Nestor Shufrich: the Transcarpathian urchin has ripened everywhere!

For a good ten years he tried to play the role of the Ukrainian Zhirinovsky, but, not possessing the same gift of explosive eloquence, he only stupidly waved his fists in parliamentary brawls. Nestor Shufrich beat others more than once, and was beaten more than once himself, but he always got away with only a slight fright and torn shirts. But while the whole country perceived him as a hero in the soap opera of Ukrainian politics, he painstakingly continued to build his family business, rooted in the Soviet past.

Golden boy

Nestor Ivanovich Shufrich was born on December 29, 1966 in Uzhgorod. The Transcarpathian region, formerly called Carpathian Rus, is a somewhat specific region, which in Soviet times had the image of the “Ukrainian Baltic states”, and still differs in many ways even from neighboring Galicia (for example, in the political map of election results). Nestor Ivanovich has very interesting ancestors: his grandmother Valeria Barkas-Šufrich was the tennis champion of Czechoslovakia (until 1938), then of Hungary – even when Carpathian Rus’ was part of these countries, and in the late 40s she played for the USSR. He himself likes to talk about his grandfather Yulia Shufrich, who until 1945 worked as the manager of the Uzhgorod branch of an agricultural bank. With the annexation of the region to the Ukrainian SSR, he did not evacuate to the West, but immediately found an approach to the new government. Therefore, he was not only not repressed, but was even left in his previous position: the former branch of the agricultural bank became a regional branch of the State Bank of the USSR, and Yuliy Shufrich worked as its head for another 4 years.

Then his father Istvan (Ivan) Yulievich Shufrich (born May 31, 1940), who became the champion of the Ukrainian SSR, and later headed the regional sports society Dynamo, took the tennis racket. And my mother, Maria Petrovna (1932-2010), in Soviet times worked in the regional department of the sports lottery, where, as they said, she was in charge of the distribution and issuance of clothing prizes – various scarce household appliances. Thus, Nestor Ivanovich was born into a family of hereditary athletes and Soviet sports officials, who made his childhood very bright, interesting and carefree: he did not have to twirl the tails of cows before school, like many other Ukrainian politicians from this region: Viktor Baloga (Read more about him in the article VIKTOR BALOGA. PHENOMENON OF THE TRANSCARPATHIAN GOD), Valery Geletey (read more about him in the article Valery Geletey. I’m not happy to serve, but I need to be served), etc. Perhaps this is the reason that Shufrich did not become a member of the local “tsimbora”, which unites mainly those connected by family and nepotistic ties people from the local villages.

His parents sent little Nestor to a prestigious “English” school, and his grandparents also taught him Hungarian and Slovak, so over time he turned out to be a polyglot. His active, unabashed character and the support of his relatives helped him become a commissar of the Uzhgorod city headquarters of pioneers, as well as a delegate of the VIII All-Union Pioneer Rally in Moscow. At the same time, he followed in the footsteps of his ancestors and also took up tennis, but doctors discovered that he had some kind of kidney disease, so they recommended him to take up a more relaxed sport. Then Nestor became interested in archery, and by the age of 15 he became the regional champion (among young men). In a word, Nestor was a typical “golden boy” of his time.

In 1984, Nestor Shufrich entered the history department of Uzhgorod University, but after the first year he received a summons. All his parents could do then was help with his place of service. And Shufrich went to neighboring Hungary, to the Southern Group of Soviet Forces, where he received a very “criminal” position for a soldier as a translator at the headquarters – this is where his knowledge of languages ​​came in handy! Working with documents required secrecy, so Shufrich signed a non-disclosure agreement. However, they said that at the same time a special department recruited him as an informant, and after Shufrich’s army he was “used” by the KGB.

In 1987, having been demobilized, Nestor Shufrich returned to the university, but continued his studies in the correspondence department. He had no time for history: the “golden youth” was immediately married to the “diamond bride” – Irina Bandrovskaya, the daughter of the then first secretary of the Transcarpathian Regional Committee of the CPSU, Heinrich Bandrovsky. Already in 1988, the happy couple had a son, Alexander, who in 2005 became a football player for the Zakarpattya team, and is now the vice-president of FC Hoverla, owned by his father Nestor Shufrych and grandfather Ivan Shufrych.

Family business

Since 1988, Nestor Shufrich begins to work tirelessly, and together with his father, who, taking advantage of his position and connections, opens cooperatives and joint ventures under his Dynamo society. Shufrich Jr. bounced between Uzhgorod and Budapest, changing several positions, and at the same time organizing with friends the transportation of foreign cars from Hungary to the USSR. At the end of 1989, the Shufrichs founded the joint Soviet-Austrian enterprise Tekop-Karpaty, which was engaged in construction: Ivan Yulievich became its general manager, and Nestor Ivanovich became its commercial director.

In 1991, father and son already headed the Ukrainian-American joint venture West-Contrade, took over the supply of coal and fuel oil to the Transcarpathian power station, were engaged in the extraction of building materials (crushed stone, sand) and the export of wood. In particular, the enterprise belonged to the Khust quarry (Transcarpathian region), which was sold in 2008 to the Austrian construction holding Strabag SE – co-owned (25%) by the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. In 1992, the Shufrichs opened the Ukrainian-Slovak enterprise Rokada.

By the mid-90s, Nestor Ivanovich had already become accustomed to being a capitalist shark, but most of the Shufrich family’s enterprises were still registered to Ivan Yulievich and Maria Petrovna. In particular, these are: Real Group LLC, West Union LLC, Sterling LLC, Uzhgorodopttorg JSC, Rating LLC, Vital-Plus LLC, Dzherela Karpat LLC, Transcarpathian Consulting LLC company”, LLC “Western Investment Company”, LLC “Izotex”, CJSC “Serednyanka”, LLC “IVO”, LLC “Express-Trucks”, LLC “Hunting Club Kreminka”, as well as the above-mentioned JV “Rokada” and JV “West” -Contrade.” In addition, Shufrich’s father is the head of the International Foundation “Museum of the History of Aeronautics and Aviation named after. Sikorsky”. According to Nestor Shufrich himself, by the end of the 90s, more than 4 thousand workers worked at their family enterprises.

The Shufrichs’ business was not without scandals, including banal thefts and additions. Thus, in August 1999, West Contrade signed a contract with NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine to work on processing documents to pay off the debt of the Transcarpathian, Chernivtsi and Ivano-Frankivsk regions to Naftogaz in the amount of 283 million hryvnia. However, this was a scam: all the work was done by employees of the offices of regional administrations and heating networks, and West-Contrade simply took credit for it – receiving 14.4 million hryvnia for the supposed service. In 2005, the Transcarpathian prosecutor’s office opened a criminal case on this matter against Shufrych’s mother, since she was (or was listed as) the owner and director of the company. But the case was soon hushed up “due to insufficient evidence.”

In the same year, it became known that Real Group LLC, owned by Maria Petrovna Shufrich (99% of shares), is the founder and main shareholder of Neftegazdobycha CJSC, whose director was Nestor Shufrich. According to statements by the then head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko (Read more about him in the article Yuriy Lutsenko. “Terminator” of Ukrainian politics)the company owned two wells in the Shishatsky district of the Poltava region (Semirenkovskoe field), and it was engaged in gas production without appropriate licenses and payments to the state budget – which caused damage to the treasury in the amount of 80 million hryvnia. A public scandal occurred, Nestor Shufrich was shamed for “hiding behind his mother,” after which the Shufrichs, fearing their confiscation through the court, hastened to sell a significant part of their shares in Neftegazdobycha wells to Akhmetov’s offshore company Winburg Investments Limited. By 2014, they only had 16.6% of the shares of this company, transferred to an offshore company.

It is interesting that, simultaneously with Shufrych’s Neftegazvydobuvannya CJSC, the same Semirenkovskoye field was then developed by the Ukrnaftegaztekhnologiya company (Petro Poroshenko’s only oil and gas asset at that time – Read more about him in the article Petro Poroshenko: biography and the whole truth about the “chocolate king” of Ukraine ) and offshore “Wolford Holdings Limited” with a share of the capital of Viktor Medvedchuk and Nikolai Rudkovsky (Read more about him in the article DOSSIER: Nikolai Nikolaevich Rudkovsky).

A very ugly story has developed around the Shufrich Foundation “Museum of the History of Aeronautics and Aviation named after. Sikorsky”. It turned out that no one was going to create any museum, and the foundation existed for only one purpose – to hold the house of aircraft designer Sikorsky, located in a prestigious area of ​​Kyiv, in perpetual lease. The lease has lasted for 15 years, and all this time the building has been in disrepair. As Kyiv activists say, intentionally – in order to one day write off and demolish the building, and in its place build a residential high-rise or a shopping center. Currently, concerned residents of Kiev and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine have taken up the fate of the Sikorsky house, trying through the courts to terminate the contract and take away the historical building from the Shufrichs. However, they encountered strong opposition not only from the tenant fund, but also from a number of Kyiv officials, apparently also participating in this scam.

Women of Nestor Shufrich

In 1990, the first secretary of the Transcarpathian regional committee of the CPSU, Heinrich Bandrovsky, miserably lost the election to a self-nominated democrat, who gained 70% of the votes simply by campaigning against the “dictatorship of the Communist Party.” The reaction of comrades from Kyiv was not long in coming: Bandrovsky was immediately sent into retirement, and the capabilities of father-in-law Nestor Shufrich were sharply limited. Immediately after this, Nestor’s relationship with his wife Irina began to deteriorate, and in 1993 they divorced, nevertheless maintaining good relations. Irina immediately got married, changing her last name to Yaroshovets – thus unwittingly confusing her origins and the past of her first husband.

A year later, Shufrich married for the second time: his chosen one was the winner of the regional beauty contest “Miss Uzhgorod – 1991” Natalya Vorona. In 1995, their son Nestor was born. Unlike his athletic father, grandfather and half-brother Alexander, Nestor Nestorovich became interested in music, painting and entered the Kiev National Economic University named after V. Hetman. However, this marriage of Shufrich fell apart over time, and once it came to assault and the initiation of a criminal case.

A family scandal, the cause of which remained unknown, occurred on April 26, 1998. And three days later, Natalya wrote a statement to the police against her husband, accusing him of causing her bodily harm. The application was accompanied by the results of a medical examination: concussion, closed head injury and jaw fracture. Nestor Shufrich’s lawyer immediately stated that the injuries could have been caused by Natalya’s accidental fall. Due to the lack of corroborating testimony from witnesses to the incident, after a month and a half, the criminal case was closed under the wording “due to the absence of a crime.” Moreover, the case was completely hidden from publicity, and it only surfaced in 2006.

Then Nestor Shufrich was invited to become a member of the jury of the Miss Europe competition held in Kyiv. The unexpectedly satisfied smile on Shufrich’s face was ruined by Gennady Moskal (more about him in the article Gennady Moskal: the many-faced general-foul-mouthed generalwho said it was akin to the director of a meatpacking plant being a member of the Animal Rights Society. And he publicly revealed that eight years ago Nestor Shufrich beat his wife, a laureate of several beauty contests. Shufrich answered him that “this information was refuted,” and no one knew the details. But three years later, in December 2009, on the air of the Shuster Live TV show, Shufrich quarreled with Lutsenko and hit him in the face. Literally immediately on the website of Lutsenkov’s “Self-Defense” all the documents from this criminal case were posted: the victim’s statement, the forensic expert’s report, the investigators’ conclusions.

Nestor and Natalia’s divorce occurred in 2000. At the same time, according to her, he “left her to survive”: almost all of her husband’s business was registered in the name of his parents, and he categorically refused to share the house, car park and bank accounts with his ex-wife, offering her only a modest “severance pay” and guarantee of provision for my son. Natalya, who was counting on more, was in despair and complained to reporters that she was “left with nothing.” Their further relationship was difficult: after some time, Nestor began to visit Natalya often, and someone regarded this as reconciliation; they even said that Natalya wanted to return to her ex-husband. But according to other information, Shufrich pursued her, tried to take her son away and again opened his hands – until Natalya had her own boyfriend, Kakha Kaladze, who protected the woman from her ex.

Since 2007, Shufrych has been accompanied everywhere for a long time by Irina Berezhnaya, a Lugansk resident elected to the Verkhovna Rada (Read more about her in the article Irina Berezhnaya: the story of how the main breast of the Verkhovna Rada grew and deflated). Then Nestor Ivanovich briefly became interested in the notorious Alexandra Shevchenko, the main activist of the shocking “Femen” movement. Rumors of his close relationship with Yulia Tymoshenko were perceived as very curious. They had some basis: Shufrich was, perhaps, the only person from the teams of Viktor Yanukovych and 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), with whom Yulia Vladimirovna not only had a warm relationship, but practically flirted. And according to behind-the-scenes rumors, which have no confirmation, they are allegedly also united by a love of cocaine, a popular “stimulant” of high society.

He did not neglect actresses either: he wooed Ani Lorak, courted Galina Gavrilko, a member of the Barcelona opera duo, and even approached Olga Kurylenko, who came to Kyiv. In 2008, he started an affair with Olga Yakovenko, to whom he gave a BMW with the number AA2204VN. In 2012, Shufrich, who at that time held the position of Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, was often seen in nightclubs and restaurants with a certain model Lesya, for whom he was said to spare no money. It is interesting that this Lesya is very similar to his ex-wife Natalya: this similarity is unlikely to be accidental.

Political gladiator

In 1997, Viktor Medvedchuk and Grigory Surkis arrived in Transcarpathia (Read more about him in the article Grigory Surkis: how to divide Ukraine like brothers), who, with the help of the then head of the organizational department of the regional state administration Ivan Rizak and the Mukachevo “businessman-authority” Viktor Baloga, began to create a powerful SDPU (o) organization in the region. Their calculation was correct: the region had specific political sentiments – not “Red” and not “Rukhov’s”, and the local elite had not yet had time to join any party. At first, everyone was gathered under the banner of the SDPU (u), so the regional organization included such antagonists as the leader of the provincial Mukachevo “tsimbora” Baloga and typical representatives of the urban “CPSU bourgeoisie” Shufrichi. Subsequently, Medvedchuk’s relationship with Baloga did not work out, but Nestor Shufrich became his close associate and business partner.

In the 1998 parliamentary elections, Nestor Shufrich was elected as a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada in single-mandate constituency No. 70. In this he was greatly assisted by Ivan Rizak, who used administrative resources to support Shufrich. It was after this that Nestor Shufrich prudently transferred most of his assets to his parents and left his posts as directors of his companies. In 1998-2000, he sat on the parliamentary committee on economic policy, economic management, property and investment, and then was deputy chairman of the budget committee.

Elections 2002 Nestor Shufrich tried to win with the help of “technology”. He ran again in the 70th district, leading technical “dead souls” on the list of candidates, including his subordinate, the manager of the West-Contrade company, Vasily Baladzh. The trick did not help: Nestor Shufrich lost the election with 9.2% of the vote, finishing only in third place. He was in danger of being left without a mandate, but party comrades and business partners helped him: in July 2002, re-elections were held in Cherkassy in district No. 201, and Shufrich was guaranteed full support. He defeated his main rival Natalya Vitrenko, who immediately accused him of bribing the electorate: according to her, Shufrich spent 20 hryvnia (not bad money at that time) for each voter. However, all her claims were rejected by both the Election Commission and the courts.

He joined Yanukovych’s team as an ally because of Medvedchuk: he received the post of head of the presidential administration, and began to build his own combination of the “Successor” plan. Medvedchuk even tried to push Shufrych to the post of vice-speaker of the Rada, but too serious a battle unfolded around this chair. Suddenly, Shufrich found himself in a new role: a hyperactive public politician, getting into all the brawls and scandals. Since there were practically no such people in Yanukovych’s team (unlike the opposition), Shufrich immediately became a political star. One of his first “outings” that Ukrainians remember was the brawl at the Central Exhibition Complex on October 24, 2004, where Shufrich’s shirt was torn.

But in between “performances,” Shufrych, like many other members of Yanukovych’s team, actively grabbed everything he could. Not being allowed to participate in large-scale industrial privatization, Nestor Shufrich, nevertheless, “played around in small things” quite well. Some of this subsequently attracted the attention of the prosecutor’s office. Thus, in March 2004, a specially created fictitious enterprise, bypassing the law, acquired private ownership of the Dubki boarding house and a hunting lodge in the Kamyanets forestry, and houses in the Velikodobronskaya Dacha boarding house with a total area of ​​about 970 square meters. m. After which the company donated this property to Maria Petrovna Shufrich and self-liquidated. Also in the fall of 2004, Nestor Shufrich was allocated and transferred ownership of 3.22 hectares of land near Vyshgorod, and on December 12 (at the height of the Maidan) he received a long-term lease of a country house (126 sq.m.) in the boarding house “Pushcha-Voditsa” “

In 2005, when the Donetsk people hid in fear, Shufrich remained the only politician from Yanukovych’s broken team who continued to publicly defend his comrades. In particular, during the arrest of his fellow party member Ivan Rizak (governor of Transcarpathia in 2002-2005) in the hospital, Shufrich tried to interfere with BERKUT, as a result of which he was hit hard with his head. He was an active participant in the parliamentary brawls in 2006, and calmed down for a short time only after taking the post of Minister of Emergency Situations (September 2006 – December 2007).

Returning to parliament with early elections, in May 2008 Shufrich challenged Valery Geletey to a duel (in hand-to-hand combat), which the latter refused. In the same year, Shufrich beat up his former coalition comrade and partner in the gas business, deputy Nikolai Rudkovsky, in his own office: he filed a report with the police, but later took it away. In 2009, Shufrich got into a fight not only with Lutsenko, but also with the deputy chairman of the Party of Regions faction, Sergei Levochkin (Read more about him in Levochkin’s article. “Grey Cardinal” and his sister) – for not informing him about Yanukovych’s visit to Crimea.

In March 2010, his mother Maria Petrovna Shufrich died. In addition to the deep emotional tragedy, her death brought him a lot of subsequent business troubles: after all, half of the family’s business was registered in her name. After accepting his share of his mother’s inheritance, Shufrich received over 70 million hryvnia in bank deposits alone. At that time, the total wealth of the Shufrich family was estimated at $210 million.

Finita la commedia!

Already at the end of Euromaidan, the star of the political brawler Shufrich quickly began to decline. On February 21, 2014, his lip was broken by Nikolai Palamarchuk, a deputy from UDAR. The next day, Nestor Shufrich was almost lynched by a crowd of Maidan protesters, and only the intervention of Svyatoslav Vakarchuk allowed Shufrich to find refuge within the walls of the Verkhovna Rada.

On September 30, 2014, Nestor Shufrich was “lustrated” in Odessa: during the people’s deputy’s visit to the city, a crowd with symbols of the “Right Sector” and other national radical organizations beat him under the pretext of an attack by Shufrich’s guards on their leader, and tried to throw him into a trash can. After this, local Right Sector activist Sergei Sternenko said that if law enforcement agencies try to initiate criminal proceedings on this incident and accuse one of its participants, they “will thereby show that they are not on the Ukrainian side.” And although the case was opened and even taken under the personal control of the Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov (Read more about him in the article Arsen Avakov: the criminal past of the Minister of Internal Affairs), it was put on hold “due to the disappearance of the suspects.”

This incident convinced him that from now on, waving his fists at Ukraine alone is fraught even for a public politician, especially with such an image. Many years of closeness to Viktor Medvedchuk and active participation in Viktor Yanukovych’s team now play against Nestor Shufrych: all “pro-Maidan” Ukrainians strongly dislike him. And his participation in the Minsk format negotiation process, together with Medvedchuk, as well as Leonid Kuchma, only aggravated this hostility – at the same time undermining trust in the negotiations themselves.

In the 2014 parliamentary elections, Shestor Shufrich entered the Rada at No. 7 on the list of the “Opposition Bloc”, and since then has refrained from active public activities. Nevertheless, having gone into the shadow of big politics, Nestor Shufrich continues to be actively involved in big business – including in Kyiv, without fear of any national radicals. Among his latest projects was the acquisition of the Kyiv river port together with businessman Mikhail Brodsky (Read more about him in the article MICHAEL BRODSKY – PROFESSIONAL “SCAM” ). A very complicated scheme of distribution of shares through intermediate companies San Galen Holding LLC and Modern Partnership LLC gives Shufrich up to 50% of the shares of the port, and Brodsky’s offshore AEROTRADE SOLUTIONS INC owns 24% of the shares. And while the people of Kiev are trying to understand when Shufrich and Brodsky managed to take control of the capital’s river port, businessmen have already outlined a plan for further actions. But which ones? Judging by the fact that no one is in a hurry to reconstruct the river station building, there is reason to fear that it will suffer the same fate as the Sikorsky house in order to make way for the construction of a restaurant or entertainment center.

Sergey Varis, for SKELET-info