From the very morning of Thursday, Telegram blew up the news - Anatoly Petrovich Bykov, an entrepreneur from Krasnoyarsk, was detained. On Friday, the court arrested him for almost two months - until July 4. It would seem that few entrepreneurs are being detained today. A lot. But Bykov is a colorful figure in every respect, and legendary for the region. In the wake of the 90s, he created an empire, put General Lebed on the throne and became the night governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The authorities considered him the most dangerous criminal authority, but for Krasnoyarsk Anatoly Bykov - Robin Hood, the people's avenger who rose from the bottom. But, as it usually happens, the story is more complicated.
I must say that in the 90s, Anatoly Bykov was a figure, as they say, with a hard reputation. So the then press wrote about him: “Of course, everyone knows that he is Tolya Bykov, a former bandit, the leader of the group. But no one saw him with a gun, and there are a lot of rumors about his group of rumors. ” But the criminal path in the context of the article interests me a little - let profile journalists do this, since there really is a place to turn around. I think, dear reader, even without me imagines how things were in the Russian regions of that time.
According to the rules of drama, the hero must survive the rise and fall. The takeoff for Bykov was the ownership of one of the largest enterprises in Russia - the Krasnoyarsk aluminum smelter. Here, no one had any doubt who the real owner of the city was. Having entered the management of KrAZ, Bykov extended his influence to other enterprises of Krasnoyarsk. To this end, he created a financial and industrial group, in which Krasnoyarskenergo, Krasnoyarsk Hydroelectric Power Station, Achinsky Alumina Refinery and other major enterprises of the region merged. You can imagine the scale.
For the longest time, Bykov’s “predatory” creeps have resisted the energy industry. The head of RAO UES Anatoly Chubais did not hide his irritation from the impudence of the Krasnoyarsk authority, but he could not do anything. Bykov’s authority grew to such an extent that top politicians, deputies and thieves began to turn to the accused physical education teacher for advice. There is evidence that he could yell at the courtier Berezovsky and all this got away with him. At the same time, shares grew not only of his enterprises, but his authority among the dashing 90s: Bykov built temples, distributed money to the population as he could, helping pensioners, and, unlike the nominal power, resolving all the issues of Krasnoyarsk residents - from road repair and improvement before solving private problems.
Letters were constantly written to him - this episode was well described by Eduard Limonov, who intended to enlist the support of Bykov to create a partisan detachment in Altai:
“They wrote to him, as president, as having the opportunity to help, as a master, as a dad. As a person who is known, this Bulls helps people. I remembered the father of Kostenko, the Transnistrian battalion commander killed by Lebed, I remembered the scene in the barn, where he, sitting among his guys, took the population, adjudicated: he ordered one to give gas to take his wife to the hospital, and the other - a former policeman - sentenced to a higher least. It is interesting that fate abandoned me then, in 1992, to Kostenko, and now, eight years later, to Bykov. ”
Someone will say: Stockholm Syndrome. But only ordinary Krasnoyarsk hard workers cannot be convinced by this. For them, Bulls, maybe there was a bandit, but his bandit, who did not rob, but helped.
The empire of Anatoly Bykov collapsed along with another political monster - General Alexander Lebed. He made a fatal mistake for himself, supporting the candidacy of a general in the gubernatorial elections. He did not refuse help, but after the election he immediately alienated the odious businessman. Moreover, unlike its predecessor, Swan was not going to endure parallel power. And the fact that Bykov actually put him on the throne, ensuring victory in the elections, is exclusively the problems of Bykov himself. After all, politics is not about nobility and friends, politics is a dirty business, and they don’t do it with white gloves.
The power that the aluminum king accumulated in his hands quickly slipped away along with dashing time, which, in fact, gave rise to such exotic characters. An investigation team is urgently leaving Moscow, criminal cases are being opened, Swan triumphs. And Bykov (well, Bykov!) Leaves for the prison cell. This is just a predictable outcome: such violent (in the good sense of the word) often ended up in a cemetery. Looking ahead, the swan appeared there; Bykov heard the news in prison. Also, after all, the ancient Greek epic.
After his release, he returns to the region, becomes a deputy, enjoys wildly popular.
And here's the video: he is wearing a black cap, accompanied by operatives, heading into a company car. The former aluminum king is charged with organizing a double murder back in 1994. Is it for them?
Detective, it’s breathtaking.
Bykov, of course, is a typical Russian robber rebel that arose in troubled times: Stepan Razin, Emelyan Pugachev, Bulavin, and many others. According to the criteria of modernity - murderers and bandits. According to the criteria of unrest - still how to look.
90s - there is no doubt about it - a vague, tragic time. Yeltsin then boasted before the US Congress that he had dumped a red idol, but for some reason kept silent about the civil war that was burning on the outskirts of the USSR, millions of street children, refugees, unemployed, people who had lost their dignity. Did they deserve such a fate? Did Yeltsin think about them while standing in expensive shoes behind the varnished platform of the congress? Well, maybe at least I understood?
Athlete Tolya Bull understood these people.
Well, I told you a little about him. As it happened, it happened.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.