Nikolai Durov is a Russian programmer, mathematician, and Founder of The Open Network (TON). He is the elder brother of Pavel Durov, together with whom he founded the social networking site VK^[2] and later Telegram Messenger^[1], an encrypted messaging application. ^[3]

Early Life & Education

Nikolai Durov is the brother of Pavel Durov and the son of Valery Durov, a Doctor of Philological Sciences and a professor of philology during Nikolai's time at Saint Petersburg State University. ^[3]

He won gold at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) in the 3 years he participated; 1996, 1997, and 1998. He accrued 3 silver medals and 1 gold medal in the International Olympiad in Informatics from 1995 through 1998. He also was a member of the Saint Petersburg State University ACM team, which won the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest in 2000 and 2001. ^[4][5][6][7]

He received his first Ph.D. from Saint Petersburg State University in 2005 with his thesis "New Approach to Arakelov Geometry". Continuing at the University of Bonn, he obtained a second Ph.D. under the supervision of Gerd Faltings with his thesis on singular Arakelov geometry in 2007. ^[3][8][9]

Career

Nikolai Durov is a bi-lingual mathematician and programming specialist with a passion for connecting intelligent technology with opportunity. His companies have products that have a combined reach of over 300 Million (100M Vkontakte & 200M Telegram). He is responsible for programming the infrastructure for those products, representing over $2 billion in assets. ^[3]

He has worked with world-class programmers to create products for the masses and is a senior researcher in the Saint Petersburg Department of V.A. Steklov Institute of Mathematics. He is experienced in independently creating large infrastructures for managing products for the masses, and he has won international gold medals in Olympiads in mathematics. ^[3]

Research

Nikolai Durov introduced commutative algebraic monads as a generalization of local objects in a generalized algebraic geometry. Versions of tropical geometry, absolute geometry over a field with one element, and an algebraic analog of Arakelov geometry were realized in this setup. ^[9]

He holds the position of senior research fellow at the Laboratory of Algebra and Number Theory at the St Petersburg Department of Steklov Institute of Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. ^[10]

Technology

Nikolai Durov was the lead developer of the VK team until 2013. ^[3]

Together with his brother Pavel Durov, Nikolai founded Telegram and developed the MTProto protocol for Telegram in 2013. His contributions to Telegram include the development of the platform's encryption protocols which are central to its appeal as a secure communication tool. ^[1]

Durov is the co-founder of The Open Network (TON) and the author of the original TON whitepaper. ^[11]

Controversy with French Authorities

On August 24, 2024, Nikolai's brother, Pavel Durov was arrested in France upon arrival into the country. The arrest was facilitated by France's National Anti-Fraud Office over various charges tied to alleged illegal conduct by Telegram users that the service reportedly refused to moderate. ^[13]

The French authorities accused Telegram of "almost non-existent cooperation" with law enforcement particularly in cases involving criminal activities such as terrorism, the sale of narcotics and stolen goods, fraud, and more. ^[13]

Nikolai's low profile and the technical nature of his contributions to Telegram make him a less visible target, however, he also has charges against him. ^[13]

The international community, including the United Arab Emirate’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has shown interest and said in a statement that it was “closely following” Pavel Durov’s case and that it had “submitted a request to the French government to provide him with all consular services urgently”, the reason being that Pavel Durov is a citizen of the country. ^[14]

“Caring for citizens, preserving their interests, following up on their affairs, and providing them with all aspects of care are a top priority for the UAE,” the ministry said^[14]