ODESA, Ukraine – Christophe Lacarin has spent 10 unsuccessful years trying to get a license to sell wine in Ukraine. The latest setback involved him being thrust up against a wall with a Kalashnikov jammed in his back during a tax police raid.
A native of Bordeaux in France, Lacarin co-founded his vineyard 11 years ago in Shabo, a Black Sea coastal city of 7,000 people, located 70 kilometers from Odesa and 500 kilometers south of Kyiv. Each year for the past 10 years he has been denied a license to make and sell wine under the Lacarin brand.
On the morning of Jan. 14, more than a dozen tax police, some armed with AK-47 rifles, burst into his home, pinned him and his wife up against the wall, and began to confiscate – and subsequently destroy – almost 5,000 liters of wine worth Hr 9 million ($360,000). Authorities called the Frenchman a bootlegger, citing his lack of a license.
But Lacarin says the raid’s purpose was merely a pretext for the latest attack in a nearly decade-long land dispute between him and the Shabo local government. He alleges that city leaders, backed by local businesses, have been trying to grab his land, either using litigation through the nation’s corrupt courts, or via more sinister ways – like setting his precious vineyard ablaze.
However, the raid has resulted in political impetus to simplify the process of obtaining a license to sell wine.
Odesa Governor Mikheil Saakashvili, holding a meeting at Lacarin’s home on Jan. 19 and speaking out on behalf of the Frenchman, criticized the tax police for abuse of power and called for a streamlining of the licensing process. The Odesa tax police are now to hold a meeting on Feb. 5 for the region’s winemakers to address concerns that the license, which requires a Hr 500,000 annual fee, is too difficult to obtain.
But who is after Lacarin’s land? And why?
Licensing woes
Lacarin and his wife founded their winery in 2005 on 150 hectares of land in Shabo, the winemaking region of Odesa Oblast.
That same year, Lacarin noticed workers using tractors to dig out an adjacent vineyard.
“I said, what are you doing?” he told the Kyiv Post. The workers said that their collective farm, Shabolat, had sold the vineyard to the Shabo Winery, a leading Ukrainian brandy and wine maker. But out of a 400-hectare parcel, Shabo had only leased 250.
A worker from Shabolat told the Kyiv Post by phone that Shabo had rented vineyards adjacent to Lacarin’s. In turn, Lacarin’s wife leased the remaining 150 hectares in the parcel, adjacent to the commercial vineyard, according to a document reviewed by the Kyiv Post. Georgiy Muntyan, the father of two Shabo government officials, rented the land to Lacarin’s wife for a term of 25 years.
Lacarin also showed the Kyiv Post receipts demonstrating that he had paid taxes since he co-founded the business. Yet he lamented not getting a license “for several years,” complaining that dozens of approval stamps are required in addition to the annual fee.
In a December column, Agriculture Minister Oleksiy Pavlenko wrote that the wine licensing process seriously hindered the industry’s development, adding that if it were relaxed, Ukraine’s wine production would increase threefold.
Legislation to ease the regime has been stalled in parliament since April 2015.
Rezoning
As the years went by, Lacarin’s relationship with Shabo’s government began to sour.
According to Lacarin, the town’s mayor, Igor Kvashnin, re-zoned the vineyard from agricultural to construction land in 2007.
“This was accepted by the Shabo village council, accepted by the district administration, but stopped in the oblast administration,” Lacarin said.
Kvashnin, a businessman from Odesa, did not reply to multiple requests for comment.
In 2009, Georgiy Muntyan’s son, Shabo village councilman Alexander Muntyan, filed a lawsuit against Lacarin, attempting to seize the land back. That litigation remains stalled in an Odesa court.
According to Lacarin, last year the younger Muntyan took matters into his own hands.
“I was patrolling my vineyard one afternoon…and I saw smoke in one place,” Lacarin said. “I arrived and I saw the Mercedes of somebody.”
Lacarin said that a fire that had been set destroyed around 120 plants before he was able to extinguish it. He called the police, but the arsonist had left in his Mercedes by the time they arrived.
“I called the prosecutor, and I got to a meeting that evening with an officer of the militsiya of the district,” Lacarin recalled. “In the evening, (Muntyan) also came. And (Muntyan) said to the officer, this Lacarin is bandit. He has no right to use the ground.”
“And instead of him being guilty, it was the contrary,” Lacarin said. “I was!”
Lacarin also noted that Muntyan arrived in his Mercedes during the police raid at his home on Jan. 14 because, according to law, during tax police operations, a local government representative must be present.
Muntyan has denied having any connection to the alleged arson.
Saakashvili arrives
After the Jan. 14 tax raid, Saakashvili aide and former Georgian consul in Odesa, Timur Nishnianidze, called Lacarin on the night of Jan. 15 to inform him that the governor had taken interest in the case.
At the Jan. 19 meeting, Saakashvili railed against the overly complicated licensing regime. The Odesa governor did not, however, address the underlying issue of abuse of power that Lacarin says is the cause of the all the trouble.
At one point during the meeting, Lacarin said, Alexander Muntyan himself appeared.
“I said, no please, everyone can enter, only not this one,” Lacarin recounted. “He has to go. Security, put this guy outside.”
A Saakashvili spokeswoman did not reply to a request for comment.
Man versus village
Muntyan got re-elected to the Shabo village council because he has protection from “strong people,” according to Lacarin.
When asked who protects Muntyan, the Frenchman replied: “people who want to take back the land.”
But Muntyan sharply disputed the allegations, accusing Lacarin of leaving his land in a state of disrepair.
“Lacarin hasn’t paid his taxes in 10 years,” the Shabo councilman said. “He doesn’t have a residency visa.”
It is not clear who exactly is backing Muntyan in his attempts to retake the land, or why.
Lacarin believes that Muntyan, along with the local government, wants to develop a real estate project on the prime land.
Personal connections
Saakashvili’s intervention cleared the way for Lacarin to get his long-awaited winemaking license, which he expects will be granted in a matter of weeks.
“He has balls,” Lacarin said of the Odesa governor. “Saakashvili, as I understood, is interested in simplification…If you have simplification…you reduce the possibility of corruption.”
And Lacarin’s story has sparked a flurry of calls for streamlining the wine licensing process in Ukraine from voices beyond that of Saakashvili. In a Jan. 25 statement, the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce called for a moratorium on wine license checks until the system could be streamlined.
In the meantime, Lacarin says he will likely have to continue to contend with Alexander Muntyan as an unfriendly local politician.
“Ukraine is a complicated country for foreigners,” Lacarin said.
