Pavel Durov is one of the youngest Russian millionaires, the founder of the popular social network VKontakte, was born on 10/10/1982 in Leningrad.

Childhood

Pavel was born into a very intelligent family of professors. His father taught philology at Leningrad State University, defended his Ph.D., then his doctoral thesis, and instilled in his sons (Pavel has an older brother) a love of science and taught him to think logically and work effectively with various information sources.

Pavle spent his childhood in Turin - his father worked there for several years under a contract. There the boy went to first grade. But then the family again moved to Russia. Father considered education in a regular school to be too average, so he soon transferred Pavel to the gymnasium at the university where he worked.

It cannot be said that Pavel was an exemplary student, but his academic performance was always excellent. Partly because he usually sat in the first rows (the boy simply did not see further, and did not want to wear glasses), partly so as not to spoil the reputation of his father, who was well known in the gymnasium.

The problems arose mainly because of the curiosity of the boy, who in high school became seriously interested in computers. In addition to the standard school assignments, Pavel tried to write his own programs. Once he got a big hit for hacking the gymnasium's network server. But in general, the teachers encouraged his interest and often offered individual assignments.

student body

After receiving a certificate of secondary education, Durov remained at the university, enrolling in the Faculty of Philology. By this time, he already knew 4 foreign languages ​​​​and dreamed of a career as an interpreter. He chose English as his specialization, which every year became more and more popular all over the world.

AT student years Pavel continued to intensively study programming. He was mainly engaged then in the creation of non-profit projects that made life easier for many students. Almost all of them were successful, and some of them are still functioning, for example, the university website and the library of electronic abstracts.

Studying was easy for Pavel, so there was enough time for his own hobbies. In parallel with his main studies, Pavel also attended the military department, where he acquired the specialty "Propaganda and psychological warfare", which was very useful to him when organizing large Internet projects and creating a social network.

"In contact with"

The idea of ​​​​creating a social network was suggested to Durov by a friend who came from the States and was delighted with the fact that there you can communicate with real users who are not hidden behind avatars and exchange news and gifts. It was about Facebook, which was then actively gaining momentum, but was not yet widely known in Russia and did not have a Russian-language version.

Pavel immediately realized that this was a very profitable idea, and he could become the first in a new niche, and began to actively develop new project. But, being savvy in the methods of conducting information war, he began by officially registering a corporation for the project (together with his brother) and patenting the name. He then purchased the domain and launched a pilot version of the project.

Users liked it. In 2006, VKontakte was founded, and just a year later it was recognized as one of the most promising and rapidly developing commercial projects.

Unlike Facebook, this network had a more entertaining direction. Pavel constantly came up with new contests for users and invested decent money in its development.

In 2008, the network already had more than 20 million users, and Durov understands that the time has come to profit from a successful project. He hires employees, rents a prestigious office for the company and continues to actively develop and improve VKontakte.

To date, the network is confidently holding in the top three sites in terms of traffic, and Pavel is among the richest people in Russia.

Durov today

Despite the fact that Durov is actively involved in charity work and supports start-up businessmen, opinions about him as a person are extremely ambiguous. On the one hand, he greatly appreciates his own staff and is loyal to his employees.

On the other hand, many condemn his business methods and call them too harsh. With competitors, he manages on the principle of "all means are good in war."

From time to time, he attracts attention with very defiant antics. For example, one day he began to launch airplanes made from banknotes from the windows of his own office. As a result, a crowd gathered under the windows and even skirmishes broke out, which were dispersed by the police.

In 2013, Durov knocked down a policeman who was trying to stop his car almost at full speed. But experienced lawyers managed to hush up the case, and Pavel escaped with only material losses. However, the same person allocated a million rubles for the development of the information and educational non-profit project "Wikipedia".

One way or another, he remains a bright and extraordinary personality, a successful entrepreneur and an enviable groom, whose heart is still free. In 2014, Durov categorically refused to provide the data of users of the VKontakte network to the special services and soon left Russia.

He considers himself a citizen of the world, constantly moving from one country to another. Currently developing a new project Telegramm.

Where does Pavel Durov live now in 2019, when real repressions began against his new Telegram project?

Just before the war in Ukraine and the flaring economic crisis, Durov managed to sell the last 12% of Kontakt's shares and left Russia. By doing this, he immediately killed three birds with one stone - he got rid of the double loss of funds as a result of the depreciation of the ruble, said goodbye to the pressure of the authorities and the FSB, and entered new horizons, conquering not the Runet, but the whole world.


Almost immediately after leaving the Russian Federation, Pavel Durov briefly settled in Saint Kitts and Nevis - this is such a small federation on the islands in the Caribbean. Having invested about a quarter of a million dollars in the local economy, he took out citizenship, and gained almost complete independence. The main advantage of the St. Kitts passport is visa-free regime with most developed countries, the ability to travel to England and another 120 states. Apparently, he was not going to live and work permanently on Durov Island - the infrastructure is not the same, crime in this state is high, and he decided to abandon the settled way of life.


The main priority of Pavel Durov in recent years is travel. He travels a lot around the world. He changes passports often because they run out of pages for stamps. This is part of his free libertarian way of thinking - not to be attached to anything. He gave up real estate a long time ago, living mainly in hotels and rental housing.

In 2017, Durov visited the Maldives, Bali, Switzerland, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, a year earlier he traveled around America, France, Great Britain. Durov's Instagram impresses with the most beautiful photos, but at the same time everything is concise and dignified, without flashy pathos.

Travel 2019

According to some reports, Finland has a dacha, and Pavel himself spends a lot of time in this country. There are a lot of photos on social networks from there.

Finland is a very convenient solution for resettling your relatives there, and for working yourself. It is located not so far from St. Petersburg, a civilized and rich state, fast Internet, no problems with personnel. Rosenberg, a former colleague of Durov, said that some of the Telegram programmers are still working in St. Petersburg, so it’s convenient to get from Finland and give orders.


Despite the great advantages of Helsinki, Durov opened headquarters in Singapore, Berlin, London and the Emirates. He himself notes that Dubai is most attractive to him because of zero taxes.

There is evidence that it is in Dubai in 2019 that Durov now lives permanently. He is photographed against the background of the sands, and given that Telegram plans to introduce monetization this year, being in the UAE is fully justified. In addition, the Arab market accounts for about 40% of messenger traffic, so the prospects there are huge.


However, Durov is still not tied to one place. His team rents houses all over the world, and people can work in completely different places. And if somewhere Pavel stays longer than usual, then this is due only to the need to quickly complete some stage of the business.

Does Pavel Durov visit Russia? In his interview at the TechCrunch conference, he confirmed that he periodically comes to Russia. There are no prohibitions against his person, as well as criminal cases.

Of course, the Russian authorities made a colossal mistake by squeezing Durov out of the country, since losing such a large taxpayer during the crisis, and even with huge prospects - swipe on the economy and prestige in general. After the recent blocking of Telegram by Roskomnadzor, it is safe to say that Durov will not return to Russia. Author.

Born in Leningrad on October 10, 1984. His father is the famous philologist Valery Semenovich Durov, the author of many scientific works. Pavel graduated from the Academic Gymnasium in 2001, and in 2006 from the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University. In September of the same year, VKontakte, Durov's main project, was launched. In 2007, the Delovoy Peterburg newspaper recognized him as one of the winners in the Best Young Entrepreneurs 2007 competition. According to some reports, Pavel is a member of the Mensa community, which unites people with a high IQ.

In 2008, he launched a new "shell" of the social network "VKontakte" - Durov.ru, which uses the User API, specially designed to create third-party social networks.

State

Conspiracy and interview

Pavel Durov is a non-public person. Unlike Albert Popkov, the founder of the Odnoklassniki social network, Durov does not take part in any Russian IT conferences, such as RIFs, KIBs and the like. It is not shown on television.

He gave his first public interview at a specialized DLD conference at the beginning of 2012 in Munich. You can read the full transcript of the interview.

Pavel Durov's performance at DLD in Munich with Russian subtitles

Due to Durov's secrecy, many have previously concluded that such a person simply does not exist. Or, alternatively, he exists (since there are photos taken in different circumstances), but in fact he is not the first face of the social network.

Turin is listed as Pavel's hometown in his profile on his own social network. However, his image is firmly attached to St. Petersburg - the city, which is considered the "territory of VKontakte."

Pavel Durov has also been spotted on the news site Roem.Ru, where he periodically writes comments on articles related to the VKontakte network. He also has pages on VKontakte, on the social networks Google+ and Facebook, and his own blog on LiveJournal.

Internet projects

The social network VKontakte, a Russian clone of Facebook, grew out of a student forum at St. Petersburg University. The forum was created by Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai. VKontakte became public at the very end of 2006, and in the summer of 2007, a millionth user registered on it.

The DST fund (later turned into Mail.ru Group) bought 24.99% of the project based on the company's valuation of $65.2 million. In the fall of 2010, Mail.ru Group bought another 7.5% of the social network for $112.5 million: estimated already at $ 1.5 billion. In terms of monthly audience (21.5 million - TNS, December 2010), VKontakte is second only to Yandex and Mail.ru, more than 110 million accounts are registered on the site.

Pavel Durov is also known as the creator of other, smaller student projects, in particular Durov.com - a site primarily aimed at students of the humanities, and SPBGU.RU - a forum for students of St. Petersburg State University.

outlook

• Pavel Durov adheres to libertarian economic and political views. Libertarianism is a political philosophy based on the prohibition of "aggressive violence", that is, the prohibition of the use of force or the threat of the use of force against another person, or his property, against the will of that person. The prohibition of aggressive violence is legal, not ethical. In other words, libertarianism implies that violations of this prohibition must be prosecuted.

• In December 2011, in connection with protests against the falsification of the results of elections to the State Duma, the FSB suggested that Durov block five communities (four of which contain the phrase "against United Russia" in their names) and two meetings on the VKontakte network. Durov refused to do so. After that, he was summoned by summons to give explanations to the prosecutor's office of St. Petersburg. 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.

• Pavel Durov is a vegetarian.

• May 28, 2012 - Pavel Durov threw 250 thousand rubles out of the window of the Vkontakte office in honor of St. Petersburg City Day.

5 claims of Pavel Durov to the Russian school

Pavel Durov, one of the creators of the VKontakte social network and the founder of the Telegram messenger, often (and rightly) criticizes modern Russian education. In the publication "Mel" they collected in the summer of 2017 the main theses of the Russian entrepreneur about what the school of the 21st century should teach.

• With current economic uncertainty and rapid change, education officials simply cannot know what skills and knowledge will be in demand 5 or 10 years from now. Their work of standardizing school curricula is a dangerous game of roulette, in which the future of an entire nation is bet on one arbitrary number. We need to destandardize the education system. The current schools were conceived in the industrial age and resemble factories, on the assembly lines of which formulaic views are instilled. Specialists of the 21st century can only be trained in non-standard educational institutions.
• Official educational plans already today they show a separation from reality. The average modern graduate Russian school practically does not speak Russian, English language. Meanwhile, all that an effective member of the information society needs is the knowledge of these two languages, as well as the skills of arithmetic. If the system can't even cope with this basic task, there is no point in discussing its success in spreading knowledge about the ciliate slipper.
• Many schools of the future will become experimental platforms like technology startups. The result of some of these schools will be a resounding success, others will end their story with a colossal failure. The number of unknowns is huge, and the way to the future lies only through experiment. One thing is for sure - the secondary education of the XXI century will become more diverse and interesting.
• The education system in Russia should be flexible and provide for training in non-standard programs. The main asset of the state in the 21st century is free people and their creativity. One of the most important skills in our mobile-online era, which is becoming less and less common, is the ability to concentrate for many hours in one lesson. But it is this skill that is necessary for an intellectual, creative or spiritual breakthrough. The future belongs to those who develop immunity to technological traps of attention and retain the ability to maintain long-term concentration.
• One day I began to see some people fail not because they couldn't count, but because they couldn't figure out why. They knew how to find excuses, but they could not understand.

Charity

• In March 2012, it became known that the Wikimedia Foundation accepted Pavel Durov's donation, Vladislav Tsyplukhin, head of the resource's press service, said. Durov promised to donate $1 million to the development of Wikipedia during a live conference with the participation of the encyclopedia's management in January 2012. He explained his desire to support the encyclopedia financially by saying that the Wikipedia project is very important for the Internet and is a global phenomenon. According to Tsyplukhin, the money has already been transferred and should go to Wikimedia in the near future.

• On July 16, 2012, Pavel Durov presented $50,000 to the best programmers in the world. They were schoolchildren from China. The first and second places in the VK Cup Open World Programming Championship, initiated by the head of VKontakte Pavel Durov, were taken by schoolchildren from China. They received $30,000 and $20,000 respectively. The third place went to a schoolboy from Belarus, he received $10,000.

Awards

• Winner of scholarships of the President of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Russian Federation, three-time winner of the Vladimir Potanin scholarship, winner of olympiads in linguistics, computer science and design.

• In 2007, the Delovoy Peterburg newspaper recognized him as one of the winners in the Best Young Entrepreneurs 2007 competition.

• In 2011, Pavel Durov, as well as Arkady Volozh, CEO of Yandex, and Yuri Milner, co-owner of Mail.ru Group and DST Global, became leaders in the TOP-30 key individuals who had the greatest influence on the development of Runet in Russian version Forbes magazine.

Biography of Pavel Durov to be published in Russia

In November 2012, Durov's Code, a book by writer and journalist Nikolai Kononov, goes on sale, in which he will tell previously unknown details about how 28-year-old Pavel Durov became one of the most successful Russian businessmen in just a few years.

“He is the eternal antagonist, contrarian, 100% selfish and loner. Hereditary philologist from a good family. He has very gifted parents, a brilliant older brother who works as the technical director of VKontakte and makes sure that this whole wildly loaded system does not fall. All methods and ways to store information and distribute it were invented by his brother, this is an absolute know-how. Developer conferences, where they talk about how they store information, gather fans, much like concerts of stadium bands, ”says the author of the book in an interview.

According to Nikolai Kononov, he started writing a book about Pavel Durov while working at Forbes. The journalist sought out the St. Petersburg acquaintances of the writer and began to collect biographical data about him, and then it took him some time to persuade Durov to provide information about himself. The decisive argument in his favor as a biographer was not only the recommendations of mutual acquaintances, but also the fact that he assured Pavel that he was interested not so much in his condition as in the path as an entrepreneur.

In his book, Nikolai Kononov promises to dispel the myths about the mafia sources of funding for VKontakte, to tell in detail about the role of Vyacheslav Mirilashvili and his older brother Pavel Durov, who always remains in his shadow, in creating the social network. The book will also contain many other interesting episodes: for example, the story of Pavel Durov's meeting with Mark Zuckerberg in Silicon Valley, episodes from his childhood in Italy, and more. Nikolai Kononov also announced negotiations with a number of producers who showed interest in making a film based on the book.

2017: FBI attempts to recruit Pavel Durov

According to him, the first attempts by the FBI to coerce cooperation took place as early as 2014. Durov then sold his stake in VKontakte and emigrated from Russia after the FSB demanded that he provide personal information about the Euromaidan organizers. When crossing the American border, Durov immediately undertook to interrogate the FBI. Then everything was limited to a few questions about his cooperation with the Russian authorities.

Later, Durov was offered to give an email address to which representatives of the special services could send letters with proposals for cooperation regarding the Telegram messenger. According to Durov, he ignored these proposals.

During a visit to the Google I / O conference in San Francisco, FBI agents again tried to establish contact with Durov. He was shown the court order and offered to create an informal communication channel through which information about terrorists could be exchanged. Durov again refused and suggested in an interview that the court order was most likely forged.

A year later, they tried to recruit one of the Telegram developers in a similar way. First, the FBI Cyber ​​Unit interrogated the developer, and then offered him about $10,000 for cooperation. The developer refused the offer and informed Durov about what had happened.

The founder of Telegram also noted the extremely high level of training and the seriousness of the intentions of the American intelligence services.

2012

September 20, 2012 - The St. Petersburg police refused to open a criminal case on extremism at the request of Svetlana Los, head of the Gift of Life Foundation. She accused the founder of the VKontakte social network of inciting hatred towards dogs, homeless people and football fans. The reason was a post on Twitter.

Pavel Valerievich Durov- Russian businessman, creator of the social network "Vkontakte" (VK) and the cross-platform messenger "Telegram". Pavel Durov in his student years was a laureate of scholarships of the President of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Russian Federation, a three-time laureate Potaninskaya scholarships. Currently, Pavel Valerievich is a ruble billionaire.

Childhood and education of Pavel Durov

Father - Valery Semenovich Durov(b. 1945) - Doctor of Philology. Valery Durov headed the Department of Classical Philology of the Philological Faculty of St. Petersburg State University (from 1992 to 2013).

Mother - Albina Alexandrovna Durova(b. 1951) - taught at the St. Petersburg state university Now she is retired.

Older brother - Nikolay Valerievich Durov(b. 1980) - Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. During his student years, he twice became the absolute world champion in programming among students. Nikolai Durov was the technical director of VKontakte LLC.

Pavel's grandfather Semyon Petrovich Tulyakov(b. 1913), participated in the Great Patriotic War. Was wounded three times. Introduced to the Order of the Red Star.

Pavel Durov began to receive his education in Italy, went to school in Turin, where his father worked for several years. When the Durovs returned home, Pavel became a student at the Academic Gymnasium at St. Petersburg State University. Pavel Durov studied in a class with in-depth study foreign languages. In addition to English, French, German, Spanish and Italian, he knows Latin and Persian.

The early years of Pavel Durov (Photo: lukomore.org/Global Look Press)

Pavel grew up as a rather active child. He became interested in computers early, at the age of 11 Durov became interested in programming, virtual computer projects.

Friends talked about the "innocent children's fun" of the future creator of VKontakte. For example, Pavel changed screen savers on all computers in the computer science classroom, and easily cracked teachers' passwords. The love of programming, apparently, did not bring him closer to the computer science teacher, whose photo with the signature “Must die” young Durov placed on the screensavers of school computers.

Pavel Durov graduated with honors from the gymnasium and, despite his interest in programming, decided to get a liberal arts education by entering the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University (specialty "English Philology and Translation").

Pavel Durov's career

Pavel Durov created at the university a library for searching important materials, abstracts to simplify messaging and useful information.

True, in the end, having figured out Facebook, Pavel said that this was a "sinking ship." He even called the American social network "a stronghold of pedoliberals", and in May 2012, in his Twitter account, he ironically called it "a cheap craft."

Pavel Durov was engaged in the development of VKontakte together with his brother Nikolai. The first official user registered on the social network in October 2006. Initially, the social network was called "Students.ru". But it was soon changed to a more acceptable one - "VKontakte", over time, the abbreviation "VK" also took root.

In 2008, the number of registered users of VKontakte exceeded 20 million, and Pavel Durov became a real legend, who was compared with the creator of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg.

On April 1, 2014, the founder of the VKontakte social network, Pavel Durov, announced that he was leaving his leadership position. According to Durov, the reason for his departure was the change in the composition of the company's shareholders, which led to the restriction of the CEO's freedom of action. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to uphold the principles that were once the basis of our social network,” Durov wrote on his page.

Durov noted that, as a founder, he would continue to participate in the life of the social network, however, “formal posts in the new conditions are not interesting to me,” the media quoted him as saying.

On April 21, 2014, VKontakte LLC announced the dismissal of Pavel Durov from the post of CEO of the social network in connection with his earlier resignation. Durov did not recognize his resignation as legitimate, as he was withdrawing his application.

In his 2016 interview, Pavel Durov published ten lessons he learned in the process of creating VKontakte. According to him, "VK" was made quickly and efficiently, which put him above the competition. Also, according to Durov, you need to pay attention to pleasant little things, since even insignificant, but well-thought-out details “bring new loyal users.”

Durov admitted that when creating the site, he listened to the opinion of "senior and reasonable", but was only wasting time, since "you should only listen to your intuition." He noted that the staff of VKontakte was small, but consisted of talented and motivated people: "such a team is more effective than an army of mercenaries working for a salary."

According to Forbes, Pavel Durov sold his stake in VKontakte to the CEO of MegaFon Ivan Tavrin.

Emigration of Pavel Durov

Pavel Durov received the citizenship of Saint Kitts and Nevis, but does not live there. The passport of this small state allows Durov to travel the world without hindrance. 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.”

Photo: lukomore. org/Global Look Press

Pavel received the passport of the state of Saint Kitts and Nevis in 2014 after investing in the country's economy, the news wrote that Durov donated 250 thousand dollars to the Sugar Industry Diversification Fund, a donation in such a volume entitles him to automatic citizenship. Before that, the former CEO of VKontakte conducted a poll on his Facebook page on which country to choose as a new place of residence.

Conflict around Telegram

After leaving Vkontakte, Pavel Durov did not stop developing new projects. Back in 2013, Durov introduced the Telegram messenger. The peculiarity of Durov's project was the use of a special technology for encrypting correspondence, which was invented by Nikolai Durov, and created a truly secure communication channel.

Telegram instant messaging system (Photo: Sergey Konkov / TASS)

Government representatives suggested several times that Telegram should be blocked if it did not change its privacy policy, but Pavel remained adamant and officially stated that the messenger did not and would not give out users' personal data.

Adviser to the President of Russia on the development of the Internet German Klimenko believes that Pavel Durov, the creator of the Telegram messenger, takes an “anarchist position” in his dispute with Roskomnadzor.

According to Klimenko, terrorists can use various messengers when planning terrorist attacks, but the leadership of all these messengers, unlike Durov, is ready for a dialogue with the Russian authorities, TASS writes.

In April 2017, the creator of the Telegram messenger, Pavel Durov, spoke about what innovations users should expect in the near future. So, it became known that through the messenger it will be possible to make financial transactions that are not subject to commission and make video calls. Payments will be made using the Stripe payment system.

June 23, 2017 Head of Roskomnadzor Alexander Zharov said that the agency will block the work of Telegram in Russia if its creators do not send the data necessary for the official inclusion of the messenger in the register of information dissemination organizers. In turn, Pavel Durov promised his users that Telegram would not give out their personal data to any of the world's special services.

On April 16, in Russia, providers began blocking access to the Telegram messenger. Svobodnaya Pressa reported that Alexander Zharov, the head of Roskomnadzor, said that on behalf of the department, requests would be sent to the App Store and Google Play app stores demanding to remove the Telegram messenger.

According to Durov, the decision to block the Telegram messenger will reduce national security Russia, as part of the personal data of Russians will be transferred to the US-controlled instant messengers WhatsApp and Facebook. At the same time, Durov noted that the terrorist threat in Russia will remain at the same level, since "extremists will continue to use encrypted communication channels - in other instant messengers or via VPN."

“The quality of life of 15 million Russians will deteriorate as Telegram without a VPN may be unavailable at times. We consider the decision to block unconstitutional and will continue to defend the right to privacy of correspondence of Russians," the owner of Telegram summed up, the news reported. Durov also said that he would allocate grants to everyone who would support services with which you can bypass the blocking of the messenger.

Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that Vladimir Putin is aware of the situation with the blocking of the Telegram messenger in the country.

“The question is rather a government one, but, of course, the president is aware of the decision that was made by the court on blocking,” RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.

Pavel Durov's personal life

Durov adheres to libertarian political views. He supports vegetarianism, according to some reports, even became a vegan. In addition, Pavel does not drink alcohol and loves to travel.

Pavel is well brought up, but uncommunicative and does not like to talk about his personal life. Nevertheless, Durov's photos often appeared on the Internet with various models.

In the photo: Alena Shishkova and Vika Odintsova (Photo: instagram.com/missalena.92 / instagram.com/viki_odintcova)

Pavel Durov was credited with relations with Alena Shishkova and Vika Odintsova, according to his biography on the 24-media website, you can also often find references to Durov's common-law wife Daria Bondarenko, who allegedly bore Paul two children. But Durov does not publish photos with this woman and children on Instagram and other social networks, keeping his personal life secret. About who Pavel Durov meets, it remains to speculate from the news of the tabloids and the yellow press.

On the picture: Russian entrepreneur, programmer, billionaire, one of the founders of the social network "VKontakte" and the company of the same name; creator of the cross-platform messenger "Telegram" Pavel Durov (third from right) (Photo: lukomore.org/Global Look Press)

Paul is inspired Ernesto Che Guevara and Steve Jobs, and according to religious beliefs, according to some sources, he is a Pastafarian, according to others, a supporter of the Zen school.

In 2011, Pavel was ranked third on the Forbes list of "9 most unusual Russian businessmen - eccentrics, eccentrics and eccentrics" for publishing a photo in which he showed an obscene gesture in response to the efforts of a major shareholder of VKontakte - Mail.ru Group - to absorb this social network.

No less resonance was caused by the scandal with the throwing out of the window of the central office of VKontakte banknotes folded in the form of paper airplanes. Durov and Vkontakte top managers threw about $2,000 out the window, according to his biography on Wikipedia, Pavel, commenting on the story in an interview, noted that he “threw money out of the window and was glad to see both pandemonium and the reaction of people, not because that he wanted to prove his wealth and significance, but because he saw surprise and joy on the faces of the townspeople.

Durov's tweet on May 9, 2012, that "67 years ago, Stalin defended Hitler's right to repress the population of the USSR" caused a great resonance. This quote has caused indignation of many, Nikolai Valuev announced that he was closing his accounts on VKontakte. Writer Sergey Minaev called Durov a scumbag.

Press Secretary of VKontakte Vladislav Tsyplukhin, commenting on the scandalous news, said 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."

Pavel Durov actively uses Instagram, uploads his photos. If fans cannot find photos of his girls there, then there are a lot of Durov himself, in particular, half-naked on Instagram. Most often, Durov poses for photos in a black T-shirt. He also posts pictures from numerous travels, recently on Instagram he posted an image of a seaplane in the Maldives, signing the photo “seaplane - more freedom.”

In August, the founder of VKontakte and the Telegram messenger announced the launch of the #PutinShirtlessChallenge flash mob (roughly translated as “Take off your shirt like Putin”). Pavel Durov invited users to publish their photos with a naked torso "in response" to numerous pictures of the president of Russia naked to the waist. Durov himself accompanied the post with his photo without a T-shirt, made, judging by the geolocation, in the city of Ubud on the island of Bali.

“My Instagram had to seriously go out on new level to keep up with Mr. Putin's growing shirtless competition. If you are Russian, you need to join the #PutinShirtlessChallenge (or be forgotten). Putin's two rules are no photoshop and pumping [multiple repetitions of the exercise to make the muscles look more prominent]. Otherwise, you are not “alpha,” Durov signed the photo.

14 min. reading

Updated: 21/01/2019

One of the biggest challenges is being yourself in a world that tries to make you like everyone else.

Pavel Valerievich Durov (born October 10, 1984, Leningrad) - Russian businessman, programmer, developer and co-founder of the social network "VKontakte", led VKontakte as CEO from 2006 to 2014, currently the founder and head (CEO) of the Telegram messenger.

At the age of 31, Mr. Durov was included in the rating of "200 richest businessmen in Russia" by Forbes. They like to call him a "ruble billionaire", but these data are practically outdated: Mr. Durov is approaching a new title - " dollar billionaire". From 2016 to 2017, his capital increased from $600 million to $950 million. Now he is in the TOP-100 "richest people in Russia-2017" at the 100th position (Forbes).

Pavel turns millions, but we are talking not only about millions of rubles and dollars. He created a digital country with a multi-million population (over 100 million users), giving life to the VKontakte resource.

How many smart boys from intelligent families become millionaires? What helped Paul to put his mind right, start his own business, and succeed? The biography of Pavel Durov will tell us about this.

Family and childhood of Pavel Durov

Durov Pavel Valerievich was born on 10/10/84 in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad).

One of his great-grandfathers was a nobleman, the other a farmer, both subsequently lost their property.

The head of the family Durov Valery Semenovich, Doctor of Philology, headed the department at St. Petersburg State University. Mother, Albina Alexandrovna, grew up in Omsk, where she learned their language from German settlers. Having moved to Leningrad, she easily entered the faculty of journalism. The grown-up Pasha admits that he is grateful to his father and mother for their upbringing, parents " set an example of optimism and diligence even in difficult times for our family.”

Pavel was the youngest in the family, his mother had two more sons: Mikhail (from his first marriage, he was an adult and lived separately) and Nikolai (born in 1980). It was Nikolai who set a worthy example for little Pavlik. The older brother grew up as a smart little boy, at the age of 3 he read Popular Astronomy, and at 7 he “clicked” cubic equations. Pasha was gifted in a different way, often drawing guests at home and deftly capturing the similarities.

In 2015, on Twitter, congratulating his father on his anniversary, Durov Jr. will note:

My father taught me and my brother the value of perseverance, honesty and hard work.

Hard work and dedication are important qualities successful person.

Education in primary schools

Pavel Durov changed four schools. When his father was offered to teach Russian in Turin, the family moved to Italy. Pasha was taken away a few months later, and before that, his grandmother took him to an ordinary Leningrad school.

From 1990 to 1992, Pasha studied at the Coppino-Falletti di Barolo school (Turin), and upon his return to St. Petersburg he attended general education school(1992-1996). There was a conflict with the teachers. In Italy, children were taught differently, without coercion, and the authority of the teachers was not hammered into the head of the elementary school student. Pavlik could make a remark to the English teacher, blaming him for the wrong pronunciation. In the 4th grade, Pasha is fond of programming, together with Nikolai he creates programs on his first IBM PC XT computer. In the computer class, instead of a screensaver, he installed a photo of a computer science teacher on school machines, signing it with the benevolent “must die” (English “must die”).

In 1996, the young rebel was transferred to the Academic Gymnasium of St. Petersburg State University, where lessons, including 4 languages, are taught in depth. Pavel appreciates the acquired knowledge, according to the millionaire, knowledge of languages ​​expands the worldview, promotes career growth. Durov has 9 foreign languages ​​in his piggy bank, he can easily support a conversation in international English, exotic Persian, Latin, as well as Français, Deutsch, Español, italiano.

In the experimental classes of the gymnasium, Durov meets the same smart people as himself. However, classmates referred to him as a non-team student, claiming that he "always found a way to be separate." Journalist Nikolai Kononov, who wrote Durov's biography, will come to the conclusion that Pavel "became known as a sociopath because few wanted to talk to anyone at school."

In 2001, Pavel Durov graduated from the gymnasium with honors, he did not reach the “gold”, he was awarded a silver medal. To the question “who do you want to become”, the graduate laughed it off - “Internet totem”. In principle, he became one - an idol, a symbol, a totem of the most popular Russian-speaking social network.

University years

In 2001, Pavel became a student at the same university as Kolya. The elder brother is studying mathematics and programming at St. Petersburg State University, and Pasha chose the specialty "English Philology and Translation".

Philology student becomes a university activist. " Pavel spoke quietly, but for some reason everyone fell silent and began to listen.”, - this is how the businessman and scientist Yuri Lifshitz, also a student at St. Petersburg State University, will speak about Durov’s leadership charisma. Pavel is included in the rating of students with the highest level of intelligence. For outstanding achievements, he is honored with a government scholarship, awarded with a scholarship from the President of the Russian Federation. Durov has been a scholarship holder of the V. Potanin program for 3 years in a row.

As a student, Durov acted as a web developer for two Internet projects:

• The Durov.com resource is a platform for students to exchange useful information, an electronic database of abstracts, term papers, etc.
• The site spbgu.ru is a forum for students of St. Petersburg State University. Here, Durov intuitively "felt" the future concept of "VKontakte" - he modeled real scheme communication: when creating a profile, students indicated their real name, surname, department. “I tried to kindle a fire,” admits Pavel, who threw hot topics into the forum for discussion. “It was necessary to create the illusion of a critical mass.”

While working on these non-commercial projects, Pavel saw that power is given not only by money, but also by control of information. Maintaining websites taught him to think about the absence of superiors . He strives to work for himself, and not for "uncle."

In 2005, with the rank of reserve lieutenant, Durov graduated from the military commissar with a specialization in propaganda and psychological warfare. In 2006 - leaves the "alma mater", having earned a diploma with honors.

Foundation and development of VKontakte

After uni, Pavel took up the creation of VKontakte. It all started with friendly advice. His classmate Vyacheslav Mirilashvili, a student at Tufts University (USA), observed the growing popularity of the social network Facebook, the creation of Mark Zuckerberg, in America. Having learned from Delovoy Peterburg about the St Petersburg University forum and Durov's success, he wrote to Pavel about the idea of ​​creating a similar Russian-language network. Durov liked the plan, because the search for classmates was relevant personally for him and Vyacheslav: Because we might never meet again.

At first, the site was called "Student.ru", but then Pavel changed the name to a more comprehensive one. Durov created the brand name of the portal quickly, typing “Tahoma” in 3 minutes. He chose colors that don't bother anyone"- blue, white and grey.

The site did not become just a “Facebook clone”. Durov claimed that they "never copied without using the brain."

The friends did not have starting capital, Vyacheslav turned to his father, Mikhail Mirilashvili, for help. Thanks to his support, VKontakte LLC was established and the project was launched. There were three founders of the company: Vyacheslav Mirilashvili with a controlling stake, and co-owners Lev Leviev and Pavel Durov with a non-controlling stake in securities.

FIRST STEPS OF THE SITE

In 2006, the number of visitors to the social networks of Runet grew exponentially: Odnoklassniki, launched in March 2006, had 1.5 million users by November. The demo version of VKontakte appeared on time - in September 2006, a little more, and it could have been late. Durov started a personal page with "ID" under No. 1 http://vkontakte.ru/id1.

At first, the site was closed, registration was available by personal invitation. After 3 months, since December 2006, the resource began to be replenished by everyone. Aspiring businessmen organized a drawing with a prize from - "invite more friends and you will get an iPod player." Within a couple of days, the site attracted over 2,000 users.

Pavel chose the right people for his team.

Remember: you - those who can do something, and not talk, are very few.

Actions, not words, lead a person to success.

Durov resolutely dismissed those who caused some doubts. His brother Nicholas worked with him. He solved server load issues that were very relevant: from 2006 to 2007, the VK audience increased to 3 million.

Durov was awarded the title of "Best Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2007" by the publication "Business Petersburg", and in the same year the popular vote of the Runet Prize put the portal in 2nd place. The resource of that time was non-commercial, without advertising, and in this way it was fundamentally different from other Internet endeavors.

VKontakte is beginning to interest potential buyers, but Pavel does not want to sell the development, instead attracting investors. The first financial sponsor was Yuri Milner, chairman of the board of the Digital Sky Technologies investment fund. The Internet investor was remembered by the VKontakte team for the fact that he himself took the initiative and personally came to them.

The investor acquired 24.99% of the shares, and later resold them to Mail.ru Group.

In 2008, the network's audience amounted to more than 20 million registered customers. This year, the site is monetized, advertising banners appear.

In 2010, the company's central office moved to Nevsky Prospekt 28, in the building of the Singer company. Of the six floors of the house, the web developer rents the top two for the headquarters of the company. Later, he will buy a huge space - a squat on Nevsky 65, where his hard-working employees can also spend the night. Pavel himself did not want to become attached to anything, rented an apartment nearby, lived here and there, but mostly in a squat. Later, he will give the keys to these square meters to Vasily Babich, an employee of the company. Durov did not visit the office earlier than 12 o'clock, he worked in his own mode, until 3-4 o'clock in the morning.

In 2011, having already 7.9 billion rubles in his pocket, the programmer enters the TOP of the richest businessmen in Russia (350th place). One of his colleagues, Oleg Andreev, explained the results of a newcomer to the IT industry by the fact that Durov " I could see through the eyes of a person with an old browser and a slow Internet.”

In 2011, Durov, as the best creator of a Runet startup, gets into the Forbes TOPs. However, Pavel is not limited to creating a startup, he decides to finance them. By the end of 2011, six startups received $25,000 on a competitive basis.

Pavel does not limit the VK audience and dreams of entering the European market. In 2011, the domain moves to the abbreviated address vk.com, which is more easily perceived by residents of other countries.

In 2011, a photo of Pavel Valeryevich showing a fak indecent gesture is posted in Forbes. The eccentric hero is in 3rd place in the ranking of extravagant and eccentric businessmen, to whom the press has already attributed and.

This gesture, instead of a thousand words, was Pavel Mail.ru Group's response to the company's attempts to absorb the social network. Mail.ru Group director Dmitry Grishin already owned Odnoklassniki and wanted to merge the resources together.

The founders of the company Mirilashvili and Leviev did not approve of the actions of the freedom-loving co-founder. In April '12, they sold their stake in VKontakte (40% and 8%, respectively) to the United Capital Partners (UCP) group of companies, without informing other shareholders, Durov and Mail.ru Group, about the deal.

Life in exile

In December 2011, after protests against the falsification of the results of the elections to the State Duma, FSB officers recommended that Durov block opposition communities and meetings on the resource. The general director of the VK rejected the proposal, after which he was invited to the prosecutor's office to testify.

In 2011, special forces visited Durov. Durov shared with correspondents of The New York Times that the idea to create Telegram ( next product Durova after "VK") dawned on him at the very moment when these trained guys approached his apartment.

They had weapons and looked very serious. Seemed like they wanted to break down the door

Durov advocates free access to information on the Internet. For the convenience of users (free music tracks, videos), he had to pay more than once: content owners filed claims for copyright infringement. In 2010, the State Television and Radio Company VGTRK was the first to sue VK for unlawful placement of its content on the site. After 2 years, singer Sergey Lazarev warned that he would sue for pirated content on VK. Durov informed on this on Twitter that Lazarev's compositions had been removed from the site and quipped that now cultural value VKontakte has grown. Durov himself did this check for pirated content:

On January 12, during the Digital Life Design conference, Pavel announced to Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, that he intended to sponsor the encyclopedia. After 3 months, the programmer donated $1,000,000 to the Wikipedia project. The philanthropist believes that money " overrated because creation is so much more interesting than consumption.”

Pavel Durov became the initiator of the championship for programmers VK Cup. In 2017, this open youth tournament (from 14 to 23 years old) is held for the fourth time.

1 of his Twitter post, dated May 9, read: “People are walking. Still - 67 years ago, Stalin defended Hitler's right to repress the population of the USSR. A company spokesman said that the head of VK is honoring the Victory Day. And the comment arose from the fact that Pavel's grandfather (WWII participant Semyon Tulyakov), having received three wounds and the Order Patriotic War II degree, in peacetime he was repressed without trial or investigation.

On May 27, on the day of the city, VK managers, together with the boss, launched paper airplanes from the windows of the central office with 5,000 banknotes attached to them. Citizens gathered under the head office of the VK, arranging a brawl for banknotes. Angry comments rained down on Durov, accusing him of snobbery. The head of Vkontakte explained that he only wanted to maintain a cheerful mood on the occasion of the founding day of St. Petersburg, but " I had to quickly stop - the people began to rage».

A CASE WITH A COLLISION

On April 5, 2013, an accident occurred near the VK office. The investigation concluded that the car that hit the traffic police officer was driven by the founder of VK. But in October 2013, due to the "lack of a crime event," the case was closed, then reopened, and in 2014 it was closed again.

On December 13th, the FSB of the Russian Federation requested from the head of VKontakte the personal data of the organizers of the Euromaidan communities. The CEO of the social network refused to provide information. He appreciated the trust of millions of Ukrainian clients of the resource, and considered the issuance of information about the user base illegal.

UCP vs. MAIL.RU

What you own will sooner or later own you. Durov's quote claims to be included in the collection of classical aphorisms.

He quickly sells material "anchors": furniture, property, shares. In 2014, he parted with 12% of VK, selling them to his friend Tavrin (media manager, former head of MegaFon). The securities, in turn, were bought from Ivan Tavrin by the Mail.ru group, which eventually acquired a controlling 52 percent. The holder of 48% of the securities, the UCP association, stated that the policy of Mail.ru Group harms the interests of VK and began legal claims.

The “X” hour struck on March 21, 2014, when Pavel made a statement “on his own”. It was signed a month later: Probably, in Russian conditions, something like this was inevitable, but I am glad that we lasted 7.5 years.”

On April 22, 2014, information appeared that Pavel Valerievich had left his homeland. Former CEO considers his departure final. He commented to TechCrunch reporters that there was no turning back for him: Especially after I publicly refused to cooperate with the authorities.

The founder of the portal calls VKontakte the best that has been created in the field of communication on the Russian market, and it is difficult for him to argue. The facts speak for themselves: the growth of the startup's popularity has broken all Runet records. The site, conceived as a means of finding friends, has transformed into the largest social network in the Russian Federation, in terms of the number of “users”, VKontakte is ahead of the Russian-language segment of Facebook and Odnoklassniki. The resource is visited monthly by more than 97 million people (April 2017 data).

PILGRIM'S LIFE

The programmer named 7 conditions under which he could return: these are the reforms of the courts and education, the simplification of laws, the economic autonomy of the regions, etc.

1 Elected judges and open courts. Durov believes that only the judges chosen ordinary people, and not officials, as well as jurors can ensure the most honest and independent outcome of proceedings. This, in turn, will help develop entrepreneurial initiative.

2 Deregulation (simple laws). Paul is against the abundance of laws that contradict each other. They stimulate the development of corruption in the country and slow down economic growth.

3 Open competitions for government positions. Officials, fearing for their homes, form their teams through established friendships and family ties, as a result of which illiterate and inefficient employees can occupy significant positions. It also affects corruption in the country and economic development. It is necessary to introduce transparent mechanisms and direct elections for public office.

4 Tax haven due to income from the export of raw materials. Russia is rich in natural resources. It is necessary to free the underdeveloped sectors of the economy from taxes and shift their burden to well-developed resource industries. This will help attract investment, even out the balance of development and give impetus to economic development the entire state.

5 Economic autonomy of regions. It is necessary to change the structure of taxation in such a way that the main part of regional taxes remains on the ground, and is not redistributed, as it is now, to the capital.

6 The abolition of feudal vestiges. The freedom of consciousness of the population is the basis of the progress and economic development of Russia, which is currently hindered by the slavish consciousness formed through military service, the institution of registration, and the need to issue a separate travel passport.

7 Destandardization of the education system. The modern education system limits the consciousness of the younger generation, forms stereotyped views. We need flexibility, non-standard training programs that will educate free and creative individuals.

In his VK profile, in the column "political beliefs" is "libertarianism" (a trend that prohibits "aggressive violence").

Now I am very happy living without any property and considering myself a citizen of the world

Pavel has the citizenship of Saint Kitts and Nevis, he received it for investing in the country's economy. The passport of this state in the Caribbean with a population of 50 thousand allows you to freely travel around the world. Durov can't sit still, he changes locations a couple of times a month. Together with him, programmers developing Telegram travel around different cities and countries.

Telegram is a new project of Pavel Durov

August 14, 2013 launched Telegram, an application for smartphones and other mobile devices, where you can exchange text messages and files of different formats. The messenger is designed with an emphasis on speed and security.

Telegram allows you to supplement posts with funny pictures - stickers. A feature of the stickers in the application is the absence of a background, which creates the illusion of a sticker.

The messenger for users is free, but Durov is expensive. Pavel - "2 in 1", is both the founder and sponsor of Telegram. Every year, Durov finances approximately $12 million for it. He warns against being overly fond of money: “ boring work with dull cowards, the need to lie and betray your world - that's just part of the price you pay for an excessive desire for paper.

Telegram uses a special message encoding method developed by Nikolai Durov. The server part uses the capacities of US and German companies. Durov's project was developed on the assumption that "all communication channels are tapped." “Even our system administrators cannot access the user's chats,” the creator of the system assures.

In June 2014, Telegram received a prestigious award in Berlin - it was named the fastest growing startup of the year at the Europas competition. The Europas Award was established in 2009 and selects the most progressive and innovative technological start-ups in Europe.

In November 2014, the application had about 1 million installations (TJournal data), after a couple of months - already 35 million.

In 2014, The New York Times called the entrepreneur Russian. The programmer admits: My dream is to break the national inferiority complex by proving that products from Russia can be massively in demand all over the world.

In 2015, there was talk of selling Telegram to Google (for $1 billion), but Durov denied the information about the deal.

In February 2016, there was another reason to celebrate: Telegram reached the mark of 100 million subscribers. active users per month.

Representatives of the Russian government warned of blocking Telegram if Durov does not change the policy of anonymity. But the fundamental concept of Telegram implies the security of correspondence, Pavel refused to give out information about users.

FSB officials said that when planning the explosion in the St. Petersburg metro on April 3, 2017, Telegram was used as a communication channel. The messenger was called a way of communication of terrorists.

“Privacy is ultimately more important than our fear of bad things like terrorism,” the Telegram creator told TechCrunch. “ISIS will always find other ways to communicate.”

On the request of Roskomnazdor in May 2017 to provide information for registering the messenger, its founder refused. In June, Durov nevertheless sent information, warning that further issuance of personal data of clients was out of the question.

Pavel Durov encrypts his personal life no less carefully than his correspondence in Telegram. Little more is known about her than a donut hole. On pages on the Internet, he does not post a photo with his beloved, and it is not known whether there is one. The cordial connections attributed to him (with Alena Shishkova, Vika Odintsova, Daria Bondarenko) are unverified. Pavel does not post pictures of his loved ones, instead he shares photos beautiful places who visits.

Personal life and worldview of Pavel Durov

Pavel's love for the black color in the wardrobe, to which he has been indifferent since his university days, is also noted by the European media: "all-black wardrobe" - they succinctly comment. offered “a car of any color if this color is black”, we can say that Durov wears clothes of any color if this color is black.

Indeed, with a height of 178 cm and a weight of 75 kg, Pavel can afford to show off a little. This image of a figure in black scored over half a million likes on VK!

The image of a figure in black scored over half a million likes on VK

Pavel is a member of the Mensa community, which includes people with an IQ that exceeds the level of intelligence of 98% of the world's inhabitants. Psychological studies show that "smarts" do not need a lot of communication to feel happy, the higher the intelligence, the less the need for a large number of friendships. Maybe that's why in 2017 Durov "cleaned up" his friends in social networks and subscribers of the Youtube channel? “One should not be afraid to get rid of obsolete ideas, connections, places of work.

Pavel does not speak on his mobile ("it's outdated, it's too intrusive"), admires Che Guevara and. He is a vegetarian and does not care for alcohol. Pavel is an active supporter of a healthy lifestyle (healthy lifestyle), during his work in VK advertising of alcohol and cigarettes was banned, because he considers them to be the strongest drugs. He also classifies love as a drug, so he prefers not to fall in love.

His favorite film is the black-and-white drama 12 Angry Men (1957), and the most important thing for him is self-development. Network authority says this about his main aspiration:

I would describe my life's work more broadly: helping people and improving the world around us

Pavel Durov's Rules for Success

On November 19, 2012, the biography of the "totem" "Durov's Code" was presented. Real story"VKontakte" and its creator" by Nikolai Kononov, editor-in-chief of Hopes & Fears. The film rights to the book about Durov were bought by AR Films. It was previously reported (2012) about the release of the film at the end of 2017, but since that moment circumstances have changed a lot. In the preface to the publication, the writer Yuri Saprykin noted: "The hero of this book does not fight for freedom - but asserts it by the very fact of his existence."

Pavel Durov is a representative of a new generation of motivated businessmen.

Not only native publications write about him, but also BBC News, The Guardian, Silicon Allee, Fortune.

He belongs to the global "digital elite", which unites brave and talented programmers. Pavel has a subtle entrepreneurial vision. He is hardworking, determined, true to his principles and values ​​freedom very much. He, of course, is not a sociopath or a totem, but a person who has a lot to learn from. He has more than 20 tips for achieving success, some of them are philosophical, some are mundane and applied. His "golden recommendation" is as follows:

Do what gives you real pleasure, and then you will become much happier