Millions of people know the name of the brilliant and at the same time mysterious representative of a new generation of purposeful and inventive people, Pavel Durov. Without exaggeration, the creator of the global Vkontakte project can be called a man of the era, whose achievements are only admirable.

Despite the fame that his brainchild brought to Paul, he was never a public person. That is why one can only guess about the history of the personal life of a genius, his interests and hobbies. Although Paul tries to hide the details of his life, fortunately, it is simply impossible to hide them.

So how did it start life path famous Internet businessman Pavel Durov?

Pasha was born on October 10, 1984 in the city of Leningrad, in an intelligent family. As a teenager, he showed an increased interest in programming, the study of which took almost all of the guy's free time. His success in this industry did not go unnoticed, as evidenced by the number of awards received by Durov during his student years.

The ambition and talent of the young genius did not allow him to go with the flow like most students, but, on the contrary, pushed him to improve his skills and achieve success in the field of computer programming, logistics and design. Pavel took part in competitions with pleasure, was awarded a presidential scholarship, and became a three-time winner of the Potatin scholarship.

In 2006, Durov came up with the idea to create a website closed type for their fellow students, the embodiment of which was the Vkontakte project, which blew up the entire Internet. A year earlier, a similar social network Facebook appeared, but the success rate of the domestic prototype was much higher.

What does Pavel own and where does he spend his money?

In 2014, Pavel Durov was fired from the post of CEO of Vkontakte, which, as the developer himself admitted on his page on the social network, he learned from the newspapers. The creator of VK did not challenge his dismissal in court, but only argued the inevitability of this event.

According to data from official sources, Durov's share in the authorized capital of the company was 12%, which is equal to 360-480 million dollars. But in 2013, in order to be able to resist the authorities who demanded the closure of the group of the Russian opposition leader A. Navalny, Pavel had to sell his share in the VK fund. Now the capital of Pavel Durov exceeds 7.9 billion rubles.

Achievements of an IT businessman:

1. In the list of Russian billionaires, the computer genius takes 350th position.
2. In the Forbes rating for Russia - seventh place.
3. In the ranking of the most successful entrepreneurs under 40 years old with Russian citizenship 31-year-old Durov took the first line according to the publication "The Secret of the Firm".

The shark of Internet business transfers a significant part of its funds to charitable foundations that sponsor Russian programmers at computer programming championships of various levels. The IT businessman donated one million dollars to the Wikimedia Foundation in 2012.

Quirks and oddities of Pavel Durov

In 2011, Durov gave an obscene gesture to representatives of the Mail.ru holding when they tried to implement the company's takeover of the social network VKontakte. It was not possible to avoid the takeover, which did happen three years later. At the moment, 100% of the social network belongs to Mail.ru Group.

In 2012, on the day of the celebration of the City Day, Pavel decided to arrange an "attraction of unprecedented generosity", which made passers-by very happy. The essence of the performance was to launch airplanes from 5,000th banknotes.

As a student of the Academic Gymnasium, the excellent student Pasha Durov performed a number of outstanding deeds, among which the most original was the replacement of existing screensavers on all computers educational institution on a photo of a computer science teacher with the not flattering caption "Must die". After this trick, the negligent student was deprived of access to the computer, but this did not become an obstacle, since cracking the password for the young genius was not difficult.

Pavel Durov has never been known for his love of luxury. In 2011, being the owner of a multi-million dollar fortune, he lived in a rented apartment, which is located near the main office of the Vkontakte company. The office of the creator of VK was not particularly pretentious, the room had only the necessary things: a chair, a table, a couple of cabinets, an ordinary chandelier and a mirror vase.

Negatively refers to tobacco and alcohol. This was the reason why the building was non-smoking during his time at the company. Moreover, the hookah bar located in the office was not used for its intended purpose. Corporate developers were held without alcohol.

Living in Russia, the computer genius and multimillionaire Durov preferred to travel around the city by metro, arguing his choice by the fact that it was faster. Although, according to some sources, he has a car in his arsenal and more than one. Pavel prefers sedans, Nissan and Lexus branded car brands.

Life today

Now the Internet businessman lives far outside of Russia and is working on other Internet projects, the success of which should not even be doubted, since such a talented programmer as Pavel Durov is working on their creation.

In 2014, having made a donation of 250 thousand dollars to one of the enterprises of the island state of Saint Kitts and Nevis, he automatically received citizenship there, thanks to which he now has the opportunity to visa-free entry to 231 countries, including the Schengen countries.

Together with the team of developers working on the Telegram project, he constantly moves from one country to another, the duration of residence in which does not exceed 2-3 weeks.

Pavel Durov is a Russian entrepreneur, programmer, one of the founders of the most popular social network in the CIS countries. Former general manager VKontakte and one of

Pavel Durov. Biography of a billionaire

Pavel Valeryevich was born on October 10, 1984 in Leningrad. His father is Valery Semenovich Durov - Doctor of Philology, Head of the Department of Classical Philology of the Philological Faculty of St. Petersburg state university.

The Russian billionaire has a brother - Nikolai Valerievich. He is also the technical director of VKontakte, who is a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, as well as a two-time world champion among students in programming.

School years

For the first time in school desk Pavel Durov settled in Turin, where his father worked at that time. A few years later, the family returned to Russia. After a short study in a regular school, Durov became a student of the academic gymnasium at St. Petersburg State University.

Pavel Valerievich studied four foreign languages ​​in depth. Due to poor eyesight, he always sat at the first desk. From the age of 11, Pavel became interested in programming. Hacking a computer network and selecting passwords for computers in the computer science office are well-known pranks that Pavel Durov sinned. The biography of the future Russian entrepreneur continues in

Higher education

After graduating from the Academic Gymnasium, Durov continued his studies at the Faculty of Philology at St. Petersburg State University with a degree in English Philology and Translation. In his student years he became a laureate of the scholarship of the President and the Government of the Russian Federation, he was a laureate three times

In parallel with his studies at the university, he was trained at the military faculty in the specialty "Propaganda and psychological warfare." At the university, he served as a platoon leader in his faculty. At the end of military training, Durov received the rank of second lieutenant in the reserve. In 2006, he graduated with a red diploma, but he has not taken it from the university until now.

While a student, Pavel Durov began working on several projects designed to make it easier for students to find the information they need and to improve the quality of the scientific and social activities of his university.

First projects

The electronic library of university abstracts (durov.com) and the forum for students of St Petersburg University (spbgu.ru) became such projects. They did not bring any financial benefit to their creator, but only helped students of different universities to communicate.

After some time, he became disillusioned with the existing system of organizing user accounts in Runet, where people could hide under any names and avatars. Finding another form of implementing the association of Internet users is the goal that Pavel Durov set for himself at that time.

VKontakte: creation and development of the project

After some time, Pavel met his old friend, who returned from the USA, where he was studying. He told Durov about the Facebook student project. Users posted real photos and information there. Pavel liked this idea, and he decided to create a similar association in the Russian-speaking Internet space.

Durov began to bring the idea to life after graduating from the university. The original name of the project was "Student.ru", but after a while it was changed to "VKontakte". Durov explained this change by saying that in any case, students will become graduates.

Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai on October 1, 2006 open a society with limited liability, known to all of us as "VKontakte", and register the first domain of the service. Until the end of the year, the project was at the stage of testing and development. Registration was by invitation only. Already in December, Durov opened VKontakte for free registration. During the first days of open access, more than 2,000 users registered on the site.

At the initial stage, the promotion of the project was very successful through viral marketing and many contests for users. By the end of 2006, the servers could no longer cope with the constantly growing number of users, in connection with which the servers were replaced and the software support for the network was improved. In 2007, Durov receives numerous offers to buy the project, but he refuses them and continues to promote the network, attracting investors. In the same year, VKontakte became one of the three most visited Runet sites.

In 2008, the number of users exceeded the 20 million mark. At the same time, the monetization of the project started: advertising, game applications, which began to bring software developers a certain percentage of the project's income.

Any popular and profitable project attracts hackers, spammers and others. VKontakte was no exception. The site was repeatedly infected and became a carrier of viruses. In addition, the site made attempts to expand the porn industry, so the developers did not have to sit idle.

Durov and his offspring were repeatedly sued for copyright infringement (for posting films and videos in the public domain on the site). But they did not end successfully for the plaintiffs, since VKontakte is a public resource, and certain users should be held responsible.

In 2011, VKontakte was seriously changed both externally and functionally. New features have appeared: a pop-up message box, convenient photo viewing, the ability to add video files from popular video hosting sites and other useful features.

Income of the creator of VKontakte

By the end of 2010, the company was valued at $1.5 billion. According to official data, the authorized capital of VKontakte at that time was divided as follows:

• Mikhail Mirilashvili - 10%;
• Lev Leviev - 10%;
• Pavel Durov - 20%;
• Vyacheslav Mirilashvili - 60%.

According to these data, in 2011 it was estimated at 7.9 billion rubles. But this figure may not correspond to reality. One "Happy Farmer" brings in about $10 million a year, and there are other, no less popular applications.

But still, based on official data, in 2011 Durov ranked 350th among the richest people in Russia, with 7.9 billion rubles ($260 million) in his accounts.

Since December 2011, he has begun financing various startups selected on a competitive basis, and already in December six of them received $25,000 from the entrepreneur. In January 2012, Durov donated a million dollars to the development of Wikipedia.

In November of the same year, he presented the documentary book "Durov's Code", dedicated to the development of "VKontakte". The film rights were immediately acquired by AR Films. As for Pavel, he reacted extremely negatively to the film adaptation. Despite his position, the film will be released in 2014.

What is he, the founder of VKontakte, in personal terms?

Pavel Durov, personal life which is of considerable interest primarily to the beautiful half of humanity, does not attend social events, occasionally appears in public.
He is a workaholic, unsociable, polite. Pavel devoted himself almost entirely to running a business. Pavel Durov, whose personal life haunts the press, does not tell anything about it. Therefore, various rumors are spreading, not confirmed by facts.

Business Perspectives

Despite the status of a billionaire, Durov rents an apartment next to the office where he works. His idols are Steve Jobs, Che Guevara. He has a negative attitude towards the social network Facebook and calls it a "sinking ship". Durov is very aggressive in doing business.

Known for his "war" with the company Mail.ru Group, which is one of the largest shareholders of "VKontakte". In 2011, she wanted to absorb and merge the social network with Odnoklassniki. There is a well-known conflict between Durov and the editors of the Vedomosti newspaper related to the innovation of the site, which allows you to watch news from various resources without having to click on active links.

Criticism of Durov

Both eccentric actions and harsh statements that Pavel Durov often makes are criticized. A photo of the founder of VKontakte at the window of his office during the “money rain” immediately caused a flurry of criticism. Bloggers and journalists dubbed this trick “the whim of a merchant”, and the words of the Minister of Culture were even tougher: “A person who treats the people like cattle should get the profession of a seamstress-mechanic in the zone.”

On May 26, 2012, airplanes with attached banknotes. Eyewitnesses believe that Pavel Durov organized this, whose photo on the balcony during the turmoil near the building is confirmation of this, and he does not deny it.

On the eve of Victory Day on May 9 of the same year, Durov brought down the anger of many people with his statement on Twitter: “67 years ago, Stalin managed to defend the right to repress the people of the USSR from Hitler.” Many bloggers and various public figures immediately condemned this post and deleted their accounts from VKontakte in protest. Some time later, the press secretary of VKontakte stated that Durov's harsh statement was due to the fact that his grandfather, who went through the war from beginning to end, was later repressed, and Pavel himself respects Victory Day.

Farewell to your child

Many are interested in the question: "Did Pavel Durov sell VKontakte?" This is partly true. It is known that on January 4, 2014, Durov sold his shares to the CEO of Megafon, Ivan Tavrin. The founder of the most popular social network of the CIS countries filed a letter of resignation on March 21, and a month later his application was accepted. After that, Pavel Durov left VKontakte completely and has no plans to return. Before his departure, the vice president quit, as well as the financial director of the social network.

The CEO of USM Advisors, who owns a 52% stake in VKontakte, said: “We were surprised when Durov did not withdraw his resignation, and the owners of VKontakte satisfied his decision a month later. We have always considered that the role of Pavel Durov is very important for the company. We regret that he has decided to step down as CEO."

Perhaps Durov will change his mind and return to the position of VKontakte architect.

Despite all this, the fact remains that Pavel Durov sold VKontakte and left his offspring. He connected his dismissal with the fact that he did not provide the FSB with personal information about people supporting Euromaidan.

Today, the founder of VKontakte is outside Russia and plans to launch a mobile social network, but abroad. Telegram Pavel Durov will appear this year.

Conclusion

Many admire the talent and diligence of Pavel's bright and eccentric personality, others despise him, hinting at plagiarism and huge profits. He was credited with serving in the FSB, state funding of his offspring, and the fact that he was just a beautiful sign for the VKonakte project.

Durov always denied all these rumors on his personal page. Despite all this, his social network is an incredible success, which speaks volumes.

There is a statement on Durov's page: “There are very few of those who do, but do not talk. In any case, they are much less than it might seem. Don't waste time. A person is led to success by his actions, not words.

Biography

Pavel Valerievich Durov - Russian entrepreneur, programmer, ruble billionaire, one of the founders of the VKontakte social network and the company of the same name; creator of the cross-platform messenger "Telegram". Former CEO of VKontakte (2006-2014). In his student years, he was a laureate of scholarships from the President of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Russian Federation, a three-time winner of the Potanin scholarship.

In 2001 he graduated with honors from the Academic Gymnasium, in 2006 - the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University with a degree in English Philology and Translation with honors (which he still has not taken). A year earlier, he completed professional training at the Faculty of Military Education of St. Petersburg State University with a specialization in Propaganda and Psychological Warfare, after which he received the rank of reserve lieutenant. Immediately after graduation, he created VKontakte, the largest social network in Russia at the moment. In 2011, Durov, with a fortune of 7.9 billion rubles, ranked 350th in the ranking of Russian billionaires.

Pavel is a vegetarian and adheres to libertarian political views. Durov is called the Russian Mark Zuckerberg, and is also often criticized for his eccentric antics and statements. On November 19, 2012, Nikolai Kononov's book "Durov's Code" was published, describing the formation of VKontakte and its creator; AR Films has already acquired the rights to adapt it.

In 2014, he left Russia and said that he was not going to return.

Family

Father - Doctor of Philology Valery Semyonovich Durov (born 1945), author of many scientific works, since 1992 he has been the head of the Department of Classical Philology of the Philological Faculty of St. Petersburg State University.

Mother - Albina Alexandrovna Durova.

Brother - Nikolai (born 1980), mathematician, candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, multiple winner of Russian and international olympiads in mathematics and computer science, twice absolute world champion in programming among students, from the day of foundation and until mid-2013 he was a technical director "In contact with".

Half-brother - Mikhail Petrov, son of Albina Durova from his first marriage.

Pavel's grandfather, Semyon Petrovich Tulyakov (born 1913), participated in the Great Patriotic War. He served in the 65th Infantry Regiment, participated in the battles on the Leningrad Front in the Krasnoborsk and Gatchina directions, was wounded three times. He was presented to the Order of the Red Star, was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, II degree, and on the 40th anniversary of the Victory, the Order of the Patriotic War, I degree. After the war he was repressed.

Pavel Durov was born in Leningrad on October 10, 1984 in an intelligent family. He went to the first grade of the school, being in Turin, where his father worked for several years. Returning to his hometown, Pavel did not study for long at a regular school and entered the experimental classes of the Academic Gymnasium (now the Mednikov Academic Classes), which provides in-depth study of all subjects, including four foreign languages. There he had a reputation as an erudite and sat at the first desk due to vision problems. At the age of 11, he first became interested in programming. His trick is known when he changed the screensaver of all school computers to a photo of a computer science teacher with the caption “Must die” (Russian Must die). Durov was deprived of access to computers, but he cracked passwords to them. In 2001, he graduated from the Academic Gymnasium with honors. In 2002, Pavel entered the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University with a degree in English Philology and Translation. For his academic achievements and contribution to the student life of the university, he was awarded a Government scholarship. Russian Federation, and then a scholarship of the President of the Russian Federation. Pavel became the winner of the Potanin scholarship three times, and was also one of the selected number of students of St. Petersburg State University with the highest level of intelligence and leadership abilities. He won Olympiads in computer science, linguistics and design, organized university-wide events. Pavel graduated from the university in 2006 with a red diploma (which he never took). A year earlier, he completed professional training at the Faculty of Military Education of St. Petersburg State University with a specialization in Propaganda and Psychological Warfare. During his studies at this faculty, Pavel served as a platoon commander of the Faculty of Philology, and upon graduation he received the rank of reserve lieutenant.

Even during his studies at St Petersburg University, Pavel created non-commercial Internet projects designed to improve the quality of the public and scientific life of the university. These projects were Durov.com and Spbgu.ru. The first project is an electronic library of university abstracts, as well as a place for the exchange of ideas and opinions of students; the second is the university forum, where Pavel often initiated various discussions in which, using different accounts, he argued with himself. But by the summer of 2006, he realized that his student sites, for all their popularity, were ineffective in bringing students together, as many hid their names under nicknames, and real faces under avatars: students could communicate with each other on the network without even suspecting that study in the same group. Then he started looking for another form for the student site. Later, an old friend of Pavel, who returned from the United States after studying, introduced him to an Internet project for American university students - Facebook, where users posted their real names and photos in profiles. Durov decided to introduce a similar website concept in Russia, that is, real people under real names. The original name of the future project - "Student.ru" - was replaced by Pavel with "VKontakte", since, according to him, "sooner or later we all become graduates." He began to implement immediately after graduation. Pavel and his brother, Nikolai Durov, founded the VKontakte limited liability company and launched a beta version of the network of the same name, whose domain - vkontakte.ru - was, according to official data, registered on October 1, 2006. At first, the site was closed, in other words, it was possible to register only after a personal invitation. But at the end of the year, registration became free. In a few days, the network attracted more than 2,000 users; reason - competition - iPod to the one who invites more friends. The rapidly growing number of users forced the creators to change servers and improve software support for the network. Pavel repeatedly received offers to buy his product, but he rejected them. Instead, the programmer attracted investors to his project. VKontakte developed before our eyes. Already in 2007, it became the third most popular site in Runet, in 2008 the network was monetized, and the number of users exceeded 20 million. In 2010, Pavel's company moved into the Singer house, which is located on Nevsky Prospekt, opposite the Kazan Cathedral.

In 2007, the Delovoy Petersburg newspaper named Durov one of the winners in the Best Young Entrepreneurs 2007 competition. In 2011, Durov, with a fortune of 7.9 billion rubles, ranked 350th in the ranking of Russian billionaires. In December 2011, Pavel and the head of the DST Global fund, Yuri Milner, launched the Start Fellows charity project, which aims to finance startups selected on a competitive basis. By the end of December, six startups received $25,000 each. On January 24, 2012, at the Digital Life Design (DLD) conference in Munich, during a joint speech with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Pavel promised to donate one million dollars to the online encyclopedia. In March, the transfer of the promised amount to the account of the Wikimedia Foundation was confirmed. "We greatly appreciate Mr. Durov's generous offer and thank you for your understanding of the grant review process," said Jay Walsh, spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation.

On May 27, 2012, top managers of VKontakte, led by Durov, threw airplanes with 5,000-ruble banknotes attached to them from the window of the company's central office in St. Petersburg. Soon a crowd gathered under the windows, which even started a fight for the money. Later, Pavel explained that by his act he wanted to create a festive atmosphere on City Day. Durov then scattered total about 2000 dollars. The joy with which he watched the reaction of the crowd was also reported. According to eyewitnesses, Pavel filmed what was happening on camera. While working at VKontakte, Pavel lived in a rented apartment near the office, where, according to him, the developers could stay overnight.

On April 5, 2013, it was reported that while driving, Durov turned left from Sadovaya street on the embankment of the Moika River, violating the requirements of the traffic sign. The traffic police officer noticed the offense and tried to stop the car. The driver did not obey the request, continuing to move, and as a result, he hit the employee, inflicting bruises on his legs and abrasions. Initially, the press service of Vkontakte denied Pavel's involvement in the incident, pointing out that their CEO did not have a car. In addition, the car itself belonged to the vice-president of the company, Ilya Perekopsky. But in June, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg proved that it was Durov who was driving. Immediately after the incident, a criminal case was initiated against Pavel under Article 318 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (use of violence against a representative of the authorities), which, after the investigation, was closed in June 2013, and the offense itself fell under Article 19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (disobedience to the lawful order of a police officer) because the investigation did not collect enough evidence of the deliberate use of violence. In September 2013, it became known that the criminal case had been returned for additional investigation in order to establish the presence or absence of criminal intent in the actions of Pavel Durov. Evidence indicating that Durov's actions were deliberate and aimed at using violence against a policeman were again not found by the investigators, and in early 2014 the criminal case was again dismissed.

In February 2014, the United Capital Partners Fund (UCP), which owns a 48% stake in VKontakte, announced that it intends to defend its interests "in Russian and international jurisdictions." UCP representatives accused Pavel Durov and Mail.ru Group employees of actions contrary to the interests of VK. The fund explained that they had previously tried to resolve issues peacefully, but all proposals were blocked by representatives of the Mail.ru Group and Megafon CEO Ivan Tavrin, who at that time owned a controlling stake in VK (52%). The UCP noted that such behavior of the VK co-owners "extremely surprises and worries" them.

In contact with

VKontakte is the largest social network in Runet, the first most popular site in Belarus, the second in Russia, the third in Ukraine, the fifth in Kazakhstan, and the 26th in the world, which is estimated at $1.5 billion. For example, in September 2012, the daily audience of the site averaged 22 million people. As of September of the same year, more than 140 million users registered on VKontakte. In terms of its growth rate, the social network has broken all Runet records. A major shareholder of the network is Mail.Ru Group, a holding that owns, as of April 2011, 32.49% of all VKontakte shares.

VKontakte provides financial support for the developing Olympiad programming in Russia and sponsors teams of programmers in St. Petersburg and the North-West of Russia. Among the company's employees are the best Russian programmers, laureates international competitions in programming and mathematics.

On January 24, 2014, it became known that Durov in December 2013 concluded a deal to sell the remaining 12% of his Vkontakte shares to Ivan Tavrin and ceased to be the owner of the network.

On April 1, Pavel Durov announced on his page that he was leaving the post of CEO of VKontakte LLC, explaining this by reducing the available freedom of action, but then, on April 3, he withdrew his resignation. Then it turned out that this was not an April Fool's joke; on April 21, the owners of the social network VKontakte granted the letter of resignation, which had previously been sent to them by the CEO and founder of the network, Pavel Durov.

Telegram

On August 14, 2013, the first Telegram client was introduced. In November, the program had, according to TJournal, about 1 million installations. In an interview with The New York Times, Pavel said that the initial idea for the application came to him back in 2011, when special forces came to his door. When the latter nevertheless left, Durov immediately wrote to his brother Nikolai. It was then that he realized that he did not have a safe way to communicate with his brother. The service is based on the MTProto correspondence encryption technology developed by Pavel's brother Nikolai.

In response to the proposals of some officials to ban the messenger on the territory of Russia, on December 24, 2015, on his VKontakte page, Pavel Durov stated: “As for Telegram, the project has not and will not give out personal data and encryption keys to third parties. The messenger is popular with tens of millions of users in dozens of markets, and the threat of blocking in one or two of them will not affect its privacy policy.”

Emigration

On April 16, Pavel Durov announced that on December 13, 2013, the FSB demanded that the network's management hand over the personal information of the organizers of the Euromaidan groups, to which he refused. In December, a deal was made to sell a stake in the company. According to him, Russian jurisdiction does not apply to Ukrainian users of the social network VKontakte. Durov also noted that the dissemination of data of Ukrainian users would be not only a violation of the law, but also a crime against millions of users from Ukraine.

On April 22, 2014, it became known that Pavel Durov had gone abroad and was not going to return to Russia. He announced this in an interview with TechCrunch. He noted, “Unfortunately, it is not possible to conduct an Internet business in this country.”

“I'm afraid there's no turning back for me. Especially after I publicly refused to cooperate with the authorities.”

The founder of VKontakte also said that in the near future he plans to focus on creating a mobile social network. Later, the UCP fund, which at that time owned a 48% stake in VKontakte, said that it did not consider Pavel Durov's resignation from the post of CEO a fait accompli. UCP partner Yuri Kachuro considered that Executive Director VKontakte exceeded its authority and did not discuss such a serious decision with the board of directors.

Durov constantly moves from country to country, not staying in one for more than two or three weeks. Together with him, his team of programmers, with whom he develops the Telegram messenger, travels to Paris, Singapore and other cities. Pavel reported that he was not a fan of the idea of ​​the state. “Now I am very happy, living without any property and considering myself a citizen of the world.” In addition to the Russian one, he has a passport of the state of Saint Kitts and Nevis, he received this passport after investing in the country's economy.

Views and beliefs

Pavel Durov adheres to libertarian political views, and is also a vegetarian. He advocates reform of the Russian educational system; the abolition of taxes in the field of information; the abolition of the visa system, residence permits and military conscription; reduction of customs duties; granting full autonomy to the regions; and also for the openness of the jury. He is inspired by Ernesto Che Guevara and Steve Jobs, and according to his religious beliefs, according to some sources, he is a Pastafarian, according to others, a supporter of the Zen school.

Attitude towards Facebook

When it became known that Facebook was looking for employees in Russia, Durov said that VKontakte employees did not switch to another network for employment, since "there are no fools" and Facebook is a "sinking ship." A month earlier, he had already called the American social network “a stronghold of pedoliberals,” and in May 2012, on his Twitter account, he ironically called it “a cheap craft.”

Business manner

Durov is characterized by a tough, sometimes even arrogant style of doing business. In 2011-2012, he waged a "corporate war" with a major shareholder of Vkontakte, Mail.ru Group. The conflict began in March 2011 with the holding's attempts to absorb the social network, buying 100% of its shares, and merge the site with Odnoklassniki. In response, Durov called Mail.ru a "thrash holding", showed them middle finger and convinced the co-founders of VKontakte not to sell their shares. Only in April 2012 did the "war" stop.

In the spring of 2012, a conflict broke out between VKontakte and the editors of the Vedomosti newspaper. Thanks to a technical innovation on the site, users could view the full texts of articles in web publications without clicking on an active link. Vedomosti considered this illegal and openly accused the social network of copyright infringement. VKontakte ignored the statement, and later turned off the activity of links to the publications of the Vedomosti website. In the end, the editorial office of the newspaper removed the VKontakte widgets from its website and “frozen” the official page of the publication on the social network. The managing director of the Vedomosti publishing company accused Durov of being unable to conduct a "civilized business."

Criticism and recognition

Some Western media called Pavel the Russian Mark Zuckerberg. In 2011, Pavel was ranked third on the Forbes list of "9 most unusual Russian businessmen - extravagant, eccentric and eccentric" for publishing a photograph in which he demonstrates an obscene gesture in response to the efforts of a major shareholder of VKontakte - Mail.ru Group - to absorb this social network. The same magazine published a list of "30 most notable figures in the Russian Internet business", where Pavel was in seventh place. Durov was on the 42nd place in the list of the most cited bloggers in the Russian media in the first half of 2012, according to the results of a study by the Medialogy company. One of the creators of VKontakte, Oleg Andreev, explained the reason for the success of the social network in this way: “Pavel, unlike most programmers, understood what a schoolboy and student wants from life, and how it looks in design. He was able to see through the eyes of a person who has an old browser and a slow Internet.”

Durov's action to throw airplanes with banknotes was severely criticized by popular bloggers and journalists. So, Vladimir Solovyov called this act "a whim of a merchant", and Durov himself "nedozuckerberg". Solovyov was supported by the current Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky. Sergei Stillavin wrote in his LiveJournal diary: "A citizen who treats his people like cattle should get the profession of a seamstress-minder in the zone." Sergei Enikolopov concluded that "this is treated in the camps", recalling the executions in the 1920s and 1930s of the "embarrassed" Bolsheviks.

On May 9, 2012, on Victory Day, Pavel wrote on his Twitter: “People are walking. Still - 67 years ago, Stalin defended Hitler's right to repress the population of the USSR. Nikolai Valuev called his words "blasphemy" and announced that he was closing his accounts on VKontakte. Sergei Minaev announced a similar boycott, saying that he did not want to "support scum." Later, the press secretary of VKontakte, Vladislav Tsyplukhin, explained that Durov respects Victory Day, and his record is connected with the fact that “his grandfather went through the whole war,” “and in gratitude he was repressed without trial.”

In literature

On November 19, 2012, the publishing house "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber" published a book by Nikolai Kononov "Durov's Code", describing the formation of the social network "VKontakte". In the center of the plot is its founder, Pavel Durov. The book is quite documentary, based on facts and interviews.

In cinema

AR Films, founded by producer Alexander Rodnyansky, has acquired the film rights to the book Durov's Code. The film is scheduled for release in 2017. Durov himself has a negative attitude towards the film adaptation.

Family

Durov was born into a family of intellectuals. Father - Valery Semenovich - Doctor of Philology, Head of the Department of Classical Philology of the Philological Faculty of St. Petersburg State University.

Durov's older brother is Nikolai Valerievich, technical director of Vkontakte, a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences. Twice became the absolute world champion in programming among students.

Durov is not married.

Biography

In 1990, Durov went to primary school Coppino - Fallettidi Barolo's Turin where his father worked at the time.

After returning to Saint Petersburg in 1992, Durov studied at school number 160.

In 1996, Durov entered the Academic Gymnasium at St. Petersburg State University.

Durov studied in a class with in-depth study of four foreign languages ​​​​and sat at the first desk, mainly due to vision problems. From the age of 11 he has been fond of programming. Known for his school hacking antics computer networks Academic gymnasium and the selection of passwords for computers in the computer science classroom.

In 2001, Durov graduated from high school and entered the Faculty of Philology Saint Petersburg State University.

In 2002 he launched the website durov.com, which represented electronic library for students of the humanities.

His next project was the Internet forum of St. Petersburg University SPBGU.RU, which has turned into a significant discussion platform for students from different faculties.

While studying at the university, Durov became a scholarship holder three times charitable foundation businessman, and also received presidential, government and governor scholarships. In addition, he won olympiads in linguistics, computer science and design.

In 2006, he graduated from the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University with a diploma in translation from English.

In the same year, he, along with his classmate Vyacheslav Mirilashvili began to work on the creation of a new site, which, according to the idea of ​​​​friends, was supposed to unite students of prestigious universities.

For the initial financing of the project, Durov's partner Vyacheslav Mirilashvili borrowed money from one of his father's companies, the well-known businessman Mikhail Mirilashvili. A company was established, which was controlled by Mirilashvili Jr., and his friend acted as its minority shareholders Lev Leviev and Durov, who kept for himself a block of voting shares sufficient to overturn objectionable decisions.

Started in September 2006 "In contact with"- the main, for today, Durov's project.

On October 1, 2006 the domain was registered vkontakte.ru, and a month later free registration was opened.

In 2007, the site entered the top three in terms of attendance in RuNet.

In 2007, 24.99% of VKontakte was bought by a businessman for $16.3 million. Yuri Milner Fund DigitalSkyTechnologies (DST) (after the reorganization of the company in 2010, all of its Russian operating assets were merged into Mail.ru Group).

In 2007, the newspaper "Business Petersburg" Durov was recognized as one of the winners in the competition "Best Young Entrepreneurs 2007".

In 2010, Durov rents the top two floors of the Singer company house on Nevsky Prospekt, where the main office of Vkontakte is moving.

In February 2011, the fact that Mail.ru Group, which at that time already owned 32.49% of VKontakte, as well as an option for 7.5%, announced its intention to gain control over the social network, - about this in an interview with Russian Forbes said the CEO of the holding Dmitry Grishin. It was also reported that Mail.ru Group is seeking to absorb the social network and merge it with the site "Classmates".

However, Durov refused to sell VKontakte, categorically denying the possibility of increasing the share of the Mail.ru Group holding in the network.

In 2011, Russian Forbes included Durov among the most unusual Russian businessmen. At the end of 2011, Durov and Milner announced their intention to finance Russian Internet startups. It was reported that the creators best projects will receive free of charge 25 thousand dollars for their development from a senior entrepreneur, while Durov will be engaged in the selection of applications.

In January 2012, at the DigitalLifeDesign conference in Munich, Durov announced his intention to donate one million dollars to the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia. In March of that year, representatives of the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns the Internet encyclopedia, announced that the donation had been accepted.

In April 2012, it became known that the main shareholder of Mail.ru Group approved a plan to transfer operational control over the social network he created to Durov, who owned 12% of VKontakte.

In May 2012, Mail.ru Group transferred to Durov the right to vote with its stake in VKontakte (39.99%), which observers regarded as an obvious victory for the founder of the social network.

In May 2012, Durov, after an unsuccessful placement of shares Facebook noting that investors "have lost faith in social networks", said that the planned IPO of VKontakte is being postponed indefinitely.

In November 2012, a documentary book was published Nikolai Kononov "Durov's Code" dedicated to the development of "Vkontakte". The film rights to the book were immediately acquired by AR Films. Pavel is extremely negative about the film adaptation, however, despite his disapproval, it is planned that the film will be released in the coming years.

On January 24, 2014, it became known that in December 2013 Durov sold his remaining 12% stake in Vkontakte Ivan Tavrin and ceased to be the owner of the network.

"What you own sooner or later begins to own you. For the past few years, I have been actively getting rid of property, giving away and selling everything I had, from furniture and belongings to real estate and companies. To achieve the ideal, I had to get rid of the largest part of my property - a 12% stake in VKontakte. I am glad that not so long ago I achieved this goal by selling my share of VKontakte to my friend Ivan Tavrin".

"This change is unlikely to affect the management of VKontakte - the board of directors listens to my opinion not because of the presence or absence of my share, but because I created this network and understand its underlying mechanisms. I'm not going anywhere and I'm going to continue to monitor the quality of VKontakte. After all, VKontakte is the best that has been created in Russia in the field of communications. And my responsibility is to cherish and protect this network.", Durov himself wrote about this.

On April 1, 2014, Durov announced on his page that he was leaving the post of CEO of VKontakte, explaining this by reducing the available freedom of action.

On April 16, 2014, Durov announced that on December 13, 2013 FSB demanded that the network management hand over the personal information of the organizers groups "Euromaidan" to which he refused. In December, a deal was made to sell a stake in the company. According to him, Russian jurisdiction does not apply to Ukrainian users of the VKontakte social network.

Durov also noted that the dissemination of data of Ukrainian users would be not only a violation of the law, but also a crime against millions of users from Ukraine.

On April 22, 2014, it became known that Durov had gone abroad and was not going to return to Russia. He said this in an interview with TechCrunch: I am currently not in Russia and have no plans to return. Unfortunately, in this country it is now impossible to conduct an Internet business. I'm afraid there's no turning back for me. Especially after I publicly refused to cooperate with the authorities.".

The founder of VKontakte also said that in the near future he plans to focus on creating a mobile social network.

April 28, 2014 it became known that Durov received citizenship of the countries Saint Kitts and Nevis located in the Caribbean Sea.

In May 2014, the President of Lithuania invited Pavel Durov to her country." For Pavel Durov, the creator of the largest Russian social network, there is no place in his country. But doors are open for him in Europe and Lithuania", she wrote on her Twitter.

In August 2015, it became known that in May of this year, Pavel Durov sold his former company ICVA Ltd, which owns the building of the main data center of the social network for 919,000,000 rubles.

The data center was purchased in May 2015 for cash from ICVA. The purchase and sale of the building was initiated by a new investor in the social network, the DST Foundation, which believes that VKontakte should not depend on third-party data centers.

Politics

In December 2011, after an unsanctioned protest rally at Chistye Prudy following the elections to the State Duma, Durov said that the FSB had demanded that he shut down opposition groups on VKontakte, in particular, a support group for a public figure who was detained at the rally and given fifteen days arrest.

After refusing to block the group, Durov was summoned to the prosecutor's office, however, according to him, he did not have time to appear there at the appointed time. Subsequently, Durov said that he did not block the opposition groups solely out of commercial interests, unwillingness to "give odds to all competing sites" and lose customers.

Income

In 2007, Durov's salary as CEO was 26.4 thousand rubles a month.

On July 2, 2007, Durov's salary was increased to 115 thousand rubles by a special supplementary agreement to the employment contract.

In 2008, the shareholders agreed to pay the costs of cellular communication its CEO, and his salary was increased to 345 thousand rubles.

In January 2010 (when Mail.RuGroup became the co-owner of VKontakte LLC with a 40% stake), a new employment contract was signed with Durov - already with a salary of 552 thousand rubles.

Further, Durov's salary began to grow even faster. So, since May 2010, his salary has doubled and amounted to 1.1 million rubles a month. Since 2011 - 2.3 million rubles a month, in 2012 - 3.5 million rubles, and in March 2013 it reached 5.76 million rubles a month. At the same time, the net profit of VKontakte LLC at the end of 2012 collapsed by 90%, to 50 million rubles.

In 2011, Durov's fortune in 7.9 billion rubles, he ranked 350th in the ranking of Russian billionaires compiled by Finance magazine.

Rumors (scandals)

In May 2012, Durov, together with the vice president of VKontakte Ilya Perekopsky staged a kind of performance, launching paper airplanes with five thousandth banknotes attached to them from the window of the St. Petersburg office of the company, which caused clashes among people walking downstairs. This action caused a wide negative resonance in the network. Durov was accused of losing a sense of reality, as well as "experiments on humans".

Russian Forbes suggested that this action, carried out by Durov on the eve of his obtaining full operational control in the company, was primarily addressed to the shareholders of VKontakte.

Later, commenting on this act in his blog on Snob.ru, Durov noted that " remaining a slave to money, it is impossible to become the true master of your own life". According to him, "money is overvalued, because creation is much more interesting than consumption." At the same time, Durov reported that he travels by metro and sleeps in "a rented room measuring 18-20 m2."

"Those who search my life for castles, sports car parks and a fleet of Boeings will be severely disappointed.", he wrote.

In 2012, a conflict also broke out between Vkontakte and the editors of the Vedomosti newspaper, related to one of the site's innovations, which allows viewing news from third-party resources without clicking on an active link.

On the eve of Victory Day on May 9, 2012, Durov turned Runet against himself by saying on Twitter: " 67 years ago, Stalin defended Hitler's right to repress the population of the USSR". Many bloggers and public figures sharply condemned this post and deleted their accounts on Vkontakte, and Sergey Minaev named Durov "scum".

Later Vladislav Tsyplukhin, the then press secretary of Vkontakte, said that Durov respects Victory Day, and the Twitter entry is due to the fact that his grandfather, who went through the entire Great patriotic war, was later repressed.

In 2013, the founder of VKontakte allegedly hit a policeman in his car.

A video appeared on the Internet, which shows that a person who looks like Pavel Durov violates traffic rules, runs into an inspector, and then disappears. It is noteworthy that this story happened just at the time when there was a redistribution of spheres of influence among the shareholders of Russia's largest social network.

Immediately after the incident, a criminal case was initiated against Pavel under Article 318 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (the use of violence against a representative of the authorities), which, after the investigation, was closed in June 2013, and the offense itself fell under Article 19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation ( disobedience to a lawful order of a police officer), because the investigation did not collect enough evidence of the deliberate use of violence.

In September 2013, it became known that the criminal case had been returned for additional investigation in order to establish the presence or absence of criminal intent in the actions of Pavel Durov. Evidence indicating that Durov's actions were intentional and aimed at using violence against a policeman were again not found by the investigators, and in early 2013 the criminal case was again dismissed.

On March 5, 2014, the preliminary results of the financial audit of VKontakte became known, which testify to Durov's unreasonable expenses as the network's general director - according to auditors, Durov spent about 273 million rubles on himself alone in two years.

In particular, he is accused of unreasonable growth of his salary and salaries of top managers. So, during 2012 and 2013, the CEO paid himself multimillion-dollar bonuses almost every month. In total, according to the documents at the disposal of Izvestia, only from July 2012 to July 2013, eight bonuses were paid for a total of 28 million rubles.

According to an internal audit, Durov spent millions on charter flights. Only one flight from San Francisco to Munich cost 2.04 million rubles, and in the second half of 2012 about 13 million rubles were spent on various charters. In addition to charters, there were, of course, costs for hotels and entertainment: in 2012, these costs amounted to about €2 million.

The inspectors were also surprised by the "household" expenses of Mr. Durov, which are also paid by the company. So, accommodation in the presidential suite of the St. Petersburg hotel W cost shareholders 90 thousand rubles per night. Only three months of residence (in 2012) of the general director in this department cost over 10 million rubles.

In June 2014, Pavel Durov filed a lawsuit against USA to former partners in the project and the UCP fund Ilya Shcherbovich. He accuses them of fraud and extortion of a share in the Telegram messenger.

It's no secret that VK is one of the most popular resources not only in Russia, but also in the entire post-Soviet space. The social network "VKontakte" was founded in 2006 by brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov. There is a lot of information on the Internet about the younger brother, Pavel, but there is clearly not enough information about the younger one.

Family

Pavel and Nikolai Durov were born into a family of intellectuals. The father of the brothers - Valery Semenovich - Doctor of Philology, head of the Department of Classical Philology, St. Petersburg State University. Grandfather, Semyon Petrovich Telyakov, took part in the Second World War. He fought on the Leningrad front, received three wounds. After the end of the war, he was repressed.

Nikolay Durov

Nikolai Valerievich Durov was born on November 21, 1980. In general, many believe that Nikolai is only in the shadow of his commercially more effective brother. The "modest genius" started programming at the age of seven. In 1996-1998, Nikolai Durov took part in the Mathematics Olympiad at the international level, where he won gold medals three times in a row. Along the way, he participated in the International Olympiad in Informatics, where he also showed significant success, winning three silver medals and one Nikolai was in a programming team that won international competitions in 2000 and 2001. In 2005 he defended his doctoral thesis under the supervision of Sergei Vostokov. Then he continued his mathematical education at the University of Bonn, where he subsequently received a doctorate.

Career

Nikolai Durov defended his dissertation on "A new approach to Arakelov's geometry". Later he worked in this direction. He holds the position of chief researcher in the laboratory of algebra at St. Petersburg University.

From the very beginning he took part in the development of "VK". The social network became successful largely thanks to Nikolai. In the team, he held the position of lead developer. Left the position in 2013.

Developed the MTProto messaging encryption protocol, which is used in the Telegram messenger.

Pavel Durov

Among Internet users, of course, the younger Durov is more popular. Pavel's biography is much better known. Born on October 10, 1981 in Leningrad. Pasha went to first grade in Turin, where his father was working at that moment. Returning to his homeland, he studied a little in a regular school. He entered the Academic Gymnasium, where there was the deepest immersion in the material. Pavel began to show interest in computers and programming at the age of eleven. An interesting fact is that Durov changed the background on all computers, displaying the image of a computer science teacher with the inscription "Must die." After that, Pavel was denied access to a PC, but it was not difficult for him to crack passwords. After graduating with honors from the gymnasium in 2001, Durov entered St. Petersburg State University with a degree in English Philology and Translation. For a good study, Pavel was awarded a scholarship of the Russian Federation and the President of the Russian Federation. Durov graduated from his studies in 2006, having received it, but so far he has not taken it.

"In contact with"

Even in his student years, Pavel Durov created several projects that were aimed at enabling students to communicate with each other. One way or another, everything that was created could not satisfy Paul's needs. In 2006, Pavel's friend, who came from America, told him about the Facebook project, which was based on real profiles and photos of users. Durov liked the idea and decided to develop a similar project for Runet. The domain of the future resource was registered on October 1, 2006, already at this stage Nikolai Durov took part. Until the end of the year, the social network was in the process of testing, and since December it has been open for public access. In Runet, the resource has become the largest project. To date, the traffic is more than 300 million users per month, and the turnover Money- 4.3 billion rubles. On January 24, 2014, the public learned that Durov sold a 12% stake in VKontakte in December 2013 and ceased to exercise the authority of the owner of the network.

On April 16, 2014, Durov released information that in December, FSB officers urged the owners of the network to provide personal data of the Euromaidan organizers. Pavel refused this demand and sold his share in the same month. Soon Durov went abroad and, as it became known later, was not going to return back.

Telegram

Telegram is a free messenger designed for Android and other devices. As Pavel Durov said in an interview, the idea of ​​​​creating an application came to him back in 2011, when special forces were standing at his door. After they left, Pavel immediately called Nikolai and realized that he did not have a reliable and secure way to communicate with his brother. Subsequently, Nikolai Durov developed a new encryption protocol MTProto, which was the basis of the messenger. As of mid-2015, the number of active users was over 62 million. In terms of popularity, the application surpassed even the competitor from Facebook, and in February 2014 it became one of the most downloaded applications in the App Store.

• In November 2012, the book "Durov's Code" was published. In the center of the plot is the founding of the social network VKontakte, the main character is Pavel Durov. The biography and other information presented in the book is based on numerous interviews and facts.
• The organization AR Films bought the rights to the film adaptation of the book "Durov's Code". The film was supposed to be released in 2014. Durov himself was negative about the idea of ​​shooting a picture.
• The VKontakte logo was created by Pavel Durov in a couple of minutes using the Tahoma font.

You can have different attitudes towards the Durov brothers, but it is impossible not to notice their contribution to the formation of the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet. Although VKontakte has been owned by other owners for a long time, most users have not forgotten the first owner. Whatever one may say, the Durovs have vast knowledge and skills, which is confirmed by their new projects.