Verdict to the Tsapkas

Report from the courtroom where the executioners and victims gathered

Cossacks trample at the crossroads near the Krasnodar Regional Court. In the court itself, the police, bailiffs and special forces of the Ministry of Justice are in green uniforms, with holsters on their legs, in bulletproof vests and knee pads.

Prosecutor Svetlana Nekoz from the Prosecutor General's Office convinces Olga Bogacheva (her son and husband were killed by hoes in 2003) that the money from the bandits should be sued.

“But we don't want their money,” Olga says. As a family, we decided...

- You can help orphans, - the prosecutor continued to bend her. She also said that the issue of financial compensation at today's trial will not be resolved - the funds of the hoes still need to be found. According to rumors, a little more than 60 thousand were found on the accounts of Sergei Tsapok himself.

Nearby stands Sveta Srebnaya, who lost her daughter and grandson in the Ametovs' house in 2010. She tells how her grandson's friends, who are now 17 years old (and were, like Pavlik, 14), collected signatures under the "petition" so that "the hoes would not return to the village", and defense lawyers laughed at this children's document. Sveta Srebnaya and Olya Bogacheva are sisters who lost their loved ones seven years apart, and this is the most unbearable thing in the entire Kushchevo story.

The hall was crowded with relatives of all 19 people killed by the gang. Three poorly dressed women are sitting on a bench by the door to the meeting room - Alexander Ivanov's mother, sister and wife. Their grief is the oldest - this farmer was killed by the hoes back in 1998.

“We have been waiting for this for 15 years,” his sister Galya tells reporters with restraint. - What to rejoice. Brother won't get up.

“Well, yes, we immediately knew that the hoes. Sasha had no other enemies. He rose from a poor family. He cultivated 80 hectares of foreign land and 15 had his own. They came to make him pay, he said he wouldn't. He was killed, and then the rest of the farmers began to pay. Everyone knew everything. My mother went to the police, went all these years - and they tell her: do not interfere with the investigation.

(There is nothing of this in the case, and there is nothing in the verdict, but the victims have already come to terms with the unwillingness of the investigators to touch on the economic motives of the gang and the further ways of land and funds. At the verdict, in moments of internal disagreement, they simply close their eyes.)

“Yes, I walked down the street then, asking,” Raisa Mikhailovna nods. “People on our street immediately said that four sons were killed. Well, two are understandable, the Tsapki brothers, and who are the other two? Now they told us - Zaporozhets and Bykov, thanks to the investigation, ”he says with a grin.

At the wardrobe, apart from the crowd, stands Viktor Valeryanovich Tsapok. Among the defendants are his son Sergei and brother Nikolai Valeryanovich, who founded the gang at the turn of the 80s and 90s. His wife, Nadezhda Alekseevna, "Tsapchikha", the owner of the multi-land "Arteks-Agro", which grew, in particular, due to murders, is now serving time in a colony.

“I am the only one left,” he says. - Only grandchildren yet.

He complains that the family economy is ruined: “In May 12, all fixed assets were arrested, in September 12, the land was seized. And how much taxes we paid, and how much comes from these lands now! We have no land, the farm is under competitive management. There is no place to grow silage, cows are fed only on commercial feed, and this is unprofitable.” I remember how in the summer of 1911 Tsapchikha, still at large, wept not over her arrested son, but over the cows.

Viktor Valeryanovich also does not intend to talk about his son: “What is happening now is a necessary stage in order to resolve issues with the land. See you all soon."

There is a stampede in front of the door. Relatives of the dead, relatives of the convicts, cells, a brood of students from the law faculty who are practicing in court are trying to get into the largest courtroom. Five former jurors also came and sat in the front row.

Sergey Tsapok, overgrown, wraps himself in a black jacket. Chernykh sits next to him with an inhuman look. In the next cage - Vyacheslav Tsepovyaz holds his hands on his stomach, Vladimir Zaporozhets in a blue sweater looks out for his wife, Vladimir Alekseev shudders from the cold, Nikolai Valeryanovich Tsapok stretches his neck and adjusts his glasses. They are calm with some kind of dull calmness, they do not talk, they wait.

The judge reads the verdict on the background of the federal and Kuban tricolors. The double-headed eagle shines with copper.

The hall rises, the description of 19 murders, 4 rapes, attempts, kidnappings, thefts, racketeering, beatings begins. The hand of an old woman, pierced with a skewer, and a hole dug to burn an enemy alive,

punctuated by the endless theft of license plates, the purchase of oversized socks to be worn over shoes, bullets that are braked by the body of the car, and the subsequently calculated "value of the car damaged in the attempt."

It lasts two hours.

Tsapok sometimes begins to swing, as at the beginning of the process, when he was still trying to portray himself as a madman.

Then the judge suddenly starts to stutter. He reads a description of the actions of the killers in the Ametovs' house. He reads:

“Four stab wounds at the level of the mammary gland”, “at least 12 blows to the face, with damage to the root of the tongue”, “slowly, in order to cause special suffering, moving the knife in the wound channel”.

I suddenly realize that the judge frantically scans the text and mercilessly shortens the sentence, skips the most terrible pieces.

Olya Bogacheva lies face down on the wooden fence and wraps her arms around herself. Jalil Ametov leans against the wall, his face turns purple, his eyes stop, but he continues to stand and listen to exactly how his mother, father, wife and nine-month-old daughter were killed.

Tsapok and Chernykh are talking briefly in the cage. “Death of Ametova A.D. came from carbon monoxide,” the prosecutor whispers after the judge.

The judge, as expected, sentences Sergei Tsapok, Igor Chernykh and Vladimir Alekseev to life imprisonment (all three participated in the massacre). For the remaining three members of the gang, the judge, contrary to the request of the prosecutor's office, slightly softens the punishment - not a prison, but a strict regime colony, not 25 years, but 20 - for Nikolai Tsapok and Vyacheslav Tsepovyaz, 19 - for Vladimir Zaporozhets.

Sergei Tsapok sits down on a bench, scratches his head, whispers with Chernykh. The old juror writes numbers on a piece of paper.

The last, formal part of the verdict unexpectedly became the heaviest. “Bogachev’s clothes are to be destroyed as of no value. Children's underpants ... to destroy, as not representing ... ". The hall stopped moving.

- Do you understand the verdict?

- No, - says the founder of the gang, Nikolai Valeryanovich Tsapok. - I am not guilty!

The judge closes the process.

The victims leave. Joy is not read on their faces.

“Prove first that they are beasts! What animals! shouts after Igor Chernykh's mother.

“I feel better now,” Jalil says.

The wife of Nikolai Valeryanovich Zinaida Viktorovna falls on a bench. She cried for the entire two hours of the process.

“None of us were allowed to speak to the jury. And all his teeth fell out, in Novorossiysk he cut his veins three times. He is 65 years old. I’m going home now, but there’s no one there.”

Nearby, Svetlana Srebnaya calms Ivanov's widow Lily. That it’s okay, that it’s not a prison, but a colony, not 25, but 19. “So many years have passed, think about the statute of limitations.”

They learned not to notice each other during the year of this process. Their grief does not interfere with each other.

The prosecutor's office says it's satisfied.

Tsapok's lawyer, Vyacheslav Dmitrienko, says with a pause: "This trial will go down in history as an example of a violation of constitutional rights." All lawyers plan to appeal the verdict.

Krasnodar