Leonid Tschernowezki

Leonid Michailowitsch Tschernowezki

Date of Birth: 25.11.1951

Leonid Michailowitsch Tschernowezki - Mayor and Chairman of the City Council of Kyiv (2006-2012), Chairman of the Kyiv City Government (2006-2010). President of the Praveks Group (1992-1996). Honored Lawyer of Ukraine, Doctor of Law.

Place of Birth. Education. Born in Kharkiv. Graduate of School No. 4 in Kharkiv. According to his autobiography 'Confession of a Mayor': '...the school was rather a very hard test for me, because I always had my own view of things and asked difficult questions to the teachers that they did not want to answer. I have never recognized the authority of any superior - and that annoyed them. Therefore, at the age of 14, I went to work as an assembly locksmith for an aircraft manufacturer because I did not want to remain under these conditions - that was, of course, a kind of protest. They organized a good life school for me there... I worked almost a year in the factory. And then I returned to school because Soviet power at that time required a secondary education diploma'.

In the years 1970-1972, he served in the military. In 1977, he graduated from the Kharkiv Law Institute with a focus on jurisprudence.

All related materials:

• 'Misunderstanding'. Tschernowezki responded to the suspicion of wanting to change the borders of Ukraine
• Podylsky Bridge. AMCU imposed a million fine on two companies for collusion in tenders
• Losses of 4.5 million UAH. The prosecutor's office is conducting searches in the Podylsky Bridge case in Kyiv

Career. From 1977 to 1981, Tschernowezki worked as a senior investigator in the Prosecutor's Office of Kyiv Region. From 1981 to 1984, he studied at the graduate school of the Kharkiv Law Institute and obtained the academic degree of Doctor of Law. The topic of his dissertation was 'Methodology of investigating embezzlement committed by officials'.

From 1984 to 1989, Tschernowezki was a lecturer and deputy rector for research at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. From 1989 to 1996, he was involved in the founding and development of the Praveks Group (until recently, its 'jewel' was the Praveks Bank, which was sold in 2008 to the Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo). After his transition to politics, Tschernowezki led the Christian Liberal Party of Ukraine. He sympathizes greatly with the message church (leader - Sandeh Adeladzha) and simultaneously identifies himself as Orthodox.

Tschernowezki was elected to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine three times (in 1996, 1998, and 2002). In the IV Congress of the Verkhovna Rada (2002-2006), he was a member of the Budget Committee and Chairman of the Subcommittee for State Expenditure Control. He was part of the Our Ukraine faction. He was for a while an advisor to President Viktor Yushchenko.

In the spring of 2006, he was elected Mayor of Kyiv (his main opponents were the famous heavyweight boxer Vitali Klitschko and the former mayor of the capital Alexander Omelchenko) and was appointed Chairman of the Kyiv City Government, taking up the position of Chairman of the Kyiv City Council. Furthermore, he was elected for the fourth time to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (on the list of the Our Ukraine bloc). For almost half a year, he was unable to decide to resign from his deputy mandate, receiving several extensions from the Central Election Commission. According to observers, Tschernowezki was afraid that he would not be able to remain in office as mayor of the capital, which is why he tried to maintain a power retreat.

The concerns of the head of the Kyiv City Government were not unfounded. Shortly after the elections, his relations with the deputies of the Kyiv City Council from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, Our Ukraine, and the Vitali Klitschko group deteriorated critically, reaching the level of open political war. In autumn 2006, city council sessions turned into a real battlefield, with open violence occurring several times. The main reasons for the conflicts were the city's management decisions to increase utility rates by more than three times, as well as active and dubious, in the opinion of opponents, distribution of land plots. As a result, the anti-Merkel opposition in the city council, with the support of other political forces and public organizations, made attempts to organize a citywide vote of no confidence against Tschernowezki.

After a year and a half, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYUT) managed to firmly establish power, pushing the issue of early mayoral and city council elections in parliament. The protracted struggle to change the 'power structure' of Kyiv practically brought nothing to Tschernowezki's opponents and his team. In May 2008, he was re-elected as Mayor of Kyiv, and the bloc named after him won the parliamentary elections in the city.

However, shortly after the presidential elections in 2010, in which Viktor Yanukovych won, Tschernowezki was removed from the city administration, and Alexander Popov, the deputy head of the Kyiv City Government, began to play the main role in the capital. In November of that year, Tschernowezki was relieved of his duties as head of the Kyiv City Government. The head became Popov.

On June 1, 2012, two days before the end of his term, Tschernowezki submitted his resignation as Mayor of Kyiv. On July 12, the Kyiv City Council accepted his resignation.