On Wednesday 18 September, around 40,000 Wildberries pick-up points were busy as usual across Russia to ensure daily deliveries. Even in the villages, the Russian e-commerce giant is part of the urban landscape and the new shopping habits of Russians, with more than 10 million orders per day, twenty years after its creation, in Russia and in several former Soviet republics. But that same day, in the afternoon, a shooting caused panic in the lobby of the Moscow headquarters of Wildberries, a company that is a symbol of the rise of e-commerce and the new economy of the country.
Founded by Tatiana Bakalchuk, a dynamic teacher turned entrepreneur, Wildberries began in 2004 far from political circles and oligarchic clans. Today the company is overtaken by the reality of political-economic conflicts of interest and rapacious appetites surrounding a group that has become too powerful to be left simply in the hands of its founder, now the richest woman in the country. Her fortune is estimated at more than $8 billion (7.2 billion euros).
Wild berries, the value of the products sold of which increased by 50% in one year to reach the equivalent of 28 billion dollars in 2023, are also involved in the conflict between Tatiana Bakalchuk, 48, and her husband, Vladislav Bakalchuk, 47. After twenty years of life and common affairs, the birth of seven children and the emergence of one of the most beautiful women in the world, the berry industry is still in conflict. success stories Russian business, the couple is devastated.
Two security guards killed and seven injured
Pending divorce since the summer, the two spouses have published radically different versions of the events that led to the high number of victims of Wednesday’s shooting: two security officers dead, seven wounded and thirty arrests, including that of the husband. The latter was charged on Thursday 19 September with “murder”, “attempted murder” and “endangering the life” of a member of the police, his lawyers said.
The incident was ignored by state television, but it excited independent media, relegating to the status of mere news the huge explosion of a missile and military ammunition depot attacked the same day near Moscow by Ukrainian forces. The shooting at Wildberries is all the more surprising since it took place in the business centre opposite the Kremlin, in the heart of one of the supposedly safest districts of the capital.
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