Iskander Makhmudov's condition. The history of the formation of the business of oligarch Iskander Makhmudov

Makhmudov Iskandar Kakhramonovich

Parents are, according to some sources, university teachers; according to other sources, the father is a civil engineer, the mother is a teacher of the Russian language. Married twice. The name of the first wife is unknown (according to unconfirmed reports, she was born into a family of Bukharian Jews). There is a son from his first marriage. The second wife is Makhmudova Margarita Ildusovna.

In 1984 he graduated from the Arabic department of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Tashkent State University. I did not serve in the army thanks to the military department at the university.

In 1991-1994. - Marketing Director of JSC "Alice".

In 1994, he participated in the privatization of the Pavlodar aluminum smelter in Kazakhstan together with Cherny. Working with the Chernys, Makhmudov holds formal positions in the Trans World Group company they own (for example, advisor to the representative for Russia and the CIS or consultant to the general director). In addition, Makhmudov acted as the head of Chernykh’s company “Blond investment corp”.

In 1994-1996 - Director of JSC Industrial and Financial Company Meta-Service (Moscow).

According to available data, AOZT PFC Meta-Service was affiliated with the union of enterprises Transexpo (Voluntary Union for the Promotion of Transport, Ecology, Culture and Resolution of Social Problems). The head of the Transexpo union was Sergei Petrovich Alpatkin, who was twice convicted. Also affiliated with this person was Transexpobank, whose chairman of the board was Andrey Removich Bokarev, Makhmudov’s future partner. In the 2000s, it became known that Bokarev A.R., together with Makhmudov, own a controlling stake in OJSC Kuzbassrazrezugol, as well as OJSC UMMC.

In 1994, a car belonging to Transexpobank was blown up in Moscow. An examination of the remains established that in the car was one of the leaders of the Orekhovskaya organized crime group, Sergei Timofeev (nicknamed Sylvester). Timofeev is one of the most famous leaders of the Orekhovskaya gang. With his rise in 1993, the organized crime group began a qualitatively new stage in its activities related to the legalization of capital. There is information on the Internet that in 1993, with the assistance of Sylvester, an agreement was reached between the Orekhovsk and Sverdlovsk authorities,” as a result of which the East Line company, headed by Dmitry Vladimirovich Kamenshchik, a relative of a high-ranking Sverdlovsk policeman, allegedly “protecting” The Uralmash organized crime group (the largest organized crime group in the Sverdlovsk region) received a lease from the Moscow Domodedovo airport (one of the largest airports in the country, located in the zone of influence of the Orekhovskaya organized crime group). In return, the Orekhovites got the opportunity to participate in the privatization of Ural metallurgical plants.

In 1995-1996 – Makhmudov was listed as a security guard at the Medox company. This company was affiliated with the company of the Cherny brothers “Siberian Aluminum”. The position of a security guard gave Makhmudov the right to carry weapons. In 1996, the Medox company was headed by Yuri Evgenievich Zaostrovtsev, who, before leaving for commercial structures (1993), oversaw the State Customs Committee in the economic counterintelligence department of the FSK (heir to the KGB), returned to government service in 1998 and soon took the position of first deputy director of the FSB (renamed FSK), which oversees the economic direction.

Also, until 1996, Makhmudov was a member of the board of directors of Sayany Bank (Republic of Khakassia). The main shareholder of the bank was the Sayan Aluminum Plant - one of the first enterprises of the aluminum complex that came under the control of the Cherny brothers. The main lobbyist for the interests of the Blacks in Khakassia was Arkady Sargsyan, the first deputy chairman of the government of the Republic of Khakassia, Alexei Lebed. Makhmudov's connection with the Armenian diaspora in Russia is likely to be of great importance. The above-mentioned Transexpo union acted as the founder of the Armenian Bulletin newsletter and Alpatkin’s successor as head of Transexpo was Artur Vladimirovich Tatevosyan, an Armenian by nationality (according to information from the Internet, an active member of the Dolgoprudnenskaya organized crime group - Moscow).

Among Makhmudov’s criminal connections during this period of time, it should be noted his connection with the Izmailovskaya organized crime group (Moscow) and the Uralmash organized crime group (Sverdlovsk region).

According to information from the Internet, the Izmailovskaya organized crime group stood out among other Moscow organized crime groups due to its emphasized hostility towards the “Caucasian authorities” (Chechen and Azerbaijani). There is a version that in the early 90s, after the collapse of the USSR, state security agencies initiated the release of many “Slavic authorities” from prison precisely to fight the insolent “Chechen mafia.” The leader of the Izmailovskys, Anton Malevsky, is named as one of the authorities who was allegedly supervised by the state security agencies. In this regard, it should be noted that Armenians traditionally conflict with Azerbaijanis, both at the Armenia-Azerbaijan state level and at the diaspora level. Also included in the Izmailovskaya organized crime group is Alimzhan Tokhtakhunov (“Taivanchik”), a native of Uzbekistan, one of the “authorities” coordinating the activities of Russian organized crime groups in Europe.

However, taking into account the data that in the Sverdlovsk region the Blacks probably interacted closely with one of the prominent figures of the Azerbaijani diaspora, Asadulla Murtuz Ogly Kuliyev, the question of Makhmudov’s “national preferences” no longer looks so clear. It is also possible that Makhmudov does not have any national preferences at all.

In Makhmudov’s native Uzbekistan, one of the most authoritative criminal leaders is Salim Abduvaliev (“Salim”), who is suspected of organizing drug deliveries from Central Asia through Russia to Europe. Information was published on the Internet that “Salim” is closely connected with Makhmudov, to the point that Makhmudov allegedly acts in the interests of “Salim”.

One of the most important drug trafficking points from Central Asia to Europe is the Urals. Makhmudov has key positions in this region. The largest copper enterprise in the Sverdlovsk region is the Uralelectromed plant. After the collapse of the USSR, the plant fell into a deplorable state, partly due to the general economic decline in the country, and partly due to the active activities of the Ural organized crime groups, which squeezed the last funds out of the plant. The situation changed when the Cherny brothers came to the plant with a proposal to organize work using tolling schemes. In alliance with the Uralmash organized crime group, Cherny and Makhmudov appointed Andrei Anatolyevich Kozitsyn to the position of general director of the plant in 1994, having endured a difficult struggle with the Center organized crime group, during which many authorities on both sides died. At the same time, the final truce was achieved not so much as a result of a forceful decision, but through an agreement on the division of spheres of influence. According to some data, the Uralmash organized crime group is “watching” the plant in the interests of Makhmudov- Black was Crook Alexander Vasilievich (main areas of interest - metals and timber, found dead in 2000). At the same time, Kruk’s right hand was Sergei Maizel, who in the first half of the 1990s worked closely with the leaders of the “centers”.

In the second half of the 90s, Uralmash began to legalize its capital and organized the Uralmash socio-political union, beginning to actively participate in political events in the region. Since the early 2000s, the leader of the Uralmash organized crime group, Alexander Khabarov, has been promoting the implementation of the public project “Drug-Free City” Foundation, which was initially organized in 1998 by UMMC PR man Vladimir Beloglazov as a political project. The Foundation declared the goals of combating drug addiction in Yekaterinburg. Some sources claim that the head of the foundation, Evgeniy Vadimovich Roizman, is connected with persons supplying drugs from Central Asia to the European part of Russia through the Ural region. However, law enforcement agencies did not initiate cases against Roizman under the relevant articles of the criminal code. Roizman himself claims that such accusations are the work of the drug mafia, which wants to discredit his name. There is also an opinion that Roizman’s alleged connections with the drug mafia are covered up by someone in law enforcement agencies or intelligence services, who are the main organizers of drug deliveries.

It should be noted that at the turn of the 90s and 2000s, during the struggle for the Kachkanar Mining and Processing Plant and the Nizhny Tagil Metallurgical Plant (NTMK), the interests of Makhmudov and his partners diverged from the interests of the Uralmash organized crime group, which resulted in a conflict at the level of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Valery Kraev, the head of the Sverdlovsk Region Central Internal Affairs Directorate, who was considered a “lobbyist” of the Uralmash organized crime group in law enforcement agencies, was forced to resign. But his opponents from the department for combating organized crime (Leonid Fesko) also lost their positions. Almost all of them went to work in the security service of NTMK, which, with the support of Makhmudov, went to a friendly structure - the Evraz Group company, and the Kachkanarsky Mining and Processing Plant, for which UMMC “fought” with its own rebellious manager Jalol Khaidarov, also went to it. Khaidarov ultimately fled to the United States, where he named Makhmudov as a member of a criminal group, which besides him included the Cherny brothers, Oleg Deripaska, Anton Malevsky (Izmailovo organized crime group), Evraz group and MDM group.

In 1996-1998 Makhmudov is the general director of the Gaisky mining and processing plant (Orenburg region).

1999 – Deputy General Director for Development of Siberian Aluminum Group LLC.

Since 1999 - President of OJSC "Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company" (UMMC), formed on the basis of the Uralelectromed plant. The holding itself was formed in 1998, when it included a number of mining and processing copper assets. Officially registered in 1999. The UMMC company employs two relatives of Makhmudov, who permanently reside in the Sverdlovsk region: Makhmudov Shukhrat Khamraevich and Makhmudov Alim Khamraevich. Both hold senior positions at UMMC and, in all likelihood, look after Iskandar Makhmudov’s interests in the company.

In the second half of the 1990s, a conflict began between Makhmudov’s “godfathers”, the Cherny brothers, in which Makhmudov took the side of Mikhail Cherny. According to Forbes, initially Makhmudov owned UMMC together with Mikhail Cherny, but in 2002 Mikhail sold his share to Makhmudov, leaving the copper business.

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Several facts from the life of Iskander Makhmudov, known only to the businessman’s closest circle

Forbes published a large material about the life and development of the founder and president of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, Iskander Makhmudov, who ranks 15th on the Forbes list with a fortune of $8.7 billion. The text contains facts that are still known only to Makhmudov’s closest circle.

Iskander Makhmudov, a native of Bukhara, was brought to the Uzbek capital by his parents (father is a civil engineer, mother is a teacher of Russian language) in early childhood. There in 1980 he entered the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Tashkent University. Classmates whom Forbes asked about Iskander responded that he was “not remembered for anything.” Perhaps this quality attracted the student’s attention to services that value unnoticed people with knowledge of foreign languages.

A specialist in the field of history and literature, Iskander Makhmudov, went to Libya in 1985 from the Main Engineering Directorate of the Ministry of Foreign Trade, the predecessor of Rosoboronexport. Makhmudov spent 1.5 years in Libya, then 2.5 years in Iraq. And then from the position of “engineer-translator” he left for another organization - the republican foreign trade association “Uzbekintorg”. His department “Prommashsyrye” exported industrial products of Uzbek factories, mainly metallurgy and chemistry. “In exchange, they brought popular goods to Uzbekistan: sheepskin coats, clothes, other junk - in general, scarce goods of the late 1980s,” recalls one of Makhmudov’s longtime acquaintances. In this area in Tashkent there was no one more famous than the brothers Lev and Mikhail Cherny, “guild workers” of the Soviet era and prominent cooperators.

In the late 1980s, Tashkent became crowded for Cherny, and they moved to Moscow. In 1989, they founded the Soviet-Panamanian joint venture Columbus, which called timber trading its specialty, but in fact made money on everything. Initially, everything in Columbus was run by his elder brother Lev and his closest associate, another native of Tashkent, Yakov Goldovsky. Therefore, Mikhail decided to organize his own business, also relying on his fellow countrymen. In 1991, he invited Makhmudov to move to Moscow and work for him - Cherny needed people with experience in working with foreign markets. He has already found an American investor, Sam Kislin.

Former Odessa resident Semyon Kislin emigrated to the United States in the 1970s, made money selling household appliances and came to Russia in the hope of making money from the emerging capitalism. Trans Commodities was his company, and in the early days it sold everything. Its employees speak with a grin about the incident with two containers of “excellent, but very cheap sneakers, $1 a pair,” bought somewhere by Kislin, which were resold without looking at them for $4. The buyer soon called and reported that the sneakers were falling apart the first time they were worn - it turned out that these were slippers for the dead, intended for dressing in a coffin. The jokes ended when Trans Commodities entered the metallurgy. Makhmudov was put in charge of the coal sector because he had experience working with industrial raw materials.

Kislin's money allowed Trans Commodities to become the kings of the market in the early 1990s. “Nobody offered such conditions - a ton of coal cost, say, 150 rubles, they paid 150 plus a dollar on top, and all the mines were lining up for them,” recalls the owner of one of the metallurgical companies. Coal was sent for processing, coke was supplied to metallurgists, and payment was accepted in steel, which was loaded for export. The difference in internal and external prices and frantic inflation gave a margin of hundreds of percent; the company’s turnover exceeded $100 million a year, fantastic money for that time. The company expanded and hired new people, one of them in 1992 was the former deputy director of the Karaganda Metallurgical Plant, Vladimir Lisin, who was invited to Trans Commodities by Makhmudov, who had worked with him at Uzbekintorg.

And Kislin, who had invested $30 million in operations with metallurgical raw materials, became redundant: he was offered to carry out “representative functions” in New York. When Kislin tried to argue, Chernoy organized a new company, Trans CIS Commodities, where all the employees of the old one moved at once. Kislin threatened to sue, they only laughed at him and advised him to think about his own health. “I sold everything. Rather than lie in a coffin with money, I preferred to live with my wife and children,” Kislin recalled in an interview with Forbes.

Meanwhile, Lev Chernoy also got involved in metallurgy, unexpectedly even for himself: someone paid him with a shipment of aluminum and, in search of a buyer, Lev contacted the Briton David Ruben. Ruben later recalled the day when, in 1992, a lame man with a heavy cane entered his new Moscow office (Lev Chernoy suffered from polio as a child, and he had a prosthesis below the knee of one leg). Bombay natives David and Simon owned the company Trans World: David was responsible for metal trading, Simon invested profits in British real estate, which now forms the basis of the Rubens' fortune (No. 103 in the Forbes world ranking). They don't want to remember the past. “Who... gave you this number? Don’t call me ever again,” David said in response to Forbes’ call.

The Rubens proposed a joint business: the company of the Cherny brothers and the Rubens would later be called Trans World Group (TWG). The owners themselves preferred not to call it anything: the union of the “guild workers” with the Rubens, obsessed with complex schemes, gave birth to a monster. In its heyday in the mid-1990s, TWG was made up of hundreds of offshore companies and trusts that owned each other, swapped places, were liquidated and replaced by others, and sometimes it was impossible to tell who owned what or where the end of the chain was. But two former TWG executives told Forbes that the business was divided equally between the Reubens and the Chernys, with each brother owning 25%. The shares of Cherny's junior, Russian partners were “conceptually” placed within their shares in TWG.

“Conceptually” means that the Chernys did not care about the legal registration of these shares: the agreements were mainly verbal and for each project the share of the junior partner was negotiated separately. Business has always been very personal. “Lev generally has a difficult character, perhaps due to his disability, and he always did not like Makhmudov and Deripaska and convinced Misha that they would betray him,” says a good friend of Chernykh and Makhmudov. When in 1993, Mikhail Chernoy and another of his partners, Anton Malevsky, left for Israel and Lev remained on the farm in Moscow, he immediately had a conflict with Makhmudov. “Mikhail loved him [Makhmudov], but Lev didn’t accept him right away. It ended with Lev removing him from working with aluminum and Makhmudov taking up copper,” Vladimir Lisin, who served as vice president of Trans CIS Commodities, explained to Forbes.

In 1993, Makhmudov left TWG, remaining a partner with Mikhail Cherny in projects outside the group, and in 1994 he began buying up shares in copper enterprises. As Cherney himself later said at one of the trials, initially their shares in common projects with Makhmudov were divided in a ratio of 70 to 30, and by the end of the 1990s it was already 50 to 50. Cherney had approximately the same partnership with Oleg Deripaska, the owner of a small stake in the Sayan Aluminum Smelter. He approached Mikhail for money to increase his share in SaAZ and became another of his junior partners.

“Leva and Misha always had a flair for capture. [Boris Berezovsky’s former partner Badri] Patarkatsishvili had the same instinct, but Badri loved to negotiate, and they usually went hard and put the talented guy on the asset - Makhmudov, Deripaska, Lisin, Nekrich,” says the businessman, who owned one from metallurgical companies. What is "hard"? “Good friendship with the police, the courts, the prosecutor’s office, and the governor. They didn’t get involved with crime; rather, law enforcement agencies bought them,” says Anton Bakov, who headed the Serov Metallurgical Plant, which Chernoy and his partners became the owners of in 2000. – Our plant, on the orders of Rossel, was seized by “200 Spartans”, I arrived: iron bars, they don’t let me in. We protested for a week and admitted defeat.”

The former owner of the MIKOM company, Mikhail Zhivilo, who in the 1990s owned several large metallurgical plants in Kuzbass (later the plants became part of Evraz and Rusal), was ready to give up, but on market conditions. “They said: no, we’ll take it anyway,” this is how Zhivilo recalled in a conversation with Forbes his negotiations with Cherny and his partners about control over his business. Zhivilo signed the sale of the business from France, where he was hiding from a criminal case opened in his homeland - and “for much less money than the business actually cost.”

But there have also been atypical takeover stories. Makhmudov looked closely at Uralelectromed for about a year, which later became the basis of his copper holding. He supplied raw materials to the plant and met the commercial director of the enterprise, a “talented guy” Andrei Kozitsyn. “The plant owed Cherny and Makhmudov a lot of money for raw materials, but the director didn’t notice them at all, he didn’t care,” recalls an acquaintance of Makhmudov in an interview with Forbes. But in vain. Kozitsyn, through the Vita company, controlled 30% of the plant, Makhmudov came to an agreement with him, organized a quick purchase of papers from workers, and in 1995, Uralelectromed already had new owners and a new director - Kozitsyn himself. He became Makhmudov's junior partner, still heads the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC), and his fortune reaches $1.2 billion.

In the mid-1990s, all of Cherny’s junior partners lived as a friendly team: they worked on common projects, together they financed the most unexpected businesses, such as Soyuzkontrakt, famous for the advertising campaign “The Legs Are Flying,” or Yudashkin’s Fashion House. They loved to relax noisily in nightclubs or abroad. Partners in many projects and regulars at parties were Anton Malevsky and Sergei Popov, whom Deripaska would call “members of an organized crime group” and “rooftop” in his testimony to a London court ten years later. But that came later, and then the whole team supported Cherny after the break in relations with TWG in 1997.

David Reuben once boasted in an interview with Fortune magazine that by 1997 the group owned large stakes in at least 20 steel plants. TWG was the largest private client of Russian Railways, controlled the largest aluminum smelters, 20% of the Russian ferrous metallurgy, a significant part of the metallurgy of Kazakhstan and Ukraine, ports, transport companies, the group's revenue in 1997 amounted to $6 billion. But it was then that a split occurred in the TWG.

There were many reasons: Mikhail quarreled with the Rubens and accused them of theft, Lev did not trust his brother’s younger partners, the Rubens dreamed of selling their part of the business to Western buyers and wanted to clear themselves of the “raider” trail. Lev was the generator of ideas, Mikhail was responsible for their implementation, so it was he who was surrounded by people whose reputation could interfere with the deal. In 1997, the Rubens convinced Lev to pay his brother $400 million for his share in TWG (settlements took place in 1999). Mikhail retreated - as it turned out later, only for a while - and began to build his own business. In 1997, he created Siberian Aluminum, which was headed by Deripaska. And in 1999 - the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, the management of which was entrusted to Makhmudov.

In 1998, the business of Cherny and Makhmudov was replenished with another asset: they bought a 40% stake in Kuzbassrazrezugol (KRU), then the largest coal company in Russia and the main supplier of coking coal for metallurgy. Three groups fought for Kuzbassrazrezugol - Interfin of Alisher Usmanov, Andrey Skoch and Lev Kvetny; “Mikom” by Mikhail Zhivilo and Chernoy himself with Makhmudov. Usmanov agreed to buy the company's shares through Imperial Bank, but in the spring of 1998 the bank needed money, and its owner Sergei Rodionov put up a 40% stake in Kuzbassrazrezugol for sale. The first contender was Zhivilo, who transferred a deposit of $27 million. However, soon Makhmudov’s acquaintance Andrei Bokarev came to Rodionov and said that there were other contenders - Chernoy and his partners. They looked “more convincing,” recalls a participant in those events, and, moreover, without any papers or guarantees, Makhmudov transferred $27 million to Imperial, which was returned to Zhivilo. For Interfin, which tried to object, Cherny and his partners also had serious arguments.

By 2000, Chernoy and Makhmudov increased the KRU stake to a controlling stake, Bokarev became a managing and junior partner in the coal company, and then in the rest of Makhmudov’s businesses. Now his fortune, according to Forbes, is $1.35 billion.

During the collapse of TWG, each of the participants in the “conceptual” business tried to snatch their share, which sometimes resulted in a full-scale war. One of its episodes is the history of the Kachkanarsky GOK, control over which in the spring of 1999 was tried to be seized by Cherny’s protege Jalol Khaidarov, a classmate of Makhmudov, with whom they had been friends since they were 16 years old. Khaidarov managed the mining and processing plant on behalf of Cherny and his partners and at the same time bought shares himself. At some point, the senior partners decided that he was stealing their money. Khaidarov (according to documents, the owner of the mining and processing plant) decided to take the fight. Iskander was assigned to investigate: he once brought Jalol to the group.

The “War for Kachkanar” was remembered for its details: the roads leading to the city were blocked by dump trucks and a derailed train; a group of shareholders tried to enter Kachkanar under the guise of skiers and ended up holding an extraordinary meeting in the winter forest; the plane with the security support group was turned around in the air and disarmed by the police. Lawyers were drowning in dozens of conflicting court decisions.

It was then that the public first heard the name of Iskander Makhmudov - he won. At the height of the conflict, police detained Khaidarov in a Moscow cafe and found heroin in his pocket. Soon after this, he fled abroad and already there filed a lawsuit in an American court against the “criminal group” consisting of Cherny, Deripaska, Malevsky, Evraz and the MDM group - and, of course, against his old friend Makhmudov. Khaidarov accused them of hundreds of crimes, ranging from organizing murder and extortion to bribing governors and money laundering. But the US court decided that the case did not fall within its jurisdiction, Khaidarov lost the courts in Russia, and now he lives in Israel under a different name. Forbes was unable to contact him.

“Khaidarov decided that he needed to be independent. He would have come normally, said, for God’s sake, buy it, and they would have gone their separate ways. But he took a different path. I had to prove to him that everything was wrong,” recalls a Forbes interlocutor surrounded by Makhmudov. He calls Khaidarov’s accusations “fiction”: “The shares [that Khaidarov claimed] were ours, we returned them, and the 20% of the mining and processing complex that he himself bought remained with him, he then sold them to Evraz.”

The “brotherly war” between Mikhail Cherny and the TWG of Lev Cherny and Rubenov was in full swing at the end of the 1990s, when “Sibneft shareholders” - Abramovich, Berezovsky and Patarkatsishvili - appeared on the scene and, unexpectedly for everyone, bought TWG’s shares in aluminum smelters. Confusion arose in the enemy camp. Makhmudov longed to continue the war, Chernoy hesitated. Deripaska, who was beginning a romantic relationship with Valentin Yumashev’s daughter Polina, was promised that a common business with Roman Abramovich (they are close friends with Yumashev) would take him to a qualitatively new level. He persuaded everyone to agree to peace. Chernoy agreed to a deal in the form of the formation of a new, unified company, Rusal.

A representative of the “war party,” Makhmudov remained on the sidelines, which did not prevent him from maintaining business relations with Cherny for several more years. At that time, in the copper and coal business, Makhmudov was no longer a junior, but an equal partner of Mikhail.

At the turn of the 2000s, Makhmudov and Cherney resemble predators who stopped before jumping at the very last moment. They started several wars at once: they just ousted Mikhail Zhivilo from the country, taking over most of his assets, entered Nizhnevartovskneftegaz (a subsidiary of TNK), removing all mining assets from it under the nose of Alpha, bought 30% of Magnitogorsk "and were preparing to fight Viktor Rashnikov.

And suddenly, in just a couple of years, everything changes: Zhivilo’s assets were sold to Evraz, oil assets to Alfa, the war with Rashnikov never began. Perhaps the fact is that the government changed in the country and Chernoy decided not to take risks. In addition, he already had large projects outside of Russia - in Israel, Bulgaria, and other countries - he needed money. In 2001, he agreed to sell a stake in Rusal to Deripaska - out of old habit, writing the agreement on a piece of paper, which later resulted in a multi-year legal battle.

In 2002, Chernoy decided to sell his stake in Kuzbassrazrezugol: Filaret Galchev approached him with such an offer, which Sberbank was ready to finance. Having learned about this, says an acquaintance of Makhmudov, Iskander made a counter-offer: to buy out Cherny’s share in all joint assets. After thinking, he agreed. How much Chernoy received for them is unknown, but one of Mikhail’s acquaintances claims that in 2001–2002, Deripaska and Makhmudov paid him a total of more than $2 billion, most of which they borrowed from banks. To date, due to unsuccessful foreign investments, Chernoy has lost almost everything, his friends say.

In 2002, Chernoy received the money, and Makhmudov became the main owner of the copper holding UMMC and Kuzbassrazrezugol. In both, he already had junior partners - Kozitsyn and Bokarev, to whom the new owner entrusted management. Cherney left the business at the wrong time; literally a year later, sharp growth began: copper over the next four years rose in price by about five times, coking coal - almost three times. There was enough money to repay loans to buy out Cherny’s share, and for new investments - they gave Makhmudov a completely different result. According to Forbes, Makhmudov entered the list of the richest Russian businessmen, first published in 2004, with a fortune of $2.1 billion.

Moscow businessman Pyotr Baum was extremely dissatisfied with the meeting with a representative of the group of “invaders”. A defiantly self-confident young man offered only $6 million for the Bryansk Machine-Building Plant, which produces 65% of shunting diesel locomotives in Russia, saying that the plant was virtually bankrupt. Baum, who bought the plant in 2000 for $8 million in anticipation of future growth in orders, was ready to part with it for only $15 million. He was denied that amount. Baum did not know that he was faced with Makhmudov’s well-oiled machine for collecting assets - it was he who was represented at that meeting by Dmitry Komissarov, who was responsible for the project of creating a machine-building holding. Before Baum had time to look back, the opponents bought up part of the debts of the Bryansk plant, initiated external management, and by 2003 transferred its assets to the new company Transmashholding (TMH). The operation to seize control of a plant with revenue of $50 million a year cost several hundred thousand dollars. Baum tried to sue, but was unsuccessful. He now refuses to comment.

Komissarov, the former head and co-owner of Transmashholding, also does not want to remember this story. Now he is a serious gentleman with a respectable position in a state company - a member of the board of directors of Russian Railways. “I don’t want to discuss the previous owner, but under him the amount of debt was three to four times higher than the volume of production, and capacity utilization was 12–15%,” says Komissarov. Komissarov became interested in mechanical engineering in 2000; before that he worked in commercial structures not associated with Russian Railways. According to him, by the 2000s the era of mutual offsets was ending, railway transport had not been updated for a long time and it was clear that orders and money would soon go to rolling stock manufacturers, who had been living on the brink of bankruptcy for many years. One of Komissarov’s friends said that his “very serious” acquaintances were thinking about the same thing, and soon brought Komissarov together with Makhmudov and Bokarev.

Makhmudov has been in constant contact with railway workers since the early 1990s. His joint companies with Cherny were their largest clients and constantly argued with Russian Railways over tariffs. “The plan was simple,” says one of Makhmudov’s partners. “We didn’t like the monopoly position of the railroad, when the entire business depends on what prices they set. The idea was to create a company that would have a monopoly influence on Russian Railways.” Makhmudov and Bokarev already had a joint company with Estonian businessmen Sergei Glinka and Maxim Liksutov, Transgroup, a railway operator engaged in the delivery and transshipment of coal from Kuzbass to the port of Tallinn. Together the partners began to build Transmashholding.

In 2003, a year after its creation, the holding bought up the debts of the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant (NEVZ) from the MDM group and became the owner of this monopoly manufacturer of electric freight locomotives. Then - controlling stakes in the Tver Carriage Works (cars), and a year later - in the Demikhovsky Machine-Building Plant (electric trains).

The emergence of new players did not go unnoticed. The then Minister of Railways Gennady Fadeev was categorically against the creation of a private monopoly on the production of rolling stock and put a spoke in the wheels of new contractors. Sometimes they didn’t pay Transmashholding for six months, recalls Makhmudov’s partner.

Unexpectedly, Makhmudov and his partners found an understanding with Fadeev’s first deputy, Vladimir Yakunin, who had a difficult relationship with the minister. “Yakunin also didn’t really want us to consolidate the industry, he said that he didn’t want all the eggs to be in one basket,” says Forbes’ source. But after long conversations, Yakunin was finally convinced. At the end of 2003, Russian Railways signed a partnership agreement with Transmashholding until 2010, providing for the purchase of locomotives and the development of new equipment. As a result, NEVZ, which produced 20 locomotives in 2002, produced 55 a year later, 114 the following year, and 217 mainline and industrial electric locomotives in 2012. Why did Yakunin support Makhmudov?

“They came to me with problems of the Novocherkassk plant. You need to understand what kind of enterprise it was 10 years ago - a destroyed production that practically ceased to exist. Thanks to this [the contract with Transmashholding], we managed to preserve heavy transport engineering in our country,” judging by Yakunin’s answer to Forbes’ question, he has no doubt that he is right.

By 2006, Transmashholding included about a dozen machine-building enterprises. In March 2006, Komissarov already had to answer questions from the Federal Antimonopoly Service. The officials did not find fault with the businessmen and within two months they granted Transmashholding’s request to consolidate the machine-building plants that it managed. And in December 2007, Yakunin signed a deal to purchase Russian Railways 25% + 1 share of this holding for 9.3 billion rubles.

Why was it necessary to sell the share? “We didn’t want to be persuaded to join Russian Railways - we are like this and that. We suggested [to Yakunin]: buy 25% - and you will always see what is happening inside. And we will invest the money in the company,” says Makhmudov’s partner. The presence of Russian Railways among the shareholders of Transmashholding has added weight to the company in the eyes of Western investors, Yakunin is convinced. In March 2009, the French concern Alstom agreed to buy 25% + 1 share of Transmashholding, the transaction amounted to $422 million.

Now Yakunin calls Transmashholding “our subsidiary.” Makhmudov can also call him the same: he controls 22% of the company, and with partners - a little less than 50%. They managed to create a “monopoly for a monopoly” almost without fighting; in the mid-2000s, the half-dead machine-building plants were of little interest to anyone. But by the end of the 2000s, these factories allowed the hero of the turbulent 1990s to take Moscow without a fight.

On March 28, 2011, after passing through the turnstiles at Sheremetyevo Airport, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, accompanied by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Transport Minister Igor Levitin and the head of Russian Railways Yakunin, entered the Aeroexpress business class cabin. For almost the entire 45-minute trip to Moscow, Yakunin told Putin about plans for the development of high-speed rail connections between Moscow and the airports of the Moscow air hub. Putin liked the plans, Aeroexpress, and its general director Maxim Liksutov, Makhmudov’s partner in TMH, Transgroup and Aeroexpress.

A month later, Liksutov was appointed adviser to the mayor of Moscow on transport, and soon deputy mayor and chief curator of the transport development program in the capital with a budget of 2.2 trillion rubles. He is in charge of updating the metro fleet, creating high-speed tram lines and a project for organizing passenger traffic along the Small Ring of the Moscow Railway. Who will purchase rolling stock from for these programs? Everything will be within the law and through open tenders, says the Moscow government.

The first tender was supposed to take place in July 2012, but the antimonopoly service canceled it: competitors, Uralvagonzavod and Sinara, stated that the tender documentation was drawn up under the model of Alstom and Transmashholding. In December, this contract for 8.46 billion rubles was won by the state-owned Uralvagonzavod. “They have placed their people in key positions, but this does not mean that they will always be influential,” says the top manager of Uralvagonzavod, which has recently been beloved by Putin. “Today they are in these chairs, tomorrow they are not.”

But Makhmudov’s plan is not limited to the supply of equipment. In June 2011, OJSC "MKR" was registered, a joint company between Russian Railways and the Moscow City Hall for the development of the small railway ring of Moscow. The volume of investment in the project was estimated at 100–150 billion rubles. It was headed by Mikhail Khromov, who had held senior positions at Transmashholding since 2003. He is also the general director of the Central Suburban Passenger Company, 25% of the shares of which are owned by the governments of Moscow and the Moscow region, and the rest by the structures of Makhmudov, Bokarev, Glinka and Komissarov. The share of the Central PPK in suburban passenger transportation in the Moscow region exceeds 80%, in Russia – 56%.

Why does Makhmudov need passenger transportation, which Russian Railways always calls unprofitable? At the end of 2011, the Central PPK received 5 billion rubles in net profit, Khromov answers a question from Forbes. No less is expected based on the results of 2012, when the company transported 568 million people.

“Everyone thought that you wouldn’t earn much in a subsidized business,” says one of Makhmudov’s partners. “But when we got to the numbers, everyone’s eyes lit up: 500 million people a year pass through, plus the small ring - another 200-250 million. And this is trade, catering, payment systems, etc., etc.!”

The Moscow authorities plan to spend 55 billion rubles on the creation of railway infrastructure and attract 15 billion rubles of private investment for the construction of 31 interchange hubs. The Central PPK has everything to comply with and win the competition for the construction of transfer hubs, Khromov is convinced. If it wins, it will purchase rolling stock for the Moscow Ring Railway. Who? “What other options are there?” – one of Makhmudov’s partners answers, laughing. What about the conflict of interest? Khromov replies that while the implementation of the Moscow Ring Railway project has not begun, there is no conflict. “When it arises, I will resolve these issues,” he concludes evasively.

A veteran of the 1990s, Makhmudov integrated into new realities. Now he has new, “correct” partners, such as Yakunin at Transmashholding. For example, in 2012, Makhmudov and Bokarev bought 13% of the railway operator Transoil, controlled by Gennady Timchenko. And 7.5% of the shares of Kuzbassrazrezugol belong to Vitaly Yusufov, sources close to both sides of the deal told Forbes.

Why does he need new partners? An acquaintance of Makhmudov, hearing this question, laughed: “Don’t you understand?” From “old friends” from the 1990s, Makhmudov learned well the lesson of Chernykh: no “conceptual” agreements, everything is official and everyone, even the youngest partners, have legally registered shares.

The legal proceedings between Deripaska and Cherny and Abramovich and Berezovsky were replete with vivid details. Who has heard about the disputes between Cherny and Makhmudov? But the settlement agreement with Cherny at the end of last year was signed by Deripaska and Makhmudov at the same time. According to Forbes, Deripaska paid his former partner $200 million, Makhmudov – $150 million. Typically, Makhmudov was a mediator in the negotiations.

What will happen now that the results of the wars of the 1990s are closed by the latest “peace treaty”? “Makhmudov and IPO? Come on, this will never happen, he’s not that kind of person,” an acquaintance of the businessman assured Forbes several years ago. But Makhmudov’s partners say that at least two companies – UMMC and Kuzbassrazrezugol – will be merged into a holding, in which each of Iskander’s junior partners will receive shares. At the turn of 2015–2016, we may be talking about selling part of the business, says a Forbes interlocutor surrounded by Makhmudov. It is already worth more than $10 billion.

Makhmudov Iskandar (Iskander) Kakhramonovich was born on December 5, 1963 in Bukhara, Uzbek SSR. His father, Kahramon, worked as a civil engineer, his mother taught Russian. As a preschooler, he and his family moved to Tashkent, where he spent his childhood and teenage years.

Education

He received his higher education at Tashkent State University. According to some reports, the parents of the future billionaire insisted that he enter the Faculty of Oriental Studies at TSU. By 1984, he mastered the Arabic language, which he soon found useful in his service.

Labor activity

After graduating from the university, he found a job in the Main Engineering Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Trade and went to work in Libya as an engineer-translator. A year and a half later, he moved to Iraq, where he worked as a translator for about two and a half years.

Having left his engineering and translation activities at the State Committee of the USSR Council of Ministers for Foreign Economic Relations, in 1988 he became an employee of the State Joint Stock Company Uzbekintorg in Tashkent, where he worked until 1990. At the same time, the future billionaire met his companions - brothers Lev and Mikhail Cherny. Following them, he moved to Moscow and began to be responsible for the coal direction in their business (Trans Commodities), since he had experience working with raw materials. Later he became a junior partner in the company of the Chernykh and Ruben brothers Trans World Group (TWG), registered in London.

From 1991 to June 1994, he was Deputy Director of Marketing at Alice JSC.

In 1993, he left TWG and in 1994 began buying shares in copper enterprises.

From July 1994 to February 1996, he was the director of JSC Industrial and Financial Company Meta Service. In 1994, he took part in the privatization of the only Pavlodar aluminum smelter in Kazakhstan.

In 1996, he headed as general director the leading enterprise in the Urals for the extraction of copper ore - the Gaisky mining and processing plant.

In 1998-1999, not without the support of his partner Mikhail Cherny, he created the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (7 large and many small plants in the Urals, Uralelectromed, Sredneuralsky Copper Smelter, Kachkanarsky Mining and Processing Plant, etc., according to the Profile magazine at the beginning 2002 controlled approximately 40% of copper production in the Russian Federation, the remaining 60% - Norilsk Nickel). From then to the present, he has headed UMMC as president.

In 2002, on the basis of enterprises controlled by Iskander and Dmitry Komissarov, Transmashholding CJSC was created, Russia’s largest manufacturer of rolling stock for rail transport.

He and partner Andrey Bokarev hold a 13% stake in Transoil LLC (an 80% stake in Transoil belongs to another billionaire, Gennady Timchenko) and are the owners of Moscow Passenger Company LLC.

UMMC, controlled by him, in turn, owns 100% of the shares of the restaurant holding Food Service Capital, which includes the “Unified Food Network”, serving passengers of the Sapsan trains, 17 steakhouses, 3 fish establishments, 6 beer houses and 8 burger joints. Also, since 2013, UMMC has owned a controlling stake in the Czech enterprise Kunovice Aircraft Industries, which produces small passenger aircraft.

He is a shareholder of Aeroexpress LLC (17%), and since May 2015 - the holder of 12.25% of the shares of the Kalashnikov arms concern.

Charity

He is known as a generous philanthropist in all spheres of public life: he supports medicine, orphanages, war veterans and others.

He is among the top twenty richest businessmen in Russia according to the annual ranking of Forbes magazine. Thus, in 2011, the businessman was on the 12th line of the list with a fortune of $9.9 billion, in 2013 - in 15th place with a mark of $8.7 billion, in 2015 he dropped to 29- 1st line with a fortune of $3.5 billion, and as of March 2016 he occupied 21st position ($4 billion).

In 2017, it ranked 19th with a fortune of $6.5 billion; in 2018 it rose to 16th place, increasing its fortune by $800 million.

On April 18, 2019, the next Forbes list was released, in which he took 18th place among the richest businessmen in Russia with a mark of $6.6 billion.

Interesting Facts

The famous businessman speaks six languages, including Uzbek, Tajik, Russian, Arabic, Farsi and English.

Family status

Married for the second time. He separated from his first wife, an Uzbek by nationality, even before moving to the Russian capital. The current wife is Margarita Ildusovna Makhmutova (Tatar by nationality).

From his first marriage he has a son, Jahangir, born in 1987.

Half of the Russian copper industry is under his control. A significant part of the Russian car building and coal industry market is also in his hands. He can be seen in many areas of business, be it telecommunications, banking, mass media and others, and his official fortune is estimated at $6.7 billion. And, most importantly, they say that he is Iskandar Makhmudov, a native of Bukhara, is a Tajik , apparently the richest in the post-Soviet space.

SHARK NAMED ISKANDER

I. Makhmudov - Iskander, as he is often called in Russia - is considered a real shark of Russian business. However, he himself does not hide the presence of corresponding traits in his character, as well as his predilections for these predators.

In an interview with Profile magazine, he once admitted: “I really like these fish [sharks – ed]. I have been diving for a long time, diving to a depth of 60 meters, and I had a dream of swimming next to a shark, holding on to it .

A dream come true. Sharks are actually very intelligent creatures. They never attack first. They attack only when they are hungry and if someone has offended them. So don't offend them."

In the article “Iskander from Bukhara”, posted on the website of the Federal Investigation Agency, there is also a point about sharks: “On holidays and birthdays, it is customary for Makhmudov to give very symbolic gifts: acquaintances and colleagues give him sharks, which Makhmudov collects.”

The tough character of the Russian-Uzbek oligarch is also noted here. “I don’t like the word ‘fear’ at all,” says Makhmudov. - We are not children to be afraid of the dark or tigers. There is no need to be afraid of anyone in business.

We must be afraid. Including us. Because we don’t forget insults to anyone. Even if you don’t have the strength today to pay tribute to the offender, you just need to put the information in your memory, and the time will come someday anyway.”

He trains his Rottweiler in the following way: from time to time, for educational purposes, he hits him on the nose with a newspaper. “These dogs don’t feel pain, but they are afraid of the cotton from the newspaper,” says Iskander.

According to official data on the website of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC), which is the “mother structure” of I. Makhmudov, he was born on December 5, 1963 in Bukhara (Uzbek SSR). This year he will be 45 years old.

He graduated from the Faculty of Oriental Studies of Tashkent State University, then worked in the structure of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations of the USSR, representing the interests of the country in the Middle East (Libya, Iraq). Speaks Arabic and English.

In 1996, he became the general director of the Gaisky mining and processing plant, the leading copper ore mining enterprise in the Urals. In 1999, together with his partners, he created the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, of which he has been president since its founding.

Behind this meager information about Makhmudov’s biography, it is difficult to discern his KGB past. However, now being a “former”, “from there” is prestigious, so Makhmudov doesn’t really hide it.

When asked what he did in the Middle East, Makhmudov answers with a smile: “I worked, as it is now fashionable to say, for the government. For our Soviet government.

In Libya, he worked in an organization called the “Main Engineering Directorate”, this is the Soviet analogue of the current Rosvooruzheniye [arms supply – ed.]. In Iraq - in one of the Soviet departments that was involved in construction [In the Directorate for the Construction of Military Facilities of the Iraqi General Staff - ed.]."

Makhmudov, by his own admission, was not only a translator from Arabic into Russian: “In these countries, you see, a translator is not just a translator, but a person who solves problems. Many of our specialists who worked there simply did not understand who the Arabs were .

They had never encountered such a mentality or psychology; they knew neither literature, nor history, nor traditions. Therefore, many problems had to be sorted out by us, translators.

In general, when at 21 you go abroad at a time when few people go there, you feel differently. I remember well how they talked to me, a young man, about my trip abroad on Old Square and at the Central Committee of the CPSU.

It was furnished with such surroundings that, when leaving there, you felt like a bearer of the idea. He walked and carried."

At the same time, it was difficult to call him ideological, since Makhmudov believed, as he himself says, “not in communism, but in the country.” In his memory, there is yet another aggravation of Libyan-American relations with bombings, shootings and other gloomy attributes of military operations.

“And against this unhealthy background, Soviet missile cruisers with an escort ship entered the Libyan port. And everything immediately calmed down. I can’t convey the feeling of pride in my country: we arrived, and everyone was silent.”

Makhmudov’s “Arab” period lasted four years, and he returned to his small homeland when perestroika was already in full swing. Iskander was invited to the state foreign trade organization Uzbekintorg, which, within the framework of allocated national quotas, was engaged in the purchase of goods necessary for the republic.

Makhmudov acquired his first serious commercial experience there. Then, by his own admission, things became crowded in the republic, and he moved to Moscow.

In Moscow, Iskander met his old acquaintance and fellow countryman Mikhail Cherny [Cherny brothers, immigrants from Uzbekistan, former authorities in Russia - ed.]. They took their first steps in business together. We started traditionally, like everyone else, with the question: “What are we going to do?”

TAJIK "BROTHER"?

It was during the “Arab” period, our sources note, that Makhmudov became close friends with several other “orientalists” - immigrants from Central Asia, among whom was a Tajik, a native of Tajikistan, a certain Sergo Karimov.

Today, according to unofficial information, this man (Makhmudov’s invisible shadow) is his closest friend, one might say “brother,” who is entrusted with managing a significant part of the oligarch’s assets.

According to another version, part of the “Makhmudov” business is the property of Karimov. And Iskandar’s business is not small.

According to the official version of the influential Finance magazine alone, it amounts to $6.7 billion, which puts Makhmudov in 16th place in the list of the richest people in Russia.

Although the same Uzbek (according to some sources, Bukharian Jew) Alisher Usmanov is ahead of him, possessing $7 billion (14th place), in reality Makhmudov is much richer and is the number one oligarch in Russia from among Central Asians.

Returning to Sergo Karimov, it is worth noting that practically nothing is known about this man, if he exists at all. Perhaps this is a real “gray eminence” who is always in the shadows and it is useless to look for traces of him on the Internet or in the Russian press.

We tried it ourselves and didn’t find it. An official request to the UMMC press service yielded nothing. They refused to make any comments.

They say that Sergo comes from Northern Tajikistan, at one time he also graduated from the Faculty of Oriental Studies (either Tajik or Tashkent State University) and worked as a “translator” in the same team with Makhmudov in Iraq and Libya.

Common roots, common interests, common goals and a common cause brought the two young people closer together, and they actually became brothers.

They say his father was once the head of the Tajik government at the dawn of the republic during the Soviet period. So, if you dig deep into the archives...

The closeness of the two friends, according to one version, is determined by Makhmudov’s Tajik roots. Officially, Iskandar is listed as an Uzbek, and he himself often repeats this in society. The Kommersant newspaper, in its report on one of the journalistic award ceremonies, writes: “However, over tea, Mr. Makhmudov admitted that he was invited to the ceremony: “Only I didn’t know that it would be held here. If I had known, I would have had dinner somewhere else.”

After these words, the co-owner of UMMC gracefully moved on to criticize the pilaf for which the restaurant is famous: “I am an Uzbek, so I cannot eat what is called pilaf in restaurants.”

His critical attitude did not stop him from accepting a watermelon as a gift from the restaurant’s co-owner, Alexander Sorkin. HAT President Eduard Sagalayev came up to greet his fellow countryman, with whom Mr. Makhmudov joked about something in Uzbek.”...

At the same time, there is also at least one mention of Tajiks associated with Makhmudov. The newspaper “Youth of the North” (No. 49 of December 5, 2002, Komi Republic), in an article about the showdown in the region’s coal industry, reports: “... meanwhile, one very authoritative source, who wished to remain anonymous, told MS the logic of secret negotiations.

According to his information, one of the highest-ranking local politicians, a Tajik by nationality, for a certain amount amounting to millions of dollars, lobbied for the interests of the Uzbekistan-born president of UMMC, the company, one of the most powerful oligarchs in Russia, Iskander Makhmudov, in the acquisition of Vorkutaugol...”

Perhaps all the rumors about Makhmudov’s Tajik origin are related to the fact that he was born in Bukhara, where a significant number of ethnic Tajiks live. It is no secret how successfully in those years in two neighboring republics Tajiks were registered as Uzbeks, and Uzbeks as Tajiks.

SIBERIAN BARBER

How the formation of oligarch Makhmudov took place is described in the article “Uzbek mafia against Kazakhstan” on the Nomad website. Perhaps this article, which is typical for opposition sites, is tendentious, nevertheless, it is of factual interest to us.

“In 1988-90. - he worked in middle management positions in the State Joint Stock Company "Uzbekintorg" - then, before the creation of the sovereign Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations - a monopoly company operating in the foreign market mainly with the most popular Uzbek product - cotton.

Plus, for small things, selling Navoi uranium (but this has never been proven by anyone).

By this time, Makhmudov became acquainted with two well-known Tashkent "guild workers" brothers Lev and Mikhail Cherny, who even then, relying on the support of Uzbek mafia clans, were handling quite large capital, gradually moving from the production of consumer goods (bags with Alla Pugacheva) to more serious " raw materials business."

But before that there was a short, but very eventful period when the Cherny brothers and their companions, including I. Makhmudov, multiplied the initial capital - through well-known scams with unsecured bank advice orders.

In 1990 he moved to Moscow. He begins to collaborate in the “aluminum business” of his Tashkent fellow countrymen, brothers Mikhail and Lev Cherny, and enters as a junior partner in the management of the brothers’ company, Trans World Group (TWG), registered in London.

In 1994, Makhmudov helped the brothers take root in Kazakhstan and participated in the privatization of the only Pavlodar aluminum smelter in the country.

Formally, at first he was listed in the company under the obscure positions of “adviser to the representative for Russia and the CIS” and “consultant to the general director”, in fact, he was legalized only in 1996, taking the chair of the general director of a reputable enterprise acquired by the company - the Gaisky mining and processing plant - the largest mining enterprise in the Urals (Orenburg region).

Makhmudov did not stay at the plant in provincial Gai for long, until 1998. In 1998-99, with the support of Mikhail Cherny, who by that time had separated from his brother Lev, he created the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (7 large and many small factories in the Urals, Uralelectromed, Sredneuralsky Copper Smelter, Kachkanarsky Mining and Processing Plant, etc. ). He holds the position of President of UMMC, which he still holds today.”

Today, the extensive network of companies owned by Makhmudov through UMMC Holding LLC and other companies is called nothing less than the “new Bukhara Caliphate.” We would call him the “Siberian barber” for the way he was able to “cut off” the Siberian metallurgical business.

Judge for yourself (data taken from the website Ugmk.Com), today he owns:

RAW MATERIAL COMPLEX: Bogoslovskoye Mining Administration (iron ore, iron ore concentrate), Gaisky GOK (copper and zinc concentrate, sulfur pyrites), Uchalinsky GOK (copper, zinc and pyrite concentrate), Sibay branch of Uchalinsky GOK (copper and zinc concentrate), Urupsky GOK (copper concentrate), Buribayevsky GOK (copper and zinc concentrate), Siberia-Polymetals (copper, zinc and lead concentrate), Bogoslovskoe mine management (iron and copper concentrate), Volkovsky mine (copper-iron-vanadium ore), Northern copper-zinc mine ( copper-zinc ore), Safyanovskaya copper (copper and copper-zinc ore), Bashkir copper (copper ore), Berezovsky mine management (gold concentrate), Salair chemical plant (gold concentrate barite concentrate), Orenburg MMC (gold zinc sediment), Sadonskoe Mining (lead concentrate), Electrozinc (zinc concentrate).

METALLURGICAL COMPLEX: Metallurgical Plant named after A.K. Serov (cast iron, rolled ferrous metals), Sredneuralsky Copper Smelter (blister copper), Svyatogorsk (blister copper), Mednogorsk Copper-Sulfur Plant (blister copper), Polymetal production Uralelectromed (blister copper) , Uralelectromed (copper cathodes, gold, silver), Sukholozhsky plant of secondary non-ferrous metals (non-ferrous metal alloys), Production of non-ferrous alloys Uralelectromed (non-ferrous alloys), Electrozinc (zinc in ingots, lead in ingots).

SCIENTIFIC BASE: Uralmekhanobr (research and design institute), NIKI (research, design and technological cable institute), Kirov OCM plant (radiator tape rolled non-ferrous metals), Kolchugtsvetmet (radiator tape rolled non-ferrous metals), Katur-Invest (copper rod, copper wire, copper wire).

CONSTRUCTION COMPLEX: Revdinsky brick plant (bricks, etc.), UralMedStroy, Shadrinsky auto-aggregate plant (radiators), Orenburg Radiator (radiators), Sibkabel (cable products), Uralkabel (cable products).

COAL MINING COMPANY: Kuzbassrazrezugol (coal)

CHARITABLE FOUNDATION: Children of Russia (charitable activities)

SUBSIDIARIES: UMMC-Agro (agricultural products), UMMC-Cement (cement production), UMMC-Steel (ferrous metals production), UMMC-OTsM (processing of non-ferrous metals), UMMC-Perspective (pension services), UMMC-Telecom (telecommunication services), UMMC-Medicine (medical services), UMMC-Insurance (insurance activities)

In the fall of 2006, UMMC's business expanded through the coal industry: UMMC-Holding LLC received the right to manage the assets of one of the largest coal mining companies in Russia - OJSC Management Company Kuzbassrazrezugol.

Kuzbassrazrezugol is the largest open-pit mining company in Russia. Coal production accounts for a quarter of the total volume produced in the Kuznetsk basin, 17 deposits, 44 million tons of coal per year. This is also a quarter of all Russian coal exports abroad.

Makhmudov is also a co-owner of Transmashholding CJSC. This is Russia's largest company in the transport engineering industry, the world leader in railway engineering in terms of physical production volumes.

The company's sales volume of goods and services is about $2.2 billion. The joint-stock company includes: Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant, Bryansk Machine-Building Plant, Kolomna Plant, Penzadieselmash, Bezhitsky Steel Plant, Tver Carriage Plant, Demikhovsky Machine-Building Plant, Metrovagonmash, Oktyabrsky Electric Car Repair Plant, Tsentrosvarmash, Transconverter (a joint venture with Siemens AG), Manufacturing Company " KMT", FTD Fahrzeugtechnik Dessau AG (Germany), Engineering center and joint venture for the production of traction converters (together with Bombardier Transportation, under creation).

DEFAMING RELATIONS...

The press periodically notes his contacts with Uzbek crime bosses Gafur Rakhimov and Salimbay Abduvaliev (we wrote about them in the last issue of the newspaper). He is also credited with friendship with the daughter of President Islam Karimov, Gulnara, at whose glamorous events he is seen very often.

For Tajiks, Makhmudov’s career may be of interest because his business interests came into contact with the current owner of RUSAL, Oleg Deripaska. Provincial “Komsomol members” together began to build their business empires from Siberia, not without the support of authoritative people, opposing the “centre” - Muscovites and St. Petersburg residents.

Makhmudov started his business in one of the structures of the well-known Trans World Group in Russia (controlled by the Cherny brothers), but soon left there and began selling copper.

Despite many external differences, Makhmudov and Deripaska are united by the bulldog grip and business aggression characteristic of most provincials: any scandal associated with the acquisition of an enterprise in the aluminum or copper industry is not complete without mentioning these two names.

“We were introduced by some people, I don’t even remember now. Oleg was just starting to work with aluminum at the Sayan plant,” said Makhmudov. “We are completely different in character, in approach, in temperament.

Oleg has a completely Nordic disposition, he is all in himself. Silently experiences both successes and failures. Very calm. I used to be able to yell at my subordinates. That’s why maybe they got along.”

Currently, people close to both oligarchs note that the friends separated peacefully, dividing spheres of influence - Deripaska went into aluminum [and now construction and the auto industry - ed.], and Makhmudov into copper, coal and mechanical engineering.

Although both were considered from the “Yeltsin family”, whose businessmen are gradually being squeezed out by the “St. Petersburg” ones, an analysis of the latest events around RUSAL and UMMC shows that both oligarchs were accepted into the “Putin team” and not only nothing interferes with their advancement, but on the contrary, they feel supported Kremlin.

Accordingly, on all corners, Deripaska and Makhmudov are trumpeting their commitment to Putin and United Russia.

In an interview with RIA Novosti, when asked how he feels about the authorities, Iskandar answers: “We live in this state, we work, we respect its laws, we conduct a dialogue with the authorities. If they ask you to help, we will help. We are all Putin's soldiers..."

ABOUT PERSONAL

Makhmudov’s main business opponents are considered to be his fellow countryman M. Zhivilo (MIKOM company), A. Mordashov (Severstal) and Jalol Khaidarov, his former partner and confidant at UMMC, with whom they parted ways after many years of joint business.

In turn, Makhmudov’s friends include the previously mentioned O. Deripaska, A. Mamut, the Cherny brothers, the governor of the Sverdlovsk region E. Rossel, A. Voloshin, G. Rakhimov and S. Abduvaliev from Uzbekistan, the daughter of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan G. Karimov, the President of the Congress Bukharian Jews billionaire Lev Leviev.

Makhmudov is married for the second time. The first wife - according to some sources, an Uzbek, according to others - a Bukharian Jew, lives with her 15-year-old son in Moscow; the second wife is Russian, a top model (according to the official version - a student), in her early 20s. She has no children. Her son from her first marriage, Jahongir Makhmudov (born in 1987), is the only heir to his father’s almost 7 billion fortune.

ANVAR MUKHMUDOV

Iskander Makhmudov was born in ancient Bukhara in 1963. His parents, teachers, moved to the capital of Soviet Uzbekistan, Tashkent, after the devastating earthquake in 1966. Iskander spent his childhood, youth and youth on Uzbek soil, although by nationality he is a purebred Tajik, of whom many still live in the Bukhara region.

Makhmudov entered and successfully graduated from the linguistics department of Tashkent State University and began to specialize as a translator from Arabic. His chosen profession helped him travel to Libya and Iraq, where he had to participate in the process of negotiating contracts for the supply of military equipment, as well as serve builders of industrial facilities. Returning from business trips abroad, Iskander got a job at Uzbekintorg, an organization that in Soviet times was involved in cotton trading and purchasing foreign goods for the needs of the republic.

Mikhail Chernoy

One day in the Tashkent period of his life, Makhmudov met his fellow countrymen brothers Lev and. They had already completed the search for a niche for their own business, unconditionally giving preference to metallurgy. The nimble brothers managed to find the support of influential Uzbek crime clans, which greatly helped them, especially at the initial stage.

The scale of Uzbekistan quickly became too small for them. The Russian capital Moscow was waiting for them, where they took with them Iskander Makhmudov as a junior partner, who hastily left his native Tashkent for the newly minted industrialists. The already rapid departure, as they say, was even more accelerated due to the presence of debt obligations to partners in the private trading business, which Makhmudov was simultaneously involved in during his work at Uzbekintorg. The company of Lev and Mikhail Cherny was called Trans World Group. Soon Makhmudov had to work on the operation of the Cherny brothers to take control of the Kazakh metallurgical giant - the Pavlodar aluminum smelter.

Metallurgist and raider

Of all the metals in Mendeleev’s periodic table, Iskander Makhmudov gave preference to copper. Now 40% of the total production of this non-ferrous metal in Russia is concentrated in his hands. The fortune of the Uzbek businessman 3 years ago was estimated at $8.7 billion, and he himself is among the second ten richest people in the country. Makhmudov began studying the production cycle at the Gai Mining and Processing Plant as a director.

One of the leaders of the Izmailovo group, thief in law Sergei Aksenov

He liked the Urals more than sunny Uzbekistan or Moscow bustling with people. The main brainchild of his life was born in the Urals - the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, which included 20 enterprises in the industry. The Bukhara Tajik did not bother only with metallurgy. In 2004, Spanish justice will begin an investigation into the activities of a number of Russian companies on charges of facilitating money laundering. UMMC was on the list, but the matter did not progress beyond rumors and suspicions.

Unlike Spain, in Russia Iskander Makhmudov gained fame as a very successful one. The technology for seizing someone else's property “Makhmud-style” was simple but reliable. The debts of the production structure that attracted them were bought up, then a lawsuit was initiated to declare it bankrupt and establish external management. In place of the external manager, a reliable person was put in place, who siphoned off the assets of the enterprise in favor of a number of shell companies. At the last stage, assets replenished the “empire” of UMMC.

In this way, control was gained over the Serov Metallurgical Plant and the Kachkanar Mining and Processing Plant "Vanadium". The latest operation caused a lot of noise in the press. The fact is that in Kachkanar the interests of Makhmudov and another metallurgical magnate, who headed the Micom corporation, clashed. Zhivilo lost cleanly and is now suing Makhmudov in the courts of New York and London, simultaneously accusing him of extremely dishonest play. According to him, the seizure of the Kachkanarsky GOK was accompanied by bribery, racketeering and even contract killings.

The industrialist’s statements are fully supported by Iskander Makhmudov’s former fellow countryman and associate, director of Vanadium, Jalal Khaidarov. He was taken out of the game by an Uzbek prone to intrigue through a contracted raid by law enforcement agencies. During the search, drugs were found on director Jalalov and he had to think more about his own fate, rather than the future of the plant.

Kuzbassugol

Makhmudov firmly established himself in the metallurgical market, finding support from Oleg Deripaska. Partners always coordinate actions with each other. The relationship between UMMC and the empires of Alexey Mordashov and Vladimir Potanin is different. Initially, Makhmudov outlined his sphere of interests strictly according to geographical principles. The Urals and Siberia remain behind him, the North - behind the Cherepovets Severstal, and the central regions of Russia were defined by him as a region of competitive action, where everyone must rely only on their own strength.

However, the concluded pact was soon in danger of collapse. Mordashov planned to buy part of the assets of Kuzbassugol. Makhmudov regarded such a desire as a clearly unfriendly action, since the coal mines are located on the territory under his control. His response turned out to be asymmetrical, but extremely effective. Suddenly, Mordashov had problems on the personal front. The ex-wife filed a claim for non-payment of alimony and expressed a desire to compensate for the insufficient allocation of funds by her ex-husband with part of his enterprises. Mordashov at that moment had no time for buying Kuzbassugol. He retreated. Makhmudov skillfully helped the ex-wife of his competitor, causing incredible noise in the press. In addition, by a strange coincidence, the alimony case was handled by prosecutor Vladimir Podverezhsky, who had previously dealt with the drugs found in the possession of the director of the Kachkanarsky Mining and Processing Plant.

Raiding

Iskander Makhmudov had to fight with Vladimir Potanin for nickel on Voronezh land. The ore deposit in the Novokhopersky district was developed not by Norilsknickel, which specializes in this metal, but by UMMC. In addition to the oligarch Potanin, the owner of the Ural company had to face resistance from the local population, who did not want to have environmentally destructive quarries next to their home. Despite the protests, Makhmudov is persistently, step by step, promoting the new project towards the start of industrial production. He is assisted by the governor of the Voronezh region, Gordeev himself. Criminal cases were opened against the most active organizers of protests, environmentalist Mikhail Bezmensky and Cossack ataman Igor Zhitinev.

Recently, Iskander Makhmudov has been taking steps to diversify the production base of his empire. Now his interests are most often turned to transport and transport engineering. There was also some raiding here.

The tool in raider raids is the Transgroup AS company, specially created by Makhmudov. Its second owner is an unknown company registered in Estonia. As a result of several operations, Makhmudov gained control over the production of locomotives at the Bryansk Machine-Building Plant, then the Murom Switch Plant, the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant and the Tver Carriage Plant were added to it.

Makhmudov is officially listed as the owner of ¼ of the shares of the Moscow Aeroexpress, which transports millions of passengers to the capital's airports. Another promising transport project was the distant port of Vostochny, which was also reached by a businessman.

Iskander Makhmudov himself remains a secret behind 7 seals for the public. He very rarely gives interviews, so there are simply no personal comments about his activities as head of UMMC. From the personal life of the industrialist, all that is known is that he is married for the second time and his last chosen one was a young lady 2 times younger than her husband. Friends and subordinates from Iskander Makhmudov’s inner circle know about his passion for sharks, so for his birthday they give their patron something reminiscent of these sea predators.