Early Life
Viktor Yanukovych was born in the village of Zhukovka near Yenakiieve in Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union. He had a very hard childhood, on which he commented by saying: "My childhood was difficult and hungry. I grew up without my mother who died when I was two. I went around bare-footed on the streets. I had to fight for myself every day." Yanukovych is not ethnically Ukrainian, but rather of Russian, Polish, and Belarusian descent. Yanukovych is a surname of Belarusian origin (Belarusian name Yanuk is a derivative of the Catholic name Yan (“John”). A Crimean newspaper claimed, in November 2011, his surname was a derivative of the Tatar name Yanhilde. His mother was a Russian nurse, who died when Yanukovych was two years old, and his father was a Polish-Belarusian locomotive driver, originally from Yanuki, Vitsebsk Voblast. By the time he was a teenager, Yanukovych had lost both his parents and was brought up by his Polish paternal grandmother, originally from Warsaw. His grandfather and great-grandparents were Lithuanian-Poles. Yanukovych has half-sisters from his father's remarriage, but he has no contact with them.
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)