Scientists, and today already businessmen, Kovalchuk brothers are quite famous personalities in the country. They often become the subject of interest of the press, moreover, everyone writes about them: compromising information, and, conversely, enthusiastic and grateful articles. So what caused such interest in their personages? What do businessmen brothers Kovalchuk do? Further in the article we will try to present to your attention a biography, as well as a career path of these two extraordinary personalities. We think you will be interested.
Yuri Valentinovich Kovalchuk: biography
Today he is known as a major Russian entrepreneur, head of the Rossiya bank. Yuri Valentinovich was born in 1951 in Leningrad (today St. Petersburg). His father V. M. Kovalchuk was a famous Soviet scientist, historian. As a child, Yuri showed mathematical abilities, and after graduation, he entered the Physics Department of Leningrad State University. After receiving his diploma, he began to study in graduate school, and then first defended his PhD, and then his doctoral dissertation. In 1987, he was appointed to the post of first deputy director of the Institute. Ioff Zhores Alferova. Then he was only 36 years old. Over the years of work at the institute (1987-1991), he wrote more than 100 scientific papers and various inventions, for which in 1988 he received a state award in the field of science and technology.
New time - new perspectives
In 1991, Yuri Kovalchuk - Doctor of Physical Sciences - suddenly abandoned science in order to do business. Why did this happen? Once, the young deputies of Zhores Ivanovich — Yu. Kovalchuk and A. Fursenko — made an innovative proposal: to divide their institute into two parts. In the first, life will go on as always, but the second will be engaged in patenting and selling innovative ideas. At the same time, Yuri Valentinovich claimed the position of head of the commercial department. However, Alferov did not want to change anything at his institute, and then both deputies decided to leave for free swimming. After that, Kovalchuk headed the Center for Advanced Development and Technology. During this period, he met the future president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, and a friendship developed between them. In 1996, Yuri Valentinovich founded the dacha cooperative "Lake" near Priozersk. Gradually, his capital grew, and he moved more and more away from science, plunging into business.
Millennium and new successes
By 2000, Yuri Valentinovich Kovalchuk was already among the most successful businessmen in Russia. At the same time, he became chairman of the board of the public foundation "North-West", as well as the "Center for Strategic Research" (St. Petersburg). In the summer of 2005 - a new and very responsible appointment. The press is full of headlines; now Yury Valentinovich Kovalchuk will be the new chairman of the board of directors of one of the country's largest financial organizations. “Bank Russia” will now act under his leadership. By the way, according to reports, Kovalchuk became the deputy board of directors of the bank back in 1992. The business empire Rossiya Bank took control of Gazprombank, as well as Sibur and Gazprom Media. In 2009, Yuri Valentinovich became a member of the Presidential Commission on “modernization and development of technologies for the purpose of economic growth”. In 2008, Forbes magazine first included Kovalchuk among the Russian billionaires, and his fortune was estimated at 1.9 billion dollars.
Media projects
In 2008, Kovalchuk and partners created the "National Media Group", which includes several channels, including REN-TV, Channel One, Izvestia, Channel 5 and others. In the same period, he becomes the Honorary Consul of the Kingdom of Thailand in the northern capital. The king of Thailand awarded him the Order of the Crown of the 3rd degree as a sign of friendship. According to the newspaper "Vedomosti", the business of Yuri Kovalchuk by this time reaches enormous proportions, and he owns commercial real estate in Moscow on Tverskaya Street. In the spring of 2015, NMG acquired a 25% stake in Sport Express, which included a television channel and the newspaper of the same name. The assets of the group are joined by STS and Tele2 channels.
Is Profmedia Holding connected with the Kovalchuk family? But first, let's understand what this organization is. This is a Russian media holding, which was founded in 1997. Its headquarters is located in the Russian capital. If you look at the development history of this corporation, you can see that NMG bought Expert magazine from ProfMedia, in 2005 Gazprom-Media Holding, also a member of the National Media Group, acquired the Izvestia newspaper. As you can see, the activities of these two media concerns are constantly intertwined.
Sanctions
March 20, 2014 was unsuccessful for the owner of Bank of Russia. He is subject to United States visa and financial sanctions against Russian citizens who were involved in the Crimean crisis. As an argument in the US Treasury Department, the businessman was included in the circle of “close associates” of the Russian president and is Putin’s “personal cashier”. By the way, “Bank Russia” also fell under these sanctions.
Charity
In 2012, Yuri Kovlchuk, learning about the impending bankruptcy of the oldest Russian bookstore in Paris - Librairie Du Globe - allocated a tidy sum to help him and saved him from actual death. As a result of this, the magazine Euromag called him “Man of the Month”. By the way, the store owner had previously approached various cultural and social organizations, and only the president of the Rossiya bank responded to this call for help. The French bank employees were pleasantly surprised, because they had a stereotype about Russian oligarch bankers who only know what to buy and sell valuables, real estate, etc.
Hobbies and hobbies
Yuri Kovalchuk is a very interesting person. He has a lot of hobbies. For the last ten years he has developed a hobby - collecting rare cars. His other passion is ping pong. He can play table tennis for hours.
A family
The wife of Kovalchuk, Yuri Valentinovich, is a philologist. They got married in 1976, and a year later they had a son, Boris, who is now a prominent businessman and politician. In the spring of 2006, he was appointed director of the department under the apparatus of the Government of the Russian Federation and was engaged in the implementation of the highest-priority national projects. A year later, he was appointed deputy director of Rosatom, and a year later - the head of the company Inter RAO UES, engaged in export-import of electricity.
The elder brother of Yuri Valentinovich is a famous scientist, physicist Mikhail Kovalchuk. The Kurchatov Institute is today under his leadership. Several years ago, tens of billions … not dollars, rubles, were allocated from the state budget to finance it. Rumors are circulating in the press that M. Kovalchuk allegedly put forward the idea of reforming the Russian Academy of Sciences in revenge for having been rejected several times by being elected full members of the Academy of Sciences, and also voted against his appointment as director of the Institute of Crystallography. And so, taking advantage of his brother’s position at the Russian “court”, that is, the friendship between Yuri and Vladimir Vladimirovich, he insisted on carrying out this reform. This version was supported by an excerpt from an interview with Mikhail Kovalchuk, where he, as a prophet, predicts the future of the RAS: "The death of the Russian Academy of Sciences is inevitable." At the same time, he compares it with the Roman Empire. Was he really hurt by the attitude of the academicians towards his person, and today he wants to show them what Kovalchuk Mikhail Valentinovich is capable of. The Kurchatov Institute is today his favorite brainchild, and here he is a sovereign master. Mikhail Valentinovich today is engaged in science, is a specialist in X-ray physics and crystallography.
As you can see, the Kovalchuk brothers, whose biography and personal life is described in this article, did not follow in the footsteps of the humanities father, but took up the exact sciences. Parents say that it was precisely the influence of Mikhail that contributed to the fact that Yuri chose the physics department of Leningrad State University. However, in later life, everything changed, and now the younger brother has a great influence on Mikhail and supports him in every way. Further in the article we will tell you the biography of the elder brother of a famous banker.
M.V. Kovalchuk: biography, career
The future scientist was born in 1946 in Leningrad, as you already know, in the family of the historian, Valentin Kovalchuk, who was studying the blockade of Leningrad. Their mother, Miriam Abramovna, was also a historian and worked at the History Department of Leningrad State University. In 1965, he entered the Physics Department of the University of Leningrad, where Yuri submitted documents 4 years later. As you can see, the Kovalchuk brothers did not follow in the footsteps of their parents, but chose a different fate for themselves. During the defense of the diploma, his work was so interesting and useful that he was offered to stay at the university and study in graduate school. However, for family reasons, he could not accept the offer and left for Moscow. In the capital, he was appointed an intern researcher at the Institute of Crystallography at the USSR Academy of Sciences, a year later he was already a full-time employee of the Institute.
Career
In Moscow, he entered graduate school and graduated in 1978. After 10 years at the institute in 1987, he became head of the laboratory. In 1988, he finished working on a doctoral dissertation, but before defense received sharply negative feedback from academician A. M. Afanasyev. In 2007 he was appointed to the post of vice president of the Russian Academy of Sciences. However, in order to take up this position, he must be an academician, that is, a full member. However, the vote of the academicians was not in his favor. Since 2010, he received membership in the Board of the Skolkovo Foundation, and 2 years later he was appointed dean of the physics department of St. Petersburg State University. 10 years after that, he was awarded the title of professor. In the same year he was elected director of the Institute of Crystallography at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Then in 2005 he received a new appointment Kovalchuk Mikhail Valentinovich. The Kurchatov Institute has since become his favorite brainchild. Until 2015, he was its director, and only on the eve of the New 2016 became his president. Before that, he was invited to a meeting with V.V. Putin. The press writes that it was precisely thanks to the president’s friendship with Yuri Valentinovich that in 2015 Mikhail Valentinovich was appointed President of the Kurchatov Institute National Research Center.
The science
The research of Mikhail Kovalchuk was a breakthrough in science. His new method allowed us to start studying the structure of matter from a completely different perspective, thanks to the method of standing x-ray waves. This is crucial for the study of nanosystems. It is thanks to him that nanotechnology is developing in Russia. Evil tongues continue to say that he owes these successes to his brother, or rather his friendship with the president. However, what does it matter when its intelligence contributes to the exit of domestic science to a whole new level. It was thanks to his efforts that the only source in the country of Kurchatov synchrotron radiation was put into operation.
Media projects
Mikhail Kovalchuk was the founder and chief editor of the scientific and technical journal "Crystallography", as well as deputy. chief editor of the magazine “Surface”. Once having heard about his brother’s desire to become a host of a television program, Yuri Kovalchuk ordered the creation of the popular science television program “History from the Future, ” which was supposed to go on Channel Five.
