05.04.22
Gemini version available ♊︎From Belarus With Love — Part XIII: Marat Ebzeev Tries to Defuse the Situation
Series parts:
- From Belarus With Love — Part I: Schizophrenic EPO Policy
- From Belarus With Love — Part II: “Techwashing” an Autocratic Regime?
- From Belarus With Love — Part III: Apps From the Dictatorship
- From Belarus With Love — Part IV: “Software from Minsk” via Gilching and Rijswijk
- From Belarus With Love — Part V: From Start-Up to Success Story…
- From Belarus With Love — Part VI: “Big Daddy” Hammers the Opposition…
- From Belarus With Love — Part VII: The Post-Election Crackdown
- From Belarus With Love — Part VIII: “Seoul in the Centre of Pyongyang”
- From Belarus With Love — Part IX: The End of “Peaceful Coexistence”?
- From Belarus With Love — Part X: From “High-Tech Hub” to “No-Go Zone”
- From Belarus With Love — Part XI: SaM’s Management Remains Suspiciously Silent
- From Belarus With Love — Part XII: Alexander Deev’s “Provocative” Comments
- YOU ARE HERE ☞ Marat Ebzeev Tries to Defuse the Situation
The managing director of SaM’s delivery center in Minsk, Marat Ebzeev, received a petition signed by around 200 employees. He appeared to support Alexander Deev until objections by employees forced him to backtrack.
Summary: The EPO‘s partners in Belarus serve to weaken if not altogether refute a recent statement from António Campinos and his hypocritical colleagues who govern the EPO like a bunch of Lukashenkos; today we look at the stance of Marat Ebzeev, one of the company’s chiefs, who only after an uproar issued a third communiqué backtracking and almost apologising
In the last part we saw how pro-regime statements posted on Facebook by a senior manager at SaM Solutions sparked off a major internal row at the company’s “delivery center” in Minsk in October 2020.
As one anonymous commentator put it:
“Our hero of the day Alexander Deev had f***-all to do at 4 o’clock in the morning, so he decided to throw shit at the fan on his Facebook page.”
“Within a single day 200 employees out of a total of around 500 at the company’s “delivery center” had signed the letter which was submitted to the managing director, Marat Ebzeev.”SaM employees who took particular exception to Deev’s demand for “names” responded by drafting an open letter of response for signature.
Within a single day 200 employees out of a total of around 500 at the company’s “delivery center” had signed the letter which was submitted to the managing director, Marat Ebzeev.
The text of the letter read as follows:
“We, the undersigned, consider it our duty to speak out about Alexander Deev’s post on the social network Facebook.
The SAM SOLUTIONS team has been building for over 25 years. The main criterion that allowed so many wonderful people to gather in one place was primarily professionalism, not political affiliations, religion, gender, race, nationality, citizenship, food habits, orientation or passion for hockey. Professionalism – that’s what always stood in the first place!
Despite the fact that we are definitely not impressed by the publication of provocative and often boorish statements by a public person associated with our company, we believe that Alexander Deev, as a private person, is free to adhere to any views and speak in any tone to his interlocutors on his personal page, but only as long as he does not demand, referring to his colleagues, “lists [of names] on the table.”
The requirement of “lists on the table” immediately indicates that Alexander Deev on his personal Facebook page is purporting to act as the Deputy Director for Business Development of the SAM SOLUTIONS company.
We consider such statements as an attempt to divide us, the SAM SOLUTIONS team, into two camps. Such a separation can in no way contribute to business development, solving strategic problems, business planning, identifying new business opportunities and attracting new potential customers.
In this regard, we believe that the Deputy Director for Business Development of our company should continue to avoid, in his rhetoric addressed to the general public, frankly provocative and unprofessional statements aimed at splitting the SAM SOLUTIONS team on any grounds, diminishing the business reputation of the company, and also insulting the feelings of employees.”
Ebzeev tried to calm the situation by issuing a communiqué to all staff. However, his first attempt didn’t impress the recipients.
As one anonymous source noted:
There is no mention [in Ebzeev's communiqué] about “Deev’s lists”. Most of the letter is about the negative publicity that poured out on the company from external sources. And that Deev has the right to speak as he pleases, and the company respects this right.
I got the feeling that Marat gives carte blanche to Deev for any statement and ignores the substance of our petition.
Perhaps the managing director wants to protect his employee, but he might also like to take into account the opinion of the other two hundred. For example, I don’t want to work in a company where those at the top are allowed to act like this.
About a half an hour later, Ebzeev issued another communiqué in which he stated that he was asked a lot of questions about “lists on the table”, and he assured staff that there could be no talk of such “lists”.
However, an anonymous source pointed out that the real problem was not with Deev’s demand for “lists” but rather that one of the company’s management team felt entitled to express himself in such terms on a publicly accessible website:
“The issue here is not that I am afraid to get on one of Deev’s lists. It is that I do not want such tones to come from someone at the top of the company, and especially not in the public arena.”
After the open letter had been published on devby.io, Ebzeev sent a third communiqué to staff in which he expressed his “sincere gratitude” for their “wisdom, honesty and decency”.
The story ended with Deev eating humble pie by deleting his controversial Facebook posts and apologising to his colleagues.
Deev subsequently posted a new comment on his Facebook page targeting devby.io which he denounced as a “yellow electronic press” and a “garbage dump”. Those comments also disappeared soon afterwards.
Some time later in April 2021, it was reported that Deev had set up his own company called “First Strategic Integrator”. According to devby.io, the company’s main activity is in the field of computer programming and the sole proprietor is Alexander Deev.
It’s not clear what exactly motivated Deev’s departure from SaM Solutions but it’s likely that the dispute over his Facebook postings in October 2020 was a contributing factor.
However, it’s worth pointing out here that after Deev’s had “outed” himself as a hardcore supporter of the Lukashenko regime, he didn’t suffer any rebuke or sanction from the company’s higher management.
“However, it’s worth pointing out here that after Deev’s had “outed” himself as a hardcore supporter of the Lukashenko regime, he didn’t suffer any rebuke or sanction from the company’s higher management.”On the contrary, the managing director of the Minsk “delivery center”, Marat Ebzeev, did his best to protect Deev. The record shows that he tried to excuse Deev’s actions until the persistence of the company’s employees obliged him to backtrack and “persuade” Deev to apologise.
It’s clear that the main concern of SaM’s management on that occasion was not about Deev’s zealous support for a totalitarian regime and his openly expressed contempt for the victims of its repressive measures.
The problem in the eyes of SaM’s management was the fact that Deev’s “provocative” and “boorish” manner of conducting himself in public was generating negative publicity for the company.
That concludes our examination of the internal dispute which flared up at SaM’s Belarus “delivery center” in October 2020.
Readers are free to draw their own conclusions about Deev’s “provocative” comments and how the management of SaM dealt with the situation.
However, the overall impression which emerges here is that SaM’s management has no qualms about having vociferous cheerleaders for the Belarus regime in the ranks of its senior management.
“…the overall impression which emerges here is that SaM’s management has no qualms about having vociferous cheerleaders for the Belarus regime in the ranks of its senior management.”It would appear that the company’s management is perfectly happy to accommodate itself with Lukashenko’s tyrannical regime as long as it is given a free hand to pursue its business interests.
This impression is supported by the fact that SaM did not join the “IT sector exodus” following the 2020 crackdown in Belarus. The company’s main “delivery center” remains located in Minsk.
In the final part of the series, we will look at why the EPO’s reliance on SaM Solutions as an “outsourcing partner” is a legitimate and ongoing cause for concern. █
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