Alexander Solonik’s Epic Prison Escape
Wikimedia CommonsAlexander Solonik was the only person to escape from Matrosskaya Tishina and remain at large.
Alexander Solonik was as mysterious as he was deadly. A former policeman, he was an expert marksman and proficient in martial arts. He may or may not have been in the Soviet special forces, but he undoubtedly became a contract killer for the Russian mob. While that landed him in prison, it also got him out of it.
An imposing hitman with monickers like the “Russian Jackal” and “Alexander the Great,” Solonik was paid thousands per kill and never disclosed the identity of his clients. Born in 1960, he mastered that job while assassinating high-ranking NATO officials for the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War.
He also joined the police force but was fired within six months for displaying cruelty towards prisoners. Solonik was ultimately arrested for rape shortly after. But his career as a prison escapist began before he was even sentenced, as he jumped out the second-story courtroom window and fled to Siberia. It was soon clear that even iron bars wouldn’t hold him.
Wikimedia CommonsThe Matrosskaya Tishina detention center in Moscow.
Arrested at a salon while trying to get cosmetic surgery, Solonik was imprisoned for two years before he escaped through the facility’s ventilation system in April 1990. Subsequently employed by the Russian mob as a hitman thereafter, he was arrested and imprisoned in Matrosskaya Tishina detention center in Moscow after being wounded in a 1995 shootout.
Rewarded by the mob for refusing to cooperate with police, they set up an escape fund of $500,000 for Solonik. Bribing one of the guards, they organized a rope, climbing gear, and guns for Solonik to scale the prison walls and escape into a waiting BMW in June 1995.
Solonik had left behind nothing but a dummy in his cell bed. While both he and the guard, later identified as police sergeant Sergey Menshikov, vanished without a trace, Solonik’s fate caught up with him soon enough. With 43 hits under his belt and no more luck to gamble with, he fled to Greece in 1997.
Determined to eliminate any loose ends, the mob hired one of Solonik’s friends to find and kill him. A fellow contract killer, Sasha Soldat, found Solonik in a lavish mansion near Athens — where he strangled him to death. Ultimately, Alexander Solonik was the only inmate to ever escape Matrosskaya Tishina successfully.
