Boris Kolesnikov: what we forgot or didn’t know about the Donetsk merchant. PART 1

Who divided tens of billions of budget hryvnias between their companies, introduced the idea of ​​Donbass separatism, drove them to bankruptcy and bought up enterprises, and after all this not only did not suffer punishment, but also took the chair of the chief economic expert in the largest opposition faction in parliament? Not every Ukrainian will remember that we are talking about Boris Kolesnikov, who is trying to return to Ukrainian politics with a face completely washed away from previous scandals and a completely new reputation. And it seems that he succeeds.

According to recent sociological surveys, among Ukrainians there is a sharp drop in trust in the current government, with a simultaneous increase in trust in those politicians who were in it just a few years ago. And in Eastern Ukraine, the leaders of this rating were Rinat Akhmetov (49%), Yuri Boyko (25%), Boris Kolesnikov (17%) and Alexander Efremov (16%). Well, Ukrainians have an extremely short memory, which allows them to almost immediately forget about everything that their idols have recently done! No less surprising Skelet.Info and the fact that law enforcement agencies also have an equally short memory.

Boris Kolesnikov. The market youth of the oligarch

Being perhaps the closest person to Rinat Akhmetov, Boris Kolesnikov was awarded the title of “Donetsk bandit” even before the first Maidan. This was the simplest philistine conclusion: since Akhmetov is a bandit, and Kolesnikov is his right hand, then he is also a bandit. But then the first detailed information about the past of the main characters of the Donetsk clan appeared in the media. And it became known that Kolesnikov was never a member of the racketeering “brigades” of Akhat Bragin, he was always a market trader – both in the literal sense of the word and in essence. If we project the psychological portrait of Boris Kolesnikov onto the social terms of the 19th century, he is not an “owner” like Bragin or Akhmetov, he does not even look like a “comrade of the owner” (as the companions of merchants and adventurers were called), he is a typical “clerk” of the owner’s shop. There are many such types in the modern Ukrainian elite – for example, the same Ivan Avramovwho is the “customer” of Yuri Ivanyushchenko. However, “clerks” are far from the last people, because in big business, and especially in big politics, there are now quite a few “gender men” and “cooks” – they are the ones who make the loudest noise on TV more often than anyone else.

But several more years passed, and new details appeared from the life of Boris Kolesnikov. It turned out that this seemingly indecisive and restless man is not so simple, and he has a long criminal trail behind him, in which the high-profile story with the “White Swan” is only one of the episodes. However, this did not at all ruin his psychological portrait. It’s just that, as you know, whoever you hang out with, that’s how you’ll gain. And Boris Kolesnikov initially fell for the “dashing little people.”

Boris Viktorovich Kolesnikov was born on October 25, 1962 in the city of Zhdanov (now Mariupol), and in the 70s his family moved to Donetsk, where they settled in an apartment in a new (at that time) nine-story building No. 40 on Krasnozorinskaya Street (Kuibyshevsky district) . However, in his interviews with journalists, Kolesnikov blatantly lied when he told stories that he allegedly lived on the same street with Rinat Akhmetov. Like, that’s how they met, and in general Rinat Leonidovich is an honest businessman, and didn’t even hurt a fly:

Boris Kolesnikov, Rinat Akhmetov, dossier, biography, incriminating evidence

But the fact is that Akhmetov’s family lived a few kilometers from Krasnozorinskaya, in the village of Oktyabrsky (near the mine of the same name), closer to the airport – in the same place as his “mentor” Akhat Bragin, better known as Alik the Greek. Since 2014, this has been an area of ​​regular shelling, although the Akhmetovs’ house (more precisely, the mansions built on the site of the old house), as they say, miraculously suffered almost no damage – another mystery of the “hybrid war”!

Family “patrimony” of the Akhmetovs in the village of Oktyabrsky

The squalid and destroyed houses of their neighbors contrast with the Akhmetov family nest

After graduating from high school, Boris Kolesnikov faced two prospects: either he was preparing for university exams, or he was preparing for military service. He acted differently: one fine day, young Boris appeared on the street with a pained grimace on his face and his left arm encased in a cast and supported by a metal frame. This is how he, in his own words, went on for three whole years. Thanks to an abstruse diagnosis of complete unsuitability for physical activity (almost disability), written down on several pages by a traumatologist familiar to his parents, Boris Kolesnikov was barred from joining the army – even to a construction battalion. Apparently, this automatically removed the need to enroll in a university, since Kolesnikov continued his studies as early as 1988, enrolling in absentia at the College of Soviet Trade. Instead, the 18-year-old “disabled” man went to work as a salesman – and it seems that his left arm in a cast did not in the least prevent him from vigorously selling groceries and fruits in the store of the Kuybyshev Work Supply Department (OSS) “Donetskvugillya”.

Rinat Akhmetov

It was in this Kuibyshev ORS that Kolesnikov became close friends with two other “trade workers”: Akhatem Bragin and Rinat Akhmetov. First with Bragin, who in the early 80s officially worked as a butcher (and unofficially “rolled” cards and was involved in racketeering), and then, when he became the director of Donetsk store No. 41, and with his official forwarder Rinat Akhmetov (Bragin’s closest assistant in his affairs). However, at that time they were not yet authorities for the Kolesnikovs, but only the same deficit speculators as himself, but only with a loud gangster reputation. Kolesnikov valued much more his connections with ORS management, heads of bases (including Shamil Ivankov), directors of other stores – in a word, those who were part of the “trading mafia” in Soviet times.

Ahat Bragin, aka Alik the Greek

Akhmetov and Bragin, still from operational shooting in 1991

In 1985, Boris Kolesnikov changed his business: instead of speculating “under the counter” on the deficit, he switched to fraud and theft, getting a job at the Donetsk wholesale and retail plant – where he “earned” good money from “shrinking” and “shaking” fruit. And then a flood of overseas fruits poured into the USSR, bought for petrodollars or obtained through barter: oranges and lemons began to be sold all year round, new varieties of apples appeared on sale, even pineapples, previously unseen in the provinces. But this trade had one peculiarity: almost everywhere, imported fruits were sold not in ordinary Soviet vegetable stores, which stank of rotten potatoes and sour cabbage, but through consumer cooperation. The secret was simple: these cooperatives, taking advantage of their right to harvest, store and sell vegetables and fruits, “procured” imported citrus fruits directly at the bases, buying them upright – and then resold them to the population in their cooperative shops or from street “points”, with good extra charge (from 50 kopecks to 1 ruble per kilogram). Such a scheme was a banal speculation and operated almost throughout the USSR, but no one tried to cover it up, because everyone was in the same stake as the cooperators: the directors of the bases and Soyuzplodimport, the police and the prosecutor’s office, local authorities, and, of course, organized crime groups. In addition, the sale of imported fruits through cooperatives was lobbied in Moscow itself: at the top it was believed that cooperators would cope with this better (more retail outlets, higher safety of goods) than the hardened “vegetable” ones.

It was precisely in such a cooperative, opened at the Central Market of Donetsk, that Boris Kolesnikov got a job in 1986. Formally, he was listed there only as a “seller-procurer,” but he was no longer behind the scales, but was engaged in purchasing goods at the base, distributing them to “points” and collecting revenue. Several people from Bragin’s group worked in the same cooperative, also listed as sellers or forwarders – which, in fact, “held” this business in share with the trade and prosecutorial mafia. This is how Boris Kolesnikov, with the nickname “Borya Wheel”, entered the circle of the most famous Donetsk organized crime group – but not as a “fighter”, but as a clever businessman, skillfully using his connections and many years of experience as a trader.

Bloody “South”

Among the people with whom Kolesnikov directly worked, was involved and had contacts on the case in the second half of the 80s, it is worth noting several people. Firstly, this is Sergei Alekseevich Roman (nickname “Sery”), born in 1956, who then lived in the village of Oktyabrsky not far from Akhmetov and was part of Bragin’s organized crime group (they wrote that he was Bragin’s schoolmate). “Grey” was engaged in racketeering at the same Central Market of Donetsk (the most “trump point” in the 80s), where the “head office” of the cooperative was located, in which Kolesnikov speculated in fruits. According to available information, “Sery” at the same time exercised patronage over this cooperative, and his share in it was equal to Bragin’s. And in the early 90s, when Soyuzplodimport died out, trade in imported fruits in Donetsk continued through private companies that imported them through Azov ports. Thus, companies gradually emerged that virtually monopolized the trade in imported fruits in the Donbass: Yug LLC (1993), Scandin-Yug JV, and then Fruits of the World LLC. They emerged from that same cooperative, created through the efforts of two people: Sergei Roman and Boris Kolesnikov. The first was the actual owner of the companies in which Roman and Bragin initially invested (at the same time privatizing the Central Market of Donetsk to the Yug company), and the second was their manager (director), who created a trading network in the Donbass and traveled to subtropical countries to negotiate with suppliers.

By the way, according to available Skelet.Info information, in 1991 Boris Kolesnikov did not receive, but literally bought himself a diploma from the Donetsk College of Soviet Trade, since he did not have time to study there even in absentia – the man was immersed in commerce with his head. He coveted the diploma when their market and fruit cooperative was first reorganized into a private company, in which Kolesnikov received the position of commercial director. Apparently, a certificate of secondary education was too little for him, but diplomas from economic universities were not yet sold at that time, so he had to be content with what he could “get.”

The relations between members of domestic organized crime groups of the 80-90s had an intricate structure, reminiscent of the early feudal system. Those close to the “authorities” either received from them some markets, shops or other profitable “points” to “feed”, or created them for themselves with the blessing of the “authorities”, or they joined large gangs with their own “fiefdoms”, preserving them behind you. However, they transferred part of their income (share) to the organized crime group, which was divided between the “brothers” and the “authority”, went to the “common fund” of the organized crime group, etc. With the beginning of the era of capitalism, these relations were formalized differently: the leaders of organized crime groups (or their proxies) and their closest assistants became co-founders of enterprises in which they received their rightful share. Kolesnikov himself remained a “paid manager” until the mid-90s.

Kolesnikov’s situation was changed by two deaths: Akhat Bragin and Sergei Roman, these friends since childhood. Bragin was killed first (October 15, 1995), and Akhmetov acquired his shares in various enterprises. At the same time, Akhmetov no longer shared with the “brothers”, forgot about the “common fund” and took over all the assets of the organized crime group, turning them into his own companies. But some of his circle also became shareholders – and Boris Kolesnikov was among them. So in 1996, during the next re-registration of the Yug company, the composition of its founders and co-owners changed: instead of the murdered Bragin, Kolesnikov became Roman’s partner. How it happened that Bragin’s share in “Yug” actually went to him remains a mystery of behind-the-scenes gangster intrigue. It was even reported that Sergei Roman himself was involved in the murder of his friend, who in 1995 became close to the Donetsk organized crime group of Yevgeny Kushnir – and it was this gang that was then “pinned” with all the high-profile murders (Akhat Bragin, Yevgeny Shcherban, Vadim Getman). However, some sources reported that Kushnir’s gang was simply set up as scapegoats. In addition, in any case, Kolesnikov would not have received Bragin’s share without some special friendly relations with Akhmetov, who became Alik the Greek’s heir. Akhmetov would hardly have just donated half of the company to Koles, which at that time had already bought up not only the Central Market of Donetsk, but also many shops and warehouses in the region. On this occasion, there were rumors that Kolesnikov provided Akhmetov with some very important service.

Boris Kolesnikov: what we forgot or didn’t know about the Donetsk merchant. PART 1

It is worth noting that one mystery can be found in the registration documents: Sergei Roman is registered in them at the address on Krasnozorinskaya (in the Kolesnikovs’ apartment), and Boris Kolesnikov is registered in the house on Vakhrusheva, where Sergei Roman grew up and lived. Subsequently, it was this strange castling that gave rise to the legend that Kolesnikov supposedly lived on Vakhrushev in his youth and was Akhmetov’s neighbor. However, people who knew Kolesnikov from school age claim that Boris and his parents lived in a high-rise building on Krasnozorinka, and only in the 90s moved to Roman’s house on Vakhrushev, when he went abroad after the murder of Bragin. Perhaps then, during the re-registration of the Yug company, Roman, having given (or sold) his house to Kolesnikov, decided to indicate the address of his partner’s apartment in the documents.

And a little later, someone rendered an important service to Kolesnikov himself: on May 23, 1997, Sergei Roman was killed. Someone close to Roman lured him from abroad to Donetsk, allegedly for a business meeting. There were several candidates for the role of Judas, including at the Yug company. In addition to Kolesnikov himself, the names of several other people were mentioned with whom Roman also started in the cooperative at the Central Market of Donetsk: Viktor Gudinets, Andrey Babak, Vladislav Likhodey, as well as the “young lawyer” Ivan Shakurov (born 1970), who later joined them.

Babak was initially Kolesnikov’s man, his constant assistant and deputy since the 80s, but Gudizen was considered Roman’s confidant – and it was with Gudinets that he left the Yug company when he went abroad. But then witnesses noted that Gudinets literally “sang together” with Kolesnikov, and he, in turn, was very friendly with Akhmetov. Even the police claimed that only Kolesnikov and Gudinets knew when and where Sergei Roman would be on that ill-fated day – but soon the investigation stopped asking them questions.

Andrey Babak with his family

Be that as it may, after the murder of Sergei Roman, everyone received an impressive “inheritance” – even one that the deceased’s companions and top managers, by law, could not lay claim to. Akhmetov received full ownership of a number of real estate properties in Donetsk, which Roman had previously owned jointly with Bragin. Roman’s enterprises from the Central Market of Donetsk mainly went to Kolesnikov and his entourage – now he has become their owner. However, instead of Roman, a new co-owner entered Yug – it became the Ukrinkom company, owned by Zhigan Taktashev, a person very close to Akhmetov (died in 2005). Viktor Gudinets received as a “reward” for his mysterious services the company Fruits of the World LLC, which became the main supplier of tropical fruits in the Donbass, the Vesna company (flower trade), and the Scandin-South company.

Boris Kolesnikov: what we forgot or didn’t know about the Donetsk merchant. PART 1

Gudinets also became the director and co-founder of the company “Reestr-Consulting”, together with Maxim Viktorovich Kolesnikov (born 1975), who is Boris Kolesnikov’s half-brother on his father’s side. Andrei Babak actually became the second person in “South” after Kolesnikov, and when he received a position in the Donetsk Regional Council, he handed over the director’s chair to Babak. As for the lawyer of the Yug firm, Ivan Shakurov, who was directly involved in the division of the capital of the murdered Sergei Roman, he also received his piece of the pie, only in a different way: in 1997, Shakurov became a co-owner and director of the law firm Ukrconsulting LLC, created by Kolesnikov to service his nascent business empire.

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

CONTINUED: Boris Kolesnikov: what we forgot or didn’t know about the Donetsk trader. Part 2

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