Andrei Skoch Vladimirovich

 

Member of parliament on the ballot of the “United Russia” faction in the State Duma during its III (third), IV (forth), V (fifth), VI (sixth), VII (seventh) and VIII (eighth) convocations. In the State Duma of the VIII (eighth) convocation he is a member of the Committee on Parliamentary Controls. The founder and president of the “Generation” (Rus.: “Pokoleniye”) foundation (established in 1996). He holds a Ph.D. in Pedagogical Sciences.

 

A biography

Andrey Skoch was born in Moscow Oblast (Nikolskoye village) on 30 January 1966. He grew up in a working-class family: his father, Vladimir Nikitovich, laboured as a stoker on the railway and later as an engine-driver’s assistant until, in the 1960s, he started working at the “Salyut” Machine Building Enterprise in Moscow.

In 1984 Andrey Vladimirovich Skoch was drafted to the army: he served as a paratrooper in the reconnaissance division.

He gained a university degree at the Sholokhov State Open Pedagogical University in Moscow, from which he graduated in 1998 as a “Social Educator and Applied Psychologist”. He subsequently went on to study at postgraduate level.

In 2000 he defended his PhD thesis in Pedagogy on the topic of “Charitable activities in Russia as a means of social protection of childhood”.

He started his business career towards the end of the 1980s. He co-founded his first company – a baking cooperative – in partnership with his army comrade Lev Kvetnoy. Their next business partnership was a firm specializing in assembly and sales of computers. Next, as business capitalists, they set up a company dealing with the refinement and sale of oil products distributed through a network of their own filling stations.

In 1995 Andrei Skoch and Kvetnoy invested in “Interfin”, a business project of Alisher Usmanov’s. During the first stages of its development the enterprise operated in the financial markets, thereafter its activities diversified: “Interfin” replenished its assets with metallurgical enterprises. Among them were the Oskol Electrometallurgical and Lebedinsky Ore Mining and Processing Plants located in Belgorod Oblast. “Interfin” restructured and became “Metalloinvest”. Andrey Skoch became Deputy Director General of Lebedinsky Ore Mining and Processing Plant.

In December 1999 Andrey Vladimirovich was elected to the State Duma (the lower chamber of parliament) of the Russian Federation in Novy Oskol single member constituency (with a 54% majority). He transferred his business assets to his father and has not been engaged in entrepreneurship since then.

Legislative work

Andrey Skoch has been an MP in the State Duma of the Russian Federation during six convocations (III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII). He represents Belgorod Oblast (region).

During his years of office in this capacity he has participated in the drafting of more than 160 legislative acts and amendments to them. Among them were bills concerning the following:

• increasing the minimum wage to the minimum subsistence level;
• prolonging the “dacha amnesty”;
• introducing amendments to the bill “On Education” regarding the right of handicapped citizens to additional free-of-charge education in colleges and universities should their condition prevent them from resuming their duties in a previous profession;
• ensuring free access for ambulances to residential houses and other properties;
• support for children who have lost their parents;
• strengthening supervisory regulations over the establishment of new recreational organizations for children.

In 2014 the MP furthermore drafted amendments to the Bill No.43 regulating how the purchase of vitally important medicines is processed. The white paper took citizens’ requests as its starting point.

Acting within the State Duma of the VIII convocation, the Parliamentary Control Committee, of which MP Andrey Skoch is a member (elected in September 2021 for Stary Oskol single member constituency No. 76), verifies proper execution of legislation passed by the lower chamber of the Parliament; the committee also contributes to improving the degree of transparency and openness of the State Duma’s activities. The committee consists of 11 MPs representing three factions.

The MP regularly meets people from his constituency. Annually about one and a half thousand constituents from Belgorod Oblast come to him for help in resolving their personal matters.

The hard work of the member of parliament has repeatedly been acknowledged by certificates of merit and formal commendations signed by the Speaker of the State Duma of the Russian Federation and the President of Russia.

 

Social activities

Andrey Skoch’s life is inextricably linked with charitable activities. In February 1996 he founded “The Healthy Generation” charitable foundation, later renamed “Generation” (Rus.: “Pokoleniye”), under which title it has been active until the present. Andrei Skoch has been the president of the organization since its outset.

During 25 years of active work the foundation has coordinated several thousand charitable projects and initiatives. “Generation” spent more than 15 billion rubles to achieve these goals (as of February 2021). The organization helps children with severe diseases, veterans, large and poor families, and people facing precarious life-circumstances.

The following facilities were built at the expense of the foundation:

• an ophthalmology centre (Stary Oskol);
• a neuro-orthopaedics centre (Belgorod);
• a high-tech medical centre (Belgorod);
• 29 ambulance and child-birth centres in a number of districts of Belgorod Oblast;
• a minimally invasive surgery centre (Stary Oskol);
• Alexandr Nevsky martial arts centre (Stary Oskol);

More than 550 units of high-tech medical equipment and 130 vehicles have been donated by “Pokoleniye” to support state-financed medical establishments. During the last 20 years the foundation has acted as benefactor in supplying more than 2.3 thousand cars, buses and special vehicles: of which 200 were supplied to the schools of the region and 1,115 cars allocated to large families.

Since 2017 Andrey Skoch’s foundation equipped 61 sports playgrounds in various municipalities in Belgorod Oblast (25 of them in 2021).

In Belgorod Oblast alone, 247 monuments were restored as part of a project for the restoration of monuments in honour of the fallen in World War II. Funds of the foundation were also used in the financing of reconstruction of an obelisk to Russian and Soviet soldiers in Port-Arthur (Lüyshun, the PRC).

In Belgorod Oblast there are also active educational projects such as “Andrey Skoch’s Knowledge Fund” and “The New Generation”, a youth leadership camp.

 

Awards

• medal “Order for the Merits to the Fatherland” of the II degree (for the work in the sphere of social rehabilitation of the disabled, protection of their rights and interests, 1998);
• medal “Order for the Merits to the Fatherland” of the I degree (for multiple years of successful and conscientious work, 2003);
• medal “For the service to the Belgorod Land” of the I degree (for charitable activities and contribution to the development of the region, 2003);
• the order of Merit issued by the State Duma (for contribution to the development of the legislation of the Russian Federation, 2008);
• medal awarded by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation “For merits in the perpetuation of the memory of the fallen defenders of the Fatherland” (2008);
• commendation from the President of the Russian Federation (for legislative and charitable activities, 2009);
• the Order of Honour (for the large contribution to perpetuation of the memory of the Russian and Soviet soldiers fallen on the territory of the PRC – rebuilding and reconstruction of the obelisk to Russian and Soviet soldiers in Port-Arthur, 2010);
• a commendation from the Speaker of the State Duma (for legislative activities, 2014);
• the order of Alexandr Nevsky (a list with restricted access, 2015).