Sobchak’s and Putin’s private visit to Raasepor was high-class public relations.
In addition to Putin’s and Sobchak’s families, businessmen and bodyguards were present at Thomesto’s lavish parties.
The home team’s frontman was LJ “Mylle” Jouhki, who was there wearing a student cap. Jouhki was one of the most important influencers in Finnish economic life until his death in 2003.
He was not only at the head of his family company Thomesto companies, but also as a member of the boards of several large companies.
Nowadays, the focus of the family business of the Jouhki family is on investment activities, but in the early 1990s, the companies made money by trading in wood: First, raw wood was brought to Finland from the forests of the Soviet Union and then Russia.
The Soviet Union had been Finland’s most important trading partner, and the collapse of Eastern trade deepened the depression of the early 1990s. When the Soviet Union as a country fell apart, the rules of the trade game changed.
– Very chaotic. In the old days, the state guaranteed all trades, but then there were credit losses and all kinds of boredom if you were too greedy, says a Thomesto employee.
According to him, trade during the Soviet Union was both more honest and more predictable. In Russia, corruption rose to new levels.
– There was a huge culture of bribery with the new era, he says.
Putin decided on export trade permits for St. Petersburg companies. According to researchers he demanded a significant slice, up to 50 percent, of the export sales revenue for the foreign trade authority organization he led.
Criminal investigations were started into the activity, but they lapsed, and Putin has not been convicted of corruption.