![Vladimir Putin's wrestling coach, the person who reportedly helped him get admitted to the Leningrad State University using his connections, was one of the city's top criminals, had served 20 years in prison, and died in a gang battle at 57. Putin admiringly wrote about him in his memoirs called "From the First Person" without using the coach's surname or mentioning his criminal links (for obvious reasons). As the engraving on his grave stone states, the coach Leonid Ionovich Usvyatsov composed the epitaphs himself. [Translator: Please note that in the original Russian the epitaphs crudely rhyme, but the translation did not attempt to reproduce rhyming prioritizing accuracy instead.] The epitaph on the front panel says: "A grave and on the grave there is an epitaph: 'I am dead, but mafia is immortal.'" The back panel is engraved with the following epitaphs: "Hooray! I finally died!!! All of my life I worked for broads like a slave. Now I won't spend a kopeck on this liver sausage anymore." "I gave her my two final bangs and then was carried away on a hearse." "Let's drink to us all, because the curtain will soon fall." (Image: openrussia.org)](https://euromaidanpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/4bbcb9a683811.gif)
Fusion of state and criminal world in Russia even more dangerous than absence of democracy, Pastukhov says
Russia has only rarely been a democracy and certainly is not one now, Vladimir Pastukhov says; but the…
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Russian criminal world
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Russian businessman: 10 rules for foreigners to keep their integrity and property while working in Russia
Following the arrest of Michael Calvey, the senior partner at Baring Vostok Capital, ever more people are asking…
To deal with Putin, West needs to study Russian criminal world, Eidman says
Russian foreign policy, Igor Eidman says, “consists of a bizarre mix of the traditions of a corrupt bureaucracy…
‘Donbas in Gorky Park’ – Moscow’s violence in Ukraine is coming back to haunt Russia
The violence Moscow “exported” to Ukraine and other parts of what the Kremlin claims are parts of “the…
Youth gangs increasingly terrorizing Russian regions
Despite the Putin regime’s massive police presence – Russia now has more police per capita than any other…
Banditry from Russia-occupied Donbas rapidly spreading back across Russia, Babchenko says
Russia is rapidly descending into “a swamp of illegality and unconstrained banditry” in large measure because those features…
Criminal world customs increasingly inform Moscow’s actions, Yakovenko says
Every fourth adult male in Russia has spent some time in prison, Igor Yakovenko says; and in some…
Inside the booming smuggling business in the Donbas
The key players in the Donbas’ booming smuggling business are politicians, oligarchs, and the criminal underworld. Coal, gold,…
Moscow spy services said deploying Russian criminal world against Ukraine
Many are now being distracted by the Kremlin’s charm offensive, but Moscow continues its hybrid war against Ukraine;…
