Only recently, I stated that members of the management board of the loss-making state-owned bank VTB receive an average of 574,000 rubles a day.
But a stern rebuke has been heard, and I am forced to admit that I was wrong. The business magazine Forbes today published a new ranking, "Russia’s 25 Most Expensive Top Managers", and with this publication put all sorts of populists in their place—those who produce primitive, unprofessional calculations to amuse the public.
Official retraction. In light of the calculations made by the editors of Forbes (whom I trust completely), I am compelled to state that my post, The Horrors of Russia’s Financial Crisis: a VTB State Bank Board Member Receives 574,000 Rubles a Day, was mistaken at least in the part concerning VTB chief Andrei Kostin.
According to Forbes, state banker Kostin’s salary is $37 million a year, or 1.7 billion rubles annually, or 4.7 million rubles a day—including weekends, New Year’s, and Police Day (a Russian professional holiday).
I offer my apologies to *Forbes*.
I would also like to apologize separately to Andrei Kostin for having assumed the impossible: that the head of a loss-making state bank received only 574,000 rubles a day. I was off by a factor of 8. I am ashamed.
I ask everyone who feels and shares Andrei Kostin’s bitterness and indignation at having been unfairly suspected of receiving such a laughably small compensation package to support our bill against illicit enrichment, which would apply to state bankers as well.
Update: fresh news also shows us that it would be impossible to pay even a kopeck less to such a formidable giant of a man from such a successful bank:
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