Vladimir Alexandrovich Zelensky is the President of Ukraine, a famous showman, actor, screenwriter, and head of many projects, including Kvartal 95. What is hidden in the biography of the versatile personality of Vladimir Zelensky? The path to success, career, personal life, political ambitions, and interesting facts of Vladimir Zelensky is in our material!
Vladimir Zelensky – a brief reference
Name: Vladimir Zelensky
Date of birth: January 25, 1978 (age 40)
Zodiac sign: Aquarius
Place of birth: Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine
Activities: President of Ukraine, actor, screenwriter, TV presenter, humorist, politician
Marital status: married
Height: 170
The number of projects created by Vladimir Zelensky, and those in which he took part, is amazing. “Kvartal 95”, “Evening Quarter”, “League of Laughter”, “Destroyed in Ukraine”, “Make the Comedian Laugh” – all of them have become one of the most popular TV projects in Ukraine! But, besides them, he manages to act in many famous films, serials, and many even produce.
On New Year’s Eve, Vladimir Zelensky surprised the whole of Ukraine. Before the whole country, he announced that he would participate in the elections!
Back in the fall of 2018, it became obvious that Vladimir Zelensky was going to go into politics.
On April 21, the second round of the presidential elections took place. According to the exit polls, showman Vladimir Zelensky wins a landslide victory.
Volodymyr Zelensky has achieved great success in show business and won the love and trust of Ukrainians across the people.
But how did he do all this? Did he honestly achieve his goals thanks to perseverance, hard work and boundless talent, or did money and connections help him?
To find out, you need to study the biography of Vladimir Zelensky and trace his entire life path!
Childhood and youth of Vladimir Zelensky
Since childhood, little Vova has been distinguished by his activity and curiosity. He delighted family and friends with interesting stories, memorable jokes, and performances.
The future artist was born in the city of Kryvyi Rih on January 25, 1978. From the age of six, he lived with his parents in Mongolia, in the city of Erdenet – his father was sent there on a business trip. In Mongolia, he studied until the 4th grade of school.
Little Vova spoke Mongolian well, but when the family returned to Kryvyi Rih, he began to forget it, having no practice.
Upon returning to Ukraine, Volodya, in addition to school lessons, went in for sports and was fond of the theater. Zelensky dreamed of becoming a border guard as a child, but when he matured, he realized that he wanted to be a translator and diplomat.
Vladimir Zelensky’s mother says that her son was a very talented child who constantly took his friends home, they played the guitar together, composed something, and later wrote scripts for future performances.
Creativity: Vladimir Zelensky and KVN
Parents and teachers at school recall that Vladimir has always been an activist. He was not only the head of the class, but also went in for sports, dances, played amateur performances, became interested in KVN. He graduated from school in 1995, almost an excellent student!
Then he becomes a student of the Kryvyi Rih branch of the Kyiv Economic University. Upon graduation, Volodya received a law degree, but he did not work a day in his specialty.
Creative inclinations were noticed almost immediately. Vova was invited as a director of dance numbers in Zaporizhzhia-Kryvyi Rih-Transit, a KVN team that was very popular at that time. And very soon, Zelensky not only danced but also appeared in the rooms.
And already in 1997, Vladimir, together with several people from KVN, created his own team and gave it the name “95 Quarter”. In addition to acting as team captain, he wrote the scripts for most of the numbers on his own.
2 years passed and the Major League of KVN invited a talented and promising team to their place. What is not a performance is a full house. The audience and the jury always highly appreciated their performances. Then the team began to give concerts throughout the CIS and became popular.
But Vova decided not to stop there. In parallel with this, he wrote scripts for concerts and corporate events.
In 2003, a conflict situation arose between the team and the AMiK company, as a result of which the guys left KVN.
Then Vladimir Zelensky was offered to stay in KVN, to be an author and editor, but without a team. Zelensky refused such an offer and left KVN with his team.
Kvartal-95 and other successful projects
They immediately became interested in many Ukrainian TV channels. At the end of 2003, the 1 + 1 channel offered the 95th quarter to make a whole program, which would include the best numbers. This is how the KVN team was transformed into the Kvartal-95 studio, headed by Vladimir Zelensky.
Over time, the studio began to release several more projects in parallel, and among the most popular are “Evening Quarter”, “Fight Club”, “Ukraine, Get Up”.
In addition, the talented Vladimir managed to write scripts not only for his offspring but also for musicals and TV shows.
Interest in Vladimir Zelensky was growing rapidly! He is increasingly invited to become a member of various television projects and shows.
In 2006, he appeared in the dance project “Dancing with the Stars”, and was paired with Alena Shoptenko. As a result, the couple won the show by audience vote.
Further, Vladimir Zelensky, paired with Ruslana Pysanka, becomes the host of the TV show “Service Romance”, which was broadcast by the Interchannel.
In 2010, the comic show Laugh the Comedian was launched and Vladimir Zelensky became one of the hosts along with Dmitry Shepelev.
On the same channel, he hosted the show “Hot Chair”.
A year passes, and Zelensky becomes the co-host of Philip Kirkorov in the Russian TV show Factor A.
From 2010 to 2012, the comedian was the general producer of the Inter TV channel.
The year 2013 was remembered by the showman for the new musical show “I Want V VIA Gru”, where he was the host.
Two years pass, and on the basis of the 95 Kvartal studio, the humorous project League of Laughter is launched, where teams compete with each other under the guidance of mentors. In the same place, Vladimir becomes the leader.
Among the trainers in the project participated: Potap, Elena Kravets, Nadya Dorofeeva, Anton Lirnik, Vlad Yama, Igor Lastochkin and others.
“Just making money is boring. I have had periods in my life when I could do that. I had a position in which at some point I could choose the financial option. Moreover, I would remain in the profession, but still I would have to give up what I am doing now. And I chose the second. Lawless Heart.”
Films and series with the participation of Vladimir Zelensky
Vladimir began to expand his boundaries and tried himself in the cinema!
As it turned out, he is not only an amazing comedian and TV presenter but also an excellent film actor, who has about 17 films and musicals to his credit.
His debut took place in the comedy Love in the City, where Vera Brezhneva, Ville Haapasalo, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Alexei Chadov, and other celebrities also starred.
The viewers of Ukraine and Russia highly appreciated the picture, and therefore the 2nd part was removed, and then the 3rd.
However, not all paintings with the participation of Zelensky were a dizzying success. So, films were released next: “Office romance. Our time” and “Rzhevsky against Napoleon” – they succumbed to harsh criticism.
According to Forbes in 2012, Vladimir Zelensky’s profit was $ 2 million.
The entire Kvartal 95 team took 2nd place in the ranking of the 25 most wealthy media projects and show business stars in Ukraine.
The artists lost only to Vladimir Klitschko, but at the same time, they were able to bypass Ani Lorak, Potap and Nastya, and the ViaGra group in terms of annual income.
Despite the negative reviews of films, Vladimir Zelensky continued to play in films and in 2014 played in the romantic comedy 8 First Dates.
This movie was liked by the majority because it is light, kind, and cheerful.
In 2018, Vladimir tried himself as a director. In collaboration with David Dodson, he participated in the creation of the painting “I, You, He, She.” He became the producer of the project and the lead actor!
The series “Servant of the People” and “Matchmakers”
In 2015, the Kvartal-95 studio released a new series in the genre of political comedy, where almost all famous politicians were subjected to sharp satire. Vladimir Zelensky played the President of Ukraine in this series. Note that the public liked the series so much that in 2016 a sequel was released.
Thanks to this project, Volodymyr Zelensky became associated as a political figure among some Ukrainian voters.
Another no less successful and popular project of Vladimir Zelensky is the family comedy series “Matchmakers”.
The producer and his studio presented the audience with 6 seasons and the musical “New Year’s Matchmakers”.
This series was watched not only throughout Ukraine but also in Russia until Goskino banned it from filming.
The fact is that this series became banned on the territory of Ukraine, and Fedor Dobronravov, who played one of the main roles, was banned from entering the country for 3 years.
Vladimir had to interrupt the shooting of the next season of the sitcom and he expressed his opinion on this matter. He recorded an angry message to politicians!
3 months pass and the lead actor confirms that the shooting of “Matchmakers” will continue!
Vladimir Zelensky is a politician. President of Ukraine
The fact that showman and producer Vladimir Zelensky could be a candidate for the presidency of Ukraine began to be discussed at the end of 2016 when the comedy film Servant of the People 2 was released.
In his New Year’s address on the occasion of the upcoming 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he was going to the presidency of Ukraine!
Even then, opinion polls were conducted and it was clear that Vladimir Zelensky was in the top three in the presidential race, along with Yulia Tymoshenko and Petro Poroshenko.
Quotes from an interview with Dmitry Gordon began to scatter all over the Internet!
The showman gave a long, three-hour interview to a Ukrainian journalist, and now he is being actively discussed on the net! In it, Zelensky talked about himself as a presidential candidate.
In December 2017, Zelensky’s business partner Ivan Bakanov registered the Servant of the People party. A year before the elections, the showman began to actively consult with political strategists.
After some time, Zelensky’s successes began to grow rapidly. Even in the first round of elections, Zelensky became the leader, and in the second round, he won a landslide victory and became the president of Ukraine, gaining significantly more votes than Petro Poroshenko.
“In the post-Maidan society, there was a demand for people not from politics, such as Zelensky and Vakarchuk,”
– political scientist Vladimir Fesenko commented on the sudden rise of the showman to NV.
Prior to this, during the three weeks of the decisive vote, two candidates, Poroshenko and Zelensky, held debates, took tests and brought down a flurry of criticism at each other.
But on April 21 everything was decided! According to the national exit poll, Zelensky won.
Statistics say that he was supported by three-quarters of voters (73%), while Poroshenko was supported by only a quarter (25.5%).
Growth of Vladimir Zelensky
There are legends about the growth of Vladimir Zelensky! Some online publications write that his height is 166 cm, but Zelensky himself denied this information and answered in an interview with Gordon that his height is 170 cm.
“I’ll ask you not to take my 4 centimeters. My height is 170″
Personal life of Vladimir Zelensky
The showman is married to Elena Kiyashko, whom he met about 7 years before the wedding. They studied in parallel classes at school.
The acquaintance itself began when Zelensky was a freshman. He saw his future wife on the street and thought for a long time about how to approach and start a conversation.
He noticed she was holding a cassette of the film “Basic Instinct”, plucked up courage, and asked to see it. Within a couple of minutes, the coveted phone number was in his hands. As Elena now admits, he conquered her with his decency, sense of humor, and intelligence.
And very soon, Elena plunged into the world of her lover – the Kvnschik.
“It happened after the movie, at the exit of the cinema in Kryvyi Rih. At that time, we had already met for seven years. I clearly remember the feeling that we both really want children already. I, in fact, voiced this to Lena, and she supported me. And since we were born in Soviet times, when it was believed that it was not good to give birth to a child without being officially married, we decided to get married.
What is most interesting, Elena is one of the authors of the Kvartal 95 studio, despite the fact that she, like her husband, is a lawyer by education.
The couple officially legalized their relationship in 2003. A year later, Zelensky becomes the father of Sasha’s daughter.
“I don’t scatter socks around the house, but I can leave something behind me, or put it in the wrong place. But everyone is condescending to this, they don’t entrust anything serious to me. Everyone understands that I live in completely different thoughts.
Vladimir said earlier.
In 2013, Elena gave her husband a second child, the son of Cyril.
Friends and relatives of the artist noted that Vladimir is an exemplary family man.
According to Zelensky, the most courageous act of any man is responsible for his family.
Volodya often says in his interviews that his family gives him strength and emotional charge! The leader of the Kvartal-95 studio admits that he spoils his daughter and son, trying to compensate for his frequent absence.
In 2012, Zelensky was credited with an affair with Oksana Akinshina. They played together in the series “8 First Dates” and then rumors began to be born that they were dating. However, this has not been confirmed.
In 2017, Zelensky said in an interview:
I, as before, work seven days a week, but I no longer do it for days. I have the second half of life – a family. And even if I don’t devote as much time to her as others do, I try to do it. As before, I sleep five or six hours, it’s just that I don’t give the three hours remaining from sleep to work, but to my family. I used to run, run, run, I was afraid to miss something. Today, I am becoming wiser and running not everywhere and not so fast.
We can conclude that the biography of Vladimir Zelensky is incredibly rich in various events! Now you know what the showman’s path to success was.
