In the early 1990s, he worked as a political reporter and columnist in Russian dailies such as Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Independent Newspaper) and Segodnia (Today).

In 1996, Parkhomenko founded Russia's first news magazine Itogi (Summing Up)[1], which was published in close cooperation with American weekly Newsweek.

[2] Immediately after the entire editorial staff had been fired, Newsweek terminated its relationship with the new owners of Itogi, in protest that the state monopoly Gazprom had seized control of the magazine[3] and there was a hostile takeover of the board of directors by a state-owned company.

From October 2009 till the end of 2011, he headed the Vokrug sveta publishing house, where he was the chief editor of Russia's oldest travel magazine by the same name.

[8] Since 2003, Parkhomenko has hosted the political talk show Sut' Sobytiy (Crux of the Matter), which aired on the radio station Echo of Moscow.

Since autumn 2016 he has been Public Policy Fellow and later Senior Advisor at The Kennan Institute of Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC.