Well before it opened in 1991, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development was making headlines for the lavishness of its building, popularly dubbed Jacques Attali’s castle after the first president whose brainchild it was. Over 20 years, though, the Bank, just north of Liverpool Street station in London, has mostly kept itself to itself, its staff quietly beavering away at providing loans for projects across the European Union and beyond.
While it likes to advertise the good it undoubtedly does, there are some subjects it prefers not to talk about. And one of them is the departure of its former top Russian official, Elena Kotova. Ms Kotova, who was executive director for Russia on the bank’s board of directors from 2005 to 2010, has been in Moscow since she resigned, or was sacked – pick your version – in January 2011. Last month she was committed to a Russian psychiatric hospital, supposedly for tests.
— Writer, essayist, Ph.D., author of "Keeping It Easy" Elena Kotova;
— A Russian journalist, essayist, editor in chief, "Odnako" ("However"), Mikhail Leontiev;
— Novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, editor of «Literary Gazette» Yuri Polyakov;
— Representative of the Publishing group AST.