Alexander Solonik

Alexander Solonik (b. 1960 - d. 1997), also known as "Alexander the Great", and "Superkiller", was a prominent Russian hitman in the early 1990s and was thought to have the ability to shoot ambidextrously. He carried out numerous murders for the Orekhovskaya criminal group in the early 1990s. He was jailed again in 1994, only to escape in July 1995 from the Matrosskaya Tishina (a Moscow Jail). He was found dead in Greece in 1997.

Biography

Early life

Aleksandr Solonik was born in 1960 in the Russian city of Kurgan. As a child, Solonik showed great interest in martial arts and guns. When he finished school, he joined the Russian military. Soon after his tour of duty, Solonik joined the OMON - an elite special security unit - and eventually received militia training at the Gorkovskiy Institute. However, after 6 months he was expelled for unknown reasons. Upon returning home, Solonik obtained a job as a gravedigger at the Kurgan cemetery. He was soon married and his wife gave birth to a daughter. After some time they divorced and Solonik remarried another woman, with whom he had a son. Solonik was charged with rape in 1987 and sentenced to 8 years in the gulag. During a farewell meeting with his wife before he was deported, Solonik escaped by jumping from the second floor of a building. After several months Solonik was apprehended 120 miles north of Kurgan and taken to the gulag.

Hitman

Because Solonik had worked for the army and had some police training, he was entitled to a private jail cell but was nevertheless placed among the prison population. When it became known to the other inmates that Solonik had been a soldier and had worked for the police, he was marked for death. In the absence of rules or police protection in the Gulag, Solonik was on his own. But he survived. According to rumor, Solonik sometimes took on as many as 12 hardened inmates a time, eventually earning the respect of his fellow prisoners. After 2 years, he escaped again.

Solonik again went back home to Kurgan, joined the local criminal organization and started work as a hitman. Solonik's first target, the leader of a rival organization, stood little chance and was eliminated in 1990 in the city of Tjumen. After this hit, Solonik travelled to Moscow with other members of the Kurgan organization to seek work. In 1992, Solonik assassinated the Russian thief Viktor Nikiforov. Six months later he murdered another important Russian mob boss. This time the victim was a Thief in law Valeri Dlugatsj. Dlugatsj was shot in a crowded disco despite the fact that he was surrounded by bodyguards. In 1994 Vladislav Vinner was eliminated by Solonik. Vinner had become boss of a rival organization after Dlugatsj's death. It was reported that in 1994 Solonik tried to extort another Russian mobster. The mobster made a speaker phonecall to settle the extortion, and Solonik immediately identified him as Otari Kvantrishvili, one of the most powerful Russian mobsters in history. Apparently, Solonik was unable to extort money from Kvantrishvili and several weeks later murdered him in an act of revenge. However, the story is doubtful as other people from a gang unrelated to Solonik were convicted in 2008 for Kvantrishvili's murder. Rumors spread that he was supported by the Chechnian groups.

By this time, Solonik had become famous among the criminal underworld and law enforcement figures. Law enforcement took special interest and made several attempts to deport him back to the gulag. Solonik and a fellow criminal were apprehended by the Moscow police when they were having a drink at a Moscow marketplace. The police failed to check Solonik thoroughly and he opened fire in the police station with a small automatic weapon which he concealed under a raincoat. He hit 3 policemen and ran outside. As he fled the station, he shot 2 more police officers. Solonik was also shot (it is said that the bullet hit him in the kidney, which is incredibly painful, though not necessarily lethal). He was cornered, but managed keep the officers at bay. Eventually he was overpowered and surrendered. Solonik was then sent to a Moscow prison and underwent an operation to remove the bullet in his kidney. In his spare time at the prison, he studied foreign languages. In 1995 he escaped yet again. This time Solonik had few hiding places in Russia, for his name and face were known, but he disappeared without a trace.

Eventually Solonik surfaced in Greece with a fake passport, which he secured from the Greek consulate in Moscow. In Greece, Solonik set up his own organization of around 50 men, which dealt in narcotic shipments and contract killings. Solonik's organization bought several villas in an Athens suburb. Solonik's legend now grew to legendary proportions with the public and he made Russia's top ten "Most Wanted" list.

Death

But in February 1997 the legend was over. Greek newspapers published articles that claimed a Russian mob boss had been found dead 15 miles from Athens. The body was found strangled to death and had no identification documents on him. Authorities nevertheless identified the body as Solonik. In the weeks after his body was found, Greek authorities raided the villas of Solonik's organization and found an arsenal of weapons. They also discovered that Solonik had been hired to carry out a "hit" in Italy.

According to rumors, Solonik was finally put to rest by a Moscow Organized Crime group. However, others insist that Solonik is still alive, and that the body was merely a double. Moscow and Greek authorities had difficulty identifying the fingerprints because the fingerprints on record for Solonik were fake, as he had obtained a false passport before relocating to Greece. Solonik had certainly amassed enough power by the time of his death to have orchestrated a fake death. In the end, Solonik remains a legend to this day for the Russian public and is known as a 'superkiller'.

Rumors

There are many rumors about Alexander Solonik, including his ability to shoot with both hands and his roles in some of the high profile assassinations he was allegedly involved in. According to Solonik's boss at the time of his organized crime activities in Russia, Solonik wasn't actually a good shooter and did not like to handle firearms. Other rumors include Solonik being of Greek origin, and still being alive.

References

* [http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/05/06/012-full.html Moscow Times article]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4801971.stm BBC article, with information on Alexander Solonik]
* [http://english.pravda.ru/main/2003/01/24/42510.html A Biography of Solonik]