The high life and times of Chernovetskiy

As Kyiv’s mayor, Leonid Chernovetskiy earned the glory of a paradoxical personality.

n a black tuxedo with a parliamentary deputy badge on his satin lapel, received the title of Honored Lawyer of Ukraine in 1997 from then­President Leonid Kuchma at Mariyinskiy Palace.

As Kyiv’s mayor, Chernovetskiy earned the glory of a paradoxical personality. On the one hand, he isn’t afraid to make surprising, ambiguous and sometimes ridiculous statements; on the other hand, he is a successful businessman who created Pravex, a multi­million dollar empire, and bring the Kyiv City Council to heel.

“Today Chernovetskiy is a complex mix of money, ambition, political tactics and populism, and it is difficult to say which component dominates,” said Kost Bondarenko, a Kyiv political insider.

“He jests openly and understands that his unpredictable image as a merry mayor has its advantages. In reality, he is a pragmatic, tough businessman, and a shrewd strategist and tactician.”

The mayor’s past is shrouded in mystery and rumors, some of which Chernovetskiy himself has created. This is especially true about the stories on how he made his first million.

Chernovetskiy was born in Kharkiv. His mother, Paraska Goncharova, raised him, and according to the mayor himself, his father died when he was very young. In his childhood, he was a tough hooligan. “I would have been surprised to find out that another person had the same fate as I did,” he said.

“In secondary school, I was a C student. There wasn’t a single B in my secondary school certificate. Teachers were afraid of me and my actions filled the whole district with concern – everyone was afraid of me. I had to repeat grades and I finished evening school only at the age of 19.”

Chernovetskiy served in the internal forces during his years of military service in the Dnipropetrovsk oblast. For his good service, Chernovetskiy received a referral to study at Kharkiv Law College. There he met his future wife, an Armenian by the name of Alina Ayvazova. At that time, her father, Stepan Ayvazov, was an illegal Soviet­ era entrepreneur. The marriage transformed Chernorvetskiy into a good student and promising lawyer.

Upon graduation, the young couple moved to Kyiv. Chernovetskiy received a position as a chief investigator at the Kyiv oblast prosecutor’s office, working there for four years. He specialized in investigations into government corruption, such as bribery and embezzlement of state property. “Investigating crimes in the civil service or construction, I became convinced that the higher position a criminal has, the more difficult it is to punish him,” recalled Chernovetskiy.

“I learned a sad lesson from the experience — expose the crimes of high­placed authorities and that will lead to losing one’s job.”

Exactly why Chernovetskiy left the prosecutor’s office is unknown. Some said he was forced to leave his job, while he said he simply decided to engage in science. Regardless of the reasons, he and his family returned to Kharkiv where he entered a postgraduate program and wrote a dissertation, “Methodology of investigating crimes related to violating duties.” Having successfully defended it, Chernovetskiy returned to the capital and took a lecturing position at the law faculty at Shevchenko National University.

He also started a consulting business, “Law, Economy, Sociology,” with his university colleagues, which later became Pravex.

“I made my first million in 1992. At the beginning, business wasn’t good, and there was little need for legal consulting then,” said Chernovetskiy. “At the end of 1991, the law firm started to work. It is true, though it was small money. Then there were quite a number of different projects – hard currency stores, real estate and antique auction organizations.”

The first wave of mass immigration from the now independent Ukraine started at this time. People said Chernovetskiy’s business was actively involved in buying up real estate and other property from those who wanted to leave the country for good. The company helped to transfer people’s money to foreign bank accounts for a 25 percent commission. Having made good money on this, the future mayor opened one of the first real estate exchanges in the country and called it Khrystyna, in honor of his only daughter. He opened a chain of exchange stores throughout Kyiv.

“We all started by speculating,” Hennadiy Balashov told Novynar. “They were such times. Long before opening antique shops, Alina Stepanovna and Irena Kilchytska were carrying big bags with consumer goods from Turkey to sell in Pravex stores. Only later did they open elite shops, a bank and companies. We all started in the same way.”

The first time he realized he was a millionaire was in the mid­90s, according to Chernovetskiy. “Swimming in a hotel pool abroad, I suddenly realized that my value was several tens of millions of dollars,” he recalled. “I calculated the money that was kept in different places and told my wife, ‘We are rich people’.”

Having acquired a taste for money, Chernovetskiy indulged his craving for luxury. The Chernovetskiys bought their first Mercedes­Benz 600 in 1993 and along the way bought a BMW, Honda and two other Mercedes­Benzes.

All the autos are registered with Pravex Bank, whose car fleet now has about 20 top­end vehicles, including a $300,000 Mercedes­Benz SLR McLaren and a $650,000 Maybach, in which Chernovetskiy fatally ran over a pedestrian.

“He has always had a tsar’s whims,” Balashov said. In the 1990s, Chernovetskiy built a $1.5 million, 108­room mansion designed by a German architect.

“I sold the mansion, I lost interest in it, and now I live in a two­room apartment again,” said Chernovetskiy. Actually, the mayor’s apartment occupies an entire floor of an old Stalinka on Lva Tolstoho.

He hasn’t been lucky creating lasting political parties. His “For A Beautiful Ukraine”, “Christian­Liberal Union,” and “Labor Solidarity of Ukraine” parties all collapsed largely due to his nature.

“Chernovetskiy always wants to direct everything himself,” Balashov said. “A party is a collective body, but he is a person on his own. Now he has gathered young boys around him who worship him, and he treats them like children. If anyone starts acting independently, they’re immediately kicked off the team. He needs to dominate completely.”

What Chernovetskiy says and does has to be distinguished clearly, Balashov said.

“He is difficult to communicate with, he is constantly immersed in his own thoughts and it is difficult get his attention,” Balashov said.

“Either you cave in to him completely or your cooperation with him won’t last,” he said, adding that the mayor hates lectures and is fond of saying “I am here to teach you.”

The Minister of Internal Affairs Yuri Lutsenko accused Stepan Chernovetskiy, the mayor’s son, of being involved in the Elite Center multi­million dollar swindle.

“Investigators have testimony of the convicted financial director of Elite Center, confirming the serious role of Chernovetskiy’s son in this affair,” stated Lutsenko.

Later Kyrilo Kulikov, a parliamentary deputy from Our­Ukraine People’s Self­Defense Bloc and former head of Interpol Ukraine, released a video of a party hosted by Elite Center’s founder Oleksandr Volkonskiy, which shows Stepan Chernovetskiy in attendace.

In November 2003, Chernovetskiy ran over a 20 year­old man on the Kyiv­Obukhiv highway. The case was obstensibly closed because the pedestrian was illegally trying to cross the road.

Another Pravex­registered car hit and killed a 15­year­old boy in April 2003. The mayor’s wife’s driver, Hennadiy Samsonov, was behind the wheel of the Mercedes­Benz 600 and Alina Ayvazova was the passenger. At the time, Leonid Chernovetskiy stated that he didn’t own the car, but journalists were able to establish it belonged to Pravex.

Chernovetskiy has used the mayor’s seat to take care of his businesses. In July 2007, the Kyiv City Council approved a project involving a 28 hectare land plot in the Dniprovskiy district of Kyiv for a 15­year lease to Vulkan­Pravex, whose founders include companies controlled by Chernovetskiy.

Later, the City Council transferred a plot of land in a prestigious district for residential construction to Hosp­Torh, which incidentally is controlled by Denys Komarnytskiy, the head of the Chernovetskiy Bloc in the Kyiv City Council.

Despite the land grab schemes that led to the snap elections, Kyivans don’t seem to be holding it against the incumbent. It’s unanimous among political observers expect Chernovetskiy will remain at the helm of the Ukrainian capital.