Boris Zimin

Boris Dmitrievich Zimin (Russian: Борис Дмитриевич Зимин; born November 24, 1968) is a Russian businessman and public figure, philanthropist, motor sportsman. The son of Dmitry Zimin, (1933-2021), the founder of VimpelCom company (brand name Beeline). Boris Zimin is involved with the Zimin Foundation, which finances and supports non-profit educational projects in the field of education, protection of human rights and freedom of speech, as well as scientific research in the field of natural sciences (mathematics, biology and medicine).

Born on November 24, 1968, in Moscow to parents Dmitry Borisovich Zimin, head of the laboratory at the Radio Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Maya Pavlovna Zimina (née Shakhmatova, born 1936), an archaeologist. Graduated from the Higher School of Economics. Served in the Soviet Armed Forces from 1987 to 1989, carrying out most of his service in Kazakhstan.

In 2002, Boris Zimin became president of the investment company BMT Management, which manages his father's funds.

Boris Zimin has seven children. His first wife is Lyudmila Zakharova (1992-1997), and his second is Ella Zimina (1997-2009, three children were born in this marriage). He married his third wife, Yulia Prokhorova, in 2012.

Since 2004, Boris Zimin lived in London and later moved to the United States. Since 2020, Boris lives in Israel.

In 2001, Dmitry Zimin created a Dynasty Foundation aimed at supporting and developing Russian education, science and its popularization. The fund’s annual amount was set at $10 million. The son left his business in order to support the sciences alongside his father: first as a member of the Board, and starting in 2004, as Chairman of the Foundation's Board of Trustees. On May 25, 2015, the foundation was declared a "foreign agent" by the Ministry of Justice. In June, Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court fined Dynasty 300,000 rubles for refusing to self-register as a foreign agent. On July 5, Zimin Sr. decided to liquidate Dynasty and close its programs until the end of 2015.

In 2014, during the consideration of the complaint of Boris Zimin, who, due to the restriction imposed by bailiffs, had to postpone a business trip abroad, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation declared the detention of debtors at the border of the Russian Federation illegal.

In early 2014 Boris Zimin became the founder of the Sreda Foundation. Dmitry Zimin's capital was called the source of financing. In the first year, the fund allocated multimillion-dollar funding to independent liberal media: TV channels “Dozhd” and “TV2”, online media Colta.ru and “Mediazona”, the newspapers “Pskov province” and “Free course”, etc. It was assumed that these media outlets would receive support in the same amount in 2015 and 2016. However On July 28, 2015, by decision of the Ministry of Justice the fund was declared a "foreign agent". On July 30, Boris Zimin announced that the Sreda Foundation is closed.