These were the brightest figures of Russian criminal life of the 1990s. Becoming an unquestioned leader of the Orekhov gang, Silvestr soon brought several powerful criminal clans under his control and expanded an enormous network of underground business. Thanks to connections in security services, sports, and creative circles, Otari rose to the top of the criminal world and controlled everything—alcohol markets, oil, commercial banks, show business, and the market for precious metals. After executing his patron without mercy, Mansur—who owed his rise to that patron—became a terror to businessmen and the head of one of the most brutal and ruthless groups in the capital. These three figures became legends of the criminal world, and even now a single mention of their names sends shivers through law-enforcement agencies…