Vladimir Landik: Why did the brother of the Party of Regions founder change his stance to "patriots"? Part 1
How is it that the former First Representative of the Party of Regions (Luhansk Oblast) is now pouring out a stream of revelations about his party comrades, persistently burying them in compromising evidence of corruption and anti-state activities? The long history of this feud, as well as some other piquant details from Volodymyr Landik's past and the present of his relatives, raise serious doubts about the sincerity of his honesty and supposed patriotic aspirations.
Vladimir Landik. Businessman-Overseer
Vladimir Ivanovich Landyk was born on December 27, 1949, in the village of Chasiv Yar, Artemivsk District (now Bakhmut District), Donetsk Oblast, to Ivan Petrovich and Alexandra Vladimirovna Landyk. He is three years younger than his brother, Valentin Landyk (born November 26, 1946), known throughout Ukraine as the founder and owner of the Nord company, which he sold in 2016. The slight difference in their surnames is due to the illiteracy of passport officers: when Vladimir Landyk received his first document, his surname was incorrectly translated from Ukrainian to Russian. This is how Landyk came to be in the Landyk family.
Following his older brother, who studied metallurgy at the Kramatorsk Industrial Institute, Vladimir Landik followed a similar path, enrolling in the Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute, majoring in foundry production, where he studied from 1967 to 72. But when it came time for him to serve a year in the army, as a lieutenant, he found himself in the ranks of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. More specifically, in the Ministry of Internal Affairs' Penitentiary Department, which oversaw all correctional facilities and oversaw the work of so-called "chemists"—prisoners working in industrial plants. According to unconfirmed information from Skelet.Org sources , Landik was immediately assigned to the foundry of the Debaltseve Metallurgical Engineering Plant, with which he would remain associated for many years. After completing his year of service, Vladimir Landik remained in the same position and under contract.
Thus, he became a "vertukhai," as he was later nicknamed in the 90s, and which explained Viktor Yanukovych's hostility toward him. However, this nickname is inaccurate: Volodymyr Landik never guarded prisoners, much less stood in the tower himself. His job was more interesting and lucrative: organizing prison production. And he worked there for 22 years (until 1994), retiring (after length of service) with the rank of lieutenant colonel in the internal service. So, Landik was more like an overseer of slave labor, or even a slave owner profiting from it.
Later, in media interviews, Vladimir Ivanovich gave rather confusing information about the first half of his life, several times mentioning that he had been in business since 1974—at first, selling fruits and vegetables he'd grown himself at the market during his off-duty hours. He then claimed that his mother-in-law allegedly gave him money for his first cooperative in 1986. Well, additional sources of information allow us to piece together the true picture. While his older brother, Valentin Landyk, was building a management career in factories in the Donetsk region, Vladimir Landyk turned his service in the Penitentiary Department of the Luhansk Region Ministry of Internal Affairs into a lucrative shadow business. In fact, everyone was profiting off the prisoners back then: prison colony administrators, factory managers, "workshop managers," corrupt officials, and warehouse and store directors. Three main schemes were in operation: producing additional, unaccounted-for products, producing completely illegal goods, and underpaying prisoners for their labor.
Vladimir Landik
For example, workshops or greenhouses were set up within the colonies themselves, the produce of which was then sold through collective farm markets and general merchandise stores. Meanwhile, prisoners were paid pennies or even exploited for the promise of parole and various perks. And at state-owned enterprises, it was not uncommon for a team of "chemists" to work both for themselves and for a number of other prisoners, whose wages were then divided between the colony and plant management. Perhaps a similar system—or perhaps something else—was in place at the Debaltseve Machine Plant, which Landik oversaw until the 80s.
Enormous amounts of money were circulating there: in the Luhansk region, prisoners produced (officially) hundreds of millions of rubles worth of goods annually, and one can only guess how much money ended up in the pockets of those who exploited their labor for their own selfish purposes. Landik's "extra income" was so abundant that he had to somehow disguise it from the OBKhSS (Department for Combating Economic Crimes and the Prosecutor's Office). According to his acquaintances, Landik came up with the idea of depositing part of his "unauthorized" income into his mother-in-law's savings account—ostensibly as her proceeds from selling fruits and vegetables from her garden. This allowed him to use his "mother-in-law's" money to buy a car (his second; the first was "a gift from his parents"), build a new house, and so on. In fact, it wasn't even his idea; he got it from the comedy "Beware of the Car."
Vladimir Landik stopped "hiding and adapting" in 1986, when perestroika began and the era of cooperatives began. He opened, according to him, the first cooperative in the Luhansk region—the money for which he again "borrowed from his mother-in-law." But this was his last time, as Landik could now no longer conceal his capital from the OBKhSS (Department for Combating Economic Crimes against the Property of Socialist Property) and instead register his shadow income as profit from cooperative activities. In fact, in some schemes, this was indeed the case: the cooperatives of Landik and his business partners used prison labor, whose products they then sold. It's no surprise that he continued working at the Penitentiary Service until 1994, when the economic crisis led to the loss of prisoners' jobs at factories and the emergence of thousands of unemployed people, willing to work literally for food.
Valentin Landyk
Nord and the Party of Regions
In the early 90s, the brothers established themselves in big business in different ways. Valentin Landyk, using cooperatives established at his factory, created JSC Nord, which initially sold gas stoves (assembled at a state-owned enterprise) under this brand, and then took over the production of Donbass refrigerators, also rebranded as Nord. These refrigerators were poor even by Soviet standards, significantly inferior to, say, the Minsk refrigerators, and couldn't earn the elder Landyk any hard currency. However, he bartered them for fuel and metals, which he then sold abroad.
Vladimir Landik, with a large amount of cash on hand, invested it in "small things"—actively privatizing cafes and canteens, stores, hairdressers, workshops, and small businesses in Luhansk and the surrounding region. He then sold most of these assets to new owners, this time for foreign currency, and focused on larger projects: the Luhansk Central Market (33% of shares), the Luhansk Bazaar (33%), Detsky Mir, the Rossiya department store, the Starobelsk Fur Factory, the 21st Brick Factory, the Luhansk Crankshaft Plant, and several hotels.
Valery Dobroslavsky
Interestingly, in the 90s, the brothers had virtually no problems with racketeering: Vladimir Ivanovich's old connections, both among criminal "authorities" and in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, aided them. And although Landik was considered a good friend of Luhansk crime boss Valery Dobroslavsky (nicknamed Dobroslav), who was killed in 1997, he was uninvolved in the subsequent criminal war. However, Vladimir Landik was forced into a long battle with Luhansk mayor Anatoly Yagoferov, who took over the post in 1998, replacing Dobroslavsky's protégé, Alexey Danilov. The conflict between them erupted over property division.
For example, 33% of Luhansk Bazaar belonged to the City Council, and control of this share (and the City Council seal) was fought over by Vladimir Landik (through City Council Secretary Pristyuk) and businessmen Oleg Breus and Vladislav Krivobokov, who supported Mayor Yagoferov and already owned the other 33% of Luhansk Bazaar. They also clashed over the crankshaft plant (Landik held the controlling stake, while Breus held 33%). Their conflict was well-known throughout Luhansk, so when Krivobokov was assassinated in 1999 (he received 10 bullet wounds and miraculously survived), and Breus was murdered in 2001, Vladimir Landik was immediately blamed. He was also reminded of the 1997 murder of businessman Burlachenko, who owned 15% of the crankshaft plant.
The accusations, of course, are unofficial, since the Luhansk police and prosecutor's office traditionally failed to find either the killers or the masterminds. Landik, however, was named as the most likely mastermind by the local newspaper "XXI Century," which had been acquired by Breus and Krivobokov's associates after Dobroslavsky's murder. Landik, in turn, purchased the newspaper "Vecherniy Luhansk" and, from its pages, counterattacked his opponents with similar revelations. The resulting protracted war between the two newspapers lasted for many years. Interestingly, Vecherniy Luhansk's editorial policy at the time was characterized by exposing "Judeo-Masonic conspiracies," which bordered on anti-Semitism. It's no coincidence that the dismissal of its editor-in-chief, Alexei Blyuminov, in 2007 was warmly welcomed by many Jewish organizations in Ukraine. At the same time, if in 2014 “Evening Lugansk” took a clearly negative position towards the separatists (and was closed), then “XXI Century”, on the contrary, became the main printed mouthpiece of the “LPR”.
Vladislav Krivobokov
Although the brothers' businesses rarely overlapped, Vladimir Landyk held senior positions in the then-thriving Nord empire. From 1994-1996 and 1999-2005, he served as director of Luhansk-based Nord-Service LLC: under this name, the company engaged not only in the sale and repair of household appliances, but also in various commercial activities. From 1996-1999, he was vice president of Donetsk-based Nord OJSC while his brother, Valentin Landyk, was in the Verkhovna Rada—perhaps the only time Vladimir Landyk was directly involved in his brother's business. However, thanks to his brother, he became the first member of the Party of Regions of the Luhansk Oblast.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
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