Why were the leaves killed? Vladislav leaves. On the role of safari in human relationships

I won’t talk here for a long time or put forward versions. I want to say once again about our complete irresponsibility Russian authorities. Presidents, prosecutors, and investigators have changed. Everyone swore to find and punish Listyev’s killers. "took personal control." Look, Skuratov even wrote a book about this. And what? Who answered?
Last year, Interpol materials on the Listyev case “reached” Russia. The suspended investigation seems to have begun again.

I do not believe. I don't trust our government. As one said clever man to restore order in Russia “The authorities must stop lying.” Does anyone really believe in such a possibility?

About the investigation into Listyev’s murder:
www.rosbalt.ru/2009/10/15/680757.html
And under the cut is a reprint of an article on the topic nnm.ru 2010

In the early 1990s, a survey named Vlad Listyev among those who enjoyed the greatest trust in the country, after the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Alexy II and General of the Airborne Forces Alexander Lebed. Listyev invariably appeared on the screen as the darling of fate. Only a few knew about the terrible circumstances of his life.
In a television program about Listyev’s death, his widow said that in the last month of his life he was very frightened by something. I was afraid to answer my home phone, I was afraid to open the door of my apartment when someone came, I was afraid to go outside. A week before his death, he admitted this to the host of the “Silver Ball” program, Vitaly Wulf. He asked why Listyev did not acquire security. “It won’t help,” Vlad answered sadly.
On March 1, 1995, he was killed in the entrance of his house in Moscow. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office now states that the investigation into this case is ongoing. More than 200 volumes of investigative materials have already been accumulated, but the case is not moving forward. Over the past years, 10 people have confessed to Listyev’s murder, but their confessions turned out to be false.

Mother at her son's coffin. ...Vladislav’s mother Zoya Listyeva died a year and a half later just as absurdly as her son. She was hit by a speeding car while she was crossing the road...

A series of misfortunes

The life of Vlad Listyev was very tragic. It was as if he was being pursued by an evil fate. He was born on May 10, 1956 in Moscow. Soon his father, Nikolai Ivanovich, committed suicide. For many years, Vlad knew nothing about the true cause of his father’s death. Even relatives and friends of the family were not privy to the details of the tragedy - only much later did my father’s sister tell me that he had been caught taking a bribe. “How will I look my son in the eye?” - he asked her. Fearing that the bribe story could affect the family, Nikolai Ivanovich made a fatal decision. But trouble does not come alone - soon Vlad’s mother became involved with a man who was only ten years older than her son. Zoya Listyeva gave all her small salary (she worked as a copyist and received 80 rubles) to her new husband, with whom she drank the money away.
Vlad studied at a sports boarding school and, unlike his classmates, was in no hurry to go home on weekends, constantly disappearing at the stadium. He did not achieve great success in sports, but he fulfilled the standard for a candidate for master of sports in athletics. After serving in the army, Listyev married Elena Esina. For a year and a half he and his wife lived in his mother-in-law’s apartment. And her salary - the money that Vlad received working part-time as a physical education instructor - was not enough to live on. By that time, he had already entered the international department of the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University.
But a new misfortune awaited him ahead. In 1978, Listyev had a son, but died after living only a few hours. Vlad, who was looking forward to his first child, constantly felt guilty. Relatives recall that the young people began to quarrel often. Driven to despair, Listyev even tried to commit suicide. Vlad left Lena when she was expecting a child again. He confessed to his relatives his suspicions that his wife was not pregnant from him.
Listyev began his journalistic career in 1982 at the Voice of Russia radio station, better known as Foreign Broadcasting. The main task of the radio station was clear from the name - to propagate the most progressive Soviet system among the peoples of the world. That’s why there were special requirements for journalists. It is interesting that Listyev on the Voice of Russia was even for some time the secretary of the Komsomol organization. Soon he joined the party and was already preparing to go as a special correspondent to Latin America. But his wife found out about this and wrote a statement that Listyev abandoned her with the child. Vlad was expelled from the party and kicked out of his job. For two years he lived by writing sports reports.

Haste of the Prosecutor General's Office

At the 1980 Moscow Olympics, Vlad met MSU student Tatyana and soon proposed to her. Two years later, they had a son, who was named Vladik in honor of his father. But at three months old, the baby fell ill with the flu. The disease caused complications - the boy lost his sight and hearing. Vlad took his son to the best doctors, even saving money for treatment abroad. But the doctors’ verdict was always the same: the chances of recovery are almost zero. The boy lived only six years and died quietly, in his sleep. The parents didn't even wake up.
After the death of his second son, Listyev was close to insanity. He even made a second attempt at suicide - he cut his veins in a country house. But before that, Vlad said goodbye to his godmother. She called an ambulance, which barely managed to save him.
When Vlad left the hospital, he said to his godmother: “Why did you do that?! I don’t know how to live further.” To which she advised him: “Get drunk. I don’t see any other way out.” And Vlad went on a drinking binge for several years. His incessant drinking completely destroyed his new family.
In 1987, Vlad Listyev became one of the hosts of the new TV show “Vzglyad”. It was real luck - a young talented journalist finally found himself in the profession. But Vlad’s passion for alcohol continued, and Listyev began to have problems at his new place of work. It happened that literally an hour before the broadcast, Vlad had to be revived with the help of special drugs. Listyev began to disrupt programs, and one day he simply did not show up for a live broadcast.
It is unknown how the matter would have ended if he had not met Albina Nazimova. When they met, Albina was 25 years old, she convinced Listyev to stop drinking. Albina left her job as a restoration artist and plunged headlong into her husband’s affairs: she was present every day at the filming of television programs, editing programs with Vlad until late at night, never leaving him unattended for a second. Thanks to her, things went smoothly for Listyev, and in 1990 he became the general producer of the ViD television company. Soon the television company released the famous TV show “Field of Miracles,” the first host of which was Vlad. It was this program that made Listyev the number one TV star on Russian television. From that time on, Listyev’s popularity only grew, he opened more and more new television projects: “Theme”, “Rush Hour”, “Guess the Melody”. On November 30, 1994, President Yeltsin signed a decree on the privatization of the first television channel, and the idea of privatization belonged not to Boris Berezovsky, but to Vlad Listyev. The new company became known as ORT (Public Russian Television).
At the beginning of 1995, Listyev became the general director of ORT. A little over a month later he was killed. Tens of thousands of people came to his funeral; so many people had not gathered since the funeral of Andrei Sakharov in 1989. People brought flowers and cried openly in the streets. But despite the fact that Listyev’s murder was the focus of attention Russian society, the investigation into this tragedy has turned into a farce. Five months later, the Prosecutor General's Office announced that those who ordered the murder had been found. The next day she took back her words, saying that the investigation was ongoing.

Everything is under suspicion

A great many versions have appeared about who killed Listyev. The first version of the investigation was advertising. On February 20, 1995, Listyev announced the introduction of a temporary moratorium on all types of advertising until ORT develops new “ethical standards.” He had good reasons for this. There was massive theft of public funds on the channel. The government paid the bills for Channel One. Operating costs, signal transmission, salaries, preparation of most programs - all this cost about $250 million annually. The television company received advertising revenue of approximately $80 million a year, but only part of this money remained in the company itself. The lion's share was taken either by television producers who broadcast on the channel, or by advertising wholesalers. The head of the presidential security service, Alexander Korzhakov, was sure: “The cancellation of advertising on ORT meant personally for Lisovsky (the owner of the Premier-SV company) and Berezovsky (the chairman of the board of directors of ORT) the loss of millions in profits.” Listyev allegedly even said about Lisovsky that “this man will not be on the channel at all.”
The offices of Berezovsky and Lisovsky were searched, but investigators, of course, found nothing. On March 1, 1998, CIS Executive Secretary Boris Berezovsky, in turn, accused Alexander Korzhakov and former heads of the Russian FSB Mikhail Barsukov of involvement in organizing the murder of Listyev.
The advertising version had variations. In particular, investigators spent a long time working on the Solntsevsky trail. At first, a certain Yuri Pichugin, one of the youngest thieves in law, “crowned” by the Solntsevo lads in 1992, was named as the initiator of the murder. It soon became clear that the testimony of the prisoner Sapchuk, who surrendered Pichugin, was completely false and was dictated by the ordinary desire of one bandit group to “burn” another. Then the leader of the Solntsevo group Mikhas (Sergei Mikhailov) began to be called the customer, and the motives were explained as follows: Listyev expelled the company GMS (Global Media Systems), which brought the gang several million dollars a month, from the first channel. However, Mikhas’ involvement in Listyev’s murder was also not proven.
Investigators even explored the theory that the general director of ORT was ordered by his wife, with whom he intended to divorce, having found himself a young passion on the side. In Listyev's third family, conflicts became frequent - once Albina even tried to commit suicide by swallowing pills. Vlad’s widow inherited the largest share of the shares of one of the richest companies in television, and a year later, on top of that, she married the president of the ViD television company, Andrei Razbash. The conclusions suggested themselves, but this version was also not confirmed.

"Try to prove our guilt"

It is possible that the investigators, who were looking not so much for the perpetrators as for those who ordered the murder of Listyev, miscalculated. They could be understood: President Yeltsin took control of the investigation - you won’t get away with some random killers here. Meanwhile, the investigation materials indicate that the murder was committed in a very unprofessional manner. Listyev was first wounded through the arm, tried to escape from the killers and only then received a second bullet, which entered under his left ear. He died only 15 minutes later. Experts said that the killers used two pistols - a Czech-made Scorpion 7.65 mm caliber and a Walter of the same caliber, and took them with them. Professional killers always leave weapons at the crime scene.
It looks like the TV journalist was killed not by professionals, but by amateurs. Moreover, he had no less enemies than fans. Listyev’s name was associated with the appearance on Russian television of entertainment shows that were copied one-to-one, including the color of the presenter’s suspenders, from American ones. He was literally hated not only by Russian national patriots who stormed Ostankino in October 1993, but also by Trotskyists who claimed that “the hardest drugs are better than the easiest TV show.” By the way, in the never-registered magazine “Black Star,” which actively promoted leftist terror from issue to issue, on the day of the murder of the ORT general director, a manifesto “Vladislav Listyev is dead!” was supposed to appear. In this manifesto, unknown authors took indirect responsibility for the murder, claiming that its perpetrator was a person of their views and it was not at all by chance that it happened on March 1 - it was on this day in 1881 that Emperor Alexander II was assassinated. However, for unknown reasons, the issue of the magazine never saw the light of day, and the publication itself ceased to exist. And the day after Listyev’s murder, the “Reservation Here” group, a cult group among left-wing extremists, gave a concert at the “Ulitsa Radio” club - the musicians declared from the stage that they supported the killers and hoped that this “action” would not be an isolated one. Many spectators greeted this announcement with an enthusiastic roar.
One day, the head of the group investigating the murder of Listyev, Pyotr Triboi, let slip: “The perpetrators are already in prison. But for other crimes." By the way, a year ago Igor Gubkin, who created the radical group “Revolutionary Military Council” in 1997, was sentenced to 19 years in prison. The investigation proved his participation in the explosion of the monument to Nicholas II, which occurred on April 1, 1997, and in the mining of the monument to Peter I. The sentence imposed on him took into account the previous term - 14 years, to which Gubkin was sentenced for the murder of a Primorye businessman in 1991. From 1994 to 1996, Gubkin headed the joint-stock company Professional Boxing, creating, according to investigators, “an illegal armed formation with an extensive network of training centers, combat and support units that had firearms and cover documents at their disposal.” At the court hearing, Gubkin proudly declared: “We, revolutionaries, commit both murders and robberies... However, try to prove our guilt.”
Last year, the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation suspended the investigation of the case “due to the impossibility of identifying the person subject to criminal liability.”

This year Vlad Listyev would have turned 61 years old. As with all people who passed away not at the very old age, it is difficult now to imagine Vlad Listyev as an elderly person. Well, we’ll tell you about the TV presenter from an unexpected side. And we also note again and again: the killers, organizers and customers of the murder of Vlad Listyev have not yet been found.

You can’t tell from the outside that Listyev was very promising in athletics, namely in running. And yet. Vladislav is the USSR champion in running among juniors at a distance of 1000 meters. And also, if you look at the producer’s life as a whole, it’s immediately noticeable that there was some kind of fate over his family. See for yourself. Both of Listyev’s sons from different marriages died as children. The first wife, Elena Esina, was registered at a psychoneurological dispensary.

Finally, parents. Vlad's father, Nikolai Ivanovich, was the head of the district headquarters of the People's Control Committee. At the age of 42, he committed suicide by poisoning himself with dichloroethane after a criminal case was opened against him for bribery. The mother was hit by a car and died; a large dose of alcohol was found in her blood. It is not surprising that, unlike his on-screen image, Listyev was not a very smiling person. And, by the way, according to the recollections of his employees-subordinates, very rude in the notorious context: “I’m the boss - you’re a fool.”

I remember how shocking the murder of Vladislav Listyev was for all Russians. This was the only thing the “dear Russians” were talking about. ORT played his photo instead of broadcasting for several hours. Even in the gangster series “Brigade” they noted such a high-profile murder from the encyclopedia “”. Sasha Bely, having heard the news about Listyev’s death, notes discouragedly: “Yes... Life is fun in Russia...”.

The most popular TV presenter was killed on March 1, 1995 in the entrance of a house on Novokuzneshchaya Street. It is clear that the investigation recognized the murder as a contract killing and began to delve into professional activity Listyeva. After all, he recently became the director of Russian Public Television and managed to quarrel with prominent advertisers, whom he wanted to exclude from the air. And just not because I didn’t like advertising. Quite the opposite.

Why was Vlad Listyev killed?

There have been many high-profile contract killings in Russia. As a rule, performers were found, sometimes even organizers and sometimes customers. But someone’s “ears” were always visible. Even if it was impossible to prove their guilt (or they didn’t want to prove it). The Listyev case stands apart - no one was found! That's it. And in fact, there is not a single sensible version - who killed Listyev? And accordingly, why was Vlad Listyev killed?

Almost immediately after the murder, the investigation claimed that the shooters were unprofessional. First they hit me in the arm and the bullet went straight through. Listyev tried to escape and was shot at again. They hit me under the left ear. Vlad died only 15 minutes later. The killers fired from two pistols - a Czech "scorpion" and a Walter, and took the weapons with them. Unprofessionals? But they can’t catch them in any way. True, they are unlikely to be alive.

What were the versions of why Vlad Listyev was killed? Let's take only the main ones.

His third wife was Albina Nazimova, who supported her husband in moving up the career ladder. They say that Vladislav was often met in the company of a young companion, perhaps he was going to get a divorce. After Listyev’s death, Albina received a huge share of the inheritance and married the president of the Vid television company, Andrei Razbash.

There were even suggestions that his first wife wanted Vladislav’s death. The newspapers wrote that Elena Yesina filed for alimony only after Vlad had money. After Listyev's death, their daughter Valeria inherited 3/8 of the inheritance. Listyev's fortune at the time of his death was estimated at $16 million. Of course, suspicions could not be avoided without Boris Berezovsky. Literally a week before his death, Listyev announced the introduction of a temporary moratorium on all types of advertising until the channel develops new “ethical standards.”

Boris Berezovsky

Advertising revenues were large—about $80 million a year—but most of the profits went to television producers and advertising wholesalers. One can guess what profits the head of the Advertising Holding company, Sergei Lisovsky, and the chairman of the board of directors of ORT, Boris Berezovsky, lost as a result of the advertising ban.

In April 2013, an interview with Konstantin Ernst, taken in 2008 and not intended for publication, was published, in which he stated that he was confident that the murder of Listyev was ordered by the famous businessman and current member of the Federation Council Sergei Lisovsky. Soon Konstantin Ernst denied the statement, calling it
provocative interview.

There is a forecast that this murder will never be solved. Just like in one song: not everything has been decided yet.

International intelligence services have solved the most notorious crime.

One of the most notorious murders committed in Russia in the 90s was the shooting of the famous television journalist, ORT general director Vladislav Listyev. On March 1, 1995, he left home for the Ostankino television center. In the evening I called my wife and said that he was going home. As investigators later established, a car with several bandits was following the journalist from the television center. As soon as the journalist arrived at his house on Novokuznetskaya Street, they radioed to their accomplices that “the object had arrived.”

Listyev entered the entrance and began to go upstairs. Two people came down to meet him and pulled out weapons - a pistol and a submachine gun. One bullet hit Listyev in the shoulder, the second in the head. The criminals fled in a waiting car.

March 2017 will mark 22 years since the murder. The crime has not been officially solved. However, this is only official.

Rucriminal.com has obtained a closed Interpol report on the activities of the Solntsevo organized crime group. It was compiled in 2000, five years after Listyev’s death. International police officers have combined in their work numerous reports from the Interpol bureau in different countries. The documents received from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation indicated that the operatives knew very well who organized and committed the crime. Rucriminal.com publishes excerpts from this report:

“According to the Interpol National Bureau of Investigation in Washington, the Solntsevo criminal group took part in a large number of murders.

The most famous of them was the murder on March 1, 1995 of Russian television personality Vladimir LISTYEV, who worked in Ostankino. This murder was ordered by Sergei MIKHAILOV and Viktor AVERIN after a dispute over advertising revenue. Igor DROZDOMIROV/DROZDOMIROV ensured the execution of the contract killing. The two main suspects (customers) identified by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation were Sergei LISOVSKY and Boris ZOSIMOV. In ZOSIMOV's application for a visa, he indicated the following place of work: president of Polygram Business Enterprises, a company producing audio-video products. Lisovsky’s visa application states that he is the president of the Premier SV advertising agency.

MIKHAILOV boasted of his business connections with Moscow television with unlimited control over advertising thanks to “sales” to American advertisers. LISTYEV opposed the efforts of the Solntsevo group to gain control over advertising revenues and was reportedly killed by members of Igor DAZDOMIROV's brigade.

The murder of the Russian journalist LISTYEV was, according to available information, committed by the brigade of Mikhail KUDIN.176

KVAKIN Mikhail, also known as KUDIN Mikhail (“Kvakin”), was born on 23...195... and, according to the Interpol National Bureau of Investigation in Washington, he was the leader of one of the most active brigades of the Solntsevo group and was considered a “golden boy” and a “rising star” ” of this organization.

KUDIN was arrested by Greek authorities at Athens Airport on July 6, 1995 for possession of 0.025 kg. heroin. During his arrest, $25,000 was confiscated from KUDIN. KUDIN was imprisoned in the Korydallos prison in Piraeus, Greece, but was subsequently released and returned to Moscow to lead his brigade. 178 Like others, he was detained by the Czech police in Prague in May 1995 in the restaurant “V Holubu”.179

According to available information, Kudin is currently in Prague with Peter GARABATY. He is involved in the trafficking of heroin from Afghanistan to Russia through Europe and the smuggling of Chinese immigrants.180

DAZDAMIROV Igor, 21 .... 196…. year of birth, aka Igor DADZHDAMIROV or DAZDOMIROV, nickname Dazhdamir, Dajdamir, Dushman, owner of Russian passport 43 No. 496...... MIKHAILOV mentioned Igor DACHDAMIROV as the person who controls television advertising in Moscow. This confirms the assertion of the Interpol NCB in Washington that he was the leader of a brigade controlling the media in Moscow. DACHDAMIROV is considered the head of a group of killers called "Dashdamirova", controlled by the Solntsevskaya group. His name is mentioned in connection with several murders committed in Moscow. The Interpol NCB in Washington reports that it is believed to be behind the murder of the famous television personality LISTYEV, committed in 1995. It is believed that the Solntsevskaya group wanted to gain control of the advertising profits received by Moscow television. LISTYEV resisted these attempts and was eliminated. It is reported that on August 23, 1996, DADJDAMIROV was placed in a Moscow prison on charges of participation in the murder of LISTYEV, but was released. He was also detained by the Czech police in May 1995 in Prague at the restaurant "In Golubu".

LISOVSKY (born 25...196..) Sergei Fedorovich, aka “Liss”, manager of “SV Premier” (1), regularly made trips to Switzerland. He was also the president of Premier Film in Moscow. Was associated with the organization. Was active in the re-election campaign Russian President Boris Yeltsin, organizing rock concerts and an advertising campaign. The US Embassy in Moscow reported that LISOVSKY applied for a multiple-entry business visa on October 8, 1996, based on a letter from Miramax Films (10013 New York, 99 Hudson Street), signed by co-chairman Robert WEINSTEIN. According to available information, LISOVSKY was a very important contact for the Solntsevo group. Alexander AVERIN, financial director of SV Premier, was responsible for financial control of this company, since the Solntsevo group provided “protection” for LISOVSKY.

Boris ZOSIMOV - contact MIKHAILOV, president of “Biz Enterprises” and the magazine “Imperial”. He was also associated with the Polygram Record Company. He traveled and periodically lived in Los Angeles (California). His wife, Polina TASHEVA, was in the United States for some time on an H-1 visa, working as professional model at Metropolitan Modeling Agency in New York. Known for his eloquence and liveliness.

For 10 years he has been a significant presence in the music industry. With the advent of perestroika, he tried to create an industry for the production of musical recordings. With the financial support of one of the ZIFF brothers, the heir to the publishing house ZIFF-Davis, ZOSIMOV became a partner in the joint venture Polygram Records. "Polygram" owned the right to distribute the works of the most popular Western musicians in the CIS, as well as the right to distribute the works of many Russian musicians around the world.

Through Biz Enterprises, Boris ZOSIMOV also operated other businesses, including live music entertainment and commercial television. He had a contract with the American media giant Viacom, and his acquaintances include Bob Guccione (Time/Warner and Penthouse Publications). Previously, ZOSIMOV was the holder of a multiple three-year B1/B2 visa.”

To this, Rucriminal.com can add that during the investigation, a direct connection was established between Lisovsky and the Solntsevo “authority” Dashdamirov (this is how his last name is correctly spelled). A notebook containing the gangster’s phone number was confiscated from Lisovsky. It is known that Sergei Mikhailov introduced Dashdamirov and Lisovsky. Before the murder of Listyev, Lisovsky met with Dashdamirov several times. Along the way, the head of LIS, S discussed all these negotiations with Boris Zosimov. After close communication with Lisovsky, Dashdamirov gave the go-ahead to one of the Solntsevo brigades to kill Listyev. The perpetrators were the killer brothers Alexander and Andrey Ageikin. After the crime, they fled to Israel. As soon as investigators established this fact and sent a corresponding request to Israel, Alexander Ageikin was found dead in a hotel in Tel Aviv. By official version, he died from a drug overdose.

However, this was not an obstacle to sending the customers, organizers and the surviving performer to jail. One person prevented this - Tatyana Dyachenko, the daughter of President Boris Yeltsin. Lisovsky received Active participation in the election campaign, Yeltsin and his daughter felt that Liss’s arrest could hit her father. Having great influence on Yeltsin, she ensured that the investigation was blocked at the very top. What is preventing Listyev’s murder from being solved now remains a mystery.

Listyev knew he was playing with fire

Behind every historical process there are specific individuals. I wanted to know: who really rules Russia? Who brought the country to this state? Who is at the top of the pyramid?

In the summer of 1996, I began to become acquainted with the activities of Boris Berezovsky. There was no other person so close to all three branches of government: crime, business and government. There is no other person for whom Russia's slide into the abyss would bring such enormous profits.

Who was this businessman, whose very name silenced everyone? I began to study the stages of Berezovsky's lightning career and discovered that it was full of bankrupt companies and mysterious deaths.

Pavel Khlebnikov, correspondent for Forbes magazine

Already in the late 80s, it became clear that the emerging market economy in Russia was based on a simple principle: commercial success depends on political influence. With good political connections, it didn’t cost anything to make a fantastic fortune. Soon, almost every major businessman was forced to create a “roof” for himself.

When Berezovsky published Yeltsin's memoirs and entered the president's inner circle, his career rose to a new level. But this is unlikely to provide him with long-term political support. A means was needed that would ensure him the Kremlin's gratitude constantly: it was necessary to find a path on which he would gain the upper hand over his political patrons. And Berezovsky decided to take control of the main tool for forming public opinion - television.

His choice fell on the state first channel. This channel was an extremely powerful structure - its audience was 180 million viewers in Russia and abroad. There was massive theft of public funds on the channel. “Essentially, everything that happened on Channel One was, as it were, the most striking manifestation of corruption in Russia,” Berezovsky later recalled. - Many, many different small joint-stock companies were created that bought out some pieces of time. So, on the one hand, there is budget money - $250 million. Due to this, the signal is distributed and programs are produced. On the other hand, there are private companies that... use budget money to produce software, broadcasts, and receive money for advertising.”

Managed advertising on Channel One Sergey Lisovsky, a thirty-six-year-old entrepreneur who at one time made a lot of money from organizing a network of Moscow discos. Lisovsky's cash cow was the advertising company Premier SV. By the end of 1994, Premier SV controlled more than half of the television advertising business in Russia.

By the end of 1993, Berezovsky had founded two subsidiaries, LogoVAZ-Reklama and LogoVAZ-Press, but his first attempts to create his own niche in the media market did not lead to much success. However, in the summer of 1994, as his political influence in the Kremlin grew, new prospects opened up for Berezovsky. LogoVAZ gained access to the advertising market of Channel One and signed an agreement with advertising tycoon Sergei Lisovsky. By this time, Lisovsky had united the largest advertising divisions of Channel One into a company called Advertising Holding in order to monopolize the sale of advertising time on the channel. Berezovsky's brainchild, LogoVAZ-Reklama, became part of the Advertising Holding as one of the founding shareholders (Lisovsky, the general director of the holding, owned 49 percent of the shares).

The holding's task was to oust independent production companies from the advertising market. It was assumed that the channel would buy programs, but receive money for advertising, and Advertising Holding would sell airtime to advertisers (for commissions). This scheme was initially built into numerous conflicts of interest and opportunities to pocket money.

“Berezovsky’s plan, which he repeatedly outlined,” Korzhakov later recalled, “was to leave a controlling stake in the channel to the state, and give the remaining 49 percent to investors loyal to the president. He assured that only in this way could the channel gain financial independence, but at the same time the president will be able to control it.”

On November 30, 1994, President Yeltsin signed a decree on the privatization of Channel One. The new company became known as ORT (Public Russian Television).

Initially, the idea of privatizing Channel One did not belong to Boris Berezovsky, but to Vlad Listyev, the most popular TV presenter in Russia and the most successful TV producer. But as privatization approached, Listyev saw: Berezovsky wanted to completely subjugate the channel to himself. Information has emerged that Berezovsky wants to see another person as general director. Someone from the LogoVAZ management pushed Berezovsky’s ally, producer Irene Lesnevskaya, into this position. But Vlad Listyev was nevertheless appointed general director, and Berezovsky was appointed deputy chairman of the board of directors.

“The privatization of Channel One took place in the winter of 1995,” General Korzhakov later recalled. - No competitions - neither open nor closed - were held for the sale of 49 percent of the shares. Berezovsky himself decided who and how much interest he would give.”

The total share capital of ORT was two million dollars. Berezovsky's companies bought 16 percent of the shares. Berezovsky controlled another 20 percent. Thus, by investing only 320 thousand dollars, he acquired control of the most important Russian television channel. Did this mean that he would finance ORT's operating expenses from his own pocket? Not at all. It was assumed that the state, having 51 percent of the shares, would continue to make massive injections into the budget of the television company.

Immediately after the privatization of ORT, General Director Vlad Listyev decided to focus on activities due to which the channel was losing millions of dollars - selling advertising time. He began negotiating with the head of Advertising Holding, Sergei Lisovsky. The advertising tycoon apparently offered to pay ORT compensation for the right to manage advertising on the channel and thereby retain sole control. But the negotiations dragged on.

“On New Year’s Eve, I already knew that Vlad would be killed,” one of Listyev’s friends and business partners told me. “He got involved with people who build their life policy through criminal means.”

On February 20, 1995, Listyev announced that he was breaking the monopoly of Lisovsky and Berezovsky on advertising and introducing a temporary moratorium on all types of advertising until ORT develops new “ethical standards.”

Listyev knew that he was playing with fire. In one of the reports, an employee of the capital's RUOP noted: Listyev knows that he is being watched, and perhaps he will not live until the summer. From the same report it follows that at the end of February Listyev explained to his closest friends why he would be killed. When he decided to end the advertising monopoly, Lisovsky came to him and demanded damages in the amount of $100 million, threatening him with violence. Listyev said that he had found a European company that was willing to pay even more - $200 million - for the right to manage advertising time on ORT. Listyev turned to the main financier of OPT, Boris Berezovsky, with a request to carry out an operation to pay $100 million to the dissatisfied Lisovsky. The money was transferred to the account of one of Berezovsky's companies. But when Listyev asked Berezovsky to release the money, the automobile tycoon refused. Berezovsky vaguely promised to release the funds in three months.

There were other versions of what happened on ORT then. According to the analytical service of ONEXIM Bank, Listyev’s ban on advertising on ORT was explained simply: he was trying to inflate the price. He sought more favorable offers for the right to manage advertising on ORT. Lisovsky offered ORT 100 million dollars, but Listyev was counting on 170.

As Berezovsky later admitted, at that time he and his assistants were indeed conducting unusual negotiations with several criminal groups. There is information that at the beginning of 1995, the capital’s police interrogated a gangster boss who was in prison. He stated that he was approached Berezovsky's assistant, Badri, and ordered Listyev to be removed. The mafioso failed to fulfill the order - he was arrested during a large-scale cleansing of Moscow from criminal elements and thrown into prison. The police received information about how Berezovsky negotiated with another well-known bandit. On February 28, the day before Listyev's murder, Berezovsky met with a thief in law named Nikolai and gave him $100,000 in cash.

On the night of March 1, after work, Listyev drove up to his house. In the darkness of the gloomy entrance, a killer was guarding him. Shots rang out.

The day before the murder, Berezovsky went to Great Britain in the retinue of Prime Minister Chernomyrdin. When Berezovsky was informed of the murder, he immediately ordered a private jet and flew to Moscow. There he attended a civil funeral service in Ostankino.

“On Friday, when I was at a memorial service on the occasion of Vlad’s death in Ostankino, my employees called me there and said that a search was planned at LogoVAZ and riot police would arrive,” recalls Berezovsky. “I was terribly surprised.”

Yeltsin was not in Moscow at that time, and Berezovsky decided to turn to his other political patron. “I turned to (First Deputy Prime Minister) Oleg Nikolaevich Soskovets, who happened to be on the spot, with a request to help me contact the Ministry of Internal Affairs.” Soskovets called the Minister of Internal Affairs Viktor Yerin and received assurances that no one would touch either LogoVAZ or Berezovsky.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, when Berezovsky returned from the funeral service to the LogoVAZ building, it was full of detectives from the RUOP and riot police with machine guns. They presented a search warrant and a resolution to interrogate Berezovsky as a witness in the Listyev case.

Berezovsky forbade searching the building. He demanded an explanation, and his guards did not let the policemen through. The confrontation continued until midnight. In the end, the Ruopovites asked Berezovsky and his assistant Badri to go to the police station for questioning. Berezovsky knew that if he went, he might well be detained, in which case it would be extremely difficult to influence the investigation. He called acting Prosecutor General Alexei Ilyushenko. Russia's chief lawyer told his deputy to order the RUOP officers to take statements from Berezovsky and Badri at the Logovaz office, and not at the police station. They followed the order and left.

But the troubles for Berezovsky were by no means over. He knew that he could be arrested at any moment. With the amount of evidence that the police had, there was only one way to avoid arrest - to convince President Yeltsin that everything that was happening was part of a large-scale conspiracy against him. Yeltsin was not in Moscow, so Berezovsky went to Korzhakov’s reception room in the Kremlin and asked to record a live video message to the president. He asked Lesnevskaya, one of the main producers of Channel One, to perform with him.

The spectacle was breathtaking. Berezovsky and Lesnevskaya are sitting next to each other. Both speak into the camera, addressing the Russian President, as if they were his good friends. “I know who killed Vlad,” Lesnevskaya begins. And he names the killers of Vlad Listyev: Vladimir Gusinsky, the mayor of Moscow and the old guard of the KGB.

“Boris Nikolaevich, we must do everything so that the investigation is conducted personally by Korzhakov and the FSK, and not by the police,” she pleads. - Because now a version is unfolding and people are ready to say that Vlad was killed by Berezovsky. ...When they began to call us to the prosecutor’s office and ask questions, we realized that they had one version: the killer was either Berezovsky or his first deputy, Badri Shalvovich (Patarkatsishvili), all the threads stretch only to Berezovsky.”

Lesnevskaya translates Listyev’s murder exclusively into the political plane, trying to influence Yeltsin’s psyche: “This is worse than the State Emergency Committee. This is inside the city. A huge structure has been created that controls everything: all mafia structures, all bandits, decides who lives and who doesn’t live...”

Berezovsky, sitting next to Lesnevskaya, nodding in agreement, interrupts her:

“Boris Nikolaevich, Moscow is no longer governed by you. This is reality. It is controlled by scum!”

The bet was made on the fact that Yeltsin did not tolerate strong rivals in politics.

The police investigation is part of the same conspiracy. Why is Berezovsky being framed? To get to President Yeltsin, of course! “The country stands on end (after Listyev’s murder):

“Resign all security ministers!” (people say). “You resign! - Lesnevskaya tells the president. - And there’s nothing to cover here. They took the killer - Berezovsky and Badri..."

There were other suspects in the Listyev case: on the day an attempt was made to search the LogoVAZ building, the police also raided the work of advertising magnate Sergei Lisovsky, but the most serious evidence pointed to Berezovsky. How to explain why he gave the famous thief in law 100 thousand dollars two days before Listyev’s murder? Berezovsky did not deny this fact, but claimed that he gave the money in order to find those responsible for the explosion of his car near the Logovaz building last summer. Moreover, he met with the thief in law in the presence of two police officers and ordered two of his security agents to record the meeting on videotape “to prove that I was being blackmailed” (?).

The appeal brought results. The leaders of the investigation - Moscow Prosecutor Gennady Ponomarev and his deputy - were immediately fired (in fact, it was not Ponomarev’s deputy who was fired, but the head of the Moscow Main Internal Affairs Directorate, Vladimir Pankratov. - Ed.). The police were ordered to leave Logovaz and Berezovsky alone. “He openly used his political connections to avoid interrogation required by law,” Korzhakov noted some time later. In addition, during the investigation, Berezovsky repeatedly hid important facts from investigators, for example, that he met with Listyev at the LogoVAZ reception house on the eve of the murder.

When I asked about Listyev’s murder, Berezovsky categorically denied his involvement. He blamed unnamed advertising and production companies that were affected by Listyev's reorganization. In other words, he completely transferred Listyev’s murder from a political plane to a commercial one. This went against the explanation he gave to President Yeltsin in his video message.

The murder of Listyev resonated with pain in wide sections of society. Tens of thousands of people came to his funeral - not so many people gathered since the funeral of Andrei Sakharov in 1989. People brought flowers and cried openly in the streets.

But, despite the fact that Listyev’s murder was the center of attention of Russian society, its investigation turned into a farce. The prosecutors who started the case were fired. Five months later, the Prosecutor General's Office announced that those who ordered the murder had been found. The next day, the prosecutor's office took back its words, saying that the investigation was continuing. Two months later, Alexei Ilyushenko, acting Prosecutor General, was removed from his post - it was he who helped Berezovsky avoid arrest;

He himself was later arrested on charges of corruption in connection with one of the branches of Berezovsky's oil company Sibneft.

In the summer of 1997, Moscow newspapers reported that Igor Dazhdamirov had been arrested in Tbilisi and extradited to Moscow for questioning in the Listyev case. They wrote that Dazhdamirov was part of the Solntsevo lads. But again nothing followed.

Berezovsky and Lisovsky emerged victorious in the fight for ORT. A few months after the assassination attempt on Listyev, the television company announced the lifting of the moratorium on advertising. A new company called ORT-Advertising has become the exclusive supplier of advertising to the channel with a monopoly right to sell advertising time for a commission. The head of ORT-Advertising was none other than Sergei Lisovsky.

Some time later, I asked Berezovsky to comment on the version according to which he, along with Lisovsky, was responsible for the murder of Listyev; he immediately dissociated himself from the advertising tycoon: “By announcing the reorganization of advertising, we, in essence, acted against Lisovsky, because we were destroying Advertising Holding,” Berezovsky said. - Later, when Vlad passed away... I invited Lisovsky to head ORT-Advertising.

Berezovsky consolidated his power over the channel. Controlling 36 percent of ORT shares, he had the right to veto any decision. But that was not all. In the absence of a strong shareholder in the form of the state, he actually controlled ORT.

Having become the master of the information empire, Berezovsky became the main oligarch, first among equals, in the Russian business world.

International intelligence services have solved the most notorious crime.

March 2017 will mark 22 years since the murder. The crime has not been officially solved. However, this is only official.

Rucriminal.com has obtained a closed Interpol report on the activities of the Solntsevo organized crime group. It was compiled in 2000, five years after Listyev’s death. International police officers combined in their work numerous reports from Interpol bureaus in different countries. The documents received from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation indicated that the operatives knew very well who organized and committed the crime. Rucriminal.com publishes excerpts from this report:

“According to the Interpol National Bureau of Investigation in Washington, the Solntsevo criminal group took part in a large number of murders.

The murder of the Russian journalist LISTYEV was, according to available information, committed by the brigade of Mikhail KUDIN.176

LISOVSKY (born 25...196..) Sergei Fedorovich, aka “Liss”, manager of “SV Premier” (1), regularly made trips to Switzerland. He was also the president of Premier Film in Moscow. Was associated with the organization. He was active in the re-election campaign of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, organizing rock concerts and an advertising campaign. The US Embassy in Moscow reported that LISOVSKY applied for a multiple-entry business visa on October 8, 1996, based on a letter from Miramax Films (10013 New York, 99 Hudson Street), signed by co-chairman Robert WEINSTEIN. According to available information, LISOVSKY was a very important contact for the Solntsevo group. Alexander AVERIN, financial director of SV Premier, was responsible for financial control of this company, since the Solntsevo group provided “protection” for LISOVSKY.

Boris ZOSIMOV - contact MIKHAILOV, president of “Biz Enterprises” and the magazine “Imperial”. He was also associated with the Polygram Record Company. He traveled and periodically lived in Los Angeles (California). His wife, Polina TASHEVA, was in the United States for some time on an H-1 visa, working as a professional model at Metropolitan Modeling Agency in New York. Known for his eloquence and liveliness.

However, this was not an obstacle to sending the customers, organizers and the surviving performer to jail. One person prevented this - Tatyana Dyachenko, the daughter of President Boris Yeltsin. Lisovsky took an active part in Yeltsin’s election campaign and his daughter felt that Liss’s arrest could hit her father. Having great influence on Yeltsin, she ensured that the investigation was blocked at the very top. What is preventing Listyev’s murder from being solved now remains a mystery.