Chervonenko Evgeny Alfredovich refers to the type of people who are used to succeed in different fields. He reached heights as a businessman, race car driver, politician. Of course, Evgeny Chervonenko was very difficult to achieve. The biography and personal life of this person will be the subject of our study.
Childhood
Evgeny Chervonenko was born in December 1959 in the city of Dnepropetrovsk, in a Jewish family of professor of the Dnepropetrovsk Mining Institute Alfred Chervonenko. Evgeni Alfredovich’s mother was the daughter of the vice-rector at the same institute as her husband, Israel, Solomonovich Marshak, who, in turn, was the cousin of the famous children's writer Samuel Yakovlevich Marshak. The family was still the youngest son - Igor, about whom E. A. Chervonenko always spoke very warmly.
Chervonenko Evgeny Alfredovich in 1977 graduated from school number 23, at that time the most prestigious in Dnepropetrovsk. His classmate was the future famous businessman Eduard Shifrin. A year later, the future billionaire and son-in-law of President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma Viktor Pinchuk graduated from the same school.
While studying at school, Evgeny Chervonenko was distinguished by especially good knowledge of mathematics, as evidenced by regular victories in mathematical olympiads. While studying in Dnepropetrovsk, he also simultaneously graduated in absentia from a physics and mathematics school in Moscow, which was subordinate to the Physics and Technology Institute.
Youth
After graduating from school, Evgeny Chervonenko enters the Institute of Geology, located in his hometown, and studies engineering. Initially, he tried to enter the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, which oversaw the school in absentia of Chervonenko, but did not go through the competition. According to Yevgeny Alfredovich himself, this was due to his nationality. At that time in the USSR there was an unwritten order to admit a limited number of Jewish students to universities.
Despite the fact that, thanks to his excellent academic performance, Eugene received a high Lenin scholarship for those times, he also worked as a driver at the Autotrans organization, as a locksmith, worked as a laboratory assistant. Evgeny Alfredovich successfully graduated from high school in 1982.
After graduation, he worked as an engineer in the design department of the Dnepromashobogashchenie enterprise in Dnepropetrovsk. There, he established himself as a true professional, and even wrote a dissertation.
Racing career
Over time, Yevgeny Chervonenko realized that after all, engineering was not his field. From early childhood, he was reverent about cars and dreamed of becoming a race car driver. At the amateur level (and there simply couldn’t be another in the USSR) Evgeny Chervonenko began to engage in motorsport while still at university. In 1980, he enrolled in the section of this sports discipline. Already in 1981, he was included in the national team of the Ukrainian SSR.
In 1983 Chervonenko won the titles of the winner of the sports and athletics championship of the Ukrainian SSR. In 1985, he became a member of the USSR national team and received the title of master of sports. He participated in the championships of the USSR and Europe, where he won prizes and became the winner. In 1988, Eugene Alfredovich became the champion of the USSR Sports and Athletics, and a year later received the title of master of sports of international class.
Meanwhile, the country was going through a period of significant changes in leadership policy and public life. No wonder this period acquired the name "Perestroika". In those years, significant concessions took place in the field of human rights and freedoms, it was allowed to engage in small business and professional sports. Until then, all Soviet athletes were considered amateurs.
At the end of 1986, Evgeny Chervonenko became one of the first professional race car drivers in the USSR. Already at the turn of 1987 and 1988, he became one of the organizers of the first Soviet professional racing team, which had a symbolic name - Perestroika. Help in the formation of the team Evgeny Alfredovich provided his companion Alexander Salyuk. Rumor has it that the organization of a professional team, the activity of which was based on self-financing, became real thanks to the personal meeting of Evgeny Chervonenko with USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev, organized by high-ranking friends of the race car driver.
First steps in business
Having organized a professional team, Evgeny Alfredovich realized that entrepreneurship in the new economic conditions is a very promising area for activity. In parallel with the racing team, he created a transportation service company called Transrally. In fact, both organizations were parts of the same structure. The income from the competitions in which the racing team took part was sent to the development of a freight company.
Thus, Evgeny Chervonenko became one of the first people in the USSR who successfully began to do business. According to Yevgeny Alfredovich himself, he became a millionaire back in Soviet times.
Further success in entrepreneurship
Over time, Chervonenko realized the need to expand the scope of activities. In 1992, after Ukraine adopted the Declaration of Independence, Yevgeny Alfredovich co-founded the Lviv Van Pur enterprise, which was the first in the former USSR to manufacture canned beer. In 1994, he became chairman of the board of Rogan Van Pur company, and a year later he became chairman of the Ukraine Van Pur group of companies.
Evgeny Chervonenko was not going to stop there. “Ukraine Van Pur” has gained more and more confident positions in the domestic beer market.
In 1995, Evgeny Chervonenko achieved a new peak, becoming a member of the Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. After he is a member of the board of this respected organization, he also becomes the chairman of one of the commissions.
In 1997, Yevgeny Alfredovich is a member of the Council of Entrepreneurs, which operates under the Government of Ukraine, becomes a member of the Federation of Employers, and the next year - an adviser to the President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma.
In 1997, the Orlan concern appeared. In it until 2000, inclusive, he holds the post of president and is its actual owner. After 2000, in connection with his departure to the civil service, Evgeny Alfredovich became the honorary president of Orlan, and his second wife Margarita Chervonenko and brother Igor received the actual management of the company. This state of affairs persisted until 2007. Chervonenko’s wife served as president of the concern, but then the couple divorced, which led to the loss of her status in the company.
Public service
In 2000, Evgeny Alfredovich was appointed chairman of the State Agency for Material Resource Management. It was a time of new opportunities for Evgeny Chervonenko. Goskomrezerv became another significant milestone in his biography. This was the first position in the public service, in which he was until 2001.
During this period, the Goskomrezerv contributed in every way to the development of Igor Chervonenko’s company, but Yevgeny Alfredovich never received allegations of corruption from official bodies.
In 2001, Evgeny Chervonenko was fired. This decision was motivated by the need to reorganize the Goskomrezerv, but everyone understood that this was actually due to the resignation of the cabinet of ministers Viktor Yushchenko.
The beginning of a political career
After leaving the civil service, Evgeny Chervonenko plunged into political activity. Being non-partisan, in 2002 he participated in the elections to the Verkhovna Rada according to the lists of the Our Ukraine bloc. The party took first place in the election, and Yevgeny Alfredovich, who occupied the thirtieth position in the list, became a deputy of the Ukrainian parliament.
During his stay in the Verkhovna Rada, he served as secretary of the construction and transport committee, and also joined several inter-parliamentary relations groups.
Then a major scandal erupted. The authorities accused Chervonenko of having Israeli citizenship, and therefore demanded that Yevgeny Alfredovich be deprived of the Ukrainian parliament and citizenship, since dual citizenship is prohibited under Ukrainian law.
Presidential Election and Orange Revolution
In the 2004 presidential election, as expected, Chervonenko supported Viktor Yushchenko, in whose prime minister he managed the State Committee for Reserves, and now was in the parliamentary faction led by him. Moreover, he largely financed the election campaign and was its treasurer.
After the current Prime Minister of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych won the presidential election by the initial voting results, Yevgeny Chervonenko took an active part in the large-scale protest movement, which disputed the reliability of the vote counting, which was called the Orange Revolution. In particular, he led the guard of V. Yushchenko.
The opposition managed to get an additional round of elections, during which Viktor Yushchenko won.
Government Activities
After the so-called “orange coalition” came to power, Yevgeny Chervonenko could reasonably count on a ministerial portfolio or other senior position, since he himself had put a lot of effort and money into winning Viktor Yushchenko in the election.
At first, Evgeny Alfredovich was offered to take the post of Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but he refused this post. However, after some time he said that he regrets this decision. Since February 2005, he headed the Ministry of Transport and Communications.
One of the first steps in the new post of Evgeny Chervonenko was the decision to break all contracts with contractors signed by his predecessors. According to him, after signing new, really profitable contracts, budget revenues will increase significantly. He also conducted a series of anti-corruption checks at the ministry that revealed a whole bunch of abuses. In turn, the press voiced accusations of corruption of Yevgeny Alfredovich himself, but no factual evidence was ever provided.
In December 2005, the cabinet of Yulia Tymoshenko resigned, thus, Yevgeny Chervonenko lost his seat, and the Ministry of Transport - the head. Then he headed the Automobile Federation of Ukraine.
Governor
Nevertheless, Chervonenko did not remain without work in the public service. He received the post of head of the Zaporizhzhya regional administration, or, as the people say, the governor. It is possible that Viktor Yushchenko’s decision on this appointment was influenced by Chervonenko’s close acquaintance with the owners of Zaporizhstal, Alex Schneider and Eduard Shifrin. With the latter, as mentioned above, Evgeny Alfredovich even studied in the same class.
Despite fears that the appointment of one of the leaders of the Orange Revolution as the head of the region, who supports Yanukovych as a whole, may cause discontent among the population, Yevgeny Chervonenko’s governorship was fairly calm. On his part, there was also no provocation of the local elite. The only nuance that could give rise to a conflict was the installation in Zaporozhye under the direct patronage of E. A. Chervonenko, a monument to the victims of the Holodomor. But the conflict never broke out.
The former Minister of Transport held the chair of the head of the regional administration until December 2007.
Further career
The resignation from the post of governor of the Zaporizhzhya region, most likely, was associated with the return of Yulia Tymoshenko to the prime minister's chair.
Since December 2007, Chervonenko was entrusted with an important mission - to be the head of the National Agency for the organization of the European Football Championship, which was supposed to be held in Ukraine in 2012. However, at the end of 2008 the agency was liquidated.
After that, Evgeny Alfredovich, at the suggestion of the Kiev head Leonid Chernovitsky, became his deputy. At the same time, in 2008 he was re-elected head of the Automobile Federation of Ukraine and remained in this position until 2011 inclusive.
In 2010, he went on parental leave, refusing to remain an adviser to the Kiev head.
In the first round of the 2010 presidential election, he supported V. Yushchenko, but, after he did not qualify for the second round, he openly declared support for Viktor Yanukovych. This was the first step towards rapprochement with their former political opponents, who had by then taken power.
In 2011, Chervonenko returned to public service. He began to work in leadership positions in the Ministry of Emergencies - first as the head of the department, and then as the deputy minister.
Modern stage
What is Evgeny Alfredovich Chervonenko doing now? Today, after the change of power that took place at the beginning of 2014, this politician is not in the public service. During this period, he also did not advance to any elected position. Nevertheless, he continues to take part in a public discussion of political events.
For example, at the very beginning of the conflict in the Donbass, E. Chervonenko accused the current Ukrainian authorities of “moral corruption”, indecision and inability to make responsible decisions.
In the same 2014, on the air of the TSN channel’s news program on the “1 + 1” channel, a major scandal arose between Yevgeny Chervonenko and journalist Tatyana Chernovol, whom he accused of illegal actions to seize private property.
Already in 2016, the whole of Ukraine made a public statement by Evgeny Chervonenko regarding police lawlessness. This statement was triggered by an unprecedented pursuit that the police staged in a crowded Kiev behind a single car with firearms. Chervonenko sharply criticized the training of law enforcement officers.
Another scandal occurred between E. Chervonenko and the governor of Odessa region Mikheil Saakashvili on the air of the transfer of Savik Shuster. During the skirmish, Saakashvili accused the former Minister of Transport of using corruption schemes.
Nevertheless, despite public speaking, Evgeny Chervonenko at the moment remains outside of big politics.
Activities in Jewish organizations
Among other things, Evgeny Chervonenko is known as a major functionary of various Jewish organizations. He never hid his nationality and was proud of it. This feature of him was clearly manifested even in Soviet times, when Jews were restricted in their right to education and blocked access to high posts.
While still in high school, Yevgeny Chervonenko seriously injured one person due to abusive comments about the Jewish people. This decisive act cost him a gold medal.
According to Chervonenko, it was his nationality that served as an obstacle to admission to a prestigious Moscow university.
After the fall of the communist regime, Yevgeny Chervonenko got the opportunity to participate as much as possible in the activities of the Jewish community. There is even a version that he was able to open his first large company, Lviv Van Pur, thanks to the capital of the Irish Jewish community.
In 1999, E. Chervonenko with a group of individuals, including such prominent figures as Y. Zvyagilsky and S. Maximov, was a co-founder of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine (). This organization was to become a worthy alternative to the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress of Vadim Rabinovich. This fact caused a rather tough confrontation between Chervonenko and Rabinovich, which lasted about two years.
In 2001, Evgeni Alfredovich became a member of the Council of National Minorities (he left it in 2003), naturally, being a representative of the Jewish nation. Then he left the ECU and established friendly relations with V. Rabinovich, in the organization of which he received the position of head of the board of trustees.
In 2002, Eugene Alfredovich took a high post in another major Jewish organization. He was entrusted with the post of vice president of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress. This organization was an association of a number of Jewish societies in Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine. In 2005, the EJC became a member of the World Jewish Congress.
As a parliamentarian, Eugene Alfredovich was part of one of the deputy groups that was engaged in supporting relations with Israel. Then Chervonenko was accused of having Israeli citizenship (although unproven), which almost cost him a deputy and even Ukrainian citizenship.
In 2007, E. Chervonenko was appointed by the European Jewish Congress a delegate on the nuances of interaction with countries of Eastern and Central Europe. Then he was elected vice president of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, led by Rabinovich. But, after the billionaire Igor Kolomoisky became the leader of the organization , Evgeny Alfredovich also left leadership roles in this structure.
At present, when Chervonenko is not an employee of state structures or a deputy, he is most often represented in the press as vice-president of the European Jewish Congress.
A family
Evgeni Chervonenko’s family life was rather complicated.
In his first marriage, his wife was the daughter of a senior party official. In this union, in 1987, the daughter of Alexander was born. But the marriage soon broke up.
Evgeny Chervonenko got married a second time. His chosen one was the beautiful Margarita. They had a daughter - Victoria Chervonenko. At first, their family life turned out pretty well. Leaving for public service, E. Chervonenko even handed over to his wife the management of the company. But in 2006, they began to notice him surrounded by another woman, whose name was Nina. In 2007, the divorce of Yevgeny Alfredovich and Margarita followed, which was accompanied by a major scandal over the division of property and other issues.
Soon Eugene Alfredovich married for the third time - to the girl who caused the breakdown of the previous marriage. Nina Chervonenko is 13 years younger than her husband. She has a son from her first marriage - Cyril. In addition, she gave Evgeny Alfredovich a male heir, since they had a son - Alfred Chervonenko, named after his grandfather.
general characteristics
One of the most famous political figures in Ukraine is Yevhen Chervonenko. His biography is full of interesting facts and unexpected twists. He knew in his life both the ups and downs.
Being a multi-faceted person. Evgeny Alfredovich tried to prove himself in various fields: in science, sports, business, politics, social activities. And everywhere he managed to achieve certain heights.
Evgeny Chervonenko is characterized as a purposeful, solid, but impulsive person. He is not afraid to tell the truth, while not shying away from rather harsh expressions.