Pavel Grudinin

He is married with two adult sons–Artyom and Anton (who handles real estate leasing for Lenin State).

Although he initially denied that he or his family owned any real estate in Spain, eventually he admitted that he “could not control his children” and that his children were “associated” with the property.

Pavel Nikolayevich Grudinin was born on October 20, 1960, in Moscow, then part of the Soviet Union, to Nikolai Konstantinovich Grudinin and Serafima Zinovievna Grudinina (née Pishchik). His parents met while studying at Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy.

Pavel’s interest in agriculture go back several generations– his parents were also agricultural workers who were sent in 1961 to Leninsky District in Moscow Oblast to work at the Lenin Sovkhoz (or state farm). Grudinin has since claimed that his entire immediate and extended family worked on the same farm and that his forebears had spent 250 years on that property.

Grudinin’s paternal grandparents as well as his father grew up in the Vogolda Governate. His maternal grandfather was Jewish and had moved from the Volgograd Governate to Leningrad where he married a woman of Russian ethnicity. He was a war hero who had served as a tank commander during the Great Patriotic War (part of Russia’s battle on the Eastern Front during World War II) before being declared missing in action in 1944.

After completing high school in 1977, Grudinin decided to pursue mechanical engineering at Moscow State Agroengineering University. He completed his degree in 1982, and started working at Lenin Sovkhoz with his family.

Grudinin was appointed head of the mechanical workshop at Lenin Sovkhoz in 1982 and remained in this position until 1989.

In 1990, he was promoted to the position of deputy director, a position he retained until the company’s management structure changed in 1995. Under the newly formed private company, ‘ZAO Lenin State Farm,’ he became the general director and was given control of a blocking stake. The remaining shares belong to members of the labor collective. Under his leadership, the farm has continued to produce fruits and vegetables, primarily strawberries, and plans to expand into cheese manufacture in near future. The corporation also makes some income from leasing its large tracts of land out to shopping malls and other commercial developers– the money earned is then reinvested into the farm’s facilities.

Grudinin first ventured into politics in 1997, when he was elected deputy of the Moscow Oblast Duma. He was successfully reelected three times, eventually serving until 2011, when he chose to leave following a media scandal about an allegedly nationalist statement. Although he successfully sued to prove that his words had been distorted, his political image suffered.

In 2001, he obtained a degree in jurisprudence from the Russian Academy of Public Administration under the aegis of the President of the Russia Federation.

Grudinin was originally a member of United Russia (the current ruling party), but he has since moved further left and now espouses socialism. At the time of being selected as Communist nominee, he had not declared himself a member of the party.

After the probe into his foreign assets, the election commission (CEC) decided not to expel him from the race (as had been previously considered).