Nikolai Fedorov, a member of the Taganskaya organized crime group implicated in the murder of Rospishcheprom owner Valery Zhuravlev, was briefly arrested, released, and moved to the United States. The VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info explain how he managed this.
Nikolai Fedorov owned a restaurant located in a building at 18/3 1st Tverskoy-Yamsky Lane. The building itself belonged to Valery Zhuravlev's organizations. The restaurant's secret co-owners were the leaders of the Taganskaya organized crime group; the establishment served as their headquarters, and Fedorov was a full-fledged member of the group. During one of their lunches, Fedorov and the "authorities" came up with the idea to seize the entire 6,000-square-meter building on 1st Tverskoy-Yamsky Lane.
As a result, the Tagansky gang and Fedorov forged documents and transferred the building to individuals under their control. Zhuravlev filed a report with the Central Administrative District Department of Internal Affairs, and a criminal case was opened. Ten days later, his body was discovered with a blow to the head. This was the Tagansky gang's signature move. A significant number of their victims were killed with rebar and pipe. The plan worked. The building theft case was effectively buried. The Tagansky gang and Fedorov, through individuals under their control, had been leasing the premises for a long time and then selling them.
In 2017, Fedorov was arrested by the Presnensky Court and spent two years awaiting trial in pretrial detention. However, security officials finally decided to go after the leaders of the Tagansky organized crime group, Igor Zhirnokleyev and Grigory Rabinovich. Until then, this pair, with numerous connections in government and the security services, had been untouchable.
Fedorov decided to take advantage of this. Naturally, with the necessary support. According to a source at the Cheka-OGPU and Rucriminal.info, Fedorov had long known Anton Chichkanov. He is a Moscow cash-out operator and fixer with close ties to the security forces. He is the grandson of Valery Petrovich Chichkanov (died 2023), a former deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, advisor to the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences, vice-rector of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, and so on.
As a result, Chichkanov arranged Fedorov's release through high-ranking security officials. To achieve this, Fedorov made a plea bargain with investigators, testified against Igor Zhirnokleyev and Grigory Rabinovich, and was released. He immediately went to live in the United States.
In May 2025, the Moscow City Court handed down verdicts in the Taganskaya organized crime group case (Zhirnokleyev, Rusanova, and others; Rabinovich died in pretrial detention) for multiple counts of murder and corporate raiding, particularly the murder of Valery Zhuravlev, owner of Rospishchprom. Nikolai Fedorov never appeared in the dock. However, in one of his complaints, lawyer Semenov explicitly states that "N.V. Fedorov's testimony contradicts his testimony during confrontations. Fedorov is attempting to shift responsibility from himself to others, including G.L. Rabinovich." Thus, the actual "customer" of Zhuravlev's murder was released and immediately emigrated to the United States.
A source says that Fedorov, together with Anton Chichkanov, continues to engage in corporate raids, but from a safe distance.
