Last week, RBC and the Kompaniya magazine (irrespective of each other) gathered reputed businessmen and politicians to make annual awards to the best representatives of the Russian business community. Anna Subbotina and Alena Antonova watched proceedings.

Chairman of YUKOS board of directors Viktor Gerashchenko and plenipotentiary Russian government representative at the arbitration, supreme and constitutional courts Mikhail Barshchevsky arrived for the ceremony "Company of the Year 2004" held by RBC in the Moscow International House of Music in fact before the 7 p.m. indicated in the letters of invitation. Some important people like the chairman of Wimm-Bill-Dann's board, David Yakobashvili, were hesitant to take their seats in the first row and watched proceedings on the stage from the staircase. Others found it more interesting behind the scenes than at the ceremony. Thus, Gazprom-Media management committee chairman Nikolai Senkevich and Wimm-Bill-Dann management committee chairman Sergey Plastinin went in couples the whole evening.

Meanwhile, masters of ceremony invited every nominee to contribute to the creation of a large abstract canvas to be put up for auction. Barshchevsky and Aton Capital managing director Albert Gavrikov ventured a forecast that the masterpiece would be more expensive when combined with photographs of the painters.

Deputy chairman of the state duma Sergey Baburin and chairman of the supervisory board of Renaissance Capital Alexander Shokhin arrived an hour late. Having taken some part in the ceremony, Baburin appeared with a glass of Bordeaux and confided to the Kommersant reporter that political disagreements did not prevent him from having from time to time a "cup of coffee" with general director of the Russian Financial Corporation Andrey Nechayev who had just departed since "opponents and enemies constituted two fundamentally different notions."

Meantime, in the lounge, deputy minister of information technologies and communications Dmitry Milovantsev, ex-deputy antimonopoly minister Sergey Dudkin and vice president of Vneshtorgbank Sergey Bayev were content to recall their collaboration at some Russian bank where as it turned out they had harbored as much hatred against each other as they were happy to meet at the ceremony.

Yet the situation around VimpelCom proved the main subject of all the talk of the high society. "Today, putting on a yellow tie, I thought somebody was sure to call it an orange one," Barshchevsky confessed. "Yet, political jokes won't circulate; everyone is discussing VimpelCom's hardships that will most likely prompt a considerable outflow of investments from the Russian economy."

Meanwhile, founder of VimpelCom Dmitry Zimin was nominated for another business award arranged by the Kompaniya weekly in the Metropol. Waiting for the ceremony to begin, Zimin conversed serenely with general director of MegaFon Sergey Soldatenkov, winner of the telecommunications prize. Before long, actor Igor Vernik and presenter Elena Ishcheyeva invited editor-in-chief of the Kompaniya magazine Andrey Grigoryev to award chairman of the management committee of RAO UES Anatoly Chubais first prize in the category "for reforming an industry."

The chief of RAO UES accepted the prize, saying it was "a wrong prize and a wrong award," which served to somewhat disconcert the ceremony's managers. Thereafter, Chubais observed that "the reforms pleased neither those who were being reformed nor the reformers themselves" and withdrew.

YUKOS board chairman Viktor Gerashchenko, who came somewhat late, informed Kommersant that he was not suited for a society column since he was ill-dressed and had a wrinkled shirt on. The former head of the central bank uttered the following comment on the reason he had come to the Metropol: "I expected to win a prize for courage, but it hasn't been established yet. For instance, I had fought with the authorities against injustice this day, yet the authorities won in the end," he went on, never explaining, however, what it was all about.

Developments in Ukraine were one of the major topics for discussion. Thus, Grigoryev and head of the committee for financial markets of the federation council Sergey Vasilyev were even able to conclude that to sever Ukraine into western and eastern parts would have been an optimal solution since those were two completely different countries. "I used to know Yushchenko when he was chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine," Gerashchenko observed and was about to say something harsh, only adding after a little hesitation: "He used to be more modest."