It's no secret that one of the most popular resources not only in Russia, but in the entire post-Soviet space is VK. The VKontakte social network was founded in 2006 by the brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov. There is a lot of information on the Internet about his younger brother - Pavel, but about her older she is clearly not enough.
A family
Pavel and Nikolai Durovs were born in a family of intellectuals. Father of 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 war was over, he was repressed.
Nikolay Durov
Nikolai Valeryevich Durov was born on November 21, 1980. In general, many believe that Nikolai is only in the shadow of his commercially more effective brother. Programming "humble genius" began to engage in seven years of age. 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 also showed significant success, winning three silver and one gold medal. Nikolai was in a team of programmers who won international competitions in 2000 and 2001. In 2005 he defended his doctoral dissertation under the leadership of Sergei Vostokov. Then he continued his mathematical education at the University of Bonn, where he subsequently received a doctorate.
Career
Nikolay 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 has become successful largely thanks to Nicholas. In the team, he held the position of lead developer. He left the post 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. Paul’s biography is much more famous. Born on October 10, 1981 in Leningrad. Pasha went to first grade in Turin, where at that moment his father worked. Returning to his homeland, he studied a little in a regular school. He entered the Academic Gymnasium, where there was the most profound 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 by displaying an image of an informatics teacher with the inscription "Must die." After that, Pavel was denied access to the PC, but it was not difficult for him to crack passwords. After graduating from high school with honors in 2001, Durov entered SPbSU with a degree in English Philology and Translation. For a good study, Pavel was awarded a scholarship from the Russian Federation and the President of the Russian Federation. He graduated from Durov in 2006, having received a red diploma, but still has not taken it so far.
"In contact with"
Back 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 created could not satisfy Paul's requests. In 2006, a friend of Pavel, who came from America, told him about the Facebook project, which was based on real profiles and photos of users. Durov liked the idea, and he decided to develop a similar project for Runet. The domain of the future resource was registered on October 1, 2006, already at this stage Nikolay 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 to public access. In RuNet, the resource has become the largest project. Today, attendance is more than 300 million users per month, and cash turnover is 4.3 billion rubles. On January 24, 2014, the public learned that Durov in December 2013 sold 12% of VKontakte shares to Ivan Tavrin and ceased to exercise the powers of the network owner.
On April 16, 2014, Durov released information that in December FSB officers had urged the owners of the network to provide personal information about the organizers of Euromaidan. Pavel refused this demand and sold his share in the same month. Soon, Durov went abroad and, as it later became known, is not going to return.
Telegram
Telegram is a free messenger developed for Android and other devices. As Pavel Durov said in an interview, the idea of creating an application visited him back in 2011, when special forces stood 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 more than 62 million people. In popularity, the application surpassed even its 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 “The Code of Durov” was published. In the center of the plot is the foundation of the VKontakte social network, the main character is Pavel Durov. The biography and other information presented in the book is based on numerous interviews and facts.
- AR Films has acquired the rights to the film adaptation of the book "Code of Durov." The movie was supposed to be released in 2014. Durov himself reacted negatively to the idea of shooting a picture.
- The VKontakte logo was created by Pavel Durov in a couple of minutes using the Tahoma font.
It is possible to treat the Durov brothers differently, but it is impossible not to notice their contribution to the formation of the Russian-language segment of the Internet. Although VKontakte has already been a decent time for other owners, most users have not forgotten the first owner. Say what you like, but the Durovs have great knowledge and skills, which is confirmed by their new projects.