukos happened to be the most powerful oil company,
the better organized.
We were the first fully computerized company.
All paperwork has been computerized.
That was a serious step, a significant move towards Europeanization.
Well, I mean an adoption of the European standards. I think so.
What do you think: are the collapse of Yukos and the Khodorkovsky’s case
political or economic matters?
Goluboshkin: Well, I think it is a political matter in the first place.
That is because the company was economically very strong,
and stood on its feet firmly.
As about some alleged violations of financial discipline,
I wonder whether there was anybody
who was able to avoid such violations.
The laws were vague, almost everybody infringed them.
In the long run, there is no such person now, including Chubais,
or Bogdanchikov, or anyone else,
who did not violate those laws at the time.
Thank you very much.
Goluboshkin: My pleasure
I am Alexander Dmitrievich Khristenko, a veteran of Samaraneftegaz Company:
a former lead engineer, oil-production department,
Samaraneftegaz open joint-stock company.
Have you ever had to face Yukos in Samara?
Khristenko: Have I had to face Yukos?
No, I am not familiar with its programs.
As about the social programs that have influenced the seniors’ lives,
I can tell you something about them;
I mean in the sense that when the company was working properly,
the pensioners received the vouchers
to the Yukos’s recreational camps “Sosenka”, or “Volga Dawns”;
both are directly here, in Samara region.
They were even provided with sanatorium vouchers to Sochi.
Many of our labor veterans went there.
They had a rest, and were very pleased.
Yes, those times much more things have been organized;
I mean much more has been done to organize recreational activities
for the veterans, retirees, pensioners…
There were river cruises, other things.
It was ... What company has organized all these trips?
Khristenko: Well, it was Samaraneftegaz Company –
that time it practically has become a part of Yukos already.
And it was in fact a Yukos’s social program
for providing labor veterans and retirees with material assistance.
What do you think could Yukos further its projects,
if it had not left Russian economic market?
Khristenko: I think so – it could.
As far as I remember, they had already begun to go into the issue
of corporate pensions for retirees and labor veterans.
They’ve nearly come close to the subject.
But exactly when the issue came up, Yukos has collapsed.
It has been eliminated. It has happened this way.
I see. Compared with those times of Yukos,
what can you say about now, about Samaratransgaz,
Samaraneftegaz and Rosneft - those subsidiaries of Yukos which has gone?
Khristenko: No, I think I have nothing to say about it.
Let me finish telling you about Yukos.
Though we have not received this corporate pension,
but due to the fact that we in an organized way have exchanged
our Samaraneftegaz shares for the shares of Yukos,
well, they paid us dividends two or three times, as far as I remember.
And they were tangible, those dividends,
especially the penultimate and the final ones.
So ... Yukos had only to cease to exist, -
of course, these shares were, if I may say so, revoked, eliminated.
Here we are: neither corporate pension, no dividends.
And what do they say in those organizations
where your stocks are placed now?
Khristenko: Well, as far as I know organizations,
many veterans have applied to Prime Minister and President.
And they say there are no means left to redeem shares.
And the question is hanging in midair:
the issue of our shares has still remained undecided.
If we are not Yukos’s shareholders,
and the organization Samaraneftegaz as such still exists,
then we used to be exactly Samaraneftegaz’s shareholders.
Let’s regain these shares, and we’ll begin to receive dividends
or what else we have to be paid for those shares at that time.
That’s the thing.
Do they refuse you to do so?
Khristenko: Of course they do!
But why, what is the reason?
Khristenko: Oh, they give us a reason - once Yukos has been liquidated,
our shares were eliminated at the same time.