An Irish-run Moscow business may close because of the Ostankino fire. Mr Patrick O'Dolan, who runs the Moscom Paging company, told The Irish Times that all his company's transmission equipment was situated on the television tower and was destroyed in the blaze.
"It's a very sad way to leave Russia but I don't see a way out at the moment," he said. Mr O'Dolan has been a prominent member of the Russian-Irish Business Association and has been doing business in the communications area in Moscow for the past seven years.
Moscom Paging's transmission equipment, valued at $500,000, is understood not to have been insured. "When we started business here, insurance simply did not exist," Mr O'Dolan said.
The company employed more than 90 and at the time of the fire had about 9,500 subscribers. Before the economic crash in August 1998, Moscom Paging had more than 14,000 clients.
The company's headquarters is in the heart of Moscow in the Stanislavsky Theatre building, a few yards from the underpass in which a terrorist bomb killed 12 people earlier this month.
Mr O'Dolan expressed doubts about reports that the fire started in the section of the tower that housed paging transmitters.
"My paging operation was working almost up to 8.00 p.m. on Sunday, long after the fire started. The transmission equipment was still working after a large section of the tower had been destroyed," he said.
"We managed to survive the economic crash and some mafia problems we had some months back. The last thing we expected was that Ostankino would be destroyed. There is a slight glimmer of hope that we might do a deal with one of the paging companies whose transmitters were not situated on the tower but it doesn't look good. The likelihood is that we will wind up the operation this week."
AFP adds: Russia's private television station NTV, the only one still on the air after the fire, is "misleading" the population, a top Russian official charged yesterday.
"NTV news reports are exploiting the situation and are in some ways even adding fuel to the flames, and misleading viewers," the Russian Information Minister, Mr Mikhail Lesin, told the Echo Moscow radio station.
Initially knocked off air by the fire, NTV was nevertheless able to transfer programming to TNT, another Media Most channel, which does not broadcast from the Ostankino tower.
Mr Lesin said some of the channels blacked out by the blaze would resume in as soon as two or three days, although experts have said two or three months will be needed before all broadcasting could be restored.
