Sergey Kivalov
Serhiy Kivalov is a prominent representative of the "Yanukovych regime": the founder and rector of the Odessa National Law Academy (ONUA), where ingenious corruption schemes are carried out; the author of the 2012 Ukrainophobic law; the falsifier of the 2014 presidential election, working for three parties – Yanukovych, Yushchenko, and Kuchma; and the "master" of the Odessa region. Despite the declared lustration, he continues to brazenly "live the good life" and avoid any responsibility.
Read our article to learn how Kivalov's business empire was built and why he is allowed to manipulate the law.
Secrets of the Unofficial Biography
Sergei Vasilyevich Kivalov was born on May 1, 1954, in Tiraspol, now the capital of the unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, in the Moldavian SSR. His mother, a native of the village of Grosulovo in the Odessa region, came to Tiraspol to join her parents to give birth to her son. By then, she already had three children. Incidentally, it's very strange that Sergei Vasilyevich never lists his parents' last names, first names, or patronymics. In the booklet "Candidate," published in 2002, before his run for the Verkhovna Rada, edited by Zoya Kazanzhi, a blogger and campaigner who began her collaboration with Eduard Gurvits back in 1996, when she headed the press center of the Chechen resistance in Odessa, a protégé of Kivalov, and since 2014, deputy head of the Odessa Regional State Administration)
Zoya Kazandzhi and Sergey Kivalov
There are two photographs of Sergei Kivalov's parents, both without names.
In 1958, the Kivalov family traveled to Kazakhstan on a Komsomol voucher. There, they "built" the city of Kustanai. Sergei went to school in Tiraspol. For his passion for knowledge and literature, his classmates nicknamed him "Teacher."
After 8th grade, our hero entered the Kostanay Highway Technical School, majoring in "Road Machinery and Equipment." Incidentally, at the time, this technical school, along with the Odessa Technical School, were the most prestigious in the country. After graduating, Kivalov worked for about six months in his field—as a "roller," that is, as an asphalt paver. Then came the army. Sergei Vasilyevich was assigned to the Trans-Baikal Military District. There, he rose to the rank of sergeant. In the army, he decided to pursue further education. Kivalov received his higher education in Russia, graduating in 1980 from the Sverdlovsk Law Institute, specializing in legal studies, in the judicial and prosecutorial faculty. While still a student, he was elected head of the trade union. At that time, such positions were typically held by vice rectors or deans. Perhaps this was a bonus for Kivalov's good service to the institute's rector, Dmitry Ostapenko—it turns out Sergei Vasilyevich moonlighted as a driver for his supervisor.
This position helped Sergei Vasilyevich stay at the institute and enroll in graduate school. Kivalov became first a graduate student and then a lecturer in the Department of Law, where he worked until the very beginning of perestroika.
It was during this time that one of the most significant encounters in our hero's life occurred – with Boris Yeltsin. The former Russian president was then the head of the Sverdlovsk regional party committee. The young head of the student union, Kivalov, came to see Boris Nikolayevich with a question about the university cafeterias, or "snack shops." At that time, they were not under the control of the universities where they were located, but of some other organization. Yeltsin praised the resourceful young man's initiative and began to actively promote his career advancement.
After defending his PhD dissertation in 1986, Kivalov "asked" to join the police. A strange request for a research fellow. However, if you think about it logically, everything becomes clear: most likely, Boris Yeltsin promised his protégé protection. In just two years, Sergei Vasilyevich rose from a criminal investigation operative to deputy head of the Severouralsk Main Directorate of Internal Affairs. But suddenly, he asked for a transfer, and to Odessa (what if it weren't an escape?). According to the official version, Kivalov was going to visit his elderly parents, who had by then moved from Tiraspol to Odessa; according to the unofficial version, he was accused of rape in Russia.
In Odessa, Sergei Vasilievich joined the patrol and guard service, considered the least prestigious. Kivalov's official biography states that in the late 80s, he served in Chernobyl, guarding the city from looters; in Sukhumi, where the Abkhaz-Georgian conflict was raging; and in Karabakh, where clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis were taking place. One curious thing: how did Sergei Vasilievich manage to simultaneously serve in four locations, all located quite a distance from each other?
The Era of the Law School and "Pocket" Judges
In 1989, Sergei Kivalov decided to return to research and teaching. For eight years, he worked at Odesa State University, holding several positions. He served as vice-rector, associate professor, professor, lecturer, and head of the customs law department.
In 1997, Sergei Vasilievich decided to create his own personal "Ark," known to the world as the Odessa Law Academy. It was conceived as Kivalov's personal business under state auspices. The history of the Odessa Law Academy's creation is incredibly interesting.
It all began with the establishment of a Law Institute within the prestigious Faculty of Law at Odessa State University. Kivalov became its head. By and large, the Law Institute was popular, not without the help of its head, of course, and could have eventually become an autonomous university. But Sergey Vasilyevich didn't wait. With a single stroke of the pen in Valeriy Pustovoitenko's Cabinet of Ministers, a new alma mater emerged in Ukraine, headed by the same Sergey Kivalov. There seemed to be nothing suspicious, were it not for a few nuances. First, the university was created in a rush, in the middle of the academic year, in a matter of days. Students' files were transferred to the new institution overnight, without their knowledge. Second, the rector of Odessa University, Valentyn Smyntyna, was completely unaware of the creation—or rather, the "alienation"—of this most prestigious institution. It turned out that the letter on behalf of Odesa State University, which served as the basis for the Ministry of Education and the Cabinet of Ministers' decision to establish the new university, was signed by Smyntyn's deputy, Anatoly Pankov. Moreover, the letter had an outgoing number, but the document itself had not been initialed by the university. A conflict ensued, and Pankov was forced to resign from his position. But he wasn't upset, as he was immediately offered the position of Vice Rector for Research and Methodology and Head of the Department of Legal Pedagogy and Psychology at the newly created Law Academy. This was despite the fact that Pankov is a philologist by training.
Two weeks before leaving his post, then-Prime Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Lazarenko assisted Kivalov in his "destructive construction." He lobbied for the newly established university in all ministries and pressured every minister who questioned the institution's creation. It's worth noting that, before even graduating, the academy was the first of Odesa's higher education institutions to receive National status, and its first honorary doctorate was awarded to Ukrainian President Kuchma. In its first years, the academy's legal turnover amounted to $10 million per year. Meanwhile, the institution was and remains funded by the state budget.
De jure, Kivalov was the rector of the Law Academy from 1997 to 1998, a year after its founding. In 1998, Serhiy Vasilyevich became a member of the Verkhovna Rada, so he needed to resign. However, Kivalov, like no one else, knows that laws should be circumvented, not obeyed. So he invented a new position for himself—the honorary president of the Academy. This obligated the staff to elect, and the Ministry of Education and Science to approve, a rector. But things turned out differently: from 1998 to 2004, the Law Academy had no rector. Pankov performed his duties.
True, in 2004, the issue of electing a rector became pressing, but even here Kivalov found a solution – a no-contest election. There was one "single" candidate – Kivalov – and one "technical" candidate – 77-year-old law professor Chervony, who, due to his age, simply couldn't compete with the politician. Ultimately, 146 delegates voted for Sergei Vasilyevich to 8. The only remaining task was to confirm Kivalov as rector at the Ministry of Education and Science. Sergei Vasilyevich personally presented his documents to the ministry on New Year's Eve, December 28th. Miracles do happen, and the politician became rector on December 31st. For reference: such appointments are usually reviewed within two months.
The only thing that's unclear is why Kivalov needed the rector's chair. He'd been doing a fine job before – Serhiy Vasilyevich, even after officially resigning, managed to sign his signature on graduates' diplomas. This caused problems for many young people – until now, it was unclear whether such documents could be considered valid. However, no one paid attention to this detail. The fact is, the Law Academy at the time had only one task: to provide an expert assessment regarding Leonid Kuchma's eligibility for a third term. Over time, the university began churning out "pocket judges" who would later help their mentor, Kivalov, privatize land in the Odessa region. Prosecutor-in-chiefs, regardless of region, sent their progeny to the academy to lobby for them in various prosecutor's offices: district, inter-district – anywhere. And the best students, hand-picked by Kivalov himself, became judges or prosecutors in Kyiv and quickly rose through the ranks.
To enroll in the academy, one had to pay a "tribute" to one of the charitable foundations—the "Law Academy" or the "Student Church." Sergei Kivalov controlled these foundations solely. Where the money went is known only to him. Incidentally, "evil tongues" claim that the liquidation of the "Law Academy" charitable foundation was caused by the fact that the 6 million rubles in the account were transferred to a high-ranking official in Kyiv. This was compensation for retaining the rector's position. Those same "evil tongues" claim that the charitable foundation's money ended up in the pockets of Petro Poroshenko.Read more about it in the article Petro Poroshenko: Biography and the Truth About Ukraine's "Chocolate King" ) and Alexander Moroz.
Incidentally, it became common practice for the academy to enroll a large number of members of parliament and Cabinet of Ministers officials in its correspondence and postgraduate programs. Clearly, none of them ever showed up at their alma mater during their years of study. Only their record books remain. The "fiery revolutionary" Roman Bessmertny studied under this model. His story reads more like a joke. In the midst of the election campaign, in the summer of 2004, on the direct orders of Sergei Kivalov, Mr. Bessmertny was expelled from the academy for "debt." The fact was that Sergei Vasilyevich, who had placed his bets on Viktor Yanukovych, had no use for a supporter of Viktor Yushchenko. When the situation took a turn for the worse, Bessmertny was reinstated in his final semester. The "student" defended his thesis and received a diploma personally signed by Kivalov. Incidentally, Petro Poroshenko defended his dissertation for candidate of legal sciences at this very educational institution, at the academic council under the supervision of Sergei Vasilyevich.
In 2010, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine agreed with the proposal of the Ministry of Education and Science to reorganize the Odessa National Law Academy by transforming it into the National University "Odesa Law Academy".
The Odesa Law Academy is a separate state, off-limits to outsiders. How else can one explain the fact that tax authorities have not conducted a single inspection of this institution for 15 years? Only in 2016 did the tax service, through the Prosecutor General's Office, obtain permission to conduct an audit of the contractual and financial transactions of the academy and its contractors between 2013 and 2015. Specifically, this concerns fraudulent practices during the renovation of academic buildings in Kyiv and Odesa. The construction company "M2" was paid over 40 million hryvnias. However, the company simply could not have carried out such work, as it is not registered at the place of its registration and likely lacks the necessary resources. Furthermore, the university is suspected of embezzling public funds and tax evasion between 2010 and 2012. It's worth noting that the tax authorities had wanted to conduct a similar audit back in 2015, but Sergei Vasilievich, through his trusted judge, Yaroslava Balan, stopped it. Balan is one of Kivalov's "pocket judges" and works as an associate professor at the academy.
Moscow State University, "Dracula's Palace" and an illegitimate daughter
Once you've "built" your personal academy, all that's left is to expand your holdings. That's exactly what Sergei Kivalov did. In 1999, the city council transferred 0.7 hectares of land at the 8th station of the Bolshoy Fontan to the Odessa Law Academy for permanent use, to house and operate the training station.
Supposedly, a customs law course was supposed to be held there. The land was immediately fenced off, illegally taking over 3 hectares of coastal recreational land and coastal protection structures, paying for "this"—just think about it—one hryvnia per year in rent. Now let's do some simple math: according to the most conservative estimates of realtors, one hundred square meters of land on Bolshoy Fontan costs $80,000-$100,000. A couple of years later, the need for the training station disappeared. Instead of returning the land to the city, Sergei Vasilievich transferred it to the newly created International Humanitarian University.
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