Nestor Shufrich
For a good ten years, he tried to play the role of a Ukrainian Zhirinovsky, but lacking the same gift for explosive eloquence, he merely flailed his fists in parliamentary brawls. Nestor Shufrych repeatedly beat others, and was beaten himself, but always escaped with only a slight fright and torn shirts. But while the entire country perceived him as a hero in a Ukrainian political soap opera, he painstakingly continued to build his family business, which had its roots in the Soviet past.
Shufrich in childhood
Golden Boy
Nestor Ivanovich Shufrych was born on December 29, 1966, in Uzhhorod. The Zakarpattia Oblast, formerly known as Carpathian Rus', is a somewhat unique region, known in Soviet times as the "Ukrainian Baltics," and still differs in many ways even from neighboring Galicia (for example, in the political map of election results). Nestor Ivanovich has very interesting ancestors: his grandmother, Valeria Barkas-Shufrych, was a tennis champion in Czechoslovakia (until 1938), then Hungary—back when Carpathian Rus' was part of those countries—and played for the USSR in the late 40s. He likes to talk about his grandfather, Yuliya Shufrych, who worked as the manager of the Uzhhorod branch of Agrobank until 1945. After the region was annexed by the Ukrainian SSR, he did not evacuate to the West but immediately found a way to approach the new government. Therefore, not only was he not repressed, but he was even left in his previous position: the former branch of the agrobank became the regional branch of the State Bank of the USSR, and Yuliy Shufrich worked as its head for another 4 years.
Valeria Barkas-Shufrich, Nestor's grandmother
Banker Yuliy Shufrich
Then his father, Istvan (Ivan) Yulievich Shufrich (born May 31, 1940), took up the tennis racket. He became the champion of the Ukrainian SSR and later headed the regional sports society "Dynamo." His mother, Maria Petrovna (1932-2010), worked in the regional sports lottery during the Soviet era, where she reportedly oversaw the distribution and issuance of prizes—various hard-to-find household appliances. Thus, Nestor Ivanovich was born into a family of athletes and Soviet sports officials, who made his childhood quite bright, interesting, and carefree: he didn't have to twist cows' tails before school, unlike many other Ukrainian politicians from the region: Viktor Baloha ( read more about him in the article "VIKTOR BALOGA. THE PHENOMENON OF THE TRANSCARPATHIAN GOD" ), Valeriy Heletey (read more about him in the article " Valeriy Heletey. Not happy to serve, but must be subservient "), and others. Perhaps this is the reason why Shufrych did not become a member of the local "tsymbora," which unites mainly people from the local villages connected by family and godparent ties.
Nestor Shufrich with his mother Maria Petrovna
Nestor's parents sent him to a prestigious "English" school, and his grandparents also taught him Hungarian and Slovak, so he eventually became a polyglot. His active, unabashed nature and the support of his family helped him become the commissar of the Uzhgorod city Pioneer headquarters and a delegate to the 8th All-Union Pioneer Rally in Moscow. At the same time, he followed in his ancestors' footsteps and also took up tennis, but doctors discovered a kidney condition and recommended a more sedate sport. Nestor then became interested in archery, and by the age of 15, he had become the regional champion (among young men). In short, Nestor was a typical "golden boy" of his time.
In 1984, Nestor Shufrych enrolled in the history department at Uzhhorod University, but after his first year, he received a summons. All his parents could do was help him find a place to serve. Shufrych departed for neighboring Hungary, to the Southern Group of Soviet Forces, where he received a very privileged position as a translator at headquarters—a position where his knowledge of languages came in handy! Working with documents required confidentiality, so Shufrych signed a non-disclosure agreement. However, it was rumored that the Special Department had simultaneously recruited him as an informant, and after his military service, Shufrych was "used" by the KGB.
In 1987, after being demobilized, Nestor Shufrych returned to university, but continued his studies as a correspondence student. He no longer had time for history: the "golden youth" was immediately married to the "diamond bride"—Iryna Bandrovska, daughter of the then First Secretary of the Transcarpathian Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Genrikh Bandrovskiy. By 1988, the happy couple had a son, Oleksandr, who became a football player for the Zakarpattia team in 2005 and is now vice president of FC Hoverla, owned by his father, Nestor Shufrych, and grandfather, Ivan Shufrych.
Genrikh Iosifovich Bandrovsky,
First Secretary of the Transcarpathian Regional Committee of the CPSU (1980-1990) and first father-in-law of Nestor Shufrych
Family business
Since 1988, Nestor Shufrych has been working tirelessly, working alongside his father, who, using his position and connections, opened cooperatives and joint ventures within his Dynamo company. The younger Shufrych shuttled between Uzhhorod and Budapest, changing several jobs and, along the way, organizing a car import operation with friends from Hungary to the USSR. At the end of 1989, the Shufrychs founded the Soviet-Austrian joint venture Tekop-Karpaty, which was engaged in construction: Ivan Shufrych became its general manager, and Nestor Shufrych became its commercial director.
By 1991, father and son were already heading the Ukrainian-American joint venture, West-Contrade, controlling coal and fuel oil supplies to power plants in Transcarpathia, extracting construction materials (crushed stone and sand), and exporting timber. Specifically, the company owned the Khust quarry (Transcarpathian region), which was sold in 2008 to the Austrian construction holding company, Strabag SE, co-owned (25%) by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. In 1992, the Shufrychs opened the Ukrainian-Slovak company, Rokada.
Ivan Yulievich Shufrich
By the mid-90s, Nestor Ivanovich had already established himself as a capitalist shark, but most of the Shufrich family's businesses were still registered in the names of Ivan Yulievych and Maria Petrovna. These included: Real Group LLC, West-Union LLC, Sterling LLC, Uzhhorodopttorg JSC, Reyting LLC, Vital-Plus LLC, Dzherela Karpat LLC, Zakarpatskaya Consulting Company LLC, Western Investment Company LLC, Izotex LLC, Serednyanka CJSC, IVO LLC, Express-Truks LLC, Okhotnichy Klub Kreminka LLC, as well as the aforementioned Rokada Joint Venture and West-Contrade Joint Venture. Shufrich's father also heads the Sikorsky Museum of Aeronautics and Aviation History International Foundation. According to Nestor Shufrich himself, by the end of the 90s, more than 4 thousand workers were working in their family businesses.
The Shufrych family's business was not without scandals, including outright theft and falsification of accounts. For example, in August 1999, West-Contrade signed a contract with Naftogaz Ukrainy to handle the paperwork for the repayment of a debt owed by the Zakarpattia, Chernivtsi, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions to Naftogaz totaling 283 million hryvnias. However, this was a scam: all the work was done by employees of the regional administration offices and heating networks, and West-Contrade simply claimed credit for the work, receiving 14,4 million hryvnias for the alleged service. In 2005, the Zakarpattia prosecutor's office opened a criminal case against Shufrych's mother, as she was (or was listed as) the owner and director of the company. However, the case was soon hushed up due to "insufficient evidence."
That same year, it became known that Real Group LLC, owned by Maria Petrovna Shufrich (99% of the shares), was the founder and primary shareholder of Naftogazvydobuvannya CJSC, whose director was Nester Shufrich. According to statements by then-Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko ( read more about him in the article "Yuriy Lutsenko: The Terminator of Ukrainian Politics" ) , the company owned two wells in the Shyshatsky district of Poltava Oblast (the Semirenkivske field) and was extracting gas without the proper licenses and paying state budget fees, causing 80 million hryvnia in losses to the treasury. A public scandal erupted, and Nestor Shufrich was shamed for "hiding behind his mother." Afterward, the Shufrichs, fearing confiscation by the courts, rushed to sell a significant portion of their shares in Naftogazdobycha, the wells of which were owned by Akhmetov's offshore company, Winburg Investments Limited. By 2014, they retained only 16,6% of the company's shares, which had been transferred to the offshore company.
It is interesting that at the same time as Shufrich's Naftogazvydobuvannya CJSC, the same Semirenkovskoye field was being developed by Ukrnaftogaztekhnologiya (then Petro Poroshenko's only oil and gas asset - read more about it in the article Petro Poroshenko: biography and the whole truth about the "chocolate king" of Ukraine ) and the offshore Wolford Holdings Limited with a share of the capital of Viktor Medvedchuk and Nikolai Rudkovsky ( read more about him in the article DOSSIER: Rudkovsky Nikolai Nikolaevich).
A rather ugly story has also developed around the Shufrich family's foundation, the Sikorsky Museum of Aeronautics and Aviation History. It turns out that no one intends to create a museum, and the foundation exists solely for one purpose: to maintain a perpetual lease on the home of aircraft designer Sikorsky, located in a prestigious area of Kyiv. The lease has been in effect for 15 years now, and the building has remained in disrepair. Kyiv activists claim this was done intentionally—so that it could one day be written off and demolished, and a residential high-rise or shopping mall built in its place. Concerned Kyiv residents and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense are currently taking up the fate of the Sikorsky home, attempting to terminate the lease through the courts and take the historic building back from the Shufrichs. However, they have encountered strong opposition not only from the foundation that leases the property but also from a number of Kyiv officials, who are apparently also involved in this scam.
Sikorsky House in Kyiv.
The Shufrich fund that owns it has been keeping it in this state for 15 years.
Women of Nestor Shufrich
In 1990, the first secretary of the Transcarpathian regional committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Genrikh Bandrovsky, lost the election resoundingly to an independent democratic candidate who had garnered 70% of the vote simply by campaigning against the "dictatorship of the Communist Party." The reaction from his comrades in Kyiv was immediate: Bandrovsky was immediately forced into retirement, and the opportunities for Nestor Shufrych's father-in-law were severely curtailed. Immediately after this, Nestor's relationship with his wife, Irina, began to deteriorate, and in 1993 they divorced, although they remained on good terms. Irina immediately remarried, changing her surname to Yaroshovets—thus unwittingly confusing her origins with her first husband's past.
Nestor and Natalia Vorona, early 90s
A year later, Shufrych married for the second time: his chosen one was Natalia Vorona, the winner of the regional beauty contest "Miss Uzhgorod 1991." In 1995, their son, Nestor, was born. Unlike his athletic father, grandfather, and half-brother, Oleksandr, Nestor Nestorovich became interested in music and painting and enrolled at the Kyiv National University of Economics named after Vadim Hetman. However, this marriage also eventually fell apart, with Shufrych at one point escalating into assault and criminal charges.
A family scandal, the cause of which remains unknown, occurred on April 26, 1998. Three days later, Natalya filed a police report against her husband, accusing him of causing her bodily harm. Attached to the report were the results of a medical examination: a concussion, a closed head injury, and a broken jaw. Nestor Shufrich's lawyer immediately stated that the injuries could have been sustained as a result of Natalya's accidental fall. Due to the lack of corroborating witness testimony, the criminal case was closed six weeks later, citing "the absence of a criminal offense." Furthermore, the case was completely concealed from public view, and it only resurfaced in 2006.
Then Nestor Shufrych was invited to serve on the jury of the Miss Europe pageant held in Kyiv. Shufrych's unexpectedly satisfied smile was ruined by Gennady Moskal (more about him in the article Gennady Moskal: The Multifaceted, Foul-Freak General ), who declared it akin to the director of a meat-packing plant being a member of an animal rights society. He then publicly revealed that eight years earlier, Nestor Shufrych had beaten his wife, a winner of several beauty pageants. Shufrych replied that "this information was refuted," and no one knew the details. But three years later, in December 2009, Shufrych had an argument with Lutsenko on the Shuster Live TV show and punched him in the face. Almost immediately, all the documents from the criminal case—the victim's statement, the forensic expert's report, and the investigators' findings—were posted on the website of Lutsenko's "Self-Defense."
Nestor and Natalia divorced in 2000. According to her, he "left her to fend for herself": almost all of her husband's business was registered in his parents' names, and he categorically refused to share the house, car fleet, and bank accounts with his ex-wife, offering only a modest "severance pay" and a guarantee of support for their son. Natalia, who had hoped for more, was devastated and complained to journalists that she was "left with nothing." Their subsequent relationship was complicated: after a while, Nestor began visiting Natalia frequently, and some interpreted this as a reconciliation; there were even rumors that Natalia wanted to return to her ex-husband. However, according to other reports, Shufrich stalked her, tried to take their son away, and became violent again—until Natalia found her own boyfriend, Kakha Kaladze, who defended her from her ex.
Nestor with Natalia and his son Nestor, 2008
Since 2007, Shufrych was accompanied everywhere by Irina Berezhnaya, a Luhansk resident who was running for the Verkhovna Rada ( read more about her in the article " Irina Berezhnaya: The Story of How the Verkhovna Rada's Main Breast Grew and Decayed "). Then, Nestor Ivanovich briefly became infatuated with the notorious Alexandra Shevchenko, a leading activist of the outrageous Femen movement. Rumors of his close relationship with Yulia Tymoshenko were viewed with considerable curiosity. They had some basis: Shufrych was perhaps the only person from the teams of Viktor Yanukovych and Viktor Medvedchuk ( read more about him in the article " Viktor Medvedchuk: Putin's Godfather Guarding Russia's Interests in Ukraine ") with whom Yulia Tymoshenko not only had a warm relationship, but practically flirted. And according to behind-the-scenes rumors, which have not been confirmed, they are allegedly also united by a love of cocaine – a popular “stimulant” of high society.
Alexandra Shevchenko: leader of “Femen” and girlfriend of Nestor Shufrich
He also kept his attention on actresses: he courted Ani Lorak, courted Galina Gavrilko, a member of the Barcelona opera duo, and even made advances toward Olga Kurylenko, who was visiting Kyiv. In 2008, he began an affair with Olga Yakovenko, to whom he gave a BMW with the license plate AA2204BH. In 2012, Shufrych, then Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, was often seen in nightclubs and restaurants with a certain model, Lesya, on whom he was said to have spared no expense. Interestingly, this Lesya bears a striking resemblance to his ex-wife, Natalia: the resemblance is unlikely to be coincidental.
Nestor Shufrich and model Lesya, 2012
Political gladiator
In 1997 , Viktor Medvedchuk and Grigoriy Surkis ( read more about him in the article "Grigoriy Surkis: How to Fraction Ukraine Fraternally ") arrived in Zakarpattia. With the help of Ivan Rizak, then head of the regional state administration's organizational department, and Viktor Baloha, a Mukachevo "businessman and authority figure," they began to build a powerful SDPU(o) organization in the region. Their calculations were sound: the region had a specific political sentiment—neither "Red" nor "Rukh"—and the local elite had not yet aligned itself with any particular party. Initially, everyone was drawn to the SDPU(o) banner, so the regional organization included such antagonists as Baloha, the leader of the provincial Mukachevo "Tsymbora," and the Shufrychis, typical representatives of the city's "CPSU bourgeoisie." Subsequently, Medvedchuk's relationship with Baloga did not work out, but Nestor Shufrich became his close associate and business partner.
In the 1998 parliamentary elections, Nestor Shufrych was elected to the Verkhovna Rada from single-mandate constituency No. 70. Ivan Rizak, who deployed administrative resources to support Shufrych, greatly assisted him in this. It was after this that Nestor Shufrych prudently transferred most of his assets to his parents and resigned as directors of his companies. From 1998 to 2000, he served on the parliamentary committee on economic policy, national economic management, property, and investment, and later served as deputy chairman of the budget committee.
Nestor Shufrych tried to win the 2002 elections using "technologies." He ran again in District 70, listing candidates composed of technocrats, including his subordinate, Vasyl Baladzh, a manager at West-Contrade. The ploy failed: Nestor Shufrych lost the election with 9,2% of the vote, finishing only third. He was facing the prospect of losing his mandate, but his party allies and business partners came to his aid: in July 2002, by-elections were held in District 201 in Cherkasy, and Shufrych was guaranteed full support. He defeated his main rival, Natalia Vitrenko, who immediately accused him of bribing voters: according to her, Shufrych spent 20 hryvnias (a considerable sum at the time) on each voter. However, all her claims were rejected by both the Electoral Commission and the courts.
He joined Yanukovych's team as an ally because of Medvedchuk, who had been appointed head of the presidential administration and began plotting his "Successor" plan. Medvedchuk even tried to push Shufrych into the post of deputy speaker of the Rada, but the battle for that position became too intense. Suddenly, Shufrych found himself in a new role: a hyperactive public politician, immersed in every brawl and scandal. Since Yanukovych's team was virtually devoid of such figures (unlike the opposition), Shufrych immediately became a political star. One of his first memorable outbursts was the brawl at the Central Election Commission on October 24, 2004, where Shufrych's shirt was torn.
But in between "speaking," Shufrych, like many other members of Yanukovych's team, was actively grabbing everything he could. Although he was not allowed to participate in the large-scale privatization of industries, Nestor Shufrych nevertheless acquired a considerable amount of small-scale goods. Some of this later attracted the attention of the prosecutor's office. For example, in March 2004, a specially created shell company, in violation of the law, acquired the Dubki boarding house, a hunting lodge in the Kamyanets forestry area, and houses in the Velikodobronskaya Dacha boarding house, totaling approximately 970 square meters. The company then gifted this property to Maria Petrovna Shufrych and liquidated itself. Also in the autumn of 2004, Nestor Shufrich was allocated and transferred into ownership 3,22 hectares of land near Vyshgorod, and on December 12 (at the height of the Maidan) he received a long-term lease for a country house (126 sq. m.) in the Pushcha-Voditsa boarding house.
In 2005, when the Donetsk party members cowered in fear, Shufrych remained the only politician from Yanukovych's shattered team who continued to publicly defend his comrades. Specifically, during the hospital arrest of his fellow party member Ivan Rizak (governor of Transcarpathia from 2002 to 2005), Shufrych attempted to interfere with the Berkut police, resulting in a serious blow to his head. He was an active participant in parliamentary clashes in 2006, and only regained his composure briefly after becoming Minister of Emergency Situations (September 2006 – December 2007).
Returning to parliament for the snap elections, in May 2008, Shufrych challenged Valeriy Heletey to a duel (hand-to-hand combat), which the latter refused. That same year, Shufrych beat up his former coalition ally and gas business partner, MP Mykola Rudkovsky, in his office; Rudkovsky filed a police report but later withdrew it. In 2009, Shufrych fought not only Lutsenko but also the deputy chairman of the Party of Regions faction, Serhiy Lyovochkin ( read more about him in the article "Lyovochkin: The "Grey Cardinal" and His Sister "), for failing to inform him of Yanukovych's visit to Crimea.
In March 2010, his mother, Maria Petrovna Shufrich, died. Besides the profound emotional tragedy, her death also brought him considerable subsequent business troubles: half of the family business was registered in her name. After accepting his share of his mother's inheritance, Shufrich received over 70 million hryvnias in bank deposits alone. At that time, the Shufrich family's combined wealth was estimated at $210 million.
Finita la commedia!
By the end of the Euromaidan, Shufrych's star as a political brawler quickly faded. On February 21, 2014, he suffered a bloody lip from UDAR MP Mykola Palamarchuk. The following day, Nestor Shufrych was nearly lynched by a crowd of Maidan protesters, and only the intervention of Svyatoslav Vakarchuk allowed Shufrych to find refuge within the walls of the Verkhovna Rada.
On September 30, 2014, Nestor Shufrych was "lustrated" in Odessa. During the people's deputy's visit to the city, a crowd wearing the symbols of the Right Sector and other national-radical organizations beat him, under the pretext of Shufrych's security guards attacking their leader, and attempted to throw him into a trash bin. Afterward, local Right Sector activist Serhiy Sternenko stated that if law enforcement attempted to open a criminal case over the incident and charge any of its participants, they would "thus show that they are not on the Ukrainian side." Although the case was opened and even placed under the personal supervision of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov ( read more about him in the article " Arsen Avakov: The Criminal Past of the Interior Minister "), it was shelved "due to the disappearance of the suspects."
This incident convinced him that from now on, attacking Ukraine alone would be dangerous, even for a public politician—especially one with such an image. His long-standing closeness to Viktor Medvedchuk and active participation in Viktor Yanukovych's team now work against Nestor Shufrych: he is deeply disliked by all pro-Maidan Ukrainians. And his participation in the Minsk format negotiations, alongside Medvedchuk and Leonid Kuchma, only exacerbated this hostility, simultaneously undermining trust in the negotiations themselves.
In the 2014 parliamentary elections, Nestor Shufrych entered the Verkhovna Rada as the seventh candidate on the Opposition Bloc list, and has since refrained from active public activity. Nevertheless, having retreated into the shadows of big politics, Nestor Shufrych continues to actively engage in big business, including in Kyiv, unafraid of any nationalist radicals. Among his most recent projects was the acquisition of the Kyiv River Port in partnership with businessman Mikhail Brodsky ( read more about him in the article "MYKHAIL BRODSKY - A PROFESSIONAL "SCAMMER" ). A highly convoluted share distribution scheme through intermediary companies San Galen Holding LLC and Sovremennoye Partnership LLC gives Shufrych up to 50% of the port's shares, while Brodsky's offshore AEROTRADE SOLUTIONS INC owns 24%. While Kyiv residents are trying to figure out when Shufrich and Brodsky managed to seize control of the capital's river port, the businessmen have already outlined their next steps. But what? Judging by the fact that no one is rushing to reconstruct the river terminal building, there is reason to fear that it will suffer the same fate as the Sikorsky House, making way for a restaurant or entertainment center.
Sergey Varis, for SKELET-info
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