Since his release from prison in 1990 after serving nine years for theft, Vadym Rabinovich has acquired a controversial reputation as a businessman and as a Jewish community leader
ssman and as a Jewish community leader.
Rabinovich spent almost nine years in prison for theft during the Soviet period, though he obtained a full pardon in 1992.
In 1999, the State Security Service (SBU) temporarily barred him from entering Ukraine, an action apparently taken in connection with his alleged “harmful” business activities.
Rabinovich’s press secretary Volodymyr Katzman said that Rabinovich carries Ukrainian and Israeli passports.
While he claims to own a number of companies, Rabinovich says he devotes 99 percent of his time to MIG. This holding includes media operations in Ukraine, Israel and the United States. It also owns advertising and film production units.
Rabinovich says that most of MIG’s activities are profitable, but he does not say exactly how much money they bring in. He does not talk about his other businesses, and few experts are able to say anything about them.
Although Rabinovich does not disclose his income, he admits to owning two houses in Kyiv and several vehicles, including a Toyota Jeep and an armored Mercedes. He claims not to have a personal bank account.
Rabinovich is conspicuous in distributing his wealth to charitable causes, and it is not just the Jewish community that benefits from his generosity. He made a substantial donation for the gilding of the domes of St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral in Kyiv.
“He helps people without ulterior motives, out of the purity of his heart,” said Moshe Reuven Asman, chief Rabbi of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress. “Often people do not know the help they’re getting is from him.”
Rabinovich also heads the inter-confessional organization Step Toward Unity, and he is the only layman to receive the two highest awards of the Orthodox Church – the orders of Nicholas the Miracle Worker (1st class) and Volodymyr (1st class).
Rabinovich was involved in the creation of the Ukraine-Israel Chamber of Trade and Industry.
He was also among the founders of the Solomonov University in Kyiv.
Convict to businessman
Born in Kharkiv in 1953, Rabinovich entered that city’s road transport institute where he specialized in bridge building, a subject that did not interest him in the slightest.
“I chose the institute by chance – my friend went there, so I went there too,” he said.
Rabinovich displayed an entrepreneurial streak early on, organizing his first business in the early 1980s. This involved the underground production of wooden doors, an item that was in short supply at the time.
The business was profitable but short-lived. Rabinovich was arrested and sentenced to 14 years in prison for the “theft of socialist property.”
Rabinovich spent nine years in prison, an experience that he remembers as a “descent through nine circles of hell.” He was released in 1990 by a decree of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev “due to lack of corpus delicti.”
Though he was in prison with dissidents, Rabinovich says that he should not be seen as a political prisoner. Today, he insists that he is apolitical.
“The time when I was interested in political games is over,” he said.
Of President Leonid Kuchma, he says: “At the current historical stage, he is probably the sort of person that the country needs.”
After his release from prison, Rabinovich started anew as a businessman. This time his field of activity was “intermediary transactions.” By 1995, he had accumulated the capital to launch R.C. Group.
The company acquired shares in several newspapers, radio and TV stations including Delovaya Nedelya weekly and the Studio 1+1 TV station.
Shadows gather
In 1998, Rabinovich’s business ran into trouble. In October of that year, Studio 1+1 broke its ties with him.
The dispute between Studio 1+1 and Rabinovich’s TV company AITI over the license for broadcasting on the second national channel, UT-2, has continued to this day. Though the Kyiv Economic Appeals Court ruled in favor of Studio 1+1 in 2003, Rabinovich is convinced that he will win the case in the end.
“The result will be that AITI will broadcast on the second channel,” he said.
In 1999, the SBU cast a shadow over Rabinovich’s business reputation when it announced that he was involved in activity that caused “significant damage to the Ukrainian economy” and barred him from entering the country for five years. However, the decision was quickly reversed.
A new scandal erupted in late 2001, when Russian Duma Deputy Viktor Ilyukhin accused Rabinovich of supplying arms to Chechen fighters and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Rabinovich denied the accusations, and the matter fizzled out without going any further.
In 1998, Rabinovich became chairman of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress, which then united 200 Jewish organizations. The Congress split the same year, and a rival Jewish Federation of Ukraine was established. Insiders blamed the disagreement on Rabinovich’s autocratic leadership style.
Josef Zissels, chairman of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, admits that Rabinovich has done the community some service – in particular, he secured the restoration of Kyiv’s Brodsky Synagogue. However, he says that all Rabinovich’s community projects are motivated by the desire to strengthen his influence.
“Rabinovich is a colorful personality, strong, persistent and ready for a fight. He has many useful qualities, but no moral ones. He knows no bounds,” Zissels said. “He possesses all the other qualities that society approves of. For all his dubious image, he is a part of the Jewish life, and I’m ready to sit down and discuss its problems with him.”
Media mogul
Rabinovich says that he currently is involved only in media projects. He owns seven print publications, the most popular of which is Stolichniye Novosti.
Rabinovich insists that his publications are politically independent and he does not dictate their editorial line.
“My only involvement in editorial policy is to ask writers not to write insipidly. They should write pointedly and frankly, and not be afraid of anything,” he said.
However, Zissels says that it is always clear from the pages of Stolichniye Novosti what the owner is thinking, with whom he wants to maintain good relations, and what his immediate goals are.
“He strengthens his influence through the media, but nobody is going to forbid him from doing that,” Zissels said.
Rabinovich admits that he has an authoritarian management style.
“I listen very democratically to what everyone has to say, and then I take a totalitarian decision,” he said. “It’s true, I may reconsider – I go away, think about things till the morning and then change my decision.”
His current plans for Stolichniye Novosti include a Friday edition (Stolichka) that will be “big and fat, with sensationalist pretensions.”
MIG is preparing to start shooting a nine-episode detective serial written by popular screenwriter Yury Rogoza. Another of the company’s films, “Dukh Zemli” (Spirit of the Earth), will be shown on Inter soon.
This article was originally published in Russian in Korrespondent magazine as part of its series devoted to the Top 100 most influential individuals in Ukraine.
