Mykolayiv city council members have demanded that the Prosecutor General’s Office take an action against a foreign investor.
“We reserve the right not to serve some customers in our establishment, irrespective of the size of their wallet,” announces the entrance of Mykolayiv’s American restaurant, the Dixie Barbecue. Until recently, the principal “undesirable persons” here were city council members Viktor and Oleh Krysenko. From now on, the hit list is likely to include the whole deputies’ corps of the Mykolayiv city council.
US citizen Stephen Wingate, formerly a preacher, came to Ukraine a few years ago. He says he first worked in Kyiv at an American company office, then he decided to set up his own business, an American restaurant in a Ukrainian city. He chose Mykolayiv, where a rather shabby two-story building of the former streetcar line power substation had been vacant for forty years downtown. After borrowing $300,000 dollars from a certain American partner, the American headed for Mykolayiv to establish his saloon named the Dixie Barbecue.
Here Stephen Wingate felt all the charms of doing business Ukrainian-style, crossing paths with all the fire inspectors; electricity, public hygiene and other oversight agencies. Having miraculously managed to make peace with them, the American then came into conflict with the city council land-use commission: the deputies denied Wingate the right to utilize the area housing the building and adjacent territory, referring to numerous violations. For example, the legally dubious contract on the purchase and sale of the building, which had been sold several times before that, was concluded in the name of a straw, Wingate’s Ukrainian wife Halyna Novokhatko; documents were finalized without observing the mandatory requirements; the question of land transfer to foreign citizens was not finally settled; etc. The deputies say they were guided by the Ukrainian law and the principle of when in Rome, do as the Romans do: “Why should we allow violations to occur for the sake of anybody, even an American?” In his turn, Mr. Wingate said publicly that chairman of the land-use commission, Deputy Viktor Krysenko, is demanding a bribe from him and appealed to the Kuchma-Gore Commission, the IMF, and many other international organizations against the violations of investors’ rights in Ukraine. Then Mykolayiv Mayor Anatoly Oliynyk intervened and granted, by his own decision, the American the right to use land. The Dixie Barbecue opened last April.
However, in February the conflict was unexpectedly rekindled. On February 27, Stephen Wingate invited all the willing city residents to a meeting to hear their opinions about the For People NGO he was going to set up. According to Wingate, the organization will work in three main directions: coordinating the work of local charitable organizations, explaining to the local population the essence and purpose of investment, and informing city residents about the activities of local politicians. Since the meeting was held the next day after the mayor’s death, Wingate mentioned that the organization being set up would participate in the coming mayoral elections (“We will be involved in politics”) with the sole purpose of agitating against Oleh Krysenko, leader of the My City council members’ group and the son of Viktor Krysenko, chairman of the land- use commission.
Mr. Wingate clarified his stand a week later at a press conference devoted to the launching of For People: if Krysenko the Younger becomes mayor, the first thing he will do will be to shut down the American restaurant: “Some are looking forward to Dixie lowering the US flag.” He also said that Krysenko was continuing to pressure him: his restaurant is being subjected to rigorous inspections, the city is snowed under with slanderous anonymous leaflets, he is being shadowed, etc. Why not give him, a rare investor on Ukrainian soil, an opportunity to work in a stable fashion, provide jobs and entertainment to the local population, and pay taxes on time?
To show he had done the right thing Mr. Wingate handed out to the journalists the results of a poll of 1650 Mykolayiv residents. These results, when shown by The Day’s correspondent to professional sociologists, only evoked sardonic smiles. For example, to the question “Who would you support in the elections (hypothetically — D.K.), a Soviet-type functionary or a prosperous businessmen?” 69% of the respondents answered a businessman, and only 25% opted for a Soviet-type functionary (is this possible in red Mykolayiv, which regularly delegates either the Left or red managers to lawmaking bodies at various levels? — D.K.). Next: “Who, a foreigner or a Ukrainian, would you support in the elections (again hypothetically — D.K.)?” 31% opted for a foreigner and 64% for a Ukrainian. But the rating of Mr. Wingate himself is 10% higher than that of an average statistical foreigner: he would garner the votes of 41% of those polled. No comment, as they say in Mr. Wingate’s his homeland. When asked who concretely conducted the poll, the American only said it was “a very well-established private company.”
Stephen Wingate also decided to resort to last year’s methods of struggle and sent a letter of complaint to various international organizations: “Local Deputy Krysenko was the main obstacle to our opening last year. Now he is again attacking us, sending in various inspection teams almost every day. The reason why he is doing so is that the mayor died of cancer, and Oleh Krysenko wants to succeed him” (it is interesting that the official cause of the mayor’s death was never revealed, so Mr. Wingate airs either information from the city’s top officials or some rumors).
“This is all rubbish,” Deputy Viktor Krysenko commented. “Even if I wanted to do this, I am not empowered to send inspectors to his or any other place.”
Meanwhile, Oleh Krysenko, leader of My City, who is in stiff opposition to the current city executive and who has been tipped as a mayoral candidate not only by Mr. Wingate but also by various rumors, has convened a press conference and officially declared he intended to run.
In the meantime, the Wingate vs. Krysenko case was put on the agenda of a city council session on the grounds that Deputy Viktor Krysenko had turned to the credentials commission for the protection of honor and dignity.
In mid-February, the Mykolayiv advertising newspaper Pozvonite (Phone Us) published a large front-page announcement about the collection of information, “to be submitted to court,” on Viktor Krysenko’s unlawful activities. The paper also indicated the Kyiv address to which the compromising evidence could be sent. It soon became clear that a peaceful lady, unaware of any information collection, lives at the address given. A city council inquiry revealed that this ad had been offered via a Mykolayiv advertising agency to several newspapers, with one agreeing to publish it. According to payment documents submitted by the agency, the publication was requested by Mr. Wingate. And some time after this newspaper publication, the Dixie Barbecue facade, on the city thoroughfare, Lenin Avenue, hung out a poster insulting Deputy Krysenko.
“After Viktor Krysenko had turned to the credentials commission, several deputies and I went to the Dixie to see Mr. Wingate and hear his explanations of what was going on,” city council Deputy Yuri Itskovsky says. “The American refused to talk, sending us to his executive director. But we insisted on a talk with none other than Wingate. He came out at last, only to behave in an absolutely unintelligible and loutish way: he began to clap his hands and shout: ‘Deputy Itskovsky, go home.’ We turned around and left.”
Having studied the situation, the Mykolayiv City Council passed a resolution, by an absolute majority and with a few abstentions, to appeal to the Prosecutor General’s Office to take measures against Stephen Wingate and enforce the law. Also in the making are materials for a court action to protect honor and dignity.
Late last year, a McDonald’s was opened a hundred and fifty meters away from the Dixie Barbecue. Representatives of the former raise no claims against the Mykolayiv authorities. Mr. Wingate explained this at a press conference by the fact that McDonald’s has world’s richest experience in opening its outlets.
