Alexander Shevchenko: Bukovel “sawyer” of land and budget. PART 1
Ukrainian politicians continue to prepare for possible re-elections, strengthening their ratings with all sorts of ways to bribe voters. Someone distributes sugar or Easter cakes, someone organizes concerts, but People’s Deputy Alexander Shevchenko takes his electorate on excursions to Bukovel and feeds them lunches. Fortunately, it costs him almost nothing, because he managed this famous resort for many years and is still the actual owner there. Well, he more than pays for all the small expenses for his election campaigns from the road construction budget, which he has been enthusiastically cutting for several years now.
Previously, Alexander Shevchenko twice managed to “seduce” voters in the 83rd district (Ivano-Frankivsk) in early elections in 2014, but now their trust in their chosen one has sharply fallen. Even those who work at Bukovel and have known Shevchenko for many years are grumbling, because recently this expensive and crowded resort, which brings huge income to its owners, has begun to delay the salaries of the service personnel. Bukovel, which has partially become state property since the end of 2016, is being artificially made unprofitable – and Alexander Shevchenko is directly behind this. Well, the rest of Ukraine knows him mainly only from the scandalous incident in August 2014, when Shevchenko was literally attacked by Oleg Lyashko. Well, Skelet.Info invites us to get to know this person better!
Brothers from “Scorzonera”
Shevchenko Alexander Leonidovich was born on April 8, 1971 in the city of Kolomyia (Ivano-Frankivsk region), into a simple poor family. At that time, the only prospect in the life of young Sashka Shevchenko was the position of a foreman at one of the local factories. So, after finishing the 8th grade, he entered the Kolomyia vocational school-14 to become a radio assembler, where he studied from 1986 to 1989, and then got a job as a 2nd category radio equipment installer in workshop No. 4 of the Kolomyia woodworking plant. At least that’s what his official biography says. But what is surprising here is not so much the kind of radio equipment Alexander Shevchenko soldered at the woodworking plant, but his 2nd category. After all, according to the Soviet “table of working ranks”, the second category was awarded to students who did not have a vocational education – meanwhile, Shevchenko claims that he graduated from a vocational school with honors, and this gave him the right to immediately receive the 4th category. That is, in his biography we see an incomprehensible confusion.
At the same time, in 1989, Alexander Shevchenko entered the Chernivtsi University to become a radio engineer (apparently by correspondence), from which he graduated in 1995 (apparently interrupting his studies while serving in the army). However, in the mid-90s, neither work at a woodworking plant, nor even the specialty of a radio engineer interested him at all. In 1995, Alexander Shevchenko rushed into business, becoming a trade manager at the Auskoprut private enterprise. Here he found his calling, already in 1997 becoming the director of LLC Industrial and Commercial Company Kvarta (USREOU 13661737), holding this position until 2004.
This enterprise is mentioned only in passing in his biography, but meanwhile “Quarta” is a very interesting company. It was engaged in a wide range of commercial activities: exporting milk processing products (casein) and sugar, grain, as well as trading in petroleum products. It is clear that yesterday’s radio equipment installer would hardly have headed such a business without the necessary connections among relatives or classmates, but on this score all the “lives” of Alexander Shevchenko remain stubbornly silent. However, it is known that the founders of “Kvarta” were father and son Popadyuki: Anatoly Vasilyevich and Igor Anatolyevich, and Alexander Shevchenko’s close connection with them raises a lot of questions. The fact is that Popadiuk Jr. has long become famous as a swindler and scammer, hiding from retribution in Austria. But Ukrainians know his father Anatoly Popadiuk from his career at Naftogaz, and then at Naftogazbud, which he did in the 2000s. These are the people with whom Alexander Shevchenko started in business – and, we repeat, in 1997 they invited him to the post of director of their company and even gave him a share of 35% of the authorized capital. Such gifts are not given to people on the street!
Let’s add: several subsidiaries grew out of “Kvarta”, including “Galicia-Sakhar” (USREOU 31162561), today owned by Tatyana Vitalievna Shevchenko, the common-law wife of Alexander Shevchenko.
Victor Shevchenko
Meanwhile, his younger brother, Viktor Leonidovich Shevchenko (born December 4, 1980), grew up, now keeping his brother company in the Verkhovna Rada. Victor followed in Alexander’s footsteps: in 1994 he entered the same vocational school-14, majoring in “radio mechanic for repairing radio and television equipment,” and then entered the Carpathian University in absentia as a “lawyer.” And just like that, in 2000, Viktor Shevchenko appeared on the staff of the newly founded company Skorzonera LLC (USREOU 31067573), for now as a humble manager of the project group. And his group designed the future resort complex “Bukovel”.
According to the legend that the Shevchenko brothers like to tell everyone, in 1999 they were vacationing at a ski resort somewhere in Europe. Apparently, they were resting after another successful deal to sell Ukrainian casein to Poland. Or maybe there, in Europe, Viktor Shevchenko was temporarily hiding from the military commissar, waiting for his brother to buy him a “white ticket” – after all, at the age of 19, he had to give his military duty to his homeland, and not hang around the Alpine resorts. So, supposedly, then the brothers had a dream to build a ski resort of “European level” in their homeland – and this is how the Bukovel project arose.
And now about what the “Bukovel brothers” are keeping quiet about. Skelet.Info It is known that initially the founders of Skorzonera LLC included the brothers Shevchenko and Popadyuki, and it was with them that Bukovel began. However, then big changes occurred: the Privat group of Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov came to Bukovel. In the region, Privat was interested in two oil refineries – Drohobych “Galichina” and Nadvirnyansky “Neftekhimik”, and Kolomoisky had no intention of building a resort there. According to available information, interest in the Bukovel project was conveyed to Kolomoisky by Igor Palitsa, with whom Anatoly Popadiuk had dealings. And Kolomoisky “invested” in the Bukovel project – but not in the same way as Alexander Shevchenko enthusiastically tells his tales about it. All acquisitions of Privat were similar to raider takeovers, with the only difference being that in some cases Kolomoisky stripped people completely and threw them out, and in others he took them into his service. Popadyuk and Shevchenko were lucky in this case. Anatoly Popadiuk lost his main share in Skorzoner, but with the help of Kolomoisky (as well as his friend Alexey Ivchenko) he received the position of commercial director of Naftogaz, in 2006 he was even predicted to succeed Ivchenko, and then he headed Naftogazbud . Alexander Shevchenko retained a tiny stake in Skorzonera (2.1%), registered through the Galichina-Tsukor company, and since 2004 he served as director of the company – and chief executive officer of Bukovel. His brother Victor worked under his leadership as a “concept development manager” until 2007, and then headed the companies “Ambika” and “Bugil”, which provide services (hotels, restaurants, entertainment) in Bukovel. The main owner of Skorzonera and Bukovel was Privat (91.4%), which owns it through Derling LLC, and Mavex LLC (6.5%), which has its roots in the offshore wilds.
The heyday of Bukovel under Kolomoisky took place approximately according to the following scheme: Skorzonera owned the territory of the resort and several key facilities, carried out coordinating activities, and leased out plots for the construction of hotels, restaurants and entertainment packages to other companies – there are now about 30 of them. Some of them belonged to Privat, others to people from Kolomoisky’s entourage, others to the right people (relatives of officials and politicians), and others to other businessmen. Even local entrepreneurs built simpler facilities.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
CONTINUED: Alexander Shevchenko: Bukovel “saw-sawyer” of land and budget. PART 2
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