“They assumed I had cash, too,” said Mr. Chobanian. He didn’t. He knew he was supposed to show up at the police station and buy back his equipment. Instead, he wrote an impassioned essay on his lawyer’s computer, posted on Facebook, describing the ordeal.
“I woke up the next morning a superstar,” he says. “I was on five or six talk shows, including the top-rated political show in the country.”
Penny ante corruption, like traffic cop bribes, have all but vanished, and since 2012 the country has improved its results in Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index. A free-for-all mentality, on the other hand, endures. Ukraine is cracking down on fake Covid-19 vaccination certificates and nobody seems very bothered that the mayor of Kyiv, the former heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, lives above a strip club known as a place to meet prostitutes. (Whether the mayor owns Rio, as the club is called, is unclear. Though it does seem to operate under its own rules; a group of entrepreneurs singled out Mr. Klitschko in an April protest in front of City Hall, complaining that Rio was open during the pandemic while other businesses were forced to close.)
During a walking tour of Kyiv, Mr. Chobanian talked about politicians on the take and construction projects that audacious developers just started building, skirting zoning laws and licenses. He related these facts with a rueful sense that something was terribly broken about Ukraine. That said, those defects allow him to run his company with no oversight. What makes this country ideal for Kuna — a weak government, a dearth of guardrails — is a national tragedy for the wider population.
For now, the government knows nothing about the size, revenue or structure of his company, including staffing figures. When a woman brings him tea during our interview, he describes her as an “entrepreneur,” which, he explains, is why he doesn’t pay her a salary.
“Right now, there is no government in my business,” he said. “None.”
‘You need to have lawyers’
Ukraine has suffered through too many financial scandals to expect a major influx of executives from large, international investment banks, with or without inducements. But then along came crypto, which has reputational woes of its own. Maybe this is a perfect match.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/14/business/crypto-ukraine.html
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