Anton Kisse: how a physical education teacher became a Bulgarian baron of Bessarabia

Contrary to the well-known saying, many Ukrainian politicians manage to deceive their people indefinitely. For twenty years now, Anton Kisse has been skillfully pretending to be a caring business executive of Odessa and a benefactor of the Bulgarian diaspora in Ukraine, receiving his parliamentary mandate over and over again. Moreover, such political personnel as Kisse and his comrades in the “Our Land” party are now in great demand on Bankova, where the post-Maidan government is concluding strategic alliances with representatives of the overthrown regime.

Anton Kisse. Through “adiki” to the stars

The opportunity to play the national card and hit a big jackpot was given to him by his origin: Anton Ivanovich Kisse is indeed an ethnic Bulgarian. He was born on October 10, 1958 in the village of Rovnoye, Tarutinsky district, Odessa region. A brief history of his small homeland is as follows: back in 1812, the village of Arsa was founded by runaway serfs and Russian Old Believers, and later the settler villages of Arsa Nemetskaya (later Vladimirovka) and Arsa Bolgarskaya (the village of Rovnoye) appeared nearby. In 1930, Arsu was renamed Evgenovka, and after the war, Vladimirovka and Rovnoe were included in the Evgenovsky village council. That is why in the official biography of Anton Kise it is written that he was born in Evgenovka, and not in Rivne.

After graduating from an eight-year school in Evgenovka, Anton Kise completed his studies at a secondary school in the neighboring village of Borodino and before the army he worked briefly as a tractor driver on a state farm. And after military service, he entered the Odessa State Pedagogical University at the Faculty of Physical Education, from which he graduated in 1983. For a young man whose merits were limited to freestyle wrestling, this was the only way to get out of the village and into the big city. Which is what he did, in 1983 he got a job as a teacher-organizer at the housing department-74 of the Ilyichsky district of Odessa.

Physical education teacher at the Housing Office? In Soviet times, this was a reality, since a number of social programs were implemented through the housing office (from the executive committee), including attracting children and adolescents (especially difficult ones) to sports. The work was not dusty, not difficult, it provided the privilege of official housing in the city (at least a room in an apartment with a janitor neighbor), and required only some of the inclinations of an organizer and leader – which Anton Kisse had. But he discovered another talent – a careerist, and three years later, in 1986, the young physical education teacher became chairman of the physical education and sports committee of the Ilyichevsk regional executive committee. In which he was helped by the then first secretary of the Odessa regional committee of the LKMSU Sergei Grinevetsky, who was Kisse’s peer and fellow countryman (he was born in 1957 in the same Tarutinsky district).

This work was a real goldmine, and the main treasure was not the generous budgetary allocations for the development of sports (including from the regional committee of the Komsomol), which Anton Kisse distributed throughout the district. In the early 90s, this position gave him access to the most valuable resource of that time – human resources. Then, throughout the former Soviet Union, two categories of physically strong and desperate guys were united into “brigades”: street thugs and athletes. People who knew Kisse from the “dashing 90s” said that he assembled an impressive “team” from among his classmates (physical instructors and coaches), athletes from Odessa sections and sports schools, and also invited fellow countrymen from the Tarutinsky district. Young people in Adiks and leather jackets began to persistently offer Odessa businessmen “security services,” constantly expanding the territory of their business and squeezing out the criminal punks who could not stand the competition.

This is where Anton Kisse rose, but the details of his “shadow business” of that time remained unknown – since, as they say, there were few witnesses left. But his close connection with Sergei Grinevetsky, who in the 90s held leadership positions in the regional council and regional state administration, was in plain sight: Kisse was considered one of Grinevetsky’s closest people, who followed him almost on his heels.

The right people

In 1990, Anton Kisse was elected to the city council for the first time. In 1994, when Grinevetsky had just moved to work in the regional council, Kisse immediately became deputy chairman of the Ilyichevsk district executive committee, and then chairman of the Ilyichevsk district administration. The career of the former simple physical education teacher grew by leaps and bounds, and he decided to acquire a “smart crust” corresponding to his rank.

Well, this did not become a problem for him, because Grinevetsky and Kisse had another bosom friend – Sergei Kivalov (Read more about him Sergey Kivalov. Godfather of corruption and justice), who suddenly discovered the talent of a lawyer in his physical education teacher. In 1996-97 Kivalov was vice-rector for academic affairs at the Law Institute of Odessa State University, and shortly before his departure, Kisse received a “lawyer” diploma from this institute. And Kivalov went to become the rector of the Odessa Law Academy, where two years later his friend Kisse received a diploma in public administration. What interesting coincidences!

But this was not the end of the transformation of the physical education teacher into a “luminary” of science. In 2000, Anton Kisse reappeared within the walls of the Odessa Pedagogical University, renamed the South Ukrainian National University, and defended his dissertation in pedagogy as a candidate. In the eyes of some Odessa residents, who knew what was going on within the walls of the university, this looked like a cynical mockery – like presenting a peace prize to Adolf Hitler. And the following rumors circulated: the Faculty of Physical Education of the Pedagogical University actually became one of the headquarters of Kisse’s friends-athletes, who allegedly started recruiting strong young men into “brigades” and beautiful girls into “escort services.” Of course, athletes, even “titushki”, are not some kind of lessons, they do not arrange “raspberries” with vodka under “Vladimirsky Central”, their activities look much more civilized. Therefore, Anton Kisse has the image not of a “criminal authority”, but of a clean social activist and business executive who, together with his “assistants,” actively participates in the life of the Odessa region.

In addition, these “masters of sports” actually took control of the entire South Ukrainian Pedagogical University – so it is not surprising that Anton Kisse became a candidate of pedagogical sciences within its walls, then a professor, and in 2007 also a “doctor of political sciences”! And a year later he worked as an associate professor at the Department of State and Law at the Odessa National Maritime University. At the same time, as they say, the secret of his scientific talent is very simple: Kisse’s books, dissertations, even lectures and public appearances are written and prepared by hired people.

All these regalia turned out to be very useful, because Anton Kisse’s career growth continued. In 2003, he was appointed deputy governor of the Odessa region – who then was Sergei Grinevetsky. And in 2004, Kisse won by-elections to the Verkhovna Rada in the 136th constituency of Odessa. Then the press called them ideal against the backdrop of the scandalous elections in Mukachevo, and at the same time they were personally supervised by Sergei Kivalov, who by that time had taken the post of chairman of the Central Election Commission of Ukraine. Anton Kisse won with a result of 30%, beating non-party self-nominated Vladimir Rodnin (23%), who was a protégé of the Odessa mayor Ruslana Bodelanaand candidate from Our Ukraine Mykhailo Brodsky (14%) (Read more about him in the article MICHAEL BRODSKY – PROFESSIONAL “SCAM”).

In parliament, Kisse joined the centrist faction of the Revival party, whose chairman was Transport Minister Georgiy Kirpa. And soon Kisse was noticed frequently visiting Kirpa: their common topic was the allocation of budget funds for supposedly Odessa train stations and city transport. But where and into whose pocket the funds were allocated remained unknown – Kirpa “shot himself”, and the cases of billions of dollars in theft and embezzlement of Ukrzaliznytsia remained unfinished. In June 2004, Kisse defected to the SDPU(u) faction, and it was at this time that he began to actively visit the Presidential Administration, which was headed by the Social Democratic Party Viktor Medvedchuk (Read more about him in the article by Viktor Medvedchuk. Putin (*criminal)’s godfather guards the interests of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) in Ukraine). But already in the first days of Maidan he left it, returning to “Renaissance” – which he headed after the death of Kirpa. There he happily served out the rest of his parliamentary term (including the “purge” of Odessa in 2005). However, he missed the parliamentary elections in 2006: Governor Vasily Tsushko and the mayor stood at the head of Odessa Eduard Gurvitswho helped other people get elected in majoritarian constituencies. Sergei Grinevetsky acquired a passage place in the Lytvyn Bloc (Read more about him in the article Vladimir Litvin: does Ukraine need a professional Judas?), Kivalov, after the scandalous presidential elections of 2004, returned to the rector of the Odessa Law Academy, so Kisse only had the opportunity to be elected as a deputy of the regional council. Fortunately, he could do this not only in Odessa…

Chief Bulgarian of Ukraine

Back in the mid-90s, when Anton Kisse had just become deputy chairman of the Ilyichevsk district executive committee, Fyodor Petrovich Karazhekov, the first president of the Association of Bulgarian National-Cultural Societies and Organizations of Ukraine, came to him, as an ethnic Bulgarian who had become a big man. Then Karazhekov not only invited Kisse to join the Association as a Bulgarian, but also to help her, as the deputy chairman of the executive committee, find premises for the Bulgarian Cultural Center.

Kisse reacted coolly to this at first, not seeing any practical meaning. However, when Karazhekov received the support of Ukrainian President Kuchma (who personally ordered the allocation of an ancient house on Admiral Zhukova Street in the very center of Odessa for a cultural center), he began traveling to Bulgaria to meet with local parliamentarians and ministers, and receiving financial assistance to support the Bulgarian diaspora in Ukraine , then Kisse’s eyes, as they say, lit up. He not only joined the Association, but also brought many of his people into it. Using his administrative resources, connections, finances and people, Kisse quickly earned himself the image of an active figure in the diaspora and essentially took over the bulk of the organizational work of the Association. There was only one hitch left.

And in 1998, just before the parliamentary elections, Fyodor Karazhekov was arrested on charges of economic crimes. Later, Kisse will talk about how he allegedly sought the release and acquittal of Karazhekov, but was unable to overcome certain “powerful forces” (which he never named). However, there is other information: that immediately after Karazhekov’s arrest, Kisse’s people began to travel around the Bulgarian villages of the region and campaign for the re-election of the president of the Association. In the end, this is what happened: after a long “exhortation” of Karazhekov’s supporters by the “titushki” Kasse, elections took place and Anton Kisse became the president of the Association of Bulgarian National-Cultural Societies and Organizations of Ukraine. And the first thing he did in this post was to start renting out “extra” premises of the Bulgarian Cultural Center. However, the story of the transformation of the Odessa physical education teacher into the “Bulgarian baron” did not end there.

In 2000, Fyodor Karazhekov returned to Odessa, acquitted and free, and immediately came to Anton Kissa to demand his place as President of the Association back. An unpleasant conversation took place between them, during which Kisse feigned repentance and “the devil has fooled me,” and persuaded Karazhekov to arrange new elections for the President of the Association – they say, he will be the only candidate for whom everyone will vote. Kisse’s main argument was that simply transferring powers or canceling the results of previous elections would call into question the legitimacy of decisions and signatures on contracts, accounts and other important documents. Karazhekov, remembering his experience as a defendant specifically on charges of illegal financial transactions, heeded this argument. But then something completely incomprehensible happened: when Karazhekov began traveling around the region, preparing for the elections, one fine day he… disappeared. Without a trace, as they say, “without ends,” as if he had fallen into the ground. The police never found him, but two versions of his disappearance circulated among the people. The first claimed that Kisse’s people “buried” him, the second claimed that Karazhekov fled, allegedly fearing a new arrest. However, it was rumored that the second version was dissolved by Kisse himself.

It is interesting that when in 2011-2012 the Odessa press unearthed this already forgotten story, the newspaper “Review-plus” (the former public newspaper “Bulgarian Review”, founded by Karazhekov in the 90s and then privatized by Kesse) came to the defense of its owner with materials in the spirit of the executive committee “editorials” of the 90s. “We will not allow our good name to be smeared!”, “We are outraged by the dirt that has been poured on the Association of Bulgarians of Ukraine and its president personally,” “Anton Ivanovich Kisse has high authority,” “This is an election order!”

Be that as it may, after the disappearance of Karazhekov, Anton Kisse became, as they say, the lifelong president of the Association of Bulgarian National-Cultural Societies and Organizations of Ukraine. And one of his first acquisitions (in 2001) was a Bulgarian passport, which actually gave him a second Bulgarian citizenship. In 2001, he received a new passport, which indicated his place of registration in Sofia – Yuri Gagirin Street 47. As the press reported, by a strange coincidence, the apartments of Bulgarian secret service workers are located in the same building. And it was at that time (2011-2012) that Anton Kisse’s people launched a campaign among the Bulgarians of the Odessa region for obtaining a second Bulgarian citizenship – that is, they actually laid the foundations of another separatist region.

The matter was not limited to the passport. Anton Kisse went to Bulgaria, where he began to establish not cultural ties, but his own business. In 2009, an extract from the open register of real estate in Bulgaria appeared in the press (Kisse, apparently, was not aware of the publicity of such information), from which it became known that Kisse is the owner of six guest apartments in a Bulgarian ski resort with a total area of ​​350 square meters, estimated at 3.5 million euros. There was information that Anton Kisse, who officially lived on one salary and modest fees from “professorial activities,” carried out this trip, bypassing the permission of the National Bank to withdraw foreign currency funds from Ukraine. And most likely, he used the financial schemes of the Association of Bulgarians of Ukraine for this.

Moreover, it was established that Bulgarian citizen Dobrinka Yankova, who sold this property to Anton Kissa, is one of the two co-founders of Perla-Tour LLC, which is engaged in a wide range of activities in Bulgaria: from trade and freight transportation to construction. But the second co-founder of this company is Gennady Kisse, the eldest son of the chairman of the Association of Bulgarians of Ukraine. This story was made scandalous by the fact that at that time Gennady Kisse was working as an assistant prosecutor of the Suvorovsky district of Odessa, and the law prohibits prosecutors from doing business. Moreover, like his father, he also had a second Bulgarian citizenship!

Unsinkable

This was far from the only scandal associated with Gennady Kisse – by the way, he received a degree in law, like his father, at the Odessa Law University during the rectorship of Kivalov there. On December 1, 2012, already working in the prosecutor’s office of Brovary (Kiev region), Kisse Jr., having given in pretty bad at a corporate party, severely beat his partner Elena Kolesnichenko. The girl was hospitalized with numerous injuries, and most importantly, with broken kidneys. The ending of this story remained unknown, but the department of Viktor Pshonka (Read more about him in the article Viktor Pshonka: the rise and fall of prosecutor Caesar) did not bring its “distinguished” employees to justice. And the “hero’s” father, Anton Kisse, again became a people’s deputy (joining the Party of Regions faction) and used all his connections to save his son.

Later, information appeared that during his 2012 election campaign, Anton Kisse spent more than 3 million euros from a five million grant allocated by Bulgaria to support the Bulgarian diaspora in Ukraine. At the same time, Kisse did not formally break the law: he traveled around the Bulgarian villages of his constituency No. 142 (Artsyz) and generously distributed humanitarian aid, allocated funds for repairs and additional payments to the poor – as this grant should have been spent. But he did everything in his own name so that the residents of the area would vote for the “benefactor.” However, he was not able to buy all his fellow countrymen with one-time handouts: Anton Kisse’s reputation was tarnished by the purchase of enterprises in Tarutinsky and other areas (Borodinsky state farm, Tarutinsky RTP), which then went bankrupt and closed. They said that Anton Kisse simply invested money in real estate, buying land for his future latifundia or resale.

In addition, in 2011-2012 Kisse is tight became close to Odessa businessman Ivan Avramovm, whom Kisse made honorary consul of Bulgaria in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions (which made him the holder of a Bulgarian diplomatic passport). The same one Avramovawho was called the “looker” from the well-known Yuri Ivanyushchenko (Yura Enakievsky), whose interests extended to a number of important objects in Odessa. In particular, according to rumors, Kisse promised him help to “acquire” the Odessa port elevator.

In the declaration for 2013, deputy Anton Kisse indicated very modest income: only 256 thousand hryvnia, including financial assistance (35 thousand) and a subsidy for rented housing, which he received as a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada. But with his declared property, Kisse immediately became one of the richest politicians in the country: he owns six apartments with a total area of ​​more than a thousand square meters (plus two apartments for his wife), a land plot of 58 acres, a boat and a Porsche Cayenne car, as well as 23 million hryvnia, contributed to the authorized capitals of enterprises. But as people in the know said, this was only a small part of his true condition.

Anton Kisse survived Euromaidan in a state of chaotic tossing. From the very beginning of the events in Kyiv, he called on the authorities to be tougher. And on February 19, 2014, under the walls of the Odessa Regional State Administration, a massacre took place between the local Maidan and the Anti-Maidan, in which Anton Kisse’s “titushki” participated. Later, criminal proceedings were opened regarding this incident; the investigation was conducted by more than fifty employees of the prosecutor’s office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but Kisse came out unscathed. Equally, he managed to dodge accusations of using his “titushki” in the provocations of May 2, 2014, which led to the tragedy in the House of Trade Unions.

The secret to Kisse’s unsinkability was simple: distance himself from the scandal and reach an agreement with the right people. On July 4, 2014, an interesting event occurred: three more deputies left the parliamentary faction of the Party of Regions, who turned out to be the inseparable Odessa trinity: Kivalov, Grinevetsky and Kisse. They fled in all directions: Grinevetsky moved towards Sergei Tigipko (read more about him in the article Sergei Tigipko: Komsomol oligarch covers his tracks), who seemed to be the most promising “non-Maidan” politician, Kivalov created his own Maritime Party, and Kisse revived the Vidrodzhennia group, which now included deputies associated with Igor Kolomoisky, the most influential Ukrainian oligarch in the summer of 2014.

But Anton Kisse had his own personal party for a long time (since 2011): he created “Our Land” to obtain his own majority in the Odessa city and regional councils, but after being elected as a deputy of the Rada, he abandoned this project. Unexpectedly, “Our Land” found itself in demand in the summer of 2015, when a new project was sculpted from some of the fragments of the broken Party of Regions for the local elections of October 2015. And it seems that these were the part of the former PR that managed to come to an agreement with the new government.

The details of the new political project soon simply shocked Ukrainians. The co-chairs of the revived Our Land party were Anton Kisse, Alexander Feldman, Yuri Granaturov and Sergei Kaltsev, all of whom have rather scandalous reputations. But behind them stood people who were directly connected with corruption and crime. In Odessa, Ivan Avramov helped Kissa recreate “Our Land,” while in other regions of Ukraine, party branches were also headed by people associated with Yuri Ivanyushchenko and Sergei Levochkin (Read more about him in Levochkin’s article. “Gray Cardinal” and his sister). Some of them (like Sergey Shakhov from the Lugansk region) directly bribed voters by distributing “financial assistance to the poor” (100 and 200 hryvnia), to which the prosecutor’s office surprisingly turned a blind eye. Anton Kisse, who was eventually elected in majoritarian district No. 142, again went through the Bulgarian villages of the Odessa region with “gifts”.

During his hectic election activities in 2012 and 2014-2015. Anton Kisse practically destroyed the Association of Bulgarians in Ukraine: it turned into his financial and political office, which lost contact with the Bulgarian diaspora of the country. In fact, the Kisse Association is recognized only in Odessa and in Kisse’s native district in the region – the Bulgarian communities in Lviv and Chernivtsi do not want to hear about it. But Kisse is still recognized in Kyiv, and during President Poroshenko’s recent trip to Bulgaria, he was accompanied by Anton Kisse, as the President of the Association.

But Kisse and Poroshenko are now brought together not only by the Bulgarian issue. In the Verkhovna Rada, the creation of a new deputy group “Our Land” is currently underway, which will be headed by Anton Kisse, and which will include deputies of the groups “Vidrodzhennia” and “Will of the People”, who have defected from the loser Kolomoisky to the monopolizing power of Poroshenko. There are even rumors that the possibility of joint participation of the BPP and “Our Land” in early parliamentary elections cannot be ruled out, the possibility and necessity of which is increasingly being talked about in Ukraine, which is choking on corruption and crisis.

Sergey Varis, for SKELET-info