Mykola Azarov: biography, photo, nationality

Mykola Azarov (born December 17, 1947) is a Ukrainian politician who was prime minister of Ukraine from March 11, 2010 to January 27, 2014. Prior to that, he was twice the first deputy prime minister and minister of finance, and even more than five years he headed the tax administration of Ukraine.

Azarov Nikolay Yanovich: biography, nationality

It would seem that such an irrelevance at the present time of globalization is the question of how the nationality of a man, when applied to the hero of our article, suddenly acquired a special acuity. Why is it so much interesting for many to know what is the nationality of Azarov Nikolai Yanovich? The fact is that he was on the political arena in Ukraine, a very young country, where this issue in recent years has acquired a special urgency.

So, where did the Azarov Nikolai Yanovich begin his life? His biography began in Kaluga, a native Russian city. Where, then, does he have a middle name, Janovich? The fact is that his grandfather was an Estonian by the name of Robert Pakhlo, all other relatives (at least in two generations) were originally Russian people. According to Azarov himself, made in the program of the famous TV presenter Vladimir Pozner, he was born out of the marriage of his parents, mining engineer Jan Pakhlo (born native Leningrad and front-line soldier) and Catherine Azarova (later married in Kvasnikova). Therefore, little Kolya at his birth, the mother wrote down her maiden name, under which he now knows us.

In the same program of Vladimir Pozner, recorded in the summer of 2012, on the question of the presenter, what is the nationality of Mykola Azarov, he answered the following: "I am a Russian person, but I have lived in Ukraine for 28 years. Of course, I feel that I am already a Ukrainian, that is, a citizen of Ukraine. " It will take another year and a half and the so-called "svidomі Ukrainki" will very lucidly explain to Azarov that between the concepts "Ukrainian" and "citizen of Ukraine" lies the abyss, which in their understanding no merit and years gone by will not be blocked.

Childhood and years of study

As far as one can understand from the recently published book of Mykola Azarov "Ukraine at the Crossroads", his parents tried to establish a joint life, and the family even lived for some time in Leningrad at the apartment of his father's parents. But apparently something went wrong in their family life, and Catherine Azarova returned with a small Kolya to her parents in Kaluga. There she graduated from the railway technical school and subsequently worked in the management of the railway.

Especially strong influence in the childhood on our hero was rendered by the grandmother Maria Azarova, probably one of those Russian women who are able to give love and care to relatives in any, most difficult conditions. We can say that thanks to her care, mother's love, their numerous Kaluga relatives (one of the suburbs of Kaluga is even called Azarovo), Nicholas's childhood was quite prosperous. He studied well at school, repeatedly won the Olympiad in various subjects, was even invited to the special school of Academician Kolmogorov at Moscow State University, but refused to enter it, because he was not attracted by the number of its mathematical direction.

Azarov graduated from high school with a silver medal, and then went to "conquer the capital." He entered the Moscow State University at the Geological Faculty. Student years passed as expected, but there was one episode, which Azarov especially notes in his memoirs. This is an incident involving a street fight of Nikolai and his friend with a group of hooligans who attacked the girl. Arriving at the scene of the incident, policemen, without a long thought, stunned Nikolai with a blow to the head of the club, and then began to "sew the case of hooliganism" in the office. On his happiness late in the night, a police lieutenant called in, who understood everything and let Nikolai and his comrade go. Why does Azarov distinguish this, in general, unobtrusive episode of his life. The fact is that once in the same situation was his future patron Viktor Yanukovych, but it was not in Moscow, and in Envakievo, and in the department there was not a thoughtful lieutenant. Therefore, as Azarov writes, he "is sympathetic to the mistakes of Viktor Yanukovich's youth."

The beginning of a career in the Soviet period

Having received the qualification of a geologist-geophysicist after graduation from MGU, Mykola Azarov in 1971 was assigned to the Tulaugol coal plant, where for five years he had made his way to the chief engineer of the Tulasakhtoohushenie trust. He showed himself to be a real innovator, going from practice to make a considerable contribution to the theory of studying coal seams. A fascination with mining science led to the fact that in 1976 Azarov Nikolai Yanovich left the production in the branch science. First, he works as a foreman in a branch research institute in Novomoskovsk, Tula region, defends his candidate's thesis. Soon becomes a head of department in the same research institute.

A young and promising candidate of geological sciences becomes cramped in his native institute, he needs a new field to apply his mature scientific knowledge. And it is up to him on the Donbass, where Azarov is offered the post of deputy director of the UkrNIIR Mining Geology. In 1984 he came to Donetsk. The move went to his advantage as a scientist. A couple of years later, Azarov Nikolai Yanovich completes and defends his doctoral dissertation in mining geophysics, and soon after that becomes director of the institute. He works a lot and fruitfully, his monograph on the geology of the gold deposits of Donbass acquires wide popularity in the scientific community. In 1991, Mykola Azarov also became a professor at the Department of Geology of Donetsk Technical University.

The beginning of political activity

During the period of restructuring and liberalization of the political system of the USSR, Mykola Azarov, of course, did not stay away from the main processes. As the director of the branch research institute, he actively supports the reformist wing in the CPSU (the so-called "Demplatform"), while in 1990 he is considered a party leadership as one of the candidates for the position of the leader of the Donetsk Communists (Petron Simonenko preferred). In the same year he became a delegate to the 27th Congress of the CPSU, where he met Leonid Kuchma, later his long-time patron. It is obvious that according to his activity Azarov had the opportunity to get acquainted with the leaders of the largest coal mining enterprises of Donbass, "Coal barons", who will soon become his partners in new political projects.

The first political projects with the participation of Azarov in independent Ukraine

Soon after the collapse of the USSR and the creation of the CIS, a group of intellectuals of Russian origin living in Ukraine from Kharkov and Donetsk created the civil and political organization Civil Congress of Ukraine (CGU), which aimed to transform the rather loose state into a more united Eurasian Union. Among the founders of the congress were Mykola Azarov, a teacher of philosophy from the Donetsk State University Alexander Bazilyuk, and a history teacher from the Kharkov State University Valery Meshcheryakov. The captains of the Donbass industry began to look to the organization, by that time they had already established their organization - the Interregional Association of Ukraine. Under her influence, the Labor Party was formed in Donetsk in December 1992, in which the director of the Donetsk plant Elektrobytmash (later the concern Nord) Valentin Landyk, and his deputy Azarov, became the head of the Labor Party. It was a time of tough confrontation between Premier Leonid Kuchma, who was trying to limit the traditional subsidy of the Donbass mines from the state budget, and the leaders of the Donetsk industry. Organized by former "red directors" powerful miners 'strikes and miners' marches to Kiev forced President Kravchuk to send the prime minister to resign. His place was taken by the head of the Donetsk City Council and the City Executive Committee, in the recent past the director of Donetsk's largest mine, Zasyadko Yefim Zvyagilsky. Soon Landyk left for Kiev as vice-premier in his government, and Mykola Azarov headed the Labor Party, which was the political backbone of Zvyagilsky's government.

Parliamentary career

In 1994, Azarov was elected a member of the Verkhovna Rada of the Labor Party. In the same year Leonid Kuchma becomes president after the early elections and starts a new war against the "Donetsk". Zviagilsky escapes from his persecution in Israel, but Azarov can not escape. And he decides to change political predilections and join the pro-presidential Inter-regional parliamentary group. His loyalty was evaluated and in 1995-1996 he became head of the parliamentary committee on the budget. The new president was in dire need of qualified personnel for the new Ukrainian state machine he created on the ruins of the old Soviet administrative system. In 1996 he proposes Azarov to become the chairman of the newly created State Tax Administration of Ukraine.

Head of the State Tax Administration

Of course, the new appointment attracted Azarov, because he had to create from scratch a huge in size and authority, and moreover a very specific civil service. And he took up this work with all his inherent energy. The results were not long in coming. Already for the first year of his stay in the new position, tax collections across the country increased by one and a half times, while they began to collect even from those sectors of the economy that they had not paid them in advance.

Of course, as the income of the Ukrainian state grew, so did the number of enemies of the chief tax inspector. He was accused of excessive strengthening of the tax press, but Azarov retorted these accusations by referring to the fact that Ukrainian tax legislation conforms to world norms, but most of those who are accustomed to evading compulsory payments in favor of the state are protesting.

Until 2000, Azarov worked in his post, after sitting on it several premiers, whom President Kuchma loved to change every year. At the same time, he even refused to participate in the 1998 parliamentary elections, preferring to deal with the already well-established business.

How the Donbass changed in the 90s

While Azarov was in charge of the Ukrainian tax authorities from Kiev, the economic transformations were steadily moving in the Donbass, as a result of which the old elite, consisting mainly of directors (even from Soviet times) of enterprises and shchakht was gradually replaced by a new one, generated already by market relations. Here began to be created so-called. Vertically integrated production concerns, which combined all the stages of the traditional production for the Donbass: coal mining, coke production, metallurgical and chemical enterprises, sales and sales units. Examples were the Industrial Union of Donbass, controlled by the clan of Taruta-Hayduk, and the holding System Capital Management, which was managed by the Akhmetov-Yanukovich group. Using favorable foreign economic conditions in the late 1990s, they significantly increased the export of metal products, which allowed them to concentrate in their hands a colossal capital.

A new fight between the "Donetsk" and "Kiev"

This could not leave indifferent the central Ukrainian authorities, which from the beginning of the 1990s tried to limit the basis for the existence of the Donbass economy, which was part of the old, still Soviet system of subsidizing unprofitable coal mining. The amount of annual subsidies from the state budget exceeded 10 billion hryvnia. Due to these subsidies, the low selling price of coal kept the market, which enabled coke producers and then metallurgists to reduce the cost of their products. Realizing it for export and paying taxes to the state, they eventually compensated for the initial subsidies to the mines, so that the country eventually won.

But this is the method of state regulation of the economy, originating in the socialist mode of management, where the goal was not the benefit of an individual enterprise, but the benefit of the entire country as a whole, which was called "out of itself" by the adherents of the market economy, of which the Ukrainian elite consisted mainly. The new attempt to break the system of subsidizing the mines of Donbass was undertaken in 2000-2001 by the government of Viktor Yushchenko, and the active conductor of this policy was the Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

How did Nikolai Azarov, politician, scientist and statesman behave in this situation? He took the side of his fellow countrymen by openly opposing the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko course, which focused on the English and American experience in reducing coal mining, which resulted in complete degradation of mining regions in these countries, such as English Wales or miners' towns in the American Appalachians.

Then Azarov managed to win over to his side a number of major Ukrainian politicians. In addition, Viktor Yushchenko's presidential ambitions pushed President Kuchma away from him, sending the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko government to resign. But they created opposition political forces Our Ukraine and BYuT, and began to prepare for a struggle for power.

The creation of the Party of Regions and the beginning of joint work with Yanukovych

And the other side did not doze. In November 2006, four political parties, of which the largest was the Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine, based on the Donbass, announced their merger into the Party of Regional Revival "Labor Solidarity of Ukraine". In December Nikolay Azarov entered this party. In March of the following year, it became known as the Party of Regions, and our hero was elected its chairman.

What is characteristic, among the founding parties was the "Solidarity" of Petro Poroshenko, who broke away from the pro-presidential Social-Democratic Party. So the current president of Ukraine was one of the founders of the Party of Regions, which he now declares to be the culprit of all the troubles of his country (except Russia, of course). Moreover, for almost half a year he was Azarov's deputy, as the head of the party, but at the end of 2001 he, together with his "Solidarity", moved to Yushchenkov's "Our Ukraine". This is such a remarkable political metamorphosis.

However, for the sake of fairness it should be said that at the same time Azarov himself left the leadership of the Party of Regions, remaining the head of the tax administration. Under his aegis, an electoral bloc "For a united Ukraine" (commonly called "For Food") was created with the participation of the Party of Regions, but in the parliamentary elections of 2002 he barely gained 11% of the vote. However, in the new parliament the faction "European choice" was created, which began to nominate Azarov for the post of prime minister. However, Kuchma made a choice in favor of Donetsk governor Viktor Yanukovych, while simultaneously breaking through the parliament the appointment of Azarov as the first vice-premier. So there was this tandem of two politicians who involuntarily led Ukraine to the most serious crisis in its recent history.

First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance

In the first government of Yanukovich 2002-2004. Nikolai Yanovich combined the post of first vice-premier and finance minister. At the beginning of the joint work they were not yet an elaborate tandem - their life experience and the way to power were too different. With Azarov identified so-called. "The old Donetsk", natives still from the Soviet nomenclature. Yanukovych also personified the new elite of Donbass, which was raised in the second half of the "dashing 90s" using semi-criminal methods of leadership and capital accumulation.

However, soon the Azarov-Yanukovych Union proved its effectiveness. During the first government of Yanukovych, first of all, Azarov implemented a set of economic reforms, including budget, tax, pension, etc. During Azarov's first term as finance minister, the annual GDP growth in Ukraine was 9.6% in 2003 and 12 , 1% in 2004 (versus 2.7% in 2005) with a capital investment level of 31.3% and 28.0%, respectively (against 1.9% in 2005).

At that time, Azarov advocated closer ties with Russia, for creating a single economic space between the two countries, and even actively got rid of opponents of such a rapprochement, such as the Economy Minister Valery Khoroshkovsky or the head of the State Committee for Inna Bogoslovskaya. If Yanukovych was able to retain power after the presidential elections he had already won in the winter of 2004-2005, then these plans would have come true, but the "orange" revolution inspired from outside them crossed out.

In December 2004 and January 2005, Azarov served as prime minister until Yulia Tymoshenko was appointed to this post . They say that giving her the keys to the office, he half-seriously half asked her "not to touch anything, because everything is working so well". It is a pity that his successor did not take advantage of this practical advice.

However, the history of Ukraine has developed in such a way that two years later, Mykola Azarov returned to the post of first vice-premier. His biography again repeated the events of two years ago after the parliamentary elections of 2006, when Yanukovich again became prime minister. This period was characterized by a sharp political struggle between President Yushchenko, supported in the parliament by Our Ukraine factions and Yulia Tymoshenko's Bloc, and Yanukovych-Azarov's tandem, based on the support of factions of the Party of Regions, socialist and communist parties in parliament. As a result, the president dismissed the Verkhovna Rada in the spring of 2007 and appointed early elections for the fall, which resulted in the coming of the government of Yulia Tymoshenko at the end of the year.

The Prime Minister who turned into an exile

After his election as President of Ukraine in February 2010, Viktor Yanukovych, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko agitated among the Verkhovna Rada deputies for her support, but on March 3 of the same year the parliament, which a little more than two years ago voted for her appointment, sent the government of Tymoshenko to resign . The newly elected president proposed three candidacies for the post of prime minister: the well-known banker and entrepreneur Sergei Tigipko (during the Soviet period the first secretary of the Dnepropetrovsk regional committee of the Komsomol), the then member of the Our Ukraine faction Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Azarov, who led his election campaign. Of the 343 lawmakers registered in the session hall, 242 voted in favor of the last nominee, and a new prime minister, Mykola Azarov, appeared in Ukraine.

At the next parliamentary elections in 2012, he was re-elected to parliament on the Party of Regions list, and Yanukovych appointed him for a new term as prime minister.

Mykola Azarov, a photo of which was made during that period, is shown below, throughout his two prime-time terms he constantly complained about unfair gas prices for Ukraine under the contract signed with Gazprom in early 2009 by Yulia Tymoshenko on behalf of the Ukrainian government. Then, during the acute phase of the global financial and economic crisis, when oil and gas prices declined steadily, this contract seemed to the Ukrainian authorities to be profitable. But by 2012, oil prices again exceeded $ 100 per barrel, and, accordingly, the price of gas rose to almost $ 500 per thousand cubic meters. M. Azarov complained of the Russian leadership is not very "conducted", seeing that his government is a two-faced policy, on the one hand speaking of the desire to develop economic relations with Russia, and on the other - actively preparing an agreement on association with the European Union. After an unambiguous message from the Russian president to stop all economic preferences for Ukraine in the event of joining such an association, Azarov gave a "reverse" and suspended the development of relevant documents. But it was already late. Deceived by a two-year intensified propaganda of the future benefits of European integration, the population of Western and Central Ukraine considered themselves deceived and rebelled against the central government. This time, Azarov resigned on January 28, 2014 against the backdrop of heavy unrest and protests in the "Euro-Maidan".

After his resignation, he left Ukraine and for almost a year and a half he did not communicate with the media, did not make any political statements, did not influence the stormy political processes in Ukraine and the Donbass at all. He also kept silent when, in the summer of 2014, on Donetsk and Lugansk land, whose inhabitants refused to obey the Kiev authorities, as Galicia residents arrived six months ago, Ukrainian aerial bombs and artillery shells began to tear. In Ukraine, Azarov was declared a criminal, subject to arrest and trial. Former supporters of the Party of Regions, as if reveling in the many post-revolutionary exposures of the "Yanukovych-Azarov clique" crimes, expelled him absent from their ranks in absentia.

Finally, on August 3, 2015, Azarov announced in Moscow the creation of the "Salvation Committee of Ukraine", led by the well-known parliamentary speaker from the Party of Regions Vladimir Oliynyk.Nikolai Yanovich said that he can not name the names of all members of the committee because some live in Ukraine , And this would be dangerous for them, but since then there have been no significant political actions from the newly established organization.