Alfred Koch
Russian writer, mathematician-economist, and businessman
Alfred Reingoldovich Koch (Kokh) (Russian: Альфред Рейнгольдович Кох, German: Alfred Reingoldowitsch Koch, born 28 February 1961) is a Russian writer, mathematician-economist, businessman, and former statesman. From 12 September 1996 to 13 August 1997 and from 17 March 1997 to 13 August 1997, he was the head of the State Committee for State Property Management (now Federal Agency for State Property Management) and a deputy prime minister under Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, respectively.
Education and early life
He was born in Zyryanovsk, East Kazakhstan Region in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic to an ethnically German father, Reingold Davydovich Koch, who had been deported to Kazakhstan in 1941 under Stalin's wartime policies targeting ethnic Germans, and an ethnic Russian mother. At the age of eight, Koch moved with his parents to Tolyatti, where his father found work at the Volzhsky Automobile Plant then under construction, becoming the head of the department of related industries. He graduated from the Leningrad Financial-Economic Institute (now Saint Petersburg State University of Economics) in 1983 with a degree in economic cybernetics.
Career
He served as a deputy prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin and was an ally of economic reformer Anatoly Chubais, a chief architect of Russia's privatization. On 12 September 1996, Koch was appointed head of Russia's State Property Committee, acting as Russia's privatization chief. He left the position on 13 August 1997, after the privatization auctions (loans-for-shares).
In June 2000, Koch became head of Gazprom-Media, a subsidiary media holding of Gazprom (now a subsidiary holding of Gazprombank). He oversaw the gas giant's controversial takeover of NTV, an independent television company owned by Vladimir Gusinsky, on which he hosted the game show Алчность, the Russian version of Greed.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Alfred Koch” is russian writer, mathematician-economist, and businessman. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Alfred, Koch and Russian, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “russian writer, mathematician-economist, and businessman” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q456123. VIAF identifies the subject as 71338787. The Library of Congress control number is nr2004002381. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961, 1996, 1997 and 1941.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Alfred Koch”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Alfred Koch primary sources, Alfred Koch archive and Alfred research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Alfred Koch”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Alfred Koch” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.