Background: Sberbank issued a gigantic loan to the Skolkovo business school. **$245 million. ** And this was already after the crisis had begun (although below they claim otherwise). Oil companies are lining up for loans, metal producers are lining up, chemical companies are lining up, physicists are lining up, lyricists are lining up, real manufacturers and crooks alike are lining up. But the one that gets the loan is the Skolkovo business school. Whether this is a real business or not, I can’t say for sure. But I find the opinion of NES (New Economic School) professor Sonin quite authoritative. As a modest Sberbank shareholder, I decided to look into this issue a bit and requested the terms of this loan. Specifically, the interest rate and the collateral. Everyone knows perfectly well that the collateral consists of Vardanyan’s personal guarantee and the land that Abramovich gave to Skolkovo (or whoever it was). Both of those assets are, to put it mildly, questionable. But I don’t believe rumors; I believe official information. So then. A reply arrived. And I have two pieces of news for you, my friends. One good and one bad (nothing original there). **The bad news: **The reply fully confirms my view that the loan was issued on non-market terms, Skolkovo’s debt will be restructured as soon as the first interest payments come due (it’s hard to imagine people are lining up to get an MBA from this miracle school for €90,000), Sberbank has voluntarily written off $245 million for itself, and accordingly Sberbank’s shareholders have been forced to write off $245 million as well **The good news: Sberbank really does have an independent director who believes he should earn the money he is paid. My previous experience dealing with “independent” directors had been entirely negative. The very Western and transparent Oleg Vyugin from Transneft turned out to be an ordinary crook. Sergei Guriev, Sberbank’s independent director, of course did not bend over backward or launch any sensational investigation, but he responded to the letter immediately, immediately said he had a conflict of interest on this issue (his economics school will receive some of the space at Skolkovo), and as I understand it, it is largely thanks to him that this letter turned out to be more substantive than the usual “sorry, shareholders are not entitled to know that.” And in general, the very fact that a letter from a shareholder to the president of an organization is answered by the president of the organization is already major progress for corporate governance in Russia. In short, they brushed me off, but very politely and delicately. For my part, I will continue to pursue this matter as well—delicately, but persistently. $245 million is the kind of sum that makes the question of its return to the bank of which I am a shareholder rather exciting to me. One last thing I want to say. Here, the school’s “mission” is stated as follows: HELPING THE SUCCESSFUL BECOME EVEN MORE SUCCESSFUL ** Brilliant, if you ask me. The school has barely even started operating, and yet it has already found and put to use the main formula for business success in Russia.