What became one of the biggest players in Russian banking began as a six-person operation founded in 1995 by the Moscow City Government, which originally held a 51% stake. Under the political patronage of Luzhkov and the leadership of Borodin it weathered the crisis of 1998 and subsequently grew rapidly from a local bank largely serving the City Government to a national bank with a greatly enlarged client base and offering a broad range of services. The bank became increasingly independent of the City Government, which in 2008 reduced its stake to 46.6%, with a corresponding reduction in the number of bank-appointed Directors. As the bank expanded, Borodin and his ally Lev Alaluev purchased significant stakes of their own – more than 20.32%. There was no evidence on how Borodin and Alaluev got the necessary funding for such a big purchase.(in Russian)