Irina Berezhnaya: the story of how the main breast of the Verkhovna Rada grew and deflated

More recently, she was surrounded by the attention of the richest and most influential men in Ukraine, and she herself was not the least important person in business and politics. But fate, the villain, is changeable, and now Irina Berezhnaya has only her past left, which she is trying to somehow adapt to the current reality and manage to lay the foundation for a new future for herself. Having replaced the murderous power of her cleavage with the intransigence of an opposition politician, she is trying to at least return what she lost…

The apple tree that gave birth to the golden apple

If you read her official biography, then before SKELET-info reveals an incredible prodigy with a meteoric career as a legal genius. However, as you know, the secret to the success of most Ukrainian “golden” boys and girls is family and other connections. So in this case, you can find out that Irina Grigorievna Chernilo was born on August 13, 1980 in Lugansk, in the family of lawyer Elena Petrovna Berezhnaya. It was only later, while studying at the university, that she renounced the unsightly surname of her long-vanished father, taking the surname of her mother, who had long ago become famous throughout Lugansk for her numerous scandals. A mother who deserves a separate detailed consideration, so that one can understand from which apple tree Irina Berezhnaya’s golden apple was born.

Irina Berezhnaya with her mother Elena Petrovna

Scandals are an integral part of Elena Petrovna’s life and work. Its official business, at least until 2014, was to provide consulting and legal services “on business and management issues.” To do this, she once created a small joint venture “Olit” (USREOU code 19084732), where only two full-time employees work: Elena Petrovna herself and accountant E.V. Charkovskaya. Why is the law firm registered as a joint venture, that is, with foreign capital? It’s very simple: this way she could provide “consultations” on a much larger scale, including on issues of foreign economic activity.

But in the 90s, the main direction of its work was privatization, for which the Olit joint venture even received the appropriate license from the State Property Fund. Elena Petrovna herself did not privatize enterprises, but she helped others do it: she started with stores (Lugansk Trading House JSC, Sports Goods JSC), then took up large manufacturing enterprises (Krasnodon Avtoagregat plant, Agrostroy PJSC). Its, so to speak, “trick” was the following system: with the help of the director of a state-owned enterprise, a joint-stock company was created, which leased a store or factory, then the joint-stock company “bought out” the enterprise and became its owner. In addition, Elena Berezhnaya took the created joint-stock companies under her “legal roof”, and in many cases her services were actually required, since after some time raiders tried to seize these enterprises. And, lo and behold, she managed to repel these attempts at raider takeovers – for which the owners of the joint-stock company were extremely grateful to her (in the agreed amount of the fee). But in Lugansk they said that Elena Petrovna herself may have organized (more precisely, imitated) these “raider raids.”

Elena Berezhnaya at a rally in Lugansk

With the beginning of the new century, Elena Petrovna’s calling was revealed – “public human rights activist” and political activist, in whose capacity she now and then gets involved in various high-profile stories. When another squabble for a seat unfolded in Lugansk or large real estate was “squeezed out” by structures associated with some political force, she was right there – defending the interests of one of the parties. Such activity is associated with a certain risk for people who do not have their own security and armored limousines, but Elena Petrovna for many years successfully used state security – and at public expense. It all started with the fact that in 2000, Elena Berezhnaya, according to her statements to the police, was attacked twice by hooligans. On the basis of which, having found the corresponding clause in the law, Elena Petrovna requested the services of the state security service “Griffin” – guarding her body from 8.00 to 24.00, including the provision of government-owned vehicles and a driver. At the same time, as eyewitnesses said, one day Elena Petrovna was loudly indignant at the insufficiently prestigious model of the car provided to her, publicly (at the Lugansk railway station) scolding the Griffin employees. But the most amazing thing is that Elena Berezhnaya used state security services (free of charge) at least until 2012! At first, she delayed the case of hooligan attacks (the trial took place only in 2006). Then, under the pretext of distrust in Luhansk investigators, who ceased to see a threat to the health and life of Elena Berezhnaya, she insisted on transferring the case to the Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Kharkov region. The deputy chief, Lieutenant Colonel Verigin, provided her with all possible support, sending orders to Lugansk on the need to continue providing Berezhnaya with state security. And soon the case of hooliganism smoothly flowed into a new case of threats to Elena Berezhnaya in connection with her professional activities, and then moved into the category of “hangings” – while the order to provide security became practically indefinite. In general, Elena Petrovna managed to use the Luhansk “Griffin” as her personal bodyguards and drivers for 11 years (minimum), which cost the state more than 1.2 million hryvnia (at the rate of 300 hryvnia per day).

A new stage in the turbulent social and political life of Elena Berezhnaya was associated with Yuri Karmazin. Their relationship has become close at least since 2002, when Elena Petrovna assigned her daughter Irina to him as an assistant as a people’s deputy. However, U SKELET-info There is also an alternative version: that it was the pretty law school graduate Irina Berezhnaya, who settled in with Yuri Karmazin in Kyiv, who brought him together with her mother. Be that as it may, in 2002 Elena Petrovna joined the “Party of Defenders of the Fatherland” (PZO), previously created by Karmazin, from where in December 2005 she survived the former chairman of the Lugansk organization PZO Elena Andreeva – who was Elena Petrovna’s competitor in the field of business, because he owns his own law firm, Andreeva and Partners. Their direct conflict lasted from 2005 to 2013: the ladies fought over the rented office premises of the Lugansk branch of the PZO, which Andreeva, who had survived from the party, before her departure, re-registered it as the company of her common-law husband “Arefev and K”, then privatized it and placed the office of her company there. Elena Petrovna immediately filed lawsuits against her – and a long legal saga began, which was not limited to paperwork. In November 2010, Elena Berezhnaya’s man inflicted injuries on Andreeva, which led to surgery. On June 10, 2011, a meeting of two rivals in the Andreeva and Partners office ended with Elena Berezhnaya… biting Elena Andreeva! At the same time, she threatened the policemen who stopped her with heavenly punishments from Deputy Karmazin and Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka (Read more about him in the article Viktor Pshonka: the rise and fall of prosecutor Caesar). Perhaps this is why the police refused to open a criminal case on this incident at the request of Elena Andreeva.

Continuing the war with Andreeva, in September 2011, Elena Berezhnaya met for a pleasant conversation (according to her) with the prosecutor of the Luhansk region Nikolai Beskishkiy – one of Pshonka’s people, who was appointed prosecutor of Kyiv in 2012, and on February 24, 2014, dismissed from the ranks of the prosecutor’s office for “crimes against Maidan”. During that fruitful conversation, the “fighter against corruption,” as Elen Petrovna styled herself, received from Beskiskiy a decree to evict Andreeva’s law firm by police officers. It came to a scuffle, during which Andreeva was again injured.

Nikolai Beskiskiy

Never tired of pursuing her enemies for years, Elena Petrovna in just a few months dealt with Alexei Danilov, appointed chairman of the Lugansk Regional State Administration in 2005. Back in 2004, they worked in the same team: Danilov headed the regional headquarters of Viktor Yushchenko, and Elena Petrovna provided legal support to this headquarters. But already at the beginning of 2005, during the division of positions, the “Party of Fatherland Defenders” was left with nothing in both Kyiv and Lugansk. And then Elena Berezhnaya started a war against Alexei Danilov, which a few months later ended with his dismissal. They said that it was Elena Petrovna who obtained old photos from the 90s, in which Danilov was captured in a friendly company with the “Lugansk watcher” Valery Dobroslavsky (killed in 1997). When they were handed over to President Yushchenko and it was “explained” who was depicted on them, he immediately removed Danilov from his post. It is interesting that Danilov’s removal was associated with the struggle that unfolded in 2005 around Severodonetsk Azot. Danilov advocated a review of his hasty privatization and the return of the enterprise to the state; local “industrialists and entrepreneurs” of the Luhansk region and the new Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Anatoly Kinakh opposed this.

During this conflict, Elena Berezhnaya showed her extremely aggressive attitude towards any accusatory media publications addressed to her. So, in 2005, she showed up at the office of the Lugansk newspaper “Rakurs-plus”: she accused the editors of having sold out to Alexei Danilov, and threatened that she and her party boss Yuri Karmazin would “slam the newspaper like a fly.” And in 2013, she sued the Tarasova Pravda website for publishing the article “How it all began. Under the guise of defenders of the fatherland,” according to Elena Berezhnaya, discrediting her and Karmazin’s honor and business reputation.

The events of 2014 in Lugansk forced Elena Petrova to leave the city, as a result of which she lost almost everything: her job, her VIP status, the connections she had built up over the years. Having moved to Kyiv, she was essentially left without work and income, and could have depended on the support of her daughter Irina (more precisely, Irina’s sponsors), but she soon found herself a new occupation. Although the “Party of Fatherland Defenders” belongs to the “pro-Orange” political forces, Elena Petrovna radically changes her image and becomes a zealous defender of the residents of Lugansk and Donetsk. In fact, according to SKELET-info, She chose the position of a “third party” in the unfolding conflict, but constantly blamed only the Ukrainian security forces and the Kyiv authorities for the suffering of the population of Donbass. This could be taken as the personal opinion of the human rights activist, if Elena Petrovna had not simply started spouting quotes from separatist propaganda in her interviews.

In December 2014, with the help of her daughter Irina Berezhnaya, Elena Petrovna registered the “Institute of Right-Wing Politics and Social Protection.” She became its director, and Irina is listed as the head of the supervisory board, although she often uses her mother’s director’s “title” as her own. Then Elena Petrovna was actively involved in arranging Ukrainian pensions for residents of the ORDiLO territories and speaking out in defense of Ukrainian political prisoners (arrested under various articles for “support or connections with separatists”). At the beginning of 2015, she even tried to organize an action in Kyiv for “reconciliation of Ukraine and Donbass,” but the “ATO veterans” (as they called themselves) who arrived at it disrupted it in an aggressive and rude manner. In the end, Elena Petrovna found herself a different audience – in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), becoming a guest of the talk show “Politics” on the Russian Channel One, where she speaks on behalf of “Ukrainians who did not accept the Maidan”

Failures in her “peacekeeping” and “human rights” activities did not bother Elena Petrovna, nor did the fact that in Ukraine her speeches are rarely perceived positively. Every month she becomes even more “pro-Donbass”, but they say that the true goal of Berezhnaya-mama is to create an image for herself as a “defender of Luhansk residents from the junta” in order to be able to return to Lugansk and resume her usual business. However, Elena Petrovna claims that she has nowhere to return, since the Ukrainian army allegedly bombed her apartment and office – which is not at all true.

Boobs in big politics

Now let’s discover the story of the apple itself, which in 1997 broke away from its apple tree and drove off to Kyiv to enroll in the law faculty of the Kyiv National Shevchenko University. The official biography is silent about her first two years of study, but in 1999 the student’s career took off sharply. Firstly, Irina Chernilo, who renamed Irina Berezhnaya, became a businesswoman: she opened her own travel agency “Skarabey” in Kyiv, of course not with a scholarship, but with her mother’s money. Secondly, what was much more “cool”, Irina received an internship at the State Commission for Securities and Stock Market (SCSM) under the President of Ukraine (the commission controls all activities of Joint Stock Companies of Ukraine). Not all students even at universities in the capital receive such a distribution, so she received assistance here too – most likely, the same mother, through some of her connections in Kyiv.

Irina Berezhnaya

In 2002, Irina Berezhnaya graduated from Kiev University, but was in no hurry to return home to Lugansk, but went to work at the state First Notary Office of Kyiv – also a very prestigious institution, in which very serious transactions on capital real estate and business are certified. And then the aforementioned important event occurred in the career and life of Irina Berezhnaya: she became an assistant-consultant to the head of the Verkhovna Rada subcommittee on lawmaking and systematization of Ukrainian legislation, Yuriy Karmazin. How and when they met and how they became close remains unknown, but Irina Berezhnaya received much more from Karmazin than her mother, who remained in Lugansk. For two years, accompanying Karmazin in the Rada, in business meetings and trains, at various events, she acquired numerous useful contacts. As eyewitnesses who were present said, Irina Berezhnaya immediately attracted everyone’s attention with her neckline and ability to “shoot with her eyes.” All these acquaintances were beneficial in that Irina invited politicians and businessmen to have their transactions certified at her notary office. And yet, “boobs are boobs, and business is business”: VIP clients went to Irina Berezhnaya not so much to look at her cleavage (you never know how many pretty girls there are in Kyiv!), but rather to secure the guarantees of her mentor Yuri Karmazin – known as an honored lawyer and a great doctor in real estate matters. Already in 2003-2004. Among Irina Berezhnaya’s clients were Ukrsotsbank, VABank and Mriya Bank. Big tits deals mean big fees, so in 2004 Irina Berezhnaya already works as deputy director of the commercial law firm Astraya-Service, and then receives a private notary license.

However, in 2005, the above-mentioned conflict between Elena Berezhnaya and Elena Andreeva also broke out in Lugansk: as people who knew him commented, two Karmazin passions clashed for the right to be “his senior wife” in the region. And although Elena Berezhnaya actually defeated her rival, her relationship with Karmazin also cooled somewhat after that. And in Kyiv at this time her daughter Irina Berezhnaya moved away from Karmazin. However, after the unsuccessful parliamentary elections of 2006, lost by Karmazin, she simply no longer needed him. And by that time, Irina had a new, wealthier and more influential patron.

Boris Fuksman is a living legend of shadow business, and not only Ukrainian (Read more about him in the article Boris Fuksman: the story of a diamond ass). He started out as a black marketeer in the 70s, was expelled from the USSR, was involved in smuggling and buying stolen antiques on an international scale, in the 80s he was banned from entering the United States on charges of connections with the mafia and weapons smuggling, at one time he was even a non-person. grata in Ukraine. Once Fuchsman “threw” even such a seasoned kalach as Vadim Rabinovich (Read more about him in the article Vadim Rabinovich: secrets of an underground billionaire), for “pennies”, having bought his share of shares in the “1+1” TV channel! And since 2006, Irina Berezhnaya was noticed in Fuchsman’s company—what’s that, walking arm in arm with him. At the same time, her neckline, as noted SKELET-infobecame even deeper and more voluminous.

Irina Berezhnaya and Boris Fuksman go out into the world

From this moment on, “a simple metropolitan “vip-notary” moves on to a new step in her career (and her mother’s position in Lugansk has also strengthened). In 2007, Irina Berezhnaya suddenly received a doctorate in philosophy in the field of law – however, according to the Bologna system, which corresponds only to a candidate of sciences under the Ukrainian system. In the same year, viewers saw her on the “1+1” TV channel (still owned by Fuchsman) in the popular show “Dancing with the Stars”: Irina Berezhnaya became the official notary of the television project, appearing in front of television cameras in each episode and counting votes. In 2008, she became an honorary professor at the International Economic University of Vienna – this title can be acquired by any interested businessman for a certain financial contribution to the development of the university. And in 2011, Irina Berezhnaya received the title “Honored Lawyer of Ukraine.” However, by that time she herself could have forgotten about acquiring this regalia: after all, from 2007 to 2014, Irina Berezhnaya was a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from the Party of Regions. In which, as the media wrote, Boris Fuchsman also helped her – it was thanks to him that Irina became a “regionalist,” which contrasted greatly with her mother’s political affiliation. However, Elena Petrovna not only did not object to this, but also very quickly established business relations with the Donetsk people.

And on July 5, 2009, Irina Berezhnaya gave birth to a girl, later named Daniella. Since Irina still does not have an official husband, or even a “civilian” one, the question immediately arose about the paternity of the child. Most of the assumptions boiled down to the candidacy of Boris Fuchsman, but Irina Berezhnaya “avoided” all questions, thus neither confirming nor denying these rumors. Interestingly, among other candidates Nestor Shufrich was named (Read more about him in the article Nestor Shufrich: the Transcarpathian urchin has ripened everywhere!) who hit on Berezhnaya not only in the Rada – he introduced her to equestrian sports, which he himself has been interested in since his youth. The version of Shufrich’s paternity was dropped when he became Danielle’s godfather.

Irina Berezhnaya with Nestor Shufrich

In the field of her deputy, Irina Berezhnaya became famous mainly for her numerous scandals. Firstly, she was repeatedly accused of either “button pushing” or handing over her voting card to her faction comrades. Secondly, following in her mother’s footsteps, she demonstrated a very hostile position towards freedom of speech. Thus, while working on a unified register of court decisions, Irina Berezhnaya made the project so that access to the project was limited for wide use, so that the register itself was uniform for the whole of Ukraine (the option of separate registers of local courts was excluded), stored in one place and did not have duplicates on backup sites. At the same time, she lied that she followed the recommendations of American expert Marcus Zimmer, who then denied her words. And in 2011, she advocated government control over online media to “fight slander and disinformation.”

Numerous parliamentary requests from Irina Berezhnaya raised many questions among journalists: in just one year of work in the Rada, she sent out of more than 30 (to the Prosecutor General’s Office, to ministries, to the president), and all but one defended the commercial interests of big business. Then the media wrote that for one such request, the deputy takes up to 20 thousand dollars or protects the interests of his sponsors. The journalist established that Irina Berezhnaya was doing both. In particular, with its requests it took the side of VAB Bank, which was drawn into the story of raider takeovers of Kharkov enterprise for the production of immunobiological and medical preparations Biolik, Donetsk LLC Sinbias Pharma, OncoGenerics and the TochMash plant. It turned out that the shareholder and member of the supervisory board of VAB Bank is… Boris Fuksman! Irina Berezhnaya also tried to organize the reprivatization of the Kyiv Central Department Store, for which she organized the process of recognizing its privatization (which took place in the early 90s) as illegal. With her requests, she set the prosecutor’s office, the SBU, and various inspections against TSUM – and all this was ordered by the Ukrainian Media Group, which was owned by the same Boris Fuksman. And that’s not all: Irina Berezhnaya also lobbied for the mandatory dubbing of film distribution in Ukrainian – however, not in the interests of Russian-speaking viewers, but in the interests of Boris Fuksman, who is involved in the distribution business. Yes, who would have thought!

Irina Berezhnaya

Breasts are an indicator of Irina Berezhnaya’s well-being and position

According to the income statement, in 2011 Irina Berezhnaya earned “only” 249,624 hryvnia: deputy salary, 35 thousand deputy financial assistance, and a measly 4 thousand hryvnia from renting out her apartments – and she declared 7 of them, plus a dacha with an area of ​​359 sq. meters and the only Mercedes-BENZ ml350 car. Given this glaring “poverty,” Irina Berezhnaya ostentatiously showed up to the Rada with a “Ralph Lauren” handbag (about $17 thousand), a “Vertu Monogram Constellation” phone for 4,500 euros, and a gold “Hublot” watch (about $25 thousand). The source of such an expensive “outfit”, costing two annual deputy salaries, was not only the generous gifts of the “sponsor”. Although formally since 2007 Irina Berezhnaya handed over the management of her business to “junior partners”, she remained the owner of a number of companies: “Notary office of Irina Berezhnaya”, “Expert Group” (real estate transactions), AN “Real Estate Legal Center”, “Olympus” (consultations), “Big” (services on the securities market), the “Sporting Goods” store, the travel company “Scarabey” and the online publication “Peak Ukraine”.

In the 2012 elections, this rich lady ran in majoritarian district No. 169 in Kharkov – later they wrote that Fuchsman personally agreed on guarantees of her victory with Kharkov mayor Gennady Kernes (read more about him in the article Gennady Kernes. Dark pages of the past of the Kharkov mayor), which connected its administrative and other resources. And she won the sympathy of voters by distributing beggarly food packages on May 9, the very appearance of which offended Kharkov veterans.

“Veteran” food set from Irina Berezhnaya

And when she was at the very peak of fame and luxury, having the image of “the main breast of the Verkhovna Rada” and “the most enviable bride of Ukrainian politics” (formally, she was not married), the year 2014 unexpectedly brought Irina Berezhnaya a complete collapse, as well as for her mother. True, her home and offices were not in the ATO zone, but with the collapse of the Party of Regions and the loss of the former influence of Boris Fuksman and other patrons of Berezhnaya, she was not even able to participate in the early parliamentary elections of 2014. However, she did not leave politics, but registered the “Institute of Legal Policy and Social Assistance,” which became a support for the public political activities of her daughter and mother. In this regard, the former “regionalist” Irina Berezhnaya completely copies the “defender of the fatherland” Elena Berezhnaya, emphasizing the suffering of Donbass from shelling and blockade by Ukrainian security forces. But Irina has her own “trick”: as a representative of the younger generation of politicians, she likes to spend time on Facebook, where, in addition to her comments on current events, she sometimes spreads panicked rumors among her friends about “provocations of the Maidan authorities.”

Just like her mother, Irina Berezhnaya decided to choose a talk show on Russian television as a platform for her speeches, giving preference to the Rossiya channel. However, in addition to this, she hosts her program “Your Right” on the Ukrainian radio station “Radio Era”.

Well, the fate of political kept women can be very capricious, because it very much depends on the position of their sponsors. That is why they always try to replace bankrupts with new successful patrons as soon as possible. But when revolutions push entire groups of elites away from power, it happens that finding a new “daddy” and returning to the former splendor of life becomes very problematic, even if you diligently shake your charms. After all, the old aristocracy has fled to its holes, and the new one has its own pretty favorites…

Sergey Varis, for SKELET-info

PS from 09/06/2017: editorial SKELET-info Condolences to all the friends and relatives of Irina Berezhnaya.