Pavel Durov - a hero or a bastard? And what should the Telegram scandal teach Ukraine? Blog of Alexey Bondarev. Scandalous technologies. What stories were Pavel Durov at the center of? Extremely precise wording
The winner of the competition for the development of the best messenger for VK and Telegram for Android spoke about the management techniques of his former employer
I must say right away that our parting with Pavel happened harmoniously: I was tired of being second, I was offered to leave - I left. Moreover, unlike Anton Rosenberg, I left of my own free will, but still received three salaries, and a month before leaving, I received half of the promised bonus of 500k for my efforts, but not achieving the necessary results. Many were fired unilaterally, everyone from VK was fired for “poor code quality”, which is a bit humiliating. This didn’t happen to me, however, later Pavel trolled in the chat that they didn’t use a single line of my code, but it seems that I managed to retort (is this even possible with such a manipulator?) and everything was settled. However, I still have a grudge against Pavel. It is not related to the fact that my application was the second, that I was paid little, or because of some other personal reasons. It was connected with the fact that I had the feeling that I was just being used, and in this text I will try to describe some of the techniques that Pavel uses in his manipulations. It's not bad or good: it's normal. In any team, one way or another, it is necessary to cheat and say the right words, but Pavel is the only one who left behind such a feeling.
Stepan Korshakov - Winner of the Android Application Developer Contest
Extremely precise wording
Paul probably never lies, but he speaks in very precise phrases that are misunderstood on first reading. Watch your hands: “I didn’t pay a dime for Telegram promotion.” The first thought - Telegram is growing by itself. If you come across such a phrase on the Internet, then an inquisitive mind will doubt the statement, you will suspect something, but in a conversation with Pavel’s vivid emotions, you simply won’t think about the statement, and arguing in front of everyone would be fatal in any team. Catching a leader in a lie is always fatal. Seconds have passed and you are already discussing something else and no longer return to verify this fact. Only a small percentage of people will doubt and after the fact think that something is wrong here, this is a special type of people and there are very few of them and they are usually introverts and do not share this with the general public. Later it turned out that they helped him (forgive me, there are no clear proofs and you can water me on the Internet), it’s just that Pavel didn’t pay for it, and it was either barter or another co-founder of an offshore company. The team eventually realized this and, as far as I know, not everyone was happy with this, but the pros outweighed the cons.
Another example: "All of our developers are millionaires and the FBI won't bribe them." He wasn't lying, but all programmers are millionaires. Ruble. However, the information that all millionaires and everyone has spread around the network has reinforced the feeling that Telegram is a safe messenger. By the way, the FSB contacted me. Without a warrant, they just called in the morning and we met in a cafe. I, as a normal negotiator, did not refuse cooperation, but I simply ignored subsequent calls.
This technique is used by everyone and everywhere. Look at any state television channel - there are constantly appearing strange experts who confirm the desired point of view.
The last public example was in Stepanov's post - he referred to some journalist who talked with Rosenberg for 12 hours, but no one said who he was, what qualifications and the reasons why this impression was formed.
Information restriction
Here, too, everything is simple - information is given, but cut off, not complete, so that it looks more believable. As in the same example about the journalist, it is not said who he is and where he even said something to Pavel's team. After all, this is a violation of journalistic ethics. Perhaps there was no journalist at all, who knows?
Unprovable Statements
Paul likes to make claims that cannot be verified. For example, about his propaganda of asceticism, who can check that he rides the subway and that he has no apartments? How to check that his employees are millionaires? After all, for this it is necessary to disclose the income of all employees, and this will never happen. Nothing is known about the journalist and we cannot say anything about him or find him.
contradictions
It seems to me that inconsistency - is part of Paul's personality, it's not bad. Even from a philosophical point of view, I believe that only in contradictory things there is truth. In any humanitarian field there are a thousand opinions and all of them are true in their own way. However, Paul made it his instrument. Even now, all statements about Rosenberg are contradictory. This tool is very effective - you start to find the truth in them and you can't find it in any way. You can try for years to sort everything out, but you will never get a coherent picture. You are wasting your time and getting away from the point. Endlessly sit and discuss it on the Internet. In the end, Pavel wins, and you don't. Instead of working on a case, you reflect.
Stepan Korshakov
Entrepreneur Pavel Durov was again at the center of a scandal - a man who calls himself an ex-employee of Telegram accuses the businessman of unfair dismissal. DP recalls other controversial stories that featured the creator of Telegram and VKontakte.
The founder of the network "" and the creator of the Telegram messenger became involved in another scandal after Anton Rosenberg, who calls himself a former employee of Telegraph LLC (according to Rosenberg, who is directly related to the Telegram messenger), spoke about a lawsuit allegedly filed against him by a businessman. According to Rosenberg, he was friends with Pavel Durov's brother Nikolai almost from childhood, and together with them stood at the origins of VKontakte and Telegram. But then their relationship deteriorated, allegedly due to the fact that Nikolai Durov began to court Rosenberg's wife and was refused. After that, Pavel Durov, as Rosenberg himself says, fired him with the wording "for absenteeism." In connection with the unlawful, in his opinion, dismissal, Anton Rozenberg filed a lawsuit, and Pavel Durov, according to him, filed a counterclaim against the former top manager, allegedly for disclosing corporate secrets. Moreover, according to Rosenberg, the disclosure of corporate secrets meant that he indicated the Telegram messenger as his place of work in his Facebook profile.
At the same time, Pavel Durov himself says that he did not file any lawsuits, Anton Rosenberg never worked for Telegram, and Telegraph LLC has almost nothing to do with the messenger, in addition to a short cooperation.
Mutual collision
Whoever is right this time, but this is not the first time Pavel Durov has been a direct participant in such a story. To understand that scandals do not bypass the founder of VKontakte, it is enough to recall the recent story with the Telegram messenger. The head of Roskomnadzor then several times asked Pavel Durov to enter data about the messenger into the register of the department. Durov replied that he would protect user data, but had nothing against entering open data into the registry. Then a whole campaign against the messenger began in the media - several TV channels at once declared Telegram a means of communication for terrorists. Later, however, Roskomnadzor independently entered the data into the register, and the scandal disappeared. By the way, another businessman did not stay away from the scandal, who actively called for the removal of Telegram.
And more recently, Pavel Durov again incurred the wrath of the banker after he invited his subscribers to distribute the video of Nemagia bloggers, in which they are not too flattering about Tinkov himself and his banking activities. In response, the banker, who did not pass by this scandal (he commented quite sharply on social networks), recalled the incident in 2013, when Pavel Durov was suspected of hitting a police officer. The story that dragged on for 2 months eventually ended in favor of the founder of VKontakte. The investigation established that Pavel Durov was indeed driving the white Mercedes that ran into the inspector, but they could not find malicious intent in his actions.
Telephone terror
But who discovered malicious intent in the behavior of a businessman who left Russia long ago is Daniil Kashin, a St. Petersburg video blogger. This spring, he said that allegedly after trying to take a joint selfie in the cinema, Pavel Durov silently snatched his phone from him and threw it from the fourth floor of the shopping center.
The video blogger also said that a mobile wallet was attached to the SIM card of a mobile phone picked up by passers-by, where money for an apartment was kept.
“If a person earns less than you, this does not mean that you can take his phone and throw it away,” Kashin complained.
However, then many doubted the veracity of the words of the video blogger. The main doubts were caused by the fact that Durov could have been in St. Petersburg at all. In his Instagram, the businessman at that time published a photo with the geotag "Zermat", besides, he left Russia several years ago and repeatedly stated that he did not intend to return.
love for flash mobs
Of course, it is difficult for any media personality not to become a participant in scandalous stories, albeit not always believable. But even before the departure of Pavel Durov from Russia, it was clear that the businessman himself was not averse to being in the spotlight. So, for example, in 2012, on City Day, Pavel Durov scattered five thousandth bills from the window of the VKontakte office. As a result, a fight even broke out over the possession of banknotes. Not everyone liked the entertainment of the businessman then and caused a lot of controversy. A flashmob of a different nature Pavel Durov arranged this year as well. After pictures of a shirtless man on vacation in Tuva appeared on the Web, the businessman himself was photographed shirtless for Instagram and invited the Russians to follow his example and that of the president by launching the so-called Putin Shirtless Challenge.
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Anton Rosenberg shared on the Web his memories of Pavel and Nikolai Durov, whom he has known since childhood. The reason for the revelations of the top manager of VKontakte was a lawsuit against him by Durov for one hundred million rubles, the first meeting on which will be held on September 19. Earlier, it was revealed that the plaintiff, behind the back of the defendant, showed unambiguous signs of attention to his girlfriend.
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As Anton Rozenberg said in his lengthy article - with photos and screenshots - published on Medium, for many years, from the moment VKontakte was founded and until 2017, his work with the Durovs was fruitful. Everything went wrong when Anton found out that Nikolai Durov, who had been patronized by him since childhood, was secretly courting his bride. After that, Pavel Durov found a way not only to fire Anton from the company, but also to sue a former colleague and like-minded person for a fabulous sum of one hundred million rubles - allegedly for "disclosure of trade secrets."
While the proceedings were going on within the company itself, Rosenberg allegedly accumulated nineteen absenteeism. This became the formal reason for dismissal - under the article. Anton, according to him, tried to challenge the dismissal in court, but received a lawsuit for 100 million rubles for disclosing a trade secret, from Telegraph LLC, controlled, according to him, by Pavel Durov, in which he was listed as an employee. Durov himself denies that Rosenberg ever worked for Telegram.
Later, in an interview with Meduza, Pavel Durov stated that Rosenberg was not his employee. In addition, Durov pointed to the "mental illness" of a former colleague. Durov also stated that he had nothing to do with the lawsuit against Rosenberg. When asked if his brother Nikolai had a conflict with Rosenberg, Durov chose not to answer.
The father of the founder of Telegram: “We don’t communicate, I haven’t seen my son for a year and a half, I don’t even have the Internet”
The founder of VKontakte and Telegram Pavel Durov is a cult figure and a man of mystery. One of the most successful Russians - in the sense of the word that he did not achieve everything with the help of oil and cut government money. Digital resistance symbol. But how much do we know about the real Durov? We met with those who know Pavel - from his father to his colleagues.
Thanks to the story of unsuccessful attempts to block the Telegram messenger, its founder and owner Pavel Durov managed to become a truly mythical figure in Russia. Still would. He managed to easily and gracefully resist the onslaught of the whole state. He managed to make his messenger famous and competitive not only in Russia, but all over the world.
But the most successful young Russian billionaire (worth, according to Forbes, $ 1.7 billion) does not intend to stop there. News has appeared in the media that the brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov are developing the Telegram Open Network (TON) platform, which will become a kind of "Internet on the Internet" - an add-on to the current Global Network, but it will not be possible to close access to it or hack it using conventional methods. . This is a new virtual state, a step into the "matrix" and, apparently, the fulfillment of Pavel Durov's cherished dream.
Virtual cemetery
Pavel Durov likes to present information about himself in thesis, in the format of maximalist statements. Thus, he formed a semi-mythical image of an ascetic billionaire and a convinced bachelor. He was born in Leningrad, father Valery Semenovich, Doctor of Philology, head of the Department of Classical Philology in St. Petersburg state university where he currently teaches. Pavel went to school in Turin, where his father was then at work. In his native St. Petersburg, he studied under an experimental program at an academic gymnasium, from which he graduated with honors. After that, he entered the philological faculty of St. Petersburg State University with a degree in English philology and translation. Pavel has not yet taken his red diploma from the university, and most of his fellow students recall that they "saw, but did not communicate", "studied in the same class, but did not personally know each other."
"I'm waiting with hope and love,
As it rains...
Cheerful, summer, with blood ... "
“Sun, gray, gray, gray.
Keep my chickens warm
To chickens, well done,
They brought boiled eggs."
Still, it’s good that the founder of VKontakte left the versification, which he was fond of in his student years. Although he himself called the poems "ironic" and, according to acquaintances, he treated them rather reverently, even published them in youth collections.
Unlike his brother Nikolai, a technical genius, Pavel was more of a humanitarian - obviously, he would not have reached the heights of a child prodigy brother, so his parents decided to offer him another field so as not to doom his youngest son to forever fade in the shadow of the elder. They could not even imagine that life would turn out quite differently.
Nevertheless, the second son was also very capable, philological disciplines were easy for Durov, he won olympiads, received scholarships and eventually went to study at the philological faculty, which he graduated with honors.
It was the place and nature of his studies that became the starting point for further success. First, he opened the site durov.ru, which stored lecture notes, ticket responses, and other educational materials so necessary for a philologist. The success of this site prompted Durov to think about what he was going to do next. Then he opened a university student forum, and after that he was already on fire with the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating a social network.
“Durov personally arranged a casting and selected girls to participate in the competition,” says Kashevarov. - The girls tried their best to please him, but Durov was cold and arrogant with them. In general, he was skeptical about women - whether it was boyish arrogance, or complexes, it is not clear.
Like it or not, we do not know, but there is reason to believe that Durov had at least one serious relationship. According to some media reports, which backed up their information with an extract from the registry office, Durov has two children growing up from a former student of the history department of the same university Daria Bondarenko. According to the employees of one of the St. Petersburg publications that published this information, it is absolutely reliable. The employees of the registry office themselves provided classified information to journalists. It is worth noting that the employees of the department violated the law, perhaps one of them did this for a fee, but it cannot be ruled out that the information about the children was a banal "drain" in order to put pressure on Durov. Her publication strangely coincided with an increased interest in the founder of VKontakte on the part of intelligence officers.
Durov himself categorically denies the fact of having children.
As one of the former employees of VK told KV, a colleague at his new job once mentioned that she personally knows “Pavel Durov’s wife and children” and even sat with his little daughter. But we were unable to confirm this information.
Perhaps Durov is not disingenuous about the taboo on falling in love, because, while still in a relationship with Bondarenko (if you believe the words of Kashevarov), on his birthday, which coincided with the anniversary of the founding of VKontakte, he threw a grand party and invited several dozen girls from the escort there. agencies. And the author of the biographical book "Durov's Code" Nikolai Kononov wrote that, according to the recollections of friends, once, for educational purposes, Pavel did not talk to his girlfriend for two weeks. That's just about Bondarenko was discussed or not, is unknown.
Another story tells about Durov's cynicism, which is the dominant feature of his personality.
Once he was concerned about the problem of the pages of deceased users on VKontakte and even thought about creating a virtual cemetery. In this context, he told his colleagues a story that Durov himself found very amusing: one of the VKontakte users was asked by the parents of his deceased girlfriend to remove the album in which he posted her erotic photo shoot. Instead, the man simply Photoshopped pools of blood. They say, retelling this, Durov had a lot of fun and lamented that the creator of the creepy collage might have to be banned.
“I would not say that he showed some kind of pathological cruelty or coldness, this is just one of his character traits,” says Kashevarov. “But whom, in my opinion, he really dearly loves, is his brother. I saw them together several times, but his special attitude was immediately evident.
Brother Cat Who is Nikolai Durov? According to one version, he is a computer genius not adapted to external life, who, despite his outstanding abilities, could not succeed, according to another, he is the one who is the true creator of VKontakte and whose laurels were appropriated by Pavel. In fact - neither one nor the other, more precisely, in both of these statements there is only a grain of truth.
The Durov brothers were born into a family of St. Petersburg intellectuals, while their parents were never wealthy. What they were definitely lucky with was their two sons - Nikolai and Pavel.
From an early age, Nikolai began to demonstrate outstanding abilities and the eccentricity characteristic of geniuses. As he grew older, these qualities were aggravated - he made few friends and was not successful with girls.
According to eyewitnesses, once on one of his trips to hot countries, he ate a bowl of porridge with beetles that got there. The people around were so dumbfounded by this spectacle that they did not even dare to tell Nikolai about the presence of insects in his plate.
One of his few friends was the technical director of VKontakte Anton Rozenberg. The only public scandal in the life of Nikolai Durov is connected with him, and quite loud at that. Rosenberg accused a former comrade of molesting his wife Natalya.
“I remember his notebook with ideas and projects: in particular, there was a diagram of a nuclear reactor that he dreamed of building: with restrictive rods, a cooling circuit and turbines for generating electricity,” Rosenberg recalls the childhood hobbies of the elder Durov. He also talks about Nikolai's rather specific sense of self.
“On the St Petersburg University forum, he had the nickname K. O. T., which later turned into the nickname Kot, which eventually replaced the name. Moreover, Kolya actually considers himself a cat, calls his mother a “big cat”, likes to meow on the street and in restaurants, and encourages others to do so,” notes Rosenberg.
According to him, no matter how much he asked about the reason for the emergence of such a nickname, Nikolai always evaded the answer. “According to one of the versions, the death of their cat Morpheus (Morpheus) affected, at least the questions to the ceiling“ Where is our Morpheus?
However, everyone is used to the eccentricities of the co-founder of VKontakte, since Pavel mainly took over public representation and serious negotiations.
As for Nikolai's participation in the project that made his brother a millionaire, he really stands behind the technical component of VKontakte. When Pavel Durov saw Facebook, he immediately called his brother, who was studying in Germany at the time, and said that he should write software for its Russian counterpart. But the idea itself, as well as its further development, undoubtedly belongs to Paul.
“Unfortunately, Nikolai Durov turned out to be not at all a sweet and quiet nerd genius. Now it seems to me that he was nevertheless influenced by money and fame, coupled with a lack of understanding of ordinary human feelings. Looking back, I rethink the past, I remember his indifference to colleagues, and cynicism towards people, and indifference to animals - even cats are not really interested in him at all, this is just a totem, a symbol, ”writes about Nikolai in his revealing text under the name "Durov's Cat" Anton Rosenberg.
However, given the circumstances of their quarrel, one cannot be sure of the objectivity of either side. According to Rosenberg, Nikolai had long laid eyes on his then girlfriend, and now his wife, and began to pester her behind his back. Moreover, he did not leave these attempts even after the public disclosure of an unpleasant story.
Childhood friends quarreled forever. And then Anton had to quit VKontakte, which is rightly called his brainchild too. At first, Pavel tried to gently put pressure on Rosenberg so that he left the company of his own free will, and then fired him allegedly for absenteeism.
“I was fired without even paying my salary debts, not to mention last year’s bonus.” The offended former employee went to court with a claim for wrongful dismissal. But he soon received a retaliatory blow: Durov's company is also suing Rosenberg - "for disclosing trade secrets." Moreover, he estimates his damage at 100 million rubles.
As a result, the lawsuit was withdrawn and the parties went to the world, the scandal was gradually hushed up. Rosenberg did not "squeeze" the conflict and try to sue Durov for a large compensation. What happened already hit him, shattering his career and almost breaking his family, so Kota's former friend decided not to risk the rest.
But it was from the window of Rosenberg’s office in the VKontakte office that Durov Jr. released airplanes from five thousandth bills. People crowded downstairs, snatching money from each other, even a slight crush formed. And the initiator of the entertainment laughed and did not let up, in total releasing 60 thousand rubles out the window.
“My monthly salary has flown away,” the programmer who observed this stated.
Durov's father has no Internet
In the "house on Kamyshovaya Street" described by Anton Rosenberg in Durov's Cat, there is an apartment of Pavel and Nikolai's parents. An ordinary ten-story panel building near the terminus of the metro station in the north of St. Petersburg. Around - new multi-storey "candles", the building of the nineties with large courtyards looks cozy and intimate against their background. Flowerbeds, playgrounds, yard football. In the front door, where the core of the future VKontakte once gathered, few people know “what kind of Durov is”, and who knows, I’m sure that he lives in Moscow, because “all these rallies are held there.”
Valery Semenovich Durov, the father of our hero, refused to talk: “You see, to say something is only to harm. What can I say? We do not communicate with him. I don't even have internet, I'm an elderly person. Yes, I haven’t seen him for a long time already ... Probably a year and a half.
The neighbors, as it turned out, did not even know that this elderly intellectual was the father of "that same" Durov. “He walks, greets ... And what, does he have a famous son? If so, it’s strange that his dad lives here with him. ”
"Durov's apartment" is another popular tale among the former employees of the Leader. Most of them, of course, have never been there. And this, of course, is not about a family nest and not even about Pavel's apartments on Krestovsky, but about the "commune" of the developers of the social network, supposedly located in the center of St. Petersburg, not far from Singer's house. According to ambiguous sources, the “elite”, that is, the developers, rented the apartment together.
However, not only in the apartment, but even in the office of the social network is not easy to get now. The VKontakte office is located in the famous Singer House on Nevsky Prospekt, on the ground floor of which the Book House is located. For a long time The Telegram office was also registered there, but in January, after the scandal with Anton Rosenberg, the messenger moved out of the eminent building, giving way to VKontakte. Now, according to the administration of the building, it is impossible to get into the Singer dome. A security guard meets the guest at the entrance, even if you pretend that you are "for an interview", the forgery will be immediately revealed by phone. Directly upstairs, by the office, entrance is fingerprint only. “In principle, the most effective way to get into the office is to seduce one of the employees who works there (and in Singer, we recall, there is only management), the ex-employee of the social network shares his opinion. “We had a case where a man who was obviously “sick” about the social network seduced a girl to work on her behalf.”
“Pavel Durov is an odious figure. You see, everyone is charged with him - either they are fans of him or they hate him. In official VKontakte work chats, employees called him either Pavel or Leader. That's right, with a capital letter, ”a former employee of the social network created by Durov told KV on condition of anonymity in a personal meeting. It’s amazing, even the former employees of the Leader are sure that their contacts and personal correspondence on social networks and Telegram can always be viewed by “who needs it”.
“This cannot be called unambiguous tyranny,” he continues. - After all, it was communication with the authorities, and in such formulations there was a share of enjoying "leadership." In the end, many shared this point of view. And Durov - that Durov ... Well, he always walked in his black robes. It’s not very nice for me that they made a saint out of him for the public, and a caricature of a saint at that.
Another former employee of the social network echoes him: “At corporate parties, for example, we did not have alcohol and meat, only seafood. At the same time, under Durov there was such a touch of elitism. Only the elite - developers - gathered for the first corporate parties. And then somehow there was a corporate party "for everyone" in the Sheremetev Palace. And all the people who worked from home, and not in Singer's house, came (only the management sat there, everyone else was remote). And these incredibly delicious dishes didn’t particularly fit into them ... "
Traditionally, there were two VKontakte corporate parties - October 10 (the birthday of the project and Pavel Durov) and December 24 (the Leader considered New Year bourgeois relic and proposed to celebrate the winter solstice). And the popular photographer Alexander Mavrin always sat at a separate table. Mavrin is known for erotic pictures, and at VK corporate parties, along with his models, he regally occupied a separate table. Neither Mavrin nor his 2011-2012 models responded to the proposals of the KV correspondent to talk about those glorious times.
“Why am I talking about a “caricature of a saint,” our interlocutor continues. - Everyone remembers the story of how in 2012, on City Day, he threw airplanes from five thousandth bills out of the window of Singer's house. And this is against the background of his statements about asceticism. At that time, the salary of a support service employee, for example, was 20 thousand rubles, many did not understand his act. There was another story when groups with pornography were massively closed on the social network. Despite all the technical improvements, the main work was done manually: the entire array of thousands of communities was simply divided up for work by different people. And since all this was done at an accelerated pace, often at night, apparently, from lack of sleep, someone covered the group with the usual light erotica. The administrator was offended, wrote a post on his wall in the social network about this flagrant injustice. And then - I don’t know what it was, maybe Pavel himself liked to look through this group at his leisure - Durov personally came to him in a comment, said that this was someone’s mistake. And then all the changes regarding groups with pornography just stupidly rolled back. Dozens of hours of work just went nowhere, although there was not even a formal order, there was only a comment in the public field. In principle, any dispute between employees ended instantly if the argument “I didn’t come up with it, it was the Leader who said so” popped up.
The story of Yury Khovansky's verification jackdaw on the social network is also perceived as an act of "leadership". The blogger was invited to the jury of the beauty contest, which was held by VK Live, and, according to the company's tradition, there was no alcohol at the event. VK Live Editor-in-Chief Alexey Efimenko told the KV correspondent what happened next. “The event was closed, and in the announcement we warned that there would be no alcohol there and it was forbidden to take it with you. One of the guests said that Khovansky's friends poured wine into his glass. Later, when we were cleaning, a bottle of wine was found. I wrote about it on my wall (just as a fun fact, with no intention of somehow punishing). Pavel came to the comments.
In open sources, however, Paul did not call for anything. The press secretary of VKontakte (at that time) Georgy Lobushkin immediately wrote that the verification of Khovansky was canceled and handed over to the girl who took second place in the beauty contest. Moreover, Aleksey Efimenko spoke about such a situation: “Pavel did not agree with the results of the competition and said that the first place should have gone to the girl who took second. Later, Pavel came to one of the events with a package full of new iPhones, one of which offered me to give this girl.”
The Magic of Numbers
“Those who look for castles, sports car parks and a fleet of Boeings in my life will be severely disappointed. I don't have planes, cars or houses. My world is walking and taking the subway, as well as sleeping in a rented room measuring 18–20 m2. Those who would like to change places with me will also have to completely give up alcohol, meat and expensive clothes, ”Pavel Durov once said about himself. And everything would be fine, only it has nothing to do with reality. Well, except for meat and alcohol, Durov really doesn’t use them.
This phrase was said to journalists at the peak of his career and, according to people from Pavel Durov's entourage, then he tried in every possible way to be like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. But Durov was not at all alien to the material. And, of course, he had every right to do so, but he preferred to carefully hide his true life.
Now he completely moved to Dubai, rented a chic office in a skyscraper, cuts through the desert on a white horse and goes to noisy parties.
Why, one wonders, was it necessary to pretend to be Mark Zuckerberg, if you are Pavel Durov, no less successful and talented, but completely different? And here we are faced with one interesting feature Durov.
“He always loved the number two, apparently protesting against the imposed stereotype that two is bad, because it means “bad” in the test book,” says Maxim Kashevarov. “I tried to prove that the second number is not bad at all.”
And Pavel Durov was great at being second. Being the second son and the second talented child in the family after his brother, he made the most of the abilities of both of them. Becoming the second after Zuckerberg, Durov was able to create his own unique product- first VKontakte, then Telegram - and, apparently, this is just the beginning.
But there is something else in which Durov acts as a second. If you look at his old photographs, we will see almost a different person there - protruding ears, blond hair with signs of early alopecia, uneven teeth and a small chin - that's what Pavel Durov looked like before. Now we see a bright brunette with thick hair and a sculpted face.
We asked the plastic surgeon Gia Kinchidze to evaluate the changes in his appearance.
According to the specialist, first Durov did a hair transplant. “Usually, hair from the back of the head is used for this, but judging by the result, this was not done. A very thick head of hair grew on this man's head, and most likely he used donor hair transplantation. This procedure is not yet common in our country, but it has been successfully done in Germany for a long time. It can cost around $100,000. He also did plastic surgery of the ears and chin, but these are fairly easy and inexpensive operations,” Kinchidze said. Durov obviously dyes his new hair and wears colored contact lenses in front of his eyes.
In addition, the surgeon questioned the authenticity of Durov's muscular relief, suggesting that he could use the new kind liposuction, with the help of which the ideal body shape is constructed. But Kinchidze does not undertake to confirm this from photographs.
Why did Pavel Durov not only correct the defects in his appearance, but completely change his type - from a fair-haired “nerd” he turned into a black-haired handsome man? The answer lies in his student passion. Countless times he watched the film "The Matrix" and identified himself with Neo - the main character played by Keanu Reeves. Well, apparently, Durov's childhood dream came true - almost a copy of Neo looks at him from the mirror every day.
Perhaps because of the dramatic changes in appearance, he does not want to communicate with his own father? It remains only to guess.
In the wake of Telegram blocking in Russia, Pavel Durov began to deal with a topic unusual for him - politics. Rallies are organized under his auspices, and he has already been drawn into an intra-opposition scandal. The leadership of the Libertarian Party, of which he is a member, fell out with other oppositionists, refusing to jointly fight for a free Internet. Durov also supported the position of the party members. He also announced the creation of his own virtual political movement "Digital Resistance".
Either Durov continues to pursue the second number, he has seriously hit politics and wants to become the second Navalny, uniting young people around him, or he started all this to attract people to the TON he is creating. How things really are, we will soon find out.
“Something grandiose is waiting for you already in 2018,” Pavel Durov promised us not so long ago. Is he going to be first in some way?
This was the official response to the "Mail.ru trash holding" to its next attempts to absorb the resource
The founder of the social network "Vkontakte" Pavel Durov in a peculiar manner commented on the desire of the leadership of the holding Mail.ru to gain control over the resource. It happened in 2011, Durov posted a picture on Instagram in which he made clear his attitude to the mail service. Mail.ru decided to refrain from retaliatory gestures. And then they quietly increased their stake in Vkontakte from 32 to 40%.
Rain of five thousandth bills
In May 2012, Pavel Durov forced the crowd to fight for money under the windows of his office. Durov decided to join the celebrations held in St. Petersburg on the occasion of the City Day and began throwing five-thousand-dollar bills attached to paper airplanes out of the window of his office. It is easy to imagine the reaction of the crowd under the windows.
Durov turns into a soft, smelly substance! He does not evoke other emotions, except for anger and disgust after what he saw today! Day of the city, everything is positive. Surprisingly, there is no crush and crowds of drunken lawless people. Embankment of the Griboyedov Canal. Pavel and Co. look out from the windows of the VK office, throwing 5,000 banknotes begins, and with an arrogant royal grin, they watch how the crowd begins to tear each other in the hope of catching the "gifts" of the "master"! The real St. Petersburg circus named after Durov ... You turn into an animal, it's better to keep them for yourself and buy a conscience on them
Durov himself, responding on Twitter to the question of why he scattered money, said the following:
Colleagues decided to support the atmosphere of the holiday in the form of a small action, but they had to quickly stop - the people began to go wild
This action caused a wide negative resonance in the network. Durov was accused of losing a sense of reality, as well as of "experiments on people." Russian Forbes suggested that this action, carried out by Durov on the eve of his obtaining full operational control in the company, was primarily addressed to VKontakte shareholders.
Hitting a policeman
A rather muddy story that happened in April 2013. Recordings have appeared on the Internet that clearly show how a man "resembling Pavel Durov", driving a Mercedes car, hits a police officer, and then abandons the car and hurriedly disappears from view. The video immediately circled all the news feeds.
But as it turned out later, this was not entirely true. On June 7, the investigation into the scandalous road incident was terminated. The investigators admitted that the head of VKontakte, Pavel Durov, really ran into a policeman - and closed the case, as they did not find malicious intent in his actions.
It is worth noting that despite the closure of the case, this incident provoked searches in the offices of the social network, and in the same period, the UCP investment fund Vkontakte was "under the guise".
MDK and the accusation of extremism
It all started with the fact that a completely harmless picture was posted in the notorious public MDK, which was related to the terrorist attack in Volgograd, by the way, here it is on the left.
This picture was spotted by State Duma Deputy from EP Mikhail Markelov (probably he is subscribed to MDK). At a meeting of the lower house, Markelov showed his colleagues a printout of a post from the community - a photo from the site of the terrorist attack in Volgograd, accompanied by the inscription "Boys, there is a terrorist attack in Volgograd. Corpses, cries for help. P ... karoch" and the call: "Let's help with likes." This post was liked by tens of thousands of people.
According to Markelov, this post reflects
A clearly offensive, even blasphemous attitude towards what happened in Volgograd... We must raise the question openly: we have a surname and an understanding of who owns this resource - Mr. Durov. It is necessary to demand a criminal case. This is pure extremism and vandalism at the same time.
In turn, Pavel Durov, in a commentary on TJournal, stated that the administration is not responsible for the actions of users.
VKontakte has been and is strongly condemning any manifestations of extremism and terrorism, and is doing a lot to stop illegal activity on pages posted on the social network. At the same time, the administration of the service cannot be held responsible for the actions of tens of millions of users who leave posts on the pages of the social network every day,” Durov said.
Community co-owner Roberto Panchvidze explained that the post was intended to inform users and was written in a "relatively neutral" tone. On October 23, after Mikhail Markelov's statements, MDK published another post using a photo of the deputy.
Thematic photo shoots in the Vkontakte office
Not at all a scandal, and not entirely with the participation of Durov. On July 7, 2012, Pavel Durov announced on his Twitter and on the VKontakte page that he would hold a meeting on Palace Square, where the company was going to distribute 1,000 T-shirts with its symbols and arrange informal communication.
He emphasized that handing out souvenirs will be very beautiful girls. The meeting was subsequently declared closed. Nevertheless, at the appointed time, a crowd gathered in the center of the northern capital. Durov did not disappoint - T-shirts, girls, everything was in place. As he promised, the girls turned out to be top models. But the most interesting thing is that before this meeting, the girls took part in the main office of the social network.
