The criminal world is full of legends and its heroes. The main place in it is occupied by thieves in law. According to the gang clan, the elected leaders are at the highest level of the criminal hierarchy. While in prison, such a person practically owns his environment. In freedom, he is able to influence many criminal groups that can exist in different territories. At present, in Russia the number of such thieves does not reach four hundred, and one hundred of them are in places not so distant. The chosen one must adhere to certain rules that are due to him by status. One of the prominent representatives of this privileged class was Vyacheslav Ivankov, better known as Yaponchik, who was a legend in the thieves' world.
Difficult life of a child
There were many legends about Vyacheslav Yaponchik, which did not diverge too much from the truth. He was born on January 2, 1940 in a Moscow family. His father was an alcoholic and a frequent patient in psychiatric hospitals. Glory grew physically weak, often treated in sanatoriums and hospitals. At thirteen, he decided to go to the sports section to fight. With his mother, the child was rude and impudent.
After graduating from the eighth grade, he enrolled in a circus school, dreaming of becoming an air gymnast. And it is possible that the boy would have achieved good results, as he had high expectations. But fate decreed otherwise: in one of the trainings, he fell from a trapeze. Vyacheslav did not contact the doctors, although he had a closed skull injury. The guy became more swooned, and he had to leave the school. And did not become a gymnast Vyacheslav Ivankov, Jap. His biography made a definite turn.
Something went wrong
Having settled down as a locksmith in a consumer services plant, after a short time he became the foreman of the receivers, while studying in evening school. At twenty, Ivankov married an Assyrian from a princely family. Lidia Aivazova gave birth to a son. Jokingly, friends began to call him Assyrian son-in-law. Soon he was hit by a car, and he was taken to hospital, after discharge there was an intolerance to heat and driving in vehicles, but this was not yet Vyacheslav Yaponchik. His biography began to change rapidly, but not for the better. Already in 1965, Vyacheslav was taken to the police. Ivankov tried to commit a theft.
Was there a disease?
During the arrest, he resisted the staff. Vyacheslav was sent to undergo a forensic psychiatric examination in Kashchenko, where a conclusion was made - schizophrenia. Having learned his diagnosis, Ivankov changed his line of behavior, became more sociable and open, but the court sent him to compulsory treatment. He escaped from the hospital, did not appear at home, hiding from the organs, but passed exams on secondary education as an external student. Less than six months later, Ivankov was detained and returned for compulsory treatment. But another six months later, an expert commission wrote him out of the hospital on the condition that Ivankov be monitored.
The beginning of gangster life
In the early seventies, Ivankov fell into the Mongol gang, where Vyacheslav Yaponchik was “born”. One version of the receipt of such a nickname claims that the cause was a cut in his eyes, the second indicates that it was the possession of jujitsu techniques.
The criminal community included many people, and they extorted money from collectors and farmers, trade workers and “guild workers”. In 1972, the gang was destroyed, but Ivankov was able to escape, after which he created his own group, which performed almost the same functions. The gang "toured" throughout the Soviet Union.
His group consisted of persons previously convicted. Dressing in the uniform of police officers and using an identity card, using firearms, they searched people who lived on criminal incomes and businessmen in the shadow economy. They stole money, jewelry and stolen apartments. Also, having their informants in certain circles, the group came to wealthy government officials and intellectuals and came into direct contact with them. After that, the bandits took them to the existing apartments for this purpose or out of town in a fraudulent way. Using torture and beatings, they took away the savings from the victims.
Professional criminal
For the entire period before the second imprisonment, he managed to work as a darkroom technician and children's trainer, was listed as a merchandiser in a greengrocery, until he received a disability - the second group for mental illness. But this did not stop him from frequently visiting restaurants and business trips. Having got to the police for a fight in a tavern, Vyacheslav Yaponchik received an article for fake documents. He was sent for examination at the Serbsky Institute, where he was recognized as responsible. Ivankov was convicted in 1974. In the Butyrka prison, the inmates there dedicated him to the rank of kingpin. He divorced his wife.
Life Behind the Cordon
In 1981, Vyacheslav Ivankov (Jap) received his next term. His biography began to seem interesting and mysterious to many. Instead of the prescribed fourteen years, after serving ten, he was released. This was facilitated by the petitions of many famous human rights activists, artists and singers. After staying in his homeland for less than a year, he went to America with the crew of Roland Bykov , where he remained, having married a US citizen. In New York, contract killings of emigrants, who previously annoyed the authority with something, became more frequent. The FBI conducted surveillance until a suitable case presented itself. He was arrested for extortion and in 1997 was sentenced to 9 years and 7 months in prison.
The way home
In 2004, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office appealed to US law enforcement agencies to extradite Ivankov for the early murder of two people in Moscow at the Fidan restaurant. The American authorities made a positive decision, and Jap was sent to Russia. At that time legends in certain circles were already circulating about him, Vyacheslav Yaponchik became famous not only in his homeland. The Moscow city court, represented by the jury, admitted that Vyacheslav Ivankov was not guilty of the murder of two people and the attempt on the third. All the victims were Turkish citizens.
Two snipers
On July 28, 2009, an attempt was made on Jap. When he left the restaurant, he was fired from by sniper rifles with optical sights, two people. In critical condition, Ivankov was hospitalized and urgently operated on. Sanitation of the abdominal cavity did not protect him from peritonitis. On the night of September 13-14, he had a clinical death. On October 9, Vyacheslav Yaponchik died in the hospital from injuries. Since a forensic medical examination was carried out, the funeral was postponed from October 11 to October 13.
Jap’s death gathered a crowd at the Vagankovskoye cemetery, mostly people from the world of crime, but there were also media outlets. The burial was ordered by his associate and friend, the thief in law Ded Hassan - Aslan Usoyan. There were many wreaths from the "lads" from different regions of Russia. The entire area was examined for explosives. The funeral was widely covered in all media, which caused discontent in the Duma.
But who would have thought that after the death of a criminal authority such names as Vyacheslav Yaponchik and Patriarch Kirill would stand nearby? Two completely opposite personalities, two sides of the same coin - two completely dissimilar people, whose fates did not intersect. An absurd combination of circumstances played a bad joke, which many are still trying to explain and get to the bottom of the truth.
Is there a simple resemblance?
On January 27, 2009, an important event took place - Vladimir Gundyaev (in the world) was chosen as the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. After a while, rumors began to appear that Jap, Vyacheslav Ivankov and Patriarch Kirill were one and the same person. Did the authority exactly die of peritonitis in the hospital? In several media outlets, real hysteria began about the surprising similarity, people began to compare their photographs. Some cite the fact that the body of the Jap was not shown, and the patriarch appeared after his death. To this day, people cannot believe in a simple coincidence and have expressed numerous conjectures. Is Vyacheslav Ivankov (Jap) really buried? Is the patriarch on the throne?
One of the users of social networks under the nickname Man wrote on Twitter next to two compared photographs about what could have been a murder and a simple falsification, because no one ever saw the body of Jap. There are quite a few dark spots in this story. Is Vyacheslav Yaponchik really dead? Patriarch Kirill appeared on people after the funeral. And is this a mere coincidence?
Vladimir Gundyaev in April 1969 was tonsured a monk and named after Cyril, and a year later he graduated with honors from the Theological Academy in Leningrad. Over the next forty years, he went his own way to receive the highest rank in the clergy. If desired, each person can easily trace that two completely different people - Yaponchik (Vyacheslav Ivankov) and Patriarch Kirill - cannot be one person. Indeed, almost every person on Earth has a double.