Eduard Albertovich Kazaryan
Born in 1955 or 1956 (according to various sources) in Sverdlovsk.
By nationality, Eduard Kazaryan is probably Assyrian. According to available data, Eduard Kazaryan's maternal uncle is Davydov Iosif Zayayevich, who in the 1990s was the head of the Sverdlovsk regional association "Assyrians".
In 1990 , with the participation of the Assyrians Tarlanovs, the organized criminal group "Center" was formed in Sverdlovsk. Igor Pavlovich Tarlanov was one of the most influential "shadow entrepreneurs" in Sverdlovsk in the 1970s and 1980s. Leonid Bilunov, who in a number of publications was called a criminal authority and was in close relations with the organized criminal group "Center", in his book "Three Lives" argued that Eduard Kazaryan, who appears under the pseudonym Edik Kazak, is a relative of the Tarlanovs. The likelihood of this is quite high, given that Kazaryan, like the Tarlanovs, is presumably Assyrian. After the death of Oleg Vagin (1992), Nikolai Shirokov (1993) and Mikhail Kuchin (1994), Eduard Kazaryan began to be considered the head of the OCG “Center”.
Eduard Kazaryan's allies were: one of the most influential Russian crime bosses Aslan Usoyan (grandfather Khasan), who was serving time in the Sverdlovsk region in 1990, the Armenian crime boss Mikhail Mikhailovich Hakobyan (Misha-krest), the Amiryan brothers, who were probably in kinship with Usoyan, and Usoyan's nephew Temuri Mirzoev, who in the 1990s appeared under the nickname Timur Tbilissky, and in the 2000s began to be called Timur Sverdlovsky. Among the opponents of Eduard Kazaryan are the founders of the Uralmash organized crime group, the Tsyganov brothers, the crime bosses Korogly Mamedov (Karo) and Andrey Trofimov (Trofa).
In addition to purely criminal methods of making a profit (racketeering, robberies, etc.), the OCG “Center” took an active part in the creation of legal commercial enterprises. For example, Eduard Kazaryan was one of the founders of the Gostiny Dvor company, which provided marketing services to enterprises of the Sverdlovsk region in the foreign market and had a cooperation agreement with the administration of the Sverdlovsk region. The newspaper "Uralsky Rabochiy" in 1993 published information that the regional administration had allocated 100 million rubles to the company "Gostiny Dvor" for the purchase of food. With the Gostiny Dvor company, connections were traced to the Deputy Chairman of the Sverdlovsk Region, Igor Osintsev, who was in charge of providing food for the Sverdlovsk Region, and during Perestroika was responsible for the development of the cooperative movement in the Sverdlovsk Region. The Gostiny Dvor company and some other companies controlled by the center were included in the founders of the Rifey concern, whose president was Valery Afonasyevich Yazev. Subsequently, Valery Yazev will become a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, and in the 2000s - the head of the Ural Interregional Coordination Council of the United Russia party.
One of the most important business partners of Center OPG was entrepreneur Maisel Sergey Gershevich, who headed the joint Russian-Chinese venture ASEA-MET, organized with the participation of the Sverdlovsk Regional Executive Committee, the Institute of Metallurgy of the Ural Branch of the Academy of Sciences, where Maisel worked, and Chinese companies. Together with the leaders of the Center OPG Oleg Vagin, Nikolai Shirokov and Eduard Kazaryan, Sergey Maisel created ACEA-MET LLP, which supplied copper-containing waste from the Hungarian ferroalloy plant, which was processed at Sverdlovsk Mechanical Plant No. 4.
With the participation of the leaders of the OCG "Center" Nikolai Shirokov and Eduard Kazaryan, entrepreneur Anatoly Pavlov ("Ural Trading House") and Chairman of the Committee for the Implementation of Economic Programs of the Ural Region Sergey Vozdvizhensky, in 1992 Ural-Trade JSC was created, which opened in Belgium a subsidiary company called "Belga-lux" ("Belga-trade"). Eduard Kazaryan and Sergey Maisel were indicated as the administrators of Belga-Trade. In Belgium, consumer goods were purchased, which were distributed in Russia through the "Ural Trading House". The market coverage by the Ural Trading House was quite wide. For example, in the first half of the 1990s, a branch of the Ural-Trade company existed in Nefteyugansk (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District of the Tyumen Region). The Nefteyugansk branch of the Ural-Trade company was headed by the former second secretary of the Nefteyugansk city committee of the Komsomol Alexander Nikolaevich Sidorov. Since the mid-1990s, Alexander Sidorov began to make a career as a civil servant in the government of the Nefteyugansk region. It was alleged that in the position of the first deputy head of the Nefteyugansk region, Alexander Sidorov, oversaw the activities of the heads of the municipal formations of the region, including the head of the village of Poikovsky Kuyvashev Yevgeny Vladimirovich. When in 2012 Yevgeny Kuyvashev was appointed Plenipotentiary of the President of the Russian Federation in the Ural Federal District, he appointed Alexander Sidorov as his deputy. A few months after that, Kuyvashev became the governor of the Sverdlovsk region.
It was argued that, in addition to legal commercial activities, Ural-Trade was also laundering funds of the Center OCG obtained by criminal methods. In 1994, Belgian law enforcement agencies began to investigate the activities of the Ural-Trade company. It was alleged that the tip to the "Ural-Trade" Belgian law enforcement officers came from an employee of the Sverdlovsk tax authorities. In 1995, the process of liquidation of the Ural-trade company in Belgium began. However, in the Sverdlovsk region, the Ural-trade company existed as a legal entity until 2000.
In addition to selling consumer goods, Ural-Trade was engaged in the collection of copper scrap in the Sverdlovsk region, which was subsequently sold to foreign processing enterprises. This, for example, was done by a subsidiary of the Ural-trade company, PKP Uraltechnology LTD LLP, under the leadership of Anatoly Pavlov. The firm "Uraltechnology" was located in Yekaterinburg at 56, Pervomayskaya street on the 7th floor. In the same building on the same floor there were firms of another successful scrap metal collector named Igor Alekseevich Altushkin. His activities were so successful that in 2003 he founded his own company - CJSC Russian Copper Company, which became the third largest copper producer in Russia.
In August 1994, Eduard Kazaryan was arrested in Budapest with the help of Interpol and convoyed to Yekaterinburg as part of a criminal case against the Central Group. However, already in February 1995, Kazaryan was released for lack of evidence of the charges. After that, Eduard Kazaryan sold his apartment in Yekaterinburg to the deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Valery Yazev, who was closely connected with the leaders of the OCG Center (formally, Kazaryan's father-in-law sold the apartment to Yazev), and left abroad for permanent residence. It was reported that the leadership of the OCG "Center" passed to Alexander Varaksin.
According to media reports, Eduard Kazaryan returned to Yekaterinburg in 2000 and began making attempts to regain his former influence. It was reported that one of the consequences of such attempts was the assassination of the vice-president of Ural-Business-Oil Vladimir Reftov in 2002. There was a version that the assassination of Reft was ordered by Kazaryan's opponents. It was argued that Alexander Varaksin prevented the return of Eduard Kazaryan's influence.
Probably, the result of the return of Eduard Kazaryan was the aggravation of the struggle for the Tavdinsky Sawmill OJSC. In the first half of the 1990s, over this large enterprise in the forest industry, entrepreneurs close to the OCG Center were in conflict: Malik Gaisin and Mikhail Lurie (one of the founders of the Foratek group of companies). By the end of the 1990s, the enterprise had decayed, but it still retained the interest of “reputable entrepreneurs”. In 2000, there was a conflict at the enterprise, one of the parties to which was the private security company "Obereg". This security company, the founders of which were entrepreneurs close to Eduard Kazaryan, acted in the interests of the creditor of the Tavdinsky timber mill - Terminal Complex CJSC. The founders of this joint-stock company in 1995 were Eduard Kazaryan, Igor Nikolaevich Krivonogov and Yuri Evgenievich Uskov.
A group of entrepreneurs can be distinguished who, in the 2000s, presumably acted in the interests of Eduard Kazaryan:
- Ganeev Alexey Ruzilievich;
- Krivonogov Igor Nikolaevich;
- Korshikov Vladimir Ilyich;
- Kochurov Mikhail Alexandrovich;
- Razbakova Lyudmila Vladimirovna;
- Stovpets Vladimir Petrovich;
- Uskov Yuri Evgenievich.
Some of the entrepreneurs listed above were mentioned by the security services of Yekaterinburg banks in the lists of persons who are engaged in cashing out large amounts of money. From the late 1990s to the mid-2010s, these entrepreneurs were involved in the activities of the following legal entities, presumably controlled by Eduard Kazaryan:
- AOOT "Sverdlovsk Mechanical Plant No. 4" (metal processing);
- LLC Sverdlovskkhimstroy;
- CJSC Terminal Complex;
- JSC "Tavdinsky Sawmill";
- LLC "Private Security Company "Oberig";
- LLC TEK Tranzit (construction);
- LLC "Tranzit-invest" (construction);
- LLC "Krasny Dvor" (real estate transactions);
- LLC "UK" Krasny Dvor "(housing and communal services).
In 2004, the leader of the Uralmash organized crime group, Alexander Khabarov, gathered a gathering of loyal crime bosses in the center of Yekaterinburg. During his speech, Khabarov said that he supports the criminal authorities Trofu (Andrei Trofimov) and Karo (Korogly Mamedov) and will not tolerate attempts to dispose of them by Aslan Usoyan. Among those who "stir up" against Trofa and Karo Khabarov mentioned Timur (Temuri Mirzoev), Avto (Avtandil Kobeshavidze) and Kazaryan, whom Khabarov especially noted as the instigator of criminal showdowns. Among the negotiable authorities, Khabarov mentioned the leader of the organized criminal group "Center" Varaksin. The demonstrative gathering in the center of Yekaterinburg and the mention of the undesirability of inciting interethnic conflicts was probably addressed to the federal center and state power structures, so that they would take action and extinguish the conflict in the bud. But Khabarov's calculation turned out to be wrong. Law enforcement agencies first of all hit not on Usoyan and Kazaryan, who were in the shadows, but on Aleksandr Khabarov, who dared to bring the conflict to the public plane. He was charged with coercion into a deal with Bank24.ru shares and driven to suicide in a pre-trial detention center in January 2005. It is not entirely clear in this whole story the role of the leader of the organized criminal group "Center" Alexander Varaksin, who was also accused in the case with the bank's shares, but came out dry. A version was expressed that Varaksin did not actually conflict with Usoyan and Kazaryan, but played along with them, luring Alexander Khabarov into a trap.
In 2006, “Transport-Forwarding Company“ Transit ”LLC, presumably acting in the interests of Eduard Kazaryan, began construction of two 25-storey buildings near the center of Yekaterinburg (Krasny Lane, 5/1 and 5/2). The houses were commissioned in 2012. Lyudmila Razbakova, Igor Krivonogov and Mikhail Kochurov, who were united by their acquaintance with Eduard Kazaryan, were the founders of the TEK Transit company at different times. The leaders are also good acquaintances of Kazaryan - Vladimir Korshikov and Yuri Uskov.
For operations with real estate in houses under construction, LLC "Krasny Dvor" was established (headed by Vladimir Korshikov). The founders of the company were Lyudmila Razbakova, Ushanova Marina Iosifovna (according to available information, a cousin of Eduard Kazaryan) and the Agency for Economic Development LLC. The founders of the Agency for Economic Development were Ivan Izmailovich Subbotin and Sergei Osintsev, business partners of Igor Arkadievich Osintsev, former Deputy Prime Minister of the Sverdlovsk Region, who had connections with the Center organized criminal group in the first half of the 1990s. It should be noted that Ivan Subbotin and Sergey Osintsev, together with Vladimir Korshikov, were among the founders of Avtolayner LLC and Gorodskoy Express LLC (passenger transportation in Yekaterinburg), which may indicate Subbotin and Osintsev's stable ties with entrepreneurs from Eduard Kazaryan's entourage.
After the completion of the construction, the management of the houses was transferred to LLC "Management Company" Krasny Dvor ", the founder of which was a former employee of the above-mentioned private security company" Obereg "Kirill Dmitrievich Jenakov. Alla Nikolaevna Rzhannikova, who, according to available information, is the sister of Eduard Kazaryan's wife, acted as the representative of the Krasny Dvor MC in court and in interaction with the residents of the houses.
In 2010, Tranzit-invest LLC, presumably acting in the interests of Eduard Kazaryan (founders: Mikhail Kochurov and Vladimir Korshikov; head - Vladimir Korshikov), began to build a 16-storey residential building in Yekaterinburg (residential complex "Quiet yard" - Amundsen st., 68, building B). Residents of neighboring houses, who were dissatisfied with the development of the courtyard, opposed the construction of the house. The developer engaged a security company, as a result of which several people were injured. The protesters were supported by the deputy of the Yekaterinburg Duma Maxim Petlin (Yabloko party), who after a short time was convicted of extorting money from another developer. The administration of Yekaterinburg confirmed the building permit, all the courts were won by Tranzit-Invest, so the house was eventually built.
In 2014, the Ura.ru news agency published a list of the largest debtors in payments to the budget of the Sverdlovsk region. On the 6th place was Uskov Yuri Evgenievich as a representative of LLC "Tranzit-invest" with the amount of debt in the amount of 416.6 million rubles.
It can be concluded that after returning to Yekaterinburg in the late 1990s, Eduard Kazaryan avoids direct participation in entrepreneurial activities, probably because of his reputation as a “crime boss”. Nevertheless, there is reason to believe that a stable group of entrepreneurs acts in the interests of Eduard Kazaryan - Eduard Kazaryan's relatives (Rzhannikovs, Ushanovs, Makrosovs, Davydovs) and people close to them work on the legal entities controlled by this group. In some cases, entrepreneurs from Kazaryan's entourage practiced forceful methods of doing business, for which they used the controlled security companies "Obereg" and "Pardus". Legal entities, presumably acting in the interests of Eduard Kazaryan, worked in Yekaterinburg in those areas of business where the support of the city administration is needed - construction and passenger transportation. Kazaryan likely had such support at least in the 2000s and early 2010s.
Date of information update: 2018.