You're reading: Richest Expats: Bohdan Batruch

Bohdan Batruch, 52; $83 million; #3 Richest.

Bohdan Batruch runs a film business with 400 employees. The company’s interests include B&H, which distributes films; Le Doyen Studio, a Ukrainian-language dubbing company; and Kino Palats, a cinema chain. Besides that, he sells advertising for films.

Bohdan Batruch (Courtesy photo)

An ethnic Ukrainian born in Poland, Batruch has been responsible for dubbing many of the films shown in Ukrainian cinemas for such leading movie companies as Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks and Disney.

His stellar year was in 2006, when his film distribution company dubbed Cars, a Disney cartoon production. The film immediately became a hit, even in Russian-speaking parts of the country, where viewers lauded the Ukrainian version’s superiority to the Russian-language version.

It costs $20,000 to $100,000 to dub a film. Batruch on average pays out $5 million annually to actors alone for reading scripts in studios. “The trick to dubbing films in Ukrainian is to do it in such a way that the viewer forgets what language they’re listening,” Batruch said.

“I don’t own a car. I’d rather spend money at a three-star Michelin-rated restaurant and enjoy every morsel on my plate.”

– Bohdan Batruch.

But he stressed the seriousness of language dubbing in Ukraine by comparing it to the divisive choice Ukrainians may face over whether to join the NATO military alliance. “People discuss dubbing (in Ukrainian or Russian) as if they are choosing whether to join NATO,” he said.

Batruch first came to Ukraine on business as the primary agent for setting up a banknote factory outside of Kyiv in 1992. He took a three percent cut, which he used to start a film distribution company, the first to enter the market, when Ukraine passed a copyright law in 1994.

He was integral in advocating for the copyright law on behalf of the American Motion Picture Association. But in those years, there were only four modern cinemas operating in Ukraine. So in 1998, with $700,000 of his own money, Batruch opened the first Kinopalats cinema, the nation’s first modern theater with Dolby surround sound, popcorn machines and air conditioning.

Batruch now controls in part or wholly 15 Kinopalats cinemas throughout Ukraine.

He is a fan of good food, contemporary art and architecture and sponsors many artists.

But when it comes to cars, he differs dramatically from many affluent people in Ukraine.