#7
Moscow Times
June 26, 2002
Bykov and Building the 'Executive Vertical'
By Yulia Latynina
Last Wednesday, Meshchansky district court handed down to Anatoly Bykov, the former head of Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant, or KrAZ, a 6 1/2-year suspended sentence for plotting the murder of his former business associate Vilor Struganov.
Bykov's star started to rise in 1993 when Krasnoyarsk's organized crime bosses, with names like Lyapa, Tolmach and Siniy, started dropping like flies. (Subsequently, the Sayanovsk criminal authority Tatarenkov would accuse Bykov of having them bumped off.)
Then Bykov appeared at KrAZ and started to work with TransWorld Group. However, not long after TWG tried to rip Bykov off by not paying for shares which had been purchased on the group's behalf, and in response, Bykov struck TWG off the KrAZ shareholder register.
Bykov then became a national hero in Krasnoyarsk. A Robin Hood figure, protecting the region from the omnipotent Moscow oligarchs. The locals worshiped Bykov and a couple of Moscow "sheriffs" ending up in body bags was never going to damage Bykov's Robin Hood reputation.
Bykov reached the pinnacle of his success in 1997, when he became chairman of KrAZ's board of directors. He controlled almost all the major enterprises in the region and was fighting with Anatoly Chubais for control of the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station. This was when Chubais started to talk openly of certain bandits who were trying to put the squeeze on Unified Energy Systems.
Bykov got himself elected to the regional legislative assembly and then became the main sponsor of Alexander Lebed's gubernatorial campaign. However, after Lebed's election it soon became apparent that there was not enough room in the region for both of them. As they say, you can't jam two revolvers into one holster. And Bykov declared war on Lebed.
A parallel system of government emerged in the region. While KrAZ did not pay its taxes in full, Bykov became a major local benefactor, setting up orphanages and handing out stipends. The Lebed administration started to feel its own impotence, while the public surgeries established by Deputy Bykov resolved all citizens' problems, including wives' complaints about their drunken husbands.
Bykov could have got the upper hand in his tussle with the governor had it not been for a more formidable foe, Siberian Aluminum Group, entering the fray. In 1999, Oleg Deripaska, the head of the Sayansk Aluminum Plant and an old enemy of Bykov, unleashed a third aluminum war. The targets of the SibAl onslaught were three plants: KrAZ, Bratsk and Novokuznetsk. The main blows were delivered through the arbitration courts and a raw material blockade. Deripaska blocked the supply of aluminum to the plants and with Chubais' help started to bankrupt them for energy debts.
The plants' owners tried frantically to cut separate peace deals with Deripaska's allies and then sold out to the magnate Roman Abramovich.
While most of the owners were bought out, Mikhail Zhivilo and Bykov refused to compromise. Zhivilo ended up in exile in France, and Bykov ended up in Lefortovo prison.
Bykov now considers Deripaska to be his main enemy, and now he is at large. It would seem that politics played a large role in the court's decision or, to be more precise, the ongoing battle between the "old" oligarchs and the St. Petersburg chekists. The former have money, while the latter control the courts. Deripaska, who is detested by the chekists, seized KrAz from Bykov. Up to now, Bykov's enemies have not gone bust or ended up behind bars; they have been dispatched straight to the morgue.
Just one question though: The chekists are trying to take the oligarchs in hand in the context of strengthening the "executive power vertical." But is not the release of Bykov a really rather strange way to go about strengthening the executive vertical?
Yulia Latynina is a journalist with ORT and a columnist for Novaya Gazeta.
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