Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 192 - Russian Hitman Alexander "Superkiller" Solonik

Episode Date: May 18, 2020

Alexander Solonik, aka Alexander the Great aka Sasha the Macedonian aka The Superkiller was a legendary and mysterious Russian hitman in the 1980s and 90s who carried out contract killings primarily for the Orekhovskaya Russian Mafia group. His targets were generally the leaders of other criminal organizations, the hardest men to kill. Men other contract killers had tried and failed to kill. Today we talk about a man said to have fulfilled AT LEAST 43 murder contracts, including the assassinations of roughly thirty high-level mob bosses. He's the most infamous Russian mafia hitman ever. Get ready to meet the Russian real-life Chuck Norris, Steven Segal, and John Wick all rolled-in-one hitman - Alexander Solonik aka Alexander the Great aka Sacha the Macedonian aka the Superkiller. A Russian gangster who escaped from prisons and courtrooms multiple times in the 80s and 90s, killed scores of other gangsters in a variety of inventive hits, and even fought a dozen tough guys at once and beat them all down with a shovel in an epic prison brawl. We'll also learn a lot about Russia's "wild 90s" when the transition from communism to capitalism resulted in a massive influx of crime including the contract killings that made Solonik infamous. It's another action-packed true crime and Russian history episode, today, on Timesuck. New standup special and album, Get Outta Here; Devil! out on Amazon, AppleTV, cable-on-demand, Spotify, iTunes, Pandora, and more. Check out Mo Mandel's new Discovery Channel show Small Town Throw Down! We've donated $5,400 this month to Penfed! The mission of the PenFed Foundation for Military Heroes is to empower military service members, veterans and their communities with the skills and resources to realize financial stability and opportunity. To find out more, visit https://penfedfoundation.org/ Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Mx_ZINB2XesMerch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Try out Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions: https://badmagicmerch.com/pages/contact Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 8000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

Alexander Solanik, aka Alexander the Great, aka Sasha, the Macedonian, aka the super killer was a legendary and mysterious Russian hitman in the 1980s and 90s who carried out contract killings primarily for the Oracle the Skaya Russian Mafia group. His targets were generally the leaders of other criminal organizations, the hardest men to kill. Men, other contract killers had tried and failed to kill. Solanik is believed to have fulfilled at least 43 murder contracts, including the assassinations of roughly 30 high level mob bosses in addition to killing numerous other people.

He also escaped from prisons and from courtrooms multiple times and apparently even fought 12 dudes at once. In prison and one during one of his brief periods behind bars. This dude was deadly with his hands, a black belt and multiple martial arts, deadlier with a gun, trained by the Russian military to be an expert marksman. He was feared by other gangsters and authorities alike. Even the newspapers were in awe of Solonix abilities.

A reporter once wrote, Solonix could be called one of the best known and most ruthless contract killers. His nearly supernatural ability to disappear and emerge again might easily be compared to that of international terrorist Carlos the Jackal. We've done a lot of Russian theme time sucks since this ride began and this is a great addition to a catalog that now includes sucks on the KGB, Andrej Cicatilo, Baba Yaga, Joseph Stalin, Mikhail Popkov, the Russian sleep experiment, Alexander Przushkin, the Jelov pass incident, and Rasputin.

And this is the second hit man we've sucked after Richard the Iceman Kuklingsky. And it's a very entertaining tale, so get ready to learn more about Russia and a lot about a man who was very hard to research. The life of Alexander Solnik shrouded in so much mystery on another true crime, Russian edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck, your mistake to Time Suck. Happy Monday.

Yeah, yeah, time suckers. Hope you're having a great day. Welcome or welcome back to the Cult of the Curious. Let's have some fun learning something new. I'm Dan Cummins, a master's sucker, and you are listening to Time Suck. Heal Nimrod, he'll lose a phenopraise, Bojangles, and Glory be to Triple M. Our cult-like critical thinking goofy church of a reverence. It's now in session. Maybe that be court court or church. I'll take you to one. Thanks again for

the continued ratings and reviews. It never gets old. Appreciate the reviews and ratings on on all platforms. Nice to see new listeners popping up in those feeds. Thanks to all the new listeners who've hopped over from the drinking bros podcast from from Bert Cast, from Whiskey Ginger and more. Thank you. You know, and those are all great podcasts. And thanks to James and Jimmy Smoltaugh, Murder and Crime and Sports. We're always talking about us and Tom and Dan and mediocre time, you know, with Tom and Dan for always pushing people our way.

Also, those are great podcasts and special thanks to awesome comic Chad Daniels over at the great middle of somewhere podcast for saying really nice things recently about time suck and about my new stand up special get out of here devil available all over the place Spotify, you know, Amazon, on demand, all different kinds of places. He and S.I. great comics and podcasters. A lot of great content out there. And also a comic friend of mine, Mo Man Del, has a new show coming out this week on Discovery Channel. Heirs May 20th at 10 PM.

It's called Small Town Throwdown. Mo visits towns with bad reputations, gives them a chance to tell their side of the story and improve their reputations. He heads to Lubbock, Texas in the pilot, apparently known as the most boring town in America. And he heads to Appleton, Wisconsin, known for being the drunkest town in America. And he gives them a chance to show different sides themselves. And no one mo, it'll be brutal and funny, love mo, so check that out. My tour, toxic thought states, those are still being rescheduled, hoping to pick back up

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to find out more link in the episode description. And last announcement, new t-shirt in the store, check out digital dreams at BadMagicMurts.com. Where there's so much cool shit, and it's always changing. Always changing every week. Several new designs in there all the time. Okay, and now it's story time. Now, let us know how it'd be hit back to Mother Russia.

Yip, yip yah, come rad. Let us all raise glass to Nimrod. [♪ INTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ In the 90s, when Alexander Solnik, or Sasha, as he was more commonly known as, was a hitman, there were a lot of hitmen in Russia. There's a lot of murder, a lot of crime in general. The country's abrupt transition from communism

to a free market economy created a huge black market. And all the crime that comes with that. And with all that crime came a lot of hitmen. The Russian verb, the zakazites, means to order. It used to order a pizza or a plane ticket or some beet soup or maybe a series of wooden dolls with one fits inside another and they grow smaller and smaller. You know, you can order a lot of things, including death. You can be used to put out an order or hit out on somebody to order someone's untimely

demise to have them killed by a hired hitman. If Russian media counselor to be believed a hitman can be hired to kill someone for as little as a hundred bucks in some cases or several hundred thousand dollars possibly up to around seven figures for a target much more difficult to kill the discount hit man. It sounds like an especially scary and questionable hire to get that first guy, right? You can pay $300,000 through untraceable cryptocurrency for some dude named Surjay. Man, he spent 10 years in Russian special forces who fought in several military clashes and working covert ops, you know, who leads sniper with black belts and multiple martial arts disciplines and expert in using anthrax or rice and other toxins and poisons and, you know, underworld figure, a professional source, very unlikely to rat on you if you get caught. Or you can lock up Jerry for a hundred rubles or so.

You can get someone who spent 10 years in Russian prisons where his face was covered in cheap tattoos. Mark and him is a guy named Vladimir's property. Jerry has a decent sucker punch. He's okay, not cutting himself and working with a knife. Jerry specializes in taking out people addicted to meth or opioids or homos alcoholics. And Jerry would rat you out in a heartbeat if caught for a pack smokes or the possibility of a reduced sense.

You want to even take it out. Old man with dirty beard and a limp who sleep behind the main dynasty Chinese buffet in Kazakhstan. I've been with Norte to talk to Pigeon. I even who poop on street and bark at school kids. Yes. I am right month for job. Jerry can make happen for a hundred rubles. A stab I even nor less than ten time when he passed out drunk. That is that is Jerry guarantee. I good hitman. To really understand the rise of Hitman in Russia, when you first look at the fall of the Soviet

Union, a wave of contract killings washed throughout Russia in the 1990s sweeping away new bankers and businessmen. Because of all the money there was to be made in relative lawlessness, left in the power vacuum created by the fall of the USSR, the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. On Christmas day, December 25, 1991, the Soviet flag flew over the Kremlin and Moscow

for the last time. Representatives from Soviet Republics, Ukraine, 1991, the Soviet flag flew over the Kremlin and Moscow for the last time. Representatives from Soviet republics, Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, or Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan had already announced that they would no longer be part of the Soviet Union. The Baltic republics have Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, I like those places better, because they're easier for me to say. They'd already declared it independence from the USSR, things had fallen apart quickly. And we have Gorbachev, the thing for that.

Mikhail Gorbachev, last leader of the Soviet Union, was the architect of the USSR's demise. That guy with the birthmark on top of his head that I thought was the hammer and sickle Symbols from the Soviet Union's flat flag for a while as a kid like I literally thought he had Soviet symbols tattooed onto his head To show how committed he was to Russia I thought a lot of weird should as a kid Gorbachev became the communist leader 1975 a 1988 time magazine and selecting him as its man of the year 1990 time named in the man of the decade. Also in 1990, he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

And it was his radical reforms that led directly to the dissolution of the USSR. He introduced two sets of policies that he'd hoped would help the Soviet Union become a more prosperous productive nation. The first of these was known as a glassnost or political openness. Glassnost eliminated traces of Stalinist

repression at the banning of books and the omnipresent secret police and it gave new freedoms to Soviet citizens. Political prisoners were released. Newspapers could print criticisms of the government, which was very new. The first time parties other than just a Communist party could participate in elections. And shutting down the secret police, that was huge. And while it let the average Russian citizen breathe the whole hell of a lot easier, now that they didn't have to worry about being sent to some prison camp because their neighbor reported them for not being communist enough, it also led

to them worrying a lot more about gangsters robbing, exploiting, and or killing them. People lost one fear only to at least initially gain a new one. The second set of reforms was known as perestroika, economic restructuring. Gorbachev thought the best way to revive the Soviet economy, which was faltering was to loosen the government's grip on it. He felt that private initiative would lead

to a lot more business innovation than it had under communism. So individuals and cooperatives were allowed to own businesses for the first time in Russia since the 1920s. It had been six decades since someone could own their first time in Russia since the 1920s. It had been six decades since someone could own their own business in Russia. How crazy is that? Lots of Russians had managed businesses on behalf of the state, but they didn't actually own them. Gorbachev also suddenly encouraged foreign investment and Soviet enterprises. And then these reforms did not work out at all,

not at all like he'd hoped. And he walked away, disappointed in how the massive communist world power had broken apart. And his farewell address, he said, the old system collapsed before the new one, a time to begin working. Rationing shortages and long lines for scarce goods seemed to be the only results. The average Russian citizen initially saw as a result of Gorbachev's policies in the late 80s when Russia's economy was in the toilet and he actually was hated by a lot of Russians who felt that life was now much worse than it was when they lived under the iron thumb of communism.

And Bojangles just punched a hole in the suck dungeon wall. Great. I forgot how riled up our one eyed three-legged pit bull good boy mascot of the suck gets when I talk about communism. Sometimes I forget that Bojangles used to run missions for the CIA against communist forces. Easy Bojangles, easy. I'm talking about against communist forces. Easy, Bojangles, easy. I'm talking about communism.

Ending in this tale is a good thing. Anyway, Russians have been told to do business, or what to do business-wise. For roughly 60 years, Mother Russia had held their hands, and now they were asked to lead themselves without a proper educational transitional period to learn how to do so. And things got a little chaotic. Boris Yeltsin took over as the new president of russia after garbachev and he'd lead russia from nineteen ninety one to nineteen ninety nine the entirety of the decade

they became known as the wild nineties of russia yeltsin was then succeeded by Vladimir Putin who leads russia today and what is uh... technically democracy even though many see Putin essentially as a dictator he's led russia for over twenty years now after winning quote-unquote is for six year term is president

and he'll likely continue to lead for life uh... putt is a subject for another day which is definitely suck him at some point back to boris the wild nineties now yeltsin was given the nearly impossible task of quickly transitioning russia from a communist nation under state control to a representative democracy under private control And he'd be heavily criticized for economic mismanagement massive amounts of corruption occurring under under his watch The rise of Russian oligarchs incredibly wealthy and crooked Russian business leaders who would end up essentially ruling the nation

Let's talk about these oligarchs for a second the white collar collar gangsters of the wild 90s, there was all kinds of different types of crime. This is interesting. In late 1992, Yeltsin launched a program of free vouchers as a way to give Russia's mass privatization a jumpstart. Under this program, every Russian citizen was given a voucher worth around 10,000 rubles to be used for the purchase of shares of select state enterprises. And these vouchers quickly ended up in the hands of just a few investors who had cash and they wanted those vouchers.

They bought them from people who just needed food in their bellies who had bills to pay. The vouchers were bought for pennies on the dollar from the poor by the people who had the money. And then in 1995, Yeltsin offered stock shares in some of Russia's most valuable state enterprises in exchange for bank loans. The government was essentially selling its assets to raise operating capital, which was in bad shape. And this sale put tons of valuable state assets into the hands of the same people who

bought the vouchers. A small group of tycoons of finance, industry, energy, telecommunications, and the media. By mid-96, and a small group of businessmen, these oligarchs had gobbled up the stock shares and the vouchers and they controlled most of Russia. Because who initially had cash to take over Russia's businesses and services? Who could buy all the vouchers and stocks? A combination of foreign investors

and former communists who've been, you know, making black market money? One of the most famous of these oligarchs is Mikhail Hordekowski. Mikhail graduated with a degree in chemical engineering from the Dmitry Mendelayov University of Chemical Technology of Russia in 1986. Dmitry Mendelayov, by the way, was the Russian who came up with a periodic table over 150 years ago. Little trivia, I've heard of it. Mikhail was the head of this university's chapter of

cum-a-a-com-simal, a Communist Party youth leak. Using party connections, MacKale was able to open up a private cafe, his first business, immediately when the new policies allowed it. He had the inside track that this was going to happen due to his cum-a-simal connections, or cum-a-simal. Keep wanting to add an extra syllable there. Cum-a-simal connections. Kind of like insider trading.

He was able to act fast because he knew the change was coming. You know, while your average citizen was still in the dark, he had to scoop and sources say he quote, exploited extra legal business opportunities to do so. He was able to take legal loans from communist party members, members he most likely bribed. One of his Commissimal friends was the son of the man who ran the state bank of the USSR and mccale use this connection and various other connections to be one of the first in

Russia to somewhat legally import computers alcohol and more. You know, you got a big loan to do all this obviously easier to get a big loan if your friends with the family that runs, you know, the only bank in Russia, you know, when things are kind of changing. After this, another source says he ventured into finance, devising ways to squeeze cash out of the Soviet planned economy. He worked the system, he knew how to take advantage of the chaos, McCaylon's partners obtained a banking, banking license soon after things change.

Uh, supposedly from money, making that he made, you know, a sell in the second hand computers and most likely money made from a lot of other illicit dealings. And he opened up bank,otep in 1989. And this was one of Russia's first privately owned banks. Minotep expanded quickly. Of course it does. You know, it's one of the first banks and people, you know, need banks. And it uses most of the deposits it receives to further finance Kordakowski's import export operations, which is fucking genius. I mean, the best way to get loans is to own the bank. That's giving you the loans.

And that's exactly what he did. He just took out loans, you know, or just gave out loans, which every way when I look at it, you know, to himself, got loans from himself. I picture a young Mikhail applying for a loan in his own bank and just like continually moving back and forth from a seat in front of, you know,

a bank president desk to a seat behind it. Just walking into a little office, a good day, Mr. Kordakowski, what can I do for you? Then he just, you know, gets up and sits around on the desk and he decides, hello, Mr. Kordakowski, please call me Mikhail. I would like to loan for 400 million rubles. Walks back around, that is lots of rubles, Mikhail.

Please call me Mikhail as well. This is all money we have, but I like you. There's something special about you. I trust you like I trust myself. Of course you have it. This goes back around. That is great news, Mikhail. I will not let you me down.

Let us drink vodka for celebrate. Mikhail gained a lot of bank capital. Loan himself by using his Communist Party connections to get bank menatep the right to manage all the funds allocated for the victims of the Chernobyl disaster. That gave him a lot of capital to finance other ventures. Russia would end up addition out 1.12 billion dollars in Chernobyl compensation. So slowly dispersing all the government's sorrow, you got over radiated money while the bulk of it remained in his bank, he was able to make giant purchases.

He was some of that Chernobyl money to acquire the Yukos oil company for about $300 million dollars through what was likely a very rigged auction. Yukos would own the rights that to a variety of very profitable Siberian oil fields and $300 million was a bargain to buy it. This time, my picture I'm switching back and forth between like being a bitter and an auctionaire. Now, he's the only dude at the auction and he's the auctionaire. Gun once, gun twice sold to me. Oh, wow, I so surprised I get it. Thank you, me.

Lady Luck shine on me us. After this purchase, Kordakowski goes on a campaign to raise further investment funds abroad borrowing hundreds of millions in additional money for his new oil company, making billions dollars. When the 1998 financial crisis strikes Russia, Kordakowski defaults on a lot of his foreign loans and takes his Yuko shares offshore to protect them from creditors. I do really knew how to work the system.

Sorry for the money givers, I bankrupt now. I can no pay back. And all the money givers, I bankrupt now, I can no pay back and all money is gone. JK, I think bankrupt, I got you. I still have many money on the new company name and stuff and sorry and what's not. Tough break for you. What do you want me to say for you? It's Russia. They're all saying in Russia. Sometimes in Russia, you get fucked. You get fucked over here sometimes. Most of time actually. You got the Russia, the NBD, OMG. It's the image, uh, Yolo, uh, five years later, 2003, Mikaea would be the wealthiest man in all of Russia worth over $15 billion. And then later that year, he got cocky. He started to think that all that money gave

him the right to do shit like openly criticized Putin, accusing him and other high ranking Russian politicians have taken millions in bribes and that didn't work out very well for him. He was suddenly, conveniently charged with various counts of fraud, quickly sent to prison. New Russia was a lot like old Russia in some ways. Oh man, I am, I am prisoned now. This, oh. Some time in the Russia you do fucking, some time you get fucked. Most, most time you get fucked. Most time you get fucked.

I get rushed into myself, FML, NBD, TFO. Corticoski got out in 2013, left Russia for a few years, and he's fine, by the way, if you're worried about him, he's fine. Thanks to the station, a lot of his money abroad and different accounts in different countries under what I assume was different names, walk away with the net worth of around $250 million

after all that. So he's not exactly living on beat soup and stale bread. And Mikhail Kortakowski, just one of many, you know, somewhat like him. One of these, you know, people intelligent, ambitious, shall we say, morally flexible Russians, meat sacks with the right connections in the right place at the right time,

and they swept in and privatized previously state-owned enterprises in the wild 90s, get them in auctions, other sales for pennies on the dollar, make invest fortunes. I mean, that's pretty crazy if like, you know, think about if our country is owned, all the business were owned by the state and all the sudden the state just was auctioning everything off. Like, oh, you want all of computer? It's all for auction now.

You get computer sector. It's just like that rough equivalent. Like if Amazon was owned by the state, and Best Buy, and Microsoft, and Apple, and On and On, and Ford, and all these different companies were actually owned by the state. And then suddenly, there was this huge fucking fire sale. And if you could raise the capital,

you got to get a giant corporation for pennies on the dollar. Other Russians largely operate in the shadows made fortunes in a variety of other generally illegal ways, all the handful of white-color criminals were making these vast fortunes. Handful of gangbosses were building huge criminal networks, making fortunes of their own. On everything from smuggling and meat and vegetables,

other basic goods without paying, you know, like import taxes and stuff, sell them in underground markets, to selling heroin, assault rifles, and lots of other illegal stuff. Just like the oligarchs, bribe the new government to look the other way and give them special favors, so did the gangsters. The Russian government especially corrupt in the 90s. You could bribe just about anyone if you had enough money, and if they wouldn't accept

that bribe, in a lot of cases, you could kill them. And the next guy would take the bribe. And that being said, there were many police officers and politicians who were honorable and not corrupt, just not as many as they needed to be, to have any kind of stability in the government. A lot of Russian gangsters made money in the 90s, selling the legal arms.

I can't tell you how many action movies or TV series I've watched, you know, where someone's talking about buying black market Russian guns and turns out that reference is not Hollywood nonsense. Very much based in fact. Where did all these Russian guns come from? Well, Gorbachev, again, a little bit. Gorbachev, not interested in the Cold War

during his tenure as leader in the USSR as the 80s were winding down. He pulled troops by the tens of thousands out of Eastern Europe. He pulled over 100,000 troops out of Afghanistan alone, and he didn't place these troops necessarily anywhere else. He cut the military by 15, 20%. Suddenly there were a lot of weapons that weren't being used, and then during the big

communists to capitalist transition in the 90s, a lot of these weapons magically disappeared and ended up on the black market. Also Russia and former Soviet block countries had their own military industrial complex just before the fall or complexes, I guess, all these different little block countries. There were a number of weapons, manufacturers and communist Russia and other former USSR nations who suddenly didn't have the Russian government or the Soviet government to buy up all these weapons that they were making and many of these manufacturers could now also sell their weapons in ways they couldn't before.

Big brother wasn't looking over their shoulder anymore. They could sell them on the free market, like a sell them on the black market. A lot of them quickly figured out that they suddenly can make a lot of money, you know, selling these weapons to anybody who would want to buy them. They were men like former KGB operative Victor Bout, aka the merchant of death, who sold Soviet military grade weapons all over the world in huge quantities. Arm and a coup attempt here at Civil War there, a resistance struggle over there, etc. In 2000, United Nations report stated Bulgarian arms manufacturing companies had exported large quantities of different types of weapons between 1996 and 1998 on the basis of forged and unarser end user certificates from Togo and that the

company air says owned by Victor Bout was the main transporter of these weapons from Bulgaria. So in this case, these weapons were sold to rebels in the West Africa, engaged in a variety of coup attempts and other skirmishes. In addition to weapons, the drug trade and prostitution and sex trafficking trade flourished in 1990s Russia. I first heard the term male order bride in regards to Russia in the 90s when many Russian women desperate to escape lives, prostitution or just plain old poverty and the hard economic

times and the wake of comedisms collapse would marry just about any dude in America with a decent job to have a shot at a better life. Check out this quote from a 2008 GQ article called From Russia with pre-NUP that speaks to this phenomenon. This is speaking to the end of it, but referencing it in the past, it says it used to be that almost any dentist or electrical engineer from Scranton or Peoria could fly into Moscow's Cheromata Eva airport and 72 hours later emerged with a six foot one supermodel dying to get out of Dodge. Those were the early and mid 90s. In the wake of the 1991 Soviet collapse when the whole Imperium was falling apart and inflation

was out of control and the oligarchs were waging war on each other and all the men were drunks from mobsters and everything seemed to be dying. That was when stunning blonde girls were more than happy to provide borscht and sex in exchange for a townhouse, a minivan, modern appliances, and a husband who was sober most, if not all of the time. Now, obviously the author of that article took some creative liberties, painting that picture, but it does paint quite a picture, isn't it? And it wasn't based on nothing.

It was based in a whole bunch of truth. Life in Russia in the wild nineties really was wild when the super killer was the most active. It was chaotic. This environment allowed him to be what he was. And in the chaos, a new murder-related business flourish, contract killings. In the first four months, the 1994 Russia average 84 murders per day in a nation of just over 148 million people. In the US in 1994, there were just under 64 murders a day in a nation of a little over 260 million people. Nine murders for every 100,000 people in the US in 1994.

Russia had 32.6 murders for every 100,000 people that year. Their murder rate almost four times as high as the murder rate in the US. And the US murder rate was way higher than it is today. And today there's still a lot of murders. In 2018, the last year I could easily find data from the US had five murders for every 100,000 people. And Russia, the rate was almost identical, 4.9 murders for 100, thousand people. So for comparison, Russia in 1994 was over six times as murdery as either Russia or the US is right now and do largely to contract killers like Alexander Solanik. That's a lot of fucking murder, so much murder. With our 24 hour news cycle, it might feel like it's never been more murdery than it is today, but

that is absolutely not even close to true. And the high rate of murder again in Russian, the 90s largely attributed these contract killings. Some Russian businessman remember to this day, the risks of doing business in the 90s. You're either killed, kidnapped and tortured, or you had to worry about the safety of your family loved ones. Most of these contract killings were paid for by the Russian mafia, various organized crime gangs that flourished in the 90s. One businessman Valerie Looktinov recently recalled, in the 90s everything turned upside down. The country had become divided into two camps, the hunters and the prey. Businessmen were the prey and gangsters were the hunters. Because the law didn't work, it was the criminal leaders who were the main source of power.

People came to them willingly seeking help and so did businessmen to seek protection. If you secured protection from a good gang, then you didn't have to worry much. Ha. Sounds like so much fun, doesn't it? Wow, Russia, what a place to live, yay! And I'm sure it's fun for a lot of people now,

but man, a lot of Russia is gorgeous, but Jesus Christ doesn't sound like it was super fun for a lot of people in the 90s And this is when things were, you know, getting better at a communism in some ways and it was still like just a fucking shit show In the wild 90s Russia averaged at times on the edge of anarchy and collapse laws in many places We're almost meaningless might made right wealth walked hand in hand with death, a free-for-all-market and explosion of pre-fet, ah, a free-for-all, let me restart that sentence, a free-for-all-market, an explosion of professional gangsters, a massive rise in low-level thugs,

a surge of martial arts gyms, massive uncontrolled black markets, and so many scams were the main contributors to the criminal chaos of 90s Russia? Let's talk about each of these six components for a moment here, before we talk a little bit more about Russian gangs, and then we go into the life of Alexander Solanik. I love these contextual details. Learn and shit!

Hickhickhickh! Let's start by looking at the free-for-all free market. Starting your own business or owning an enterprise, you know, again, was a legal in the Soviet Union prior to Gorbachev's reforms. But in communist Russia, if you wanted something bad enough and you had the money, you were able to definitely get it. There was a black market, not just for major vices, but for basic goods. Those who tried to sell basic items, you know, brought in from foreign visitors prior

to the iron curtains fall were called spivs. They traded in anything, from jeans to vinyl records, beauty products, US dollars illegally selling a wide variety of goods that were in short supply behind the iron curtain. These merchants were like drug dealers, but instead of selling drugs, they sold shit that you or me would just go pick up at CVS or Walgreens or 7-Elevener, you know, Target, Barnes and Noble, that kind of place. How odd. I picture some dude in an alley just wearing a trench coat. You want to buzz to men see the I can get you see the you want to know fear. Take sure I can't I get you that you want to die free tight laundry detergent can dog food

yo yo chia pet I can get you I can get you chia pet I I got guy with the collapse of the USS R 1991 Spiv no longer had to sell the shadows and they became Russia's new class of entrepreneurs I can get to Chiapet. I have a guy with the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Spivs no longer had the sell in the shadows. And they became Russia's new class of entrepreneurs, which is hilarious to me, that the only people in Russia with any real, capitalistic, you know, business entrepreneurial experience, when the transition happened, were technically criminals. Russians who were selling shit on the slide were the only Russians who had real experience as business owners.

And since these entrepreneurs were already comfortable with breaking the law, many of them didn't mind to continue to break laws in Russia's new era of capitalism, which leads me to talk about the rise of Russian professional gangsters. The 90s saw crime skyrocket as brigades of thugs patronize cafes, outdoor markets, and small businesses of all kinds. Many of Russia's gangs had a hierarchy in order to strictly adhere to. They were often well connected, often sharing their illegal earnings

and powerful formula and with powerful, excuse me former communist, still working in state agencies. The image of a Russian gang turned dressed in a black leather jacket remains one of the most enduring symbols of 90s Russia. And in early 1993, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs reported there were over 5,000 organized

crime groups operating in Russia alone, not counting the other former Soviet block nations. These groups were comprised of an estimated 100,000 members with leadership comprised of around 18,000. And then there were hundreds of thousands of additional people working for these gangs in some kind of limited capacity. More on these gangs, there's structure and operational methods in a moment after we get to these six components. These new gangsters running drugs, girls, guns or whatever, they made a lot of money.

They drove fancy cars, ate to find his food, lived in big new homes and pen houses, and they did all of this while Russia's overall economy tainted. From about 1991 to 1998, Russia lost nearly 30% of its gross domestic product, suffering through numerous bouts of inflation that decimated the savings of average Russian citizen. Russian-sauvered disposable incomes rapidly declined throughout the 90s. So it's probably not surprising that many of poor Russian kids looked up to these gangsters. Kids who wanted to eat steak and drive a Porsche instead of eating beef stroganoff, catching the bus. The image of a mighty fear to respected gangster was of course very appealing to these troubled youths, many of whom were emerging from shitty childhoods,

raised by confused parents, struggling to comprehend and navigate their new Russian free way of life. And many of these youths became what is what we're known, what are still known is Gopniks. Gopnik is a young male thug typically dressed in an adidas track suit. I'm not making up that last detail. I'll explain that. Like if you went to a Halloween party dressed up as a Russian gangster odds are you will be dressing up as a Gopnik. And why did they wear adidas by the way?

What's up with the adidas track suits? Because in the late 80s and early 90s when communism was falling knock off adidas track suits or D or D war of Deedas, even if it was cheaper to buy other knockoffs or whatever, because they wanted to look like the OG gopniks, that OG look, well not as popular as it was in the 90s, remains, you know, you could find it in parts of Russia and the other parts of the Eastern block to this day. And I love little odd knowledge nuggets like that, that's what that comes from, because that's what I think of, when I think of like a Halloween costume, like a Russian gangster, just the wife beater, you know, the tracksuit, the little hat I'm going to talk about in a second, the gold chain.

A lot of these gopniks were living in these giant, sad, concrete, solo apartment high rises, other multi-story, low-cost, concrete, panel department buildings called Khrushchevkaz, or Khrushchevkaz, Khrushchevkaz, there we go. They were built all over Russia, a house workers and numerous communist factories in the 60s, 70s and 80s. When more and more Russians were moving from agricultural rural areas to the cities to work in Soviet industrial centers, and these buildings, these slums, really, these projects, they were super cheap to live in, low income housing. And when the black market exploded in the 90s, these buildings were filled with young

men who wanted to be gangsters. And maybe they didn't have the drive or motivation or connections or business sense to really make a lot of money doing anything illicit or otherwise. And many of them didn't become like, you know, real hardcore full-time gangsters in the sense that Alexander Solenick was. They became petty thugs, sometimes hired by real gangsters for like low-level jobs. You know, they were guys who burglarized or carjacked or shoplift that are trying to shake down business owners until real gangsters moved in and scared them off or killed

them. And they wore these detest track suits. They got fucked up on cheap vodka, chain smoked, wore these flat, kangle type hats, basically just disappointed their parents and made life tough for any non-goptics, gopniks around them. I love the Wikipedia description of gopniks. It says, gopniks are often associated with cheap alcohol, such as low-quality vodka and light beer, cheap cigarettes, low-end mobile devices, and sometimes even firearms. They also utilize common Russian profanities and often behave rudely. Gopnix often drive older BMWs as their primary means of transport. I love this description.

Low-end mobile devices. Behaving rudely. Paying's quite a picture. Victor, why can't you get real job? Why must you be gothic? Why you use shit flip-phone? Hang out all day in front of building. Get drunk on Chivaka.

Say bad things for people. You not know me, you not know me father. I heard that so G I woot hang I end up you I woot hang vanilla ice baby Rolled in one Russia tough guy body. I slang in the rocks pops. I ate a fucking K-home boy I live with that life what you know You not where the cool guy, track pants suit jacket thing. You square, right? I, I, Hughie Lewis.

I, too, hip for square. I, listen, I'm not, okay, I'm pretty drunk, but now I don't remember. What's point I'm making? I lost track of things that Hugh Lewis. Got to know he was essentially douchebags. There's a lot of them. 90's Russia was fucking flooded with douchebags. Flooded with cheap tracksuit, wife beating, or wife beater, you know, flat hat, gold chain

wearing, vodka chugging, parent disappointing, up to no good, petty criminal douchebags. Sounds like an awesome place. What is big deal with God's niggas? Why a sock master make fun of strong Russian youth? Who's only fault is have to live with no communism, not douchebag, capitalists, make a limp, like a Chica Tilo's shimcock. They bottle no one, just like me,

just like Chica Tilo, Durkan Schorner. And they bottle no, well, okay, maybe they bottle lots of people. I forget point, I also trying to make, I just, I don't like shit talk of governance by American fields. I knew Chica Tilo would have to show up this week. How could that Russian serial killer in Dirty Bird not at least make a cameo?

Apparently a fair line of the Govnik thugs in the 90s was any loose change. What happens if I search you and find some? They said that right before shaking down fellow tenants, you know, who are usually like senior citizens, or you know, anyone they thought they could easily intimidate a Vasily, Vasily, Vasily, Vasily, there we go, Vasily, anyone they thought they could easily intimidate. Vasily Vasily, Vasily Vasily, there we go. Vasily Sultnikov, who was a teen grown up in Russia in the 90s, remembers the Gopniks

saying, in the 90s Gopniks used to squat in public places and track down non-conformist teenagers. Once I bumped into them, they grabbed me by my long hair and smashed me against an intercom. This was this innocent pastime we had back then. That's his quote. I love it when Russia's translate in English. You never just quite is fluid. Doesn't come, it doesn't, doesn't work out well in the translation.

Now let's talk about randomly Russia's 90s MMA gyms and how they fed into the wild 90s that Solanek would be a part of, how they would lead to many a hit man. Karate gyms seemingly sprung up like mushrooms in every vacant Russian 90s basement, Taekwondo, Thai boxing, also very popular. Swift the leg, Johnny. Mercius for the week, yes, come rod. In many cases, these gyms were less about sports and self-defense,

and they were more about providing a place for gapnicks and other local youth to prove to local gangs that they could work as muscle. Gangs often ran these gyms, owned them, and if some young dude showed promise as an ass-woper, he was recruited and given some violent assignments. And if he was real good, that beaten down other Russians,

he could end up working as a contract killer as a hitman. All right, now let's go over Russia's 90s massive black markets. Not the black market, not the concept of underground commerce in general. I'm talking about actual markets, where you go to buy a wide variety of illegal goods. When authorities finally closed the legendary Cherkielski market in 2009, a stadium-sized market in Moscow, picture a huge market in point over 100,000 people at its height. They discovered

underground work rooms and flop houses and underground city existed beneath the market. It's pretty wild. I watched some news footage of reporters exploring it. No one really knows how much illegal and unaccounted goods and traffic people spread through this market into and out of Russia since it opened sometime around 1990, but experts estimated that Russia's state budget was losing billions of US dollars annually to this and other similar markets. Needless to say, this place was a criminal hotbed in 90s Moscow when gangsters protected traders and controlled the massive flow of illegal goods into and out of the capital. Anita Lebevida, who was a kid in Moscow in the 1990s, remembers her business to the market where she saw hundreds of aisles filled with goods, most of

which were sold on a questionable or questionable legal basis. She said, every time I came to a Cherkijowski market, I saw a kilometers of clothes, shoes, lingerie, mixed with lines, trading in food, mostly kebabs, which were exotic in Moscow at the time. Customers had no chance to try clothes on gracefully and winner. We tried on boots standing on a piece of cardboard. In summer, we tried on swimwear covered by a seller

or another customer. Man, I thought you were a flea market. I've been to many of flea markets, or a lot of flea market t-shirts in my youth. I don't remember ever seeing people trying on swimsuits out in the aisles. Unfortunately, hey, Luciferina, now for one more primary ingredient that created Russia's wild 90s scam artists. If the average Russian citizen didn't have enough shit to deal with, there was so many scams in the 90s, full of scams. Everything from your basic telemarketing scam to pyramid scams and religious cults, millions of Russians were tricked into investing in Surjay Mavaradis, infamous financial pyramid, MMM, a fraudulent investment company, considered to be the largest Ponzi

scheme of all time. And Ponzi scheme, since we haven't talked about one in a while here on the suck, it's a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. So let me give you a crude example of how a Ponzi scheme can work. All right, you get Joe, Bob, Tina, Jamal, Rosario, whoever, to buy into the $1,000 each. And you promise to double their money in 30 days.

You have some fake investment company. And you're gonna double, you know, you're gonna double their money in 30 days under the guise of being a shrewd investor and having a special talent for making a killing in real estate speculation, the stock market, whatever, it doesn't matter, any kind of investment. During those 30 days,

you hope to get a whole bunch more of other people Doug Pedro Chang Jimmy Dean whoever to also give you a Thousand bucks to keep the mass simple and then when the first day first first 30 day period is up Let's say Tina wants her for two thousand that you promised right? You're gonna double her thousand well you give that to her you give her two thousand dollars And she thinks that two thousand dollars came from incredible investing on your part. But it didn't. You're not investing shit. You gave her $2,000 plus dugs of $1,000.

And you hope that Tina tells a lot of her friends how amazing you are. And then they all give you $1,000 each. And then Tina maybe gives you more money because she knows it works. And it just keeps going on like that in some fashion. And if the government doesn't intervene first, the Ponzi scheme generally usually collapses when more people are asking for their big returns, then the con artists running the scam have stashed away or continuing to take in or willing to dish back out. And this is a very simplistic version I just laid out.

I mean, the Ponzi collector could invest your money, but they're not investing it in what they're telling you it's being invested in at the very least. Otherwise, if they lost your money, it wouldn't be because they were a con artist, it's just because they were a legal shitty investor. With the help of an aggressive TV commercial and informational ad campaign that ran in 1994, Sir James Mavarades, particular MMM Ponzi scheme wiped out the life savings. This is crazy to me, of an estimated five to 10 million Russians in 1994. This one motherfucker wiped out five to 10 million people's savings accounts.

Oh, and I want to get, I want you guys to hear, you meet sax to hear two of the commercials for the scheme. There was a ton of them. They're so awesomely nineties Russian. Thank you YouTube for providing this and for providing an English caption service so I can understand and translate. So here we go. Here's a two really quick of these MMM investing little commercials. And it would probably help if I remembered to turn the captions on. It says these are the new boots.

Well would you look at that? A new fur coat. Here's Rita and Linha. They used to go to the chair. Others have guided the graphs. Now I finally know we're going to do with our money. We're going to invest all of it in MMM shares And this guy just pointed this graph of just showing like your money ramping up

You're gonna buy you know, they're gonna invest it in boots and a coat and all this other stuff And then he says it already gave us chance to buy the boots before coats Well, this is the person making the money in May will buy some new furniture and June a new car Everything is going right up straight to the top Guys dressed awesome by the way The main presenter is just dressed in the cheapest shittiest brown suit. I've ever seen It's fucking great And then Rita this lady sitting in the chair goes, I want the house in Paris. And then the guy who was pointed the chart showing how

everything's getting better goes, and why not, Lenya? We'll invest in MMM. I'm a mom. I'm a mom. And then there's another one. There's these two dudes. This is so stereotypically Russian, like a caricature.

Two dudes in lifebears sitting in a fucking shitty apartment, just getting hammered on vodka. And the presenter, what he says here first is, this is Lenya Goblegoff, and that is his older brother Ivan from Vrakuta. Older brother Ivan has the thickest Russian mustaches. Fucking awesome. He says,

Lenya, you're a Kalashasik in the slacker. Don't you remember that our parents taught us to work as honest men? A boldness. Did I ever see what I was going to do? I was just working. I was just running. He says, and here you are, running around,

buying some fancy shares. You're a colleague, colleague of Shik, which roughly translates to Freelotr. I've got all the actions I've bought. I'm not a shik. I thought I was a shik and I said, The call of shick, which roughly translates to Freelotr, and then he says, no, you're right. No, he says, no, you're not right, brother. I ain't no call of shick. I earn my money fair and square working on an excavator. I don't call you a shick, but I spend my money

to get paid. Also, in addition to just drinking vodka like straight vodka, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, I'm a real man, He says you won't be able to build it alone, that's for sure. But if we all invest in it, we'll be able to build a factory that will feed us and bring profits. Brother's not by it. And he says, I'm not a call you shick, I'm not a free letter, I'm a partner. We are partners. And the presenter says, sure thing, Lenya, were partners. MMM.

Well, you know what, Lenya should have fucking listened to Ivan. And not bot, stupid fancy shares. Fucking call you a shick. The MMM each end representing the first letter in the last name of all three original scheme creators, Mavaradi, being one of them. He had two lesser partners. When it was launched in February, 1994, it promised annual returns of up to 3,000%.

Making me think immediately of that famous saying, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And also, a full and his money are soon parted. If someone tells you that they can give you for sure, an annual return, an annual return of around $3,000, go ahead and kick them in their dick of a giant as hard as you can. They for sure deserve it. They're definitely hustling you. Seven, 10% is a phenomenal annual return, right?

That's a realistic return rate in a decent economy. 3,000% get the fuck out of here. As peak MMM was taken in millions of dollars a day from its sale of fake ass shares. On July 22, 1994, just five months after this fake company launched, Russia's ministry of finance issued a statement listing MMM among a number of investment firms illegally issuing unregistered securities. Thousands and thousands of investors staged a mass protest in front of the company headquarters in Moscow, prompting the intervention of riot police. People threatened to light themselves on fire. They were hysterical. They had just lost everything.

It was, is an intense scene. The next day, MMM is gone and then we just pop up soon under a different name and then operate under another name and another name and another name for years. And almost all of the initial investors had their money stolen from them completely gone wiped out. And what's really crazy is that Russia didn't have laws against Ponzi schemes at the time and Sir J. Mavrati was never held accountable. He was charged with tax evasion. That was the best they could do. And then he said that the government took everyone's money, not him.

And if he could stay out of jail, he could get everyone's money back. And then he ran a campaign to be elected to Russia's state, Duma, the lower house of the federal assembly of Russia, kind of like being a Congress member in the U.S. and he fucking won. They believed him and he won. And being a member of the state, Duma made it illegal for the government to prosecute him for tax evasion. So he was never charged with that.

And then of course, he never got anybody their money. He was finally arrested again for more fraud in 2003, so four years in prison, after getting out, he ran the same scam, the same MMA Ponzi scheme scam in India, and China, and a variety of other developing African and Asian nations, promising shit, you know, like his fucking crazy returns, 30% and more returns, robbed a whole bunch more people, got away with it all over again, finally died of heart problems in 2018. To me, a man like Sir Dave Mavrade, every bit is bad as a serial killer like Andre Chicatillo, if not worse. I may not be cutting up anybody, but he is, you know, pushing

a lot of people to commit suicide after knowingly murdering the financial futures of them and their families. Surprisingly, none of his MMM Ponzi's games had anything to do with the real triple-M Michael mother fucking McDonald. What a fool, Blue. He sees a wildspot, has power. Boom, boom, boom, do reason away. Almost sounds like triple-M was singing that song about Ponzi's games. There were a lot of other schemes floating around Russia in the wild 90s.

So now we have a better feel for what kind of criminal activity was going on in Russia, just in general in the 90s. And now that we do, let's take a deeper look into organized crime in Russia before jumping into the life of Super Killer Alexander Solonik because he did all of his hits, of course, as a hitman for organized crime members. Organized crime was the life he lived in, or he was involved in. So let's take a look at the Russian mafia. The Russian mafia is sometimes referred to as Bratva, meaning Brotherhood.

Important to note that the Russian mafia not even close to one giant criminal organization with one leader. It's a collective of a lot of various organized crime groups, various sizes and organizational levels originating in the former Soviet Union. It's really just a cool way to refer to a lot of various Russian gangs, right? It's cooler to say Russian mafia than it is to say, one of many Russian-based

criminal organizations of varying degrees of sophistication. Organized crime had existed in Russia since before the Bolshevik showed up, goes back to the pre-communist Tsars since before the Bolshevik showed up, goes back to the pre-communist's czars. After the Bolshevik showed up, organized crime became more organized during the reign of Lenin and Stalin. They had to be organized to survive and not get tortured and killed. When communist secret police and the paranoid atmosphere that existed in Stalinist Russia, where neighbors were strongly encouraged to spy on their neighbors and criminals really had to work hard to hide their criminal activity.

In communist Russia, because of how repressive things were and how few goods were available to the average comrade, there was a huge market for crime and a lot of these gangsters' customers were members of the communist party themselves. They wanted fancy whiskey from Scotland or Parisian lingerie or a vinyl record from the US or whatever and they couldn't get it legally. So they'd get it from some various gang or part of the Russian mafia. During the Soviet area, the most hardcore gangsters, men who would start the gangs, they would become the most powerful and the biggest in Russia were known as thieves in law.

As in these thieves were in charge, they dished out punishment for those who didn't obey them. They were the law. And they emerged out of Stalin's gulags, gaining power in a horrible and corrupt and harsh labor camps like they were, you know, some kind of fucking Russian bane or some shit. Your non-comic book nerds, that's the Batman villain born in a South American prison in the DC universe. Gross stronger from the pain. Don't let it destroy you. And Russia's harshest prisons, criminal leaders emerged to ran a variety of illicit rackets while incarcerated and then later ran things outside when they got out. And the Gulags criminal honor code and a more defined hierarchy emerged that helped

these gangs stand out from their peers when communism collapsed. Various large gangs emerge group so powerful that in the first years following with communism collapsed. Various large gangs emerge, groups so powerful that in the first years following communism's fall, some estimate they controlled as much as two-thirds of the entire Russian economy. That's insane if true. Two-thirds of the nation's economy controlled by gangs. Lewis Free, former director of the FBI from 1993 to 2001 in the United States said that you Russian mafia posed the greatest threat to global security in the mid-90s. The greatest threats to global security in the mid 90s You know the greatest threats, you know to America and into the to the rest of the world was Russian mafia

He's more worried about them than any single nation in the mid 90s So let's check out exactly how some of these Russian mafia groups were structured in a traditional Russian mafia gang There's the boss at the top dog the boss controls an average of around four criminal cells through an intermediary called a brigadier, a captain similar to Capo and an Italian-American mafia crime family. The brigadier dishes out jobs. The boss generally employs a couple spies

to keep an eye on his brigadier, make sure that the brigadier stays loyal, make sure he doesn't get too ambitious and try something stupid like killing his way into a promotion. Then there's the Bratok, a Bratok, they work under the Brigadier, usually running lead on various criminal activities, similar to soldiers in the Sicilian mafia.

Bratok's also known as Boyeviks, or literally means warrior, Boyeviks, they're in charge of finding new guys, paying tribute up to their Brigadier. Each criminal sell overseen by a Brigadadier would specialize in a specific type of criminal activity, you know, like drugs, prostitution, weapons, whatever. Russian law enforcement officials indicate that most of these organized crime groups conducted their business with sophisticated technical equipment, computers, transportation, financial

support, counter intelligence network, and addition drugs, prostitution and guns. There were cells specializing in extortion, precious metal, raw material smuggling, money laundering, fraud, other black market horse shittery, including election tampering. Right, there's still a lot of these gangs around now. Each cell has enforcers, excuse me, and associations with hitmen. Each cell has a leader and a security team of enforcers and a lower tier of gang members who oversee the actual criminal activity being committed by street operators. Street operators kept in the dark as far as who the boss is as far as who the Brigadier is. They generally never deal with anyone higher than a boy of a.

And the real hardcore Russian mafia gangs, the ones derived from the gulags, some of them still follow an old school thieves code of ethics. This is a traditional code of conduct formulated by those, you know, those original gulag thieves and laws. These hardcore gangsters, you know, there were gangsters for life and they bound themselves by 18 codes. And if any of those codes were broken, the punishment would be death. It says, here's the 18 codes. Members must, one, forsake his relatives,

mother, father, brother, sisters, two, not have a family of his own, no wife, no children. This does not, however, preclude him from having a lover. Number three, never under any circumstances work, no matter how much difficulty this brings, live only on means gleaned from thievery. Four help other thieves, both by moral and material support utilize the community of thieves. Five, keep secret information about the whereabouts of accomplices, dens, district hideouts, safe apartments, et cetera, keep it all secret.

Six, in unavoidable situations, take the blame for someone else's crimes. Yeah, for someone else's crimes. Yeah, for someone else's crimes. Seven, demand a convocation of inquiry for the purpose of resolving disputes and the event of a conflict between oneself and other thieves or between thieves. Eight, if necessary, participate in such inquiries. Nine, carry out the punishment of the offending thief is decided by the convocation. Ten, not resist carrying out the decision of punishing the offending thief who is found guilty

with punishment determined by the convocation. Eleven, have good command of the thieves jargon. Funny, right? Now get another fucking language, right? Another slang. Twelve, not gamble without being able to cover losses. Thirteen, teach the trade to young beginners. Fourteen, have if possible informants from the rank and file of thieves. 15, not lose your reasoning ability when using alcohol. 16, have nothing

to do with authorities, never participate in public activities or join any community organizations, right? Stay keep a low profile. 17, never take weapons from the hands of authorities, never serve in the military 18 made good on promises given to other thieves All right, so that's that's that's the code there now to be clear most Russian gang members don't follow But there but there are you know are some to do and there were more that did in the 90s hard core motherfuckers In and out of the gulags and subsequent labor camps and maximum security prisons that followed, you know These rules men who resigned themselves to never have families never never lead a straight life, like a priest committed to the church,

these guys gave their lives to the gang till death. These are the guys, you know, you know, you probably, you know, you've seen like covered in Russian prison tattoos, if you've seen those images online, and we'll talk about those tattoos in a moment. Many of these guys ran the biggest Russian gangs. You know, these were the most hardcore, scary Russian gangsters. Some of these Russian gangs made their way to the US and elsewhere outside of Russia, a lot of them in the 90s.

According to intelligence reports, members of some criminal groups in Russia were often sent to the 90s to reinforce and consolidate links between groups in Russia and the US. Russian organized crime figures also sent to the US to perform services such as gangland murders or extortion. There was one guy, Vasheslav Ivankov, a Russian organized crime leader, traveled to the US to organize Russian mafia groups and linked them to groups still in Russia, thief and law. He was arrested in Brooklyn, New York, June 8th, 1995, for trying to extort $3.5 million

from a Wall Street investment firm. He was deported back to Russia in 2004 to face a couple murder charges for killing two Turkish men in broad daylight in a Moscow restaurant in 92, wild nineties, walking into restaurants and shitting motherfuckers in their faces. At his trial, eyewitnesses who are at the restaurant, including a police officer who is at the restaurant when he killed a couple of people. Suddenly couldn't remember ever seen him and he was walked away free man, weird. These gangsters terrified people

and they paid the people they didn't scare. And then in 2009, a sniper took Ivankov out as he left another Moscow restaurant when he was 69 years old. Almost 70 and he died a gangster's death. The sniper thought to have been a contract killer, a man hired by a rival gang leader. Russian gangsters even made it to where I lived in the late 90s, Spokane, Washington, 30 minutes from where I'm recording this today.

Approximately 600 to 800 Russian mafia figures thought to live in LA in the 90s. Hundreds more lived in Northern California, generally working in car theft rings. They bounced from San Francisco and Sacramento to Oregon, eventually made it to Washington state, specializing in auto theft and you know, Vin number switching, you know, young members of the group of Russian gangsta would steal vehicles while older members would operate body shops, chop them up, sell the parts, the utilized interstate I-5, traveled to Oregon and Washington and sell stolen vehicle parts to other Russian Ukrainian criminals. They also got involved in extortion, cell phone fraud, prostitution, trafficking and narcotics, firearms, legal dealing between 1990 and 2000 and

Spokane, Washington, where I was going to school from 95 to 99 in Gonzaga, the Slavic population increased from about 1000 people to about 5000, mainly Russian and Ukrainian. And thousands of additional immigrants thought to have moved to Spokane from other former Soviet bloc nations. The census only provided boxes to check for Russians and Ukrainians, any other Eastern European people were just lumped into other. Also believed a lot of Russians lied on the census, afraid to reveal their true heritage and inclined to hide it after growing up in communist Russia.

And with this influx of Russians, most of whom I should emphasize are law-abiding citizens and were, came in influx of organized Russian mafia crime as well. Spokane has had an incredibly high car theft rate for years and it began to spike in the 90s. I heard about it when I went to school. It's still high. Four years ago, in 2016, when the most recent data I could find, cars were stolen at a rate of 931 vehicles a year per 100,000 people in Spokane.

That rate is higher than Portland, Oregon's rate of 767 per 100,000. And Portland had the third highest car theft rate out of any major city in the US in 2016. Detroit led the nation with 1330 per 100,000 if you're curious. So still still some supposed uh, supposed Russian mafia, car theft activity going around where I live. But now we're getting too far away for the name of this episode, right? Alexander Solenik.

He's one of established all this crazy depths of all this crime that it was going on around him. Just gonna talk about infamous Russian prison tattoos, a big part of the Russian mafia culture Solenik was a part of, then we'll hit the days timeline and stay on Solenik for the rest of the suck from the mid 60s to the 80s, approximately 35 million people were in

car straight and Soviet prisons. And approximately 28 to 30 million Russian in, you know, of those inmates were tattooed. So 35 million people in, you know, Soviet prisons, 28 to 30 million of them tattooed. And a lot of those tattoos weren't just for funsies. They weren't butterflies on lower backs. They weren't barbed wire around biceps. According to criminologists, a karate jee, Bronakov, who has studied tattoos

of Russian prisoners for 30 years, inmates wear tattoos only after they've committed certain crimes. The more, you know, convictions of criminals received, the more incarceration, you know, they've suffered, the more incarceration they've suffered, the more tattoos they'll have. Various tattoos represent various types of crime. The represent allegiances to various gangs and the rank one has in those gangs. These tattoos have a meaning or have meanings far beyond just body art. According to Bronikov, the tattoos spell out the criminal lives of those who wear them.

And it establishes a hierarchy amongst inmates in prison. Inside prison, the tattoos help other prisoners identify who's a boss, who's a soldier, who's an enforcer. You know, those are the guys that top two tears of prison hierarchy life. Then there are the prisoners who may be hard men, but aren't gangsters, they make up the third tier. And then there's the lowest tier

is these outcasts, men who are basically slaves to the top two tiers of men. And you can tell who's in what tier, but what kind of tattoos they have. As you know, the more the more you know about these tattoos, the more quickly you're able to identify who's, who's doing what, who you shouldn't fuck with. Prisoners trying to bump up a level by faking it, by giving themselves some fake bad boy tattoos, often severely punished by fellow inmates, you know, either given a, like a crude cover up tattoo, otherwise maimed or oftentimes killed. Now let's talk about a man who got some of these tattoos while in prison, Russia, Alexander Solanik, aka Alexander the great, aka Sasha, the Macedonian, aka the super killer, man who's probably Russia's most infamous hitman, credited with almost superhuman abilities,

marksmanship, reckless fearlessness, incredible luck, a man whose exploits inspired two Russian films, nine Russian TV series, three books, several Russian documentaries, and documentaries, the man who stood up perhaps more than any other person in Russia's wild 90s for being a feared criminal. Essentially, if you're familiar with the film franchise, John Wick, if you've seen any John Wick movies, this dude was like a real life John Wick. So much so that I have to think that John Wick was based, like that character, the initial comic character based somewhat after Alexander Solanick or the legends around Solanick. And John Wick, a contract killer, feared and respected by other contract killers, a man

shrouded in myth. So let's get to know everything we can about this real John Wicken today's time subtion line. Right after a quick word from the sponsors that help us bring this show to you every week, thank you again for using our discount codes and our landing pages, you know, our URLs when you take advantage of these offers. Now we get to know Russia's super killer. A man who might even make bojangles, a little bit nervous. Not that our fearless pit bull mask out would ever admit that.

And reminder, if some of the stories about this dude seem pretty over the top, they might be. It is almost impossible to know where the truth ends and myth begins with this guy's life, which I like. You know, he's like a real life boogie man. You don't know how bad he, we know he's bad. We still know exactly how bad he was. Let's get to it.

Hail Nimrod. Shrap on those boot soldiers. We're marching down a time-sub-time line. Alexander Victorovich Solenik. Born in Korgon, Russia, October 16th, 1960. Korgon, a city of roughly 300,000 people at a time, just over 2,000 kilometers, just over 1,200 miles, east of Moscow, 27 hour drive, if you don't stop.

Korgon, located in the mountainous urals region of Russia on the southwestern edge of Siberia. Line on the banks of the Tobol River and on the Trans-Siberian, you know, railroad line near the border with Kazakhstan. When the city was established in the mid-17th century, it was set up as a defensive fortress to guard the eastern edge of the Russian Empire from foreign invaders attacking from Siberia and elsewhere. Randomly, currently home to the Russian Ilzara of Scientific Center for Restorative at Traumhev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev,

at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev,

at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strathev, at Strat for repairing bones. It was a negative 17 degrees Celsius roughly zero degrees Fahrenheit. Today, Alexander was born. He cried his first tears and the world is he entered the world in a Corgan hospital delivery room. He was born to Nikolai and Eleonora Solanik. Two Corgan natives. His father worked as a house painter. His mom was a gymnastics teacher. And Alexander seems

to have had a pretty typical early childhood. Went to school, didn't get in too much trouble, played a variety of different sports, did really wellness classes, he loved to read, loved to learn, often known to finish his assignments first and while he was waiting for his little buddies to catch up, he'd listen to a teacher give lessons to children in the class above him or being taught in the same room. Young Alexander, sharp mind, good kit. On weekends his parents often took him to lakes and parks around the city or to visit his two sets of grandparents. Alexander would quickly become known primarily

by the nickname of Asasha and was also known to be calm, introverted and pretty shy. And if you can believe all the stories, he was super athletic when it came to combat sports. He first excelled in wrestling, able to consistently paint his classmates, then he started kicking a lot of ass and various martial arts like judo. In 1976, I know we skipped ahead quite a bit there, it's not a lot known it does early childhood.

1976, the age of 16, Sasha gets his judo black belt. Also somewhere around the age of 16, he kicked a lot of ass in boxing, becoming an Inter-school boxing champion, and he was fucking kids up in a karate class. Started taking karate back around 1974. I have to think his mom's genetics and teaching helped him out with all this. I mean, she was a gymnastics teacher after all. While none of the sources say she trained him in gymnastics or that he took a lot of gymnastics, I have to think he probably was doing some tumbling

as a wee-tike, gaining some above average body control, balance and core strength. Sasha studied the what the rio method of karate, probably saying that wrong. I tried. The school of the way of peace, the school of the way of harmony, but he wouldn't use karate for peace or harmony, not at all. Sasha trained every week of the school year twice a week, taking karate, less than four years, he got his first karate black belt at the age of 18 and 1978. Sasha was the best martial artist in his dough joke. Of course he was. And in 78 he began to compete in karate tournaments,

winning a bunch of local tournaments, winning a regional competition, getting an invitation to a fight in a national competition that he never fought in, because he decided to no longer pursue karate tournaments and he joined the military instead. So to recap, by the time, Sasha turns 18, no other kid, his own age, in this tough Russian city of 300,000 people can hang with him in the boxing ring, and he beats everyone's ass

in wrestling, and he has a judo black belt, and he can fuck up everyone, not just in this city, but in the whole region on the karate mat and possibly everyone in the whole nation. You know, you never went to that national tournament. Gosh, you know, just kind of laying all this out there. I just sometimes I have these moments. I'm like, am I talking about a Russian super killer? Or am I talking about myself?

You fucking heard me? 1995, all right? Check out these stats. 95. I was arguably the best Taekwondo martial artist in Riggins, Idaho after taking lessons for three months in Macau, Idaho because to my knowledge, no one else in Riggins,

had ever taken Taekwondo lessons. So, odds are, it's probably the best. You know, I never took boxing lessons, but I did do some back yard boxing. I went with my friends, we put on the gloves, and we had a little makeshift tournament, and there was like six of us, and I'm pretty sure I finished second and last,

which is better than last. I may have finished last, but I didn't cry. I know that. I didn't cry after taking a lot of ass weapons, and that's tough. So you know what? Okay, I was probably the opposite. I was probably the opposite of Alexander Sashir Solomik.

I get it, he was very tough. He was very skilled in hand-to-hand combat, but how good was he with the gun? Turns out even better than he was with his hands. About to come much better with the gun than he was with his hands. On January 3rd, 1979, 18-year-old Alexander joins the Soviet army, placed in a tank regiment, greeted on his first day by the meat-thirty on Gordav, his lieutenant, who would lead him during the entirety of his service, which would last a little more than four years, believe that Solanik was stationed first in Russia, then in East Germany, while Solanik was on in judo, karate, boxing, wrestling.

Who knows what else grown up? He must have also found time to get pretty handy with guns because he came into the military as a pretty decent shot. As soon as he began to train with firearms in the service, he stood out from his peers as an excellent marksman. Demetri, his lieutenant, would later recall him being the best shot under his command. And here's where some of the first John Wick type shit comes into his biography. Demetri would later report that Sasha could hit any target, 250 meters away with any weapon

from any position. What? Hit in the target over two football fields away. Really well, from a standing position, with a handgun, that's basically like some pro gamer called a duty type shit. I'm guessing this is a bit of an exaggeration, but I'm also guessing he probably really was

an incredible shot. Solonick was rated 10 out of 10 by his superiors and each and every shooting exercise he was graded on. Perfect. Perfect. Again, perfect graded on. Perfect. Perfect. Again, perfect. Next one.

Perfect. Okay. Despite his inexperience as an actual combat test of soldier, he was quickly appointed fire instructor for all the second classes in his unit. He apparently loved this position because it allowed him to train even further becoming even better shot, which I don't even know how to be possible. In addition to impressing his fellow soldiers with how good he was with a gun, also of course stood out with his fists.

He's rumored to have broken his self defense instructor's jaw during the training exercise. Of course he did. Probably broke with some Chuck Norris type roundhouse kicked to his face. Maybe broke it just by just staring at it and be like, don't like it. It's George just broke. Oh man. 1983, after serving four years, the military, Sasha's lieutenant was promoted

to the newly formed Oman police group and he asked Sasha to join him, O-M-O-N, and Sasha agreed. 1979, when the group had been formed, it was described as being a cross between special forces and the secret service. Oman was formed to ensure that there was no terrorist incidents during the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics, small and elite fighting force of military police.

And Sasha's Oman training would transform him into a super bad ass, super killer. At the age of 22, Sasha's new training regiment consisted of getting up every morning at 5 a.m. Starter's day with a 5K run to the woods, probably uphill both ways, they need shower, clean his room, have breakfast, probably eight fucking bullets at 8 a.m. starting his day with a 5k run to the woods. Probably uphill both ways. They need shower clean his room have breakfast probably eight fucking bullets at 8 a.m. I salute the blood red cross you know hammer and sickle flag that hammer and sickle symbolize

in the union of blue collar workers and royal peasants coming together bleeding together to take down Russian royalty take down those ours after breakfast training would resume with classroom lessons given by different instructors and subjects like Russian communist history, how terrible the US and capitalism are Ballistics shooting physics even psychology officers were taught how to psychologically cope with the killing of others a lesson that came easily to Solonik too easily These academic lessons would last until noon then it was time for lunch and physical training, combat sports and shooting, or solenoid, of course, dominated. After four months, Sasha passed all his training, he was promoted to the rank of corporal. The day after his promotion, Sasha was sent to a place called the Gorkowski Institute

for sniper training to prepare him to be sent to fight for the Soviet Union as a sniper in Afghanistan But he never made it to have Afghanistan as a sniper because once he was separated from his buddy lieutenant Dmitry his Russian lieutenant Diane Solanik seems to have lost his shit a little bit Apparently Dmitry was a calming presence on him We've importantly gotten to five separate very violent fights with fellow Amman officers and just four months separate very violent fights with fellow Oman officers in just four months of being separated from Demetri. All these fights putting whoever he was fighting against in the hospital. Of course they did.

He was the fucking Russian jerk, Norris. I imagine him putting those dudes in the hospital while blindfolded while standing on one leg while holding a glass of vodka that he never spilled. I have a description of the last fight that reads like a scene in a late 80s over the top Steven Segal movie Sasha was sitting alone and I you know at the bar Tall chair pulled up to the bar this NCO booze joint And when a group of three other Oman officers walked in and started chatting them up all friendly at first

These three comrades just returned from Afghanistan and they were bragging a bit about all the Muha'adine ass they just kicked. And they'd been over there for three months and according to them, they'd done all sorts of heroic shit. And then Soloneck was like, how about you guys shut fuck up for life. And then they were like, what you just say? Almost dead man! And then so I'm gonna spit one of their faces and his spit blew the back of the guy's fucking head off and it just kept going into the next guy's face and blew his head off. And then the next guy's face and blew his head off,

one spit, three hits, pow, gone. Then he sat back down and said, that's embarrassing. Usually I know spits, bullets, moth time, I only spit fire. No, it wasn't quite that over the top, but it's close. The real story, is that one of these dudes made the mistake, putting his hand on Sasha's shoulder. Started telling him he was just little corporal newbie.

Wouldn't be able to handle Afghanistan, probably shit himself and cry for mommy. You know, probably just be little baby. So once you get lost, little baby, he says that the bar is theirs, you know, anyone who didn't like it could fuck off and know, probably, probably just be little baby. So once you get lost, little baby, you know, he says that the bar is theirs, you know, anyone who didn't like it could fuck off and blah, blah, blah. So I shouldn't care for any of this. And he started seeing red. And then the soldier with his hand, you know, on him, supposedly said, and I have to say, this sounds like something I would make up. But apparently this is a

real quote. This is said, good evening little corporal. And now you get out before I rip your balls off and turn you into enook. Maybe just doesn't come across right in the translation. That's what he supposedly said to Sasha. And then Sasha spoke back with his fists. He supposedly hit this dude in the face, hard enough to break his nose

and knock out three of his teeth with one punch. After hitting this guy, Sasha turned to the other two dudes, grabbed one of them, you know, by their arm and dislocated his shoulder, some quick little twist move, but he swung that dude into the third dude and then kicked that guy in the shin, hard enough to break his fucking leg, just collapse his shin, then Sasha continued to beat the living shit out of all three of them until they were riding around on the floor and pain and squealing an agony.

Then he said some stuff that hopefully he sounded cooler in Russian that it doesn't English. Again, I'm not making this one up. He said, see you later, girls. Next time come with your brothers and dads, it will be fun here. Sort of God. That's the direct quote from the source. It sounds like I wrote this.

See you later, girls. Next time come with your brothers and dads. It will be funnier. Oh my god. Like I was gonna make up something that would've been so close to it. It'll take time for hike, girl. Next time bring your girl daddy to fight for you.

I beat your girl daddy like you beat your meat to thought of own mommy. And then I guess he really did spit on him, but just regular spit, not a bullet or fire spit. And then within the hour he was sitting in the curls office and he was being dismissed for being too violent. And then he expressed apparently no remorse, no apologies for his actions and his superiors were worried about him. They felt he expressed a frightening lack of compassion for others just in general in life. On February 23rd, 1982, you packed up a shit and you headed home to Kregan. Start looking for a new job.

And you found work as, and I love this, as an undertaker. Of course, you worked as an undertaker. You start working as a morgue, helping in bomb bodies. And what do you think is gonna end up in a daycare, or as a florist? You started training at a local MMA type gym. About a half decade before Gorbachev had totally dismantled Soviet Union 21 year old Sasha makes some Russian mafia connections with low level members of the Orakovskaya,

Orakovskaya, criminal group. A huge Russian mafia gang active in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s based primarily in Moscow, but with factions in a variety of other Russian cities like of course, Kregan. Sasha meets a guy named Svetlana who goes by pop-off and pop-off lieutenant, Piotr Koski, a guy who specialized in prostitution, drugs, the kidnapping of foreign businessmen, that kind of stuff for the gang, and Piotr wanted a cut of all the action from all the bars, restaurants, and nightclubs, and Kregan. And yes, even though Kregan, still in the Soviet Union, at this time, Communists did have nightclubs, restaurants, bars, et cetera.

They were just state-owned. So why would this guy try and steal from the States? How can he do that? Because the State was super corrupt. Because many of these gangsters, from the days of Communism, were in bed with Communists, as I mentioned earlier, they'd take a cut of the bars, profits. Profits of the bar was given back to some state agency and then give some

of that cut to the state official willing to look the other way when the books didn't quite quite line up, you know, that kind of stuff. Anyway, Piotr wanted 5% of these places profit in exchange for protecting them from other dirt bags who might take a larger cut. And Piotr wanted pop-off to make this happen and pop-off as Sasha, if you wanted to make some money being a soldier, being some hired muscle and enforcer for their gang, Sasha agreed in his criminal career begins.

And he starts going door to door collecting payments for pop-off to give to Piotr. And anyone who didn't get, you know, didn't pay would get beaten. And it's likely that numerous people also got killed. For his effort, Sasha would receive a small percentage of payments of the payments, likely 10% of the money he was collecting to keep for himself. For his

first job, he shook someone down for 300,000 rubles and supposedly kept 30,000 for himself. And all he had to do was threaten to break his dues job. And back then, the value of the rubble was much stronger than it is now. And 30,000 rubles were pretty comfortable to $30,000 US. By the end of 82, Sasha was done with his job at the morgue. He was making more money as an enforcer. I hope he said some cool Russian shit when he left that job. I'd done the working on dead bodies. I'm too busy now. Making the dead bodies. You see that I did that. I killed people. Now, make a dead body. So it's just not working on them. You get it. It's pretty good. people now make it and make it that bad it's just not working on them. You get it. It's pretty good.

Around this time, super cool gangster guy Sasha makes his future first wife Nadezda in a nightclub called Lyakadmi on the Miagotina street. Nadezda was 23 years old and beautiful. She'd recently studied medicine at the University of Minks in Belarus, graduated with a degree in surgery while waiting for the government to assign her to a hospital. She'd wait for a year. She decided to keep busy making some money as a nightclub waitress. And I want to share a description of this woman as translated from French, excuse me, from Russian to French to English.

It's translated from French to English via Google Translate from the book that served as my primary source for Solonic information. A book translated originally from Russian to French, then to English by Google, called Sasha the Macedonian, life and death of Alexander Solonick, the incredible story of a Russian special forces placement, who became one of the biggest hitmen of the Russian mafia. It's quite a title. Literary, the only book I could find online in ebook form written in any language about this mysterious son of a bitch. So hard to find more than three paragraphs of info, almost anywhere on the web about the psychopath. This is the only Solenoch book on Amazon

that I am aware of. I found one other self published book written in English about this guy online that's out of print in most places. Available in paperback via Google Books. No reviews on any site that I could find, super shitty cover, and a bio that made it sound like it had far less info, and was even more poorly written than this book that I used, which is saying a lot. The part of my source that I used for this,

probably the most poorly written book I've ever read in my life. And I've skimmed through a lot of really shitty books for Time Suck Research. Anyway, check out this description of Alexander's first wife that I will read verbatim. Her body was well-made. She was 172 centimeters tall, wore a size 36 and had a beautiful chest measurement. Pair-shaped breasts. Her eyes were blue. A very light blue, which gave her a

supernatural air with her ash-blond hair. Her teeth were white, she did not smoke and her mouth was well drawn. Her lips were pink and not made up. Only a line of brown liner underlined her magnificent look adorned with her blonde eyebrows, placed like two arcs on her open forehead. Her medium long hair was styled with a ponytail that made her look serious. Nadez was really beautiful and seemed intelligent. She's Christ. Luckily for you, as a listener, I've taken all the info in this shit book and rewritten into a much more palatable form. The author of this book, Frank Strub, looks and writes like a serial killer.

Looking up, F-R-A-N-C-K-S-T-R-U-B. This is his only book and his Facebook author page has literally four likes. I am thankful that he wrote this book. Thankful to Frank because he does have a lot of details he couldn't find literally anywhere else. And Frank does cite a lot of seemingly legit Russian newspaper sources and stuff at the end of the book.

And just Frank, he just seems so creepy too. Right the way he talks about this lady. Mother, I met a beautiful woman. She really excites my zapples. She has 172 centimeters tall and has a beautiful chess measurement mother. Mother like her chess measurement. Her teeth are wide and her smile is well drawn. I want to touch her pear-shaped breast mother.

Later in the book, Frank is describing her again and he writes something even weirder. He writes, Oh, her hand and foot nails were painted dark red. I like her pretty red foot nails mother. Man, a sexy set of foot nails gets my zapples all riled. Maybe the translation makes even worse than it is, but holy shit. For every one page of interesting details in this book, there were like 10 pages, just

mundane shit that added nothing to the story, like a full chapter going into painful detail about how cool the Porsche Sasha buys later is. And then there are five pages dedicated to almost every woman that someone equidmeat. Or Frank would just go into exhausting, weird detail describing their measurements, eye and hair color, facial features, breast size, what they're wearing. And sometimes even sexual fantasies that supposedly Solanik had about these people, I just think it was fantasies that Frank clearly had himself. After making it about a quarter of the way through the book, I was like, oh, yeah, that's

why this book hasn't been translated in English. It's a pile of shit. Anyway, Solanik meets a hot smart Russian lady in his hometown. The two fallen love. He is enamored with her awesome chest measurements and her sweet-pained footnails. Well, Sasha Khortsinidesda is a small, sparsely furnished apartment in Kyrgyzstan. He lives simply, dresses simply like some type of Spartan warrior. His black combat style boots always clean. His shirts never wrinkled. He's a simpler version of Christian bail in American Psycho. And perfect shape, always with a fresh haircut,

always clean shaven, living very minimalist. According to Frank, the only possessions he really cared about were his guns. Many guns he oiled and cleaned on a regular basis. His favorite at the time, a Glock 17 generation, three nine millimeter with a 17 bullet magazine. He had a few of these actually, and he would do some target practice in the woods outside the city. He was supposedly legendarily ambidextrous, and would practice shooting his glock from both hands, setting a target 50 yards out and loading half the magazine with one hand, then tossing the other hand, continuing to fire, and sometimes he'd get both glocks

out and shoot them simultaneously at the same target, probably knock down some trees with fucking roundhouse kicks, you know, as you shoot in both guns, wall standing on one foot, wall balance on a pine cone or some ship. Sometime in late 1983, it's suspected that murder became a regular part of Sasha's work routine. Later estimated he killed seven men

during shakedowns from mafia payments before getting his first contract killing and officially becoming a hitman. Piotr Kalski, the lieutenant or Kelsalski, the lieutenant of the gang, Sasha worked for, gave him a contract for one Vladimir Solstin in early 1984. And Vladimir was to be shot when he went to see his dentist at 11 Porsarski. These fucking streets, welcome. At 11 P Street in Moscow, Sasha would be paid $250,000,

$50,000 in advance and another $200,000 upon completion of the job. Lot of money. After it was confirmed that Vladimir had been killed, Sasha would return to Kregan and visit his old friend, Popov, the man who recruited him, and Popov would give him an envelope full of $200,000 in cash, the remaining balance.

Lot more money than he got so far, shaking anyone down. Why was Vladimir being killed? Sasha didn't know and he didn't care. So supposedly Vladimir had promised pop-off to pay him a large chunk of change every three months on the condition that pop-off would not send his troop of about 30 high-end

Kazakh prostitutes to work in Moscow. Pop-off had respected his side of the agreement. Vladimir had never paid pop-offs, so now Vladimir had to die. Vladimir was the head of the Russian mafia in Korksk, a city of over 400,000, a seven hour drive south of Moscow, and did a fair amount of business, just like all the big Russian mafia gangs did in Moscow.

In every two months, Pop-off knew that Vladimir had his teeth cleaned by his favorite dentist in Moscow. He made the trip to Korksk with five bodyguards, driving an armored Mercedes GL, his bodyguards, drive it in armored Mercedes G.L. His bodyguards carried AK-47s and he carried a mini Uzi. This is not going to be an easy target, but Sasha would take him down and earn the nickname super killer for doing this job. Sasha went directly to Moscow. If you're leaving Pop-O's house, you drove alone, nonstop, and his BMW 525i left roughly two weeks before Vladimir's dental appointment.

Sasha would have flown and saved himself days worth of travel, but he didn't want there to be a record of him ever going to to Moscow when Vladimir was going to be there or when Vladimir was going to die. He didn't want his name attached to a flight reservation or to a rental car agreement. When he made it to Moscow, he went to the campus of Moscow University where he would blend in with other students around his own age. And he paid cash to sublet a dorm room for a few weeks. Smart, right? It was a place where he would stick out the least. The morning after his first night in his room,

he gets up at 8 a.m. Get stressed. Has a big black, you know, a cup of coffee. Crosse Aunt, student cafeteria, sets off to find and scope out Vladimir's dentist office. He times how long it takes him to make it from the front door of the building to the dental office, 38 seconds.

He writes down the dentist phone number, goes to a local bar, asks for coffee, and access to the phone booth, calls the dentist, makes a cleaning appointment for himself for the next day, using a fake name. Next day, he shows up, gets a feel for the room. He likes what he sees. The small office has only one dental chair,

and that dental chair is near a window. The chair is positioned placed to patients head nice and close to the window, and the way the dentist would tilt the chair while he was checking his guy's teeth, it would open up the patient's head and upper chest for a clean shot through the window from across the street. So now we need to define a place in the building across the street to shoot from. There were only apartments occupied in the building, opposite the dentist, no attic or terrace, no good. All right, he goes to a restaurant across the street,

suggested to him by the dental receptionist, Dorena, to use as a hideout if necessary after the shooting. He liked Dorena. He'd actually take her out for drinks a few nights later. She'd soon witness one of his murder victims without knowing he killed him. And then shortly thereafter, become his mistress and actually would later become his second wife,

more about D Drina later. Sasha did further exploration of the building across the street and he finally looks out. He didn't think he could find anything, but then he finds a storage room. It happens to have a huge window in it that does line up with the dental office. He's able to pick the lock, give him this place, use some binoculars inside the room, do some recon, figure out he can, in fact, pull off the necessary shot with a sniper rifle from that room. Wait six days for Vladimir's dental appointment. When the day comes, he grabs all the stuff from his dorm, tells the concierge,

these leading for St. Petersburg, spends the morning visiting the National Museum of Modern History and Moscow, checking out exhibits on the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Revolutionary War of 1917, World War II, the Cold War, you know, with the US, goes to a restaurant across the street from the dental building, has a nice lunch, takes his duffel bag, containing a sniper rifle, all kind of broken up, a broken apart ammo, bipod to the storage room, takes some half an hour to assemble everything. He unfolds the bipod, positions it, places his rifle perfectly on top of it, adjust the sharpness of his telescope, adjust his elevation until it's perfectly centered. You know, it was a semi-automatic Russian military rifle specifically designed for precision

shooting with a scope and SVD sniper rifle used by the Russian Army, known for being extremely reliable and durable, equipped with a PSO-1 telescope with enough magnification to pull off a shot a thousand meters away. And Sasha was only 40 meters away from the dental office's window. Three and a half hours later, Vladimir arrives for his cleaning appointment, proceeded by two armed bodyguards, followed by three others. So, like, watch us him through the scope, walk into the building, right? Wait for him to pop into the dental office. Wait for him to season do all the ways from to pop into the dental chair and sit down. So strange. Right? Waits for him to pop into the dental office. Waits for him season due all the way from to pop into the dental chair and sit down.

So strange. Right? Just so methodical with this execution. So clinical. Before the guy sits down, he washed him shake the dentist hand, take off his jacket. He can see the holster and butt of the guy's oozy. Sasha repositions his rifle in the bipod, pulls the trigger, you know, on a few imaginary shots with nothing in the chamber just to make sure everything is nice and steady and perfect.

He knows if he misses with his first shot, he's not going to get a second or might not get. He lays down on the floor, aligns his body up with the rifle, puts the target in the scopes, crosshairs. You can see now the bottom of Vladimir's face, the top of the man's head. You can see the Dennis arm moving around. Sometimes blocking his face, Dennis has his back to him. He doesn't want to risk shooting the Dennis in the arm or the back and having Vladimir rolled out of the chair alive and leave the room

So he waits around 10 minutes for the dentist to move away from the chair to grab something and as soon as the dentist leaves the window Sasha pulls the trigger and Vladimir's head explodes The bullet entered the top of his head came out through the bottom of his nose Shredding the front half of his brain obliterating his upper face. He was certainly instantly dead But Solanick still fires four more quick shots that all land into his upper chest. It took the dentist a moment to figure out what happened. The suppressor on Solonick's rifle had muffled the sound of the shots enough that he didn't even hear them.

The bullets obviously broke through the window, but they didn't shatter it, so the shots didn't really startle him. It all happened so fast that it just went to grab a different dental tool. Here's the sound of this pfft pfft. little plink, plink, plink, plink, something pop into the glass. Then suddenly his patient, Vladimir's face is covered in blood. The man's clearly dead. His body's dripping blood under the floor from his chest.

He calls out for help, you know, shouts, his receptionist, Dorena, and the bodyguards into the room. They find Vladimir dead. Dorena passes out. One of the five bodyguards quickly tests Vladimir's pulse, gives orders to the other four who start to run down the stairs and reach the street. Meanwhile, Solanik, he's almost finished taking apart his rifle equipment, thrown it all back into his red duffel bag.

When the bodyguards reach the street, Solanik is walking out a door on the opposite side of the building and just walks casually into his car and just drives away. Bodyguards never saw him, never had any fucking idea who shut their boss. It was the perfect hit. So when I drove back to Moscow, dreaming of everything he'd buy with $250,000, he knew he'd buy a large diamond engagement ring for Nadeezda and ask her to marry him, which he did. And, you know, yet, and yes, he had just seen Dorena. He liked him both. From this point forward, Sasha would be known by those who knew him as the super killer. When Sasha reached Kurgon on a Wednesday around 2 p.m., he went straight to Popov's house

to get the rest of his money. That 200 grand pop-offs overjoyed. Sasha had done a tremendous first job. So smooth, no loose ends. The two toasted glasses filled with high end pure malt scotch whiskey, right? And then Popov gives Sasha a big satchel of cash. The two men finish a second glass of Scotch and pop off offers a Sasha a new contract. He wants him now to

kill a man named Miroslav. Another rival gangster pop off called the terror of the Balkans. The man above pop off, Piotr had already given Miroslav two warnings for encroaching on some of their business in Moscow and the Yugoslavian had not listened. Pop off had previously sent other contract killers to try and take this dude down and they'd all been killed. Pop off told Sasha that as soon as Miroslav feels like he's walked into a trap, he does not hesitate to take out his guns and empty them into everyone around him. Pop off told Sasha that if he could kill Miroslav and three of his minions guarding him by Easter, 194, he'd be paid $750,000.

So just made a quarter of a million, now he's gonna round that up to a full million with another hit. He'd get 100,000 right away, the balance when the job was done, half the money would be paid in US dollars, half in Swiss francs. The two men grab a third glass of scotch,

clean glasses, Sasha says to him, consider it done. Probably cool, isn't that? Consider it dead. Ha ha, just consider him, he out, I, consider it done. Probably cool, isn't that? Consider it dead. Ha ha, just consider him out, I'll do it for you. After agreeing to this job, Solanick reunites with Nadista after stopping the Jewelers, he asks for her hand marriage after a huge diamond ring, and she accepted without hesitation.

Now they're engaged. They're spending the rest of the day together, Sasha went car shopping. The next morning, he traded his old BMW in for a new Porsche for $75,000, a loaded 911 turbo and it was super cool. And I'm not going to talk about it for 15 fucking pages, like Frank does his weird book. It was fast, it made Sasha dick hard when he drove it and it filled him with, yeah, yeah, you get it.

Sasha also upgraded his wardrobe. He got a new leather jacket, gold cross necklace, gold watch, black shades, look like a Russian version of Nioh from the Matrix, classic Russian gangster. He got some cool gang tattoo, commemorative, his hit. He was no gopnik. Not gonna wear them fucking knock off a D-diss track suits. He was a real gangster. And he took Nadeez out for a celebration dinner at the nicest restaurant in Cragon.

And the next day started playing another trip to Moscow to fulfill another contract. He knew that this time he'd have to kill his target at close range. He had to walk into the nightclub, kill Maroslav, and his bodyguards up close and personal. So he was making plans for that. He's also making plans to have a baby and get married to Nadeezd for his hit. He wants to bring two semi-automatic handguns that he can fire at multiple targets quickly with. He figures he's gonna have about three seconds

to shoot Miroslav in his bodyguards before being shot at himself. He brings four guns to Moscow. Tuberetta 92's, two-glock 17's, plenty of ammo. Throws all this and some clothes and toiletries into that red duffle bag, hops into that new Porsche that there's a coolest car anyone had ever driven in the history of earth. And he leaves for Moscow and takes off on what's supposedly

a really beautiful and scenic drive, passing through grand and varied landscapes, dense forest full of large fur trees. I guess the tundra would not frozen, it's very lush and green in this area. It looks like an endless golf course. He's driving through beautiful mountains, Alpine, ultra clean, blue lakes, that would soon be full of people sailing.

30 hours after his departure, he arrives in Moscow, parks his dope ass, porch on a small quiet street, several blocks from another dorm room. He'd again, decided to pay some cash to stay in. The next day, he actually goes back to the dentist office, asks the receptionist and his future second wife, Dorena, out on another date. She agrees to meet up. He's able to get some info out of her about the investigation into the death of the crime boss. He'd killed in her office, which apparently she has no idea

about at this time. Didn't sound like the police knew a clue who did it. She has no idea that he did it. The police just thought it was a gang here, but that's all he knew. Takes Dorena to a restaurant nightclub called Lepetite Boris. The place where he's planning to kill Miros Love. That's kind of ridiculous.

He just killed one dude in this lady's office. Now he's taking her on a date to a place where he intends to kill some other dudes. When they get to the restaurant, it's three quarters full. There's a balance with the main entrance, a waiter system at a small round table. Sasha takes in all kinds of details. The club is very lit up. The music's very loud. It provides him with some advantages.

He's going to be able to clearly identify his target and the sound of the shots will be partially covered, especially since he's going to have a suppressor on each of the guns. Now those directly around him would likely know what was going on, but the noise would keep everyone else clueless until people started screaming, which would help him make it to the exit. After sharing a few glasses of champagne with Dorena, Sasha goes to the bathroom and specs the place out further. He takes out a pencil, a small notebook from his pocket begins to draw off a plan. He further surveys the layout of the tables, the bar, three dance floors, spots at the main entrance, at the club portion of the building. There's a turn-style door, which is

going to possibly complicate his escape. He makes a note to not get stuck in that door to go through it as quickly as possible. He's also worried about the balancer at the entrance. How's he going to react when Sasha takes out two weapons? He has to be neutralized when Sasha enters he decides so he decides maybe he's going to hit him in the stomach with his gun or maybe he'll cover his mouth with some chloroform, knock him out quietly. He makes a note to steal some chloroform, which he does later. Dude was a pro. Put effort into the shitty things he did. And then after dinner, Sasha and Dorena go back to her house and get it on. A lot of pages dedicated to that.

You fondle her beautiful chest measurements. You sucked on her sexiest foot nails. Hey, Lucifina. Um, next day, he finds a bar, uh, to call Pop-Op from tells her that he tells him that he's ready to take out Miroslav. Pop-Off informs him that Miroslav should show up at the club on Tuesday night between 9 and 10 p.m. He'd gotten word that Miroslav was in a weekly poker game.

Some of his friends, they would play at this back table in the restaurant. The morning of the day of the hit, Solonick found the perfect parking spot just outside the restaurant club. Doesn't want to leave his getaway car, location to chance. He loads eight magazines for his handguns, puts four of them into special sleeveless jacket he designed,

or that was designed to carry all the stuff. All of this is in the car, and then he kills time in the area at various cafes, museums, until he gets dark around 7 pm. At this time, he fetches his weapons from his car and the magazines and checks them all over again, make sure everything's in operating order. Then he sits in his car, waits until 9 pm,m. just listen to the radio, trying to, you know,

be inconspicuous. Then he gets out, hangs out in front of the restaurant, slash club as if he's just another person on the crowd, wait for someone to join him, smoke some cigarettes, like a lot of others around him are doing. At 935, Sasha's target, Miroslav emerges from his car, enters the restaurant flanked by those bodyguards. Sasha, epistol in each hand inside the pockets of his coats, quickly heads, you know, into the restaurant right behind him. When he gets inside, Maroslav is 15 feet in front of him. Luckily, the bouncer, nowhere to be found, doesn't have to chloroform.

He takes the catcher's lucky break. No chloroform needed. Sasha then puts a hand on each of the two bodyguards closest to Maroslav's. Like he's got his guns in his hands, takes them out of his jacket, puts them on the shoulders of these guys, pulls them back hard down to the ground. As they fall, he fires the gun. He'd been holding his left hand in the third guard who started to take out a noosey. And with the gun in his right hand, he shoots Mirasla, four times once in the head, three

in the chest, similar to the shot, you know, patterning of the previous targets. Now a new contract had just been executed by Sasha. I wonder if he said anything while this was happening, you know, patterning of the previous targets. Now a new contract had just been executed by Sasha. I want to be said anything while this was happening, you know, hopefully he said some more cool Russian tough guy shit. Hey, Miro Slav, your doctor just called. What? Who you? How do you know my doctor? He have bad news. He said you have bad case of not listening to people. You have two seconds to live. What are you? I super killer maker of dead body pleasure to business with you.

And then he's roundhouse Chuck Norris kicked the heads off everyone else in the club and less than fucking one second. No. What he really did do was quickly shoot the body to bodyguards. He pulled to the ground and then he immediately runs back out the club door, hops into his porch, speed down the street, turns the corner and then slows down, drives normally, keeps driving on out of Moscow, head and east, back to Kirkpat. I'd leave it for dead men behind him.

Once you made it back, he collects his money from an ecstatic pop-off. Right, the guy he wanted dead, it was so hard to kill, is now dead and he gets another 160, another $650,000 in addition to the $100,000 he already had. He had just gotten $250,000, right? Just recently before all that. So he has enough money for he and Nadeezha to live well for five years easy. Nadeezha, all these names. For the first time in his life, he begins to think of big vacations he can take, certain

destinations, the meta training, I like to visit. He and Nadeezha take a two-week vacation in Croatia on the island of Var, staying in a four-star palace by the seas, living large now. July of 1984, Sasha and the Dizda get married in front of both their families, a lot of their friends, including various members of the Oracle Skaya, Oracle Skaya gang. A year later, 1985, Nadezda. Nadezda, I pronounce her name different ways. Oh, none of these names, it's not familiar to me. I don't know anybody by any of these names,

other than maybe Sasha. In 1985, Nadezda gives birth to a girl named Victoria. Life's going great for Sasha, right? He continues to do business with his mafia friends from Kregan, makes a fair amount of trips to Moscow and other places around Russia, doing who knows what for the next two years. I'm guessing a fair amount of murdering. Probably a fair amount of trips to Moscow and other places around Russia doing who knows what for the next two years I'm guessing a fair amount of murdering

Probably a fair amount of dudes getting their heads kicked off their bodies Then one day in 1987 there's a knock on the door and when he answers it It's some of the Kurgon police waiting to arrest him An 18 year old girl had filed a complaint against him for rape. Solonik is stunned Now these are shouted. It's not true. He had been away for two weeks. These are false accusations that didn't sound to police from handcuff and Sasha, taking to the station. He's put in a cell immediately and a week later, he's standing in front of Judge Boris Vladisztok.

Who asked him, you are really Alexander Solonik born October 16th, 1960 in Korgan. Yes, your honor. In addition to Sasha and the judge, there's two armed police officers president in the judge's office. There's others in the courthouse. And then according to one version of the Solanic legend, he goes full fucking John Wick big time. And Sasha quickly grabs one of the police officers guns, uses it to shoot the other officer before shooting the officer he'd taken the gun from. Then he spins around, shoots the judge who threw his hands up in the air was about to beg for his life. All were dead in seconds. Probably in this legend, price that some stuff for the judge too.

Listen, you're honor. You guilty of being dead. I don't know what he's saying. There's a window in the judge's office and Sasha opens it, jumps out, jumps about 15 feet down to the ground where he sprains both his ankles, is able to hovel away as he flees from the courthouse with the gun on his hand, runs into three other police officers, empties the rest of the gun he'd taken magazines. Uh, empties, rest of this gun's magazines into these three men killing them all before they can fire any return shots. Then he grabs one of their guns and then keeps running.

So I just now become the most wanted fugitive in Russia for the murder of five police officers and a judge and the alleged rape of a local woman. Now did all of this happen? I don't think so. But it's written in some of the fugitive in Russia for the murder of five police officers and a judge and the alleged rape of local woman. Now, did all of this happen? I don't think so, but it's written in some of the accounts. I think much more likely he was charged with rape and escaped without shooting or killing anyone. And I'll explain why I think that very shortly. Sasha knew exactly where to hide in Kregan. He hid in the forest, where the large thick forest with a police didn't initially bother

to search. He had a tough time collecting weapons though. He, and he felt like he needed weapons to stay alive. So he hopped on a city bus one night, snuck back home, grabbed him, picked up a lot of contract killing cash, leaving a lot of it to Nadeezda as well. And he also supposedly confessed to her that he did sleep with the girl. He was accused of raping, but Suara was contentual. Right. Nadeezda, obviously not pleased. And he quickly leaves home, leaves home and he, uh, this confession will lead to his first divorce. Make sense. I don't think a lot of women are cool with baby. Don't be mad. I don't rape anybody. I mean, yeah, I fucked a bunch, you know, I

fucked some checks on the side, but you know, hey, where are you man? Uh, Sasha didn't know where to go. Couldn't go to his parents. The police are waiting for him there. So he goes back to the forest. Looks like a hermit for a month, probably doing shit like headbutt and huge trees to the ground to blow off steam, maybe bench press and boulders. And then he's found by the police and arrested again. They finally do look in the forest. They take him to the police station and interrogate him for a long time to lock him up at his trial somehow this motherfucker escapes again.

Right. Now, I will say in the sources, it's very confusing. In some sources, it seems like this, what I'm about to tell you, and the first thing were one thing. And then in some kind of narratives, it's like he escaped twice. So there is a chance he just escaped one time from a courtroom. Because in this situation, he's on the second floor of a nine story reinforced concrete building.

He's sentenced to eight years for rape. So he's not in the judge's office. He's like just in the courtroom. And I don't think that first thing happened because there's no mention in the narratives to talk about him, you know, being in here twice about him getting sends to a lot more time. Freno killing a judge and a bunch of police officers. So that probably didn't happen. But he does escape apparently. He jumps out the window. So possibly escapes again, possibly for the first time makes it to or jumps out the window again, makes it to a hearse that was waiting for him down the streets. That's a nice, you know, touch, that nice detail, the hearse there. Some fellow

gang members then drive him to Chilman, a two hour drive north of Kurgon in western Siberia. Chilman, the first Russian city in Siberia built around the Tora River built by Fedor human the first russian city in cyberia built around the tour of river built by fidoor the first of russia in fifteen eighty nine on the site where the tathurs of cyberia had also built a town it's name comes from the magolean word for ten thousand which also designated military unit the city had almost five hundred thousand people was very close to kirk on

sascia could go back and forth during the day continue business with local mafia and he does that the next three months uh... nadez that divorces him he's like fuck i don't care i have another girl during the day, continue business with the local mafia. And he does that the next three months. Nadez Dez divorces him. And he's like, fuck, I don't care. I have another girl named Dorena and Moscow. And he brings Dorena out from Moscow

and just marries her quickly. Mistress, here this, you've been promoted to wife. Then he quickly gets Dorena pregnant with his son. Mistress, you've been promoted to wife and mother. After about three months after being free, Sasha decides to remove a tattoo in the shape of an orthodox cross that he had on his right hand and make it a little harder for police to easily identify him. He'd also plan on having a mole removed from

his face, but he wouldn't have time to do that. While in the tattoo part of the police bust in, grab him. He's taken to a con prison to begin serving that eight years sentence. He busted out of the courtroom to avoid serving. And it was in this prison shortly after arriving where Sasha had a legendary fight against 12 other prisoners. This is the most Chuck Norris out of all the Chuck Norris shit he supposedly did. According to this off-repeated legend, as a former police officer, he was supposed to have been put into a special area away from the general population, because the other prisoners didn't like former police officers.

Right? Even though he was just a police officer for a very brief time. But that doesn't happen. Sasha rumored to have stood around 5657 faced with the challenge of fighting the dozen men all well built hardened prisoners, most of whom are taller and quite a bit bigger than him. These men not only outnumber him greatly, they're also armed randomly with shovels. And the story is that Sasha took a beaten,

you know, took a beaten early on, even got hit in the head with a shovel. But during that beating, he managed to get one of the shovels away from one of these dudes. And he used that shovel to beat the ever loving shit out of every single one of them. By the end of the fight, Sasha was bloody and beaten, but still standing, right?

And these guys were not still standing. After this fight, again, according to legend, no one ever fuck with him in prison again. He spent the rest of his time behind bars, known as the baddest motherfucker in prison. And I wonder, after reading this kind of stuff, I wonder if there were soulenic jokes similar to all the Chuck Norris type jokes

floating around in Russia, like in the 90s. Remember those Chuck Norris jokes? I loved them so much. Stuff like, I wrote a couple down here in the notes. Chuck Norris type jokes floating around in Russia, like in the 90s. Remember those Chuck Norris jokes? I love them so much. Stuff like, I wrote a couple down here in the notes. Chuck Norris is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head. Chuck Norris sleeps with a night light, not because Chuck Norris is afraid of the dark,

but the dark is afraid of Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants. When Chuck Norris does a push-up, he isn't lifting himself up. He's pushing the earth down, right? I've heard these. I love him so much. I wonder if there were solanic versions, what they would sound like.

You know, like in Russia. In Russia, only people who die of natural causes are people who never meet. The rush, Alexander Solnik. Alexander Solnik never get drunk on vodka. Vodka get drunk on Alexander Solonik. One year Winter not happening Siberia because Solonik not feel like wearing jacket and winter afraid to upset him. I'll stop now. It's terrible. But something like those lines. For the duration of Solonik's sense after his big fight, he avoids alcohol drugs, focuses on lifting weights, his overall fitness, so he can be that much

stronger and scarier when he gets out. Then just a year or two into his sense, he earns the right to work in the industrial part of the prison, a part of the prison that was less vigilantly, vigilantly guarded, and of course he escapes again. Of course he does. This time, he sticks into a ventilation duct, crawls until he reaches the outside where the guards were conveniently not watching and flees in April of 1990. Now it's the wild 90s plus the super killer. How crazy can things get? Sasha's old Russian mafia friends out in Kharaghan had helped him with this escape.

They'd paid to have some guards looked the other way when he bounced. Now he owed him. His old buddy Popoff told him that if he could kill a man named Dona, the head of the Mafia and human, his debt would be paid and he could get back to making money by fulfilling future contracts. So Dauna's execution would take place on Tuesday, July 3rd, 1990, less than three months after he'd been busted out. Sasha, for reasons unknown, chose not to plan this one out like past hits.

He improvised it from start to finish apparently. He confessed all this stuff later during another prison stint. We'll talk about later He walked right up to Downa who was eating dinner in a restaurant popular with underworld figures down it recognizes him Holds out his hand to greet him. Sasha does the same. Then all of a sudden empties his Walter Pistol magazine into him And did he feel more comfortable openly killing him in front of numerous eyewitnesses because of the relative lawlessness of the wild 90s He now found himself in perhaps. He definitely had to have said something to him this time, right?

Good to see you down. Is it just me or do you have more holes in you than you still? What are you talking? I don't have. Whatever. Bang, bang, bang. Whatever. No, you get it.

It's down to late dead in a bloodbath. Sasha ran out to the restaurant. Hopp into his old Porsche 911, then apparently he's gangsta buddies, he'd held on to him, held on to for him, and he drives back to Kirkant. After this hit, Pop-Off picks up several big money contracts that would take place back in Moscow. So, off to Moscow, he goes. Dorena and their son travel with him.

They don't stay together very long, though. In 1992, Dorena divorced Sasha, tired of him cheating on her and you know probably tired of all the murdering he was doing. Sasha would stay in Moscow another two and a half years where he would kill at least four other mafia leaders in 93 and 94. The first of these four was a man named Victor Nikitorov who went by the nickname Kalina. Sasha would shoot him with a dragon off or Dragoonov military sniper rifle for this hit solenoch went to the dude's house. He drove a van to clean his neighborhood parked at about 400 meters down the street, almost 440 yards, right?

Almost four, four and a half football fields. Stets up his sniper rifle on a bipod again, cracks aside van door open and waits for the dude to walk out into the yard. Eventually it does. The guy walks outside with a bone in his hand throws it to his dog and then promptly falls down dead in the growing pool of zone blood Like a sausage shot him in the fucking head one shot one kill from over 400 yards away Probably did it with his eyes close to right probably probably did it while I don't know making a burrito or something with his other hand Solenix next target was a man named Valerie

Dulugatch a K.A. Globus or Globus He killed him in mid-December 1993. Globus was cautious surrounding himself with four bodyguards at all time. Bodyguards who apparently looked somewhat like him to confuse people, bodyguards who dress like him. From a distance, it was very hard to tell who is the bodyguard and who is the crime boss. Sasha decides just to kill the whole group. He decides to use four of of pop-offs men to help him with this hit. He has each of these men rent a van from four different rental agencies.

They would work in two teams of two vans each. Each guy has a walkie-talkie connecting them to Sasha. They were gonna park in strategic positions within a few blocks of Globus' house, where Sasha will be watching Globus. When Globus left his black, or his house in his black Mercedes S-Class car, Sasha would then tell one of them to drive in front of the car, right?

Tell one team, so get two vans in front of the car. Depending on which route he would take to leave his house, there's only two routes. And then the other team would park behind him and block him from backing up. Instead of bringing a sniper rifle for this hit, he brought a fucking rocket propelled grenade launcher, a basalt RPG seven, an anti tank weapon, the same rocket launcher used by Russian military. So with this weapon, he wouldn't need to differentiate Globus and his buddy, he was going to blow them all up. And when the gate to Globus' compound opens, right? And the number of Sadie's rolls out, the plan to set into motion works perfectly.

When Globus' car is about 200 yards from him and boxed in by four vans. He fires this RPG direct hit literally blows. Globus's car the fuck up. Globus and his henchmen blown apart, uh, burned alive, you know, look like you can't handle heat. Globus should have gotten out of bomb kitchen, uh, his four helpers abandoned, they did abandon their vans. You know, before he, uh, for blew it all up. And then he did fire a couple more rock and prepare grenades to blow up their vans just destroy all the evidence. And I, and I hate to break up the action right now, but, uh, we do have one more ad to

get through. So sorry about that. Time suck is also brought to you today by Alexander Solnik's black belts grenades and machine guns super killer self-defense seminar. Hello, comrades. The world is rough out there, a lot of bad guys, a lot of crime. You need to protect yourself.

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out today. Kill everyone in way. Times looks not responsible for any murder charge. The litigation may follow killing everyone in way. Go out and then there's so many black belts. When I had the machine gun super killer self-defense seminar dot com for more details. Sorry about that. At ads are over now. That was last minute sponsor. I just couldn't resist turning down. Four weeks after blowing up Globus and his men, Sasha kills Globus' replacement. Vladislav Vinner aka Boben on January 17th, 94. Sasha takes him down Macedonian style in a nightclub, lightning him up with a gun on each hand.

Two months later, Kills Antley Seminov aka Rambo in associate of Globus. This time he raided Rambo's compound with a troop of 10 mafia soldiers. They went carrying a glass nuskov machine guns and apparently they created a fucking blood bath. Rambo's man defended his compound with more machine guns. So it was shot in the forearm in this battle and of course kept fighting. He personally emptied a full-glock magazine and Rambo's last two body guards when he finally made it into the room. Rambo was hiding it. By the time he made it to Rambo,

only four of his 10 hired soldiers were still alive. He let Rambo get down his knees, beg for his life before putting the end of the barrel of his Glock against the man's forehead and pulling the trigger. I'm sure he said some stuff. Make final wish, Rambo. You should wish for God to make miracle come down himself for to defend you. Might be able to get the way in five or ten seconds and take me to kill God. So many people confessed to all these assassinations again after he was arrested before he would escape again. A few weeks later, Solonick left Moscow to head back to Timon to talk to a dude named

mammoth, leader of the most powerful criminal group in Chumon at the time. mammoth owed another gangster Solonick was working for a million dollars. Sasha was sent to give him one last chance to pay up. mammoth said no. A few days later, mammoth and several other influential crime bosses and human turn up debt, weird. Shortly after Solon, if returns to Moscow while conducting some business in Moscow's

Petrovsky Marketplace, he and a friend are stopped by police officers for an ID check. Instead of causing a scene, they don't argue, don't fight back and just quietly agree with the officers to go to the police station. Seems pretty normal. For some reason, they're not handcuffed or even searched. Soloneck walked to the police station carrying a raincoat over his arm that no one checked

under. They should have, because he had a submachine gun under there. More John Wick type shit coming up. Once in the police station, Soloneck flashes his weapon, opens fire on the unsuspecting officers, kills four of them, fleeing the station on footy shoots and kills two security guards, and another police officer. Seven dudes also get shot in the kidneys. He climbs over to tall fence, able to continue to climb jumps over on the other side and runs off. And this actually seems to have happened. According to Solonick lore, surviving police officers were astounded with his shot accuracy.

As he's fleaing, the legend goes that while Solonick is running away, he fires his gun three times at one officer who has hiding behind his cement pillar and all three bullets hit the same hole. Okay. All right. Despite escaping that day, he was caught a short time later in October of 94. This time, immediately thrown into one of Russia's most notorious prisons. After allegedly confessing to many of the hits we've already talked about, this prison known as Detention Center I located in Moscow.

And when Solonik was center, it was considered the most secure prison in all of Russia. It is stood as some form of a detention center since 1775, starting out as an insane asylum, expanding the house juvenile delinquents, evolved into a prison for 300 men and 150 women in the early 19th century. In 1945 expanded to hold 2000 prisoners and re-fortified. Over the years, the prison would house Nazis, famous Russian criminals like, what we already talked about, Mikhail Kordakowski, right, the billionaire,

talked about earlier, one time, richest man in Russia. House various gangsters, yeah, political prisoners. By the time a solanik got there, it could hold 5,000 inmates, no one had ever escaped. Walden prison, after he recovered from his operation, from an operation to heal up his kidney.

Solanik started working out again, started studying subjects like foreign languages, literature on the prison computers, why foreign languages? Well, he was going to leave the country once he escaped. And he wanted to be able to speak the language of his new country. He knew he wouldn't be there for long, which was an especially ambitious thought to have considering again that no one had ever escaped from this prison before. But he was sasas of the Macedonian, Alexander the Great, and he had powerful buddies on the outside who wanted him out so he could get back to killing.

July 5th, 1995, only eight months after he'd been arrested, Solonik becomes the first prisoner to escape. Supposedly only two of escape since, the official version of this story is that the mafia had paid off one of the guards, a guy named Sergei Menjikov, and he was able to supply Solonik with a rope and several hooks and a handgun. And then on a sunny summer's day, Solonik hit some clothes under his blanket

in order to make other guards, thank you asleepin', buy himself some time. And then Menjikov got him out of his cell, took him with a roof of the jail where he scaled down the building, snuck to the parking lot to a nearby waiting BMW that was waiting for him. It's a surprising, and just uses giant dick, you know,

like it's a rope to lower himself down or they didn't just fucking punch his way. Just punch through the walls, you know, walk it, maybe make me quickly dig a tunnel, tunnel, only using roundhouse kicks. A news agency later reported that poor Sir Jay Mineshkov, that a guy who helped him out, his dead body was found in the river. Not much of a thank you for helping Sasha.

After this escape, Interpol now helping the Russian police search for him. Also thanks to his confessions to various hits, almost every major criminal group in Russia, other than the Oracle of Skaya gang he worked for wanted him dead, then supposedly a $10 million bounty was placed on his head. And Mafia leaders working with corrupt Russian police got the police to agree to hand Sasha over if they found him first. And then these other mafia leaders approach his own gang with this offer of $10 million to turn Sasha over to them, right, to get rid of him.

And they agree. Supposedly this is one possibility of many of what may have put him in this, in the crosshairs of all these gangs. Another possibility is that the gangster I mentioned earlier, Rambo, was a mob leader that Solana could not been hired to hit. Some sources say he tried to extort that guy from money on his own. He went rogue and started planning missions without permission, and that didn't sit well with superiors. There are a lot of versions of him based on getting too big fris bridges and various mafia leaders being like, this guy's got to go.

When Solonick hears about the price on his head, he gets the fuck out of Russia, buys a beautiful 10 room villa with a swimming pool, basketball court, golf course, lavish garden for the sculptures on a huge piece of property just outside of Athens, Greece. Some sources say he built up his own mafia organization there around 50 dudes and controlled narcotics around Athens, also continue with contract killings

that now he is assigning, or you know, just committing on his own primarily in Eastern Europe. They also ended up doing some business back in Russia. Supposedly Greece is where he got the nickname Sasha the Macedonian for killing some gangster while firing two handguns at the same time like he was some Macedonian warrior holding two swords. Also got that nickname because of the ancient conqueror Alexander the Great, you know, another one of his nicknames and Alexander the Great was a king of Macedonia, a Macedonia.

So it makes sense. Some sources say he had his face altered in Greece by reconstructive plastic surgery to hide his identity. Apparently again, like I say, he'd still pop over to Russia after moving there and it's believed he was in Russia on December 31, 1996 at the Red Star night club located on the Supreme Soviet Square in Moscow to celebrate New Year's Eve at this club He meets Svetlana Kuttova dark brunette beauty who had been a Miss Russia 1996 finalist and One-time author Frank Strubs description of her is interesting

Here's what he wrote again. This is verbatim. Maybe it's the translation making it creeper than it sounds So it was magnificent her long hair around her face made her look like goddess. Her only jewel was pearly pearl necklace. That's shown on her white skin. Svetlana had large green eyes, large mouth, and fairly fine, long and slightly curved, aquiline nose. Aquiline, there we go, aquiline nose. Her arms were thin and ended in admirable hands.

Her superb legs were long and thin and beautifully highlighted by black matte tits. She was 15 cm taller than him, but she had high heels. Svetlana had almond-shaped eyes and a tiny mole at the corner of her right eye on the side of the nasal wall. What the fuck? Mother of M-mother of Metsumon, her name is Vettlana, and she has fairly fine long and slightly curved, aquiline nose. And I really like her admirable hands mother.

They get me round up more than footnails. Nothing gets my sex apples round more than footnails, but admirable hands are close second mother Aqualine by the way means hooked shaped like an eagle's beak I'm pretty sure no woman or man wants her nose described as being like a fucking eagle's beak Right that positive damn look at that hot ass Russian girl. Look at that sexy brunette, man. No, I heard not her. The one over there with a fucking eagle's beak. Man, that's a hot ass beak.

God, I'd like to grab that big ol' hook beak, do some shit. Anyway, Sasha meets Svetlana this club and the two-fond love or lustre, whatever. Svetlana takes off to spend a week's vacation in Greece with Sasha a little while after they meet to to her severe detriment. On January 30th for spending a week with his new girlfriend and his lavish new Greek digs, the superkiller's luck finally runs out. And the Khrugan Mafia had hired him and I'm sorry, hired him hired Sasha. Another Sasha's confusing had hired Sasha Soldat. Another contract killer to track down our Sasha, the super killer,

the tracking down and killing. Soldot was one of Solnik's old buddies. Sasha Soldot also known as Alexander Pustalov. Pretty funny that these guys were both known as either Sasha or Alexander. This guy sought to have taken out 35 targets himself in his murder for higher career, which would end in 1999 when he got arrested and was sentenced to 24 years in prison.

So supposedly he's due to get out in just a few years. And anyway, when Soldat tracked Solaneck down to his Athenian villa, these super killer welcomed him with open arms. They started to chat it up like old friends. And then at some point during their conversation when Solaneck turns his back to Solat, Solat quickly wraps a thin quarter around his neck and strangles him to death. And how did that happen? Why would he let that happen? Why a thin quarter on his neck and strangles him to death and how did that happen? Why why would he let that happen? Why didn't he just flex his neck and tear the quarter part or why why he just reach back

Grab the guy and just throw him through a wall or slam him on the ground and then just drown him by pissing in his mouth while saying some more cool shit Soshold friend you look thirsty Maybe you'll like some pipe and hot apple cider. Showbiz, that's how they do it in Kyrgyz. Sorry, not sure why he morphed, kind of into Albert Fish there. Showbiz. Then Solonix Killer gives him a signal to his other men, other men from Kyrgyz, that crime syndicate and they quickly subdue Solonix soldiers. You know, and then these guys kill Svetlana for being in the wrong place the wrong time. More on how Salonick may have died just a second. The following day, February 1st, 1997, word gets out that Salonick had been killed.

Greek newspapers published articles claiming that Russian rob a Russian mob boss had been found dead 15 miles from Athens. Supposedly someone called the police and said that there was a dead body of an unknown man found in the woods near Athens. I was said that the body was hidden in a sack found, uh, found with a duffel bag full of AK 47s, Wiggs forged documents in ammunition. Police officers identified the 37 year old man, uh, is being choked with a cord burned with acid.

It was wearing clothes, although there was nothing found in his pockets soon. The police determined it was the body of Solanek. However, Moscow internal affairs, uh, were apparently not convinced in a rumor soon spread that the body found was not Alexander's body, but a double he'd hired. You know, and maybe the acid was kind of put on the body to obscure the dude's actual real identity. According to this rumor, the fingerprint taken from the corpse did not match Solonik's fingerprints in the interpole database.

Some believe he still lives today in secrecy. Why do people believe this? Probably because he's fucking super killer. Who can kill the super killer? I'm not, I'm not die. One time I try to kill myself, but Grim Reaper, too scared to come, collect my body, because I'm such a bad guy, tough person.

Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely. So that's the legend of Alexander Solonick, the super killer. How much is that is truth? How much of a disfiction is hard to say? By far the hardest subject we've done to find information on. I mean, there's almost nothing on this guy on the web. Other than just like, you know, those lists kind of articles, where it's like top 10 coolest things, and then they'll repeat the same exact things in this very little detail. But I kind of like that with this story

because it gives a little bit of mystery to this guy, right? A little bit of modern folklore. It's like a 90s boogie man, right? They call John Wick, Baba Yaga, Wick's Hitogie man. Right, they, uh, they call John Wick, Bob a Yaga. Wick's Hitman character, definitely like I said earlier seems to be based on Solanick. Uh, Solanick again, credit with as many as 43 total contract kills, 30 of those thought to be high level

targets. It was legend in his own lifetime. He was a real dude. I'm confident of that, uh, feared by both law enforcement and criminal organizations, you know, after a wave of cold-blooded killings, multiple arrests, daring escapes, forced to leave Russia for Athens where he rented a mansion where he briefly shared his bed with a 22 year old Russian model. And then the killer became the prey, dude, dude made a lot of enemies.

And they eventually, you know, came to find him. All the bad shit he did eventually caught up with him. And an old friend and murder colleague fulfilled the contract that now had his name on it. Or did he? Again, is he still out there somewhere? Is he still killing? Maybe he'd be 59 years old. So it is possible.

You know, because I feel like he would be like a slice to loan, a Schwarzenegger type 59, a Chuck fucking Norris type 59. I hope you enjoyed this story and Mother Russia. She gets crazier and crazier every time we visit her, doesn't she? Time now for top five. Take aways. Time, suck. Top five.

Take away. Number one, the wild nineties were wild in Russia. Gopnik, scam artists, oligarchs, gangsters and more. The economy tanked in a bit of anarchy the day during Russia's transition from communism to capitalism. Number two, footnails. Don't think I'll ever get that phrase fully out of my head. Footnails. A well drawn smile and a long and slightly curved, aqua line notes.

Number three, due to scaped twice from prison. Once or twice from a courtroom, one of his prison escapes was from a place no one had ever escaped from before. That does seem to be true. Number four, dude used a BZL RPG 7 anti-tank weapon rocket launcher used by the Russian military to take out a hit, take out a gangster. He also beat up 12 Russian prisoners in one fight. He really was the Russian Chuck Norris joke in real life. Half of this stuff is true. And number five, something new, apparently being a beauty queen during the wild nineties in Russia didn't work out well for another model. Svetlana Katova, Solonik's last girlfriend, was one of two beauty pageant finalists to

die from hanging around a Russian gangster in the wild nineties. Alexandra Petrovna claimed the title of the most beautiful woman in Russia when she was only 16. Just a few years, she rose rapidly in the modeling business and then met 35-year-old Constantine Shaluvin, prosperous entrepreneur who controlled local market spaces in the city against her. And then someone put a hit on him, someone shot him in two other businessmen, two other gangsters on the stairs of an apartment complex, and a stray bullet hit Petrova. The 19-year-old Miss Russia died on the way to the hospital

just two days before 20th birthday, just like with Solanick's girlfriend. She hooked up with the dude, got a lot of criminal baggage, and that baggage got her killed. Time, suck, tough, five, take away. I guess that was a reminder of a careful who you associate with. Man, the super killer has been sucked.

Another strange Russian tale. I love it. It's my favorite country to go to for these stories. Big thank you to the time suck team. Queen of the suck Lindsey commons Reverend doctor Paisley the Bidelix or app design crew. Logan and Kate at the spicy club running bad magic merch.com and the socials the script keeper Zach Flannery. Thanks to the all of you helping the all-seeing, or Liz Hernandez, the counts as the cult,

the all-seeing eyes of the cult. Thanks to all of you for helping run the cult, the curious Facebook group page, which continues to grow. Thankful for the community continuing to build. Thanks to Liz also for being in charge of the Bojangles emails. Thanks to BeefStake for helping out so much with Discord. Also thanks to the many time suckers who send gifts to the suck dungeon each and every week. Next week, we had right back to Russia. Ivan the terrible is next week's sucktastic topic, the grand prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547.

And then the first is our of Russia from 1547 to 1584. A man described as being intelligent, ambitious, and perhaps mentally unstable, and a huge piece of shit. Like Solanik's tale is a mix of truth and legend, we'll do our best to differentiate between the two. Some see him as a natural, or a national hero. Others seem as a monster. There are so many different stories about him.

Some of the painting and a great light of, you know, really kind of advancing a Russia into being like a superpower and others just seem as a sociopath. Some sources say he threw dogs and cats from the Kremlin walls to watch them suffer as a teen. Rome the Moscow streets with the gang of young thugs drinking, knocking down old people and raping women and then disposing of rape victims by having them hang strangled, burry

live or even thrown to the bears to be eaten. But did he really do any of that? Was he that terrible? Or is that just propaganda and rumor? We'll dig in, we'll look around. And now, let's check in with this week's fantastic time-sucker updates. Let's kick things off again with another Cummins law victim. Top shelf made sack, Ashley Patterson, may have nearly gotten fired recently.

She wrote, I got Cummins law. Hello master sucker. My name is Ashley, an awful listen to time suck on Spotify during my daily 45-ish minute commute to work. I work in an assisted living facility and I am an activity assistant. The community I work in actually currently has COVID-19 positive residents. Oh wow, be careful. Despite this, we've been trying to entertain everyone the best way we can, the best we can, given the constantly changing regulations regarding distancing and isolation. Today at work, we were doing a name net tune event in one of our

main common areas. We used our personal cell phones and a Bluetooth speaker to play music. Today, I was sitting up the speaker and opened opened my Spotify and somehow on the actual speaker, accidentally press play, which resumed the Robert Bordella episode, Eek, and full volume. Echoing throughout the entire first floor of our facility, all you could hear was, Bob pushed his fist and forearm into his rectum. I was mortified for about five minutes. Think fuck most of our residents have dementia. Keep on sucking actually. Oh my god. What a weird, lucky thing to have, to have all of the people

you're working with have dementia and not get fired for that or at least getting a lot of trouble. people you're working with have dementia and not get fired for that or at least getting a lot of trouble. Yeah, they cracked me up. What a ridiculous moment. I'm sure you were preposterously embarrassed to have everybody. I can't imagine the questions you got. Thank you, actually. Now I'd like to share some fan fiction.

Oh, man, we had some fan fiction on the Secret Suck last Thursday. Now we got fan fiction on Time Suck now. Inspired by the recent multiverse suck, Super Sucker Katie Chandler, let her imagination run buck wild. And Katie wrote, Hey, Master Sucker, I hope this finds you,

your family and the Time Suck team well. I wanna start this by saying I'm a very visual thinker. Basically when people say something, I can picture it immediately. Pain about it, it's not a nice thing to picture. Oh, I bet. Also helps me write.

Once I get something stuck in my head for a story idea, can I get it out of my head until I write it out? I love that. This brings me to you and imagining you researching the multiverse theory. I hope you enjoy it, so here it goes. Lindsay stood in the kitchen, trying to decide what to make for dinner when she heard the crazed voice coming up

to stairs from where their bedroom and living area was. Both of the dogs ran frantically up to stairs, fear in their eyes. She held onto her amulet. The ward off any evil, they might have caused her dogs to panic. That's nailed her. Perfect. She went down the stairs, glancing into the mirror, she passed thinking about Dan's new times like episode on the multiverse theory. Could there be one on the other side of that mirror? When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she found Dan darting across the room, papers scattered all over their new carpet, a pinboard propped up against the sofa. There were pictures of all the scientists. He had

researched for the topic along with pictures of the galaxy, as well as print out of words she knew his mush mouth could not pronounce. Nailed it. All the clippings and pictures were connected by red string wrapped around the pins that held him in place. Dan she said, what the actual fuck is going on? He kept muttering under his breath, grabbing a marker that was next to 15 cans of black rifle coffee. Ha ha ha.

Dan started drawing shapes on the walls and shading them and it's, this is muttering, grew faster. Dan, no stop, what are you doing? She anchored the marker out of his trembling hand. Lindsay, he shouted, I'll thank God you here. I figured it out. I figured it all out. Guess what, the possibility of time trouble is real.

We have to get to the other reality because it's real there because of the discoveries. He darted over time, his board and held it up properly for her to see. All these beautiful bastards, the fact that Penny Pooper and Ginger Bell ran up the stairs, proves it. Dan dropped the board and grabbed a stun Lindsay by the hand and dragged her into the room. Dan, are you fucking with me? She asked? Fucking with you.

Why would I be fucking with you? He asked seriously before making his way to the bed. The parallel universes are created by each decision we make. Look, look, look, before you decided to make the bed this way, Shadow Lindsey decided to not make the bed. Her choice created more parallel words based on that choice. And you see, you see how you placed a crystal here. Shadow Lindsey placed it by the TV, which is just another portal to another realm. It's so simple. How was no one else figured to shout out? You're scaring me.

Dan, what the hell is wrong with you? Lindsay went to leave the room as Dan hurled her largest crystal at the wall. She screamed and jumped and she looked back at her dream's husband. See, I chose to throw your stupid crystal at the wall and shadow Dan chose not to. Wait! Dan grabbed his hair with both hands. What if I'm shadow Dan? What if I'm not the real Dan and I was created by the real Dan and now I'm not shadow Dan What a shadow I can't take anymore. We have to climb through this mirror You grab the dogs all grab the kids three days later at the hospital

Dan slowly open his eyes to bright for us and light shining down upon him Am I dead? No, but you're gonna wish you were if you ever do that shit again Lindsay's annoyed voice came from his left He looked at her beautiful face as she said after this this, you can never, ever say shit about my crystals ever again. Nice. The end. Hope you enjoyed it. It was by no means my best work, but it gave me a laugh, typing it over my lunch. Stay safe, you guys. Love, Katie Chandler. Katie, I love that. I love little stories like that. Very fun. Yes, I did feel like that, that crazy during the multiverse stuff. And now we have kick ass sack Danny Perillo

sharing a message regarding some frontline essential workers. He thinks deserve a little more thanks during our pandemic and I have to agree with him. He wrote, Hey, look to the King mother sucker himself. My name is Danny. I've been a long time listening to your stand up and devout member of the cult. He curious since your early sucks. I got on back when you did Vlad the impaler. I wanted to reach out because as much as we've given things to medical workers, police, fire, fighters, truckers, grocery workers, et cetera, I feel that one group of essential workers

has been left out. Cleaners, dormant janitors like myself. We make sure that the buildings people work in apartment buildings, hospitals, and schools are clean and disinfected every day so everyone can be healthy and safe while our health and safety is at risk. I don't mean to sound preachy,

but it just bugs me a little bit because we don't get the same recognition other professions get. While I'm working alone on these long nights in my building in New York City, I always have the suck to keep me going. The show has gotten me through rough times. The doc holiday suck came a week after my grandfather passed away

and it helped me out immensely. I know the suck will continue to get through, give me through my weeks and I always look forward to a new episode every Monday. And if you could, could you give a shout out to my fiance, Mary? I done and didn't done.

Shout out to Mary, Mary. It sounded like you're getting married to a good dude. And we're hopefully still getting married this October. So fingers crossed and I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with the greatest woman in the world. That's beautiful, good man. Sorry for the long message. Hope I didn't get your spend the rest of my life with the greatest woman in the world. That's beautiful. Good man Sorry for the long message. I hope I didn't get your zapples and twists. Nope. Give both angles a pat on the head for me. Don't forget to fill his water dish. Oh, yeah, and one more thing. Keep on sucking

Hope to see you next time you come to the big apple. You devoted. Devoted space. Those are Danny. Oh, well, you know, you're right Danny A lot of people doing a lot of good things for everybody else right now Including the people who have to keep everything clean. My brother-in-law, Jason Radsaminski, does the same thing out in Cleveland, is working crazy long hours. So thanks to you, thanks to Jason Radsaminski and everyone else who was disinfecting everything so that everybody else can do their job with a little more peace of mind. Very important.

And finally, I'll end with a sucker, Matt Russo, super sucker, sharing some more COVID-19 food for thought. A dear grandma has to suck in everyone on the time suck team. Hope you're all doing well, staying healthy. Normally, I try to stay out of stuff like this. But lately, I felt the need to start more conversations around this topic.

So aren't advanced for the long email, but I wanted this to be thorough, because I think this protest conversation needs to more focus on the nuances. I've included some embedded links to the sources for information I've found, just in case you want to check out those pages. Now for the lengthy part. Am I painting the protesters either didn't communicate their argument well or they weren't properly focused on their goal? Two main points that I think it lost in the conversation are aren't discussed enough or below. First, widespread testing should be a major focus of anyone advocating to reopen.

If a state reopens, but business owners or customers aren't comfortable going out, that has a huge impact on small businesses and their former employees. Specifically, that pushes a responsibility to business owners on whether or not they will reopen. Fortunately, if owners choose to not reopen, their employees can stand unemployment,

according to an NPR article that looks specifically at Georgia, may differ from state to state. However, if owners do choose to reopen, but significantly fewer people are patronizing their business, they're still financially burdened, but now they and their employees are being put at increased risk for COVID-19. However, the fear that might cause businesses to not reopen, or customers not to show up, would likely be eased if we had a plan that involved widespread testing. So infected individuals are told to quarantine for two weeks prior to re-entering the workforce or attending social gatherings.

Even though this could have its own problems, with people not quarantining or quarantining because they feel fine, despite testing positive for coronavirus, it's definitely something that would be a big help. It's not about getting tested before entering every single place. It's about identifying those infected early in this process so that they can individually be quarantined rather than having a widespread state home order. Also this wouldn't include taking people's temperatures regularly because a major problem with the virus is that it's asymptomatic.

People can spread it without knowing they have it, taking someone's temperature doesn't have a very good gauge to find out if one's infected or not. Second, further economic relief like the CARES Act should be a top priority for protesters. If the argument is truly about economy and making sure people can keep their businesses alive and income safe, the more legislation like CARES, like the CARES Act can help immensely. The PayTech Protection Program is probably

the most important part of my opinion when implemented effectively. For example, ensuring that funds go to small businesses and not to place it like the Shake Shack or the LA Lakers, this system would help small businesses and their employees financially survive quarantine, but providing funds to pay salaries, benefits, and business expenses while states figure out how to safely and effectively reopen. Now you might be concerned that this will raise a national debt. The US national debt, as of now, is over $25 trillion. And the CARES Act contributes about $2 trillion to that accord in the US Treasury.

However, it's important to note that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act contributed about the same amount toward debt through decreased federal revenue. Now you might argue that the tax reform was also in theory expected to grow the economy by 2% over time, which is essentially trickled down economics. I don't think that would actually work, but we'll say it will for the sake of this argument. But I think taking a $2 trillion hit to the national debt in order to keep the economy from totally collapsing and ensure the health of the American people

makes just as much sense as doing it to hopefully grow the economy a bit. I wanna make it clear that this isn't an argument to keep having the government pass legislation until there's a vaccine. It's just an argument that this should be part of the plan to reopen. Use this kind of legislation to buy time, to plan out a more effective and safe way to open

states back up in the near future. This also is to make the point that if it is truly about the economy and not because people are, oh, this is also to make the point that if it is truly about the economy and not because people are just sick of staying at home, this is at least one potential solution where you can prop up the economy, even just for a little while, and continue to stay at home until reopening is thoroughly planned out. Lastly, there are two arguments I've heard from protesters that I don't think hold much water. One is that Americans are responsible, so just tell us the social distance we can take care of ourselves. This is a bad argument.

One counter argument is you can't assert that Americans are responsible when a portion of our population drank bleach. More importantly, this argument relies on the idea that every single American is responsible follow rules, anyone who is ever interacted with other meat sacks can tell you that's not the case. That's true. And with the virus that spreads so easily from asymptomatic people, it only takes a very small subset acting irresponsibly to kickstart another wave of infection.

Two, the governors are abusing their powers by telling telling us what to do, I tend to disagree with this argument. No governor wants their citizens to be out of work. That doesn't make sense. These leaders are being forced to either air on the side of caution, extend state home orders, or reopen the state and risk a second wave of infection. Also, the CDC White House guidelines give clear benchmarks the states need to meet. So really, governors that are acting responsibly are referring to guidelines set forth by a federal agency and the Trump administration not wielding their power with reckless abandon. Sorry for the long email, just wanted to emphasize the complexity of this debate. It doesn't have to be as simple as reopen to an unsafe environment or don't reopen until

there's a vaccine. They can be about how we move forward in a way that makes the most sense. Thank you in the time stock team for all that you guys do. You're helping us all become better meat sacks by pushing us to think critically and I can't tell you how much I personally appreciate the, appreciate the differences had on my life.

Hill Nimrod, praise both jangles. Thanks again and stay healthy, best matte. Holy shit, matte. Man, you very, you laid out a very complex email. I thought in a very understandable way. Man, Matt Russo, good job, man. Yeah, testing, testing, testing, and I love that. Yes, it's a nuanced issue. That's the most important takeaway I think from what you said. Is it's not a black and white thing? It's not just fucking open it all up or the other side of let's shelter in place forever.

It doesn't have to be either of those extremes. There can be a middle ground that focuses on both health and the economy. And you know, life in general, I think most of the time, the answer is somewhere in the middle of the extremes, the extremes are very, very rarely ever correct. So thanks for saying that, and I'm glad the suck helps you.

I love being able to get emails like that from listeners like you. It's very cool, man, just to give us all more to think about. And just to spark more critical thinking in everyone. So thank you, Matt. Keep safe. And thanks everyone for sending in the awesome Time Sucker updates every single week.

Thank you, Matt. Thanks, Time Suckers. I need a net. We all did. That's all for time suck this week. Scared to death coming out tomorrow, tomorrow, night, secret suck on Thursday. I hope you have a great week. Hope you don't end up as the subject of a contract killing.

And most importantly, more than anything. I hope you keep on sucking please It's just keep on sucking and fights and the dog's that bad guy try and take you as not good for anyone Excuse me, I left watch at home, do you have time? Don't shoot! That's wrong answer! It's bullet head o'clock!