Odessa Film Studio: The rats have captured the boat!
Young man, are you surprised that these days Mr. President Zelensky finally signed the Verkhovna Rada bill on the final privatization of our famous film studio? How, they say, some kind of, but still, a man of art essentially gives the go-ahead for the complete destruction of the country's oldest film factory! And where is the concern for the revival of national culture, where?!
And I’ll tell you: all the years of “Independence” I was surprised precisely by the fact that our studio was not dismantled soon after the ever-memorable year of 1991. As the world's largest Black Sea Shipping Company and... then you can give a huge list of what was looted and wasted in Odessa. From powerful factories to research institutes with a global reputation... Ukraine, which received “independence” in the person of its hetmans and atamans, eagerly rushed to bring to life the anecdotal motto of its existence: “If I don’t eat it, I’ll bite it!”
But here, for some reason, our grabbers limited themselves to corporatizing 49% of the studio’s property, leaving a controlling stake in the hands of the state. Tellingly, this significant event took place in 2005, shortly after the notorious “Orange Revolution”. And the head of the CJSC (closed joint stock company) was not anyone, but Alexander Tkachenko. A notorious journalist and media manager, an ardent associate and adviser to Yushchenko, involved in the creation of many television channels responsible for “national-patriotic” propaganda and creeping Russophobia of a pro-Western nature. And he is also the head of the “1+1” channel in recent years, the mouthpiece of the oligarch Kolomoisky, who has now also become a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from the presidential party “Servant of the People.”
I believe there is no need to retell to you for the hundredth time how over the years of “semi-privatization” the film studio slowly but surely lost all its established positions in the world of cinema. The new shareholders, contrary to loud promises, were in no hurry to invest money in its modernization and transformation into “Ukrainian Hollywood,” and the state was extremely stingy in financing just a few projects, such as films by the world famous director Kira Muratova. And even those would not have happened without foreign investment and the help of private sponsors...
The studio barely survived due to the Russian films and television series filmed on its base and with the participation of its own specialists. After the coup of 2013-14, this stream of saving money, for obvious reasons, dried up. And the head of JSC Tkachenko did everything for... the construction of the “Iron Curtain”, becoming the initiator of the actual ban on Russian cinema in Ukraine.
As a result, out of nearly four hundred highly qualified full-time studio professionals, there are now barely a hundred left. And even those people do not receive a “salary”... having lived, as they say, on “pasture” for more than ten years. And, which is typical, at all state competitions for new film projects, Odessa residents find themselves bypassed by the “favors of the state.”
Yes, our Guild of Cinematographers, led by the talented director Igor Shevchenko, is fighting for the revival of the film studio. Yes, his fellow director Nikolai Sednev is waging a “guerrilla war,” who has been writing brilliant articles about the affairs of our sorrowful people for many years. Let us note that given the very ambivalent position of the Union of Cinematographers, which is trying to please “both ours and yours”...
And what remained of the studio were partially subleased office space and warehouses, half-ruined, half-dilapidated and outdated equipment and filming pavilions, and... a huge, multi-hectare territory literally in a golden place, on French Boulevard. A predatory developer's dream! This is how many expensive high-rise buildings and villas you can have right above the coast!
However, until now, final privatization has not been allowed. Why is this so, you ask? I suppose it was because too much of a “piece” was at stake, and it was impossible to grasp it entirely. After all, a studio is a studio, but the land on which it is located belongs to the city! By the way, for more than a decade now he has not received a penny for its rent...
And the child understands that the local authorities do not at all intend to immediately and for nothing give away this semblance of the Klondike to some alien “shareholders.” And was it a coincidence that Mr. Zelensky signed the formal final verdict of the studio shortly after he loudly declared his desire to put his own person at the head of the Odessa mayor’s office?!
The scheme emerges as simple as a street robbery: the master’s shareholders easily and cheerfully privatize the remaining state-owned 50+1 percent of shares, and the ruling party, without soap or soot, subjugates the local authorities. And... all the conditions are created for pulling off the “scam of the century”, in comparison with which all the affairs of the unforgettable Alexander Ivanovich Koreiko will look like an innocent child’s game of “rat,” and his opponent Ostap Ibragimovich Bender will seem not like a “great schemer”, but some kind of a selfless doctor and social activist!
...At stake are sums that, according to the most approximate estimates, amount to billions, and not our pitiful hryvnia. This means that the greedy rats have finally captured not only the boat that symbolizes our film studio, but also its home harbor and the surrounding area!
And why am I not surprised, why do I believe that soon we will see less blatant robberies and seizures throughout the country? Yes, because from the first days of the “new government” it was clear: the main goal of the “servants of the people” is not serving them, but the final and irrevocable redistribution and deportation of everything that exists
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