Pavel Durov is a Russian businessman, creator of the social network VKontakte. The network is extremely popular, for many it has completely replaced the Internet and its understanding. Pavel was not only the owner of the VKontakte company, but he himself took part in the development of the social network and carried out improvements. This caused many jokes, appeals and memes, which further glorified the entrepreneur. The phrase “Durov, bring back the wall” marks an entire era in the development of the Runet.
Durov makes no secrets about his success story. Having earned more than one million dollars, he came to the conclusion that money is not a goal for a person, but a direct path to slavery. The principles that guide the programmer now are presented in the form of a list of 25 points, each of which is a kind of commandment for those who dare to stand out from the crowd and follow the path of self-improvement and creation.
Childhood and youth
Pavel Durov was born in October 1984. Parents are the people who instilled in their children a love of work and inexhaustible optimism, independent of the environment or the political situation.
Father, Doctor of Philology, Valery Semenovich is a native Leningrader, according to unconfirmed information, born Tulyakov. Having married Albina Durova, the future mother of a businessman, he took his wife’s surname. In 1992, a specialist in ancient literature headed the department at the philological department of St. Petersburg State University. Albina, originally from Omsk, also taught at this university. There is an unconfirmed version on the Internet about the Jewish nationality of the Durovs.
Pavel has a brother Nikolai, a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences. Nikolai showed himself early on as a gifted programmer; even as a child, he took part in mathematical competitions and olympiads and twice became the absolute world champion in programming among students. Later, it was Nikolai who would help his brother create the famous social network and for a long time would be the technical director of the company.
What Mikhail Petrov, Albina’s son from her first marriage, does is unknown.
Initially, Pavel lived and studied in Turin, and after returning to Russia he entered the Academic Gymnasium. The main direction of study is knowledge of the basics of philology. In the 11th grade, he became interested in programming and virtual computer projects.
After graduating from high school with a silver medal, the young genius enters the Faculty of Philology at St. Petersburg State University. During his stay at the university, he often became a scholarship recipient and laureate of the Potanin Prize.
In addition to studying languages and his passion for programming, Pavel Durov was engaged in military training. The rank received is reserve lieutenant. University studies continued until 2006, ending with a diploma with honors. Pavel never took the document. Even in his youth, the future millionaire decided that he did not want to spend every day on monotonous office work, and determined for himself that he was created for the Internet.
"In contact with"
The first developments to simplify the exchange of messages and useful information were introduced by Durov at the university. The created library for searching important materials, abstracts and a small forum for students became a new hobby for the young programmer. The site received the name of the author - durov.com.
The next stage in the development of network space is the site spbgu.ru, the prototype of VKontakte. After this platform, Pavel already had an idea of how relationships should be built in the future social network.
The desire to create a practical portal for communication appeared after meeting a friend who came from abroad. The story about the social network Facebook, which stores complete information about users, made it possible to create a layout of a multi-user Russian-language resource.
Pavel Durov was involved in the development of VKontakte together with his brother Nikolai. The first official user registered on the social network in October 2006. The network was initially closed and was replenished with participants only through invitations (requests). In December 2006, the portal began registering everyone.
Developer of the social network “VKontakte” Pavel Durov Promotion of the project and its expansion took about 2 years. The formation period allowed us to significantly improve the design and maximize the project’s interface. The resulting system became convenient and practical. In 2008, the number of registered VKontakte users exceeded 20 million, and Pavel Durov became a real legend, who was compared to the creator of Facebok.
At the beginning of 2014, Pavel sold part of the shares (12%) and on April 1 from the post of general director of VKontakte. After 2 days, he refuted his own statement, calling it an April Fool's joke. However, on April 21, Durov was fired. Disputes about the reasons for Pavel's removal from the company he created have not subsided to this day.
According to a number of business publications, this 12% was bought by the former director of Megafon, Ivan Tavrin. The acquisition cost the top manager between $360 and $480 million.
After a long “war,” Pavel Durov sold VK, or rather, his share of shares, to Mail.ru Group, which users do not like for actively imposing advertising and side developments. The company became the owner of a controlling stake (52%). In the same year, the UCP fund, the owner of the remaining shares, stated that the actions of Mail.ru Group were contrary to the interests of VK, and initiated legal proceedings.
After leaving VKontakte, Pavel did not stop developing new projects. On August 14, 2013, Telegram appeared. The new messenger did not have revolutionary functionality; its feature was different. This Durov project used a special correspondence encryption technology that Nikolai came up with and created a truly secure communication channel. Pavel himself admitted that this idea came to his mind when one day special forces came knocking on his house, and he could not even tell his family about it, not being sure that the message would not be intercepted by the command of this detachment.
Government representatives several times offered to block Telegram if it did not change its privacy policy, but Pavel remained adamant and officially stated that the messenger did not and would not give out users’ personal data.
On April 22, 2014, information appeared that Pavel Durov was leaving the country and had no intention of returning. And if a month before this the programmer wrote about Russia as a place worth living in, then after that his opinion changed completely in the opposite direction. The businessman published a list of requirements, after which he is ready to return to his homeland. The text exposes many political and social problems of the state, so it quickly spread into quotes.
According to Durov, it is now impossible to work in Russia, and abroad he will closely work on developing a special social network for mobile devices. Considering the enormous potential of the contractor and sufficient work experience, one could safely expect that the project under development would be of high quality and would arouse justified interest from users.
Paul St. Kitts and Nevis, but does not live there. The passport of this island state allows Durov to travel around the world freely.
In 2016, Pavel entered into an open confrontation with the FBI. Durov again refused to give out personal data of users, and the FBI hacked Telegram.
Pavel Durov is a dollar billionaire. In 2018, Forbes estimated the Russian’s fortune at $1.7 billion. And these figures seem to analysts to be greatly underestimated, since various applications should bring Pavel much more. For example, the browser game “Happy Farm” alone generates about 10 billion rubles. in year. In addition to it, there are other popular applications on the market created by Durov. In the same year, Pavel, based only on official income, was included in the list of the richest people in Russia and took 58th place.
Personal life
Durov adheres to libertarian views and supports vegetarianism; according to some reports, he even became a vegan. In addition, Pavel does not drink alcohol and loves to travel.
Durov's acquaintances claim that in life he is the same workaholic that he looks like when looking at his biography. Pavel is polite, uncommunicative and does not like to talk about his personal life. At the same time, it is known that Pavel is a great lover of beautiful girls; photographs of him with models often appeared on the Internet.
Such mystery gave rise to many speculations. It is believed that the young entrepreneur is not officially married, but it is customary to talk about his common-law wife, who gave birth to Pavel two children, as some media claim. But if arguments and evidence of Durov’s communication with the girl can be found, then there is no evidence that the billionaire became a happy father. On her pages on social networks and Instagram, the girl also does not have photographs with small children, just as she does not have Pavel among her friends.
Pavel Durov is also credited with having a relationship with and, but there is no confirmation of this.
Not only the marital status of the businessman attracts attention, but also his appearance. Durov's classmates claim that in his youth he had thin hair. Pavel was never bald, but suffered from androgenic alopecia. In official photographs, the young entrepreneur flaunts gorgeous hair.
Pavel Durov before and after the proposed hair transplant This gave rise to numerous disputes. Some sources say that Durov had a hair transplant. The most extravagant commentators believe that Paul wears a wig.
The businessman, with an average height of 176 cm, has an athletic build. Photos of Pavel with a naked torso, published with the hashtag #PutinShirtlessChallenge, served as the basis for numerous memes in 2017.
Scandals
Pavel Durov's harsh temperament often led to scandalous incidents. Thus, the photo of Pavel with his middle finger raised up caused a wide resonance in society, which, according to the creator of VKontakte, became the official response to Mail.ru Group’s offer to buy out the social network.
The scandal involving the throwing of banknotes folded in the form of paper airplanes from the window of the VKontakte central office caused no less resonance. This act of Pavel Durov was bitterly criticized by Russian cultural and political figures. Pavel himself admitted in an interview that he had no malicious intent, he just wanted to create a festive atmosphere for City Day. He said that he threw money out of the window and was glad to see both the pandemonium and the reaction of people, not because he wanted to demonstrate wealth and importance, but because he saw surprise and joy on the faces of the townspeople.
Pavel Durov According to rough estimates, Durov and top managers of VKontakte threw about $2 thousand out the window. It is difficult to blame Pavel for snobbery and commercialism; at that time he lived in a rented apartment next to the office and always allowed the company’s developers to spend the night at his home.
VKontakte experienced a lot of problems due to non-compliance with copyright. The conflict with the Vedomosti newspaper led to mutual blocking of links and pages. After the singer’s claims, the founder of the network deleted all of his compositions, the artist did the same with his own account and returned to VKontakte only in 2016, after Durov left and monetized listening to music.
Brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov In 2013, a video depicting “a man similar to Durov” driving a Mercedes was discussed. The car runs over a traffic police officer, and the driver escapes. Later, a VKontakte press secretary claimed that Pavel does not drive a car at all. As a result, the businessman avoided criminal punishment, but could not be prosecuted under an administrative charge due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.
Pavel Durov now
In 2017, Pavel reset the lists of friends and subscribers in
Pavel Valerievich Durov- Russian businessman, creator of the social network Vkontakte (VK) and the cross-platform messenger Telegram. During his student years, Pavel Durov was a laureate of scholarships from the President of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Russian Federation, a three-time laureate Potaninskaya scholarships. Currently, Pavel Valerievich is a ruble billionaire.
Childhood and education of Pavel Durov
Father - Valery Semenovich Durov(b. 1945) - Doctor of Philology. Valery Durov headed the Department of Classical Philology of the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University (from 1992 to 2013).
Mother - Albina Alexandrovna Durova(b. 1951) - taught at St. Petersburg State University, now retired.
Older brother - Nikolai Valerievich Durov(b. 1980) - Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. During his student years, he twice became the absolute world champion in programming among students. Nikolay Durov was the technical director of VKontakte LLC.
Pavel's grandfather Semyon Petrovich Tulyakov(b. 1913), participated in the Great Patriotic War. He was wounded three times. Introduced to the Order of the Red Star.
Pavel Durov began receiving his education in Italy, going to school in Turin, where his father worked for several years. When the Durovs returned home, Pavel became a student at the Academic Gymnasium at St. Petersburg State University. Pavel Durov studied in a class with in-depth study of foreign languages. In addition to English, French, German, Spanish and Italian, he speaks Latin and Persian.
The early years of Pavel Durov (Photo: lukomore.org/Global Look Press)
Pavel grew up as a fairly active child. He became interested in computers early; at the age of 11, Durov became interested in programming and virtual computer projects.
Friends talked about the “innocent childhood fun” of the future creator of VKontakte. For example, Pavel changed the screensavers on all computers in the computer science classroom and easily hacked teachers’ passwords. His love for programming, apparently, did not bring him closer to the computer science teacher, whose photo with the caption “Must die” young Durov placed on the screensavers of school computers.
Pavel Durov graduated from high school with honors and, despite his interest in programming, decided to get a humanities education by enrolling in the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University (specialty “English Philology and Translation”).
Career of Pavel Durov
Pavel Durov created a library for searching important materials and abstracts at the university to simplify the exchange of messages and useful information.
However, in the end, having figured out Facebook, Pavel said that it was a “sinking ship.” He even called the American social network a “stronghold of pedoliberals,” and in May 2012, on his Twitter account, he ironically called it a “cheap hack.”
Pavel Durov was involved in the development of VKontakte together with his brother Nikolai. The first official user registered on the social network in October 2006. Initially, the social network was called “Students.ru”. But it was soon changed to a more acceptable one - “VKontakte”, and over time the abbreviation “VK” took root.
In 2008, the number of registered VKontakte users exceeded 20 million, and Pavel Durov became a real legend, who was compared to the creator of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg.
On April 1, 2014, the founder of the social network VKontakte, Pavel Durov, announced that he was leaving his leadership position. According to Durov, the reason for his departure was changes in the composition of the company's shareholders, which led to a restriction of the CEO's freedom of action. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to defend the principles that were once the basis of our social network,” Durov wrote on his page.
Durov noted that, as a founder, he will continue to participate in the life of the social network, however, “formal posts in the new conditions are not interesting to me,” the media quoted him as saying.
On April 21, 2014, VKontakte LLC announced the dismissal of Pavel Durov from the post of general director of the social network in connection with his earlier resignation letter. Durov did not recognize his resignation as legal, since he withdrew his statement.
In his 2016 interview, Pavel Durov published ten lessons he learned in the process of creating VKontakte. According to him, “VK” was made quickly and efficiently, which put it above its competitors. Also, according to Durov, you need to pay attention to pleasant little things, since even insignificant but well-thought-out details “bring new loyal users.”
Durov admitted that when creating the site, he listened to the opinions of “elders and wise men,” but only wasted time, since “you should only listen to your intuition.” He noted that the VKontakte staff was small, but consisted of talented and motivated people: “such a team is more effective than an army of mercenaries working for a salary.”
According to Forbes, Pavel Durov sold his stake in VKontakte to the CEO of Megafon Ivan Tavrin.
Emigration of Pavel Durov
Pavel Durov received citizenship of Saint Kitts and Nevis, but does not live there. The passport of this small state allows Durov to travel around the world freely. Durov constantly moves from country to country, never staying in one for more than two or three weeks. His team of programmers travels with him to Paris, Singapore and other cities, with whom he develops the Telegram messenger. Pavel reported that he was not a fan of the idea of the state. “I am very happy now, living without any property and considering myself a citizen of the world.”
Photo: lukomore. org/Global Look Press
Pavel received a passport from the state of Saint Kitts and Nevis in 2014 after investing in the country’s economy; the news wrote that Durov donated 250 thousand dollars to the Sugar Industry Diversification Fund; a donation in this amount entitles him to automatic citizenship. Before this, the former general director of VKontakte conducted a survey on his Facebook page about which country to choose as a new place of residence.
Conflict around Telegram
After leaving Vkontakte, Pavel Durov did not stop developing new projects. Back in 2013, Durov introduced the Telegram messenger. The peculiarity of Durov’s project was the use of special correspondence encryption technology, which was invented by Nikolai Durov, and created a truly secure communication channel.
Telegram instant messaging system (Photo: Sergey Konkov/TASS)
Government representatives several times offered to block Telegram if it did not change its privacy policy, but Pavel remained adamant and officially stated that the messenger did not and would not give out users’ personal data.
Advisor to the President of Russia on Internet development issues German Klimenko believes that the creator of the Telegram messenger Pavel Durov adheres to an “anarchic position” in his dispute with Roskomnadzor.
According to Klimenko, terrorists can use various messengers when planning terrorist attacks, but the management of all these messengers, unlike Durov, is ready for dialogue with the Russian authorities, TASS writes.
In April 2017, the creator of the Telegram messenger Pavel Durov spoke about what innovations users should expect in the near future. Thus, it became known that through the messenger it will be possible to make commission-free financial transactions and make video calls. Payments will be made using the Stripe payment system.
June 23, 2017 head of Roskomnadzor Alexander Zharov stated that the department will block the work of Telegram in Russia if its creators do not send the data necessary for the official inclusion of the messenger in the register of information dissemination organizers. In turn, Pavel Durov promised his users that Telegram would not give out their personal data to any of the world’s intelligence agencies.
On April 16, providers in Russia began blocking access to the Telegram messenger. Free Press reported that Alexander Zharov, the head of Roskomnadzor, said that on behalf of the department requests would be sent to the App Store and Google Play application stores demanding that the Telegram messenger be removed.
According to Durov, the decision to block the Telegram messenger will reduce Russia’s national security, since some of the personal data of Russians will go to the US-controlled WhatsApp and Facebook messengers. At the same time, Durov noted that the terrorist threat in Russia will remain at the same level, since “extremists will continue to use encrypted communication channels - in other instant messengers, or through VPN.”
“The quality of life of 15 million Russians will worsen, as Telegram without a VPN may be inaccessible at times. We consider the decision to block unconstitutional and will continue to defend the right to privacy of Russians’ correspondence,” the owner of Telegram summarized, as reported in the news. Durov also said that he would provide grants to everyone who would support services that can be used to bypass the blocking of the messenger.
Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov said that Vladimir Putin is aware of the situation with the blocking of the Telegram messenger in the country.
“The question is rather a government one, but, of course, the president is aware of the decision made by the court to block,” RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.
Personal life of Pavel Durov
Durov adheres to libertarian political views. He supports vegetarianism and, according to some reports, has even become a vegan. In addition, Pavel does not drink alcohol and loves to travel.
Pavel is well-mannered, but unsociable and does not like to talk about his personal life. Nevertheless, photos of Durov often appeared on the Internet with various models.
In the photo: Alena Shishkova and Vika Odintcova (Photo: instagram.com/missalena.92 / instagram.com/viki_odintcova)
Pavel Durov was credited with having a relationship with Alena Shishkova And Vika Odintsova, according to his biography on the 24-SMI website, you can also often find references to Durov’s common-law wife Daria Bondarenko, who allegedly gave birth to Pavel two children. But Durov does not publish photos with this woman and children on Instagram and other social networks, keeping his personal life secret. One can only speculate about who Pavel Durov is dating from the news of the tabloids and the yellow press.
In the photo: Russian entrepreneur, programmer, billionaire, one of the creators of the social network VKontakte and the company of the same name; creator of the cross-platform Telegram messenger Pavel Durov (third from right) (Photo: lukomore.org/Global Look Press)
Pavel is inspired Ernesto Che Guevara And Steve Jobs, and according to his religious beliefs, according to some sources, he is a Pastafarian, according to others, a supporter of the Zen school.
In 2011, Pavel was ranked third in the Forbes list of “The 9 Most Unusual Russian Businessmen - Extravagant, Eccentrics and Eccentrics” for publishing a photo in which he made an obscene gesture in response to the efforts of a major shareholder of VKontakte - Mail.ru Group - to absorb this company. social network.
The scandal involving the throwing of banknotes folded in the form of paper airplanes from the window of the VKontakte central office caused no less resonance. Durov and VKontakte top managers threw about $2,000 out the window, according to his biography on Wikipedia. Pavel, commenting on the story in an interview, noted that “he threw money out of the window and was glad to see both the pandemonium and the reaction of people not because that he wanted to prove his wealth and importance, but because he saw surprise and joy on the faces of the townspeople.”
Durov’s tweet on May 9, 2012, which said that “67 years ago, Stalin defended Hitler’s right to repress the population of the USSR,” caused a great resonance. This quote caused outrage among many, Nikolay Valuev announced that he was closing his accounts on VKontakte. Writer Sergey Minaev called Durov scum.
Press Secretary of VKontakte Vladislav Tsyplukhin, commenting on the scandalous news, said that Durov respects Victory Day, and his entry is connected with the fact that “his grandfather went through the whole war,” “and in gratitude he was repressed without trial.”
Pavel Durov actively uses Instagram and posts his photos. If fans cannot find photos of his girls there, then Durov himself, in particular, is a lot half-naked on Instagram. Most often, Durov poses for photos in a black T-shirt. He also posts pictures from his numerous travels; recently on Instagram he posted an image of a seaplane in the Maldives, captioning the photo “seaplane - more freedom.”
In August, the founder of VKontakte and the Telegram messenger announced the launch of the #PutinShirtlessChallenge flash mob (roughly translated as “Take off your shirt like Putin”). Pavel Durov invited users to publish their photos with a naked torso “in response” to numerous photographs of the shirtless President of Russia. Durov himself accompanied the post with his photo without a T-shirt, taken, judging by the geolocation, in the city of Ubud on the island of Bali.
“My Instagram has had to seriously take things to the next level to keep up with the growing competition of shirtless Mr. Putin. If you're Russian, you need to join the #PutinShirtlessChallenge (or face oblivion). Putin’s two rules are no photoshop and no pumping [multiple repetitions of the exercise to make the muscles look more prominent]. Otherwise, you are not an “alpha,” Durov signed the photo.
Most people, especially those of Western origin, hear the words “ billionaire" And " social network“Mark Zuckerberg and his “glitchy” blue creation called “Facebook” immediately comes to mind.
However, more advanced users, hearing such tags, remember the Russian version of Zuckerberg - Pavle Durov and the glory days of pirated content. He is known not only as creator of VKontakte and the popular messenger Telegram, but also as the owner of a reputation as a fighter against the system, a slight inadequate, a pretentious genius, and just a good-looking guy.
Despite his fame and attention from the press, Pavel Durov is a very mysterious person who leads a rather secretive lifestyle. The site team decided to find out how Pavel Durov’s personal life was, what views he adheres to and how he has changed since he was a botanist at school.
Childhood and youth
Despite the fact that Pavel was born into an intelligent Leningrad family, his father is a doctor of philological sciences, his brother is a famous mathematician, his tendency towards unconventional actions and rebellion was noticeable even in childhood.
Almost all of Durov's peers at school considered him a bore and a nerd., but Pavel rarely paid attention to this and devoted all his time not to friends, but to his hobbies - technology and computers.
Having a knack for computer science, he once replaced all the screensavers on school computers with a photograph of the teacher with the inscription Must die (“Must die”). As punishment, the teacher wanted to limit the prankster’s access to the network, but Pavel managed to hack it too.
During his student years after entering the university, his anti-system views led to his first success. During preparation for the session, Pavel rejected the idea of exchanging information on tickets and proposed his own idea - let's put everything on the Internet.
This is how his first project appeared - Durov.com, where all students could exchange cheat sheets, lectures, and essays. Subsequently, the Satl project became quite popular in Russia. After this, Durov took part in the creation of a university website where students could communicate with each other. With all this, Pavel managed to excel in his studies and participate in Olympiads. He even won a prestigious scholarship three times. As a result, he graduated from university with honors, which, by the way, he still hasn’t received.
Pavel Durov and Vkontakte
An old friend of Pavel, who returned from America, once showed him the Facebook he had created:
“Look, I’ve been wanting to show you for a long time,” the young man opened his laptop and typed Facebook in the address bar. A website opened on the screen. Pavel moved closer.
This is how Pavel’s story began with the creation of the most popular social network in the CIS. Immediately after being inspired by the history of Facebook, Durov decided to set his sights on something similar and approached his brother with a proposal, who had helped him more than once in computer matters. From that day on, Paul became obsessed with the idea. 
After two years of hard work, the created social network reached more than 30 million registered users. But even then, Pavel Durov was not just the owner of the company that managed VKontakte, but he himself took part in the development, conducted testing, and thought about improving the social network.
This fact caused many jokes and memes, which made the entrepreneur even more famous. Phrase “Durov, bring back the wall” symbolizes an entire era in the development of the Runet.
Leaving VKontakte and creating Telegram
It is quite expected that after VKontakte took the first place in the traffic ratings and the social network began to generate multimillion-dollar income, the authorities and people who wanted to profit from Pavel, as the creator, began to look for leverage and pressure.
“Pavel, could we discuss the terms of sale of your website?” Having thoroughly enjoyed this moment, Durov always answered: “No!”
Being the CEO of the social network, he adequately repelled the attacks. For example, in response to a proposal to close opposition groups on a social network, he provided a reasoned refusal and explained: “ No, I don’t sympathize with the opposition, it’s just that if I delete their groups, I’ll lose a lot of users».
Sooner or later in our reality this had to happen. On April 1, Pavel Durov announced that he was resigning as CEO of Vkontakte and selling the remaining stake in the social network. And 3 weeks later he announced that he was leaving Russia and had no plans to return. He explained this by saying that It is now impossible to work normally and honestly in Russia, and abroad he will be closely involved in the development of a special messenger for mobile devices - this is how the era of Telegram began.
How Durov lives now
After emigrating from Russia, Pavel Durov received citizenship of Saint Kitts and Nevis, which allowed him entry into almost all countries of the world. Judging by rumors, he and a small team working on Telegram are developing and developing the messenger, traveling around the world along the way.
Nothing is known at all about the personal life of Pavel Durov. He does not advertise, practically does not give interviews, occasionally posts photos on Instagram, and does not touch on the topic of family relationships at all.
As you know, Pavel Durov is still that rebel and prankster, I wouldn’t mind throwing money from the windows or giving traffic cops a ride on the hood, for which many people call him a cynical asshole. One has only to remember the madness that happened on the street after he started throwing bills into the air.
Pavel himself treats everything with a grain of irony and in his comments says something like “I just wanted to create a festive mood for people.
And in conclusion
Despite the fact that the conflict between the Russian authorities and Pavel Durov, where his created messenger Telegram was accused of aiding terrorism, has already died down. Passions and conversations about its creator do not subside. On the contrary, we can say that this only encouraged users to talk about censorship, freedom of speech, bureaucracy and the problems of modern society.
Even though state propaganda has begun to explain to the people that Telegram is an ominous invention that will shred us all today or tomorrow. We hope you don't fall for this bullshit.
Despite all the spitting on the part of the authorities and the ignorant part of the public against Pavel Durov, it is worth saying that our states will become great only when such people are not pushed out of the country and mixed with poop, but are preserved, developed and proud of them.
Pavel Valerievich Durov- Russian programmer, dollar billionaire, one of the creators of the social network VKontakte and the company of the same name, the cross-platform messenger Telegram and other projects. Former General Director of VKontakte (2006-2014).
Place of Birth. Education. Pavel Durov was born in Leningrad on October 10, 1984 into an intelligent family. Father - Doctor of Philology Valery Semyonovich Durov, author of many scientific works, has headed the Department of Classical Philology of the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University since 1992. He went to the first grade of school while in Turin, where his father worked for several years. Returning to his hometown, Pavel briefly studied at a regular school and entered the experimental classes of the Academic Gymnasium (now Mednikov’s Academic Classes), which provides in-depth study of all subjects, including four foreign languages. At the age of 11, he first became interested in programming.
In 2001 he graduated from the Academic Gymnasium with honors. In 2002, Pavel entered the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University, majoring in English Philology and Translation. For his academic achievements and contribution to student life at the university, he was awarded a scholarship from the government of the Russian Federation, and then a scholarship from the President of the Russian Federation. Pavel was a three-time winner of the Potanin Scholarship, and was also one of a select number of St. Petersburg State University students with the highest level of intelligence and leadership abilities. He won competitions in computer science, linguistics and design, and organized university-wide events. Pavel graduated from the university in 2006 with honors (which he never took).
In contact with. Even while studying at St. Petersburg State University, Pavel created non-profit Internet projects designed to improve the quality of social and scientific life of the university. These projects were the sites Durov.com and Spbgu.ru.
But by the summer of 2006, he realized that his student websites, despite all their popularity, were ineffective in uniting students, since many hid their names under nicknames and their real faces under avatars: students could communicate with each other online without even realizing it. that they study in the same group. Then he started looking for another form for the student website. Later, Pavel’s old friend, who returned from the USA after studying, introduced him to an Internet project for American university students - Facebook, where users posted their real names and photographs on their profiles. Durov decided to introduce a similar website concept in Russia, that is, real people under real names. The original name of the future project - "Student.ru" - was replaced by Pavel on VKontakte, since, according to him, "sooner or later we all become graduates." He started implementing it immediately after graduating from university.
Pavel and his brother, Nikolai Durov, founded the limited liability company VKontakte and launched a beta version of the network of the same name, whose domain - vkontakte.ru - was, according to official data, registered on October 1, 2006. At first the site was closed, in other words, it was possible to register only after a personal invitation. But at the end of the year registration became free. The rapidly growing number of users forced the creators to change servers and improve software support for the network. Pavel repeatedly received offers to buy his product, but he rejected them. Instead, the programmer attracted investors to his project. VKontakte developed before our eyes. Already in 2007, it became the third most popular site on the Runet; in 2008, the network was monetized, and the number of users exceeded 20 million.
As of 2011, Durov, with a fortune of 7.9 billion rubles, occupied 350th place in the ranking of Russian billionaires.
On April 16, Pavel Durov announced that on December 13, 2013, the FSB demanded that the network’s management hand over the personal information of the organizers of the Euromaidan groups, to which he refused. For this, according to Durov, he had to sacrifice a lot, including his share of VKontakte. According to him, Russia’s jurisdiction does not extend to Ukrainian users of the social network VKontakte and dissemination of data from Ukrainian users would not only be a violation of the law, but also a crime against millions of users from Ukraine.
In January 2014, it became known that Pavel Durov sold his stake (12%) in the VKontakte company to the CEO of MegaFon, Ivan Tavrin. In March, Mail.Ru Group bought this share from Ivan Tavrin, thus concentrating 52% of the shares of VKontakte; 48% belongs to the United Capital Partners fund.
On April 21, 2014, Durov announced that he was fired from his position as CEO of the social network. The next day, he announced that he had left Russia, did not intend to return, and was going to create a new mobile social network. According to the founder of VKontakte, “at the moment the country [Russia] is not compatible with doing business on the Internet.”
Durov constantly moves from country to country, never staying in one for more than two or three weeks. Together with him in Paris , Singapore and his team of programmers, with whom he develops the messenger, travels to other cities Telegram . Pavel reported that he was not a fan of the idea of the state. "Now I am very happy, living without any property and considering myself citizen of the world." In addition to the Russian one, he has a passport from the state of Saint Kitts and Nevis , he received this passport after investing in the country's economy.
Telegram. On August 14, 2013, the first Telegram client for iOS devices was introduced. The application is positioned as protected from surveillance by intelligence agencies and the possibility of gaining illegal access to the data of its users. The service is built on MTProto correspondence encryption technology, developed by Pavel’s brother Nikolai.
The number of monthly active users of the service as of the end of March 2018 is more than 200 million people. In August 2017, in his Telegram channel, Pavel Durov reported that the number of users was increasing by more than 600 thousand daily.
On April 16, 2018, Roskomnadzor began restricting access to Telegram in Russia.
On April 18, 2018, Russian media reported the true reason for blocking Telegram.
Views. Pavel Durov adheres to libertarian political views and is also a vegetarian. He advocates reform of the Russian educational system; abolition of taxes in the field of information; abolition of the visa system, registration and military conscription; reduction of customs duties; granting regions full autonomy; and also for the openness of jury trials. He is inspired by Ernesto Che Guevara and Steve Jobs, and according to his religious beliefs, he is, according to some sources, a Pastafarian, according to others, a supporter of the Zen school.
On October 10, 2017, on his birthday, Pavel Durov spoke about seven things that he gave up many years ago and which, in his opinion, negatively affect consciousness: alcohol; animal meat; tablets and any pharmaceutical products; nicotine and other drugs; coffee, black and green tea, energy drinks; fast food, sugar, carbonated drinks; television and its analogues.
Criticism and recognition. Durov is called Russian in the media , and is also often criticized for his eccentric antics and statements.
State. In 2016 and 2017, he was included in the Forbes list of 200 richest businessmen in Russia. In 2018, the magazine estimated his net worth at $1.7 billion.
Family. Father - Doctor of Philology Valery Semenovich Durov (born July 13, 1945), author of many scientific works, since 1992 has headed the Department of Classical Philology of the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University.
Mother - Albina Aleksandrovna Durova (born April 3, 1951) taught at St. Petersburg State University.
Brother - Nikolay (born November 21, 1980), mathematician, candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, multiple winner of Russian and international olympiads in mathematics and computer science, twice absolute world champion in programming among students, from the day of its foundation until mid-2013 he was the technical director In contact with.
Pavel Durov is a Russian entrepreneur, programmer, one of the founders of the most popular social network in the CIS countries. Former general director of VKontakte and one of
Pavel Durov. Biography of a billionaire
Pavel Valerievich was born on October 10, 1984 in Leningrad. His father is Valery Semenovich Durov, Doctor of Philology, Head of the Department of Classical Philology, Faculty of Philology, St. Petersburg State University.
The Russian billionaire has a brother - Nikolai Valerievich. He is also the technical director of VKontakte, a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, and a two-time world champion among students in programming.
School years
For the first time, Pavel Durov sat at a school desk in Turin, where his father worked at that time. A few years later, the family returned back to Russia. After a short period of study at a regular school, Durov became a student at the academic gymnasium at St. Petersburg State University.
Pavel Valerievich studied four foreign languages in depth. Due to poor eyesight, he always sat at the first desk. Already at the age of 11, Pavel became interested in programming. Hacking a computer network and selecting passwords for computers in the computer science classroom are well-known pranks that Pavel Durov was guilty of. The biography of the future Russian entrepreneur continues in
Higher education
After graduating from the Academic Gymnasium, Durov continued his studies at the Faculty of Philology at St. Petersburg State University, specializing in English Philology and Translation. During his student years he became a laureate of a scholarship from the President and the Government of the Russian Federation, and was a laureate three times
In parallel with his studies at the university, he underwent training at the military faculty in the specialty “Propaganda and Psychological Warfare”. At the university, he served as a platoon commander in his department. Upon completion of military training, Durov received the rank of junior lieutenant in the reserve. In 2006, he graduated with honors, but has not yet withdrawn from the university.
While a student, Pavel Durov began working on several projects designed to simplify the search for information students needed and improve the quality of scientific and social activities of his university.
First projects
Such projects were the electronic library of university abstracts (durov.com) and the forum for St. Petersburg State University students (spbgu.ru). They did not bring any financial benefit to their creator, but only helped students from different universities communicate.
After some time, he became disillusioned with the existing system for organizing user accounts on the Runet, where people could hide under any names and avatars. Finding another form of implementing the association of Internet users was the goal that Pavel Durov set for himself at that time.
"VKontakte": creation and development of the project
After some time, Pavel met his old friend, who had returned from the USA, where he was studying. He told Durov about the Facebook student project. There, users posted real photos and information. Pavel liked this idea, and he decided to create a similar association in the Russian-language Internet space.
Durov began bringing his idea to life after graduating from university. The original name of the project was “Student.ru”, but after some time it was changed to “VKontakte”. Durov explained this change by saying that in any case, students will become graduates.
On October 1, 2006, Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai opened a limited liability company, known to all of us as VKontakte, and registered the first service domain. Until the end of the year, the project was in the testing and development stage. Registration was only possible by invitation. Already in December, Durov opened VKontakte for free registration. During the first days of open access, more than 2,000 users registered on the site.
At the initial stage, the promotion of the project was very successful through viral marketing and many competitions for users. By the end of 2006, the servers could no longer cope with the ever-increasing number of users, and therefore the servers were replaced and software support for the network was improved. In 2007, Durov received numerous offers to purchase the project, but he refused them and continued to promote the network, attracting investors. In the same year, VKontakte became one of the three most visited sites on the Runet.
In 2008, the number of users exceeded 20 million. At the same time, monetization of the project began: advertising, gaming applications, which began to bring program developers a certain percentage of the project’s income.
Any popular and profitable project attracts hackers, spammers and others. VKontakte was no exception. The site was repeatedly infected and became a carrier of viruses. In addition, the site made attempts to expand the porn industry, so the developers did not have to sit idle.
Durov and his brainchild have been repeatedly sued for copyright infringement (for posting films and videos in the public domain on the website). But they did not end successfully for the plaintiffs, since VKontakte is a public resource, and certain users should bear responsibility.
In 2011, VKontakte was seriously changed both externally and functionally. New features have appeared: a pop-up message window, convenient photo viewing, the ability to add video files from popular video hosting sites and other useful functions.
Income of the creator of VKontakte
By the end of 2010, the company's value was estimated at $1.5 billion. According to official data, the authorized capital of VKontakte at that time was divided as follows:
- Mikhail Mirilashvili - 10%;
- Lev Leviev - 10%;
- Pavel Durov - 20%;
- Vyacheslav Mirilashvili - 60%.
According to these data, in 2011 it was estimated at 7.9 billion rubles. But this figure may not correspond to reality. One “Happy Farmer” brings in about $10 million a year, but there are other, no less popular applications.
But still, based on official data, in 2011 Durov took 350th place among the richest people in Russia, with 7.9 billion rubles ($260 million) in his accounts.
Since December 2011, he has begun financing various startups selected on a competitive basis, and already in December, six of them received $25 thousand from the entrepreneur. In January 2012, Durov donated a million dollars for the development of Wikipedia.
In November of the same year, he presented a documentary book, “The Durov Code,” dedicated to the development of VKontakte. AR Films immediately acquired the rights to film it. As for Pavel, he reacted extremely negatively to the film adaptation. Despite his position, the film will be released in 2014.
What is he, the founder of VKontakte, like on a personal level?
Pavel Durov, whose personal life is of considerable interest primarily for the fair half of humanity, does not attend social events and occasionally appears in public.
He is a workaholic, uncommunicative, and polite. Pavel devoted himself almost entirely to running the business. Pavel Durov, whose personal life haunts the press, does not tell anything about it. Therefore, various rumors are being spread that are not confirmed by facts.
Views on business
Despite his billionaire status, Durov rents an apartment next to the office where he works. His idols are Steve Jobs, Che Guevara. He has a negative attitude towards the social network Facebook and calls it a “sinking ship.” Durov is very aggressive in doing business.
His “war” with the Mail.ru Group, which is one of the largest shareholders of VKontakte, is well known. In 2011, she wanted to absorb and merge the social network with Odnoklassniki. There is a well-known conflict between Durov and the editors of the Vedomosti newspaper, related to the innovation of the site, which allows you to watch news from various resources without the need to follow active links.
Criticism of Durov
Both eccentric actions and harsh statements that Pavel Durov often makes are criticized. A photo of the founder of VKontakte at the window of his office during a “money rain” immediately caused a flurry of criticism. Bloggers and journalists dubbed this trick “a merchant’s whim,” and the words of the Minister of Culture were even harsher: “A person who treats the people like cattle should get the profession of a seamstress-machine operator in the zone.”
On May 26, 2012, airplanes with banknotes attached were scattered near Durov’s office. Eyewitnesses believe that this was organized by Pavel Durov, whose photo on the balcony during the commotion outside the building is confirmation of this, and he does not deny this.
On the eve of Victory Day on May 9 of the same year, Durov brought down the wrath of many people with his statement on Twitter: “67 years ago, Stalin managed to defend the right to repress the people of the USSR from Hitler.” Many bloggers and various public figures immediately condemned this post and deleted their accounts from VKontakte as a sign of protest. Some time later, the VKontakte press secretary said that Durov’s harsh statement was due to the fact that his grandfather, who went through the war from beginning to end, was later repressed, and Pavel himself respects Victory Day.
Farewell to your creation
Many people are interested in the question: “Did Pavel Durov sell VKontakte?” This is partly true. It is known that on January 4, 2014, Durov sold his shares to the CEO of Megafon, Ivan Tavrin. The founder of the most popular social network in the CIS countries submitted his resignation on March 21, and a month later his application was accepted. After this, Pavel Durov left VKontakte completely and has no plans to return. Before his departure, the vice president, as well as the financial director of the social network, resigned.
The CEO of USM Advisors, who owns 52% of VKontakte shares, said: “We were surprised when Durov did not withdraw his resignation, and the owners of VKontakte satisfied his decision a month later. We have always believed that the role of Pavel Durov is very important for the company. We regret that he has decided to step down as CEO."
Perhaps Durov will change his decision and return to the position of architect at VKontakte.
Despite all this, the fact remains that Pavel Durov sold VKontakte and left his brainchild. He linked his dismissal to the fact that he did not provide the FSB with personal information about people supporting Euromaidan.
Today, the founder of VKontakte is outside Russia and plans to launch a mobile social network, but abroad. Telegram of Pavel Durov will appear this year.
Conclusion
Many admire the talent and hard work of Pavel’s bright and eccentric personality, while others despise him, hinting at plagiarism and huge profits. He was credited with serving in the FSB, state funding of his brainchild, and the fact that he was simply a beautiful sign for the VKonakte project.
Durov always denied all these rumors on his personal page. Despite all this, his social network is an incredible success, which says a lot.
On Durov’s page there is the following statement: “There are very few of those who do and do not talk. In any case, there are much fewer of them than it might seem. Don't waste your time. A person is led to success by his actions, not his words.”
