Valērijs Kargins or Valery Mikhailovich Kargin (; born 27 March 1961, in

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

) is a

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

n economist and banker was the president of Parex Banka, from 1998 to 2008. In October 2000, he and Viktor Krasovitsky had accumulated over 200 million lats together. He created the first travel agency and the first currency exchange corporation in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Biography

Kargins was born in

on 27 March 1961. His parents were Mikhail Kargin () b. 1926 in

Novosibirsk Oblast Novosibirsk Oblast () is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast) located in southwestern Siberia. Its administrative center, administrative and economic center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of N ...

) and Dina Grozdeva () b. 15 October 1931 in Tatarsky District,

), who was raised by a Soviet serviceman. After his parents were married in 1951 at

Novosibirsk Novosibirsk is the largest city and administrative centre of Novosibirsk Oblast and the Siberian Federal District in Russia. As of the 2021 Russian census, 2021 census, it had a population of 1,633,595, making it the most populous city in Siber ...

where his father was a senior lieutenant in the Soviet Army, they moved to

. However, he was raised by his stepfather Georgy () whom the young Kargin considered his real father. He has two brothers: Georgy (), who is older, and Vadim ( b. 1969), who is a younger step-brother. He worked at Komutator in Riga for two months as a loader but he did not enjoy physical labor so he enrolled at university to study journalism. In 1983, he finished the faculty of journalism at the University of Latvia. Then, from 1983 to 1991, he opened one of the first travel agencies in the Soviet Union, in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (Latvian SSR). Then, between 1988 and 1992, he became the director of Parex corporation, which is a travel agency and currency exchange that he and his business partner () formed. In 1991, he became the first to create a currency exchange corporation in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The following year, he became the president of Parex Bank. From 1998 to 2008, he was the president and the chairman of Parex Bank. In 2003, he was the richest man in the Baltics with an estimated wealth of around €300 million. In October 2008 before the demise of Parex Bank in November 2008, Kargins wealth was estimated by Baltic Screen to be €309 million (220 million lats).

Personal

Ksenia Sobchak interviewed Kargins in Riga about the time that she and released the perfume ''Married to a Millionaire'' (). He has two sons with Tatyana Kargins from his first marriage which ended in divorce in 2006 and, from his second marriage, a daughter with Anna Barinova.

References

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External links

Parex Group Online

Valery Kargin on Kompromat.lv
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kargins, Valerijs 1961 births Living people Businesspeople from Riga Latvian Jews Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Latvian bankers Latvian economists University of Latvia alumni