The Russian criminal world has never gravitated toward anarchy. Following the example of the state, he also tried to establish his own laws, which the urkagans had to adhere to. In the late 1980s, after Gorbachev's reforms, the underworld raised its head, and even ordinary people were forced to get acquainted with its rules, learning what "presentations", "graters", "arrows", "showdowns", "wiring" and so on are. .

The main gangster occupation was the racketeering of the emerging cooperatives and protection of people involved in illegal business. And since the number of "objects" that could be subject to tribute was limited, competition immediately arose between the bandits, which was conducted by purely bandit methods - intimidation, massacre and murder.

Battle in Devyatkino

In order to prevent the war of all against all, the bandits of the old and new formations came to a certain agreement to act according to the concepts that, in particular, regulated the process of taxing entrepreneurs with tribute. At first, a visit to the merchant followed in the form of a “punching” (peaceful form) or “collision” (aggressive form). When it turned out that the merchant already had a “roof”, the arrow was most often clogged.

Writer Andrey Konstantinov in his book “Gangster Petersburg” describes it like this: “Most of the arrows are peaceful and very fleeting. "Hey!" - "Hey!" “So-and-so pays you?” - "Us!" - "OK Bye!" - and everyone left.

There are conflict arrows, when one of the parties believes that its interests are infringed. Such an arrow can end in a disassembly, that is, a power conflict. Since there is always a chance to run into frostbitten, shooters are usually assigned in very crowded places where it is difficult to use weapons, or, conversely, in places that are deaf and
secluded, where each side can bring weapons without unnecessary hassle.

The most famous arrow in the northern capital was an emergency at the clothing market in Devyatkino in December 1988. At that time, the market was controlled by fighters from "" and. The bone of contention was a leather jacket, which the “Tambov” brother, nicknamed Lukosha, impudently took away from the merchant. He complained to the foreman of the "Malyshevsky" nicknamed Broiler. The broiler stood up for the merchant. Lukosha considered that it was not like a kid to “show” him for some huckster. Together with two accomplices, he severely beat Broiler. "Malyshevtsy" decided that this was not according to the rules, and scored the "Tambov" shooter.

Malyshevskaya brotherhood. Broiler - left

Soon about 80 people from both conflicting sides arrived in Devyatkino. Many were armed with brass knuckles, knives, chains and pistols. "Malyshevets" nicknamed the Elephant even grabbed a PPSh machine gun. However, no one dared to use firearms then. But a mass brawl could not be avoided. During it, Broiler, burning with a thirst for revenge, cut Lukosha and inflicted a mortal blow on his friend. This immediately cooled the ardor of the participants in the "battle". Picking up the wounded under the arms, they rushed to the city together. Although the incident caused a great scandal, one Broiler was convicted. He received 6 years of captivity. And the "Malyshev" and "Tambov" have since become blood enemies.

Chechen blitzkrieg

But the most difficult situation arose in Moscow. It was the most delicious pie for bandits of all stripes, and its division obviously threatened with great bloodshed. tried to fix the process. In 1988, the leaders of a number of influential gangster clans also gathered in the Dagomys hotel complex, where they tried to establish certain rules of “competition” and divide spheres of influence, especially in Moscow, on the gangway.

Thief in law Andrey Isaev - Painting, leader of the Taganskaya organized criminal group

But their convention was cynically violated by the Chechen bandits, who declared: "We will conquer Moscow ourselves, as the Sicilians did with New York." The Chechens did not throw words into the wind and in fact began to recapture Moscow from the "", "", "" and "" groups that had already divided it. At that time, these groups could pull several hundred people to the arrow. Chechens came much less - a few dozen. But on the other hand, they had solidarity, courage and iron arguments that they cited to their opponents: “If you kill us, our brothers will come and destroy you and your families. We know where you live, your wives and children. And you will not be able to reach our relatives with all your desire. And they had nothing to say.

The first large-scale bandit shooting took place in Moscow in 1988. The Chechens grappled with the "Lyubertsy". And pitching-luberas, who were then considered a model of toughness, could not defeat the enemy. In general, in the period 1988-1989 they withstood about twenty fights with their Moscow colleagues, but did not back down from their idea to conquer the capital. They held their own against "athletes" and against thieves.

On January 22, 1988, a group of thieves in law met with the leaders of the Chechen community in the Aist cafe on Bolshaya Bronnaya Street. The thieves bluntly tried to explain to the Caucasians who is the master of Moscow. Then the Chechens grabbed their knives and seriously wounded two opponents.

In the end, the Chechens won back their piece of the delicious metropolitan pie. By 1991, about 6,000 bandits from various organized crime groups operated in the capital and the Moscow region, who divided the territories among themselves. But the Chechens remained the main violators of the convention. In 1992, on Baumanskaya Street, near the building of the Central Research Institute of Chermet, Chechen and. They did not reach an agreement and the Chechens left. When the leaders of the "Tagantsy" let go of the armed cover group and already
they said goodbye, suddenly a Mercedes-600 and a jeep drove up to them, from which two machine gunners jumped out and opened fire. The leaders of the "Tagantsy" Shilo, Schmidt and Pyrya were killed,
and a student who happened to be nearby was wounded by a ricocheted bullet.

The bloodiest Moscow arrow took place at midnight on May 6, 1992 on the outskirts of the capital in the Butov new building on Kulikovskaya Street. She was versatile. The leaders of the "Balashikha", "Podolsk" and "Chekhov" groups, as well as representatives of the Taganskaya and Solntsevo organized crime groups took part in it. The scumbag German Starostin also took part in the shooter, because of which the bandit shooter ended in a real “Kulikov battle”, in which about a hundred militants took part.

Residents of the surrounding houses later said that the continuous pops from automatic and pistol shots resembled fireworks. The dead and wounded could not be counted. The accomplices took everyone with them. At the funeral of the dead, thieves and gang leaders pronounced the death sentence on the leader of the Balashikhas, who was the first to start shooting.

Bandit shooters

The bandit shooters had their own rules. It was customary to come to the meeting accompanied by a retinue and in good cars in order to immediately demonstrate to the opponent their strength and toughness. It was considered especially chic to arrive in wheelbarrows with flashing lights and with passes crossed out by a red stripe on the windows, which forbade their examination by police officers.

Non-arrival was considered a sign of weakness and defeat. However, sometimes the criminal leaders let the shooters through, believing that it was unsuitable for them to meet with just anyone. For example, an authoritative one somehow ignored an invitation to an arrow coming from another thief, nicknamed Green, considering him an upstart. Green Caucasian thieves "crowned" at the age of 23 and put looking over several districts near Moscow.

The shooting procedure itself was described by Daniil Koretsky in his famous book “Antikiller”: “At first, the parties will look at each other: who is worth what. Then the leaders will begin to "talk", and the one who has less real strength will be forced to compromise and make concessions to a competitor. If it is not possible to find a common language and no one wants to concede, someone can show their “toughness” - they will take and fill up the enemy. In this case, the outcome is ambiguous: either his victory will be recognized immediately, or they will shoot back and a general “mochilovo” will begin. And here the laws of war already come into force - whoever destroyed the enemy more, he won!

Bandits are not characterized by romance, evolution, or good intentions. These are exceptionally cynical people, ready to do anything to achieve their goals. When they now say that they have become white and fluffy, this is not a qualitative change, these are just age-related changes.

“Brothers, do not shoot at each other,” sang in the second half of the 90s the now forgotten performer Evgeny Kemerovsky. But the "brothers" fired. In every regional city of Russia, there is a corner in the cemetery lined with luxurious monuments. The people ironically call them “alleys of heroes” - these graves really contain “heroes of the 90s” who died in gang wars.

But not all of them died: according to the estimates of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, several hundred thousand people were part of the criminal gangs. For more than 10 years, a whole social stratum lived according to the concepts: “rubbed the topics”, “specifically solved issues”. Today, everything is in the past, but the people who once made up this layer have not gone away. They are among us. Are there "former" bandits, how do they live and what are the "fighters", "authorities" and "foremen" of the 90s doing now?

The Uralmash organized crime group has stayed on the Russian social horizon longer than other criminal brands. Its leader Alexander Khabarov tried to integrate into a new life not secretly, like many of his colleagues in the shop, but openly. The result of an unsuccessful rebranding was the mysterious death of Khabarov in SIZO No. 1 in the city of Yekaterinburg. In the spring, the Prosecutor General's Office closed the last page in the case of this criminal community. The first part of his story is typical of its time. The second one is unique.

It is best to approach the grave of Alexander Khabarov in the Northern Cemetery of Yekaterinburg from the back and back forward. Having stood in front of the monument, in the same way - without turning around - you should leave. The fact is that recently a surveillance camera has been installed on the nearest pine tree, which captures everything that happens nearby. To the question "Who installed it?" friends of the deceased do not give an answer. Law enforcement agencies also do not confirm their involvement. The easiest way would be to climb a pine tree, cut off the wires and see who will come. But none of Khabarov's friends dare to do this. Times are not the same.

Two years have passed since the leader of the Uralmash gang was found dead in the cell of SIZO No. 1 in Yekaterinburg. Then this event stirred up the entire Urals. The newspapers wrote that the region was on the verge of a new criminal war. However, no war ensued. When the Prosecutor General's Office finally closed the investigation two months ago, announcing that Khabarov had not been killed, the event went almost unnoticed.

- The people want to believe that he was killed, but we, close people, are sure that he hanged himself. Another thing is how he was brought to this ...

Across from me is one of Khabarov's closest friends. He agreed to communicate on the condition that I would not name not only his last name, but even his first name. Let's call him Michael. Despite his close relationship with the deceased, he begins the conversation with the words: "Don't make a hero out of him."

Everyone was an animal in those days. And those who started from the beginning have blood on their hands up to their elbows. Another question is who went which way later. To a certain extent, Khabarov went through the same evolution as many of us. First: “I will rob everyone!” Then: “No, only scoundrels!” And finally: "I will give." But if you write the whole truth about him, you will have to insult his memory. Without it, it will be a lie. Better write not about Khabarov, but about the phenomenon, of which we were all part.

The criminal life of Sverdlovsk in the 80s revolved around restaurants. The Cosmos was considered the most evil place. It was he who became a kind of cradle of Sverdlovsk organized crime. Here they exchanged news, shared ideas, reconciled and clashed. In the late 1980s, restaurants became a kind of “control room” for new opportunities. And the first places where wild capitalism was born were TsPKiO im. Mayakovsky (the “spires”, that is, gamblers, were already operating there with might and main), the station square (here they “twisted caps” - thimbles - scammers) and, of course, the Shuvakish clothing market. It was here that hucksters from all over the Urals came to buy goods.

Do you know how an organized crime group is born? Michael asks. - Here is a man, trading. Ordinary punks come up to him, give him a bullshit, take his money and run away. And next to it is a strong guy. Just worth it. The trader looks around - there is no police. Then he runs up to this guy and begs to catch up with that punk and return his money. The guy catches up, jams the offenders and returns the stolen goods to the huckster.

He is happy: “Listen, but let's be somewhere nearby all the time, and I will pay you 10 percent of the proceeds a day.” The guy says, “What? Let's". A day stands, two, and then he thinks: “Something I’m hanging out here too cheaply. Approaches the neighbor of that merchant: “Listen, bratello, will you pay me too?” Bratello vs. Then a strong guy calls that punk and says: "Listen, slap this one."

Bratello immediately agrees. Then the guy goes to the third merchant, the fourth and so on. So an organized criminal community appeared before our eyes. But at what point did it originate? When did the guy approach the second merchant? No. It appeared when businessmen began to turn not to the police, but to people with strong muscles. Why did this happen? Here is the main question of the time.

Michael is right, but only partly. The process of "roof formation" had a reciprocal character. On the one hand, in the late 1980s, cooperators really rushed to look for strong people, faced with the fact that the official authorities were unable to solve security problems, guarantee the execution of transactions and resolve economic disputes. On the other hand, the inhabitants of the cereal restaurants, gyms and clubs of veterans of the war in Afghanistan themselves did not really expect a special invitation. Having entered the “topic”, they rushed to the grain places, making offers to the “commerce” that could not be refused.

The Uralmash OPG was born on a small patch around the 115th and 117th schools in the Ordzhonikidzevsky district, where the Uralmash giant plant is located. Actually, as a community of young energetic guys, it has already been formed in 1984. Everyone trained at the same stadium, with the same coaches, fell in love with the same girls. These were guys from the outskirts of the factory, in which the spirit of revenge was very strong in relation to the more “major” youth from the center.

Ordzhonikidzevsky district of Yekaterinburg is the birthplace of the Uralmash workers. The organized crime group disappeared, faces and gestures remained the same.

Grigory and Konstantin Tsyganov are rightfully considered the "godfathers" of the Uralmash group. Together with them, their friends, relatives, neighbors in the yard started the business: Sergey Terentyev, Alexander Kruk, Sergey Vorobyov, Andrey Panpurin, Igor Mayevsky. The core was made up of "athletes", far from thieves' concepts and thieves' romance. The main motivation was not the way of life, but the spirit of competition and profit.

The indifference to the thieves' traditions is evidenced even by the fact that the leaders of the group entrusted the command of the power bloc to Sergei Kurdyumov, a man who by that time had managed to visit the zone and had the status of "lowered" there. It was Kurdyumov's hatred for the crime bosses that determined this choice, which he fully justified with his cruelty towards the enemies of the group.

Initially, the organized crime group of the Tsyganovs was one of several dozen such groups in the city. The division of "gangster Yekaterinburg" into Uralmash and center began to take shape rapidly in the early 90s - after Grigory Tsyganov was killed on the orders of Oleg Vagin, the leader of another large racketeer group that formed around the central market. Brother Konstantin took the place of the murdered man, and after a fierce two-year confrontation, the Uralmash organized crime group became the main force in the city.

The echo of that war can be clearly heard at the Shirokorechenskoye cemetery - the oldest and most prestigious in Yekaterinburg. There used to be a car park at the entrance. Now here is the cemetery of the “centrists”. In scale, it is second only to the memorial to those who died in military hospitals, which is located right behind the fence. 100 meters from the burial is the grave of the first pioneer of the world, Anna Bychkova. And 100 meters away is Boris Yeltsin's father and mother-in-law.

“Khabarov appeared among the Uralmash in the early 90s,” says Sergey Plotnikov, an expert at the Center for Journalism in Extreme Sverdlovsk Region. He has been following the topic of the Yekaterinburg criminal world for many years and knows it better than all civilians in the city .. - Moreover, the future leader of the organized criminal group, by and large, is not a native of Uralmash.

Indeed, Khabarov grew up in the city of Krasnoufimsk, Sverdlovsk Region, in a family of civil servants: his father was the secretary of the district committee, holder of the Order of Lenin. Khabarov graduated from the Sverdlovsk State Pedagogical Institute, served in the group of Soviet troops in Germany. When he returned, he defended his Ph.D. thesis, worked as the director of the children's sports school of the Olympic reserve in Nordic combined and alpine skiing. In this capacity, he was known to many participants in the Uralmash organized crime group. Khabarov rose very quickly thanks to his intelligence and ability to manage. According to his close friend, whom we tentatively called Mikhail, it was he who created an effective and multilateral structure from a powerful force group:

Did he study management skills anywhere?

- Not. It was his nature. Once, back in the year 1990, when Seryoga Terentyev reproached him for finding his foremen idle, Khabarov answered him: "With the correct organization of labor, the foreman and the team leader do not work." He then liked to repeat this phrase. In those days, no one had any idea what management was, and Alekseich already understood its laws from the inside.

When Grigory Tsyganov was alive, Khabarov was something like a financial director. In calligraphic handwriting, he wrote down all cash receipts and expenses in a notebook. After one of the two brothers-leaders was killed, and the other went to Turkey, fleeing police persecution, Khabarov was elected "helmsman". It was a very right decision, since times were already changing and other qualities were required to consolidate success - not brute force, but the ability to think, count and negotiate. From that moment on, the Uralmashites retrained from banal racketeering to what is now called raiding.

"Uralmashevtsy" are defending the Saldinsky Metallurgical Plant, which they have captured, the group competing with them is preparing to storm the plant management.

“Minority shareholders of various enterprises often came to us,” says Mikhail. — Asked to help defend their rights. They didn't always agree. Khabarov listened to all opinions, sometimes took time out to think, but if he made a decision, then it was final. And he knew how to act in critical situations. "I'm taking over everything!" We have heard this phrase very often.

At first, "helping minority shareholders" was in the nature of threats and brute force. Gradually, the instrumentation became more subtle. Since the mid-1990s, it has been more of an organizational work. According to the testimony of former members of the group, at that time its number reached two thousand people, and most of them were hired personnel: lawyers, lawyers, managers, journalists.

“When we entered any enterprise, we took everything into our hands,” says Mikhail. — It was a full-fledged anti-crisis management. And there was no such enterprise that we would have destroyed. All worked and are working properly.

The group still formed a "common fund", deducting half of the profits to it, and its manager was Tsyganov, who was in Turkey. However, it wasn't just dead money for a rainy day. Very soon, the "common fund" turned into a full-fledged investment fund: Uralmash began to invest in business. At first - in any, and then - giving preference to its legal types. According to law enforcement agencies, members of the Uralmash organized crime group founded about 200 firms and 12 banks, and also acted as equity participants in another 90 companies.

“Uralmash won the war with the “centers” not even because it acted with greater cruelty, but primarily because of its constructive position,” considers Andrey Kabanov, deputy of the City Duma. - "Center" were banal racketeers. They treated the businessmen under their care like cash cows, which they were ready to slaughter at any moment for the sake of momentary profit. And the Uralmash team calculated the situation several moves ahead. Apparently, the specifics of the sport that Khabarov was involved in worked here. In cross-country skiing, it is not aggression that matters, but endurance and the ability to calculate strength.

The view of Andrei Kabanov (aka Dyusha) can be considered unbiased, since he himself never belonged to either the Uralmash group or the center one. The current deputy and sincerely believing Orthodox Christian does not hide the fact that in the early 90s he was a drug addict and an active representative of the so-called "blue group". "Bruises" here were and are called representatives of the traditional criminal world, living according to thieves' concepts and recognizing the power of thieves in law. However, in Yekaterinburg, unlike, for example, the Far East, the South of Russia and even Moscow, the influence of the blues has always been purely symbolic. According to Sergei Plotnikov from the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, they could not even be called a group.

Sergei Terentyev, one of the leaders of the Uralmash organized crime group, is being transferred from Moscow to Yekaterinburg.

- It's more of a Wednesday. Some background of existence. In the early 90s, they also had their own economic interests, but they were momentary and inconsistent. The Blues were late everywhere. However, they were considered, because they understood that in the zone where anyone could be, these people have real power.

Yevgeny Agafonov is now a pensioner, and until 2002 he headed the Department for the Investigation of Premeditated Murders and Banditry in the Regional Prosecutor's Office. After being sent into early retirement, he speaks with contempt both of the state he worked for and the criminal gangs he fought against.

“Gangsters are not characterized by either romance, or evolution, or good intentions,” Agafonov believes. - These are exceptionally cynical people, ready to do anything to achieve their goals. When they now say that they have become white and fluffy, this is not a qualitative change, these are just age-related changes.

“Their crimson jackets hang in the closet and can come in handy at any moment,” Sergei Plotnikov from the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations agrees with Agafonov. - A person who has been convinced many times of the effectiveness of violence can no longer work in a civilized manner. The temptation is too great.

Do you remember what they were doing? Agafonov continues. - You are welcome. For example, they almost completely controlled the singed vodka business. How many people died from it - no one will count. They carried out the supply of sex slaves abroad. In the early 90s, during a search, we confiscated a pack of ready-made passports from them - all that remained was to catch these girls on the streets according to the list, intimidate them and send them to their addresses. How many have already been sent out?

One can only guess. If it was necessary for the cause, they killed pregnant women and even like-minded people in cold blood. When they had to take out one person, to be sure, they planted an explosive device in a crowded place, designed to undermine heavy equipment, and it did not explode only thanks to chance. They even seriously considered the option of eliminating a competitor by firing at a passenger plane taking off from a portable missile system.

“But don’t these forms of life inevitably appear in the conditions of the weakening of the state?

“But did it weaken by itself?” It was undermined, including by these organized crime groups. What do you think happened to Konstantin Tsyganov after his accomplices fired at the RUBOP? He was released on bail! Of course, he immediately disappeared. Uralmash workers worked very competently. They combined extremely daring actions with very thoughtful combinations. We worked for the future.

They, like Japanese corporations, nurtured their employees, starting from the school desk. They led their students, patiently waiting for them to come to work in the police, the prosecutor's office. And until better times, they were engaged in bribing already existing high-ranking employees. These were not just guys who wanted to earn money, and then go to the legal sector and remember their names. They had ambitions. Do you know what we seized at almost every search? Movie "The Godfather". It was their manual for cultivating their structure.

- But the film "The Godfather" has a sad end for the mafia.

- That's it.

From the windows of his apartment, Agafonov every day sees the palaces of gypsy drug dealers living in the Verkh-Isetsky village. And gypsy drug dealers remember very well the “rally of authorities”, which in 1999 was organized by the City Without Drugs Foundation, which was friendly to Uralmash. In general, this kind of rallies is Yekaterinburg's know-how, which turned out to be surprisingly effective.

In 2005, Alexander Khabarov was found dead in a pre-trial detention center. Suicide or help?

“The gypsies were horrified when they saw 500 powerful guys with stern faces from the windows,” recalls one of the fund’s employees. The guys just stood there and left. This was enough to stop selling drugs in the village for six months.”

The Foundation has become famous for its unconventional approach to the eradication of drug addiction. Patients, with the consent of their parents, were forcibly placed in rehabilitation centers, for the first month they were kept chained to beds, and then in black gloves. Drug dealers were brought to reason by brute force. The approach turned out to be barbaric, but true. Within two years of the fund's operation, child mortality from overdoses in Yekaterinburg disappeared altogether, while adult mortality fell several times.

- No, it's not true that the "City Without Drugs" appeared as a Uralmash PR project, - says Andrey Kabanov, who at that time was the third person in the fund. Khabarov supported us later. It was during a live broadcast on local television. Roizman and I began to say in plain text that the drug trade in the city was protected by the police. Khabarov called directly to the studio and said: “Guys, what are you doing?! You will be killed. Say that we are with you. Together we will be afraid.”

Nevertheless, only the naive at that time did not understand that the "City Without Drugs" was Khabarov's first independent step into politics. However, the first political maneuvers with the participation of Uralmash took place as early as 1995, when they helped the governor of the region, Eduard Rossel, to be re-elected, and also a year later, during the presidential elections. Khabarov then organized the "Movement of workers in support of Boris Yeltsin", for which he received a letter of thanks from the re-elected president and a watch with a dedicatory inscription from the governor.

It was then that Eduard Rossel would say words that would become classic for the era when regional authorities offered criminal leaders an unspoken compromise: we give you recognition, you give us investments in the local economy. Let's quote this statement verbatim: “I generally want you to stop talking there Uralmash, some other ... So they tell me, this comrade is there, he is, so to speak, the Uralmash leader, which means he leads there ... He is a thief, a bandit and so Further. Well, I invite him to my place, I say: “Well, thief, come in, sit down. Tell me how you live, back and forth, that means ... ". And I give him an order, and he fulfills this order - to spend money on capital construction in the Sverdlovsk region. I invite the second Nice person. Clever. Runs a normal business.

In 1999, Khabarov officially registered the OPS (Social and Political Union) Uralmash. The fact that the abbreviation of the new association could also be deciphered as an "organized criminal community" was a frank challenge to law enforcement agencies.

“Most of the criminal leaders of the 90s simply promoted lured politicians and lobbied their interests through them,” says Sergey Plotnikov from the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations. - Khabarov decided to go into politics on his own. At that moment, he embarked on a road that inevitably led him into a loop.

Mikhail, who is not Mikhail, takes another sip of cognac from his glass and closes his eyes tightly for a few seconds, as people usually do when they have to talk about unpleasant things:

“I think it was the wrong move. It was necessary even then to go into the economy and put an end to the past. It was already clear that such an organizational model as an informal financial and industrial group, which we were at that time, had outlived its usefulness. It was a huge bag with a variety of enterprises: from small shops to large factories. Nothing even united them legally - the center of attraction was only the personality of Khabarov. This business had to be built somehow. But he wanted not only to seep into big business, but to enter it with his charter. Since the end of the 90s, not a pragmatist, but an idealist spoke in him.

Others believe that Khabarov went into politics, guided by some motives of a high order. He very quickly orientated himself in the new conditions. Having put most of the deputies under control, Khabarov actually began to trade in the opportunities that his position gave. First of all, in the land market of Yekaterinburg.

“In 1999, I conducted a survey of all candidates for deputies,” says Elena Savitskaya, editor-in-chief of the local television company ESTV. - Among the questions was the following: “Which of the heroes of folk tales or literary works do you identify yourself with?” Do you know what Khabarov answered? From Emelya on the stove.

- Why?

- He said this: “Because Emelya is the smartest. He has achieved such a position that he can lie on the stove and do nothing, and everything happens for him at the behest of the pike.

Most of the Shirokorechensky cemetery in Yekaterinburg is occupied by the graves of the "Central" - the competitors of the "Uralmash".

Serious pressure on the OPS "Uralmash" began to be felt in the summer of 2003, when the RUBOP began to press hard on the "City Without Drugs". The activities of rehabilitation centers were paralyzed. Khabarov then did not stand up for a friendly structure. However, the hit on the fund only led to the fact that, on the wave of popularity, its chairman Yevgeny Roizman was elected to the State Duma, and his deputy Andrei Kabanov to the city.

A year later, Khabarov received another blow. The holder of the "common fund" Konstantin Tsyganov, who had been in Turkey all these years, announced to his comrades that this was no longer general, but his personal money. This dealt the Uralmashers not so much a material but a moral blow. The proposal to punish Tsyganov was rejected - for past merits and out of respect for his late brother. But in fact, this event was the beginning of the end. Khabarov then gathered the core of the community and said: “That's it, guys. No one owes nothing to nobody".

“But he himself experienced this gap very hard,” Mikhail recalls. - In the last year before his arrest, he could not find a place for himself, fell into depression, went into hard drinking. I knew about the fact that they would take him a week in advance. It could have disappeared, but it didn't.

Khabarov was arrested on suspicion of coercing him into a deal. According to the investigation, he put pressure on the management of Bank 24.ru so that part of his shares was exchanged for a block of shares in Uralplastpolymer JSC, which is owned by the bank. However, most experts agree that the criminal case was only a tool in the struggle, which had completely different goals. After the arrest and then death of Khabarov, statements in the media followed one after another that he allegedly suffered for getting in the way of the Caucasian mafia, which tried to enter the city. There is some truth in these statements. But only a fraction.

- We had such an authority here - Eduard Kazaryan, - says Sergey Plotnikov. - At one time he was forced to leave the country, but he continued to oversee some business here through his man - Alexander Varaksin. However, gradually this Varaksin became an independent figure and decided that he no longer needed to pay Kazaryan. He turned for support to a very influential thief in law - grandfather Hassan [Aslan Usoyan]. And he decided to take advantage of the situation in order to strengthen his position in this region. In response, in August 2004, a wave of pogroms swept through the city in street cafes owned by immigrants from the Caucasus.

“I told Khabarov in those days that you shouldn’t get into these showdowns,” Mikhail recalls. “This conflict is not on his level. If you have gone into big business, forget about petty fuss. But he didn't listen.

The last straw for law enforcement agencies was another "rally of authorities."

“It happened in the very center of the city, in the square behind the Opera House,” says Elena Savitskaya. - About 200-300 strong guys gathered. Within a radius of 500 meters from that place, people were blown away by the wind, although it was rush hour. The police were also nowhere to be seen. I have never seen such Khabarov. Usually he is tongue-tied, but here he spoke with such charisma that goosebumps. He began to give instructions to those present. Apparently, among them were not only locals, because the names of other regions sounded. Apparently, Khabarov built parallel structures of power in the clearing of grandfather Khasan. Then he accused the local authorities of not wanting to rebuff the expansion of those forces that could lead to destabilization of the situation in the region. I remember the phrase: "We will not allow a second Beslan here." And again: "Vladimir Vladimirovich, we are with you."

“In the language of the special services, this is called “the emergence of a parallel center of power,” Sergei Plotnikov believes. - The Uralmash people always had a kind of Bolshevik syndrome - the establishment of their own justice. Take away from the bad guys and give back to the good ones. Like, we will warp all the bad guys, and we will have capitalism with a human face.

Many of my interlocutors made similar judgments. In their opinion, if the country collapsed at some point, the Uralmash people could well become a state-forming force in a small area. But the country has become stronger, the new system of government has developed, at the very least, and the forces that once replaced this system no longer have a place in it.

“Khabarov violated two borders at once,” Mikhail says. - He got into the sphere of competence of both the legal authorities and the thieves. After his death, many suggested that it was Grandfather Hasan who, through our police, decided to eliminate Khabarov. I don't think so. As far as I know, an order simply came from Moscow to indicate to each his place.

It is unlikely that the death of Khabarov was included in these plans. At the same time, he did not look like a person who is capable of self-murder without outside help. Khabarov did not have the skills to behave in captivity: he never sat. We know that on the eve of his death he was interrogated for a long time.

- What strings were pressed there, how it was processed - is still a mystery to us, - says Andrey Kabanov. “But I'll tell you what. I know for sure that he hanged himself, but I pray for him. The Lord will figure out whether he did it consciously or not.

Experts agree that the former Uralmash enterprises only benefited from the death of Khabarov. But, despite the death of the OPS leader and the defeat of this very structure, the myth continues to live its own life. It benefits too many.

“We try to sit quieter than water below the grass, and still we are not allowed to forget who we are and where we come from,” says Mikhail. - It seems that RUBOP is bored without Uralmash. And from time to time, strange offers come to different people who have never had anything to do with us at all. For example, the amounts for which they are ready to be deleted from the list of members of the Uralmash OPS are called. “Yes, we have never been them!” these people say. And they answer: “We don’t know, we don’t know. For some reason, you are among us."

- Or maybe RUBOP really has nothing to do now?

- The victory over organized crime played a cruel joke on the police. In fact, they replaced us. In Soviet times, we did not like the cops, but when they imprisoned us, no one was offended. Because they planted honestly and for the cause. And now this moral balance is broken. They became the same as we were. And they have something to do. Now a new criminal generation is growing up. Have you noticed that during the so-called revelry of organized crime groups, it was calm on the streets? Because people prone to crime went with a baseball bat not to civilians, but to shops, restaurants, factories.

Now the generation of 12-14-year-olds is eyeing the baseball bat, but they will no longer be allowed even to the stall. Where will they go? That's right, on the street.

In addition to fat pieces of property, they hurried to stake out prestigious plots in city cemeteries. For all their coolness, the brothers understood that a person is mortal, and today you are the king of life, and tomorrow you are a corpse. After all, they killed often and regularly in those days. So whole blocks of "authoritative" graves appeared in city cemeteries. Until the 90s of the last century, the funeral of a thief in law differed from the usual except for the number of people who came to honor his memory. Otherwise, everything is like everyone else: a standard coffin, wreaths, a grave, a metal monument or, at best, marble. But when the ball began to rule the country, everything changed.

In the early 90s, not even thieves, but "authoritative" entrepreneurs and "athletes" set the criminal tone. These could include the Kvantrishvili brothers - and. The eldest, Amiran, in his youth, made friends with gamblers, became a katal. The younger one was engaged in wrestling, but following the example of his older brother, he also became involved in crime. In the 80s, despite the absence of the title "", the Kvantrishvili brothers had the same weight at meetings as the generals of the criminal world. And in the early 90s they were already dollar millionaires, communicating on an equal footing with major officials.

Vagankovsky cemetery - authorities

But it was this power that caused their death. On August 6, 1993, Amiran Kvantrishvili, along with thief in law Fedya Besheny, was shot dead in an office on Dimitrova Street in Moscow. A year later, the killer, now known to everyone, near the Krasnopresnensky baths cut short the life of his brother, the chairman of the Lev Yashin Athletes' Fund, Otari. Then even Russian President Boris Yeltsin sent condolences to the family of the deceased. It is not surprising that Otari's funeral was held with a huge gathering of people.

People such as Iosif Kobzon, Archil Gomiashvili, Ivan Yarygin and others came to honor his memory. The brothers were buried at the prestigious Vagankovsky cemetery, which has long been closed for burials. Their grave at the main entrance has long been a landmark of the churchyard. A huge angel with a mournful face stretches his hands to two granite tablets, on which the names of the brothers are inscribed. For the uninformed, it is worth noting that the monument is not just a hack by an unknown master, but a work belonging to the cutter of the famous sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov. Among his works is a monument to Cyril and Methodius, Marshal Zhukov, Ivan Bunin, Dmitry Donskoy and other celebrities.

The Vagankovsky churchyard became the last refuge for the authority - the head of the most powerful organized criminal group in Ryazan in the 90s, Viktor Airapetov. On November 19, 1995, on Rublevsky Highway, Airapetov's car was stopped by fake riot police and the mafiosi were taken away in an unknown direction.

Later, his charred corpse was identified by his wife. Although experts insist that it was staged, a black granite obelisk with a massive fence claims that this is where the leader of the criminal Ryazan is buried. However, there are rumors that already in the 2000s Vitya came here in person and even laid flowers at his monument.

Khovanskoye cemetery - authorities

Another pillar of organized crime in the 90s can be considered the founder of the Orekhovskaya organized crime group, nicknamed Sylvester. Officially, he died on September 13, 1994 as a result of the explosion of a mercedes benz 600SEC from a radio-controlled land mine. Sylvester was buried at the Khovanskoye cemetery, traditional for the Orekhovskaya family, in Moscow. His black marble monument is made in the form of a huge bas-relief of the crucified Christ. Above is a photo of Timofeev and an Orthodox cross.

The grave of Timofeev Sergei - Sylvester

On the reverse side - the image of the Virgin, and below the epitaph: "Hurry up to admire a person, because you will miss the joy ...". Compared to the monuments of deceased colleagues, Sylvester's gravestone is rather modest. It is possible that the grave contains the remains of another person, who was burned almost to the ground in the explosion. After all, no one conducted a DNA examination in those years.

There, on Khovansky, is the grave of the right hand of Sylvester, the founder - Grigory Gusyatinsky. Once a KGB officer, he became one of the prominent authorities in Moscow and did not disdain the bloodiest work. In January 1995, in Kyiv, Gusyatinsky was liquidated by the same Aleksey Sherstobitov, better known in criminal circles under the nickname Lesha the Soldier. The obelisk of Gusyatinsky is a black marble stele on which the sculptor carved the face of the deceased. A woman's hand is also visible there, reaching out to a face bowed in mourning.

In addition to Timofev and Gusyatinsky, on the "alley of heroes" of the Khovansky cemetery there are several dozen more brothers from the "Orekhovskaya" and allied groups with them. Their graves are easy to distinguish by black marble, pathos inscriptions and photos of the deceased.

In addition to the lads from the 90s, the last pillar of crime, thief in law No. 1 Aslan Usoyan, nicknamed, was buried on Khovansky. He managed to build the most extensive criminal empire. But not all thieves recognized the leader of Hassan. On January 16, 2013, another assassination attempt was made on him, which ended in the death of the authority. Relatives wanted to bury Usoyan in Tbilisi, but the Georgian authorities refused to accept the plane with his body. As a result, the crime boss was buried on Khovansky.

A permanent monument to authority appeared on the grave only a year and a half after the funeral. It consists of two black marble steles with epitaphs and years of life, between which stands a sculpture of Usoyan. The monument was made by the talented sculptor Aram Grigoryan, who created monuments to the first Siberian cartographer Remizov and academician Marchuk.

The monument to another cult thief turned out to be no less pretentious -. Dashing 90s Ivankov missed, roaming. But when he returned to his homeland in 2005, he began to actively intervene in the course of thieves' processes. Speaking on the side of Aslan Usoyan, Yaponchik still remained an independent and strong figure. Therefore, he did not suit many. As a result, on July 28, 2009, when leaving the restaurant, Ivankov was wounded by a sniper, and on October 9, 2009 he died.

The authority was buried with a huge gathering of people at the Vagankovsky cemetery. Despite the fact that times were already different, Ivankov's mother was buried in the cemetery and he had the right to be buried near her. The monument to the deceased also appeared on the grave not immediately. Nevertheless, he makes passers-by draw attention to themselves. Against the background of a three-meter block with a cross, an intelligent-looking man sits and looks into the distance. Local old-timers take people to the thief's grave for a small fee. Often provincial mafiosi come here. There are always fresh flowers in a vase on the stove, and they like to leave a glass of vodka in Ivankov's hand. Others put a banknote under his leg. They say good luck.

Bandit cemetery in Yekaterinburg

It is worth noting that the province is not inferior to the capital in the pomposity of thieves and bandits obelisks. In Yekaterinburg - the capital of the Urals - in the 90s, many authoritative people laid down their lives. Founders are the main ones.

Left monuments: Grigory Tsyganov, Sergei Ivannikov, Alexander Khabarov

All three authorities are buried side by side, on the central alley of the churchyard. Their monuments are made in the style of busts of party leaders buried near the Kremlin wall. The people called this place "three heads", although today's youth no longer know who these people are.

Banykinskoye cemetery - bandits

Another famous bandit graveyard is the Banykinskoye cemetery in Tolyatti. In the mid-90s, a real one unfolded in the autocity. Dozens of bandits died here a day, and the cemetery gates were almost never closed. They buried the lads depending on the rank. So, the central alley of the churchyard is occupied by the graves of the leaders and foremen of numerous organized crime groups: the Bukreev brothers.

The Banykinskoye cemetery strikes not so much with the pathos of the obelisks as with the mass character of the burials. By the way, among these fallen gangsters one can hardly find those who lived to see
thirty. At the moment, the authorities of Togliatti are thinking about organizing a tourist route to the Banykinskoye cemetery under the sign "Togliatti - Russian Chicago." However, similar burials can be found in the cemetery of any major city in Russia, because the dashing 90s left unhealed wounds on the body of the whole country.

As a rule, girlfriends of criminal authorities, and simply criminals of those years, became all sorts of “miss” of something. Simply put, long-legged beauties, hungry for money. We will not argue - maybe there was a place for sincere love. For the most part, their lives ended as quickly and tragically as those of the bandits themselves. And sometimes at the same time.

Corpse in a suitcase

Perhaps the loudest story on our topic is the terrible murder of a killer Alexandra Solonik and his mistresses Svetlana Kotova.

Sasha Solonik, also known as Macedonian (he received this nickname due to the ability to shoot in Macedonian - with two hands), belonged to the Kurgan organized criminal group. In 1987, he was sentenced to eight years in a strict regime colony for rape. Then he ran away.

In 1990, the killer fulfilled the first order for the murder - he shot the head of the Ishim group - Nicholas Prichinich.

Solonik was detained on October 6, 1994 at the Petrovsky-Razumovsky market of the capital. At the police station, while trying to escape, Solonik wounded three police officers and was wounded in the kidney. From the hospital, Makedonsky was taken to Matrosskaya Tishina for investigation. But eight months after his arrest, Solonik escaped from the pre-trial detention center. By the way, in the entire history of the famous prison, he became the only person who succeeded.

Under the new name, Solonik settled in Greece, where his people from the Kurgan OPG were already located. In Langonisi, not far from Athens, the bandits rented three luxurious mansions.

Macedonian, according to neighbors, was greedy for women and every week brought a new lady into the house. But Solonik's romance with a fashion model turned out to be the longest. Sveta Kotova. And for her, it's also fatal.

The girl worked with the well-known Moscow agency Red Stars, participated in the final of the Miss Russia-96 contest. On January 25, 1997, Kotova performed at the international exhibition Consumexpo. After that, Svetlana asked her superiors for a vacation and left for Athens.

As it turned out later, she went to Solonik, who had previously invited the model to Greece more than once. They say that Alexander even came secretly to Moscow under the guise of a Greek showman. Vladimir Kesov to convince Sveta to leave with him.

From Athens, Svetlana was going to go to a beauty contest in Italy. The girl spoke about this to her mother on the phone. Kotova called home every day until January 30th. After this date, the model disappeared.

On February 2, 1997, in the Varibobi forest, near Athens, operatives discovered the body of Solonik. He was strangled with a nylon cord. There were no documents with the killer.

The search for Kotova continued for another three months. The police found that Svetlana did not cross the borders of Greece - she was eliminated as a witness to the murder of her boyfriend.

In May, residents of the resort town of Saronides stumbled upon a suitcase lying under an olive tree. Inside, the dismembered body of a woman lay in plastic bags. The identity of the 21-year-old Kotova was established, since the decomposition process did not have time to begin in full.

There are many versions of who committed both murders. From the involvement of the Italian mafia and up to the fact that Solonik is generally alive. However, the investigation agreed that Makedonsky and Kotova were killed by members of the Orekhovskaya organized criminal group.

Mother predicted her daughter's death

On the evening of September 16, 2000, a resident of one of the Cheboksary "Stalins" heard a strange noise in the entrance. She opened the door, but they immediately put a gun to her forehead and pushed her back into the apartment. When everything was quiet in the stairwell, the husband of the frightened woman decided to go out.

Two men and a beautiful girl lay in pools of blood. 20 year old Alexandra Petrova She was still breathing, but the doctors could not save her. Sasha died on the way to the hospital. In two days she had a noisy holiday - her birthday.

At the age of 16, Sasha Petrova went from Cheboksary to Novgorod to conquer the Miss Russia contest, which for the first time “left” the capital. A childhood dream came true - in 1996 Alexandra became the new beauty queen.

Work began to boil, offers from various agencies rained down. Even Hollywood was invited to act, but my mother opposed. Sasha completed two courses at the Faculty of Foreign Languages ​​and dropped out of the institute. Her common-law husband Konstantin Chuvilin- wanted to see the girl next to him, and not behind the books.

Kostya was not an easy guy. And 18-year-old Sasha liked “bad boys”, especially with “grandmothers”, because in her childhood and adolescence she lived modestly. Chuvilin was listed as unemployed, but in fact he was a member of the Chapaev organized crime group, the most influential in Cheboksary. This easily explained the availability of money for a luxurious renovation in an apartment on Kirov Street and a Lada of the latest brand.

A close friend and "colleague" of Kostya was the director of the central market - Radik Akhmetov. It was because of the market that the conflict arose between Anatoly Doronitsin, who previously owned a trading company, and the local mayor's office. According to investigators, Doronitsin hired a hitman to eliminate Akhmetov, who had sat him down.

The killer overtook Radik in the company of Petrova and Chuvilin. At the entrance of an elite house, a mercenary shot all three at point-blank range from a machine gun. The perpetrator could not be found, which is not surprising for that time.

Here is what a certain person writes about Petrova on one forum Katya Katya: “She really stood out. So modest, tall, all in black. Then I got mixed up with this common-law husband. She began to wander around restaurants, abandoned her studies. But in furs. The whole city saw her off, everyone loved her.

The worst thing is that Sasha's mother predicted the tragic fate of her daughter and was terribly afraid for her life.

“I knew this would happen. I read from my hand: in Shura's palm, the line of fate intersected with the line of the mind by the age of twenty, and at the intersection - a point. A blow to the head at twenty. In fact, I didn't say anything to her. There is also a sign: if you see a cockroach, it’s not good. And then they just began to fall off the wall, and no matter how they were stained, they continued to fall ... It's unnatural - the way they fell. And after what happened - everything, not a single cockroach, - Tatyana Nikolaevna recalled with horror.

Innocent victim of war

In the dashing 90s, the city of Togliatti was compared with the American Chicago. It so happened because for ten years there was a bloody criminal war in pursuit of control over AvtoVAZ. According to some estimates, more than 400 people were killed in Togliatti during that period.

The beginning of the war was facilitated by the conflict between the largest Volgovskaya organized crime group and the gang Vladimira Agiya and Alexander Voronetsky. By the way, during perestroika, Volgovskaya was one of the first to start selling stolen parts from AvtoVAZ.

In the 2000s, Togliatti was mired in the third "great racketeering war." At the head of the Volgovskaya organized criminal group was Dmitry Ruzlyaev. Another leader of the group was considered a cruel, frostbitten bandit Scoop - Evgeniy Sovkov. By that time, he was on the wanted list and lived in Moscow on a "left" passport in the name Pavel Lizunov together with a 28-year-old bride from Tolyatti - Lyudmila Matytsina.

Sovkov often went to the Krasnopresnensky baths - a favorite place for reputable criminals. On December 26, 2000, Scoop went to the “arrow” to these very baths, taking Lyudmila with him. The meeting took place in Stolyarny Lane. Let's jump ahead and say that a few steps from this place in the 94th hitman Lesha Soldier authority was shot Otari Kvantrishvili.

... The conversation between the Scoop and a certain man in black did not last long. When Yevgeny turned around and went back to the car, shots rang out. Matytsina jumped out of the car in horror and immediately received a bullet in the forehead.

The killer turned out to be a long-time foe Scoop - Andrey Milovanov aka Green.

Sovkov, with a severe wound, managed to get into the driver's seat, but four hours later he died in the hospital. On Lyudmila, the killer fired a control shot in the head before leaving.

Green was generally famous for the fact that he could absolutely calmly kill a woman in the most cruel way. He also shot the widow of the general director of the Togliatti fish factory Oksana Labintseva.

The dashing 90s in Russia untied the hands of criminal business. The bandits did not shy away from anything: whether it was drug trafficking, racketeering or murder. After all, fabulous money was at stake.

Who is into what

Banditry flourished in Russia back in the perestroika period, however, Soviet organized crime groups were noticeably constrained in their actions, mostly engaged in “protection” of underground entrepreneurs, robbing passers-by or stealing social property. At the same time, it was these groups that became the soil that nurtured the ruthless and cynical criminals of the nineties. Some of them will fall into the ground, and someone will break into authority, occupying the chair of an official, or being a shareholder of a large company.

But still, most members of the organized crime group fed themselves and their families in more traditional ways: "protection", money laundering, fraud, racketeering, robbery, pimping, contract killings. After all, it was possible to receive considerable income from this kind of business.

Thus, the “Volgovskaya” criminal gang, one of the largest in the country, created by the natives of Togliatti, was engaged in the resale of stolen parts from the local VAZ automobile plant. Over time, under the control of organized crime groups were half of the shipment of cars of the enterprise and dozens of dealer companies, from which the "Volgovskie" had an income of over 400 million dollars a year.

No less large-scale was the criminal activity of the "Solntsevskaya" organized criminal group. She owned the Solntsevo car market, a third of the district's entertainment establishments, as well as taxi services in Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo-2 and at the Kiev railway station. One of the sources of profit for the "Solntsevskaya" was the Gorbushka market, which they shared with the "Izmailovsky". From one seller, the bandits received from 300 to 1000 dollars a month.

Bottoms

Each criminal gang had a strict hierarchy, on which the redistribution of income depended. At the bottom of the criminal chain was usually a youth gang. Her “pawns” are high school students aged 15–16 (“boys”) who collected tribute from their peers or younger students. These were either requisitions for a "roof", or an elementary robbery. Monthly "contributions" from each student in terms of modern money ranged from 200 to 500 rubles. The "boys" left almost nothing for themselves, they transferred the main amount up the hierarchical chain.

The next link in the organized crime group were the "boys", whose age ranged from 16 to 25 years. It was the strike force of the gangs, carrying out the orders of the "seniors", ranging from the "protection" of schoolchildren and security functions, ending with the sale of soft drugs and street battles for the territory. Often they were trusted to participate in racketeering and murders. Based on the words of a former member of the Bauman group (Moscow), one “kid” monthly brought an organized criminal group in the region of 4-5 thousand rubles in terms of current money. Each even a small grouping of such suppliers had from a hundred to a thousand.

Above the "boys" were "foremen" who controlled and coordinated the activities of youth gangs. Their age, as a rule, ranged from 22 to 30 years. It was they who decided who to "protect", where to rob and how much one or another member of the gang would pay in the "common fund". In submission to the "brigadiers" were from 50 to 400 "boys". The leaders of the youth gangs accumulated all the incoming funds, they kept no more than 7% for themselves, the rest was passed on to the top.

Tops

The basis of the upper part of the organized crime group was the so-called "fighters". They no longer transferred money to the "common fund", but were kept by criminal "authorities". In terms of modern prices, they earned from 70 to 200 thousand rubles a month. The "fighters" had additional income from the stolen property: cars, luxury furniture, imported equipment, jewelry.

The core of the criminal groups was a group of 30-50 people who can be called "managers". It was he who was engaged in the planning of all operations and the leadership of the "fighters". Often, "managers" could be found on the board of directors of "roofed" firms. By modern standards, their income was 600-800 thousand rubles a month.

Gang leaders - "authorities" tried to stay in the background. In one organized crime group, their number did not exceed 5-7 people. As a rule, they made collective decisions concerning the vital issues of the group's activities. Up to several million dollars could fall into the pockets of "authorities" every month, but they also paid a high price for this, since they were the main target for competing gangs.

Items of income

Criminal gangs of the 90s often had several main sources of income. The first is the "common fund": funds that were brought by the younger members of the gang. About 200 - 800 thousand dollars “ran up” per month. The "obshchak" was mainly formed thanks to the funds received as a result of proceeds from petty extortion, theft or theft of a car.

The second item of replenishment of the criminal budget is, as a rule, the planned activities of organized crime groups: racketeering of small and medium-sized businesses, participation in the privatization and corporatization of factories, contract killings and bank robberies. All this brought the gang from 2 to 5 million dollars a month.

The third source of income is prostitution, drug trafficking, weapons and gambling. Monthly this item of income gave from 3 to 9 million dollars. It should be noted that pimping was not honored by criminal communities. The “shameful” business was carried out either by small organized crime groups, or by those who were stranded.

The last and fattest source of income is the participation of the top organized crime groups in legal business as investors or shareholders, including the creation of their own business. Most often these are markets, shops, car dealerships and casinos. The amount of income here depended on the scale of the enterprise and could reach several tens of millions of dollars per month.

Murder for Hire

Contract killings can be called a separate source of income, or, as Lieutenant Colonel of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia Igor Shutov calls them, murders committed for hire. Most often, according to an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, they were killed because of cars, apartments and money in the account. However, high-profile contract killings, as a rule, were aimed at intimidation or revenge.

Kill-for-hire rates varied widely. So, the killer of the Kazan group "Zhilka" Alexei Snezhinsky told how "some serious people" turned to him and offered to organize the murder of the conditional "Sasha the bandit" for 10 thousand dollars. Snezhinsky himself acted as the organizer of the murder, taking 8 thousand dollars for himself, paying the performer 2 thousand. According to the killer, up to 50 thousand dollars could be requested for a more serious case.

In Moscow, according to the statements of former members of the organized criminal group, the highest rates were for the murder - an average of 25 thousand dollars. It cost much more to order a well-known "media" figure. So the investigation found that only the advance payment for the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya (although it was committed after the era of the 90s) cost the customer 150 thousand dollars.