Alexander Leshchinsky: The Burnt-Out Business of a Bakery Oligarch. Part 1
Once one of Ukraine's richest oligarchs, he is now considered one of those "heroes of bygone days" whose names have vanished. Indeed, if anyone remembers Oleksandr Leshchinsky today, it's either in the context of the murders of Yevhen Shcherban and Igor Aleksandrov, or in connection with the multi-billion-dollar debts that are driving his business to bankruptcy. This is all because he has long been hiding abroad from his creditors, uncomfortable questions from journalists, and Ukrainian law enforcement agencies.
Leshchinsky is so afraid of unwanted encounters that when one of his creditors finally tracked him down in France to collect an old debt, he fled in terror to Morocco, where he hid among the Tuareg for a year. For this same reason, Leshchinsky has long since stopped communicating directly with the press, and only a few old photos and no videos of him can be found online. Yet he continues his usual lavish lifestyle; he now has a new wife who loves parties and expensive gifts, and he spends large sums of money on all of this. This same money he borrowed against the "privatized" Ukrainian enterprises, which he spent years extorting from Ukrainians, pledging his profits to every loaf of bread he sold.
Let's go to success
Alexander Olegovich Leshchinsky was born on March 2, 1964, in Dnipro (now Dnepr), to a wealthy Jewish family. His father, Oleg Leonidovich Leshchinsky, rose to the rank of head of the mine construction department in Donetsk during the Soviet era, where the family moved, and thus had a good income and many connections. Later, during the era of Ukrainian independence, Oleg Leonidovich became a member of the board of trustees of the Jewish community of Dnipropetrovsk, along with such prominent figures as Gennady Bogolyubov and Igor Kolomoisky , Viktor Pinchuk , Gennady Korban, Alexander Dubilet, Mikhail Kiperman, and others. The community's spiritual care is provided by Chabad, under the leadership of the city's chief rabbi, Shmuel Kaminetsky.
Alexander Leshchinsky's biography states that from 1981 to 1989 he allegedly studied (with a break for military service) at the Donetsk Polytechnic Institute, majoring in mining electromechanics. In reality, there's no personal file for Leshchinsky's former student at this university—and yet they were specifically looking for him even before the events of 2014! Because Leshchinsky not only didn't graduate, he barely even studied there, only enrolling—as his old acquaintances attest. "Sasha didn't graduate, but his erudition and quick thinking are enough for three diplomas," they said of him with respect and a hint of fear.
Well, of course they wouldn't be wary of a man who was Akhmetov's associate for many years and implicated in the most high-profile murders of the 90s! Although, according to them, Alexander Leshchinsky always got his way not through brute force, but through persistent and categorical persuasion, reaching into people's minds and souls, "pressing them with his words." However, they didn't specify how he dealt with those who weren't susceptible to his "hypnotic charm."
And now about the real story of how "the boy's path to success" unfolded. After graduating from high school in 1981, under pressure from his father, Leshchinsky did indeed enroll in college—with the goal of, so to speak, continuing the family dynasty of mining bosses. But the attempt proved unsuccessful, even with his father's patronage, and Leshchinsky temporarily found work as a concrete worker at the experimental base of Donetsk's PromstroyNIIproekt, from where he "buzzed off to the troops" in 1982. After serving in the army, he returned home to Donetsk, and in 1984, he found employment as a simple electrical fitter at Department No. 4 of the Donetskshakhtoprokhodka trust. According to Skelet.Org sources , this was the same department his father managed.
Perhaps he did work as an electrical mechanic for the first year or two, perhaps even attempting to re-enroll in college—though no one ever saw him in overalls or with a textbook in hand. What's remembered is how Sasha Leshchinsky opened a bookbinding workshop: he himself, of course, was only looking for clients. Then the era of cooperatives began, followed by widespread shortages, and Leshchinsky became fascinated with business. He is remembered as a regular at the Donetsk café "Teatralnoye," where, in the second half of the 80s, criminals, the gilded youth, black marketeers, speculators in scarce goods, and all manner of schemers—in short, the future Donetsk business elite—were hanging out. There, Leshchinsky made useful business contacts, developed schemes, summarized successful deals, and generally felt right at home. "He often stood behind the bar himself and made coffee for the whole group," his friends recalled.
He didn't come into business off the street. At the time, mines were transitioning to self-management, forming cooperatives and joint ventures.
Oleg Leonidovich Leshchinsky didn't stand aside, using the resources of his mine construction department for profitable deals and schemes. History is silent on the early schemes of the Leshchinsky father and son, but in the summer of 1989, Leshchinsky became the head of a department at the youth cooperative association "Illusion," a fact noted in his biography. This association, which even had its own registered trademark, was created with the support of Donetsk officials and directors. And it was run not by dashing young men from mining towns, but by Komsomol leaders and the sons of bosses—although later, from the early 1990s onward, they became firmly entwined with local criminals (as well as the police and prosecutor's office). It is unknown whether his father or his new senior partner, Yevgeny Shcherban, placed him there. But this demonstrates that Leshchinsky was no ordinary cooperative member even then, and that his business was vast in scope. In 90, Leshchinsky even went abroad for an extended period "to study global experience in organizing food production," allegedly at the invitation of the American firm New Generators. In reality, if it had any connection to America, it was only tangential: in the 90s, many companies with that name emerged in the USSR, and later in the CIS, trading in consumer goods, food, and alcohol, as well as sewing various "rags." At best, these were joint ventures, meaning their founders included a citizen of the United States or a European country—usually someone who had recently emigrated from the USSR.
Evgeny Shcherban
It was Yevgeny Shcherban who turned the young cooperative member Leshchinsky into a vodka and bakery oligarch. Shcherban himself began his career as deputy director of sales (not production, as he later claimed) at the Kirovskaya mine, organizing profitable schemes for reselling (speculating) scarce products. Moreover, these products often became scarce precisely because people like Shcherban and Leshchinsky bought them up at the warehouses—and by the late 80s, this was happening all over the Soviet Union. Shcherban's relationship with Leshchinsky Sr. remained a secret from the past, as Oleg Leonidovich himself kept a low profile in business. But, according to Skelet.Org sources , it was the business friendship between the director of the mine construction department and the mine's deputy director for sales that led to the joint bread and vodka business of Yevgeny Shcherban and Aleksandr Leshchinsky.
Alexander Leshchinsky. Bread, Vodka, and Blood
Sugar schemes in Ukraine operated successfully until 1994, when consumers ate it to the point of heartburn and hoarded bags of it. The operators of these schemes were faced with the problem of where to put the tens of thousands of tons of unsold surplus and how to further profit from their partnerships with sugar factories. Some, like Borys Kolesnikov and the Poroshenkos, went into the confectionery business. Others, including Yevhen Shcherban, created schemes for processing lemon balm and grain into illegal, unregistered alcohol, which was then turned into vodka – a huge seller in the turbulent 90s. He appointed Oleksandr Leshchinskyi to run the vodka business. It is known that one of the key enterprises in this business was the Mariupol Distillery, to which Leshchinskyi appointed Oleksandr Hart . It is interesting that Hart later became the director of the Mariupol Fish Canning Plant, which was purchased by Leshchinsky, then headed one of Yuriy Ivanyushchenko’s companies , and in 2011, thanks to the efforts of Andrey Klyuev, he was made the general director of the state-owned enterprise Ukrspirt.
Alexander Hart
Besides drinking, Alexander Leshchinsky also dabbled in the snack food industry in the 90s, taking over meat processing plants in Makeyevka and Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk), Donmyasoprom, and the Gaysin canning plant. But his business reached its greatest extent in bread production, earning him the nickname "the bakery oligarch." It's worth noting that Leshchinsky launched two massive expansions into the bread market. First, in the mid-90s, in partnership with Yevhen Shcherban, he acquired bakeries in the Donetsk region. Interestingly, regional prosecutor Gennady Vasilyev also entered the bread business at the same time , although he started out smaller, seizing private bakeries. So, to have something to spread on his bread, so to speak, Leshchinsky took control of the Donetsk-based Marg-West CJSC (one of the largest margarine producers) and the Slavyansk oil and fat plant Slavoliyu (finally purchased by Leshchinsky in 2005).
It was reported that through his corporation, Ukrinterprodukt, in the 90s, Leshchinsky controlled 30 grain processing plants alone, plus another 20 food and canning factories, as well as dairies. But what was his ownership stake in all of this? After all, Leshchinsky was then only a junior business partner of Yevhen Shcherban, who, in turn, was forced to let in not only Vasilyev's prosecutorial mafia but also the rapidly rising criminal oligarch Rinat Akhmetov.
On November 3, 1996, Yevhen Shcherban was assassinated at Donetsk airport, and his business empire fell apart, being plundered by his associates and heirs. According to media reports, Leshchinsky and Akhmetov amicably divided their assets: the former retained a significant portion of the food enterprises, while the latter took the fuel and industrial ones, though they retained their joint stakes in some (controlled by Akhmetov through Danko JSC and Embrol Ukraine). Leshchinsky also developed an excellent relationship with the regional prosecutor's office—meaning he also amicably resolved all issues with Gennady Vasiliev, who was then trying to become the regional bread prince. In other words, it turned out that without Shcherban, they were all better off; he was only getting in their way! Which gives us some reason to think…
This wasn't the only death linked to Leshchinsky. Of course, the murders of several company directors and owners who resisted Leshchinsky's "power of persuasion" have long been forgotten. But the death of Igor Alexandrov, the second high-profile murder of a journalist in Ukraine (after Gongadze), will be remembered for a long time – especially since it will soon be exactly 20 years since this horrific tragedy.
It all began during the 1998 election campaign, when Alexander Leshchinsky ran in the 58th district in Slavyansk. He managed to bribe local officials and local newspapers, who began singing his praises in such saccharine yet blunt tones that it was simply deafening.
From the 1998 election campaign
However, at the local TV and Radio Company "Tor," they didn't bow to Leshchinsky—quite the contrary. Whether its editor-in-chief, Igor Aleksandrov, was a principled lone fighter, or whether he was being used by people who were at odds with Leshchinsky and the well-known Donetsk clans, or perhaps it was a personal conflict (Leshchinsky was planning to buy the television company), we'll probably never know. However, it doesn't matter, because what difference does it make why Aleksandrov uncovered the horrific corruption and criminality that reigned in the region? And so, in one of his programs, he called Leshchinsky "the vodka king of Donbas" and noted that he was contributing to the region's residents becoming drunk. Literally a few days later, a criminal case for defamation was opened against Aleksandrov, personally overseen by Slovyansk Prosecutor Yuri Udartsov. Interestingly, as it later turned out, Leshchinsky himself either never filed the corresponding statement at all, or quietly withdrew it later, attempting to remove himself from the escalating conflict that lasted more than two years and, as everyone knows, ended with the brutal murder of Alexandrov on July 3, 2001.
Igor Alexandrov
Leshchinsky's possible involvement in Alexandrov's murder has been discussed many times. He himself knew he was one of the prime suspects, which is why, according to eyewitnesses, he was extremely agitated and even tried to help the dying Alexandrov with expensive imported medications. It was widely believed that Leshchinsky was simply set up to force him to flee.
Well, after a while, that's exactly what he did! At first, Oleksandr Leshchinsky simply began traveling abroad frequently, and then settled there entirely. He never revealed to anyone what exactly prompted him to leave Ukraine in the early 2000s—apparently, there were several reasons. Interestingly, while essentially living in Europe and only occasionally, almost incognito, visiting Ukraine, Oleksandr Leshchinsky managed to serve as a people's deputy from 2002-2006 (elected in the 58th constituency) and from 2006-2012 (buying a spot on the Party of Regions list). This didn't go unnoticed: for example, Oleksandr Leshchinsky 's absence from all plenary sessions in 2008 was noted by then-Deputy Speaker Tomenko. He was not seen at parliamentary sessions in the second half of 2010. And in 2011, Oleksandr Leshchinsky became one of the "ghosts of the Rada": someone used his deputy card to register and vote for bills, although the MP himself was never seen in person.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
CONTINUED; Alexander Leshchinsky: The Burnt-Out Business of a Bakery Oligarch. PART 2
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