Alfred Koch
Alfred Reingoldovich Kokh (Koch) (Russian: Альфред Рейнгольдович Кох, German: Alfred Reingoldowitsch Koch, born 28 February 1961) is a Russian statesman, writer, mathematician-economist, and businessman. From 12 September 1996 to 13 August 1997 and from 17 March 1997 to 13 August 1997, he was the head of the Federal Agency for State Property Management and a deputy prime minister of Russia under Viktor Chernomyrdin, respectively.
Alfred Koch Альфред Кох | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Deputy Prime Minister of Russia | |
| In office 17 March – 13 August 1997 | |
| President | Boris Yeltsin |
| Prime Minister | Viktor Chernomyrdin |
| Head Federal Agency for State Property Management | |
| In office 12 September 1996 – 13 August 1997 | |
| President | Boris Yeltsin |
| Prime Minister | Viktor Chernomyrdin |
| Preceded by | Alexander Kazakov |
| Succeeded by | Maxim Boyko |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Alfred Reingoldovich Kokh 28 February 1961 Zyryanovsk, Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union, (now Kazakhstan) |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Children | Elena Koch (born 1981) Olga Koch (born 1992) |
| Alma mater | Saint Petersburg State University of Economics |
| Occupation | Statesman, mathematician-economist and businessman |
| Profession | Politician Mathematician-Economist Business executive |
| Signature |  |
Education and early life
He was born in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic to an ethnically German father who was deported there in 1941 and an ethnic Russian mother.
During the beginning of the construction of the Volzhsky Automobile Plant, he and his parents then moved to Tolyatti where his father became the head of the department of related industries, a structure that dealt with all the component parts.
Career
He served as a deputy prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin and was an ally of economic reformer Anatoly Chubais, a chief architect of Russia's privatization. On 12 September 1996, Kokh was appointed head of Russia's State Property Committee, acting as Russia's privatization chief. He left the position on 13 August 1997, after the privatization auctions (loans-for-shares).
In June 2000, Alfred Kokh became head of Gazprom-Media, a subsidiary media holding of Gazprom (now a subsidiary holding of Gazprombank), and oversaw the gas giant's controversial takeover of NTV, an independent television company owned by Vladimir Gusinsky, on which he hosted the game show Алчность, the Russian version of Greed.[1]
He was succeeded by Boris Jordan on 16 October 2001. He also served as head of the 2003 election campaign staff for the Union of Right Forces, a pro-business, democratic party of young reformers including Yegor Gaidar, Boris Nemtsov and Irina Khakamada, the first woman to run for the Russian presidency.
He wrote the 2006 Russian book A Crate of Vodka (Ящик водки), a dialogue with journalist Igor Svinarenko about the twenty-year period that covered the last Soviet generation and the first, free Russian generation (1982, the death of Leonid Brezhnev, to 2001, when 9/11 put an end to liberal politics). The English translation appeared in spring 2009.
In 2008, he financed a scholarly point-by-point refutation of Holocaust denial materials. Denial of the Denial (Отрицание отрицания), with Pavel Polian, is the first book on the subject published in Russia.
Kokh is a frequent commentator in Medved, a glossy Russian men's magazine, writing about history and travel.
Alfred Koch (or Kokh) was a sponsor of the new monument in Moscow to Tsar Alexander II, the leader who emancipated the serfs and reformed the Russian army. Out of fear of persecution by the Russian authorities he fled to Germany in June 2014.[2] He lives on Lake Chiemsee in Rosenheim, Bavaria.[3][4]
Personal life
His daughter Olga (born 1992, St Petersburg) attended The American School in England at Thorpe, Surrey beginning at age 13 and is a stand-up comedian living in central London.[5]
References
- Рождественский, Илья (Rozhdestvensky, Ilya); Badanin, Roman (13 February 2019). "Серийный олигарх. Рассказ о том, как Владимир Гусинский помирился с Владимиром Путиным" [Serial oligarch. The story of how Vladimir Gusinsky made peace with Vladimir Putin]. Proekt (in Russian). Retrieved 13 February 2020.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - SPIEGEL, Benjamin Bidder, DER (8 September 2014). "Ukraine: Russland jagt die Intellektuellen aus dem Land - DER SPIEGEL - Politik". Der Spiegel.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - "Trotzdem kämpfen sie weiter: Nach dem Mord an Boris Nemzow geht in russischen Oppositionskreisen die Angst um. Alle fragen sich: Wer ist der Nächste?" [Nevertheless, they continue to fight: After the murder of Boris Nemtsov, there is fear in Russian opposition circles. Everyone is asking: who is next?]. Südkurier (in German). 4 March 2015. Archived from the original on 8 March 2015. Retrieved 26 August 2021.
- "Плата за красивую жизнь: Альфред Кох объявлен в федеральный розыск" [Paying for a beautiful life: Alfred Koch put on the federal wanted list]. «Ве́сти» (vesti.ru) (in Russian). 23 November 2015. Retrieved 26 August 2021.
- "Comedian Olga Koch says she feels like she's speaking for all Russians when she goes onstage". Evening Standard. Retrieved 2018-08-16.
External links
- Biography (in Russian)
- Koch without a bacillus by Andrei Agafonov (in Russian).
- On the arguments about the "Europeanness" of Russia, a lecture by Alfred Kokh, June 23, 2005 (in Russian).
- One more member of the family of the civilized nations by Alfred Kokh, Polit.ru, February 9, 2005 (in Russian).
- Transcript of presentation of Denial of the Denial book (in Russian)
- Video of the Denial of the Denial presentation at Polit.ru