Arkady Rotenberg Finland, traded in petroleum products. When Putin became vice-mayor, Rotenberg secured funding from Gennady Timchenko to found Yavara-Neva, a professional judo club. Later, after the club won nine European Judo Championships and trained four Olympic champions, it was given a new state-funded $180 million facility, including a thousand-seat arena and a yacht club. In 2000, Putin, who had become President of Russia, created Rosspirtprom, a state-owned enterprise controlling 30% of Russia's vodka market, and put Rotenberg in control. In 2001, Rotenberg and his brother founded the SMP bank, which operates in 40 Russian cities with over 100 branches, more than
Robert Rotenberg throughout his career. While in Europe in the early 1980s, he was the managing editor of English-language magazine "Passion, The Magazine of Paris". When he returned to Canada, he and a partner founded and published "T.O. The Magazine of Toronto", which ran for six years and folded in 1988 . After brief stints as a film executive and a CBC Radio producer, Rotenberg returned to law. He and associates Alvin Shidlowski and Jacob Jesin have had a criminal law practice in Toronto since the early 1990s defending, as Rotenberg describes it, "everything from murder to shoplifting." Cases attracting particular attention