Mosco perfume
24 May 2009
The owner of a perfumery firm has filed an appeal to register the trademark of the embattled Yukos oil firm for a new line of perfumes.
Mikhail Sannikov, owner of the Sunny perfumeries production, wants to use the green and yellow triangle with the word YUKOS as the trademark for perfumes and at the same time express his solidarity with the jailed Yukos owner, former billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
“It’s a good name, I like it,” Sannikov told Vedomosti daily in an interview.
Sannikov says he realizes that the Yukos perfume line would have a narrow target audience, but making money does not come first in this particular project.
The main aim of the Yukos brand launch is to declare its owner’s political position: according to Sannikov, the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky was a major negative influence on the business climate of .
Khodorkovsky, former CEO of Yukos oil and gas company, was arrested in 2003, charged with tax fraud and evasion, and sentenced to eight years in prison. He may be released in 2011, if no new charges are filed against him. His arrest, the following trial and verdict attracted attention from various public figures and human right groups, both Russian and Western, who criticized the case as being politically motivated.
In 2006 Yukos was declared bankrupt and liquidated. Since 2007, ’s leader in oil production, Rosneft, has the rights for its trademark. However the trademark is registered for use with oil-related products, not with perfume products.
“If the launch of Yukos brand is the declaration of Mikhail Sannikov’s civil position, I’m willing to take my hat off to him,” a Ukrainian perfumery retailer David Tetruashvili told Vedomosti.
Tetruashvili however pointed out that so far, no “name” brand perfume has enjoyed significant success, with the exception of Curious by Britney Spears.
