Background and career
Oleg Yuryevich Tinkov (Russian: Олег Юрьевич Тиньков; Greek: Όλεγκ Γιούριεβιτς Τίνκοφ; born 25 December 1967) is a Russian-born Cypriot former billionaire, entrepreneur and businessman. Tinkov is the founder of a network of shops of household appliances Technoshock, frozen food factories Daria, brewing companies and network of Tinkoff restaurants. Among less well-known projects – music store Music Shock and the record label Shock Records, which released first albums by bands Kirpichi, and Leningrad, and which worked with the Knife for Frau Müller. Tinkov was the founder and chairman of the Tinkoff Bank board of directors (until 2015 it was called Tinkoff Credit Systems). The bank was founded in 2007 and as of December 1, 2016, it was ranked 45 in terms of assets and 33 – for equity among Russian banks. In 2019 Tinkov was diagnosed with leukemia. Tinkov was indicted by a US grand jury in September 2019 for willfully filing false tax returns and attempting to evade over $240 million in taxes while renouncing his US citizenship. He was arrested in London in February 2020 but fought extradition based on a new diagnosis of leukemia making him too unwell to travel. He eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to pay over $508 million in unpaid taxes, fines and a fraud penalty, as well as time served and a year's supervised release. In 2021 he had complications after surgery and his chances of survival were estimated at only 40%. By 2022 his cancer went into remission. After the diagnosis, Tinkov left management positions in his businesses. In 2020 he announced the foundation of his own charity fund for leukemia sufferers. with $200 million investment of his own money. Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated his net worth at $8.2 billion in November 2021; Forbes estimated his net worth at $0.8 billion four months later. After he publicly criticized the Russian invasion of Ukraine in April 2022, he said officials of the Putin administration threatened to nationalize Tinkoff Bank, and he went into hiding after selling his 35% stake under pressure. In October 2022, he renounced his Russian citizenship, citing the Russo-Ukrainian War and the "Putin fascism" as the reason.
Tinkov was born in the village Polysayevo, Leninsk-Kuznetsk district of the Kemerovo Oblast in Russian family of a miner and a seamstress. Since the age of 12 Tinkov was interested in road cycling, he was a member of cycling clubs at school, and later – at the workplaces. He won in a number of competitions, and in 1984 received the title of a candidate in master of sports. During training camps Tinkov first took up black marketeering, buying hard-to-find goods in Central Asia, and selling them in Leninsk-Kuznetsky. His cycling career was interrupted by military service: he did not get into the Sports Club of the army and was sent to the border troops. In 1986–1988 he served in the Far East – in Nakhodka and Nikolayevsk-on-Amur.
In 1988, Oleg Tinkov entered the Mining Institute university, which had a large number of foreign students and offered promising opportunities in trade. He traded in jeans, cosmetics and perfumery, caviar and vodka. He sold goods from St. Petersburg to customers in Siberia, and from there he brought Japanese household appliances purchased from the miners. He brought electrical appliances to Poland and returned with office equipment and supplies, gas cartridges and guns. Tinkov traded together with his future wife and fellow students – Oleg Zherebtsov (later – the founder of hypermarket retail chain Lenta), Oleg Leonov (future founder of retail chain DIXY) and Andrey Rogachev (founder of the company LEC and Pyaterochka). He studied at the University of California, Berkeley.
Tinkov met an Estonian, Rina Vosman, while studying at university. Their wedding took place in June 2009 – after 20 years of living together. Their daughter Daria Tinkov studied at King's College London, sons Pasha and Roman at St Edward's School, Oxford.
In 1992, Tinkov began to trade in wholesale electronics from Singapore. To simplify the registration of documents he registered a limited liability partnership Petrosib in St. Petersburg, and then regional companies Petrosib-Kemerovo, Petrosib-Novosibirsk and Petrosib-Omsk and others. Goods arrived in St. Petersburg and from there were sent to the regions, where they were sold with a larger markup. He started with calculators and went on to office equipment, televisions, VCRs and even artificial flowers and trees. In the beginning, Oleg himself flew to Singapore, then began to use commercial air freight, but the turning point came when an Indian dealer Ashok Vasmani shipped him a half-container of TVs on credit. Tinkov went on to use container sea freight. Reduced profits from wholesaling pushed Tinkov towards launching his own retail stores. In 1994 Petrosib opened the first store under the Sony label on Maly Prospect of Vasilevsky Island in St. Petersburg, then another on Marata Street. Petrosib USA opened in San Francisco. Success in retail inspired Tinkov to combine the shops under one name. Technoshock was opened in 1995 and offered expensive household appliances at the highest prices in the city, but still it was popular. Technoshock was one of the first companies in Russia which began to train its sales consultants. Sergio Gutsalenko, an American of Russian origin, became the president of the company. The network grew rapidly; by 1996 the Technoshock had five stores in St. Petersburg, two in Omsk and Kemerovo and one in Novorossiysk. From 1995 to 1996 the turnover doubled and reached $40 million. By 1997 Eldorado stores had arrived in St. Petersburg, which increased competition and reduced profitability. In 1997 Tinkov sold the company to its management, and a year later it was acquired by Simteks. He came out of Technoshock with $7 million and invested the sum in the pelmeni business. Along with Technoshock, Tinkov opened a chain of music stores called Music Shock in 1996. Philipp Kirkorov and Alla Pugacheva performed at the opening of the first Music Shock store and Jeanne Aguzarova at the second. In 1998 Music Shock was sold to the Moscow company Gala Records. Together with Ilya Bortnyuk, Tinkov launched the Shock Records record label. The label released the debut albums of the bands Kirpichi, Leningrad, Vladimir Dashkevich Symphony based on his music for the film Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, the album Nechelovek-vidimka by Knife for Frau Müller. Music Shock published a 320-page book Viktor Tsoi.
Pelmeni and other frozen foods were produced under the brand name Daria, named after the Tinkov's daughter. A Greek called Athanasius, who distributed ravioli manufacturing equipment in Russia, gave Tinkov this idea while in the sauna. Production was launched in early 1998 in Peterhof and in the beginning it made products under the trademark Smak under license from the Andrey Makarevich company. After a conflict with the licensor, the brand name changed to Smak St. Petersburg. Economic crisis was the reason for creating its own brand; the new brand helped increase market share. The new plant, which opened in December 1998, at the site of a former Technoshock warehouse on Predportovaya street in St. Petersburg, originally produced only Daria. In addition, Tinkoff made products under the brands of Tolsty kok, Dobry product and Tsar-batyushka. Daria first became popular due to an advertising campaign in which five billboards in St. Petersburg and two in Moscow showed an image of female buttocks covered with flour and the caption Your favorite pelmeni!. Another commercial included the phrase, From these raviolek you’ll get stomach cramps, which caused the Ravioli company dissatisfaction. In return they used a phrase Daria, shoo! in their advertisement campaign. In 2001, Daria was sold to Roman Abramovich and Andrew Bloch's holding company Planeta Management for $21 million, of which $7 million were used to pay off debt.
