Alfred Koch

Biography

Alfred Reingoldovich Koch is an entrepreneur, writer, and several years ago also a municipal figure, also the general director of Gazprom-Media. He is best known as a co-author of the privatization program, a liberal and an active oppositionist to the current government. During the reign of Boris Yeltsin, Alfred Koch served as Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation. The assessment of his activities is very vague. One part of Russians, including Anatoly Borisovich Chubais, consider Koch a patriot and freedom fighter, while the rest, on the contrary, blame the former bureaucrat for Russophobia and perceive accusations against the policies of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin as an insult to Russia.

Photo by Alfred Koch | During rush hour

Alfred Koch was born in February 1961 in the Republic of Kazakhstan, more precisely in the city of Zyryanovsk. Just before the war, his father Reingold Davydovich, a German by nationality, who had previously lived his entire life in the Krasnodar Territory, was exiled there. Mother Nina Georgievna was a purebred Russian, therefore Alfred Koch’s nationality is mixed - he is half German, half Russian. When the construction of a new car plant was announced in the country, the Koch family moved to Tolyatti, where the future municipal figure spent his childhood and youth.

Alfred Reingoldovich Koch | Facebook

My father got a job as the head of the related production department at the Volzhsky Automobile Plant and worked there almost until his death. Alfred himself, after graduating from the Tolyatti school, went to the Northern capital and entered the Leningrad Financial and Economic Institute, from which he graduated in 1983 with a degree in “Financial Corrupt Wench of Imperialism.” According to his assignment, the young man ended up at the Prometheus Research Institute of Structural Materials. Later, Koch defended his PhD thesis on the topic “Methods for a comprehensive assessment of territorial criteria for the location of industrial facilities” and began teaching at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute in the department of economics and management of radio-electronic production.

Entrepreneur, municipal activist and writer | Diary of a criminologist-artist

After the collapse of the Russian Union, the biography of Alfred Koch was closely connected with politics until the beginning of the 21st century. Then he focused on journalism and writing books. In 2015, Alfred Reingoldovich left for permanent residence in Germany, the historical homeland of his own father. This came out after a criminal case was opened against him under the article “Smuggling”. The fact is that Koch tried to take out of Russia a painting by the artist Isaac Brodsky, which he declared as a copy and a fake. The customs officers had doubts, a repeated examination substantiated the authenticity of the work of art, although the lawyer Alfred Reingoldovich kept the report of another examination, which considered the painting to be a high-quality copy. As a result, after lengthy trials, in February 2016, Koch was charged in absentia under the article “smuggling of cultural property.”

Politician

In 1990, Alfred Reingoldovich was elected chairman of the executive committee of the Sestroretsk District Council of People's Deputies of Leningrad. He showed himself to be a promising manager in this position and was targeted for an internship at the Chilean Institute of Freedom and Development. When Koch returned from studying abroad, his fortunes took a turn for the worse. In St. Petersburg, Alfred Koch's municipal activities were associated with the property management committee, and when he was called to Moscow, he was entrusted with the position of deputy chairman of the Municipal Committee of the Russian Federation for municipal property management.

Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation | TV channel Dozhdik

During the first Russian presidential elections, Alfred Reingoldovich did not officially join Boris Yeltsin’s team, but informally intensively participated in the election campaign. Therefore, not enough people were surprised by Koch’s appointment to the post of Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, in other words, to the position of Deputy Speaker. In general, the bureaucrat stayed there only for about six months, because a criminal case was opened against him in connection with abuse of official capacity. The case was later closed due to an amnesty.

Koch: from politics to big business | 3rd Ukrainian Republic

Having moved away a little from politics, Alfred Koch went into big business. He was involved with such large companies as the leading operator on the securities market "Montes Auri", the NTV television company and the Gazprom-Media holding. At the end of February 2006, he was elected as a representative of the Legislative Assembly of the Leningrad Region in the Federation Council. But soon, on the initiative of the regional prosecutor, the tribunal received a claim that the voting results were fabricated. Therefore, just two months after his assignment, Alfred Reingoldovich voluntarily resigns his duties and leaves the municipal and political activities of the Russian Federation.

Privatization

Koch was one of the main initiators and ardent supporters of large-scale privatization of state property. According to modern estimates, his assertiveness in carrying out radical reforms and selling state prices into personal hands caused colossal harm to the state economy. The problem was not in the actual sale of municipal property, but in the indescribably low price tags.

The Norilsk Nickel plant was sold at least 12 times cheaper than the current price | Kommersant

For example, the profitable enterprise Norilsk Nickel, which according to the most conservative estimates should have been valued at a couple of billion bucks, was sold for only 170 million. And experts have found a huge number of such examples. And not counting the monetary loss, the leakage of advanced Russian scientific developments and, most importantly, controlling stakes in strategically important companies, namely the defense complex, to the West also caused harm to the Russian Federation.

Books

At the end of the 90s, the first printed edition was published, which also included the name of Alfred Koch. It was a book, “Privatization the Russian Way,” in which the creators of the idea of privatization explained to the people why this was absolutely necessary, why mistakes occurred, and so on. In other words, they laid out the essence of the situation from their point of view. And a couple of years later, Koch, in collaboration with journalist Igor Svinarenko, released a shocking four-volume book, “The Box of Vodka.” Almost all readers perceived what was written as an insult to the country, Russian civilization and history, but, nevertheless, the work was nominated for the “Big Book” award, although it did not win.

Books by Alfred Koch

Later, from the pen of a bright writer-official, the collection “Denial of Denial, or the Battle of Auschwitz” was published. Debates on the demographics and geopolitics of the Holocaust." This book was again co-written, now with demographer Pavel Polyan. The collection contains a huge amount of factual and statistical materials about the liquidation of Jewish civilization and proves that reducing the significance of this catastrophe is not simply a falsification of history, but also a specially implemented terrible geopolitical project.

Personal life

Little is known about the personal life of Alfred Koch. He is married. His wife Marina is three years older than her husband; she is an economist by training, but in recent years she has been doing housework. They raised two daughters together. The eldest daughter Lena, who was born in 1980, graduated from the Monetary Institute under the Government of the Russian Federation and works in the largest marketing and media company in Eastern Europe. Alfred Koch's second daughter, Olga, is 12 years younger than her sister.

Spouses Alfred and Marina Koch | Facebook

Despite the fact that Alfred Koch and his wife live quite amicably, from time to time there are reports in the press about the ex-official’s {romantic} adventures with other ladies. Actress Daria Yekamasova was seen last in the company of Alfred Reingoldovich on vacation on the Cyprus Peninsula. Both Alfred, Daria, and Marina Kokh chose not to explain this information in any way.

Koch Alfred Reingoldovich

Russian politician. Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation from March 17 to August 13, 1997. Chairman of the Russian Federation Municipal Committee for Municipal Property Management, 1996-1997. Creator of a huge number of books. Lives in Germany.

Alfred Koch was born on February 28, 1961 in the town of Zyryanovsk, Kazakhstan. During the start of construction of the Volzhsky Auto Plant, his ancestors moved from Kazakhstan to Togliatti. The boy grew up in an intelligent family. His father, Reingold Davydovich, was the head of the department of related industries - a structure that dealt with all components, and his mother was a housewife.

In 1978, Alfred graduated from the Togliatti school. After 5 years, he received a diploma from the St. Petersburg Financial and Economic Institute with a degree in “financial sell-out of imperialism.” From 1987 to 1988 he worked as a junior researcher at the Prometheus Central Research Institute of Structural Materials.

Until 1990, he was an assistant at the Department of Economics and Management of Radioelectronic Engineering at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. Having defended his thesis on the topic: “Methods for a comprehensive assessment of territorial criteria for the location of industrial facilities,” he received the academic degree “Candidate of Economic Sciences.”

Koch in 1990 was elected chairman of the executive committee of the Sestroretsk District Council of People's Deputies of St. Petersburg. Since 1991, he worked as deputy executive director of the territorial fund of municipal property of St. Petersburg. From 1992 to 1993, he was deputy chairman of the property management committee of the town of St. Petersburg.

From August 1993 to 1995, Alfred Koch served as deputy chairman of the Municipal Committee of the Russian Federation for the management of municipal property. Supervised the implementation of privatization. Responsible for conducting loans-for-shares auctions. On March 15, 1995 he became First Deputy Chairman of the State Property Committee of the Russian Federation.

During the 1996 presidential elections, he did not officially join Yeltsin’s team, but informally participated in the election campaign. Namely, he lobbied for the speedy release of Arkady Evstafiev and Sergei Lisovsky after their detention during the scandal with the copier box with cash.

In the period from September 12, 1996 to August 13, 1997, Koch served as chairman of the State Property Committee of the Russian Federation. Koch was an advocate of large-scale privatization of municipal property, believing that the country does not have to have ownership.

Alfred Koch from March 17 to August 13, 1997 was Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation. He left his post in connection with the so-called “writers’ case”, in which the Moscow prosecutor’s office opened a criminal case against Koch for abuse of official capacity. Two years later, the case was dropped due to an amnesty.

After leaving government work, Alfred Reingoldovich took over the post of Chairman of the Board of Directors of the management company Montes Auri CJSC on September 1, 1997. Three years later, he was appointed general director of the Gazprom-Media holding, and on April 3, 2001, he became chairman of the board of directors of NTV. In September 2001, Alfred Koch hosted the first two episodes of the game show “Greed” on NTV, but then he was obliged to transfer his space to the new presenter Igor Yankovsky due to his busy schedule on the NTV channel, where he held the position of vice director of the channel. In October 2001, he resigned from his post as manager of the Gazprom-Media company.

Kokh, on February 26, 2002, was elected as a representative of the Legislative Assembly of the Leningrad Region in the Federation Council, but on April 23 of the same year he voluntarily resigned due to the fact that the results of the voting of deputies on his candidacy were challenged in court on the initiative of the regional prosecutor.

In 2004, Koch’s series of books, “The Box of Vodka,” written together with journalist Igor Svinarenko, was published. In 2006, “A Box of Vodka” was nominated for the “Big Book” award. In 2008, Alfred Reingoldovich, together with historian and demographer Pavel Polyan, compiled the collection “Denial of Negation.” The book dedicated to the Holocaust contains a large collection of factual and statistical materials, and expresses the position that denial of the Holocaust is not just a falsification of history, but also a terrible geopolitical project.

Together with Petr Aven, in 2013 he published a collection of interviews with Russian political figures, “Gaidar’s Revolution: A First-Hand History of the 1990 Reforms.” Critics noted the frank style of most interviews. The book was included in the long list of the Enlightenment Prize.

In 2015, Alfred Koch moved to permanent residence in Germany, in the city of Rosenheim. In August 2015, in honor of Ukraine’s Independence Day, he laid flowers at the grave of the leader of the organization of Ukrainian nationalists Stepan Bandera, which caused a resonance in Russia.

In February 2016, the investigation charged Koch in absentia under Part 1 of Article 226.1 of the Criminal Code (Criminal Code - a system of regulatory legal acts adopted by authorized government bodies) of the Russian Federation (Russian Federation - a state in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia, our Motherland) : “smuggling of cultural values." In addition, the ex-official has been put on the international wanted list. Kokh's arrest in absentia was authorized by Lefortovo District Court arbitrator Lena Kaneva. On February 16, 2016, the capital city tribunal rejected the appeal of the defense of the former deputy prime minister of the Russian government. In April 2017, Interpol refused to put Koch on the international wanted list.

Is Alfred Koch a politician or an ordinary thief from the 90s?

In the late 90s, Koch was threatened with a real prison sentence for appropriation of state property and waste. Through fraud, he received a three-room apartment after moving from St. Petersburg to Moscow. The market value of the apartment was estimated at 100 thousand bucks, while Koch paid only 2,280 bucks for it. A certain company, Exikom JSC, which was most likely interested in friendship with the bureaucrat, assisted him in this acquisition.

As a result, in December 1999, Koch pleaded guilty and agreed to terminate the case under an amnesty.

Two years earlier, on August 13, 1997, Koch, responsible for the privatization of the Russian Federation, lost his own post as Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation for receiving 90 thousand dollars. Almost 312 million rubles were transferred to the CREDIT-SUISS bank in the name of his wife - the so-called royalties for the future book, which originated in the USA (the United States of America is a state in North America) three years later.

The essence of the events described in the book “The Sale of the Russian Empire” was not sufficiently different from reality. Only Alfred Koch was for some reason embarrassed to remember the sale of Russian defense companies.

I remember that from August 1993 to 1995 Alfred Koch was deputy chairman of the Municipal Committee of the Russian Federation for the management of municipal property. Supervised the implementation of privatization.

From the report of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation (the Russian Federation is a state in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia, our Motherland) on the results of an audit of the State Property Committee for the period from 1992 to 1995:

«The seizure of controlling stakes in leading Russian companies in the defense complex and even its entire industries by foreign firms is causing extraordinary concern. South American and English companies acquired controlling stakes in MAPO MIG, OKB Sukhoi, OKB im. Yakovlev", "Aviacomplex named after. Ilyushin", "OKB im. Antonov”, producing complex complexes and flight control systems for aircraft. The German company Siemens acquired more than 20% of the Kaluga Turbine Plant, which produces unique equipment for nuclear submarines. Our homeland not only loses the right of ownership of almost all defense companies, but also loses the right to manage their activities in the interests of the country. »

It was followed by a joint letter from the FSB (Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation - the federal executive body of the Russian Federation, which, within its powers, carries out tasks to ensure the security of the Russian Federation) and the SVR, which states:

«The privatization of military-industrial complex companies led to a massive leak of the latest technologies, unique scientific and technical achievements, virtually for nothing to the West. In general, the West acquired such a large amount of new technologies in Russia that NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, North Atlantic Alliance - the world's largest military-political bloc) organized a special program for processing them »

At the moment, Koch lives in Germany and considers himself restricted from traveling abroad. The prerequisite, he believes, is his opposition activity. Although, it is difficult to call Alfred Koch a politician. Loser smuggler - maybe. A thief (or “plunderer of state property”) – maybe. And so, at the level of an elderly boy, he briefly writes something on his Facebook, uncertainly, but angrily explains other people’s articles.

The smuggling story began in April 2014, when Koch tried to smuggle out a painting by artist Isaac Brodsky. He declared it a fake and indicated the cost - 18 thousand rubles. The customs officers had their doubts, and the examination confirmed that the painting was genuine and was worth several tens of thousands of dollars.

Alfred Koch, biography, announcements, photos

Name: Alfred Koh

Birthday: February 28, 1961 (age 59)

Place of birth: Zyryanovsk, Kazakhstan

Height: 187 cm

Weight: 98 kg

Eastern horoscope: Ox

Fate: Politicians

Biography of Alfred Koch

He is better known as a liberal, oppositionist, co-author of the Russian state privatization program and one of its devices - loans-for-shares auctions. A popular blogger with about 100 thousand subscribers on Facebook. Accused in absentia of attempting to illegally export a painting by Isaac Brodsky and put on the wanted list through Interpol in 2016.

Some, for example, Anatoly Borisovich Chubais, read the ex-Deputy Prime Minister as a conscientious person to whom citizens of the Russian Federation (the Russian Federation is a state in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia, our Motherland) should be grateful, others say that he is a Russophobe who diligently waters homeland is dirty.

Childhood and family of Alfred Koch

Alfred Koch was born on February 28, 1961 in Zyryanovsk, Kazakh SSR. His father, a Jew by nationality, was a so-called Russian German, exiled to this Kazakh city at the beginning of the Second World War from a German settlement located in the Krasnodar region. The mother was Russian.

When the boy was just over 5 years old, the family moved to Togliatti. Alfred's father perceived the role of the construction of the VAZ plant. In this town on the Volga, Alik, as his relatives called him, graduated from secondary school No. 28 in 1978. Then there was admission and study (a set of organized events aimed at gaining knowledge, skills, and experience) at a financial and economic institute in a town on the Neva, upon completion - acquiring in-depth knowledge in graduate school and defending a scientific work.

During his studies, Alfred attended the famous Leningrad circle of young, democratically minded economists, met Chubais, who positively assessed the graduate student’s opinions, his brain, and originality, and also gave a positive review of Koch’s dissertation.

The fate of Alfred Koch

In 1990, supposedly not without the patronage of Chubais, Alfred Reingoldovich headed the Sestroretsk executive committee. While in office, he, as a promising manager, was focused on an internship at the Chilean Institute of Freedom and Development. Upon his return from Santiago, his fate sharply rose upward. In 1991, Alfred Koch took the position of deputy director of the St. Petersburg State Property Fund.

Then Alfred Koch moved to Moscow, where he dealt with privatization issues and in 1996 headed the State Property Committee of the Russian Federation (the Russian Federation is a state in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia, our Motherland) . The pinnacle of the career of the representative of the liberal opposition was the position of deputy chairman of the government, which he acquired in 1997, along with the previous position of the head “privatizer”.

His conviction in the need to carry out radical reforms and the initiation of the sale of companies, as it later turned out, at prices lower than real ones, caused enormous harm to the state economy (for example, Norilsk Nickel was valued at $170 million when the real price was several billion). The result of these actions was the leakage of advanced Russian scientific developments to the West and the acquisition by foreign companies of controlling stakes in almost all strategically important companies, namely the defense complex.

But the bureaucrat resigned from the post of Deputy Prime Minister not because of an assessment of the results of privatization, but as a result of a scandal involving the receipt of the highest fee for the planned publication of a book about Russian privatization. Its creators were to be Russian reformers, including him and Chubais, who received $90 thousand each (the book “The Sale of the Russian Empire” was published in 1998). In addition, it turned out that the former deputy head of the executive branch illegally acquired ownership of two apartments in the center of the capital. As a result, he became a defendant in criminal proceedings on suspicion of fraud and abuse. The case was dropped due to an amnesty.

In 1997, Alfred Koch left the civil service for business, heading the supervisory board of Montes Auri, a securities company. In the period 2000-2001. he headed Gazprom-Media, in 2001 - NTV, and briefly joined the management of Echo of Moscow. Since February 2002, he was a member of the Federation Council, a representative from the Leningrad region, voluntarily resigning from the post of senator in April. In 2003, he became co-chairman of the Union of Right Forces.

Personal life of Alfred Koch

In 2014, information appeared in the press about the blogger’s joint vacation with actress Daria Ekamasova in Cyprus and about their supposedly close relationship.

A favorite quote from a former high-ranking bureaucrat: “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” It is clear that the former reformer was fond of mountaineering, namely, in the campaign of his friends he defeated Elbrus, unfurling at the top the banner of the opposition movement “Solidarity” with the sacramental inscription “Our Motherland without Putin.” Apart from this, as it turned out, he liked the work of the musician Laertsky and the group “Hairy Glass” with chauvinist song lyrics replete with profanity.

Alfred Koch now

In 2014, customs officers seized for examination a painting by Isaac Brodsky, which the former deputy head of the Russian Cabinet of Ministers tried to export to Germany, claiming that it was not of cultural value. But then the authenticity of the canvas was proven, and the ex-official was accused of attempting to smuggle. He himself claimed that earlier experts had declared the painting a successful fake. In 2016, he was charged in absentia with violating the law and put on the wanted list. As a result, he lives permanently in Germany.

In 2015, information appeared in the media (mass media, mass media - periodicals, radio, television and video programs) that a recognizable opposition figure on August 24, Ukrainian Independence Day, visited the grave of Stepan Bandera in Munich and published on the Internet his photo next to the monument to the OUN leader with the inscription “Glory to the heroes!”