In connection with the problem of Moscow organized crime, the minds of journalists are usually occupied by two people - Kobzon and Kvantrishvili, a striking union of culture and crime. The ambiguity of these persons became obvious after a closer study of their biographical information.
Joseph Davidovich Kobzon,
pop singer and businessman, born on September 11, 1937 in the town of Chasov Yar, Donetsk region of Ukraine (then Ukrainian SSR). Jew. In 1956 he graduated from the Dnepropetrovsk Mining College with a degree in exploration drilling, in 1973 he graduated from the Gnessin State Musical and Pedagogical Institute. From 1956 to 1959, Kobzon served in the ranks of the Soviet Army; at the end of the second year of service he was invited to join the song and dance ensemble of the Transcaucasian Military District.
In 1959-1962, Kobzon was the soloist of the All-Union Radio; in 1962-1989 - soloist of the Mosconcert. Kobzon performed songs by A. Pakhmutova, A. Ostrovsky, O. Feltsman, Y. Frenkel, E. Kolmanovsky and others. Since 1984 - artistic director of the vocal and pop department of the State Musical Pedagogical Institute. Gnessins; Head of the Department of Vocalists at the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music, professor. After the "Brezhnev revelations" Kobzon was in disgrace for some time.
Since 1986, the singer became chairman of the public council of the Moscow Main Internal Affairs Directorate. On his initiative, the Shield and Lyre Foundation was created - a fund for the social protection of employees of internal affairs bodies. Kobzon became the president of this Fund.
Since 1989, Kobzon has been a soloist and artistic director of the Moscow concert and entertainment directorate. The singer's list of regalia is impressive: People's Artist of the USSR, People's Artist of the RSFSR (since 1980), People's Artist of Ukraine, People's Artist of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Honored Artist of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, People's Artist of Ingushetia, laureate of the USSR State Prize (in 1984) and the Leninsky Prize Komsomol (in 1975), laureate of the Golden Orpheus competition in Bulgaria (in 1968). In 1994, the World League of Jews recognized Kobzon as “Best Jew of the Year.” Kobzon was awarded the Order of Friendship of Peoples. In addition, Kobzon became a laureate of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs award and a full member of the Academy of Humanities.
In 1993, Kobzon became a cultural adviser to Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.
Hobbies and family
Kobzon admitted that “he’s been smoking since he was 14 years old, he used to like to drink, but now he doesn’t drink because of an allergy to alcohol and he really regrets it.” Kobzon's wife's name is Nelly. Son - Andrey (born in 1974), daughter - Natalya (born in 1977). The son graduated from the Musical Institute in Hollywood, drummer (music). He is a businessman, in July 1995 he became the manager of the Maxim restaurant (Moscow), married to fashion model Ekaterina Polyanskaya.
Kobzon and politics
Kobzon, a member of the CPSU from 1973 to 1991, maintained warm relations with the authorities, military and police. He often performed in places where artists usually did not go - on Damansky Island, in Tynda, Afghanistan (I was there nine times). In Afghanistan, Kobzon personally met Alexander Rutsky, with whom he still maintains good relations. I also know other “Afghan” generals - Pavel Grachev and Vladimir Gromov.
From 1989 to 1992, Kobzon was a people's deputy of the USSR under the quota of trade unions.
In August 1991, during the coup attempt, he was in Yalta on tour, however, on August 31, Moskovit JSC held a concert-meeting near the White House. Kobzon readily mentions the fact from his biography that on November 7, 1985, after Yeltsin’s sensational speech at the Politburo, during a concert on the square, he dedicated a song to him, and then shook hands with Boris Nikolayevich as a people’s deputy of the USSR, “when many did They look like they don’t notice Yeltsin.”
In October 1993, during the shooting of the White House, Kobzon negotiated with Rutsky on behalf of Yuri Luzhkov and FSK Chairman Nikolai Galushko.
In the elections to the State Duma in 1993, Kobzon was number thirteenth on the list of the bloc “Civil Union in the Name of Stability, Justice and Progress,” but the list did not overcome the 5 percent barrier. In the elections to the State Duma in 1995, Kobzon ran on the list of the electoral association "My Fatherland", which also did not overcome the 5 percent barrier, and was number three on the list. Initially, Kobzon was on the list of Ivan Rybkin’s Bloc, and came out of there together with “My Fatherland”. Back in 1996, Kobzon stated that he continued to consider himself a member of the “My Fatherland” Movement. In an interview in 1997, he admitted that he was going to run for the State Duma in 1999. He considers himself a patriot of Russia, but condemned the war in Chechnya.
In 1997, he announced that on September 11, 1997, on his sixtieth birthday, he would leave the stage and engage in business and politics (during his stage life he toured about 100 countries).
Kobzon and business
Back in 1985, Kobzon was invited to the post of vice-president for humanitarian affairs of the XXI Century Association (president - Anzor Kikalishvili). The association was created by the brothers Otari and Anzor Kvantrishvili, known for their criminal past. The first vice-president of the Association was Valery Suchkov, who received money using false advice notes and whom Tomsk police lieutenant colonel Viktor Kovalevsky unsuccessfully tried to prosecute.
Since November 1990, Kobzon became president of the diversified JSC Moskovit (the chairman of the board of directors of the JSC is Alexander Gliklad). The joint-stock company has several divisions: Moskovit-Oil, which deals with operations with oil and petroleum products; "Moskovit-sugar" - sugar; "Moskovit-metal" - sales and production of ferroalloys; "Moscovit Show" (went bankrupt by 1997) - cruises, presentations, etc. In 1992, the joint-stock company was involved in a deal with the supply of MIGs to Malaysia (Interlocutor, N39, 1996). JSC "Moscovit" took an active part in investing in the Bolivian economy as part of the Russian-Bolivian financial and industrial group.
Kobzon is also the president of the Moskovit charitable foundation, which sponsors, for example, the Moscow Musical Chamber Theater of Boris Pokrovsky, the Bolshoi Theater Choreographic School, etc.
Since 1993, Kobzon has been the president of the Russian-Hungarian joint venture "Liat-Natalie" (a pharmaceutical company named after Kobzon's children and the general director of the joint venture, Shabtai Kalmanovich). The joint venture had a network of branded sportswear stores in Moscow and St. Petersburg, one of the largest distributors of Nike (until 1994). Since 1994, the joint venture has been one of the main distributors of Puma. Since 1995, Kobzon left the joint venture, but remained, according to some information, president of JSC Liat-Natali.
According to some reports, Kobzon is also involved in the oil business.
Kobzon and crime
On December 2, 1992, the birthday of thief in law Alexander Zakharov (Zakhar) was celebrated at the Solnechny motel. The celebration was attended by crime bosses Petrik, Savoska, Rospis and Goga, as well as gangster authorities - Sergei Timofeev (Sylvester), Sliva (Ivankov’s emissary in Moscow) and others. In short, out of 80 people present at the banquet, 18 were on the federal wanted list. In total, riot police arrested 68 people, two had drugs, one had weapons. According to some reports, Kobzon stood up for the arrested; he was also supported by the president of the Lev Yashin charitable fund for the social protection of athletes, Otari Vitalievich Kvantrishvili (now deceased), with whom Kobzon maintained friendly relations. They especially advocated for thief in law Petrik, who was close to Kvantrishvili.
Subsequently, Kobzon was forced to defend himself against accusations of connections with the criminal world. As a result, Kobzon was made almost the main “mafia” in Moscow.
In 1993, Kobzon sued the newspaper "Soviet Russia" for protection of honor and dignity, the reason for which was the article "Under the Cover of O.V." correspondent of the CRIM-PRESS agency Larisa Kislinskaya about Kobzon’s connections with criminal circles. The correspondent mentioned Kobzon’s presence at the birthday party of the ideologist of the Balashikha PG, thief in law Alexander Zakharov (Zakhar), in the presence of Otari Kvantrishvili, president of the Athletes Social Protection Fund. According to the author of the article, Kobzon petitioned for their release. The author of the article also claimed that as a people's deputy of the USSR in 1990, Kobzon contributed to the release from custody of thief in law Viktor Nikiforov (Kalina). As a result, “Soviet Russia” made repeated apologies to Kobzon, and the case was heard in the Savelovsky Court of Moscow. Later, L. Kislinskaya (We live by their laws // Antimafia, April 8, 1992) published a photograph of three men, one of whom was Joseph Kobzon, the second was Viktor Nikiforov (Kalina), the third was Alik Takhtakumov (Taiwanchik). Subsequently, Kislinskaya more and more persistently accused Kobzon of his connections with crime.
To top off the scandal, the Kommersant newspaper in 1994 recognized Kobzon as “authority of the year.”
Kobzon, in this case, resembles the American singer Frank Sinatra, who was also accused without evidence of connections with the mafia and laundering its money. However, in reality, apparently Kobzon is not a “mafioso”. He simply communicated with some representatives of the underworld and enjoyed their patronage, like many other entrepreneurs. For example, on November 27, 1993, the newspaper “Novy Vzglad” published an article “Impenetrable” (interview with correspondent A. Vandenko), which was dedicated to Kobzon and in which Kobzon stated: “I communicate with the mafia in the same way as with ministers.” . Kobzon admitted that he sang in camps in the Far East, in the Arctic, and this brought him some popularity among criminals.
Kobzon was a friend of Otari Kvantrishvili, famous in Moscow, with whom he hoped to create the party “Sports Russia Movement” (the copyright of the name, according to Kobzon, belongs to him) and accused the special services of Kvantrishvili’s murder, saying that he did not believe that Otari belonged to a criminal world. And yet, because of this, as well as the arrest in 1995 in the United States of thief in law Vyacheslav Ivankov (Yaponchik), the FBI accused Kobzon of criminal connections, in particular, with Anzor Kikalashvil.i, who heads the “21st Century Association” and thief in law Alimzhan Tokhtakhunov (Taiwanchik), “watching” thieves in Europe (Cologne-Paris) (Grant A. Yaponchik's trial..., pp. 136-137).The FBI found Ivankov's phone in Kobzon's trash can, written on the box from under the matches, which gave them reason to claim that their connection is undeniable.Against the background of these events, on June 27, 1995, the US Consulate denied Kobzon an entry visa.
On July 27, 1995, Kobzon, at a press conference in Tel Aviv (Israel), stated that he had come to this country to gain support against the campaign launched against him in the Russian and American press: “I was, am and remain a Jew. I want , so that Israeli society protects me from slanderous attacks..." (Bandits from the times of capitalism..., p. 550). On January 3, 1996, Kobzon and his wife were detained in Israel by the police and spent 8 hours in prison, after which Kobzon said: “Until they apologize to me and my wife, I will not set foot in this country.”
However, in 1996, Kobzon admitted that he was still familiar with Yaponchik: “I’ll be honest, it was interesting to be with him. In terms of his intelligence, he exceeds many famous people” (for more information about this, see Interlocutor, N39, 1996).
On August 11, 1995, the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets published an open letter to Boris Yeltsin, in which 51 artists (Zurab Sotkilava, Alla Pugacheva, Muslim Magomayev, Igor Moiseev, Stanislav Govorukhin and others) took Kobzon under their protection. In the end, the State Duma adopted a special resolution on Kobzon’s non-involvement in the criminal world.
Otari Vitalievich Kvantrishvili
(Otarik, Krivonos), late friend of Joseph Kobzon, was born in 1948 in Zestafoni, Georgia. Georgian. Since childhood, he has been involved in freestyle and classical (Greco-Roman) wrestling. Otari Vitalievich lived most of his life in Moscow, where he was actively involved in sports - he was an international master of sports in classical (Greco-Roman) wrestling. In addition, Kvantrishvili was a “katala” (card player) - he played big at the Moscow Sovetskaya Hotel.
In 1966, Kvantrishvili was convicted of rape for a term of 9 years, but already in 1967 he was admitted to a hospital in Lyublino with a diagnosis of “sluggish schizophrenia” and was soon released. The conviction was later overturned.
In the 1970s, Otari, together with the famous fraudster Leonid Zavadsky, was involved in fraud with Vneshposyltorg checks. He was a member of the criminal group of Vyacheslav Ivankov (Yaponchik) in the late 1970s - early 1980s. After Yaponchik's arrest in 1981, Otari took custody of his two sons. After Yaponchik’s release, he prepared documents for him to leave Russia for Germany and the USA. He was friends with Rafik Svo (Baghdasaryan).
In the 1980s, brothers Amiran and Otari Kvantrishvili organized their own “brigade”. Officially, since the early 1980s, Otari worked as a coach at the Dynamo Moscow City Sports Complex, uniting wrestlers, weightlifters and boxers around him. It should be noted that Kvantrishvili had the title of Honored Trainer of Russia in Greco-Roman wrestling (see Izvestia, April 7, 1994, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, April 12, 1994). According to some reports, the Kvantrishvili brothers' group controlled commercial structures in the Presnya area.
From 1985-1988, Otari was actively involved in entrepreneurship and made up his capital with the help of income from the International Trade Center, hotels - Metropol, Intourist and Cosmos, restaurants - Havana, Leningradskaya and Universitetskaya. Kvantrishvili was one of the 200 “center people” who had income from these establishments, had close contact with the Bauman organized crime group, and also had a share in the activities of several banks and commercial structures. With his help, the Royal casino was opened on the territory of the Central Moscow Hippodrome, the first currency casino, Gabriela. The president of the casino, Alexa Grim, claimed that the casino funds certain trade unions from its income (Kommersant, April 9, 1994).
Amiran (president) and Otari Kvantrishvili (vice-president) organized the “XXI Century” Association (export of oil, timber, non-ferrous metals and import of gas weapons), which later went to Amiran. Organizationally, the Association was created in 1988 by merging the cooperatives “Klaxon” (car repair), “Domus” (contracting) and “Vstrecha” (cafe). The association established the “Development Bank XXI Century” (see Kommersant, N45, 1992, “Association “XXI Century”: “The Mafia is not for us!”).
After Amiran’s death, Anzor Kikalishvili, a candidate of legal sciences who graduated from the Diplomatic Academy of the USSR MIL, became the President of the Association. Joseph Kobzon was the vice-president for humanitarian affairs. It is interesting that one of the leading positions in the Association was held by retired police major general, former deputy head of the Moscow Main Internal Affairs Directorate A. Bugaev. During its heyday, the association united more than a hundred commercial and public organizations of various profiles. According to management, it had branches in all regions of the world. The association acted as the founder of several charitable foundations, including the Lev Yashin Social Protection Fund for Athletes (Otari Kvantrishvili), the Defender of the Fatherland military fund, St. Elizabeth and others. It had branches in Central Asia and the Caucasus. (Kikalishvili’s office was located on the 20th floor of the Intourist Hotel at Tverskaya 3/5, 20th floor. Phones: 203 - 1590, 956-8491. Fax: 200-3264). There were persistent rumors around the Association that it was “covering up a very powerful southern mafia in Moscow.” But, according to law enforcement agencies, the Association was not noticed in connection with PG.
Otari Kvantrishvili was actively involved in social activities in the last years of his life. He organized the L.I. Yashin Social Protection Fund for Athletes and became its president. At the initiative of the Foundation, professional associations “Combat Gloves”, “KITEK”, and an association of professional wrestlers were created (whose presidents were actively killed in the 1990s). Kvantrishvili’s philanthropic activities brought him fame in bureaucratic circles in Moscow. As a result, he became something of a "Minister for Public Affairs and Crime." According to N. Modestov (p.276), Kvantrishvili communicated with people from B. Yeltsin’s entourage, was friends with Yu. Luzhkov, generals of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and special services. Kvantrishvili’s friend and companion, as already mentioned, was Joseph Kobzon. As a result, Otari felt omnipotent. In one of the “Guard” TV programs, Kvantrishvili even advised the head of the RUOP, Vladimir Rushailo, to think seriously about his children, which caused a great resonance in the press and among the RUOP members.
In 1993, Otari organized and led his own political party, Athletes of Russia. He tried to play the “Russian card” - in his speeches he spoke about the “genocide of the Russian people”, about their degeneration, about a conspiracy against the Russians.
At the same time, Kvantrishvili did not forget about “daily bread”. In 1993, Kvantrishvili and his friends managed to “break through” the organization of AOZT (with the participation of the NSF of Russia and the Russian Tennis Academy) with huge benefits and exemption from paying export-import customs duties. In addition, hundreds of tons of aluminum, oil and other strategic raw materials were allocated from the state reserve for sale. The document on granting benefits was signed by Boris Yeltsin himself (Modestov N., p.288).
At the height of his socio-political and entrepreneurial activities, on April 5, 1994, Kvantrishvili was mortally wounded in the area of the Krasnopresnensky Baths (that day Andrei Slushaev (Rombis company), Alexander Charkin (Spektr company), Zolushkin ( "Tehnoval"), as well as certain Vitaly Kochanovsky, Adolf Gulyashukin, Oganesyan, Davydov - 15 people in total) and died on the way to the hospital. On April 8, 1994, Kvantrishvili was buried next to his brother Amiran at the Vagankovskoye cemetery. The funeral was attended by many famous people - Yu. Luzhkov, A. Vladislavlev, V. Gusinsky, I. Kobzon, Sh. Tarpishchev, Bogdan Titomir, Alexander Rosenbaum, athletes Shota Mamalashvili, Igor Kochnevsky, Valery Vasiliev, Alexander Tikhonov, Alexander Yakushev (" Kommersant-D" April 6, 1994). The wreaths were sent by the Union of Afghanistan Veterans.
According to Moscow News, several weeks before his murder, Kvantrishvili applied for physical protection to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB. However, given Otari's reputation in this environment, he was refused. According to one version, he was dealt with by the Solntsevo-Orekhovskaya authority Sergei Timofeev (Sylvester), who sought to become a monopolist in the trade of precious metals in Moscow. The operatives also worked out the commercial version of the murder of Otari along the chain (Yaponchik - Kvantrishvili - NFS). There was also a version about the allocation of a certain loan of 800 million rubles, which Kvantrishvili intercepted from one commercial structure, using his influence.
Otari's brother Amiran Kvantrishvili, a playwright, was last convicted in 1986, and was also killed, but a little earlier - on August 6, 1993, along with one of the Georgian thieves in law during a showdown with Chechens near the Oktyabrskaya metro station. Amiran Kvantrishvili was buried at the Vagankovsky Cemetery next to the grave of V. Vysotsky (Soviet Russia, March 28, 1992, Today, April 23, 1993).
The Kvantrishvili brothers followed a specific and, at the same time, typical path in the criminal world and accepted a death typical of bandits of our time.
The phenomenon of the Kvantrishvili brothers shows how ambiguous the fate of representatives of the criminal world can be and how close their connection is with normal people (Kobzon).
People's Artist of the USSR and Deputy of the State Duma of Russia Iosif Kobzon died at the age of 80. The crooner, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2005, has been on the brink of death for the past month. In July, he was admitted to intensive care, where he was connected to a ventilator. However, the diligence of the doctors did not help; Joseph Kobzon died from the disease.
In the 1990s, every yard dog was sure that Kobzon was connected with the mafia. In 1994, the Kommersant newspaper even awarded the singer the title of “authority of the year.” And the point is not only in the powerful appearance of Don Corleone (long coat, striped jackets, radically black wig) and the artist’s armed security, but also in his close circle. And Joseph Kobzon remained a man with a wide variety of connections all his life. He did not deny that he sometimes found himself at “gangster corporate events” as a singer, but he emphasized that he always kept his distance from thieves.
He had no business, as he himself claimed. If I happened to be at someone’s birthday, I always repeated: “Good gentlemen, please do not confuse me, you and I belong to different trade unions. You are people’s criminals, and I am a people’s artist.”
Kobzon was accused, in particular, of belonging to the FBI, which in 1995 banned him from entering the United States of America. Representatives of the federal service reported the artist’s involvement in arms and drug trafficking, as well as connections with. No official charges were brought against him, but the ban was never lifted - the Americans viewed Joseph Kobzon as “a foreigner who is not entitled to a visa due to criminal and related activities, and as a person secretly engaged (or engaged) in the trafficking of prohibited goods.” narcotic or chemical substances." According to American intelligence services, Kobzon was connected with representatives of the “Russian mafia,” in particular with (Yaponchik).
Kobzon’s friendship with the authoritative also aroused suspicion of connections with the Russian criminal world - they met in the 1980s, and in the 1990s they created the Lev Yashin Foundation, which was designed to support sports veterans. Kvantrishvili could not be called a bandit, but he successfully communicated with both criminals and government officials, and in the way Otari successfully persuaded businessmen to donate money to the fund, many saw a different form of racketeering.
In February 1994, Kvantrishvili created the Athletes of Russia party, declaring that with its help he would restore the rule of law in the country. In April of the same year, Otari was killed by three shots from a sniper rifle while leaving the Krasnopresnensky baths in Moscow. The funeral of the entrepreneur was taken over by Joseph Kobzon.
After the murder of Otari, they allegedly began to hunt Kobzon as well - the alarm was sounded when a professionally equipped ambush bed was discovered under the windows of his house in Bakovka. After the incident, the artist began to walk around surrounded by Afghan veterans. never discovered.
Joseph Kobzon did not hesitate to appear in public with his friends, who had a dubious reputation. He valued friendship very much and did not turn away from his comrades - for example, the singer turned out to be one of the few artists and politicians who publicly supported the former mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov after his scandalous resignation. Kobzon was very friendly with the then head of the capital and was ready to help in difficult times - in September 1993, at Luzhkov’s request, the singer went to the White House and calmed down the rebel deputies holed up there, and in 2002 the mayor persuaded Kobzon not to go to the terrorists in the Theater Center on Dubrovka.
Nord-Ost and Joseph Kobzon
Kobzon subsequently repeatedly spoke about what happened in interviews with newspapers and television channels. Minor details sometimes changed, but from the singer’s words one can piece together a complete picture of what happened to him in the theater on Dubrovka.
At 9 a.m., famous people, officers, politicians, and officials crowded around the operational headquarters. Many of them were ready to negotiate with terrorists. “They didn't want to talk to anyone. But I knew that they should know me - for them I am not just a deputy or a singer, but a People’s Artist of the Chechen-Ingush SSR,” Kobzon later said.
When the negotiators listed to the terrorists who were ready to go to the captured Palace of Culture, they demanded Kobzon. The head of the operational headquarters for the release of hostages, Vladimir Pronichev, did not want to let the artist go; Luzhkov was also against it. “If I don’t come to an agreement with them, then you won’t come to an agreement with them either,” answered Joseph Kobzon.
Joseph Kobzon was the first to go to the terrorists. A British journalist and two Swiss citizens from the Red Cross entered the building with him. Kobzon had already performed in this establishment more than once, and in the foyer he had the feeling that he was simply late for the performance - clothes were neatly hanging in the wardrobe, there was complete silence. Then he saw the girl's body on the floor.
Joseph Kobzon approached the stairs, where he was stopped by three machine gunners shouting: “Stop, who?!” "I am Kobzon." He was taken to Ruslan Elmurzaev, who called himself Abubakar. The terrorist was sitting with a machine gun and wearing a mask. Kobzon said: “I thought there were Chechens here.” Abubakar replied: “Chechens.” “The Chechens stand up when a man well-known throughout your country, twice your age, enters, and you sit, that means you are not Chechens!” - said Kobzon.
Abubakar jumped up: “Have you come to educate us?” Kobzon persuaded the terrorist to take off his mask and suddenly realized that the invaders of the theater on Dubrovka were very young people. “You still have to live and live,” he complained. “We came here to die, not to live. And we want to die more than you want to live. If you don’t believe us... call Zulya,” Abubakar replied. A little girl wearing camouflage and a mask entered the room. “Zulya, show me how rich you are.” The girl opened her hand and showed the detonator.
Joseph Kobzon tried to convince the terrorist that no one was going to fulfill their conditions and withdraw troops from Chechnya, however, seeing the determination of the invader, he asked to at least let the children go. The terrorists “gave” Kobzon three frightened girls. One girl buried her face in the artist’s knee and said that her mother was still in the hall. “Abubakar, why do you need a mother without children or children without a mother? Either take the children or give them their mother,” Kobzon said. The singer was brought a woman named Lyubov Kornilova, the mother of two girls, who, according to him, first of all rushed not to the children, but to the terrorist - she asked to let go of the pregnant woman who was sitting with her in the hall.
The singer left the theater with the journalist, Kornilova and three children, having spent half an hour with the terrorists. He will go to the theater on Dubrovka again in two hours together with Irina Khakamada, but he will not be able to free more hostages. Later he will become godfather of another daughter of Kornilova.
Joseph Kobzon and politics
In addition to the stage, Kobzon was very interested in politics - since 1989 he was a people's deputy of the USSR, tried to get into the State Duma from the moment it appeared (he managed to do this only in 1997). In 2003, Joseph Kobzon became a member of the United Russia party and chairman of the State Duma Committee on Culture. The performer spoke about his political career as something that weighed on him: “What does the State Duma give me, besides spending time, energy, money, solving other people’s issues, helping someone? I don’t have my own business, sometimes they ask me to lobby for someone’s interests, and I go along with it if I see that the cause is decent,” he complained back in 2011. During his life, Kobzon received more than 40 honorary titles, including the titles of honorary citizen of 29 cities and people's artist of five countries.
Joseph Kobzon not only kept his finger on the pulse of his time, he was the personification of this time - he made acquaintance with all its iconic personalities, politicians, military men, presidents, militants, singers, leaders, businessmen and criminals. “Friendship with Kobzon” has every right to become a new phraseological unit. The singer managed to work as a deputy and travel throughout the country with concerts, performed the most famous Soviet hits, and his voice was literally, although not officially, adopted by the Russian Ministry of Defense. The singer was with the country at its most critical moments and was always ready to help it, even putting his own life at risk.
Don Kobzon: what is known about the connection between the star “authority” and the mafia
Rumors that the famous Soviet and Russian singer, deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Iosif Kobzon, who died on August 30, are connected with the Russian mafia, have been circulating since the 90s.
The singer himself did not deny that he had extensive connections in various circles, and he was a frequent guest at “gangster corporate events.”
In 1994, the Kommersant newspaper even awarded the singer the title of “authority of the year.” At the same time, Kobzon always tried to emphasize that he kept his distance from the thieves, writes Lenta.ru.
“I had no dealings with criminal authorities. If I found myself at one of the thieves’ birthday party, I always repeated: “Good gentlemen, please do not confuse me, you and I belong to different trade unions.” You are people’s criminals, and I am a people’s artist,” said the singer.
Kobzon was also accused of belonging to the criminal world by the FBI, which in 1995 banned him from entering the United States of America. Representatives of the federal service reported the artist’s involvement in arms and drug trafficking, as well as connections with the Russian mafia. No official charges were brought against him, but the ban was never lifted - the Americans viewed Kobzon as “a foreigner who is not entitled to a visa due to criminal and related activities, and as a person secretly engaged (or engaged) in the trafficking of illegal drugs or chemicals."
According to American intelligence services, Kobzon was associated with representatives of the “Russian mafia,” in particular with Vyacheslav Ivankov (Yaponchik). The Washington Times in 1994 even called him the “king” of Russian organized crime. At the beginning of the 2000s, Kobzon was still allowed to enter the United States, but only as part of a delegation. Kobzon was never able to obtain a visa from the embassy in 2001, because the receiving party made assumptions that he was involved in drug trafficking. FBI investigator Lester McNulty claimed that in the winter of 1995, a “mafia summit” with Kobzon’s participation took place on the island of Puerto Rico. According to the investigator, FBI agents rummaged through the trash can of the hotel where the artist lived and found a box of matches with Jap's number written on it. There was also information that Kobzon called him twice from the city of San Juan. As the Latvian press wrote in 2004, the United States concluded that Joseph Kobzon visited Latin America to meet with Colombian barons.
Kobzon’s friendship with businessman Otari Kvantrishvili also raised suspicions about connections with the Russian criminal world. They met in the 1980s, and in the 1990s they created the Lev Yashin Foundation, which was designed to support sports veterans.
“Kvantrishvili could not be called a bandit, but he successfully communicated with both criminals and government officials, and in the way Otari successfully persuaded businessmen to donate money to the fund, many saw a different form of racketeering,” the publication writes.
It is noted that in February 1994, Kvantrishvili created the Athletes of Russia party, declaring that with its help he would restore the rule of law in the country. In April of the same year, Otari was killed by three shots from a sniper rifle while leaving the Krasnopresnensky baths in Moscow. Kobzon took over the funeral of the entrepreneur.
After the murder of Otari, they began to hunt Kobzon - the alarm was sounded when a professionally equipped ambush bed was discovered under the windows of his house in Bakovka. After the incident, the artist began to walk around surrounded by Afghan veterans. The killer was never found.
In November 1990, Kobzon went into business on his own and became president of Moskovit JSC. This company traded oil, sugar, etc. In 1992, Kobzon also tried to take part in a deal to sell a large batch of MIG fighters in Malaysia - but was unsuccessful, the “family clan” had already taken all such profitable matters into their own hands...
Perhaps Kobzon would have been happy to start a legal business and travel freely around the world - but the “Moscow ones” had already been forced out of all the most profitable industries. Oil, gas, coal, non-ferrous metals - literally everything was taken away! You will inevitably get involved in drug trafficking...
In 1994, the struggle between the Yeltsin and Luzhkov clans sharply escalated. Kobzon dates the beginning of the “smear campaign” against him to this year. But he still got off easy - many of his acquaintances were then blown up or shot
The shooting of Moscow bandits began in the summer of 1993. And in April 1994, a sniper’s bullet killed Otar Kvantrishvili himself. Kobzon gave a heartfelt speech at the funeral and accused the special services in general and the head of the Moscow RUBOP Rushailo in particular (the future “family” Minister of Internal Affairs!) of this murder.
Kobzon said about Kvantrishvili then: “Russia has lost its leader!” Kobzon, of course, knows better: he is personally acquainted with the entire ruling elite of Russia - maybe this criminal really was the best of them... Kobzon became banned from traveling abroad in June 1995, when he was not allowed into the United States. At the same time, the American authorities gave Interpol a reference to Kobzon as a mafia leader.
Kobzon himself explains this by the fact that our special services then informed the Americans on him - they described, they say, what a tough bandit and drug dealer he was. It seems that it was so... Specifically, Kobzon got burned because in January 1995 he traveled to Puerto Rico, where he had a business meeting with some authoritative businessmen living in the USA (A. Kikalishvili, I. Sigalov, A. .Donskoy).
This would be nothing - but FBI agents later found in the hotel trash can a matchbox on which the phone number of Yaponchik (Vyacheslav Ivankov) was written in Kobzon’s hand. That's it - there is evidence! This is not enough for the court, but now abroad is closed for Kobzon... Unless he wants to go to Belarus!
You can imagine Joseph Kobzon’s experiences when he learned the specific reason for his misfortune - “a matchbox”! “Well, yes, I came with my family to Puerto Rico for a few days to relax. I saw that the weather was beautiful there - I called my friends in America and invited them too. Someone came, but Slava Ivankov couldn’t – he was busy.
What’s the crime here?!” Indeed, everyone has the right to relax with friends... Please note that Kobzon suddenly wanted to relax on an American island in January 1995 - let us recall that then the bloody battles for the city of Grozny were in full swing. We believe that this is not a coincidence!
The fact is that the Great Heroin Route from Afghanistan to Europe until 1994 went like this: raw opium was delivered from Afghanistan to a military airfield in Tajikistan and loaded onto our transport plane. It was opium, since mass production of heroin had not yet been established in Afghanistan - the people there were backward, and the purification technology was quite complex... But the “Moscow clan” managed to organize a real heroin factory in “independent” Chechnya - they delivered it there with the help of the Russian military aviation opium for processing.
Then our military pilots took the finished products and flew to Germany, where, without any customs control, they unloaded tons of heroin at the airfields of the Western Group of Forces. But in 1994, this wonderful transport chain broke, and in two places at once: our troops left Germany and the Baltic states in August - and in December, on Yeltsin’s orders, the invasion of Chechnya began. The heroin factory near Shali was then bombed from the air by the “Moscow” themselves in order to destroy all traces (at the same time, two tons of heroin disappeared somewhere, and the field commander Usman Imaev, who was in charge of this plant, soon died)...
To top it all off, almost all of Afghanistan was captured by the Taliban! Now it’s clear why at the beginning of 1995 all the drug dealers from the “Moscow clan” ran around like scalded cockroaches - they had to save their business! In addition to the meeting in Puerto Rico, at the end of January 1995, the same “business meeting” of bandits took place in Vienna - this time on the initiative of Yaponchik himself (we don’t know whether Kobzon was there)... In the end, over time, the Moscow bandits succeeded in everything re-establish. Heroin production had to be organized directly in Afghanistan.
True, Afghan heroin is of very poor quality due to poor purification - but it is still in great demand among drug addicts because it is cheap. It was also possible to find a military base in Europe, which replaced the lost military airfields in Germany and in the Baltic states - in KOSOVO. Remember how our paratroopers made their famous march on Pristina in June 1999 - to save their Serb brothers from Muslims! At the same time, the military airfield there was captured, under the noses of NATO troops.
In Kosovo, our drug mafia is now even better settled than before in Germany - after all, the police there tried to stop the flow of heroin and took our military bases into a tight ring. But in Kosovo there are no problems with this! In addition, our mafia managed to establish the most friendly relations with the Kosovo Albanians - this opened up all avenues in Europe for the “Moscow clan”. The fact is that the diaspora of Kosovo Albanians consists of a million people and covers all European countries (they were willingly accepted everywhere as victims of the Serbs) - you can’t think of a better way to organize a drug retail network!
Since we are talking about the problems that arose before our drug mafia in 1994, we must say a few words about cocaine. It would seem that there is no point in transporting this powder across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe when there are enormous supplies of heroin at hand. But there are some nuances here - those sections of society that are not deterred by the high price prefer cocaine (many do not want to inject heroin simply because they are afraid of injections!).
It is for such wealthy clients that this “snuffing powder” is brought from South America - but of course, the share of cocaine is several times less than heroin in the total drug turnover in Europe. Such a variety of assortments is also beneficial for drug dealers in that it allows them to compensate for a failure in the delivery of one potion with the help of another...
Let us now return to Kobzon - until all borders were closed for him, he visited South America very often. The cover for such trips was very solid: JSC Moskovit, which is headed by Kobzon, as stated in one article, “took an active part in investing in the Bolivian economy as part of the Russian-Bolivian financial and industrial group.” Apparently, our “Muscovites” were still embarrassed to take an active part in investing in the COLOMBIA economy.
However, Colombia is close there. And coca (a small shrub) also grows in the Bolivian jungle. There are also laboratories there for the production of cocaine - and the equipment there is first-class (the technology was developed back in the 60s by specialists from the GDR, according to General Sheina)...
Before closing this topic and saying goodbye to Joseph Kobzon, I would like to express my sympathy to him: almost all of his authoritative friends were destroyed back in the mid-90s - there was a real systematic shooting and these criminals could not escape from the professionals from the special forces. Only those who fled abroad survived (including those who were imprisoned there)... There were serious threats against Kobzon.
It’s as if a certain Major Belyaev even received an order for liquidation, but the President of Ingushetia Aushev was then negotiating (I wonder with whom?) and persuaded him not to kill Kobzon... No bodyguards or armored Mercedes will save him from the killers from the special services.
And now Kobzon cannot hide abroad - he is not allowed there (and even his children!). However, Kobzon himself chose his own path in life...