Yevhen Chernyak, the "Vodka King" of all Ukraine
There's a businessman in Zaporizhzhia who has long been trying to bring the entire city under his control, and at times, has even come close. His name is Yevhen Chernyak, and he's known in business circles as the "vodka" millionaire who created the "Khortytsia" brand and founded the infamous "Patriot Zaporizhzhia" charitable foundation. He also chairs the supervisory board of the Odessa Cognac Factory and the board of directors of the Megapolis Trading House. He vehemently denies any involvement in grand political games, but his past tells a different story.
Evgeny Chernyak. "Who is this?"
Born Chernyak Evgeniy Alexandrovich Chernyak was born in April 1969 in Zaporizhzhia. He received his higher education in the Faculty of Machines and Technologies for Smelting Production at the Zaporizhzhia Machine-Building Institute. From 1987 to 1989, he served in the Soviet Army in the Odessa region. Chernyak later earned two more higher education degrees: a Specialist in Law from the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management and a specialization in Finance from Zaporizhzhia National University. Yevhen Aleksandrovich began his first business ventures while still a student.
His first business was opening a kiosk. Within a month, it had earned Chernyak over $1. By 1992, he had 17 kiosk operations, which were consistently bringing in a substantial amount of money. Having saved up enough money, Chernyak and a partner opened a wholesale company. It was from this point that his business began to rapidly grow.
In 1998, Yevhen Chernyak initiated the creation of the Megapolis Trading House. He managed to convince several private entrepreneurs to join forces and create a large distribution company. Megapolis helped Chernyak earn his first million, but he had no intention of stopping there. He served as Megapolis's CEO until 2002. The following year, he built a large distillery in Zaporizhzhia, which later began producing vodka under the Khortytsa brand. The next stage of Yevhen Chernyak's business development was the merger of the Khortytsa distillery, the Odessa Cognac Factory, and the Megapolis Trading House into the Global Spirits holding company. Today, Chernyak controls approximately 25% of Ukraine's entire alcohol business. According to the Forbes rating, his financial assets were worth $350 million in 2013.
"Criminal Friends"
According to the old saying, to understand who you are, you need to know who your friends are. It's no secret that the "vodka king" Evgeny Chernyak is accustomed to "making friends" only with those who can help him or his business. His business path, according to Skelet.Org, He started in difficult times, immediately after the collapse of the USSR. To protect his business and avoid losing everything, he had to seek patrons in the criminal underworld; once you get involved with them, you're forever in their debt.
One of Chernyak's introductions to the criminal world was Valeriy Barannikov, a well-known repeat offender with a solid track record. He had already served three prison terms, each time for drug use, assaulting a police officer, and assault. Another of Chernyak's criminal associates is Artashes Sargsyan, the leader of the "Armenians" organized crime group in the Zaporizhzhia region. He, in turn, is closely associated with the thieves-in-law "Kamo," "Samvel-Kharkovsky," and "Armen-Kanevsky." According to media reports, Chernyak first used Artashes's organized crime group for his own purposes in 2002, during the hostile takeover of the Zaporizhzhia Mechanical Plant.
Evgeny Chernyak and the Patriot Clan
In 2008, Yevhen Chernyak began creating the "Patriot of Zaporizhzhia" charitable foundation. He brought together the leading business figures in the Zaporizhzhia region under his banner. Besides Chernyak, the foundation was headed by Volodymyr Alshan (owner of the largest construction business in Zaporizhzhia) and Borys Shestopalov (owner of a Zaporizhzhia "bread business"). Yevhen Aleksandrovich's vision was for the charitable foundation to help its members gain significant publicity. Then, riding on this wave of "fame," it would grow into a political bloc, "Patriot of Zaporizhzhia," which would gain an absolute majority in the city council. If this had happened, Chernyak and his company would have gained control of the entire city budget, as well as the ability to "hand out" government contracts to "their" companies.
To achieve his goal, Yevhen Oleksandrovich decided to team up with the then-mayor of Zaporizhzhia, Yevhen Kartashov. Their joint project, according to the plan, was intended to secure a majority in the Zaporizhzhia City Council.
According to the edition Censor.net:
Yevhen Chernyak, the "Vodka King" of all Ukraine
Despite Chernyak's generous offer, Kartashov refused to join the "patriots." A year later, he paid the price, as Yevgeny Aleksandrovich, joining forces with his opponents, launched a large-scale and aggressive smear campaign against Kartashov across all media outlets under their control in Zaporizhzhia.
It's worth noting that he enjoyed considerable media support. In addition to Chernyak's private media outlets, the so-called "media empire" of "Patriot Zaporizhzhia" included the newspaper "Ostrov Svobody." Boris Shestopalov's "Mriya" publication also joined. After Valery Fomenko joined the "Patriots," Chernyak also gained control of "Komsomolskaya Pravda" and "Telenedelya." A short time later, he purchased the website "Politsovet" and gained control of the website "Reporter." The Zaporizhzhia newspaper "Iskra" also joined them, and its editor-in-chief, Artem Timchenko, became the main "information warrior" in the battle with Mayor Kartashov. Through Timchenko, Chernyak also waged an information war against Volodymyr Serba, head of the Zaporizhzhia regional police. The saddest part was that, after going through thick and thin with Chernyak, Timchenko found himself "thrown into the trash heap." And Yevgeny Aleksandrovich himself began calling him a schizophrenic who did everything on his own initiative. There was also a hostile takeover of the TV-5 channel, owned by the Zaporizhstal plant. The notorious "reckless" raider Maksim Drozdenko volunteered to help Chernyak seize it. It was he who launched the direct and arrogant attack on TV-5. He failed to seize the channel, and Chernyak quickly disavowed any connection with Drozdenko, even criticizing his actions on air. That's the kind of "good" and "loyal" comrade this Mr. Chernyak is.
Maxim Drozdenko
Membership in the "Patriot of Zaporizhzhia" foundation was a very profitable investment, as for just 20 hryvnias a month (the contribution to the foundation), you could receive comprehensive protection from influential patrons, and even protection from law enforcement agencies—or so Yevhen Oleksandrovich claimed. But in reality, things turned out quite differently. Instead of receiving protection, the foundation's members received the "Chernyakovsky Stigma." Despite all the assurances of promised protection, they received none.
It's worth noting that Chernyak lured many people into his foundation through subterfuge. Boris Shestopalov, for example, came under his control because Chernyak helped him during difficult times, when a wave of protests erupted against him over the high prices of his bakeries. Then Yevgeny Alexandrovich appeared on a white horse and pulled him out of his troubles. A little later, it turned out that Chernyak himself had created Shestopalov's problems. He generally liked to put people in a position where they owed him for their friendship. In Zaporizhzhia, he fancied himself a "Don Corleone," who, having done you a favor, would sooner or later ask you for a favor in return. True, the character in "The Godfather" possessed the highest moral character, unlike Chernyak's "vodka king."
Another patriotic comrade who was "dumped" was Vladimir Alshan, the former owner of the large construction company "Konstanta." The financial crisis forced him to pursue a joint project with Chernyak. He took out a loan on his own responsibility for the construction of a large real estate project. Yevgeny Aleksandrovich, in turn, promised to give Alshan a plot of land he had purchased in Yalta. In exchange, he asked only for him to act as a guarantor for the $8,5 million loan and draw up a "fake" contract for the construction of a cottage. However, after unforeseen problems arose, he was forced to blame Alshan and issue an invoice for the entire loan amount. It turned out that the "Non-Ferrous Alloy Plant," controlled by the Chernyak family, went bankrupt and stopped making loan payments, leaving Vladimir Alshan and his companies liable for the repayments. The fake contract for the cottage construction was discovered in court, and he was also forced to pay Chernyak 16 million hryvnias in compensation. As a result of doing business with Evgeny Aleksandrovich, Alshan's construction company, Konstanta, was destroyed, and clients who had invested in the construction of houses were left with nothing.
Yevhen Chernyak, the "Vodka King" of all Ukraine
"A Shameful Fight in a Club"
In late November 2011, Yevhen Chernyak was beaten at the Kapitalist bowling club in Zaporizhzhia. According to eyewitnesses, the "vodka king" was rude to a patron and insulted his girlfriend. After friends of the insulted men started a fight, demanding an apology from Chernyak, he snatched a traumatic pistol from his security guard and shot one of the attackers in the chest.
The surveillance footage was carefully hidden for a long time, but over time Skelet.Org I finally managed to get them.
Video of Chernyak's beating and escape from the nightclub:
During the development of his business, Evgeny Chernyak repeatedly found himself in awkward, even illegal, situations. However, his natural resourcefulness and lack of moral compass helped him not only preserve his business but also grow it into a vast "alcohol" empire. While his former partners are at best counting pennies, and at worst, relaxing in prison, he relaxes with peace of mind with his entire extended family abroad. He himself claimed to have "resolved" all legal issues, but to this day, a number of cases have been opened against his people, a fine has been imposed on the Megapolis trading house, and many other unpleasant factors remain. So, while he may have "resolved" his own legal problems, those loyal to him and his companies are still in danger.
Dmitry Samofalov, for Skelet.Org
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