I learned about Vyritsa just a week ago, from dima1989 . By this time, I already had on the table Railway tickets on the route Moscow - Smolensk - Petersburg - Moscow, and I was thinking what to devote the day to in the Northern capital. The tip to Vyritsa turned out to be most welcome - this village immediately intrigued me.
After all, there is a lot of wooden art nouveau here (including two churches), beautiful nature, an intra-settlement railway, a Baroque palace not listed in any reference book, and a community of spiritual Christian teetotalers of John Churikov - a fragment of that system of Orthodox sects, which included the famous runners and whips before Revolutions (45 photos, could not do less).
In addition, I was very lucky with the weather - I am talking about frosty landscapes.

Formally, Vyritsa is an urban-type settlement in the Gatchina district of the Leningrad region, 60 km south of St. Petersburg (electric trains from the Vitebsk railway station). Its population is 10.5 thousand people, but in fact Vyritsa is a giant holiday village with an area of ​​​​50 square kilometers, that is, approximately 10-15 km long and 3-5 km wide. For St. Petersburg, Vyritsa is like Malakhovka or Nakhabino for Moscow, and in summer its population reaches several tens of thousands of people.

But in winter the dachas sleep.

Vyritsa is a giant conglomerate of thousands of suburban areas of varying degrees of elite, divided by a grid of absolutely straight streets and avenues. Pine and spruce trees rise high above the plots:

And it is extremely difficult to navigate in Vyritsa: almost the same terrain throughout the territory (straight streets, cottages, fences, pines), tall trees, behind which no landmarks are visible, and even complete desertion in winter - you can get lost here no worse than in the forest .

Several hundred wooden dachas pre-revolutionary construction - the rise of Vyritsa began in the 1880s, Rozanov, Likhachev, Bianki rested here, and the writer Ivan Efremov was born here at all.
It is pointless to specifically search for modern dachas in Vyritsa - the spaces are too huge, but regardless of your route, dachas will come across from time to time.

What is in the frames above was filmed 10 minutes walk from the station along main street, and this house stands behind the Churikov community:

A couple of interesting houses beyond Oredezh, in the so-called Princely Valley (and Vyritsa is divided into several "districts"):

Just don't know where

Many modern dachas look quite worthy of modern ones, and I have not found the most beautiful dachas (for example, the former dacha of the Bumagins near Oredezh).
In winter, these areas are empty - although smoke curls over some houses. A dog lives in almost every yard, and discordant barking is heard all over the village. It’s scary here in winter: there are very few people, and mostly all sorts of workers, watchmen, and also thieves.

Station Vyritsa - Station and House of Culture:

Shop near the station in a Stalinist building:

Vyritsa is divided by railway into two parts: western and eastern. The western one is about 4/5 of the Vyritsa square, it takes more than an hour to walk to its far end. This part of the village stands along three main highways.

Communal Avenue runs through the center:

The bus in the foreground is a commuter bus, there is no full internal transport in Vyritsa, and this is very difficult, given the distance. However, a taxi here is cheap - 50 rubles in the village.

However, Vyritsa has a unique facility for the urban-type settlement - an intra-settlement railway. From the Vyritsa station to the west, a single-track branch departs to the Poselok station, which forms the southern border of Vyritsa. St. Petersburg electric trains run along it (every half an hour or an hour, with a large "window" between 11 and 15 days) from the Vitebsk railway station, but is there still so much urban settlement, for communication different parts which the railroad is used?

Between Vyritsa and the Village there are 3 platforms without a name (only numbers), the Village itself is a dead end station.

I left St. Petersburg at 8 in the morning, at 9:30 I was in the Village, at 9:41 the train went back and I reached the 3rd platform. And it was unbearably cold (and the locals were much colder than me), but I started the long journey on foot. After all, a lot of interesting things have been lost in the conglomerate of dachas, and the main direction of my path was to become the third Vyritskaya highway - the Oredezh River:

In such frosts, Oredezh froze so that it’s not only possible to walk on the ice - it is covered in traces of wheels. Along the coast there is a luxurious coniferous forest, and rare, rare rises, and basically the coast is closed by private property:

In some places, the Epiphany baths remained on the ice - the water froze, but the ice was not yet covered with snow, and ice crosses stand at the edge:

The farthest sight of Vyritsa from the station is the Baroque Vasilyevsky Palace:

Beautiful? And obviously something in the spirit of the St. Petersburg suburbs. Why is so little known about him?

Because this palace was built in 2005-2006! Not restored or recreated - namely, built from scratch. This is the property of Sergei Vasilyev, an oligarch from St. Petersburg, the owner of an oil terminal. A native of Vyritsa, having become rich, he erected a palace in his native village:

Upon closer inspection, it seemed to me that the details of the design of the palace look somewhat feigned:

Over the 3 years of its existence, the palace managed to acquire rumors - in particular, they say that Vasilyev bought the original of the Amber Room for himself and paid for the version of her death in Königsberg. Of course, this is only a legend - but the interiors of the palace (scans of the magazine "Salon", No. 9, 2009) are present on the Internet (the photo is of course not mine, taken from the link!):

In general, an excellent occasion for the expression of citizenship. But I ask you right away - I do not want to discuss "justice" here. I like to admire the palace - I think, the most beautiful of the new Russian villas - than to count other people's money.

From the palace I got ashore, and then for another hour and a half I wandered through the streets, admiring winter fairy tale. I had to go obliquely again to the banks of the Oredezh and the wooden Kazan Church, but it turned out to be almost impossible to find the way. I was accompanied by two rare-looking men in old sheepskin coats, and besides, by their own admission, they were illiterate. Finally, they asked for money for marijuana. Perhaps they were thieves.

Kazan Church - for Vyritsa as a cathedral:

It was built in 1913-14, for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, at the junction of Art Nouveau and the traditions of the Russian North:

A fabulous tower, which is even difficult to perceive as a temple.

There are many buildings around the church, for example, a church shop:

And the chapel over the grave of Seraphim Vyritsky:

The Kazan Church in Vyritsa is a major center of pilgrimage. Seraphim Vyritsky lived in the first half of the 20th century (became a monk before the Revolution, died after the war), was famous for his generosity and honesty (for example, once a thief entered his house, but at the gate he ran into a returning Seraphim, dropped the bag ... and Seraphim helped the thief collect the things stolen from him and let him go in peace), later - with insight and the ability to heal. Seraphim spent his last years in Vyritsa, even then pilgrims came to him for help, neither the NKVD nor the Nazis could harm him, and largely thanks to him Vyritsa survived the occupation relatively easily.
The Seraphim Chapel is very beautiful: a stone gravestone, a wooden shrine, an icon surrounded by fresh foliage... But I was ashamed to take pictures there, although no one saw it.

From the Kazan Church, a few minutes walk to the Oredezh shore. Having gone out there, I decided to keep to the river, so as not to get lost again. Along the very edge of the high bank there was a narrow path-cornice, along which I went. Soon I came across the abandoned Wittgenstein Hunting Palace:

In the 19th century, Vyritsa belonged to the noble family of Wittgenstein, and it was they who in the 1880s began to develop a dacha economy in Vyritsa. Somewhere in the quarters of the village, the Wittgenstein Land Office has been preserved - and it all began with the Hunting Castle, the oldest of the Vyritsa dachas.

A little further on the shore grow stilted pines:

Why their roots are above ground level - I do not know. Probably, the coast is gradually slipping, but the pines are still holding on.

Natural Martians!

So I walked along the banks of the Oredezh, sometimes descending onto the ice, for a few more kilometers. On the way, I went to the old dam of the Vyritskaya hydroelectric power station, which operated in 1948-72:

Small HPPs of the North-West, built in the 1920s and 1940s, are a separate issue during the first five-year plans. Their closest analogue in the Moscow region is the Meshchera peat extraction. There are hydroelectric power stations in Ivangorod, Kingisepp, Porkhov, Siversky, Vyritsa, Volkhov, Sviritsa. Volkhovskaya HPP is also the oldest of the GOELRO plan.
From the dam I went out to Kommunalny Prospekt. It is difficult to put into words how pleasant it was to walk on asphalt after snowdrifts and ice! After another 15 minutes, I went to the station, had a little rest and went behind the station.

The eastern side of Vyritsa is about 1/5 of the area of ​​the village. However, if in the western half there are almost exclusively dachas, in the eastern half there is a permanent population of urban settlements:

There are two wooden temples of different confessions here. A kilometer southeast of the station is the Peter and Paul Church (1908):

In the 1930s, it was the main temple of True Orthodox Christians, or Catacombs, in the Leningrad Region. These were one of the last schismatics who separated from the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1920s because they recognized the "power of the Antichrist", that is, the Bolsheviks. Many individual catacomb sects have become very radicalized, some have gone very far from the canon - in general, a repetition of the history of the Old Believers in miniature. Almost no catacombs have survived to this day. Nothing here reminds me of them.

Church of St. John of Kronstadt (2005) next to Petropavlovskaya - was built as a temporary one, while the main one was being repaired:

If you go from the station to the northeast (and a straight street leads there from the church), you will come to a huge blue tower above Oredezh:

This community of Christian teetotalers of Brother John Churikov is one of the few surviving communities of "spiritual Christians". The latter are not Old Believers, but the common name of several unrelated Orthodox sects. Spiritual Christians included whips famous in the literature of the 19th century, less well-known runners, eunuchs (they practiced ritual castration), Molokans and Doukhobors (these survived - several villages in Georgia and Armenia, communities in the USA). Teetotalers - one of these currents, in those days, insignificant in scale. However, most of the spiritual Christian sects did not survive the Soviet regime and went down in history.

At the end of the 19th century, the wanderer John Churikov came to St. Petersburg from the Samara province. He lived in bunkhouses, earned his bread as he had to, read the Gospel aloud - and it soon became clear that he knew how to heal people from drunkenness verbally (by talking and quoting the Bible). Soon, Churikov succeeded in this - kilometer-long queues lined up for him, he took communion with sugar, not wine, created the doctrine of Holy Sobriety ...

Churikov himself considered himself Orthodox, but many who were healed of drunkenness soon declared him the Second Christ, and called him Brother John. The community rallied around Churikov, in 1906 a house was built in Vyritsa (which was called the Capital of World Sobriety), in the 1920s the community turned into the Labor Commune. Brother Churikov:

Churikov assumed the role of head of the community. Even before the Revolution, he was excommunicated, and in 1938 he was repressed and died in the Butyrka prison. The community was dispersed, the house was taken away .... Nevertheless, the Churikovites survived the Soviet regime, gathering in apartments and holding conversations, since the struggle against drunkenness was carried out successfully within the community. In 1992, the house in Vyritsa was returned to them, but now there are two Churikov communities. The “moderates” gather in the Fedorovsky Church in St. Petersburg near the Moscow railway station and consider Churikov simply a saint, seeking his canonization from the Russian Orthodox Church. In Vyritsa, Orthodox Churikites live, who consider Brother John to be the second Christ:

The elders ruled the community, the oldest of them was Alexander Sinnikov, who also knew Churikov himself, but he died in 2007. The Churikovites are very friendly, they let me inside, told me about their philosophy and allowed me to take pictures. On the first floor of the blue tower there is a prayer room:

Here at 14:00 on Sundays, conversations (not prayers) are held, stories of healings. The Churikites do not have priests, communication with God occurs through the burning of notes - this is one of the foundations of the faith of spiritual Christians: the Holy Spirit can be embodied in people.
In the center of the iconostasis is the image of Brother John:

The Churikovites gave me a few sheets of prayers and three pieces of sugar in a paper wrapper - "So that life is sweet," as Churikov said. The community has its own website, which has a lot of interesting things (for example, the prayer of the Guilty Sentence of Reason to Drunkenness), but here is another view of Dmitry Sokolov-Mitrich.

And I myself, as an amateur ethnographer, am neither "for" nor "against" such a community. I'm interested in what she is. And until now, the inhabitants of the blue tower do not drink, do not smoke and do not swear, but they work hard. I myself am a teetotaler, I haven’t drunk drunk for many years and I can do without a drop of alcohol for months, I don’t smoke and I don’t swear. In general, I feel good in the Orthodoxy of the Russian Orthodox Church.

I left Vyritsa by train for St. Petersburg, took a short walk around the city, and at dusk reached the Frozen Sea. Behind was about 10-15 kilometers on foot through snow and ice in 20-degree frost.

Incredibly luxurious homes and country residences oligarchs are simply amazing, but I’d rather not say anything about their value. For example, Kadyrov's "cottage" cost him only $310 million, while our president is accustomed to getting to his residence on his own yacht. Be sure to read further and look at all the luxury that some residents of our country can afford.

Palace of the Vasiliev Brothers

The Vasiliev brothers were born in the village of Vyritsa, Leningrad Region. At first they were engaged in video salons, then they drove cars from Europe for sale in Russia, they kept car markets. Sergei Vasiliev controlled and controls the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal - the largest in sea ​​port Petersburg bunkering company, with a 15% share of the volume of transshipment of petroleum products in the Baltic.

Despite the presence of real estate in St. Petersburg, the Vasilievs generously helped their native Vyritsa, where the brothers still live, for example, they restored the wooden church of the Kazan Mother of God, which is popular with tourists. It was in this village on the banks of the Oredezh River that the brothers decided to build their estate. What is interesting about this estate is that it is a reduced copy of Catherine Palace- the famous royal residence in Pushkin. The patterns on the cast-iron grating, the golden domes of the chapel, the sky-blue color and white statues - a lot here reminds of Catherine's.
There is only contradictory information about the interior: ceilings 14 meters high, marble staircases, doors made of tortoise shells, mosaic marble floors with total area over 600 sq. m, black marble Atlantean knights. According to the author of the project, architect Igor Gremitsky, only natural materials were used for the decoration of the palace, including 19 varieties of marble from Italy.

Dacha Yakunin

This Saturday, a post appeared on the entertainment portal, the author of which claimed that he participated in the construction of a residence for the head of the Russian railways Vladimir Yakunin - was engaged there in the so-called smart home.

According to him, on several dozen hectares of forest near Domodedovo, their own lakes were dug, a garage for 15 cars was built, a separate box for an executive class limousine, and one and a half kilometers underground passages in the garage, there was its own cinema, a bath complex (1400 sq. M) with a sauna, Russian, Turkish baths, a salt room, a swimming pool, a separate massage room, and more.
Then a certain builder Aleksey, who allegedly worked there, spoke on the air of the RSN. “300 Vietnamese people worked there, they killed all the fish with electric fishing rods. Finishing external - Italian marble. Bath - three buildings, 14 by 14 meters, Italian furniture, marble bar counter, fireplace, stained glass windows. It is glass, there are no walls as such, locker rooms, showers, everything is very expensive. Swimming pool 50 meters in the house. There is a storage room for fur coats and a refrigerator. A small house is a son, a guest house, and the main one is his. There is a prayer house and a chapel. It seems that Metrostroy dug ponds there for 150 million. It is decorated with gold tiles, and the room is very large - a hammam, a bathhouse, a steam room, a panorama to look at the forest, ”said Alexei about what he saw near Domodedovo.

Shuvalov's residence

Igor Shuvalov, who has been Deputy Prime Minister since 2008, according to his declaration for 2012, is the wealthiest member of the government. His income amounted to about 226 million rubles (about $7 million). The income of the spouse is slightly less.

In his declaration, the official indicated that, together with his wife and three minor children, he rented a house with an area of ​​4174 sq. meters. The residence of the Deputy Prime Minister is located next to the innovation city Skolkovo (Moscow) on the territory of the former dacha of the Brezhnev-era Politburo member Mikhail Suslov (gosdacha Zarechye-4), is under zealous guard and is surrounded by a high fence. Natalya Pelevina, in her blog on the website of the radio station Ekho Moskvy, talks about the "palace" with an area of ​​​​1500 square meters. meters, built in the shape of the letter P. On a plot of 7.5 hectares, according to Pelevina, there are also indoor tennis courts, a swimming pool, luxurious gardens “with bushes trimmed in the Versailles style”, a greenhouse for exotic plants, separate houses for servants and guards And so on.

Residence Kadyrov

Another very impressive mansion stands on the banks of the Sunzha River in Grozny. The official residence of the head of the Chechen Republic with an area of ​​260 thousand square meters. meters cost the budget, according to Novaya Gazeta, about 10 billion rubles ($310.8 million).

Novaya Gazeta notes that 48 million rubles (360,000 sq. m of lawn, 77 thousand sq. m of flower beds, 16 thousand roses, 14 thousand square meters. m curly cut shrubs, hedges and more. Approximately 36 million rubles have been allocated for public utilities of the residence.
Nikolai Uskov, the head of the Snob project, after a meeting of the club of editors of the central media in Grozny, eloquently described what he saw: lined with minarets. […] Among the picturesque hills stretching to the left and Chechen ancestral towers, a small farm is hiding. With her, a bear cub lives in a cage, chickens and turkeys walk on the grass, roosters crow, a stream flows down into an artificial pond.

Palace of Medvedev

In February 2011, Novaya Gazeta published an article suggesting that on the territory nature reserve Big Utrish ( Krasnodar region) a personal dacha is being built for ex-president and current prime minister Dmitry Medvedev. The mansion in Bolshoi Utrish was to be equipped with a marina and a helipad. Two wide roads leading to it were specially planned (according to the publication, these are the security requirements of the Federal Security Service). With its architecture, the Medvedev's dacha project is similar to the so-called Putin's palace in Gelendzhik.

The land on which the palace is located has been leased since July 2008 by the Department forestry Krasnodar Territory to the fund of regional non-commercial projects A gift for the construction of a sports and recreation complex there. For a territory of 120 hectares, the fund will transfer 15 million rubles every year for 49 years.
According to Novaya Gazeta, the Dar Fund Management Company was located at the same address as the Foundation for Social and Cultural Initiatives (FSKI) of the President's wife Svetlana Medvedeva, the companies had the same phone number, and the CEO of both organizations was at different times one and the same person (Olga Travina). The Office of the President's Affairs stated that it had nothing to do with the construction.

Dacha Tkachev

In Golubaya Bukhta, near the village of Bzhid, Dzhubga urban settlement, Tuapse district, Krasnodar Territory, there is an object that some consider to be the residence of the governor of the Krasnodar Territory, Alexander Tkachev.

According to Rosreestr, some of these lands really belong to the governor. However, according to environmentalists, the fenced area (about 7 hectares) significantly exceeds the area of ​​land owned by Tkachev (1 hectare).
It was from the fence around the object that the scandal began to flare up. In February-March 2011, activists of the Environmental Watch for the North Caucasus held protests against the seizure of forest land and the coastline, were detained by law enforcement officers and sentenced to various terms of administrative arrest (from 7 to 15 days). In response to a request from environmentalists sent to the Department of Forestry of the Krasnodar Territory, the answer came: there is no fence around this area.

Dacha of the Patriarch

In February 2011 on Black Sea coast north of the village of Divnomorskoye (Krasnodar Territory), the same activists discovered what they said was illegal construction. At least 10 hectares of forest, where the Pitsunda pine grows, protected by law, is fenced with a three-meter fence. On the territory, according to ecologists, there is “a strange, pretentious building - not a mansion, not a temple - this quadrangular building is crowned with domes with a cross. Absolutely some unimaginable hybrid of a palace and a temple.”

In Russian Orthodox Church confirmed that this object belongs to the Moscow Patriarchate, but noted that not the patriarch's dacha, but a spiritual center is being built near Gelendzhik. The territory of the spiritual center was supposed to house a meeting room of the Holy Synod, rooms for the members of the Synod, administrative and managerial services of the Moscow Patriarchate, offices, conference rooms, press center rooms, and so on. In the summer of 2012, the fence around the mysterious object grew significantly in height, became much longer and was equipped with night surveillance cameras and an alarm system. Later, Patriarch Kirill consecrated a temple on the territory of the spiritual center and held a meeting of the Holy Synod there.

Putin's Palace

On the Black Sea coast, near the village of Praskoveevka in the Gelendzhik region, there is a “recreation complex” that is rumored to belong to Putin.

Businessman Sergei Kolesnikov claims that, although the project was envisaged as a private residence for Nikolai Shamalov, the construction of the palace was carried out by Spetsstroy of Russia, and it was supervised, guarded and given all instructions by the Federal Security Service. According to Kolesnikov, the complex occupied an area of ​​"tens of thousands of square meters" and was equipped with "a casino, a winter theater, a summer amphitheater, a chapel, swimming pools, a sports complex, helipads, landscaped parks, tea houses, premises for staff and other technical buildings. ".
In the spring of 2011, Shamalov's Indokopas company, together with the residence, was sold to a Cypriot company, the beneficiary of which is businessman Alexander Ponomarenko. Bloggers also suggest that the palace is the private residence of Vladimir Putin. In particular, according to their statement, on August 6-7, 2011, three large yachts(one of them looked like the yacht Olympia, which, according to bloggers, Putin uses) and two patrol ships. And a few days before that, law enforcement agencies cleared the nearest coast of tents and checked the passports of the citizens resting in them.
Subsequently, Vladimir Kozhin, the head of the affairs of the President of the Russian Federation, denied reports about the construction of a residence for Vladimir Putin.

In contact with

On Friday, Vladimir Barsukov was arrested and then transferred to a Moscow pre-trial detention center. This is an entrepreneur in the north-west of Russia, the founder of the so-called "Tambov business community" in St. Petersburg and the surrounding area, the last and most unsinkable of the "Mohicans" of the dashing 90s.

Surprisingly, the life of Vladimir Barsukov is inextricably linked with the screen. A few years ago, Vladimir Sergeevich played Louis XIV in Alexander Nevzorov's film The Story of a Horse. A little later, Leonid Parfyonov, who filmed "The Other Day" in St. Petersburg, turned up in his apartment on Tavricheskaya Street. From Barsukov's apartment opens beautiful view to the Tauride Garden. The owner and the television man were photographed for memory, Barsukov was proud: "These are the people I have." Ironically, Barsukov was arrested in those days when the TV series "Payback" - the continuation of the "Gangster Petersburg" saga - was on the Rossiya TV channel. The protagonist telenovelas - Sukhaty - strikingly reminds the Petersburgers of Vladimir Barsukov. In the series, Sukhaty was taken by the security forces. For his prototype, the "series" is just beginning.

Series one. Bang bang - and in slippers

Everything began to spin when, last Wednesday, an assault force from the Prosecutor General's Office landed in the city on the Neva. A characteristic detail - the security forces of St. Petersburg were not even notified that Barsukov was planned to be detained. About 40 people participated in the operation. But not a single one from St. Petersburg.

To take into custody Vladimir Barsukov, a disabled person of the 1st group (his right arm was amputated), it took almost a military operation with the participation of special forces. It started on Wednesday at 4 p.m., when Barsukov's dacha in Tarkhovka near St. Petersburg was surrounded by four trucks with soldiers from the Zubr special forces detachment. The owner of the house came out in shorts and slippers, and went after the operatives for more than six hours while the search was going on. Closer to night, at 12 o'clock, we went to inspect Barsukov's apartment on Tavricheskaya Street.

According to Barsukov's household members, their dwelling made an indelible impression on the policemen. The apartment of Vladimir Sergeevich has two levels, and there are legends about its furnishings in St. Petersburg. One of the operas was so carried away that he almost forgot that he was looking for material evidence here, and not for his future father-in-law.

He began to ask if we have a daughter, whether she is married and how old she is, ”Marina Khaberlakh, the wife of Vladimir Barsukov, says with undisguised irony in her voice.

According to relatives of the businessman, only paintings, bronze figurines and other household trifles were seized during the search. Nothing illegal was found.

On Friday, the Petrogradsky District Court authorized Barsukov's arrest without charge. But after 10 days, according to the law, he must either be charged or released. The latter is unlikely.

Series two. We are each other's long echo

Why was Barsukov arrested now, when he advocates legal business? Recently, Vladimir Sergeevich even agreed to cooperate with the authorities. It was he who helped the St. Petersburg prosecutor's office to save the little townspeople:.

The official version of his detention was announced by the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office. Barsukov is considered the customer of the assassination attempt on another St. Petersburg businessman - Sergei Vasiliev. The investigation, in addition, expects to prove Barsukov's involvement in a series of contract killings and raider seizures of enterprises.

Vasiliev is also a very curious person. His love for St. Petersburg architecture or luxury - whoever understands - was embodied in an exact copy of the Catherine Palace, which he built in the town of Vyritsa near St. Petersburg. The "Group of the Vasiliev brothers" was considered as the most, if I may say so, effective subdivision of the "Tambov business community." Vasiliev controls one of the most important enterprises - the Petersburg Oil Terminal (PNT). This is the largest bunkering company in the Seaport of St. Petersburg, which accounts for 15% of the total oil products transshipment in the Baltic.

In early 2006, the PNT nearly changed hands. The raiders used a "traditional" tactic - the substitution of data about the owners in the Unified Register. Vasiliev repulsed the attack. And at the end of the fight, in May, an attempt was made on him, which was immediately associated with a failed capture and ... with Vladimir Barsukov.

Whoever planned the elimination of Vasiliev, he furnished it as a "remake" of the early St. Petersburg 90s. On May 5 last year at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, in front of hundreds of passers-by and kids from a nearby kindergarten, a motorcade was slowly driving along Levashovsky Prospekt on the Petrogradskaya side - a gray Rolls-Royce, accompanied by a guard jeep. Suddenly, a gray "nine" dashed out in front of them, forcing both cars to stop. Three people jumped out of the Zhiguli and opened fire from machine guns and a pistol. Having covered the asphalt with shell casings, the shooters on the move jumped into the "nine" and disappeared. The abandoned car will later be found in a neighboring yard. But the shooters themselves got cold.

When the shooting started, Vasiliev himself was talking on his cell phone. One of the bullets hit ... the solid metal case of the device, and not in the head of its owner. Nevertheless, Vasiliev spent several months in the hospital, balancing between life and death.

Reliable sources told Izvestia that it was Vasilyev who, having restored his health, put two plus two together and came to the conclusion that the same person, Vladimir Barsukov, was behind the attempt to seize the PNT and the assassination attempt on him. He allegedly presented his guesses to the prosecutor's office. And he was extremely interested in the journey of his enemy from St. Petersburg to Moscow.

We managed to talk with Vasiliev very briefly. He denies having anything to do with the arrest of a former senior comrade.

And why is it for me? - Vasiliev was very plausibly surprised. - Let the law enforcement agencies deal with this situation.

He admits that relations with Barsukov deteriorated in 2006.

Yes, everything was fine, and then misunderstandings began, - cut off Vasiliev. Probably, these two will not be able to understand and forgive each other for a long time. Or maybe never.

Credits. Starring

Vladimir Barsukov in St. Petersburg is often called Kumarin - out of habit. This is his former last name. He was born in 1956 in the village of Aleksandrovka, Tambov Region. He wrote his graduation essay on the topic "Motherland is what is dear from childhood." He studied at a vocational school as a driver, served in the army, moved to Leningrad, and in 1976 entered the Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics. He worked as a freight forwarder in canteen No. 117, as a bartender and cocktail maker in the Tallinn cafe, and also as a doorman and storekeeper in the Windrose cafe.

In the second half of the 80s, Kumarin created a team of like-minded people, which in those days was called the "brigade". Vladimir Sergeevich selected fellow countrymen from the Tambov region to join her, not forgetting that "Motherland is something that is dear from childhood." The community, of course, was called "Tambov". Its members were fond of playing thimbles and provided paid security services to the population. In 1990, the court qualified the classes as hooliganism, robbery and extortion. Among the Tambovites, Kumarin was also convicted. Out of 4 years, he served in a colony for two and a half.

Since 1993, the oil business has attracted the community. This is how the Petersburg Fuel Company began to emerge. Over time, the business will grow in other areas: banks, casinos, restaurants, shopping centers, supply of products. According to one version, it was because of the products that Barsukov lost his arm. There was a battle for the contract for the supply of alcohol for the Games good will. "Mercedes", where Coumarin was driving, was riddled with bullets. The amputation was performed in Germany.

After the cure, the entrepreneur returned to St. Petersburg, becoming even more authoritative. But the time has come to change his name, to become Barsukov (mother's maiden name), vice-president of the St. Petersburg Fuel Company, a legal entrepreneur. After another authoritative St. Petersburg resident, Kostya Mogila, was shot in Moscow, Barsukov was left alone with St. Petersburg.

Barsukov's supporters are sure that he was not involved in the assassination attempt on Vasiliev. He cherishes too much the image of the law-abiding citizen and the repentant Christian. He donated to the needs of the church. The amounts of his deductions to the servants of the Lord were comparable to the budget of a small town. Vladimir Sergeevich is also an assistant to State Duma deputy Alexander Nevzorov with a salary of 1,600 rubles. When asked about his current status, he answers: "Pensioner."

Sergey Vasilyev is the middle one among the three brothers, but the "senior in rank". Sergei, Alexander and Boris Vasilievich Vasiliev were born and live in the village of Vyritsa, a hundred kilometers from St. Petersburg. Sergey Vasiliev was born in Vyritsa in 1955, at the age of 19 he was imprisoned for rape, at 31 he was arrested for extortion. Was convicted of fraud. In the early 90s, he became a junior friend of Kumarin. Together they emerged from the shadows into the light and became good citizens.

"Extremely daring crime" - this is how the prosecutor of St. Petersburg called the attempt on the life of businessman Sergei Vasiliev. The shooting at the victim's limousine and the guard's jeep is associated exclusively with the recent failure of a raider attack on the victim's business. His stevedoring company is indeed a tidbit for would-be invaders. However, there is another version of events.

"Extremely daring crime," - this is how the prosecutor of St. Petersburg called the attempt on the life of businessman Sergei Vasiliev. The shooting at the victim's limousine and the guard's jeep is associated exclusively with the recent failure of a raider attack on the victim's business. The business is really tasty for potential invaders: the value of the largest stevedoring company in the city, the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal, according to some estimates, exceeds half a billion dollars. Nevertheless, the "Privy Councilor" is ready to offer another version of events.

Jealousy is a bad feeling...

On the banks of the Oredezh River in Vyritsa, the "Catherine's Palace" is growing. More precisely, a somewhat reduced copy of the famous royal residence in Pushkin. Vyritsky Palace in a little over a year, if everything goes according to the plan of the builders, they say, will become the residence of Sergei Vasilyev. Actually, almost everything is ready. Even the descent to the water is made - an elegant ladder. And the freshly grown green grass in the park still looks like a freshly cut lawn. Nothing, it will grow - they will cut it for real.

Patterns of cast-iron lattice, golden onions of the palace chapel, sky-blue plaster and snow-white statues - all this almost exactly repeats the famous Catherine's palace in Tsarskoye Selo. But you can’t really see anything: most of the palace is gently wrapped in polyethylene, and from the side of the river, so is the whole structure. And of course, no one will tell anything about the interiors. “The same as in Ekaterininsky?” - we ask. “What are you doing! It is better!" - answer. Friends of the owner say that the tortoise-shell doors alone cost $30,000 each. Vasiliev did not like one of them for some reason, he ordered to throw it away and replace it.

The area of ​​land around the palace is not exactly known. “Four hundred meters - there, four hundred - here,” a man with the appearance of a guest worker waves his hand vaguely. Vigilant guards do not allow close to the construction site, it is strictly forbidden to photograph the area. " Private area!" a broad-shouldered man in uniform raises his finger respectfully.

But we will still try to take a picture ... Because all this splendor is now not so much a local attraction or a future residence as another version of the assassination attempt. Sources from organized crime fighters suggest that this spring, some Muscovites, who apparently noticed such beauty in the Leningrad Region, promised Vasiliev an amount comparable to the cost of an oil terminal for a palace in Vyritsa with all the land. Vasiliev, they say, refused. He also laughed ... Well, they answered.

Stages of a long journey

Sergei Vasilyevich Vasiliev is the middle brother. A year older - Alexander Vasilyevich, five years younger - Boris Vasilyevich. All three brothers are boxers: in the village of Vyritsa, where they were born, once, they say, there was a good boxing section. Now only the eldest, Alexander, has retained his regional residence permit. But, even having apartments in best areas Peter, the Vasiliev brothers still live in their Vyritsa. In a much more "own" than at the time of tender childhood. And not only thanks to the "Catherine's Palace", located not in the village itself, but somewhat on the outskirts.

The brothers expressly do not associate any business with Vyritsa and shower her with their generosity. Everyone, for example, knows that the famous wooden church of the Kazan Mother of God, which foreigners are taken to see, has been restored and exists thanks to Sergei Vasilyevich. For a long time the most popular among the people wild beach on the banks of the Oredezh was right under the noses of the brothers, five meters from their house, the natives and guests squealed, kneaded the dirt in the Oredezh and fried sausages on a fire. Nothing, be patient. Now, however, neighbors have appeared, built a chorus for themselves, blocked the villagers' approach to water. But the Vasiliev brothers here, they say, have nothing to do with it.

Sergei was the first of the brothers to be convicted. In 1974, at the age of 19, he was sentenced to five years in prison for rape. He served three years and was released on parole. The police believe that it was then that the team of the Vasiliev brothers began to form. The brothers (or already brothers?) have chosen, according to the UBOP, thimblers and the video business, more precisely, the novelty of the 80s - video salons. Over time, the daily income of a stable group of people, policemen say, could approach a million rubles.

In 1986, two brothers were already detained - the middle and the eldest. They were taken on charges of extortion, the court found both guilty of fraud. In 1989 Sergei was released. While the brothers were in prison, the team assembled by them broke up, as the fighters against organized crime say, into several brigades, many went to the "Malyshevsky". And the brothers themselves, together with the surviving associates, they say, were drawn to the automobile business. By the way, in the late 80s and early 90s, the transfer of cars from abroad and resale were one of the most profitable types of business. If cars even had a dark history, foreigners did not try to search for the lost in a distraught and practically devoid of laws. new Russia. The brothers, as is commonly believed, controlled the automotive market for Energetikov.

By the way, Sergey Vasilyev always had cars - almost the most expensive ones in Leningrad-Petersburg. In 1997, he bought his first Rolls-Royce, a white 1971 toy. In 2000, he had a one-year-old light gray Mercedes and the next Roll-Royce - black. Two years later, a silver Lamborghini and a blue Ferrari, half a thousand horsepower each. And a third Rolls-Royce. The fourth and last (so far!) "Rolls", a dark gray limousine of 2004, mutilated by bullets, Sergei acquired exactly two years ago - in May 2004.

"He was warned..."

Interesting information hangs on the Internet forum of professional bodyguards. According to the words of the people sitting in the fired cars, they talk about what happened at the intersection of Levashovsky and Ordinary on May 5 at about half past two in the afternoon: in a few seconds, two machine gunners shot down a jeep and left 48 bullet holes in the car; another shooter who attacked the Rolls with a Kalashnikov made 30 holes in the limousine. The guard in the jeep, having received a tangential wound to the back, nevertheless jumped out of the car and rushed to the Rolls-Royce, forcing the shooters to hide. That is why, apparently, there was no control shot at the client.

Judging by the text left online by a professional security guard, Sergei Vasiliev knew that an assassination attempt was being prepared on him: “He was warned almost two weeks in writing and by phone about the impending assassination attempt. Throughout the time the guys worked with him, they talked about the armor, and about the group of operational drivers. But he himself did not care deeply, because he considers himself charmed. But in this situation, it was the guards who saved his life ... The guys who were there became hostages of the client's negligent attitude towards their own safety ... ”Believing or not believing is the right of the reader.

A week after the assassination attempt, Sergei Vasilyev is still unconscious in the intensive care unit of the Military Medical Academy. Doctors call his condition extremely serious: two bullet wounds to the head. Forecasts are not given yet.

One of the versions of the assassination attempt is connected with a failed attempt to raid the Petersburg Oil Terminal CJSC. It is difficult to see the direct connection of Sergei Vasiliev with this largest stevedoring company in the city, however, according to the Delovoy Peterburg newspaper, he owns offshore companies that own half of the CJSC. The publication emphasizes that, having gained control over oil loading equipment in the port in 1996, PNT did not seek external financing, but invested in business development and the construction of a new transshipment complex the income received from working on old equipment. Now, according to experts, POT provides 15 percent of the total volume of oil products transshipment in the region Baltic Sea. The Kommersant newspaper estimates the terminal's capacity at 12 tons of oil products per year, and its annual revenue at $60 million.

Recall that recently the "Privy Councilor" mentioned PNT among the enterprises that the raiders laid eyes on. However, as prosecutor Zaitsev stated, "all versions are being considered." And one of them is quite far from the oil business. However, the prosecutor's office has yet to figure out the "palace secrets" of the Vasilyev brothers...

Tatiana Vostroilova,
Svetlana Tikhomirova,
Irina Tumakova

The Vasiliev brothers were born in the village of Vyritsa, Leningrad Region. At first they were engaged in video salons, then they drove cars from Europe for sale in Russia, they kept car markets.
Sergey Vasiliev controlled and controls the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal, the largest bunkering company in the Sea Port of St. Petersburg, with a 15% share of the volume of oil products transshipped in the Baltic.
Despite the presence of real estate in St. Petersburg, the Vasilievs generously helped their native Vyritsa, where the brothers still live, for example, they restored the wooden church of the Kazan Mother of God, which is popular with tourists.
It was in this village on the banks of the Oredezh River that the brothers decided to build their estate. What is interesting about this estate is that it is a reduced copy of the Catherine Palace, the famous royal residence in Pushkin.
The patterns on the cast-iron grating, the golden domes of the chapel, the sky-blue color and white statues - a lot here reminds of Catherine's.
There is only contradictory information about the interior: ceilings 14 meters high, marble stairs, doors made of tortoise shells, mosaic marble floors with a total area of ​​​​more than 600 square meters. m, black marble Atlantean knights.
According to the author of the project, architect Igor Gremitsky, only natural materials were used for the decoration of the palace, including 19 varieties of marble from Italy.