She burst into the Moscow beau monde swiftly, like a meteor, and just as quickly and suddenly disappeared. Flashed, leaving behind rumors and gossip, and evaporated as soon as it deemed necessary, becoming completely inaccessible to the sophisticated radars of the secular press.
She always did this: she made decisions abruptly and irrevocably, not really caring about what kind of opinions people would have. So she does now. The opinion of loved ones, of course, excites her. But, by and large, in the words of her, Marina Kuzmina knows what society is and "what is the price of a ticket."
Malakhov: “My favorite blondes”
In the first half of the 2000s, the lazy one did not take part in the discussion of the high-profile novel of two “stars” - multimillionaire Marina Kuzmina and popular TV presenter Andrei Malakhov.
There were legends about the history of the relationship between this brightest couple. Later, when the wounds healed, the former lover suddenly abandoned by the diva set forth in his new book his interpretation of their connection.
“Could not buy”
Kuzmina Marina showered the famous showman with gifts of fabulous prices, arranged romantic vacations in different parts of the world, opened the world of luxury and wealth to her beloved. He readily answered with cute presents, endured her eccentric quirks and … burdened with life "at someone else's expense."
The novel ended swiftly, like everything she did. Kuzmina Marina struck out of her life a young lover, and threw their general photos from the car window onto the road …
The famous leader explained their gap by the fact that the woman “could not buy it” …
Who was useful to whom?
Leisure gossips do not bypass the attention of the rich and famous. The couple was often asked uncomfortable questions about how old Kuzmina Marina was older than her lover, is she really so rich, why did the breakup happen and how did they both survive it, and who, in the end, was really useful?
Andrei answered questions from the press with the dignity of a diplomat: evasively about his former beloved, sincerely about himself. For him, the gap was painful. He took Marina very seriously and was determined to live with her all his life.
Marina commented on their breakup and, at the same time, her sudden rejection of publicity seven years later, in 2014. She recalls Andrei with great warmth, it was a person truly close to her. If she had a different character, Marina believes, everything could have turned out differently. And social life to her by that time … just "disgusted."
Someone calls their then novel the agreement “on joint promotion”, according to which the “lovers” mutually beneficial use each other: she showed him the world, he “let” her into the pages of secular chronicles.
You cannot forbid other people's guesses and fictions, just as you will not forbid the existence of history. For Marina Kuzmina, all this has long been “overgrown with past.”
She now has a new life, a new home, new problems and interests. And only Marina herself remained the same. Nearly…
Business woman
Then, in the mid-2000s, her mind-blowing outfits, her bizarre, truly Russian, nightly swaggers in the company of her, unattainable and incomprehensible to the average layman, rich and famous, her scandalous connection with the “most popular” TV presenter ending so deplorably - all this, thanks to the press, was the property of the general public.
But few people knew that the morning after a noisy party, while the rest of the participants slept and came to their senses, Marina threw off her guise of a “bacchante” and turned into a real business woman. Assembled and fit, in a business suit, with a strict haircut, at nine she was already conducting regular negotiations.
About attitude to work
Guessed about her, wrote that she created her very masculine and very successful business, thanks to a rich inheritance, either from her husband or from her former lover - the Colombian drug lord.
She herself calls business the games of adult children, which should not be divided into games "for girls" and "for boys."
As she has repeatedly confessed to reporters, she personally really likes what she does. And the matter is not in the material component. She likes the process itself. And she herself likes this process very much.
She knows no examples when a truly successful business would be created exclusively on the calculation. True success comes when a person loves his job and gives himself completely to it.
"The Iron Lady"
Marina Kuzmina’s business is associated with heavy and non-ferrous metallurgy. She is the president of Ashley Limited, a company that has been mining metallurgical raw materials in India, Brazil, Gabon, South Africa for many years and supplies it to enterprises in the CIS and Eastern Europe. Finished goods (cast iron, ferroalloys, etc.) are exported from there to Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, and China.
The company supplies mainly iron and chrome ore, coke, and metallurgical bauxite. But its strategic direction is African manganese ore. Ashley Limited is the world's second largest importer of manganese ore.
“I work with metal”
Indeed, there are few women leaders in her industry. Despite her former secular eccentricity, in a business where non-public metallurgists are handing over multibillion-dollar affairs, she has a reputation for an unbending, absolutely reliable partner.
She is proud of the respect that these “strong businessmen and right men enjoy”.
Of course, once because of her wayward eccentricities in the light of a colleague, they looked at her like a white crow. But over time they reconciled, realizing that in business she was a stone wall.
Like many who burned during the default in 1998 and lost confidence in the stability of the domestic economy, its capital is concentrated on the accounts of foreign banks.
She had to fly on business trips to the countries of Latin America, Asia, Africa. She visited Korea, China, Japan, discovered new, completely “dead” corners: in one of the Indian states, she met people who do not eat meat and do not drink alcohol, do not know what electricity is. Men crush the rock there by hand, with the help of huge hammers, and women collect ore into baskets and carry it to dump trucks on their heads.
She had to live in places where, in the conditions of incredible heat, three bottles of water were given out for a day, which could either be drunk, washed with it, or washed, and then drunk …
According to Marina, she has more flight hours than some flight attendants - an average of 1-2 business trips per week. Because of her daughter, who is already sixteen, Marina is trying to reduce travel to a minimum. Her top managers, if necessary, can always replace her. But she tries to delve into everything personally. Marina does not believe in the business that managers do. You need to know the business thoroughly and do it yourself.
Marina Kuzmina: biography. As the Steel Was Tempered?
She was born in a military family, a philologist by training (diploma in translator, Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages).
She began her career in the early 90s as a translator in a large Japanese metallurgical company.
According to the rules of Japanese business, as a secretary, she was supposed to have a chair without a back and armrests. Marina remembers that sitting on such a chair was very uncomfortable. Perhaps the desire to change the seat to a more comfortable one of the incentives for her career growth: over time, armrests and a back appeared, then she moved to the leather chair of the right hand of the department head. Making a career in a Japanese business structure for a foreigner, especially a woman, is very difficult. She recalls working with the Japanese as a difficult, but very good school: she has been to coal mines and blast furnaces.
Further events developed rapidly. The country began a great redistribution of property. The "red directors" were replaced by tough "boys in raspberry-colored jackets", next to whom the Japanese had nothing to do.
In the conditions of complete confusion, as the then Russian business seemed to her Japanese leaders, she opened her own transport company. Enlisting the support of Japanese partners - former teachers and leaders, she began importing raw materials into Russia and Ukraine.
Believing female intuition, she did not hope for the "benefits" of domestic privatization, but found her place in the overseas business, where I did not have to "jostle" with broad-shouldered "boys in jackets." Over the ocean, she was more in demand than in her native country.
