Nikolai Durov. Biography of a less famous brother

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

It's no secret that one of the most popular resources not only in Russia, but also in the entire post-Soviet space is VK. The social network "VKontakte" was founded in 2006 by brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov. There is a lot of information on the Internet about the younger brother, Pavel, but there is clearly not enough information about the older one.

Family

Pavel and Nikolai Durov were born into a family of intellectuals. The father of the brothers - Valery Semenovich - Doctor of Philology, head of the Department of Classical Philology, St. Petersburg State University. Grandfather, Semyon Petrovich Telyakov, took part in the Second World War. He fought on the Leningrad front, received three wounds. After the end of the war, he was repressed.

Nikolai Durov

Nikolai Valerievich Durov was born on November 21, 1980. In general, many believe that Nikolai is only in the shadow of his commercially more effective brother. The "modest genius" started programming at the age of seven. In 1996-1998, Nikolai Durov took part in the Mathematics Olympiad at the international level, where he won gold medals three times in a row. Along the way, he participated in the International Olympiad in Informatics, where he alsodemonstrated significant success, winning three silver and one gold medal. Nikolay was a member of the programming team that won international competitions in 2000 and 2001. In 2005 he defended his doctoral thesis under the supervision of Sergei Vostokov. Then he continued his mathematical education at the University of Bonn, where he subsequently received a doctorate.

Career

Nikolai Durov defended his thesis on "A new approach to Arakelov's geometry". Later he worked in this direction. He holds the position of Chief Researcher in the Laboratory of Algebra at St. Petersburg University.

From the very beginning he took part in the development of "VK". The social network became successful largely thanks to Nikolai. In the team, he held the position of lead developer. Left office in 2013.

Developed the MTProto messaging encryption protocol, which is used in the Telegram messenger.

Pavel Durov

Among Internet users, of course, the younger Durov is more popular. Pavel's biography is much better known. Born on October 10, 1981 in Leningrad. Pasha went to first grade in Turin, where his father was working at that moment. Returning to his homeland, he studied a little in a regular school. He entered the Academic Gymnasium, where there was the deepest immersion in the material. Pavel began to show interest in computers and programming at the age of eleven. An interesting fact is that Durov changed the background on all computers, exposing the image of a computer science teacher with"Must Die" sign. After that, Pavel was denied access to a PC, but it was not difficult for him to crack passwords. After graduating with honors from the gymnasium in 2001, Durov entered St. Petersburg State University with a degree in English Philology and Translation. For a good study, Pavel was awarded a scholarship of the Russian Federation and the President of the Russian Federation. Durov graduated in 2006, having received a red diploma, but still has not taken it.

VKontakte

Even in his student years, Pavel Durov created several projects that were aimed at enabling students to communicate with each other. One way or another, everything that was created could not satisfy Paul's needs. In 2006, Pavel's friend who came from America told him about the Facebook project, which was based on real user profiles and photographs. Durov liked the idea and decided to develop a similar project for Runet. The domain of the future resource was registered on October 1, 2006, already at this stage Nikolai Durov took part. Until the end of the year, the social network was in the process of testing, and since December it has been open for public access. In Runet, the resource has become the largest project. To date, attendance is more than 300 million users per month, and the turnover of funds is 4.3 billion rubles. On January 24, 2014, the public learned that in December 2013 Durov sold a 12% stake in VKontakte to Ivan Tavrin and ceased to exercise the authority of the owner of the network.

On April 16, 2014, Durov released information that inIn December, FSB officers urged the owners of the network to provide the personal data of the Euromaidan organizers. Pavel refused this demand and sold his share in the same month. Soon Durov went abroad and, as it became known later, was not going to return back.

Telegram

Telegram is a free messenger designed for Android and other devices. As Pavel Durov said in an interview, the idea of creating an application came to him back in 2011, when special forces were standing at his door. After they left, Pavel immediately called Nikolai and realized that he did not have a reliable and secure way to communicate with his brother. Subsequently, Nikolai Durov developed a new encryption protocol MTProto, which was the basis of the messenger. As of mid-2015, the number of active users was over 62 million. In terms of popularity, the application surpassed even a competitor from Facebook, and in February 2014 it became one of the most downloaded applications in the App Store.

Interesting facts

• In November 2012 Nikolai Kononov's book "Durov's Code" was published. In the center of the plot is the founding of the social network VKontakte, the main character is Pavel Durov. The biography and other information presented in the book is based on numerous interviews and facts.
• Organization AR Films bought the film rights to the book "Durov's Code". The film was supposed to be released in 2014. Durov himself was negative about the idea of shootingpictures.
• The "VKontakte" logo was created by Pavel Durov in a couple of minutes using the Tahoma font.

You can treat the Durov brothers differently, but it is impossible not to notice their contribution to the formation of the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet. Although VKontakte has been owned by other owners for a long time, most users have not forgotten the first owner. Like it or not, the Durovs have great knowledge and skills, which is confirmed by their new projects.