Two freed Russians leave China for home

    SHANGHAI, August 13 (Itar-Tass) -- Two Russian citizens, who were
unlawfully held in the city of Hangzhou in the territory of a Russian
bankrupt company's works, have left for Russia, a source at the Russian
Consulate General in Shanghai said.
    Russian diplomats, with whose active participation the two
representatives of the Advento company were freed from the captivity,
accompanied them to the airport and saw them boarding the plane for Russia.
    The Russian company's director-general Vitaly Rudykh and interpreter
Olga Borisevich on Monday were seized by workers and Chinese business
partners, who demanded the immediate repayment of the bankrupt company's
dept of more than three million yuan (about 470,000 dlrs) to the suppliers
and workers. During the five days when the Russian citizens were held in
the territory of the works in the province of Zhejiang, local authorities
and police, despite the repeated appeals of the Russian Consulate General
in Shanghai, did nothing to free the people. They were released on Friday
thanks to the decisive actions of Russian diplomats. Accompanied by a
Russian diplomat, they broke out of the captivity.
    "We are very much thankful and grateful to the general consulate
diplomats who pulled us from there, literally, covering us with
themselves," Borisevich, one of the freed Russians, told an Itar-Tass
correspondent by telephone.
    "Thanks to the efforts, the acute phase of the conflict was settled,"
Russian Consul General in Shanghai Andrei Smorodin said in an interview to
Itar-Tass. According to him, the deciding role was played by the joining
of the Russian Embassy in Beijing and the Chinese Foreign Ministry, thanks
to which, a local official accompanied by many policemen arrived at the site. Vice-Consul Yevgeny Gryaznov used the situation to take the Russians
in a car, and they drove away from the territory.