Vasily Yakemenko, the former chief of the Federal Youth Agency and founder of Nashi, suspects arson in a fire that burned his newly opened Eat Pie cafe overnight.
The blaze broke out at the cafe on Lyublinskaya Ulitsa in southeastern Moscow around midnight and gasoline cans were found at the scene, former Nashi spokeswoman Kristina Potupchik said on her blog Monday.
“The facade was slightly damaged, but the cafe will open again to the public in the near future,” she said.
Yakemenko, who opened the cafe on May 15 with plans to create a chain of pie cafes, used the fire as an excuse to take a jab at Oleg Kashin, a Kommersant reporter and blogger who has written critical articles about Yakemenko and blamed him for a 2010 beating that left Kashin in a coma.
"Some kind of evil people tried to burn Eat Pie," Yakemenko wrote on Twitter. "Of course, it would be fair to say it was Kashin. But it was not Kashin, it was just some fools.”
Yakemenko left the Federal Youth Agency last month at his own request. The cafe, called Yesh Pirog in Russian, offered 17 different kinds of traditional Russian pies.
