In St. Petersburg, one of the heroes of the dashing 90s, Vladimir Kulibaba, is on trial. In the city, he is known as a prominent athlete and ex-assistant to the head of the Russian Olympic Committee, and concurrently as a criminal authority and alleged head of the killer brigade in the organized criminal group Konstantin Yakovlev (Kostya Mogila).
He was detained in the case of the resonant murder of the St. Petersburg authority Igor Savin, nicknamed Kuvalda. While Kulibaba was in jail, the investigation uncovered another high-profile contract murder – billionaire and State Duma deputy Mark Goryachev, and it is possible that there will be new sensations. After all, Vladimir Kulibaba was one of those to whom the operatives came with questions after the murder of Vlad Listyev.
Bloody sport
The career of Vladimir Kulibaba, like that of many St. Petersburg gangsters of the 90s, began with training at the Lesgaft Institute of Physical Culture. Future Olympic champions and physical education teachers were trained here, but boxers, freestyle wrestlers and biathletes were able to see other prospects for themselves in the coming troubled times. Physically strong Kulibaba, from his youth engaged in freestyle wrestling and who came to the city on the Neva from Moldova, joined them with pleasure. In the late 80s, the main figure of criminal Leningrad was Konstantin Yakovlev (known as Kostya Mogila), whose group protected the most “tasty” St. Petersburg businesses – from bars and restaurants to black marketeers. When they began to build a market economy in the country, gangster structures also began to grow. In 1993, Vladimir Kulibaba, who abandoned his studies, was already called one of the “foremen” of Kostya Mogila. The bloody conflict within the group helped him to come to the fore. One of Mogila’s henchmen named Igor Savin (aka Kuvalda) “squeezed” about 230 thousand dollars from a successful deal with imported alcohol. The grave demanded a share, but Kuvalda decided not to give the money back. This is how the author of the book “In the name of the lads” Yevgeny Vyshenkov described the development of the situation: “When the discussion between them reached a dead end, then on July 31, 1993, a dark BMW without license plates drove up to the office of the Almaz company Konstantin Yakovlev, which was located on Varshavskaya Street. signs. From there, other boxers came out – Abrosimov, Naumov and Khatskevich. The latter stood with a Kalashnikov assault rifle near the entrance, two confidently looked inside. They walked to the reception room, where Naumov remained with the Taurus pistol near the secretary, and Abrosimov and the Walter pistol with a silencer looked into Yakovlev’s chambers.
The killer managed to shoot the accountant and one of the authority’s bodyguards, but Kostya Mogila himself hid behind a massive table in time and waited for the guards to arrive. And after a couple of months, unknown people riddled with machine guns the very Kuvalda. As knowledgeable people believe, it was Vladimir Kulibaba who organized this action, from that moment he allegedly became the head of a group of killers inside the organized criminal group. The murder of Kuvalda remained unsolved – the Grave had too much power then.
Reprisal against the deputy
The methods by which the people of Kulibaba acted are best illustrated by a terrible story with a State Duma deputy and one of the most famous entrepreneurs in Russia in the mid-90s, Mark Goryachev. In 1994, he was officially named the richest legal entrepreneur in the country, and in 1997 he disappeared without a trace. Many believed that Goryachev, who had collected loans, had moved somewhere in the Caribbean. Alas, the reality turned out to be more banal and scarier. Fatal for Goryachev was a business partnership with Kostya Mogila – part of the bank funds went through Goryachev just to gangster structures, and therefore his disappearance made it possible to cut off the financial chains completely. On March 4, 1997, four militants attacked him right on the street, beat him, dragged him into an armored Mercedes of authority and took him to a dacha in the village of Ozerki. In the bath, they strangled him, cut off his head and hands (to make it more difficult to identify), tied pancakes from the barbell to the remains and pushed them into the nearest hole. In the summer, a body without a head was discovered, but then they never found out who it belonged to.
This story was revealed only now, when Vladimir Kulibaba ended up in a pre-trial detention center in St. Petersburg on another case.
The methods by which the people of Kulibaba acted are best illustrated by a terrible story with a State Duma deputy and one of the most famous entrepreneurs in Russia in the mid-90s, Mark Goryachev. In 1994, he was officially named the richest legal entrepreneur in the country, and in 1997 he disappeared without a trace.
Only personal
It should be noted that since the early 2000s, Kulibaba has made a lot of efforts to clean up his image and make a legal career. In 2000, he first became vice president, and since 2010, president of the St. Petersburg Wrestling Federation. Kulibaba gave speeches, took pictures with famous people, and did charity work. Along the way, a service in the GRU suddenly appeared in his official biography, in which he allegedly made a brilliant career – having entered the military register as a lieutenant in 1999, by 2001 Kulibaba was already becoming a captain of military intelligence (about the fact that he spent at least a day on service, information is not preserved).
In the end, Kulibaba took the post of assistant to the chairman of the Russian Olympic Committee, Leonid Tyagachev. It became the pinnacle of his social and political career in Russia. The fact is that back in 2008, in the center of St. Petersburg, in his own SUV, the head of the private security company “Cascade” Vadim Chechel was shot. The main version of the investigation was initially commercial motives – “Cascade” did business with the future Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Anatoly Serdyukov, and with the Tambov bandits. However, the detained killer unexpectedly said that the reason for the murder seemed to be the most personal. Allegedly, the private security company guarded the mistress of Leonid Tyagachev, but the young lady liked Chechel himself, who even intended to marry her. Here, they say, Vladimir Kulibaba decided to prevent the collapse of the personal happiness of the chairman of the ROC of Russia. In 2012, the authority was detained. He did not admit his guilt, as well as denied the involvement of Leonid Tyagachev in the incident. The jury sided with Kulibaba. Then, rumors circulated around the city for a long time that the jurors were allegedly paid cosmic sums for their decision, but it is hardly worth repeating idle gossip. Moreover, later the acquittal was upheld in the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.
Moldovan politician
After that, Kulibaba preferred to move from Russia to his small homeland, to Moldova. Here, his career began to develop according to a proven scheme – from sports to business and politics. As Life wrote, Kulibaba served as chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of Workers in the Field of Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism of the Republic of Moldova, and was also one of the confidants of the Moldovan politician and “authoritative businessman” Grigory Caramalac, nicknamed Bolgar. In addition, he participated in the civic platform “People’s Union”, which organizes actions to support socialists and communists in the current election campaign.
So by 2021, Kulibaba became one of the leaders of the local political beau monde. However, by that time, the St. Petersburg detectives decided to hold a rematch and blew the dust off the daddies in the Chechel murder case. As a result, in November 2021, Kulibaba was detained. His lawyers first secured house arrest for their client, but soon Vladimir Kulibaba was sent to a pre-trial detention center.
In many respects, the reason for this was that the operatives uncovered the murder of Mark Goryachev. It has become the very icing on the cake, which threatens to turn into a life sentence for Kulibaba. And given that he was previously interrogated for a number of high-profile crimes, including the murder of Vlad Listyev, then perhaps the consideration of this case will bring many more sensations. However, another twist is quite possible. As it turns out, the murders that Kulibaba is accused of took place so long ago that the statute of limitations has already expired. Therefore, the court can announce the verdict and immediately release Kulibaba. So it’s up to Themis now.
