The legends of the thieves heart

Five years ago, the largest Azerbaijani authority Lot Guli was killed in internecine wars. Who he was and why he is remembered now, at the time of exacerbation of the relationship of Moscow and Baku

The life of the famous thief in the law of Nadir Salifova, nicknamed the lot of Guli, overgrown with legends even before his death. And after the murder in Turkey 2020, these legends became many times more. Today in Azerbaijan, where Salifov comes from, his image gradually turns into a sort of Robin Hood. How is a thief in law, a criminal personally killing people, accused of numerous rape and extortion, turned out to be a hero of our time?

"It was our mistake"

The fate of Guli Lot Dough is associated with the Sofia vegetable base in St. Petersburg. As we already wrote , the vegetable base on Sofia Street of St. Petersburg in the 90s became the main supplier of vegetables and fruits throughout the north-west of Russia. The artel, bringing a million profit, tried to crush the Tambov OPS for himself. But the Azerbaijani diaspora made another decision.

“We then, in 1995, made a mistake,” recalls Nadir, a member of the Council of Elders of the Azerbaijan Diaspora in St. Petersburg. - I was at that meeting with Barsukov (recognized as the court as the leader of the Tambov OPS), when we talked about the vegetable base in Sofia. The Council of Elders then decided that it was better to attract native blood, that is, Azerbaijani thieves than to go under the “athletes” ( as gang groups were called in the 90s that did not recognize the “thieves' law”, but lived according to their own concepts. - Ed. ). In return, we handed over to the Tambovs two oil refineries. Barsukov laughed then, but promised not to touch Sofia. And at the exit, when they had already said goodbye, he said: “This is your general decision, and I respect it. But I advise you to stock up on body armor. ” And he was right. We did not expect that among the Azerbaijani thieves in law a war would unfold for the possession of the base. Every month someone was killed! Not only in St. Petersburg, but also in Turkey, in Greece, in Budapest, in Vilnius. It was settled only after we turned to Lot Guli for protection.

Nadir Salifov, who received a nickname of the Lot Guli (translated from Georgian - “thieves' heart” in the law), was born in the village of Mamimishe, 10 kilometers from the Georgian town of Dmanisi, on August 28, 1972. Since the beginning of the last century, it was a place for the compact residence of the Azerbaijanis, who moved to Georgia and bought up houses from Russian “spiritualists” (a religious sect in Christianity, which arose in the 18th century and persecuted by the official church). In the Soviet years, Azerbaijanis and Armenians, Georgians and Russians, Jews and Turks quite peacefully coexisted in Dmanisi and the surroundings. Later, accommodation in such a multinational environment will lead to the fact that the lot of Guli will officially declare that “thieves have no nationality”, and will equally welcome both Azerbaijani, Armenian, Georgian, Russian, Dagestan authorities. This greatly increased its popularity and became one of the reasons that during the coronation it was called "heart."

“Dmanisi is actually a small town, less than four thousand inhabitants, but there was a school where they came to study from the surrounding villages,” says a fellow countryman Salifova Abdil. - Everyone knows each other there. Nadir was born in a large family, in which the prosperity was not very high. He chose the road to crime as a child. When he studied in the seventh grade, he told the teacher directly: “Why do I need a school, I will be a thief in law.” There lived one “lawyer” then in Dmanisi. He came to rest, but thieves' traditions observed zealously. He lived in the house of his sister, who built on his own money, but did not draw up on himself. Thieves in law were forbidden to have property. And he had no official family. So, Nadir constantly ran to him. I started robbing from fifteen years. True, he did not do this in Dmanisi, he left the guys away from the city and was already looking for victims there. And after the USSR collapsed and the Georgian authorities began to oust Azerbaijanis from Demanisi, they left for Azerbaijan with the whole family.

"I solved their problem in an hour!"

In Azerbaijan, Salifovs settled in the village of Ahmedley, which is actually considered the Baku area. In the same village, but a few years later, the one who kills the lot will be born. It is there that the career of Guli begins as a criminal authority. According to the people who knew him in his youth, Nadir was always distinguished by an explosive and impulsive character. And at the same time, he had a certain charm.

“The great man died,” Ramil G. said with a tear in his voice, the owner of a vegetable kiosk on Vasilyevsky Island in St. Petersburg in August 2020. - He has money - billions of dollars, and when fellow countrymen asked him to resolve the conflict where they did not share a couple of hundred thousand rubles, he never refused. Always in fairness decided. And if he decided, then everything: no one dared to disobey.

The lot of Guli was only 20 years old, when in the criminal Baku, they started talking about him as a person who should be reckoned with. In 1996, when he was 24 years old, Nadir Salifov was convicted of several articles at once: extortion, robberies, robberies, weapons storage.

He was also suspected of killing two accomplices who disputed his leadership in the gang, but could not prove the murders.

In thieves 'traditions ( not to make a deal with law enforcement agencies is considered one of the main postulates of the “thieves' law.” - approx. Ed. ) Salifov did not admit to the deal with justice. And received the maximum term: 15 years in prison.

In the colony of salifov, he quickly advanced to the first roles. Not least because most of his accomplices remained free and helped with money and connections in organs and in the criminal world. At 28, in 2000, Salifov was crowned with thieves in law. The initiators were the “legalists” of the old formation of Rauli Kiriya (Raul Rustavsky) and Shirali Aslanov (Jayran Rustavsky).

By that time, Salifov’s authority in the criminal world of Azerbaijan had reached such heights that the authorities considered it necessary to tighten the regime of its content. And transferred to prison in Gobustan (100 km from Baku), placing in a single camera. Salifov quickly brought his own orders there, and in 2002 he actually disposed of the whole prison. He was taken from the restaurant food, even a kind of casino was arranged right in the prison, where the bets during games in cards reached hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so that the thief in the law was not bored at all, he was regularly brought to the girls. In particular, (and this is confirmed by the materials of the criminal case), the finalists of the Miss Azerbaijan 2006 contest came to Gobustan. As the girls later told in court, they received from 500 to 1000 dollars for each visit to the prison.

“There were no rape,” says Zafira, a member of the Miss Azerbaijan 2006 contest. - They did not force anyone to go to prison. But the lot was already famous for the fact that it could be grateful, and therefore the girls were drawn to him. And then there is such a fee! At the Tableskaya (prison) for the same - $ 30 maximum, and here - several hundred.

The authorities did not seem to notice all this. For the time being - until the lot of Guli, who officially became the “thief No. 1” of Azerbaijan, did not allow Azerbaijani prison in the fall of 2004 in the autumn of 2004 (Pragon’s colonies (transferred from one zone to another disposal of the thief in the law), in which he forbade drug trafficking in places of imprisonment. Here, the authorities, who, according to Salifov, had millions of dollars arrived from drug trafficking in prisons, decided to take revenge on authority.

As Nadir Salifov later told in his appeal to the press transferred through lawyers, the highest police officers were demanded to cancel the order. “They allegedly fought drugs in prisons for decades and nothing changed,” Salifov said. “I solved this problem in an hour, and they lost a lot of money.”

To press the lot of Guli, in January 2005, the police arrested his younger brother Mushfikh Salifova. At that time, Salifov Jr. was a fourth-year student at the University of Baku. He was accused of illegal storage of weapons: allegedly in his car, a 1903 revolver was found.

A week after the arrest of Mushrix, three colonies and six isolators rebelled at once. The rest of the zones declared their readiness to follow their example. In addition, the media received information about some unsightly affairs of the leadership of the two colonies.

A protracted confrontation began between the lot of Guli and the law enforcement agencies of Azerbaijan. In response to the riots, the police went through a “frequent comb” through the colonies and investigative insulators: more than 30 people were planted in penalties.

Nadira Salifova was also transferred from the "loner" of the Gobustan prison to the insulator, accusing him of raping the participants in the beauty contest, who incomprehensibly found themselves in a single chamber of the lot of Guli.

For the adherent to thieves' traditions, there is hardly a more shameful accusation. In addition, Salifova Sr. was accused of extortion (using mobile phones, I extorted money from the owners of several restaurants in Baku) and violation of the activities of criminal law enforcement agencies. And they even tried to blame Guli’s lot of involvement in the murder of journalist Elmar Huseynov, shot in Baku on March 2, 2005. And in several abductions, including the wife of the President of the International Bank of Azerbaijan in March 2005.

In the fall of 2005, Nadir Salifov and his brother Mushfik were sentenced to 15 and 12, respectively. But in the appeal of the prosecution of rape were removed. The regime of detention from closed, prison, to strict was also facilitated. By this time, the criminal clan of Salifov had more than 500 people, and its representatives began to be fixed in the cities of Russia, displacing the former “roofs” and owners of vegetable bases from the markets. It was then that the interests of the two “thieves in law” clashed: Nadira Salifova (Lot Guli) and Rovshan Dzhanieva (Rovshan Lenkoransky). Between the two clans, a conflict unfolded, which lasted several years and called the “Dill War” . The result of this war was not only the murders of both “legalists”, but also several dozen people from the encirclement of both.

"He is nobody"

Rovshan Dzhaniev, nicknamed Rovshan Lenkoransky, was born in 1975 in Lenkorani in Azerbaijan, where mostly Talyshi live (nationality living in the southeast of Azerbaijan and in the north-west of Iran) in the policeman family. In 1992, his father was killed by the leader of one of the gang groups by Rovshan Guliyev. In 1996, Guliyev was arrested and appeared in court. The 21-year-old Dzhaniev who came to the court in front of the participants in the process and the police grabbed the gun and shot the “bloodstream”. Then surrendered. The court found him guilty of murder in a state of affect and sentenced him to two years in prison.

After the release, for some time lived in Azerbaijan. He moved to Moscow in 2000, when he was put on an international wanted list for attempting another criminal authority. Koronovan Dzhaniev was in 2002 at the initiative of the Thief in Law and also Talysh Mirseimura Abdullaev. The latter was shot dead in 2003 in the cafe "Cave" on the Shchelkovo highway in Moscow.

After the death of the “godfather”, Dzhaniev settled in St. Petersburg for a while, where he tried to control the vegetable base on Sofia Street. At that time, her “roofed” Elchin Aliyev (Elchin Evlakhsky).

“When Elchin was killed, the base seemed to be frozen,” Abdil S., the owner of the company supplying products to Russia from Iran, Iraq, Greece and Turkey, told Novaya Gazeta Europe. - And then Rovshan comes and claims that now he is our defense. But the diaspora did not accept him: Elchin was ours, and Rovshan - Talysh, like all his people. So then we turned to the lot of Guli so that he would take us under his wing. When the people of Guli appeared on the base, the order came there. And Rovshan Lenkoransky went back to Moscow.

Dzhaniev really went to Moscow, where he joined the struggle for the Odintsovo market and the markets of Yekaterinburg. But I did not forget about the St. Petersburg failure either. He sent a “run” to all Russian and Azerbaijani places of imprisonment that the Guli Lot received the title of thief in law incorrectly and is subject to divorce. Under the “little one” (an illegal letter to the places of imprisonment), except for Dzhaniev’s signature, there were signatures of several more “thieves in the law”, which Rovshan Lenkoransky managed to pull to his side.

Guli was supported by one of the most authoritative thieves in the law of the entire post -Soviet space - Aslan Usoyan (grandfather Hassan). He sent his own “run”, canceling the message of Rovshan Lenkoransky. The criminal world has once again split: most of the authorities supported Grandfather Hassan. Around Rovshan Lenkoransky gathered the so -called “Opposition Hassan”, which consisted mainly of Georgian “thieves in the law”, with whom the clan of grandfather Hassan had a long -standing conflict.

The confrontation was accompanied by the death of authorities on both sides. On September 16, 2010, an attempt was made on Hassan's grandfather. Having recovered after a severe wound, Usoyan gathered a gathering, said that Rovshan Lenkoransky organized an attempt on him, and demanded his split. In 2012, all prisons not only in Russia and Azerbaijan, but also in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan passed the "run" from the lot of Guli. It, in particular, said: "I put you in the course of Rovshan Lenkoransky, he is nobody and call him in any way, this is the decision of the thieves." Under the letter there were signatures of 30 of the most authoritative in the former Soviet republics “thieves in law”.

But dumping Dzhaniev was not so easy. On January 16, 2013, Grandfather Hassan died, and the positions of the lot of Guli in Russia for a while weakened. In 2014, one of the people of Rovshan Lenkoransky Zaur Aliyev (Bunny) was detained. In the "sailor silence", where authority was delivered, he was met by people in the lot of Guli.

The bunny was beaten to half death, forcing to abandon all claims to Moscow vegetable markets. Guli, being in the Azerbaijani colony, watched this on Skype.

The appeal of the bunny to cross the arm of the guli was written to cell phones and instantly widespread among Azerbaijani businessmen. Rovshan Lenkoransky began to lose “roofs”, and with them money. At the same time, in the criminal world, the information that grandfather Hassan, anticipating the attempt, left a will in which he called Rovshan Lenkoransky the main suspect in a possible murder. The former “thief in law” unfolded a real hunt, which ended in Istanbul. On August 18, 2016, on one of the streets of Istanbul, the Rovshan Lenkoransky car was shot by two unknown. From the wounds received, Dzhaniev died in the hospital.

I found the hero of the bullet

Nadir Salifov was released in 2017 and immediately left for Turkey, where he was patronized by the head of the criminal world of Turkey Sedat Bezer. Almost immediately after the arrival of Guli, an attempt was organized. The brother of Rovshan Dzhaniev Namik hired members of the Turkish organized crime group for this. This became known to Beeser - the killers were arrested on the approach to the villa, where the lot of Guli settled.

According to some reports, Salifov promised to deal with everyone who was involved in the attempt. And therefore, the murder of Lot Guli was for the former associates of Rovshan Lenkoransky not only an act of revenge, but also by the issue of his own survival.

The fatal bullet found a lot of Guli in one of the hotels in Antalya on the night of August 20, 2020 in Turkey. The killer was his own bodyguard Hagan Zeynalov (Khan Akhmedlinsky, a native of the village of Ahmedli, where Salifov lived after his family moved from Georgia to Azerbaijan). In April 2024, Zeynalov was found to be guilty of the murder of Salifov and sentenced to life imprisonment.

One of the “customers” of the murder was considered a longtime ally of the Rovshan Lenkoransky Albert Heydarov (thief in law Albert Ryzhiy, killed in Moscow in April 2021). In August 2022, in this murder, the Russian authorities accused his brother Lot Guli, also a thief of the law of Namik Nariman-Ogly Salifov (Namik Bakinsky), who took his place in the criminal empire after the death of the authority.

However, in addition to the relatives and accomplices of the murdered Dzhaniev, other “thieves in law” could be desired to death Salifov. Including Zakhary Kalashov (Shakro Young), who, after the death of his grandfather Hassan and Japanchik, himself claimed the title of Thief No. 1 in Russia.

There could also be questions for Nadir Salifov and the current Boss Bosses of the Russian Mafia Shishkan (Oleg Medvedev, the former owner of the Saturn football club, in 2024 was sentenced to a life -long bouquet of articles, including for the murder and participation in the thieves' hierarchy). Guli did not admit his supremacy by Lot, saying that "the tramps do not need kings." In addition, in some media, the version was put forward that the death of the “thieves' heart” was beneficial to the Azerbaijani power structures that could not like that the authority of Guli Lot was even overshadowed by the authority of the president of the country.

— Когда хоронили Лоту Гули, попрощаться с ним пришли тысячи человек, — рассказал НГЕ житель села Ахмедли Заур. — Потому что помнили его как хоть и не безгрешного, но отзывчивого человека. Он редко кому отказывал в помощи. Кому-то помог в ВУЗ поступить, кому-то дом построить, кого-то от тюрьмы отмазал. Таких историй в Ахмедли и Баку можно сотнями услышать. И везде будет так или иначе Лоту Гули упомянут. Да, деньги он зарабатывал незаконным путем, но тратил их на земляков. Когда его убийцу Хагана арестовали в Турции, его семья моментально уехала из Ахмедли. У нас ходят слухи, что за свое предательство Зейналов получил 5 млн долларов. Но эти деньги не спасут его от возмездия.

Лоту Гули был похоронен в одном из районов Стамбула. На массивном надгробии — большое фото и восьмиконечная воровская звезда.

— То, что из Лоту Гули сейчас делают героя, — не инициатива его брата или воровского сообщества, — считает старейшина диаспоры Надир. — Просто нации нужны герои, на кого будет равняться молодежь. Я сам не в восторге, что из Салифова делают героя. Руки у него даже не по локоть, а по плечи в крови. Во время «укропной войны» десятки невинных человек погибли. Магомет Гусейнов и Довлат Габиев были расстреляны только за то, что поддержали Ровшана Ленкоранского в споре за базу на Софийской. У обоих были семьи, а с криминалом их связывало лишь то, что в нашем бизнесе без «крыши» не обойтись. Майрат Рагимовой было всего 19 лет, когда ее убили только за то, что она оказалась в квартире одного из подельников Лоту Гули, когда того пришли убивать люди Ленкоранского. И таких случаев много; как у вас говорят, лес рубят — щепки летят, только вот люди не щепки. А еще хочу напомнить, что всё-таки Салифов был признан виновным в похищениях и убийствах бакинских бизнесменов. Но пройдет лет 20, и всё плохое, что сделал Гули, забудется. А в памяти останется то, во что людям хочется верить.