Family

“Our family is everything to us. A person is born into a family, grows up in a family and creates his or her own family. Family is everything. As the God said, family stands first, and then goes social stuff: work, career, business, politics and self-actualization. Everything comes to a word “family”. No matter how a man or a woman self-actualize, they do this for the sake of the family, not for their own sake. They can deny this, deceive themselves, but family is the only thing that matters”.

Formula of family happiness

“Love and esteem each other. Devote all your life to others. Any act you perform should be performed for others, not for yourself. Whatever you do, do it for a person’s sake you live with and call your family member: wherever it is a wife, baby or parents. If your marriage partner does the same, this is happiness”.

Love is commitment, first and foremost. Commitment requires response commitment.

Family means responsibility for loved ones. I feel scorn for people who settle down to married life for no particular reason. What does it mean to create a family? It means that you ensure a person that you’re a support in his/her life.

God

“I believe in God. Everything that happens in our life is determined by Him. A man is able to change his life and to ask for God’s forgiveness and then the life can start a new circle at any time. ”

A man was born in God’s image and likeness; he was born having a right to choose. When a man has a right to choose, he does it every instant. And every instant he faces the choice without understanding it. If he chooses something, he moves forward or backward, upward or downward.

A man should constantly work at himself as well as help other people. One should not say that one has truly established himself as a personality and needs nobody. It is a great sin. You ought to take interest in the life of people both close and strange. The easiest way is to support them with money but the true one is to help someone to fulfil himself.

Me beloved city

“I have been always living in Kharkiv. It is my beloved city that granted me with everything - a happy childhood, good education, gross income; it helped me to establish myself as a personality and a politician.”

My beloved country

“My beloved country is Ukraine. I was born here and have grown up, I have inherited the traditions, mentality and kindness characterizing the Ukrainian people. It is my beloved country.

Israel is my historical motherland. If any possibility arises, I use it to fly to Israel either to recover the health or simply to relax. It is a pleasure for me to walk along the streets keeping silence, to sit watching the Old City. When coming home I always feel a spiritual uplift.”

Problems of Ukraine

“There is no time for creating a national idea and forming ambitiousness in the country. We waste all our time for internecine wars that will end at least some day.

We are a young state and it is useless to blame and to criticize ourselves  it is the matter of upgrowth.

Today the elements of self-criticism are working not properly. The state does not manage to carry out its duties regarding the social politics that does not exist anymore. A great number of people live on the breadline, and only a small group is represented by rich ones. Until this gap does not reduce and a powerful middle class appears, we cannot name our country either a European one or a former Soviet one. We are neither of those.

Politics

“Politics is a work as any other is but having graver consequences in case of making a correct or incorrect decision. The understanding of it makes my blood boil and I want to work further.

On the one hand, it is a somewhat dirty business but it is what it is. And I don’t think it is ideal in any other country  it is always so that the one wants to do it this way but another one sees it different.

To wish to be a politician means to wish to participate in the life of the state, to wish to change the life for better not in words but in practice  by adopting right laws, blocking some things that harm the society.”

Cars

“I prefer the most practical cars. Lexus is my favorite one among offroadsters, and Mercedes – among passenger cars.”

Watches

“I like watches. For the majority of women watches are a kind of jewelry. For men – a business accessory. A man should have a good watch and not obligatory an expensive one. What is more important, it should be useful, supplement the suit, and open the person’s inner world. On working days I prefer wearing severe and not-attention-getting watches. I love the brand of F.P.Journe.”

Cuisine

“I am not picksome as to the food, I like delicious food though. Now I am trying to keep to a diet. A plenty of people’s health problems are caused by unhealthy food. The simpler the food is, the healthier it is.”

Clothes

“Speaking about clothes, I like red and black colors, but my style of life and the status oblige me to wear calm colors. I don’t I have any favorite brands, I buy the things that suit me and look attractive. The suit and the shirt should reflect the inner state of mind. A man should be clothed handsome and severe. Qualitative clothes, shoes, a haircut show first of all his respect for the society. I don’t like ties and prefer wearing the clothes without collars.”

Leisure time

“I spend my free time only with my family and don’t imagine spending my leisure time without my son. I traveled a lot when I had much time. Relaxing on islands makes me bored – you get up in an unknown hotel in the morning and cannot understand where you are. The matter is that recreation possibilities in Bali, Thailand as well as in Bahamas are simply the same and differ from traveling around the Old Europe.

I adore having a rest in the Crimea. Many speak about Sardinia, Majorca but it is a mere nothing compared to our Crimea.”

Sport

“I have an opportunity to visit any gyms but I don’t have any time for it. I’d like to go in for sport in the nearest future. It is clear to me that it is necessary for my job – I should be able to withstand the pressure.”

Literature

“I don’t read the pulp fiction of modern writers, it’s a senseless reading which has never touched me or got me interested in. In 15 minutes you forget the contents of the book read. I prefer reading documentary and historical books, the ones touching philosophical and religious questions as well as books devoted to Bible themes.”

Childhood Dreams

“I had luck  my childhood was always painted in rosy colors. I had everything a child could get from his parents, his country and the city, the teachers and the school, his surrounding. That’s why I worry about the today’s generation, and my charity is aimed at children. In general, it is an attempt to help the state support today’s children till it gets its own resources. Nobody can substitute the state but to provide it with our support is our duty.”

As a child I dreamt of being a vet as far as I loved animals. As well as being a policeman. We were brought up with Soviet films showing the valiant, selfless, honest and respectable police. I have carried that with me through my whole life. And till now I treat the representatives of military forces with admiration.

Teachers

“Teachers with a capital T are firstly my parents. And secondly  sport. I paid much attention to physical training. The severest punishment for me was a prohibition to go to the gym.

I can remember that I have become a grown-up early enough. I had a different opinion about some things and sometimes, while speaking with teenagers of my age, I realized that many things were understood differently by me.”

Character

My main trait of character is persistence. Since childhood I have heard from my father and seen it illustrated by examples that each problem should be solved regardless how complicated it is.

It was quite early that I read a saying: “Who if not I?” And I fully realized that it was me who had to do everything. Meetings, communication, bargaining, negotiating…

But the thing that bothers is my unwarranted doubtfulness. Many things that are left by people without attention are taken closely by me to my heart. I pay attention to the some aspects that are of no importance for me. But it is me and it has been inherited from my mother.

Life’s Credo

“Don’t lie to yourself. You can lie to anyone but staying alone you face the situation that is difficult to live with. It is easier to do well from the very beginning than to remedy the situation later.”

Army

“Having been brought up in favorable conditions by the grandmothers who loved me more than anyone else in the world, as well as by my parents and relatives, I was sent to the army where I was still taken care of  the soldiers were provided with clothes, shoes, they were granted an order, punished… And after leaving the army in 1980s, I found myself in the adult life that shocked and disappointed me with the fact that nobody needed nobody. It was a struggle for survival, a struggle of each person for himself. I have had a good school of life. I am happy and it doesn’t matter what I think and speak ironically of it. ”

Aim of life

“All my life I have strived for self-sufficiency and freedom first of all. But not the freedom of unbridledness and bacchanalia. Freedom means firstly responsibility and possibility to take your own decisions as well as to answer for the consequences.

Economical freedom means having the possibility to act in this or that way and being not dependant on conditions, somebody else’s money and being in straitened circumstances to realize any of your ideas. ”