The Rise and Fall of the Adjuster of Capitalism in Russia

Last Friday, Fontanka revealed the secret of the disappearance of one of the richest people in St. Petersburg in the 1990s. The PR people came up with the slogan for him, “the tuner of capitalism in Russia.” Mark Goryachev 30 years ago was one of those who laid the foundations of the new Russia. This is a story about why a person who has ascended to the heights of personal wealth and power, sank piece by piece into the hole in the Gulf of Finland.

The original material was published in 2021 on the social network by Ruslan Linkov, a former witness to many events of those years. With the consent of the author, the editorial board publishes an abbreviated version and changes the pseudonym of the hero of the author’s text to his real name.

White pianos for black people

Before becoming “the tuner of capitalism in Russia”, Mark Leonidovich Goryachev was a tuner at the Krasny Oktyabr musical instrument factory. His working days were not varied. Every morning he came to the workshop, put on a blue robe, picked up a tuning fork and a bag with keys. He was instructed to give a beautiful voice to 20 new pianos during a work shift. Goryachev coped with the norm.

The monotonous life of a tuner was changed beyond recognition by Konstantin Karolievich Yakovlev. Some also called him “Bone Grave”. Once he was a digger at the Southern Cemetery, but since then he has come a long way and was considered in the thieves’ world to look after Leningrad.

Yakovlev was a friend of the director of Krasny Oktyabr. Thanks to him, against the general background of a decline in demand for oboes, trombones, balalaikas and button accordions, the music factory flourished. “Grave” knew a lot about tools. Especially in pianos.

Each time after his visit to Red October, several freshly made pianos were sent south to Konstantin Karolevich’s friends and colleagues – to the Sochi, Gagra and Batumi houses of the kings of the world of “concepts” and “common fund”. Bulky white lacquered grand pianos were in great demand among this audience.

Konstantin Karolevich fully covered all the costs of their manufacture, transportation and tuning in the homes of those who saw a special chic in listening to “Murka” to the accompaniment of these expensive concert instruments.

On average, “Grave” gave four pianos to his friends per month. And the director of the factory determined Mark Goryacheva to accompany and set them up. I wrote him regular “business trips” to the Caucasus, allegedly with the aim of “selecting special coniferous, deciduous wood and felt for arranging the internal machinery of pianos.”

Everyone was happy. The director had his share of these pianos, Konstantin Karolevich increased his authority among colleagues in the “common fund” case, and Mark Goryachev traveled for free, ate delicious food and drank unlimitedly.

But one day the scheme almost failed. Mark Goryachev, even before leaving Leningrad, did not check the musical cargo before it was transported to Batumi. There, in the throne room of the “crowned person”, local workers opened the box, took out the white piano case covered with a transparent film. Goryachev cut it open and, raising his hands up, struck the keys. And in response … there was silence.

The owner of the palace looked at what was happening from his sofa. Goryachev lifted the lid over the soundboard and saw inside the piano’s lacquered box the complete absence of a stringed harp. The hammers of the keyboard group instead of strings knocked into the void. Packing workers at Krasny Oktyabr hurriedly shoved an incomplete copy into a box.

Mark Leonidovich prepared for the worst. But the owner of the palace patted him on the shoulder and said in a hoarse voice:

— “And ne nada! Quiet will be!”.

Then, together with the retinue, he left the hall. Mark’s heart stopped beating hard.

This story taught him a lot. Stop tuning the pianos, he thought. And he also decided: “It’s time to make money!”

Thanks to his senior comrade Konstantin Karolevich and his trips to palaces, he understood how he should act. Goryachev proceeded from the fact that an official, a “red director” of a Soviet enterprise or a banker, is no worse than a “thief in law”. And you can take them with your bare hands, throwing gold dust into your eyes and pampering with gifts in a shiny wrapper with rhinestones and tinsel.

The first hen with golden eggs

In 1989, Goryachev resigned from the Krasny Oktyabr musical instrument factory and registered the Goryachev Concern.

Mark Leonidovich decided to start at the Leningrad Art Glass Factory, or rather, in his museum. He promised the director of the enterprise to organize a grandiose exhibition of the entire museum collection in Italy and then a tour of the countries of Western Europe. As a result of the tour, the whole Old World would know about the plant. Mark Goryachev promised millions in foreign currency orders that would rain right on Obukhovskoy Oborony Avenue, where the art glass factory had quietly stagnated until then.

Mark Leonidovich discovered in himself hypnotic abilities that magically act on various officials. Having seduced the director with a picture of prospects, he presented him with an agreement, according to which the rights to storage of the plant’s museum collection indefinitely and exclusive to its exhibition around the world flowed into Goryachev’s company. The director of the art glass plant signed the agreement. And Mark Leonidovich, without delay, took the entire collection of the enterprise to his warehouse and called it the product of the Goryachev Concern.

Having put someone else’s glass on the balance sheet of the concern, Mark Leonidovich capitalized his own company and went for the first bank loans, state subsidies and subsidies.

He pawned and re-pawned this museum glassware wherever he could. And on this bail, government officials and bankers gave him money (whether it is always disinterested is another question). But Mark Goryachev built his business on the fact that each new loan or subsidy had to exceed the previous ones. When returning funds to the former lender, the dashing borrower left a significant difference in his pocket. But a considerable share of the “profit” also fell to “useful people” from among officials, law enforcement officers and bank employees.

The director of the art glass factory at some point had his sight, rushed in search of the missing collection. But by that time there were no prospects to return it to the museum. And Mark Goryachev focused on a new chicken with golden eggs.

The magical power of show-off

With the assistance of an official of the city mayor’s office, he became the owner of a controlling stake in the “Flowers” enterprise (with greenhouses in the Tauride Garden).

While the labor collective of “Tsvetov” was fighting off the takeover by the “Goryachev Concern”, the initiator of the “privatization” of greenhouses in the next bank hastily got hold of credit billions, leaving “flower stocks” as collateral to financiers-usurers.

The vital need for a constant increase in the loan portfolio and collateral mass dictated to Mark Goryachev the importance of attracting PR and image makers to his activities.

The search for such led him to a talented writer who wrote a famous book about going to power for a well-known politician. And also to one of the best directors of St. Petersburg television and the authors of the creative association “The Fifth Wheel”. Mark Leonidovich convinced them to take up his “personal growth.” The writer and director came up with a catchy consonance of words for him: “Mark Goryachev is the tuner of capitalism in Russia!”

He charmed the director so much that she (apparently, extremely disinterestedly) began to sculpt from Goryachev the figure of a man capable of saving Russia and leading her out of the crisis.

The bankers, who had seen Mark’s numerous interviews in the director’s programs, understood that they were dealing with a respectable, serious businessman who did not arouse suspicion. And willingly lend him money. Mark Leonidovich’s loan portfolio grew fat and heavy.

With the next money from trading in shares of Flowers, he bought 30 exclusive prefabricated Finnish wooden houses (300 square meters each) in Scandinavia. Petersburg customs let them through to Russia, renaming the cargo into “Finnish laminate for personal use.” He quickly became known as a generous friend to a number of high-ranking officials. He gave the owners of elite land plots in exclusive suburban cooperatives near St. Petersburg 20 Finnish houses. In some cases, the presentations according to the documents were considered “purchase of cubic meters of firewood for stove heating”.

Mark Leonidovich did not forget himself either. Bought luxury cars. Goryachev was remembered by the townspeople as riding a scarlet low-slung Lamborghini. And this is along the broken roads of St. Petersburg in 1993! But the show off was worth it.

In his office on Nevsky Prospekt, house 7 (in the building of the former Aeroflot ticket office), even the ceiling was draped with lurex. On the desktop of Mark Leonidovich, a large photo of the owner of the cabinet next to Pope John Paul II took pride of place.

With a Parisian perm, porcelain teeth set in the USA, and a nose made in Rome, purposeful Goryachev decided to run for the State Duma. True, in the interview he carried such incoherent nonsense that the directors had to edit his speeches not even by phrases, but by words. And yet, in December 1993, a deputy was blinded from Mark Leonidovich by common efforts.

Duel with Zhirinovsky

The administration of parliamentary powers, Mark Leonidovich began with the arrangement in Moscow. With the savings from another loan for the privatized and mortgaged Flowers, he rented an apartment in a government residence in Serebryany Bor. The Chairman of the State Duma, Ivan Petrovich Rybkin, also lived in it. When choosing a haven, Goryachev was guided by the principle that the place of residence must correspond to the scale of ambitions.

Already on the fourth day of the work of the State Duma, Deputy Mark Goryachev managed to thunder. But not with bright speeches and bills, but with a clash with Zhirinovsky in the Duma dining room.

Mark Leonidovich ate there, and Vladimir Volfovich had just arrived with his bodyguards (registered as deputies by members of the LDPR faction). Finding the absence of free tables, Zhirinovsky pointed to Goryachev and ordered his “falcons” to “throw out this bespectacled man.”

Mark Leonidovich, without waiting for the application of physical force, jumped up from the table and tried to put a chair on Zhirinovsky’s head. The bodyguards were taken aback by surprise. Duma security quickly ran to the noise. Vladimir Volfovich, with a swollen bleeding lip, gave an interview to the press at the exit from the dining room. He was visibly embarrassed and dumbfounded. A whole story was dedicated to this event in the Vremya program.

Seduce and dishonor Channel 5

Mark Goryachev is not remembered for other parliamentary activities.

But he did not sit idle. His guardian angel, Konstantin Karolevich Yakovlev, was eyeing the State Television and Radio Company “Petersburg – Channel 5” at that time. And Mark Leonidovich, driven by concern for freedom of speech, decided to help him.

Fortunately for Goryachev, the director of Channel Five was a lady who accepted democratic ideas, but with a turbulent past as secretary of the CPSU party committee of the Leningrad Committee on Television and Radio Broadcasting. Her “hypnotist” Mark Goryachev also managed to turn her head, as before the director of an art glass factory. He presented the grandeur of their future cooperation. Mark Leonidovich introduced the frontman of the new “business project”, a young man with a mushroom surname Opyatkov, to the TV bosses. High-ranking apparatchiks from Smolny were recommended to the leadership of Channel Five as a “manager of a new type”, and they were imbued with confidence in Opyatkov. So much so that on the initiative of the young talent and with his own help, a company was registered in the United States with the name “Television and Radio of St. Petersburg International”.

Using the penetrating power and power of the director of the TV channel, Opyatkov secured federal funding for the complete refurbishment of the St. Petersburg television studio. The money came from the budget of the Russian Federation to the state television company. Opyatkov instantly transferred them to the USA to the account of the mentioned company and then scattered them over his private bank accounts.

Investigative journalists later unearthed that from the “equipment for St. Petersburg television” Opyatkov bought a yacht in his name for $ 3 million. The fate of most of the rest of the money is still poorly understood.

In the days when banking transactions and manipulations with the money of Channel Five were still being made, and Opyatkov was still beyond suspicion, Mark Leonidovich provoked a “sponsored” delivery of cash to the wife of the director of the Petersburg – Channel Five television and radio company. Goryachev and Opyatkov recorded the receipt by the director’s husband of “donations” for the publication of the newspaper on video and audio …

After emptying the bank account of the American company Television and Radio of St. Petersburg International, Mark Leonidovich, together with Opyatkov, held a press conference and presented journalists with a famously twisted thriller about extortion of a bribe with money laundering by the management of a Russian state television channel in the United States of America. On the same day, Opyatkov left Russia with impunity and departed for the Caribbean Sea, to his yacht, forgetting forever the country in which he could earn so well.

Nevertheless, fate was not favorable to the plans of Goryachev and the Grave at that time. The TV channel briefly went to another financial and industrial grouping…

“Kostya Mogila” will take revenge on “Channel Five” a couple of years later, when the husband of Konstantin Karolevich’s neighbor in his office on Mayakovsky Street becomes the governor of St. Petersburg. Authoritative support for Mogila will be provided by its partner from Moscow, Badri Patarkatsishvili, with whom they will monopolize the St. Petersburg television advertising market, build a media empire of five regional TV broadcasters and Russia’s First Channel. It will last until 2003.

But then, after the first unsuccessful attempt to put the Fifth Channel under control, Mark Goryachev did not show despondency. First, he undertook a spectacular new PR stunt – he paid 20,000 dollars to the organizing committee of the Davos World Economic Forum and sent out a press release to the media about his participation in it.

And secondly, Goryachev was carried away by a new project. This time, the St. Petersburg factory named after Kozitsky, which produced Raduga TVs, was assigned to the role of the victim.

Unborn TV money

Using the parliamentary mandate, Mark Leonidovich established direct communication with the general director of the enterprise. He was obsessed with great personal expectations from cooperation with Goryachev. But being dense in matters of economics and the market, he did not fully understand the value of guarantees and receipts. On behalf of the Kozitsky plant, the director issued a guarantee guarantee to a bank from Tatarstan for a new loan of 300 billion non-denominated rubles for the Goryachev Concern. Allegedly for the reconstruction of the enterprise.

The account of Mark Leonidovich’s company increased sharply. Since then, the director of Kozitsky has not met Goryachev.

Having again risen to the crest of the financial wave, Mark Goryachev started another, already political, project. His ambitions demanded to start a personal party. And he founded the People’s Consolidation Movement, or DNA for short.

Mark Leonidovich directed the money of the unborn Raduga TVs to deafening PR.

He formed the pre-election bloc “DNA” for by-elections to the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg in the fall of 1994. Goryachev spared no money for the election campaign. He gathered a hodgepodge of 20 candidates and rushed to seize power.

In the JCC near the metro station “Park Pobedy” Mark Goryachev played a VAZ car of the sixth model among the townspeople and presented a list of candidates for deputies.

To the surprise of observers, the election campaign of the DNA bloc showed a significant result. This was facilitated by the colossal cash flows from Mark Leonidovich. The path of “DNA” to the heights of success was inversely proportional to the movement of the Kozitsky plant into debt and bankruptcy.

Goryachev’s political force won a total of about 17 percent of the vote in the by-elections to the city parliament, which was an unexpected triumph. But under the majority system that was then in effect in St. Petersburg, only two people broke through from DNA to the Legislative Assembly. So this victory for Mark Leonidovich became Pyrrhic. It should rightfully be considered a bifurcation point. From that moment on, Goryachev was pursued by one failure after another.

Billionaire supported by driver and secretary

The director of the Raduga TV factory named after Kozitsky acted treacherously meanly. He showed bankers and collectors a direct path to Mark Leonidovich. Like a lump from the mountain, demands for the return of earlier loans flew to Goryachev.

To protect assets (apartments, offices and mansions) from bailiffs, Mark Leonidovich hung signs on the objects: “Reception of the deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Mark Leonidovich Goryachev.”

But it didn’t help. For example, evil people from one of the North Caucasian regions, representing the interests of a well-known Tatar bank, right next to the State Duma building took away his red Ferrari from Mark Leonidovich. They showed no respect for parliamentary immunity to such an extent that they partially damaged Goryachev’s expensive porcelain teeth, which had been delivered in the USA, and a nose made in Italy.

At some point, from a bad life, the billionaire and deputy Mark Goryachev got into the habit of borrowing money from parliamentary journalists:

– Do you have money?

– A little. The fee for the BBC just received, 150 dollars.

— Oh, give! I’ll be back soon!

This is how the typical stories of replenishing the budget of Mark Leonidovich looked like in the era of his decline.

Journalists called Mark Leonidovich a month or two later, asking him to return $150. But they ran into misunderstandings:

What do you think I don’t have money? Yes, I’ll give you a million! Goryachev shouted into the phone.

You don’t need a million. Please return $150.

“Yes, you owe me this because I treat you well!”

In St. Petersburg, the bailiffs were not stopped by the sign “deputy’s reception.” Penetrating into his mansion on Vereiskaya Street, the executors described the property and arrested the insignificant remnants of the collection of the museum of the art glass factory, which Mark Leonidovich had taken possession of before.

In December 1995, Goryachev threw the rest of his funds towards his re-election to the Duma. And then something terrible happened.

Never offend traffic cops

During his parliamentary tenure, Goryachev committed many traffic violations. Traffic cops accumulated resentment. In the fateful hour for Mark Leonidovich, they struck back a crushing blow.

The case developed as follows: Mark Goryachev completed the collection of signatures of voters for the next nomination to the State Duma. It was the last day for submitting documents to the district election commission of the Moscow region of St. Petersburg. About an hour before the closing of the election committee, Goryachev left his glamorous office at 7 Nevsky Prospekt with signature sheets and protocols, got into the car and drove off.

The ambush was waiting for him just around the corner, on Malaya Morskaya Street. The traffic cops stopped Mark Leonidovich, demanded a set of papers for the car and blocked the deputy Dodge from all sides. They painstakingly checked the car for theft, and the owner to pay the previous fines. The procedure took exactly one hour. Mark Leonidovich ran from one traffic cop to another and painted them gloomy pictures of their future. But time worked against Goryachev. When his identity was “established”, the car was checked and the list of violations was studied, Mark Leonidovich was released with the wishes of a “good road”. However, it was already too late. The electoral committee closed, and signature sheets depreciated, turning into waste paper. Who knows, maybe the last piles of banknotes from the Raduga TVs performed a miracle, but in the morning Mark Leonidovich was still among the registered candidates. But the Petersburgers were guided by their own logic in the elections – Mark Goryachev was not re-elected.

And the first will be the last…

Mark Leonidovich without a deputy mandate looked pathetic. The ring of adversity tightened around him. Natural disasters have been added to the troubles with annoying creditors and greedy investigators.

In the summer days of 1996, 10 Finnish prefabricated houses spontaneously ignited at once, which Mark Goryachev stored and planned to sell at a reasonable price in order to slightly improve the financial situation. At the same time, another house burned down in one of the elite villages – a gift from the billionaire Goryachev.

And in Tsarskoye Selo, the palace of Prince Yusupov, rented by him from the government of St. Petersburg, went up in flames. Fires in the news feeds have become strongly associated with the name Goryachev.

Mark Leonidovich sat alone for hours in his empty office on Nevsky 7 and was in great annoyance. Once, during a break between creditors, a correspondent from a radio station visited him to interview a former State Duma deputy, an ex-billionaire and “tuner of capitalism in Russia.” The journalist began to ask difficult questions, suddenly Mark Leonidovich yelled furiously:

“What, you think I don’t have dough?! Nnnna!” And he launched his gold Rolex with diamonds on the dial across the table towards the reporter.

The correspondent was stunned and pushed the watch back on the table to Goryachev.

He hurriedly put the “alarm clock” on his hand. It was evident that Mark Leonidovich, with all the breadth of the gesture with the “gift of a watch,” greatly valued the diamond trinket.

Bankers, bandits and directors of enterprises “beneficial” by Mark Leonidovich besieged his fortress. The bailiffs raged, brazenly confiscated one apartment after another from him, arrested accounts and vehicles.

At some point, the vultures that flocked to the head of Mark Leonidovich came to the conclusion that the issue of his debts should be resolved not with Goryachev himself, but with his “roof” in the person of the authoritative “Bone of the Grave”.

Konstantin Karolevich Yakovlev did not burn with enthusiasm to take on the obligations of Mark Leonidovich. But circumstances turned so that he had to look for a way out of this situation. “Kostya Mogila” came up with the idea to return Goryachev to the roots – the first business project of the “adjuster of capitalism in Russia.” He advised to revive the Art Glass Factory on Obukhovskoy Oborony Avenue from the bankrupt ashes. “Grave” recommended to serious people to appoint Mark Leonidovich to the position of anti-crisis manager of glass production.

The bankrupt director Goryachev perked up and found arguments for the vindictive bankers who did not forgive him multibillion-dollar debts. Mark Leonidovich confidently guaranteed them a refund as soon as he brought them out of bankruptcy and sold “this glass container plant.”

Time passed, but the money to the usurers never returned. The tension around Goryachev grew. He himself felt the approach of disaster. The old patron (Konstantin Karolievich) suddenly moved away. Most of the time was eaten daily by trips to investigators for interrogations in countless criminal cases. In January 1997, the prosecutor’s office broke the chain, and her bites became more and more painful.

In the same 1997, on the early working morning of March 4, Mark Leonidovich, as usual, went as usual to save the Art Glass Factory from bankruptcy. An unknown need changed his usual route from a country house in the village of Pesochnoye to a factory management on Obukhovskaya Oborona Avenue. Goryachev urgently needed to turn into the Young Technician store opposite the Torzhkovsky market.

He parked a Volvo 850 next to a retail outlet and was immediately pulled out of the car by three unidentified men. They loaded him into a white Zhiguli and took him away. A few hours later, police found an empty Volvo 850 and yellow metal-rimmed glasses. Their owner could not be traced.

The media was full of versions and conjectures. As the most fatal, and with a happy ending. It was reported that “the former deputy could stage his own kidnapping.” But the investigation could not confirm or refute any of the versions. An informed representative of the prosecutor’s office told in a private conversation about a little-known fact from the materials of the search case. He said that in August 1997, after Vice Governor of St. Petersburg Mikhail Manevich was shot at the corner of Nevsky Prospekt and Rubinshteina Street and all the cellars and attics adjacent to the place of the high-profile murder were examined, in one of the houses the operatives allegedly stumbled upon … a bloody bag with business cards and papers by Mark Goryachev. But the examination found that the blood on the bag and personal belongings of the alleged victim of the kidnapping is cat’s…

At a general meeting of journalists-creditors of the billionaire Goryachev (each of whom he owed from 150 to 300 dollars), the Vedomosti correspondent cynically summed up: “An amazing person, left nothing behind. Even your own corpse.”

After 25 years, it became known that the “adjuster of capitalism in Russia” was dismembered and lowered piece by piece into an ice hole in the Gulf of Finland by the closest henchmen of a person who once miraculously changed his monotonous life, to whom he owed his rise and whom he considered his patron – “The Bones of the Grave”. (details here) The story of Mark Goryachev’s life and death resembles both a terrible fairy tale and a philosophical parable.