How did Ilya Segalovich die? Segalovich Ilya Valentinovich - biography

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In July 2013, at the age of 48, the Russian programmer and one of the founders suddenly died search engine and the Internet portal “Yandex”. What are the reasons for the death of Ilya Segalovich

Childhood

Ilya Valentinovich Segalovich was born on September 13, 1964 in the city of Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod). His father, Valentin Ilyich, was an outstanding geophysicist who discoveredThe Kazakh SSR has the greatest deposits of chromites, for which he even received the USSR State Prize.

Ilya spent his childhood in Kazakhstan, where, while studying at the Almaty Physics and Mathematics School, he met Arkady Volozh.

Career

Having unsuccessfully passed the exams at Moscow State University, Ilya Valentinovich decided to continue his father’s work and submitted documents to the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute.

After some time, the young man comes to work at the Arcadia company, owned by his old friend Arkady Volozh. From this moment the history of Yandex begins. At first, friends developed electronic directories, after processing and modernization of which a new search system appeared, the name for which Segalovich came up with himself.

The IT company Yandex was launched back in 1996. After the launch, it was Ilya Valentinovich who was involved in improving the search system.

Why did Ilya Valentinovich Segalovich die?

Back in 2012, an outstanding Russian programmer was diagnosed with cancer. Stomach cancer left no hope of salvation, but a miracle happened: the patient’s body was susceptible to chemotherapy drugs and the metastases were eliminated.

A year later, the cancer made itself known again, but this time in the head, which became the cause of Ilya’s death. In this case, the doctors were powerless: on July 25, 2013, brain death was declared and the patient found himself in a coma, from which there could be no safe exit. Doctors artificially supported the body’s vital functions for several days, hoping that the first diagnosis was made incorrectly.

Ilya Segalovich died July 27, 2013 in a London clinic. Death was officially recorded at the moment he was disconnected from life support.

Family

Ilya met his wife, Maria Eliseeva, even before the launch of Yandex in 1993. This woman became a real muse for him. Together with her, Segalovich began his charitable activities by visiting Moscow boarding school No. 103 and the theater studio at this institution.

It was Ilya who gave the name charitable organization his wife “Children of Mary”, in whose activities he also took part active participation. Her foundation supported orphanages in Beslan and Vladikavkaz. During his activities in the charitable field, this man became adoptive father for several boarding school students and a true friend for many other children deprived of parental care. His family raised four children, and children from the boarding school often visited the house.

In addition to collaborating with the Children of Mary organization, Ilya Valentinovich Segalovich was a member of the Council of another foundation, Dynasty, which dealt with the popularization of science in Russia (until 2015). It is this person who is the founder of the information and reference system “National Corpus of the Russian Language”. His love for the Motherland and for life was combined in his activities with a rare perfectionism, which forced him to invest in every direction with maximum impact and endlessly improve the world around him and himself.

When did Ilya Segalovich die? , all the people who knew him personally or through his line of work were in deep shock. This one is gifted in every way outstanding man I burned out from cancer literally before my eyes. After the diagnosis was made, the outcome was obvious, but family and friends hoped until the end for a miracle.

The story of how Ilya Segalovich lived and died is a worthy example for future generations. A man who did not need for anything tried to make the world a better place, every day doing everything possible to help others. His contribution to the future home country— it is difficult to overestimate children and its science.

Ilya Segalovich is a famous domestic programmer, one of the founders of the popular Russian portal Yandex. Also thanks to his idea, the information and reference system “National Corpus of the Russian Language” was born, which allows you to find literary texts, ranging from ancient Slavic chronicles to the works of modern writers. He founded the Yandex company together with his friend Arkady Volozh. At the same time, Segalovich is also known as a person involved in charitable activities. He and his wife regularly took part in organizing events for sick children and orphans.

Programmer biography

Ilya Segalovich was born in 1964. He was born in Nizhny Novgorod (then the city was called Gorky). His father, Valentin Ilyich, instilled in him a thirst for knowledge. He was a well-known geophysicist in the country and received the USSR State Prize. The state noted that he had found the largest chromite deposits in the country, which were located on the territory of the Kazakh SSR.

Ilya Valentinovich Segalovich higher education received from the capital's Geological Exploration Institute, following in his father's footsteps. He graduated from the Faculty of Geophysics. However, he was not destined to find mineral deposits on the territory of the USSR.

While still at university, he became interested in programming, connecting his entire future life with it.

Higher education

Because of his father's work, Segalovich's family often moved from place to place. The future programmer spent most of his childhood in Almaty, not far from the deposits discovered by his father. It was in this city that Ilya Segalovich became friends with Arkady Volozh, with whom he later became a partner, founding one of the most successful companies in the field of information technology.

First successes in the field exact sciences came in 1981, when he won the Union Olympiad for schoolchildren in mathematics. Inspired by his success, Ilya applied to Moscow State University, but he failed to enter one of the most successful universities in the country. As a result, the future creator of Yandex, Ilya Segalovich, went to get a higher education at a geological exploration university. At graduation he received a diploma with honors. Throughout his studies, he did not give up his passion for mathematics. For example, he wrote geophysical systems in one of the first programming languages, Fortran, and continued to successfully participate in subject Olympiads.

Career before working at Yandex

After graduating from university, he began working at the Institute of Mineral Resources as a laboratory assistant. But soon I felt that I was not getting satisfaction from scientific work. He wanted something more.

In 1990, he left for the newly formed Arcadia company. At this time, his longtime friend Volozh was already working there.

The company performed full-text morphological searches. That is, I worked to ensure that the phrases were in worldwide network, taking into account their morphological changes. For example, so that the results for the query “streets of St. Petersburg” include sites on which keywords"St. Petersburg streets"

Gradually, Ilya Segalovich began to progress as a programmer. Became one of the main developers software in the company. I decided to devote more time to optimizing the search engine. This was especially important, especially considering that the search speed at the time was three words per second. In a short period of time, the hero of our article managed to increase the speed to a thousand words per second.

The birth of Yandex

The recent successes achieved by Ilya Valentinovich Segalovich led him to the idea that it was necessary to found his own company. This is how Yandex appeared.

It all started with dictionaries. The first Yandex was engaged in morphological search in various dictionaries. Soon the first commercial product appeared, which was released to the market by Ilya Segalovich (Yandex). It became the "Bible Computer Reference Book".

Volozh, who was the owner of the Arcadia company, began to support Segalovich in every possible way, and soon became his partner. He was involved in finding money and attracting investments; Segalovich had the main burden of generating ideas and bringing them to life.

First orders

The first orders began to arrive quite quickly. The Institute of World Literature ordered a program that could search necessary information based on the works of Pushkin and Griboyedov. Ilya Segalovich took on the implementation of this order. The biography of the programmer, especially at first, was closely connected with literature and dictionaries. Therefore, completing this work was not difficult for him.

Since the mid-90s, the Internet has been new Russia began to spread everywhere. There was a need for a new, proprietary search system. Moreover, it had to be done without being based on the morphology of a closed dictionary. This is how Ilya Segalovich (1964 - 2013) created Yandex. It is based on an “open” dictionary.

Already the first site was similar to the one we have today. In 1997, the search engine website appeared. Artemy Lebedev, who at that time was practically a monopolist in the domestic segment of the Internet, worked on the design.

Yandex takes the lead

In 1997, the main search engine in Russia was Rambler. Its advantage over other similar resources was overwhelming and undeniable. Yandex co-founder Segalovich changed everything. And literally in the next four years.

As experts note, Rambler at that time lost control over its shares, as they ended up in the hands of stock exchange speculators. Meanwhile, Segalovich and Volozh intensively improved search technologies, making algorithms better and better.

Already in 2001, Yandex was ahead of Rambler in terms of traffic. A year later, the project broke even and brought its creators their first profit.

The business model the company uses is simple, and it still works. Yandex makes money by placing contextual ads that appear both in the search itself and on various pages of the site you are visiting.

At the rank of leader

In 2003, Segalovich became Yandex's technology director and also headed a separate development department. A new serious competitor appears on the horizon with which to fight. Rambler is being replaced by Google.

The need to compete with a foreign search engine in the domestic market leads the founders of Yandex to the decision to become a global search engine. At the same time, new services appear - "Yandex. Pictures", "Yandex. Translator", "Yandex. Maps" and others. Over time there are mobile versions sites.

The company is not going to stop there. Segalovich opens his own school of data analysis. The fact is that education is becoming another priority. Especially against the backdrop of an acute shortage of highly qualified specialists.

At the same time, Yandex services are constantly changing, some are closed, others are updated. Segalovich openly talks about unsuccessful examples at seminars that Yandex now organizes annually to attract new employees.

A striking example of failure is the Yandex. Answers service. But a project that is constantly updated is the Narod website builder. In 2000, thousands of web pages appeared on its basis.

In 2011, Yandex finally entered the international level by placing its shares on the American stock exchange.

Charitable activities

Segalovich devoted all his time not only to work. He found time in his busy schedule to do charity work.

His wife Maria Eliseeva, who was an artist, talks about her experience of communicating with clowns from the team of American social activist and doctor Patch Adams, who himself regularly dressed up as a funny jester. Eliseeva once invited them to perform at one of the capital’s boarding schools. This began the spouses' help to poor and disadvantaged children, the sick and those left without parental care. Since then, they have been organizing funny performances themselves, personally dressing up as clowns.

In 1993, Segalovich, an aspiring programmer, and his wife opened an art school for orphans, where they could study absolutely free. Children from disabilities health.

"Mary's Children"

Over time this art school turns into the Children of Mary center. It opens as a creative workshop for children who feel like no one cares about them in this world. It teaches the basics of creativity - sculpting and drawing.

Later, the functions of the center expanded significantly. Psychologists begin to work there, open summer programs to help teenagers. High-profile events are being held that have a public outcry. The most famous event is the "Children of Mary" to the children of Beslan." As part of this event, the center's pupils annually visit a boarding school for children and teenagers located in Beslan, the city in which the incident took place. terrible terrorist attack at school on Knowledge Day.

At the same time, Segalovich and his wife are organizing a real amateur theater. They do productions for the little ones with older children. Since the mid-80s, they have been organizing holidays for children, and later involving them in working in an art studio.

Segalovich is also involved in charity work in the company he co-founded. Together with Yandex volunteers, Segalovich travels to orphanages around different corners Russia. Everywhere they appear with gifts that can please little orphans.

At the same time, the programmer took a tough public position against the so-called Dima Yakovlev law. This decree prohibited Americans from adopting Russian children. Because of this, many disabled children who were previously sent to the USA to foster parents, lost the chance for a decent life.

In his blog on the Ekho Moskvy website, Segalovich sharply condemned this bill, arguing that most of those who adopted this law have never been to orphanages and do not know how things really stand in them. At the same time, he repeatedly argued that the adoption of children, especially in international level, is profitable business, on which more than one official earns money.

Personal life

Segalovich is married to artist Maria Eliseeva. She is not only a painter, but also a philanthropist, teacher, founder and ideological inspirer Center "Children of Mary"

Ilya Segalovich was the father of many children. He had both natural and adopted children. The fact is that in addition to their four children, the couple lived with pupils of the Children of Mary center from time to time.

Besides charitable activities, Segalovich paid great attention to the popularization of education in Russia. In particular, he was on the board of the Dynasty Foundation, which was involved in the development of domestic science.

To engage in charity work and popularize science, a lot of money was required. Segalovich was a wealthy man. According to financial analysts, he owned 2.5% of the capital of the Yandex company. His fortune was estimated at US$600 million.

Death of Segalovich

On July 27, 2013, Ilya Segalovich died. The cause of death was stomach cancer, which was discovered in him six months earlier. Subsequently, doctors also discovered malignant tumor brain

On July 25, Ilya fell into a coma and was placed in a clinic in London. Since there was no brain activity observed, on July 27 the decision was made to remove him from life support. By that time, irreversible changes had occurred in the composition of the blood.

On the first day of August, Segalovich was buried in Moscow.

Ilya’s parents are talented geologists; his father discovered large deposits of chromites. It was because of their work that they moved from Nizhny Novgorod to Alma-Ata. Ilya had an analytical mind and a love of numbers since childhood, so in the Kazakh capital he was sent to a strong physics and mathematics school. Ilya took second place at the All-Union Mathematics Olympiad. This is where the future creators of the largest Russian search engine Arkady Volozh and Ilya Segalovich met. This happened in 1977, in 7th grade. For four years they sat together, and their desk was called the “excellent students’ desk.” Who would doubt that both graduated from school with gold medals.

Immediately after school, the friends went to Moscow. You won’t believe it, but the future geniuses of the Runet did not enter Moscow State University. However, Segalovich admitted that this did not happen for objective reasons, but because of Jewish surnames. Volozh entered the Institute of Oil and Gas, Segalovich entered the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute.

In 1989, Volozh created a company (originally called “Arcadia”), a year later Segalovich joined it. They created their first search engine for patent specialists - Directory international classification inventions. They marked about 9 volumes on several floppy disks.

Segalovich developed a program for automatic morphological analysis used in searches - then it was done on the basis of Borkovsky's dictionary. The new indexer made the program more convenient to work with. Soon the first version of the program on which Yandex worked, and the word itself, appeared. It was also invented by Segalovich. The name Yandex is a symbiosis of the Cyrillic letter “I” and the word index.

Segalovich explained the success of his brainchild simply - they are building services and a portal so that a person does not get lost in endless menus, so that everything important is on the screen where it is needed. By the way, the company has a large staff of people who simply evaluate quality with their eyes: they take a random request and see how “beautifully” everything is presented.

In an interview with New Style, Ilya Valentinovich gave the following forecast for the future: “Development is directed towards mobility, greater integration of applications and the web. We will soon have the Internet everywhere, anywhere at any time. This will provide both new ways to use fundamental services such as web search, and new services that are more closely tied to the mobile user. Social media They will become more open and begin to interact more strongly with the surrounding Internet.”

Ilya helped his wife with her Children of Mary center.

In an interview with Citizen K magazine, he admitted that he never aspired to wealth. He has a very modest car, and he drives it himself. He bought his first normal clothes in 2001, and before that he wore everything from parcels humanitarian aid from friends: “I had the opportunity to buy my child chocolate spread, which was previously unavailable to him, and this made me rich. I don't feel like I'm any richer, although I certainly have decent clothes and fly business class. I don’t need the attributes of wealth.”

Ilya Segalovich's wife Maria Eliseeva is a theater artist and art critic, creator of a rehabilitation art center“Children of Mary”, which Ilya actively supported. They have five children: a joint daughter Asya, three daughters of Maria from her first marriage - Alina, Olya and Anya, as well as an adopted boy Sasha. The center works with orphans and children with special needs, helping them develop their creative abilities. During the holidays, Ilya attracted other Yandex employees and dressed up as a clown.

Ilya once admitted that he read all five books about Harry Potter aloud to his children, in English and immediately translated them (the books were not yet published in Russian at that time, and Ilya brought English ones from abroad). He called this his second feat after Yandex.

According to Forbes magazine, as of 2011, Segalovich ranked 159th in the ranking of the richest Russian entrepreneurs.

After Ilya’s death, a special page in his memory appeared on Yandex. Here, everyone who knew him can leave their memories.

Reference

Ilya Valentinovich Segalovich was born on September 13, 1964 in Nizhny Novgorod. His parents are geologists, so he spent most of his childhood in Almaty. After school, he entered the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute, Faculty of Geophysics, from which he graduated in 1986 and worked for several years at the Institute of Mineral Resources (VIMS), where he wrote geophysical programs in the Fortran programming language. In the late 1980s, Ilya came to work at the computer company of his longtime friend and classmate Arkady Volozh.

On July 25, 2013, Ilya Segalovich fell into a coma (before that he was diagnosed with stomach cancer). On July 27, in a London clinic, he was disconnected from artificial life support. The funeral took place on August 1, 2013 at Troekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow. Immediately after this, in the company’s blog, General Director Arkady Volozh said: “Yesterday all hopes ended. Even such a strong body as Ilyusha’s could not stand it. Changes in the composition of the blood appeared that were incompatible with life. We had to let him pass away with dignity. The doctors turned him off Yesterday afternoon, my heart stopped."

Ilya Segalovich was born on September 13, 1964 in Nizhny Novgorod into a family of geologists, but spent most of his childhood in Alma-Ata. There, as a schoolboy, he met Arkady Volozh, the current general director.

After school, he entered the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute, Faculty of Geophysics. In 1991, he accepted Volozh’s invitation and got a job at a former classmate’s company, which was developing search programs. Two years later, “Yandex” was born - that’s what Ilya Segalovich called the next text search engine.

In May 2011, Yandex held an IPO. By according to Forbes, at that time Segalovich’s fortune was estimated at $600 million.

In addition to Yandex, Ilya Segalovich was involved in social activities, participated in the movement against election fraud, attended rallies on Sakharov Avenue and Bolotnaya Square.

Ilya Segalovich married Maria Eliseeva, an artist and art critic. In the mid-90s, Maria organized a charitable art studio, “Maria's Children,” which supported orphans and boarding school graduates. Ilya began to help his wife and often dressed up as a clown to make studio visitors laugh.

“I don’t know what can replace his encyclopedicism in technology and pure vision of the product. But he left behind him a whole new generation of programmers, an entire school. And his ethical standards set the standard for all of us,” Arkady Volozh wrote on the day of Segalovich’s death.

In one of the entrances of the Yandex central office there is a sculptural composition “Copy paste: discrepancies are random. Six portraits of Ilya Segalovich." The sculptures were created in 2016-2017, when the idea was to come up with some kind of monument to Ilya - informal, about work and atmosphere.

In the end, they did not make the monument, and in the process of working on it, one of the authors, the famous Moscow sculptor Elena Munts, made several portraits from fireclay.

They were so similar that it was decided to put these portraits in the office. As Elena herself said, after watching kilometers of video and gigabytes of photographs: “I was so fascinated by Ilya that my hands themselves sculpted his portrait from clay.”

In addition, Segalovich has always been involved in amateur productions for children: first organizing children's parties in the mid-1980s, and then working with orphans who studied in an art studio. Segalovich was also one of the Yandex volunteers - since 2006, company employees visited orphanages in various cities of Russia and helped orphans.

In his blog on the Ekho Moskvy website, he spoke out against the law prohibiting adoption American families children from Russia. In the text “Get to know your country, Volodya!” Segalovich argues that most officials have never been to orphanages, and with a law prohibiting the adoption of Russian children by families from the United States, “they are depriving the chances of health, happiness and family for a good half (of children), and, rather, the more unfortunate ones.” Also in one of his interviews, Segalovich says that “the business of adoption by foreigners is a very scary business, there is a layer of officials who make money from this.” Ilya Segalovich has four children, and, in addition, in his family in different times lived some of the wards of the Children of Mary center.