The founder of Polyus

Hazret Medzhidovich Sovmen was born on May 1, 1937 in the village of Afipsip Adygeiskoy Oblast (Krasnodarskiy Kray).  After finishing secondary school and serving in the Soviet Army, he went to Kolyma to work at the gold mines.  He began developing the largest gold mining company in Russia as a simple worker. 

In 1961, Hazret Medzhidovich Sovmen started working in gold mining enterprises in Chukotka as a bulldozer driver and mechanic.  There, he received the training as a highly skilled mine worker. 

In 1966, Hazret Medzhidovich Sovmen was elected to be the deputy chairman of cooperative “Voshod”.

In 1969, he became the chairman of cooperative “Soyuz”.

In 1980, Hazret Medzhidovich Sovmen was invited to go to Krasnodarskiy Kray, in order to develop gold mining in the remote and hard to reach deposits belonging to “Yeniseigold”. By completing this difficult task, he organized the cooperative “Polyus”; which, successfully and productively, worked even on Bolshevik Island in the Arctic Ocean, as well as in Turuhanskiy, North-Yenisei and Motiginskiy regions of the area.

In 1983, “Polyus” cooperative, under the management of Hazret Medzhidovich Sovmen, began the development of Olympiada deposit, one of the largest in Russia.

In the beginning of the 1990’s the cooperative was restructured into the privately owned company “Gold Mining Company ‘Polyus’”.

In January 2002, Hazret Medzhidovich Sovmen was chosen as the president of the Republic of Adigey.  More than 68% of the people gave their vote to him.  During a meeting with a journalist in Krasnoyarsk he said that he became the president of Adigey in order to contribute to the economic redevelopment of the republic.  In his own words, the underprivileged situation that the republic was in and the dire want to help its people is what drove Hazret Medzhidovich Sovmen to become the president of Adigey.  Upon becoming president of the Republic of Adigey, Hazret Medzhidovich Sovmen stepped down from managing the company he created.

For all of his successful and hard work, Hazret Medzhidovich Sovmen was awarded with the state recognition of “Serving to the Fatherland”, “Honor” and other medals.