The new Head of the Odessa Regional State Administration is Sergey Grinevetsky, who already held this post 15 years ago. The decree of appointment was signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Sergey Grinevetsky is 63 years old. He was born in the village of Luzhanka, Tarutinsky District, and studied to be a mechanical engineer at the Odessa Institute of Food and Refrigeration Industry (the today's Food Academy) and at the Kiev Agricultural Academy.
Sergey Grinevetsky worked in his specialty just for a few years and then went along the Komsomol and Party lines. He held leading positions in the Razdelnyanskiy district committee and the Odessa regional committee of the Komsomol, and in 1990 became the Head of the district committee of the Communist Party in Razdelnaya. Because of this, the politician fell under the lustration law. However, in November 2020, the Court declared Grinevetsky's lustration illegal.
By his own admission, after the collapse of the USSR and the prohibition of the Communist Party, Grinevetsky tried to get a job at the Odessa factories, but he was refused everywhere, just because of his party past. Then he went into business, and in 1992 he headed the company "Odessa-Impex".
However, his entrepreneurial activity did not last long: already in 1994, Grinevetsky moved to work in the Secretariat of the Odessa Regional Council. For the second time, he worked in a private company in 2005-2007, with the position of director of one of the departments of the Khlebnaya Gavan trading house. The ultimate beneficiary of this company is the younger brother of Sergey Grinevetsky, Valery.
From 1994 to 1998, Sergey Grinevetsky held leading positions in the Odessa Regional Council and the Regional State Administration, and in 1998 he was appointed Head of the Regional State Administration. He headed the region until 2005, after which he was the Chairman of the regional council for several months. In November 2004, being the Head of the Regional State Administration, Grinevetsky took part in the congress of local deputies in Severodonetsk, which was held by opponents of Viktor Yushchenko. Because of this, he was summoned 6 times for interrogation to the Prosecutor General's Office, as a witness.
Sergey Grinevetsky was elected a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada three times: in 1998 from the People's Democratic Party, and in 2007 and 2012 from the People's Party. In the Verkhovna Rada of the 7th convocation, he joined the faction of the Party of Regions, which he left after Euromaidan. In 2020, Grinevetsky was elected to the Odessa City Council from the Trust Deeds party. At the same time, he is still the Head of the Odessa organization of the People's Party.
Sergey Grinevetskiy is a co-author of several books on the geopolitics of the Black Sea region, as well as two encyclopedic dictionaries: "Black Sea Encyclopedia" and "Danube Encyclopedia". And in 2002 he even received a patent for an invention: a gas heating module.
Sergey Grinevetskiy loves to solve crosswords, relax on the Danube and collect cars with his own hands. He himself assembled 6 of them, mostly old Soviet models. He is also fond of card games and handball: Grinevetsky is the Head of the regional federation of this sport.
According to the declaration, last year Sergey Grinevetsky and his wife Olga received almost UAH 230 thousand of income (this is the pension of both spouses and Olga's salary). At the same time, the family's savings are much higher, about 1.4 million UAH, 180 thousand dollars and almost 5 thousand euros. The Grinevetsky family also have a house in Odessa with an area of ​​835.7 sq.m, a house in Razdelnaya, two plots of land, some expensive watches and jewelry, furniture sets and two valuable icons: "The Lord Almighty" and "Holy Queen Elena".
