Many recall the series "Streets of Broken Lamps", which portrays the fight against crime in St. Petersburg during the 90s. While based on real events, it doesn’t fully capture the true criminal landscape of that era.
If the creators had depicted things accurately, Ilya Traber, whom even State Duma deputies feared, would certainly have been featured.
However, any plots involving Traber would likely have been cut from the series, just as mentions of the case investigated by the Spanish police concerning money laundering by Russian crime figures, a report from the "Business News Agency" revealed.
In 2021, a St. Petersburg court ordered the publication to pay 300,000 rubles, ordered the removal of information about Traber, and publish a retraction that he was not a «legend of gangster St. Petersburg». Moreover, the St. Petersburg court ordered Spanish prosecutor Jose Gonzalez, who led the case, to apologize to Traber. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
Everything in Ilya Traber’s biography is interesting – from his service on a submarine, from which he resigned in 1980 and retrained as a bartender in a beer bar, to his departure from Russia in 1999, which he did on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s inauguration, with whom he was linked not only by friendly but also business interests. Particularly intriguing is this factual escape from Russia against the background of the fate of another friend and partner of Vladimir Putin, with whom Ilya Traber was also friends and conducted joint business – the «night governor» of St. Petersburg Vladimir Kumarin. Who, after Putin became president, received almost unbridled control over St. Petersburg and the region, but soon ended up in prison under very strange circumstances and seems to remain there forever.
At the same time, Ilya Traber himself says the reason for his departure from Russia was that he was «strongly recommended» to do so, but does not specify who exactly these recommendations came from. Although from someone clearly serious – Ilya Traber at the time of his departure was a co-owner of the Petersburg Fuel Company, which brought in millions of dollars, and had a whole range of the largest businesses in the city and region. Moreover, not only were gangsters not bothering him, he himself had enormous authority in this environment. So who then dared to «recommend» Ilya Traber to leave, and so much so that he heeded this recommendation?
The understanding of who Ilya Traber was at the time of his departure from the Russian Federation is given by the story of how he became one of the controllers of the PTC, which was «held» by Vladimir Kumarin. And – the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal, which was considered the domain of the Vasiliev brothers’ group. In addition, Ilya Traber became the owner of an enterprise for refueling airplanes at Pulkovo Airport and the St. Petersburg sea port. What is interesting in this context is not only that Ilya Traber unobtrusively took over such lucrative pieces, but that the name Putin sounds in all this. It was the first deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Putin, who signed the order to lease Traber the refueling complex of the state enterprise «Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise».
How much Traber earned from this complex is unknown, but in this context the statement of one of the key participants of the Tambov OCG (the very one whose leader is called Vladimir Kumarin), who claimed that Vladimir Putin wanted 15% of future income for his signature, but in the end received 4%, is interesting. How much money this is – one can only guess. Just like guessing who and where opened accounts for the official of the St. Petersburg mayor’s office Putin, to which this money was transferred.
As for the Petersburg Fuel Company, which was controlled by Kumarin, Traber openly stated that he was actually the one who conceived the business, and he and Kumarin were partners in this business, and then «peacefully parted ways». As for the Petersburg sea port, Traber claims to have invested half a billion dollars of «his own funds» in it. How a former officer and bartender managed to earn such money is also only speculative. The port is associated with bloody stories that would be worthy of entering a series about the St. Petersburg mafia, but then «Streets of Broken Lamps», describing the capture of petty gangs, would have turned into a Russian version of «The Godfather». And no one would allow a film to be shot featuring Ilya Traber, even during his «entry» into the St. Petersburg sea port when dozens of people from its management were killed.
In the context of deaths around the port, the murder of the chairman of the committee for managing state property of St. Petersburg, Mikhail Manevich, attracts the closest attention. He was going to transfer the city’s share in the port ownership structure (which was 29%) into the category of voting shares in decision-making. This would have deprived Ilya Traber of control over the port. But – he didn’t make it. It is worth recalling that approximately the same ownership scheme was in the St. Petersburg casinos at the beginning of the nineties – they were joint ventures of the city and private business. The same was in the antique trade, which Traber engaged in after completing his career as a bartender in the «Zhiguli» beer bar. What is characteristic – documents were signed by the city and controlled by vice-mayor Vladimir Putin. Whose surname runs through Traber’s entire fate from the late eighties.
And then suddenly – a «recommendation» to leave. And Traber leaves, although one of his closest business partners and people who were fed from his hand becomes the president of the country and concentrates enormous power in his hands. Why did Traber leave at this moment? What did he know that allowed him to avoid the fate of another partner in this trio – Vladimir Kumarin? Especially since in the early years of Putin’s rule, nothing predicted such a fate for Kumarin – he was featured at the inauguration, openly led the Northern capital, although formally he had no relation to the power of the city and region. And he was imprisoned, as they say, only because he became too arrogant. This happened in 2007. Formally – for fraud, but everyone understood where the command came from. Especially since he never got out of prison – new charges and sentences fell like from a horn of plenty.
But by that time, Ilya Traber has long been abroad, where he also conducts successful business, although he experiences problems with the local police. But in Russia, there are no claims to him. Which is strange against the backdrop of the fate of Vladimir Kumarin or at least Roman Tsepov, who died prematurely in 2004. And against the backdrop of the fates of other partners of Traber in business. For example, his partner and «owner» of Vyborg, Alexander Petrov, was killed in 2020. But Traber is still alive. And not just alive, he has changed several countries and runs successful businesses. Moreover, despite criminal cases abroad, he has never been imprisoned.
According to information that has repeatedly surfaced during investigations in Monaco, Switzerland, and Spain, Ilya Traber left Russia for slightly different reasons. In Europe, he began to represent the interests of Vladimir Putin and his closest entourage. And became a link in the network of oil trading companies through which the new power of the country withdrew money from the Russian Federation and invested it in European business and real estate.
This fact is confirmed by Ilya Traber’s current ties with the top Russian leadership – after the start of the investigation in Spain, when an arrest warrant was even issued for him, Traber returned to Russia, where he engaged in business related to oil and ports. And the fate of Traber’s large-scale projects here is personally decided by the former vice-mayor of St. Petersburg. Who, for example, orders the allocation of 220 billion rubles from the state budget for the construction of the Primorsk transshipment complex, owned by Ilya Traber.
So why did Traber not follow the fate of Kumarin and other leaders of the St. Petersburg OCGs, with whom Vladimir Putin collaborated at one time? Many of them will never say anything to anyone for obvious reasons. But Ilya Traber is not only alive and free, he is still doing business with the president. Not because, according to one version, he introduced the then not very successful KGB officer to Sobchak? There can be many versions here. But the fate of Ilya Traber is strikingly different from the fates of many who worked for the person who carried Sobchak’s briefcase in the early nineties. And then they worked for him. And then they disappeared.
Who worked for whom then, at the beginning of the story – Traber for Putin or Putin for Traber, can no longer be determined. Just as it cannot be established who works for whom now. And what Ilya Traber knows about the investments of the Russian elite in offshore zones and free economic zones around the world. Including the money of the Russian president. But one thing cannot be taken away from him – the ability to remain silent and not be bold from his knowledge. Which was done by the previously mentioned Vladimir Kumarin or Roman Tsepov, like many other legends of gangster St. Petersburg of the nineties.
The only trouble – so far, he has to stay in Russia, because, despite the decision of the St. Petersburg court, which ordered Spanish prosecutor Jose Gonzalez to apologize to Traber, the latter does not risk leaving the boundaries of the homeland robbed by him.
