Dmitry and Mikhail Tabachnik. Brother for brother

The Tabachnikov family contract is a highlight among the country’s political families. The elder brother, Dmitry Vladimirovich, is a well-known politician, ex-Minister of Education and Science, who, just as he did not ascribe ranks to himself and changed the history of Ukraine, “borrowed paintings for a short time” from museums. And the youngest, Mikhail Vladimirovich, is a millionaire who made his name through the construction business, the head of Grail LLC, a company that intends to build a 160-meter skyscraper on European Square in Kyiv.

Today the Tabachnik brothers are content with minor roles, the excitement around their persons has died down. However, we are talking about activities that are not known to the general public, but which are carried out intensively and purposefully.

The beginning of the path of the Tabachnikov brothers

Tabachnik Dmitry Vladimirovich born on November 26, 1963 in Kyiv in a family of engineers. At birth, the parents named their son Yuri – in honor of Yuri Gagarin, but after a month and a half they renamed him Dmitry. The great-grandmother insisted on this, arguing that the whole yard was full of Yuriev.

Tabachnikov family

A very interesting story is connected with the family of our hero. One of Dmitry Vladimirovich’s grandfathers, Iser Tabachnik, who came from the family of a poor Jewish artisan, fought in the Red Army during the Civil War, and the second joined the ranks of Denikin. But Tabachnik’s great-grandmother, Natalya Frantsevna Glebova, a stalwart Russian noblewoman who once waltzed with Emperor Nicholas II himself, did not accept the revolution. She told her great-grandson how good it was in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) before the revolution and how bad it was after it. Perhaps these stories gave rise to a love for Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) in little Dmitry’s soul?

Immediately after graduating from school, in the summer of 1980, Dmitry Vladimirovich worked for one month as a film checker in the Central State Archive of Film and Photo Documents of the Ukrainian SSR.

Dmitry Tabachnik received higher education at one of the best Ukrainian universities – Kiev State University. Taras Shevchenko (KSU) at the Faculty of History. His successful studies at the university are celebrated with a Lenin scholarship. He also receives the USSR medal “For courage in a fire”: together with his comrades, Dmitry Vladimirovich saved cows from a burning barn.

In 1985-1986, Tabachnik worked as a correspondent for the editorial office of Kiev University, and since 1986 he became a member of the Union of Journalists of Ukraine (now the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine).

In 1986, the young man went to graduate school at the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, where he received the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences. From November 1989 to February 1990, he was listed as an employee of the institute. At this time, Tabachnik’s commercial spirit awoke, he brought Pyotr Shelest, the former first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, from Moscow to Kyiv, and spent five reminiscence evenings with him about the modern history of Ukraine. Such lectures were paid. According to Tabachnik, he gave the money he received to Shelest.

Dmitry Tabachnik actively followed the party line – since 1983 he was deputy secretary of the Komsomol of the entire KSU, after which he was accepted into the Communist Party, which opened access to a political career. Tabachnyk was a party member until 1991, when the CPSU was dissolved.

In the early 1990s, our hero became famous as a historian. He published several publications of a series of political and historical portraits, as well as several monographs, in particular, about repressed military leaders and about the fate of party leader Vladimir Shcherbitsky.

Such active work in 1990 allowed Tabachnik to become a deputy department of the Kyiv city committee of the Leninist Communist Youth Union of Ukraine (LKSMU), which in the same year was renamed LKSMU (Youth for Democratic Socialism). He was also elected to the Kyiv City Council, where he remained a deputy until 1994. At the same time, Dmitry Vladimirovich worked for two years, from 1900 to 1992, as a consultant in the Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Youth Affairs.

In 1992, he became responsible for communications between the Ukrainian government and the press. His position is head of the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers. Dmitry Tabachnik owes this appointment to the then Prime Minister Leonid Danilovich Kuchma. The fame of Dmitry Vladimirovich’s talents circulated on the sidelines. Kuchma asked for a selection of publications from the star’s press service and examined the cunning young man. Of course, it was not without being promoted to the position of government press secretary – head of the main department of information and relations with the press and public. Tabachnyk managed to combine this activity with the work of the first deputy chairman of the State Committee of Ukraine for Press, Publishing, Printing and Book Distribution. Rumor has it that Dmitry Vladimirovich wanted to concentrate on himself all information flows in the country and control them.

Dmitry and Mikhail Tabachnik. Brother for brother

Tabachnik Mikhail Vladimirovich born on April 11, 1970 in Kyiv. He received his higher education at the Kharkov National Law Academy named after. Yaroslav the Wise, majoring in Law. After graduating from the academy, Mikhail Vladimirovich was drafted into the army. After serving and returning to the capital, the young man got a job as a legal consultant at the small state-owned enterprise Mileta. Apparently, the service did not bring good income, therefore, after working at the company for 2 years, Tabachnik Jr. left to work at Informeco-Albatros as a marketing engineer. A year later, he is promoted and becomes a senior consultant at the Conversion company.

In parallel with this, Mikhail Tabachnik began doing business: he is involved in transactions for the import of high-quality French wines.

Almighty Dima and big business Misha

In 1994, Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma ran for President. He entrusts Dmitry Tabachnik to head his election campaign. At that time he was 30 years old. Dmitry Vladimirovich coped with the task brilliantly and Leonid Danilovich becomes President. The newly-minted Guarantor appoints his faithful assistant to the post of head of the presidential administration, and also makes him his personal speechmaker.

After his appointment, Tabachnik’s ambitions went through the roof. Legends and jokes were made about them. On the sidelines it was rumored that Kuchma was working as president in the administration of Dmitry Tabachnik, the situation in the country was called “DIMOcracy,” and Dmitry Vladimirovich himself was dubbed “the all-powerful Dima.” One cannot but agree with the latter – in the hands of Tabachnyk at one moment all the levers of government were concentrated: he influenced the personnel decisions of the President (thanks to his assistance, Vladimir Litvin ended up on Kuchma’s team), secretly supervised those who wrote the Constitution of Ukraine (he was considered one of authors of the Constitution of Ukraine adopted in the summer of 1996), “squeezed out” businessmen, lobbied for important business schemes, and carried out acts of corruption. Moreover, after six months of Dmitry Vladimirovich’s work, Leonid Kuchma signed an order prohibiting anyone other than Tabachnyk from using the stamp “On instructions from the President” in official documents.

Dmitry Tabachnik, Leonid Kuchma and Alexander Volkov

Dmitry Tabachnik divided the AP into two camps – Dnepropetrovsk and Kyiv. He headed the latter. Access to the President was exclusively through Tabachnyk. By the way, thanks to this, Kuchma managed to last so long in the chair: compassionate people attributed all the atrocities and mistakes to Dmitry Vladimirovich, and Leonid Danilovich looked like an “innocent lamb.”

Tabachnik was helped in total control by his younger brother Mikhail, who at that time was actively developing his business and looking for access to oil traders. He did not have such a high-status official position as his brother, but he had his own office in the AP.

Perhaps because of this, relations between the President’s right hand and the people’s deputies did not work out, who, probably for the first time in their lives, all united to overthrow the insolent man. Tabachnyk openly clashed with the then Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Alexander Moroz. The scandal of Dmitry Vladimirovich with a group of advisers to Leonid Danilovich, who brought him to the presidency: Alexander Razumkov, Dmitry Vydrin, Viktor Nebozhenko, became more widely known. However, the officials suffered a fiasco, Kuchma himself took the side of Dmitry Tabachnik, and three advisers had to leave the Administration.

The only person Dmitry Tabachnik was friends with was Alexander Mikhailovich Volkov, assistant to the President of Ukraine. It was these two people who were involved in a number of high-profile murders that occurred during Kuchma’s presidency. The first victim in 1995 was Akhat Bragin (aka Alexander Sergeevich Bragin, and Alik the Greek), who was at the forefront of creating the largest financial and industrial group in Ukraine, which, after his death, became the main part of Rinat Akhmetov’s business empire. He was killed at the Shakhtar stadium during a football match by the explosion of a powerful radio-controlled device. The second in 1996 was Evgeniy Shcherban. The politician and his wife Nadezhda, as well as an aircraft technician and flight mechanic, were shot at the Donetsk airport near the plane’s ramp.

At the same time, an attempt was made on the life of Prime Minister Pavel Lazarenko. Later Lazarenko will say that the assassination attempt was organized by Alexander Volkov. Without a doubt, if it was Volkov, he acted in tandem with Tabachnik. Politicians wanted to organize a coup in the Donetsk region. This is evidenced by the fact that 2 days after the assassination attempt on Lazarenko, the leadership of the Donetsk region was changed – Vladimir Shcherban, a close friend and partner of Yevgeny Shcherban, was removed, Sergey Polyakov was appointed chairman of the Donetsk regional state administration instead, and Viktor Yanukovych was appointed his first deputy. All decrees on appointments were signed by Leonid Kuchma, and they were formed by Tabachnik.

By the way, during the “war” between Dmitry Tabachnik and Pavel Lazarenko, the newspaper Kievskie Vedomosti published custom materials about Mikhail’s entrepreneurial activity. And she even listed the names of companies registered by him in offshore zones.

In 1996, Dmitry Tabachnik attracted public attention. The Ukrainian Perspective Foundation, namely Mykola Tomenko, Sergei Kudryashov, Sergei Odarych and Yuriy Orobets, accused the head of the Presidential Administration of having connections with Russian terrorists operating in Crimea. All because Mr. Tabachnik, allegedly at the request of commander Alexander Lebed and instructions from Leonid Kuchma, appealed to the Supreme Court of Ukraine in order to re-examine the legality of the death sentence of the Supreme Court of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea to Russian citizen Arkady Tanasevsky. In the summer of 1994, this serviceman committed a massacre in Simferopol: he and his accomplices shot people on the premises of the Centurion insurance company. The exact number of deaths was not disclosed; according to the unofficial version, there were from 5 to 25. This is the first case that was qualified under the “terrorism” article of the Criminal Code, which was exotic for Ukraine at that time. Tanasevsky was shot the day after the verdict was announced, without giving him the opportunity to ask for pardon. Apparently, the Ukrainian side removed witnesses. Why did Tabachnyk need to seek a review of the sentence? Most likely, he participated in the “cleansing” of the business and political space “for Russian interest.” It was at this time that the neighboring state began active activities in the territory of Ukraine and Crimea.

Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of Ukraine Vasily Malyarenko began to excuse Dmitry Vladimirovich. He stated that the head of the Administration was fulfilling the request of a private individual, and therefore there could be no claims against him, and he did not put pressure on the court.

The star of Tabachnik’s career declined in 1996 due to “personal immodesty.” One day, Leonid Danilovich turned on the TV at the right moment at the right time. On the 1+1 TV channel (the deputy general producer of the channel was then Alexander Tkachenko) they just talked about how in 7 years Dmitry Vladimirovich Tabachnik rose from a senior lieutenant to a reserve colonel. It turned out that he was promoted to the military hierarchy in just 2 years, from 1994 to 1996, by orders of the Minister of Defense: in 1994 – major, bypassing the rank of captain, in March 1995 – lieutenant colonel, in February 1996 – reserve colonel. Naturally, Kuchma did not tolerate such impudence and asked Tabachnik to leave. The Prosecutor General’s Office recognized the documents conferring military ranks on Tabachnyk as invalid, and he remained with the rank of senior lieutenant.

The demoted Dmitry Vladimirovich was not sad for long. He moved to Misha Tabachnik’s office on Pushkinskaya. The younger brother just founded the Auto Trade Company community in 1996. For some time, the brothers managed the company together, and then expanded their borders by moving to an office center in Podol.

The Second Coming and Business Prosperity

Leonid Kuchma survived for about a year without his faithful servant. True, Tabachnik was always somewhere close to the boss. For example, after being removed from his post as head of the Presidential Administration, he sat in the chair of the Chairman of the National Council for Youth Policy under the President of Ukraine.

In 1997, Leonid Danilovich appointed Tabachnik as his advisor. Not even a year has passed since Ukraine is shaken by a new high-profile murder. This time the victim was Vadim Getman. He was shot in the elevator of his own building. Hetman crossed the path of Tabachnyk, or rather his man – the First Deputy Minister of Information of Ukraine Mikhail Onufriychuk, who, in fact, controlled all information flows while Dmitry Vladimirovich headed the Administration. This happened during the elections to the Verkhovna Rada. Then Hetman ran in the 198th constituency in Cherkasy and lost to Onofriychuk. The “culprits” were found in 2002, but the customer remained unknown.

Simultaneously with serving under Kuchma, Dmitry Tabachnik decides to lead an active political life. In 1998, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada from the bloc “Party of Work and the Liberal Party – Together!” (head Vladimir Shcherban). From September 1999 to June 2000, Tabachnyk was a member of the “Revival of the Regions” group, from July 2000 – in Sergei Tigipko’s “Labor Ukraine” group, from 2001 he became the secretary of the inter-factional association “To Europe with Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)”, and in 2002 receives a deputy mandate on the list of the bloc “For a United Ukraine!” (many memes were associated with this political force, for example, what is the acronym “For Food” worth, especially during the crisis of the 2000s).

Of course, Dmitry Vladimirovich does not forget about Kuchma. In the 1999 presidential elections, Tabachnik became deputy head of Leonid Danilovich’s election headquarters. Without a doubt, Kuchma is elected for a second term and keeps his adviser to himself. In July 2002, Tabachnyk “whispered” to Leonid Kuchma about the need for constitutional reform in Ukraine. According to his idea, the country should move from a presidential-parliamentary to a parliamentary-presidential form of government. A month later, Leonid Danilovich officially announced this.

In November 2002, a new promotion – Tabachnyk was appointed to the post of Deputy Prime Minister in the government of Viktor Yanukovych. Dmitry Vladimirovich will work in the Cabinet of Ministers for three years.

During the Orange Revolution, he was one of the leaders of Yanukovych’s presidential campaign. It was built on the slogans of granting the status of the state language to the Russian language, maintaining the neutral status of Ukraine, non-entry into NATO and participation in the Common Economic Space. In the 2004 presidential elections, Tabachnik and Cabinet Minister Anatoly Tolstoukhov distinguished themselves. They tried to interfere with the work of the Uryadoviy Kur’er newspaper. Despite the ban of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, politicians signed a decree to publish a newspaper issue, which contained information from the Central Election Commission on the recognition of Viktor Yanukovych as the winner of the second round of elections. In this case, the Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case under the article “exceeding official powers.” Tabachnik himself laughed and called the matter “purely political.” As the Orange Revolution died down, so did all the accusations.

While Viktor Yushchenko was in power, Dmitry Vladimirovich had to be content with “little things” – in 2005 he became one of the leaders of the Labor Ukraine party. But even here Tabachnyk’s name found itself at the center of a scandal. It turned out that party leaders Vladimir Sivkovich, Alexandra Kuzhel, Nikolai Knyazhitsky and Dmitry Tabachnik held an extraordinary congress of their political force and expelled leader Valery Konovaluk from it, and elected Sivkovich as chairman. Having learned this, Konovaluk also responded by expelling these party members. Two parties filed lawsuits. By and large, this situation cannot cause any other reaction other than laughter. This incident put an end to the ties between Dmitry Vladimirovich and Labor Ukraine.

Tabachnyk is going to the 2006 elections with another political force – the “For Yanukovych!” bloc. He receives a deputy mandate in the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. There were rumors on the sidelines that Tabachnyk would take the place of deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. However, this also did not happen. On the Crimean peninsula, he rather “sit back” before the big jump. And it happened – Dmitry Vladimirovich in the new Ukrainian government of Yanukovych became deputy prime minister responsible for humanitarian issues. In 2007, the politician was already an active member of the Party of Regions and entered the Verkhovna Rada on the lists of this political force. Why PR? The answer is simple – Mikhail Tabachnik was already a member of it and, apparently, helped Dmitry Vladimirovich make the right, almost “family” choice. However, the “coup” of 2007 forced the Yanukovych government to leave the political arena. Only the good Dmitry Tabachnik decided to help his favorite party with this. Through the Sintez bank, which was supervised by Alexander Leufenfeld, and the “ideological inspirers” were the Tabachnik brothers, Dmitry Vladimirovich launders a large amount of money. He directs funds to organize the visit of PR supporters to Kyiv who opposed President Yushchenko’s dissolution of the Verkhovna Rada. But it didn’t work, the time came for Yulia Tymoshenko, who became prime minister. She allowed Tabachnyk to take the lucrative position of first deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Science and Education. But Dmitry Vladimirovich “worked” on two fronts, he was the Minister of Science and Education in the opposition “shadow” government of Yanukovych.

In 2008, early elections to the Kyiv City Council were announced. Dmitry Tabachnik was called one of the main contenders for the post of mayor of the capital and the main ideologist of the election campaign. He was on the PR list, but at number two, and soon handed over the place to another party representative. A very illogical act for such a genius of political intrigue. However, many associated this with the statements that Tabachnyk allowed himself to address the “father and wallet” of PR Rinat Akhmetov. He stated that Rinat Leonidovich and his businessmen were bargaining with Viktor Yushchenko. For this, Akhmetov decided to punish Dmitry Vladimirovich: he was not included in the party presidium.

In 2009, Dmitry Vladimirovich, having forgotten all the grievances, bets on the future presidential candidate – Viktor Yanukovych. He participates in the social movement “For a neutral, non-bloc Ukraine” and becomes the chairman of the “Cathedral of Civil Accord” association, which actually supported Viktor Fedorovich.

For his loyal support, Yanukovych repaid Tabachnyk with the position of Minister of Education and Science in the government of Mykola Azarov. He resigned as a deputy and began a stormy activity.

Dmitry Tabachnik and brother’s support

All this time, brother Mikhail provided tremendous support to Dmitry Vladimirovich. His business was more than successful.

Mikhail Vladimirovich in 1998 participated in the construction and management of the Tiko supermarket chain. The first Tiko-Market store with an assortment of 12–15 thousand products opened in January 2000 on Victory Square in Kyiv. And after a couple of years, the number of visitors exceeded the wildest expectations of the owners – in 2002, about 1 million people visited it. The second store under this brand appeared in Obolon. This is where the development of the network ended. Most likely, this was due to the appearance of the Velyka Kyshenya supermarket on Victory Square, which attracted a significant part of Tiko-Market’s customers. The brothers did not grieve for long and found a suitable buyer for their brainchild. We bought a chain of stores at an inflated price from Fozzy Group (Silpo chain). The transaction amount was not disclosed, but approximately it was $2 million (the purchase cost of 1 sq. m of each of the acquired objects was about $1 thousand).

Quite bright personalities appeared among the Tabachnikov business partners. For example, Vladislav Milenky, former Deputy Minister of Ukraine for Family, Children and Youth Affairs, and Alexander Tretyakov, former first assistant to President Yushchenko, who at one time headed the ATEK-95 company, specializing in the oil business. Meeting Tretyakov made it possible to significantly advance the family business. The fact is that ATEK-95, led by Mr. Tretyakov, in the late 90s, together with a number of foreign investors and the Kirovograd oil trading company Interresursy, was the founder of the Ruhr Group company. Alexander Tretyakov served as chairman of ATEK-95, Ruhr Group and JSCB Transbank. After some time, 98% of the bank’s shares were acquired by the Bahamian company Thyssen Corporation. Thanks to this, Transbank became one of the few Ukrainian banks that were based on a significant number of oil trading companies, among them OJSC Oil South, DP Slavyanskie Nefteprodukty, TiCo, owned by Mikhail Tabachnik. In the early 2000s, the oil company ATEK-95 gained a foothold in the capital region and tried to deploy a network of jobber gas stations of the Russian-Belarusian oil company Slavneft in Ukraine. Mikhail Tabachnik began to persistently lobby for the interests of the giant. However, the activity was short-lived. The bet on the unstable Slavneft did not bring the expected result. Because of this, a number of traders in the group, such as TiCo, Yukon and ATEK-95 itself, completely lost their independence. Mikhail Vladimirovich sold the unprofitable business of the Tiko gas station chain to LUKOIL. The amount of this transaction could be about $30 million.

Since 2003, Mikhail Vladimirovich has managed the companies LLC TIKO-Construction and Graal, which are engaged in construction.

“Tabachnik on the bunk – then let’s go to classes”

For Dmitry Tabachnik, 2010 was a turning point, after his appointment to the post of Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine. The official gained notoriety with his anti-Ukrainian statements. Let’s say Tabachnik said that the interpretation of the Holodomor as genocide in school textbooks is “nonsense” and will be removed from the textbooks.

The main slogan of students from the time of Dmitry Vladimirovich’s ministry was “Tabachnik on the bunk – then let’s go to classes.”

True, Tabachnik did not pay attention to such a trifle. He immediately began to do brilliant things that brought in millions and baffled all Ukrainians.

“SvitOsvit”. Immediately after his appointment, Tabachnyk decides to create the portal “Unified Educational Information Window of Ukraine”, which would provide all information about schools, universities and kindergartens. Three structures were involved in the resource at once – the Ministry of Education (orders on legalization), Imperia-Info LLC (managed the process) and the information agency SvitOsvit (contenting the site). The portal worked in full force and was even useful. It only turned out that university rectors received some documents, namely contracts with Imperia-Info LLC. The cost of site services is 7,500 hryvnia per quarter, therefore, 30 thousand hryvnia per year. Thus, if all universities paid, the total income would be 24 million hryvnia per year. The proceeds would be divided between the companies Imperia-Info and SvitOsvit. The latter, by the way, oddly enough, was created in 2010. The official location, of course, is Verkhniy Val, 72. The business center of the Tiko group of companies is also located at this address.

“Inforesurs”. Another super project from the Minister of Education for the people. In 2011, the state enterprise “Inforesurs” was created. The officials set him a very specific task: to create a database with information about incoming students and graduates. The database was named the Unified State Electronic Database for Education, EDEBO. At some point, everyone began to think that a truly useful resource was being created. But Tabachnik’s main rule is that everything is for money. In order for a student’s name to be entered into the state database, the educational institution must pay Inforesurs quarterly. It turned out to be about 6.5 million hryvnia from universities per year.

Textbooks with errors. At the beginning of the 2013 school year, another scandal broke out. Parents, teachers and education experts have reported hundreds of grammatical and stylistic errors in new first- and second-grade math books. The examination concluded that these textbooks are simply not suitable for teaching. Tabachnik tried to save the situation, but could not. He had to admit the obvious. The ministry even promised to release applications to cover up parts of the books with errors. The ministry did not conduct a public investigation into the shameful textbook case. Why? The fact is that most of the 117 million hryvnia that were allocated for the printing of new books were received by two companies: Obrazovanie Publishing House LLC and Genesis Publishing House LLC. The first company was headed by Tamara Tkachenko. Before becoming director of Obrazovanie Publishing House LLC, she headed the state publishing house Obrazovanie, which was subordinate to the Ministry. The chief editor of Genesis Publishing House LLC was Alexander Udod, who previously headed the Institute of Innovative Technologies. This Institute, on behalf of the state, ordered textbooks, provided the stamp “Approved by the Ministry of Education” and held tenders for printing using taxpayers’ money. Also, it was subordinate to the Ministry of Education and Science. And that means the Minister of Education Dmitry Tabachnik.

It is clear why Dmitry Vladimirovich did not see the errors in the books – he covered for his subordinates, who, under his patronage, turned into successful millionaire businessmen and received government contracts.

Buildings for brother. While holding a ministerial position, Tabachnik gave part of the property of state enterprises within the scope of management of the Ministry of Education to his brother’s companies. We are talking about non-residential premises in the building of the state enterprise of the Ministry of Education “Inforesurs” at the address: Kyiv, blvd. T. Shevchenko, 27, worth 13 million hryvnia, as well as premises in the building of the state enterprise of the Ministry of Education “Association for Trade and Supply” at the address: Kyiv, st. Sagaidachny, 37, worth more than 22 million hryvnia. Since 2011, these buildings have belonged to five companies – Riotrade, SAN 11, Prades Publishing House, SK Artbud and Ukr-Stroy Management.

In 2015, a criminal case was opened on this fact. The prosecutor’s office, through the economic courts, decided to sue these objects from the new owners.

Disappeared paintings. The National Art Museum of Ukraine traditionally provides the government with paintings for display in the offices or corridors of state leadership. What a surprise it was when 4 paintings by the outstanding Ukrainian impressionist Nikolai Glushchenko disappeared from the walls of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. A scandal broke out, officials nodded their heads towards Dmitry Tabachnik and chuckled. True, after some time the paintings were found, but only two and four. And experts said about those that they were fakes.

It is worth noting that Dmitry Tabachnik is called one of the largest collectors of Russian painting of the mid-late 19th century. He is also a co-owner of the most powerful center for the distribution of fake paintings – the Corners Auction House.

Dmitry Tabachnik. High-profile cases

Lviv Central Department Store and restaurant “Stolichny”. This story began in 1995. Then the Lviv Central Department Store (the largest shopping area in the capital of Galicia) was re-registered as a closed joint stock company and was owned by the labor collective. After 5 years, an additional issue of shares was carried out due to investments by Polish entrepreneurs Jerzy Konik and Jaroslaw Nowacki. Thus, the Poles became shareholders of TSUM. But six months later, “outside” management came to the company and carried out a raider takeover. The management secretly represented the interests of Dmitry Tabachnik. Dmitry Vladimirovich managed to get the Lvov Central Department Store thanks to good connections in the State Commission for Securities and the Stock Market. In particular, he was on friendly terms with the First Deputy Executive Secretary of the State Securities and Stock Market Committee Andrei Portnov and the former head of the issue registration department Ivan Grantsev. Everything happened according to the established pattern – the case went to court, the property and rights of the department store were resold to other persons, and the Poles, accordingly, were left with nothing.

A similar situation (fraud) with TSUM was repeated in Kyiv with Stolichny OJSC (better known as the Stolichny restaurant, which was located in the very center of Kyiv – where Khreshchatyk turns into European Square). At the end of 2003, Stolichny was transformed from an OJSC into an LLC. But comrade Ivan Grantsev notices an “inaccuracy” in the paperwork, and the commission cancels the re-registration. Then it’s a matter of technique – a lawsuit is filed in court, after which a traditional meeting of shareholders is held without the participation of the main shareholders and a new manager is appointed. In this case, Evgeniy Garkusha became the head of the board of JSC Stolichny. At the same time, in “Stolichnye” itself they knew nothing about what was happening. Garkusha resells the property several times, including to the Grail company.

Mayhem “Grail”. The beginning of this story can be considered in 2003, when the Kyiv City State Administration held a competition for the reconstruction of European Square. The investment competition was won by the little-known company “Grail”. This victory made the company the actual owner of the territory inside the block located behind the Dnepr Hotel. “Grail” proposed a project for a 160-meter skyscraper with underground parking for 1,100 spaces. Experts immediately declassified the company and its affiliation with the business of Mikhail Tabachnik. The funniest thing in this situation was the competition, which was purely nominal. To confirm this, the competition council was headed by Irina Okuneva, director of the Grail.

The construction of the skyscraper was hindered by the house at Grushevsky 4B. Representatives of the company tried to create this kind of construction vandalism and bring the house to demolition. The plan failed, public activists intervened. They turned the house into a social and cultural center and even received documents confirming cultural heritage for the building. But a few days later an unknown force intervened and the Main Directorate for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of the Kyiv City State Administration canceled its order.

However, demolishing a house in the center of the capital is not so simple. Although the house was considered uninhabited since 1989, the apartments had owners. Therefore, Grail decided to buy all the apartments in the building in 2006. But the matter still stalled. Today it is again on the lips of the public. Ex-deputy of the capital’s City Council, oligarch Alexander Leufenfeld, joined in the demolition, which is being covered up by reconstruction.

Bread business. In April 2002, the Crimean Property Fund issued an order on the free transfer of a block of shares (51%) of Krymkhleba OJSC to a number of Crimean agricultural enterprises with which Krymkhleb had no relations. And then, miraculously, a controlling stake ended up at the disposal of the Kyiv enterprise Hermes-Agro, operating under the wing of the leasing company Khleb Ukrainy. Its founder was Graal LLC. In turn, the founders of the Grail included Auto Trade Company LLC and Insurance Financial Group Glebov and Partners CJSC, whose owner was Mikhail Tabachnik.

In 2007, bread prices began to rise sharply in the south and east of Ukraine. The monopoly on grain companies in these regions belonged to the prominent “regionals” CJSC “Leasing Company “Bread of Ukraine”.

“Fake” order bearer. In 2003, a scandal broke out. Alexander Moroz, leader of the Socialist Party of Ukraine, publicly stated that a group of Ukrainian high-ranking politicians belong to the international Masonic organization “Order of St. Stanislav.” But he did not specify the last name, this helped the case calm down. However, 3 years later, Levko Lukyanenko accused Mykola Azarov of wearing the Order. And this contradicted the oath of the people’s deputy. The Prior of the order, Pavel Vyalov, answered for Azarov and brought many politicians under the monastery. He revealed the names of those who were among the Ukrainian Freemasons. Among them was Dmitry Tabachnik. The topic was discussed for a long time and in the end it turned out that Pavel Vyalov, the “Grand Prior of the Order,” was previously prosecuted by law enforcement agencies of Ukraine for fraud, and the “order” itself, its paraphernalia, titles and awards, was invented by himself. He sold all this props to those who wanted it for a lot of money, the amounts were not disclosed, but figures of several hundred dollars were mentioned.

Illegal privatization. In 2004, the Donetsk people set their sights on the publishing and printing sector of the state. By resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers, the new composition of the supervisory board of the State Joint Stock Company “Ukrvydavpoligrafiya” was approved, and Raisa Bogatyreva, a doctor by profession, was appointed chairman. A month later, Sergei Nagoryansky, Chairman of the Board of State Joint Stock Company “Ukrvydavpoligrafiya”, was “unexpectedly” removed from his post. Yaroslav Babiy, previously the First Deputy Chairman of the Board of the State Joint Stock Company, is appointed in his place. A person close to Dmitry Tabachnik. A few months later, Yaroslav Babiy turns to Dmitry Vladimirovich with a proposal to exclude printing enterprises managed by the State Joint Stock Company from the list of objects not subject to privatization. Mr. Tabachnik responded to this letter very quickly, and most importantly, positively. After this, there were massive layoffs of the heads of the largest economically successful and profitable printing houses, and the enterprises themselves were handed over to interested parties.

The Dr. P scandal. It was Dmitry Tabachnik who, with his visa on forged documents, brought into the public eye, or rather awarded the scientific degrees of “Doctor of Medical Sciences” and “Professor”, to the fraudster and pseudo-doctor Andrei Slyusarchuk, better known among the people as “Doctor Pi”. Tabachnik wrote a letter confirming on the letterhead of the Ministry of Education that Slyusarchuk, who called himself a professor of neurosurgery, had indeed graduated from several higher educational institutions, including in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism).

However, no verification of such information was carried out. He did not bother to check the availability of documents for the defense of Slyusarchuk’s dissertations. It is worth noting that only Dmitry Vladimirovich had this information, since after the liquidation of the Higher Attestation Commission, all the papers were in his department. However, the politician relied (or did he know?) on the false documents provided by the swindler, and awarded the “professor” the degree of “Doctor of Medical Sciences.”

Moreover, Tabachnyk initiated the awarding of the swindler and his driver (!!!) with the highest state award in the amount of 150 thousand hryvnia each.

In July 2016, the controversial doctor was released on his own recognizance thanks to the “Savchenko Law.”

“Great Ukrainians”. In 2008, in the resonant television project “Great Ukrainians” on the Inter channel, Dmitry Tabachnik represented Yaroslav the Wise. In the final program, Yaroslav the Mudry became Ukrainian No. 1, and this caused a massive scandal. The chief editor of the project, Vakhtang Kipiani, announced the illegitimacy of the voting results. Kipiani said that in less than 24 hours, about 550 thousand SMS messages were received in favor of the ancient Kiev prince. And the day before the final voting, he was only in 4th place and received no more than 60 thousand votes. The victory of Yaroslav the Wise was ensured by Tabachnyk himself, who allocated 550 thousand hryvnia through one of the banks, and then, using a database of clients, without their consent, but on their behalf, he arranged a vote through a computer for the desired candidate.

Theft of museums. The incident happened in 2004. On behalf of the then Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, the then Deputy Prime Minister for Humanitarian Affairs Dmitry Tabachnik handed over 39 letters from Mykhailo Grushevsky to the State Museum of the History of Ukraine. They were stolen from the Lviv archive several years ago. Employees of the Lviv State Historical Archive recognized their documents in the gift, but remained silent. The public noticed the gift. But Dmitry Vladimirovich stated that he knew nothing about the value of the gift, and these documents were purchased from one of the private collectors. He soon added that he didn’t know about the present at all.

In fact, this story began at the time when Dmitry Vladimirovich headed the Presidential Administration. Mark Schraberman, a former employee of the Lviv Archive, at that time already a citizen of Israel and an employee of the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, approached him and offered to work together. The essence of the work was to export valuable historical documents to Israel. Apparently, Dmitry Tabachnik agreed. For almost 10 years, Mark Schraberman was a constant translator and close accompaniment of Leonid Kuchma and Dmitry Tabachnik during their visits to Israel. By the way, in 2001, Schraberman took part in the illegal export of Bruno Schulz’s frescoes from Drohobych to Israel. He was caught, but then released, apparently thanks to his high patrons.

Pseudoscientist. While still the head of the Administration, Dmitry Tabachnik became a Doctor of Historical Sciences. An eloquent fact speaks about the quality of work. Nikolai Tomenko, at that time still just a political scientist, decided to read this work with a pencil in his hands. He effortlessly found more than 600 grammatical errors in the text of the monograph. Most likely, the monograph was written by political scientist Dmitry Vydrin, who in 1994-1996 was an adviser to President Leonid Kuchma on domestic policy issues. By the way, his name is listed as a co-author. So, Dmitry Vydrin, without particularly bothering, sketched out all sorts of his thoughts, accumulated over a couple of years of work in the form of scientific work, and Tabachnik, without really reading them and without delving into the text, sent them to print. Dmitry Vydrin’s grammatical errors are understandable – all of his scientific activities since 1972 took place in Russian, he did not know any other language.

Taking over state property. In 2015, Tabachnyk was sent a message about suspicion of misappropriation of state property. And he was even put on the wanted list. The court seized the bank accounts of Dmitry Vladimirovich. But there was nothing there, Tabachnik transferred all the property to his mother a month before the suspicion was raised.

Dmitry tobacconist. About love, family and wealth

Dmitry Tabachnik and Tatiana Nazarova

Dmitry Tabachnik is married to Tatyana Nazarova, an actress of the National Academic Theater of Russian Drama named after. Lesya Ukrainka, People’s Artist of Ukraine and Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), who starred in the TV series “Roksolana”, “The Milkmaid from Khatsapetovka”.

The young people met in 1990 at the UT-1 central television studio. Dmitry Vladimirovich and his friends tried to record the program “Intimate Cabinet of History” about unknown pages of the history of Ukraine, and Tatyana Nazarova was supposed to record the program in the same studio. They officially married 2.5 years later – in October 1993. The Tabachnikov couple have been together for more than 20 years.

However, in 2013, Dmitry Tabachnik appeared with the “glamorous journalist” Alena Berezovskaya, who was previously called Yanukovych’s mistress in the media. The couple celebrated Alena’s 25th birthday together. In addition, the journalist accompanied the ex-minister during his official visit in the same 2013 to the Kingdom of Morocco.

Dmitry Tabachnik and Alena Berezovskaya

Dmitry Vladimirovich lives in a luxurious house with an area of ​​559 sq.m. and has a land plot in the Kyiv region with an area of ​​6,960 sq.m. The estate is located in an elite cottage town in Koncha-Zaspa. Behind a long iron fence and a guard’s cabin.

Dmitry Vladimirovich prefers clothes from Yves Saint Laurent, Bryonia, Cartier, and Paul Zillieri. A number of boutiques representing these brands belong to Mikhail Tabchnik. There are legends about Dmitry Vladimirovich’s love of dressing beautifully. He wears suits of blue, green, gray, and lighter ones in summer. Among themselves, Dmitry Tabachnik is called the Pink Flamingo in the party. Doesn’t like brown or anything close to it. They seem quite gloomy to him. Tabachnik Sr. has three hundred ties. Again, his younger brother, Misha, is to blame. With his wife Bogdana, he often visits Paris for ready-to-wear weeks and, accordingly, supplies his brother with ties from there, and in large quantities. Dmitry Vladimirovich keeps them hanging on pins. He believes that a tie stored folded will look more like a cow bridle. Dmitry Vladimirovich also doesn’t like expensive lighters: “I keep losing them, and then it’s a shame.”

Tabachnik Sr. has a hobby – he collects paintings and weapons. According to experts, Dmitry Tabachnik’s collection of hunting weapons and carbines alone is estimated at $200 thousand.

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In one interview, Dmitry Tabachnik said: “I believe that nothing is eternal in politics.” Apparently, he decided to modestly keep silent about himself.

Arina Dmitrieva, for Skelet.Info

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