David Georgievich Arahamia (Brown)
Official biography
(also known by the pseudonym David Braun) is a Ukrainian politician, entrepreneur, public figure and volunteer. Secretary of the National Investment Council. Member of Parliament of Ukraine of the IX convocation from the Servant of the People party, Chairman of the Servant of the People faction in the Verkhovna Rada of the IX convocation.
David was born on May 23, 1979 in Sochi (Krasnodar Territory, Russian Federation). David spent his early childhood in the Russian city of Sochi, and later the Arakhamia family lived in Georgia for some time. In 1992, fleeing the war in Abkhazia, he moved with his parents to Mykolaiv. It was in Ukraine that the future politician graduated from high school. He has lived in Ukraine since 1992.
Family.
Married (for the second time) His wife is Viktoriia Viktorivna Arakhamia.
They have six children. All of their names begin with the letter D. They are David, Daniel, Dana, Daria, Darika, Demi and Denis.
Education.
He received his secondary education at Mykolaiv school No. 36. After graduation, he entered the European University, Department of Economics.
Career and business
Arahamia is the founder of Template Monster, a large IT company that develops and sells website templates and other web solutions. However, before starting an online business, he worked in business consulting and marketing in offline projects. But first things first.
In 2000, David got a job in a web design studio. After a while, together with his colleagues, he opened TemplateMonster, a company specializing in the sale of ready-made website templates. A few years later, the organization entered the global market and became a large IT business headquartered in the American city of New York. For example, the organization’s revenue in 2017 amounted to $120 million, and over 15 years of operation, TemplateMonster has made more than 1.5 million sales.
A few years ago, Arahamia sold his stake in the company for $100 million. By that time, TemplateMonster had 650 employees and offices in seventeen cities around the world.
Three years ago, the entrepreneur launched a new business project, Weblium, a website builder headquartered in the United States of America. According to the businessman, his company already has more than four thousand clients.
Cooperation with Zelenskyy
Unlike other members of the president’s team, Arakhamia began working with Zelenskyy and Bohdan after the election.
“Since I never wanted to get into politics, I had nothing to lose and asked open, caustic, and I would even say impudent questions. I asked about Kolomoisky, the team, and how they saw the achievement of the stated goals. Volodymyr answered calmly, engagingly, and very openly,” David says on his Facebook page.
According to the newly elected MP, one can become a part of Zelenskyy’s team only if they have been recognized in the community or have a reputation in the industry. “I sincerely wanted to help the people who have the unprecedented support of the nation,” Brown writes. Arakhamia wants to attract investment to Ukraine and believes that his lack of political experience will not be a hindrance. Despite the fact that all of David’s major projects are located in America, he is actively involved in the public and political life of Ukraine. In 2014, the businessman opened a volunteer organization to help ATO soldiers called The People’s Project. In just one year of operation, it managed to raise more than UAH 100 million in donations, which were used to implement various projects of the foundation — medical, social, and technical. Summer 2014 — David Brown was appointed to the position of advisor to the head of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration on volunteer activities, and a few months later was offered to become the Defense Minister’s procurement commissioner. And in October of the same year, Arakhamia was already an advisor to the head of the Volunteer Council at the Ministry of Defense.
In 2014, Arakhamia received the Order of Merit from then-President Petro Poroshenko.
In 2019, the businessman took part in the parliamentary elections as a candidate of the Servant of the People party (the fourth candidate on the list). Later, he became a member of parliament of the ninth convocation.
Compromising material
Scandals
Arakhamia is not very careful about what he says in public. Because of this, scandals regularly break out in the press. Afterwards, either he or representatives of the faction try to hush up the scandal and somehow explain the “omission”.
Anna Skorokhod, who was offended by the head of the faction for excluding her from the Servants, even said: “Please forbid him to appear and comment on anything. Because if he says the nonsense he says, then no one knows how to deal with it.”
Thus, while in Davos, Arakhamia said: Ukraine should stop synchronizing its laws with the EU. He then excused himself with “translation difficulties” from English and stated that “my position is to support European integration, and I have always declared this.”
When asked why the two button-pushers Serhiy Lytvynenko and Olena Kopanchuk were not deprived of their mandates, Arakhamia replied that it was… unprofitable: “You will be poured with urine for a week for this button-pushing, but in return the party will have two votes and will implement a program of important reforms for the state. Or kick them out, but then get those two missing votes ten times over. I don’t want to expel people anymore because we will lose votes. Then we’ll have to look for them in other factions, and it’s not for nothing, they demand a lot.”
On February 11, the head of the Servant of the People parliamentary faction, David Arakhamia, said on a Ukrainian TV channel that he would agree to a compromise on water supplies to occupied Crimea.
“If we supply water to Crimea, but have a big advantage in the negotiations on Donbas — my personal position — I would consider this a sufficient compromise. I would do this because Ukrainian citizens will use the water in Crimea. If it is an exchange, that they withdraw to Rostov, we establish control over the border, I would do it,” the politician said.
He then justified that his words were “taken out of context,” but at the same time apologized and explained: “Our position has been and remains unchanged — the Autonomous Republic of Crimea is an illegally annexed part of Ukraine, and we will seek to restore sovereignty over it by all legal means,” Arakhamia emphasized.
He also does not see anything unethical in the behavior of the head of the customs office, Nefyodov: “You know, everything that happened in Vegas stays in Vegas. Am I a prude or what? I am in favor of legalizing it all. Nefyodov is a young guy, and what he was doing in that club is his personal situation with his wife.”
In October 2019, the company “Teplopostachservis” appealed to the Zavodskyi District Court of Mykolaiv, demanding that David Arakhamia pay off the debt (4 thousand UAH) for heating.
In November 2019, the media reported that Arakhamia was a US citizen, as stated by former MP Ihor Mosiychuk.
Arakhamia himself commented on this information as follows:
“He complains to his friends that he only has 100 likes on Facebook. I don’t want to make a star out of him. He has 100 likes. I feel sorry for the man. He left politics, no one notices him, no one likes him. Now he wants some kind of scandal… Arahamiyagate. Let’s call it Arahamiyagate,” the MP said.
In December 2019, MP Anna Skorokhod filed a lawsuit against Arakhamia. She claimed that she had been illegally expelled from the Servant of the People party. The case on protection and honor is being considered at the place of residence of the head of the faction — in one of the district courts of Mykolaiv.
At the end of 2019, the Dark Knight Telegram channel published documents according to which Arakhamia founded an offshore company JETIMPEX INC.
The Dark Knight Telegram channel published interesting information about the “servant of the people”. According to the author, the chain of illegal activities of the head of the faction, David Arakhamia, dates back to 2002.
“In 2002, in the United States, a man named David Braun founded Artvertex, a company that sells website templates,” the post says.
The author of the post calls the organization a “scam” because the company has only one star rating, which is the lowest rating. Clients even threatened to complain to the prosecutor’s office. Allegedly, this is why the company was sold.
The head of the Servant of the People faction, David Arakhamia, is called one of the key lobbyists for the draft law on gambling regulation, along with some Russians.
“On September 2, President Zelenskyy appointed those responsible for preparing and submitting to the parliament the draft laws on gambling legalization — Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, Finance Minister Oksana Markarova, Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Dmytro Razumkov, and head of the Servant of the People faction David Arakhamia. Arakhamia was named in the media as one of the lobbyists of the current gambling regulation bill. In particular, there was information that Arakhamia’s draft law was written for two market participants — Parimatch and Favorit betting companies, the article says.
The Schemes program pointed to regular meetings between the head of the Servant of the People faction and the owner and CEO of Parimatch, Serhiy Portnov:
“The media reported that since July 2019, Arakhamia has been regularly visiting the Parimatch headquarters. In addition, Arakhamia has a friend, Andriy Astapov, the owner of the law firm Eterna Law, who also worked with Parimatch as a lawyer and was directly involved in writing the text of the government’s bill. Arakhamia admitted this himself when talking to journalists.”
In an interview with Vector Media, Arakhamia openly offered to sell Ukraine and asked for a million dollars to multiply this amount during this large-scale scam.
“I would like to be a sales manager for Ukraine for foreign investors. If the new government is inclined to experiment, I want to make a public challenge: I need $1 million and one year. I will travel to world exhibitions with an authorized representative’s crust and a passport of investment opportunities. I will find people to whom I will sell the idea of Ukraine as a country where any business idea can be realized. I will succeed, I am sure. If I don’t make $10 million out of $1 million in a year, you can kick me out in disgrace,” Arakhamia said.
The other day he tried to promote another crazy scam to allegedly establish peace in Donbas. Arakhamia advises to give the “gray zone” to large foreign companies. According to his project, companies from the United States, France, China, and Germany should appear in the gray zone, and big business will allegedly find a way to end the war. Which managers of large companies from China and Germany, in their right mind, would want to open their business between two fires, or rather between two lines of trenches in destroyed villages and minefields? The volunteer blogger and army supplier who writes under the pseudonym David Brown generally has the psychology of a common “huckster” ready to sell whatever he is talking about. “I don’t care what I’m selling, even if it’s minerals. I’m sure I can sell anything. Even if I don’t understand anything about it,” Arakhamia says of himself.
Talking about his qualities as a leader, he is also quite self-critical, emphasizing that he can only describe his projects in general terms, but he has difficulty with real steps. “I am a messy person. I can show you where the team should go, visualize the future, but I can’t describe specific steps. In addition, I cannot guarantee that the path I propose is the shortest or most effective,” Arakhamia says frankly about himself. His colleague, MP Oleksandr Dubinsky, also draws attention to the same trait. “Arakhamia thinks he knows everything and talks about everything, without understanding or understanding anything,” says Dubinsky.
And this man will be the head of the main parliamentary faction of the Verkhovna Rada.
As a person, he seems to be quite petty and vindictive. Talking about his business rules, he says that he doesn’t let anyone off the hook, and he is ready to smear a dent and even hang an offender. He calls it a “working strategy.”
“Six months ago, I bought firewood on OLX, and I was cheated. It was only $50, but I decided to spend another $500 to find the fraudster by her card number, come to her house, shake out all the information and find her accomplices in the 72nd colony. The woman who deceived me could not even imagine that someone would come to her for a thousand hryvnias. But I restored justice, because I don’t like to look like a sucker,” Arakhamia, a dollar millionaire, recalls his pettiness.
He still recalls that once his microphone was stolen, and he managed to get the police to find the thief by conducting his own investigation. He boasts that he was the second seller in the world to accept bitcoins, but then allegedly lost the laptop on which he mined them. “I was the second seller in the world to accept bitcoins. I got a call from a friend in Los Angeles saying, ‘There’s this f…k thing called bitcoins, start accepting them. And we started accepting them in the company. When I learned in the news that they cost 20 thousand dollars each, I started to remember that I had them somewhere. I started looking, and it turned out that I had changed my Macbook,” recalls Arakhamia, who has since been happy about the fall in the bitcoin exchange rate, which reduces the amount of money he lost. Now, he says, he earns about $15,000 a month. Although, as he says, $8,000 would be enough for his personal needs, he says he has a large family.
At the same time, he boasts that he has a collection of expensive branded clothes at home that he will never wear, but buys only because they are expensive.
“I have a collection of stupid clothes at home: things I will never wear, but I keep them just because they are expensive. I bought all these clothes when I first got a lot of money,” says the presumptive head of the Servant of the People faction.
Criminal record
In 2016, former MP Ivan Vynnyk accused volunteer Arakhamia of allegedly trying to steal 132 million hryvnias from fuel purchases for the Ministry of Defense. The MP went to court to refute this information.
In March 2020, the Podilskyi District Court of Kyiv dismissed Arakhamia’s claim.
Income.
The website declarations.com.ua does not have David Brown’s declaration.
In addition to two international platforms — website builders (Template Monster, “registered” in New York, and Weblium, headquartered in London), Arakhamia founded the following Ukrainian companies and organizations: MBA-Center LLC, Ukrainian Export and Investment Agency LLC, and the International Center for Security and Defense Strategies NGO.
He claims that he sold his stake in Template Monster several years ago.
At the same time, Konstantin Ksenzhyk, a contract lawyer at People’s Project, is, by a strange coincidence, also a lawyer at Template Monster Ukraine.
What about the declaration filed on December 28, 2019? According to an interview with Strana.UA, Arakhamia spends 7-8 thousand dollars a month: “As before, but without gasoline, because I have a driver.”
“I give my MP’s salary to charity. I live on my savings. Look at my declaration. I sold my company for $100 million, and my share was about 25%,” Arakhamia said in a recent interview.
At the same time, he did not indicate ANYTHING in his declaration, except for the income from the sale of movable property in the amount of 870 thousand hryvnias. No real estate, no cars, no bank accounts, no cash was declared. Neither he nor his family has any.
Last year, Arakhamia’s salary amounted to UAH 157.3 thousand, income from entrepreneurial activity — UAH 4.7 million, income from the alienation of movable property — UAH 870 thousand, interest — UAH 9.1 thousand, material benefit for payment of expenses for participation in training — UAH 22.3 thousand, income from the alienation of real estate — UAH 3.3 million, income from the provision of property for rent — UAH 18.2 thousand.
In addition, the MP had UAH 300.3 thousand and USD 26.4 thousand in his bank accounts. He kept significant amounts in cash: UAH 8 million, USD 900 thousand and EUR 200 thousand. Arakhamia lent UAH 698 thousand to third parties. He owned three wristwatches (Breguet, Rolex, Breitling) as valuable property.
As of last year, Arakhamia also owned 4 land plots and a country house in Kyiv region, two apartments and 3 non-residential premises.
The MP’s family members (he has a wife, Victoria, and six children) own a land plot, 4 apartments, and a house. Mr. Arakhamia does not own a car, while his wife used to drive a Mersedes-Benz.
Passers-by filmed David Arakhamia’s car parked on a pedestrian crossing.
Viktoriia Arakhamia has three sets of jewelry (rings, earrings, pendants, bracelets) and three wristwatches declared on her person. The family members’ income in 2019 amounted to UAH 1.3 million from the alienation of movable property, UAH 2.3 thousand in childbirth benefits, UAH 24.1 thousand in social fund payments, and UAH 99.8 thousand in income from renting property. She had only UAH 8, USD 9 and EUR 2 in her bank accounts.
Victoria Arakhamia owns shares in Global Bay Venture Limited, registered in the Seychelles.
According to her electronic declaration, Arakhamia owns 4 land plots of 900, 241, 36, and 9 square meters.
The politician also owns a 295.7-square-meter garden house in the village of Vita-Poshtova, Kyiv region, and an apartment in Kyiv (70.5 square meters).
Meanwhile, Arakhamia’s wife owns a 720-square-meter plot of land in Bryukhovychi, Lviv region, as well as three apartments in Kyiv — 52.2, 50.5 and 50.2 square meters.
Viktoriia Arakhamia also owns a 58.6-square-meter house in the village of Novopetrivske, Novodesskiy district, Mykolaiv region.
For his part, the Arakhamia couple’s son David owns a 153.2-square-meter apartment in Mykolaiv.
David Arakhamia also listed 2 non-residential premises in Mykolaiv, the right to use an apartment in Mykolaiv, and a sublease of a non-residential premises in Kyiv as jointly owned.
The main question is whether a director of an IT company and a representative of the Servant of the People party can acquire so much property and real estate through honest means. It is unlikely. Moreover, he talks about himself as if his priorities are money, the ability to sell, and the country is not important to him.
Connections
Summary
David Arakhamia is a petty, greedy and vindictive man, and a pathetic huckster. He does not hide this, and is ready to sell anything, even his own country, and is clearly delighted with his “talents.” It’s very sad to see such people in the Verkhovna Rada, because in addition to selling his country, he will also rob it before doing so, which is what he is doing now.