Anastasia Tatulova, founder of the AnderSon family cafe chain and former ombudsman for the protection of small and medium-sized businesses, reported on large-scale checks that began in the restaurants of her chain. Security forces during searches intimidate restaurant employees, tape cameras, and take away phones.
“A large-scale operation has begun in all partner and own cafes of our network to finally expel me from the country. Or “go to jail, or shut up and get out of here,” as I was told by the words of a very high-ranking official,” Tatulova writes on her Telegram channel.
According to the entrepreneur, her company received 60 various tax requests, none of which “found anything”. “Now we decided to go look in the“ places ”from the mask show, most likely, something is planned to be slipped,” she suggested.
Anastasia Tatulova told The Insider that she had previously received threats from one of the deputy ministers.
“The threats are related to the fact that I drew attention to one of the cutting schemes and tried to counter it,” she said, without giving a specific name.
The owner of a large restaurant chain in Moscow, on condition of anonymity, told The Insider that he connects the checks in Tatulova's restaurants with her social activities, and not with an attempt to take away the business. The expert noted that two weeks ago, the Ginza Project restaurant chain faced problems.
“I assume that this is due to her social activities, and not with business. I think it's just that someone and somewhere doesn't like it. You can quote her Telegram channel, and this is enough to understand what is happening. Anderson is a complex business that is not viable without it. In general, the restaurant business cannot be squeezed out, because without the person who deals with it, it will die. You have to be crazy to wring out such a complex restaurant story now. Perhaps she just didn’t share it with someone and it could infuriate someone, and since you are so principled, then we will press you. Or someone didn't like what she was saying. They also read the news and think: “Here, she is already in disgrace. We'll find something now." They didn’t find anything, and when they don’t find anything, it infuriates them and they start digging further. They say there was a big hit on Ginza two weeks ago.”
Another restaurateur on condition of anonymity noted in an interview with The Insider that Tatulova, most likely, "crossed someone's path."
“It’s clear that business is a complicated thing, and if you don’t know what’s going on inside, then it’s hard to judge, but her former employees worked with me and told me how they bought cheap wine in the Metro for 400 rubles, and then sold it for 500 rubles per glass. I think she was good at math. She really just, unfortunately, crossed someone's path. There is such a moment that she sold part of the business to a person from the administration about two years ago. And here is an interesting question – how does this concern him? And does it concern him? It seems to me that in Russian business, unfortunately, personal relationships are very common. Somewhere it helps, but somewhere it hinders.
Tatulova founded the AnderSon cafe chain in 2009, now it has 40 outlets in Russia and Kazakhstan. From July 2020 to May 2022, she served as the public ombudsman for the protection of entrepreneurs.
In June 2022, Anastasia Tatulova was visited with a check from the Investigative Committee. This happened during the filming of her interview with Ksenia Sobchak. Prior to this, State Duma deputy Yevgeny Fedorov sent a request to the Prosecutor General's Office with a request to check its activities.
In addition, Fedorov asked to check Tatulova's statements for extremism and "fakes" about the Russian army. In one of her posts, she, refuting the information about her departure from Russia, wrote: “This is my country, even when it is an ugly Motherland, I am definitely going to work and change it for the better.”
At the end of May, Tatulova resigned as business ombudsman. According to her, she did it because of pressure:
“I’m waiting for a replacement and pass the post. Probably, some other configuration should take shape in the system of relations between the authorities and small and medium-sized businesses. Or someone else is needed in this place, a more efficient or more positive person, preferably in a helmet, without a family, children and without his own business. Because the pressure is now on me is such that my activities have become simply dangerous for me and for my loved ones.