Pablo Escobar: Boss of the cocaine drug empire. Beginning of criminal activity

drug lord Pablo Escobar built while still alive Hacienda Napoles estate as a monument to his greatness. Even 22 years after his death, this gigantic estate is as alive as ever. Several people take care of it. And the crime drama Narcos (Narcos, from Spanish - Drug Dealers), which has become so popular recently, tells about this and the life of a drug lord.

Colombian police pose in front of the entrance to the drug lord's former residence Pablo Escobar

Speaks Robin Hartmann

We are writing about 1978, when the then 30-year-old man began his incredible career death, and during which thousands of innocent people passed away. And thanks to this, he became one of the richest and most powerful people in the world: Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria at that time, he stood only at the beginning of his career as the future terrible drug lord of all times and peoples. He was also responsible for numerous illegal shops and murders. It was already clear earlier that El Patron de Mal(in German: Mister Evil) or El Capo, as he was already called, is a man in whose hands is all the power that he needs. Namely, when and where he needs it.

Shot from the series "Narco"

Was filmed film about life Pablo Escobar , in particular, the series "Narco" with Wagner Moura V leading role.

Naturally, such a man needed a home. His flamboyant and unambiguous manner and image represent his dominance and everyone else should understand this: he is the Boss! At Escobaro there was a small private property in Puerto Triunfo. The land plot is surrounded by a fence and its area is almost 3000 hectares. Immediately after purchase "Hacienda Napolis" construction work started there. Then already Escobar owned immense financial condition and could afford to build there: an airplane runway, an unimaginable number of luxury apartments for famous guests, more than 20 artificially created lakes, a heliport, an aircraft hangar, horse quarters, a dino park and his own bullring. Today, all of this is part of a theme park.

This complex also includes "Afrikanisches Museum"

1700 employees and a private zoo

Soon, ten luxury residential buildings were built throughout the complex, in which about 1,700 employees lived. Escobar and his business partners. The cost of Hacienda was at one time estimated at over $60 million. Legend has it that he owns a 1934 Chevrolet Modell on display in which a gangster couple was allegedly shot dead. Bonnie and Clyde. It was also known that Escobar honored them both. In addition, the property Escobar there was an exotic arboretum with rare palm trees and other plants.

Car park Escobar

Former truck fleet Pablo Escobaro started to rust. There are not a small number of people who, to this day, are firmly convinced that the rock group Rolling Stones ( Rolling Stones) once performed at Hocienda Napolis. However, this rumor has never been officially confirmed, but this myth has made a certain contribution.

Car park Escobar

All this megalomania was fully reflected in private hobbies, in which Escobar has invested millions of dollars: a private zoo filled with giraffes, rhinoceros, elephants, kangaroos, camels and hippos - just to name a few of the many species that live there.

These flamingos walk proudly through Escobar's private zoo and were soon relocated to the Santafe Zoo in the city. Medellin

Friendly junkie needed ideas El Capo, divulged the son Escobar after the death of his father, who today calls himself Sebastian Marroquin. At the time, there were such visible extravagant norms under the Colombian drug lord. But here's the absurdity: a private zoo Escobar was founded after one purchase in the United States of America (Vereinigten Staaten). “My father negotiated with the owners of the zoo in Dallas, Texas (Dallas, Texas),” says the youngest son Escobar, "he paid these people two million dollars in cash and a short time later the animals were sent."

Colombian journalist Juan Felipe Lopez Lara explains why under the noses of the city authorities such bandits as Escobar could lead such an extravagant and conspicuous life without fear of being searched by the police:

Drug dealers then ruled the whole country, they ruled both the politics and the economy of the whole of Colombia. It was an era of pure anarchy, they controlled almost everything, from the fate of states to sports.

That's how Escobar even bought out the South American football competition Copa Libertadores (Copa Libertadores) in 1989 to see his favorite team win. "Club Atletico Nacional in the city of Medellin" (Club Atletico Nacional de Medellin).

Pablo Escobar opened his zoo to the public

And again a little about Hacienda Napolis, who, during her lifetime, Escobar bequeathed to future generations. As soon as all construction work was completed on the estate and his private zoo was fully equipped and all animals were delivered there, Pablo Escobar did something very unexpected! Rather than fence off his own property and retire there, he opened the whole territory to the public and gave everyone who entered the opportunity to use their dose of courage there and appease their curiosity.

My son, this zoo is here for the public.

this is how the drug lord explained his decision to the children.

As long as I'm alive, no one here will have to pay to enter. I love that poor people can just come and marvel at the wonders of nature

There were crowds of people. Initial time to visit the zoo Escobaro was calculated as 10 minutes per person, but soon due to huge crowds, the waiting time was increased to two hours.

In his book "Pablo Escobaro is my father" Sebastian Marroquin recounts how he saved an injured deer from his fate both times: “He let me take his Sieg Sauer P-226 pistol and helped me aim. However, it took me three tries because I was very scared and my hands were shaking."

The era of the king of drugs did not last so long: Escobar Of course, he felt like the favorites of little people and the crowd, he always acted boldly, boldly and mercilessly. Thousands of people died in this drug war. It seemed that Colombia lost in this fight against the mighty Escobaro. AND USA insisted that the man who filled their entire country with cocaine receive American capital punishment. The truth meanwhile Escobar a deal with the authorities was granted and he was sent behind bars, to a prison that looked like a luxury hotel inside. He built this prison himself. After the escape attempt, it became clear that only the death of state enemy number one would provide a small respite in this drug war and the US would calm down after that.

The shot was fired by an elite group of Colombian and American police officers. federal service for drug control. His Hacienda Napolis estate was confiscated. "The Colombian state and the narcotics service got the whole estate at the time," says the journalist Lopez Lara.

After Escobaro's death , Hacienda is gradually being destroyed

In the next few decades, such an elegant and pompous place collapsed quite badly: the robbers took with them everything they could carry, nature again took all its strength and the entire Hacienda began to slowly collapse before our eyes and become covered with destructive greenery. Surprising changes were taking place with the once brilliant private zoo. Even during his lifetime Escobaro many hippopotamuses, which were brought by him, ran away. He brought them because the smell of their fertilizer covered the smell of drugs.

Pablo Escobar hippos
Pablo Escobar hippos

Hippos were imported from Pablo Escobaro and are now enjoying freedom: hippos are close to Hacienda Napolis.

“Today we try to find all the animals in the area,” explains Lopez Lara. These are the only living hippos living outside of Africa (Afrika). How large their population is, no one can say for sure. Some say that they number about 70 individuals, while others, on the contrary, argue that we are talking O more animals. It is a fact that hippos are doing well in Colombia and their numbers are steadily increasing. Here their sex life is much more active than their relatives in Africa.

According to the BBC company (BBC), animals in this area suffer greatly: they scare the fish, devour the entire crop and occasionally kill livestock. Probably, Pablo Escobaro this place was a great pleasure, and so now it says that Colombia simply did not give a damn about the soul of Pablo already 20 years after his death.

Today Hacienda Napolis it is again a zoo and a tourist theme park with hotels and attractions. Travel portal TripAdvisor (Tripadvisor) awarded him a certificate of quality in 2014 thanks not only to animals, but also to the fact that you can plunge into the world of a person who, thanks to his career as a criminal, got into Forbes list(Forbes) as one of the richest people in the world.

Today estate Escobaro it is an art museum showing the life stages of a drug lord.

At the entrance, at the gate, you can see a small plane that brought the first contraband shipment of cocaine into the United States. Inside the complex, visitors can walk through the water park and enjoy the dino park, which Escobaro built for his son. And of course, you can learn a lot about yourself Escobaro, about the man whose death all Colombia needed so much.

Life Pablo Escobaro has been filmed many times, most recently in the TV series Narcos with a Brazilian actor Wagner Moura starring. On this moment You can watch this series on Netflix.

Escobar's income

In the mid-eighties, Escobar's cartel was generating $420 million a week, which adds up to about $22 billion a year.

One of the richest people in the world

By the end of the eighties, it supplied 80 percent of the world's cocaine. He smuggled about 15 tons of cocaine daily into the United States of America.

According to journalist Ioan Grillo, the Medellin cartel transported most drugs right across the coast of Florida. “Between the northern coast of Colombia and the coast of Florida as much as one and a half thousand kilometers, and all this time the one who moved along this route was in full view of everyone. The Colombians and their American partners dumped bundles of goods directly into the sea, and speedboats awaiting delivery immediately set off from the coast to them. Sometimes the goods were dumped right on the coast of Florida, ”said Grillo.

King of America

In other words, four out of five Americans who used cocaine used the product supplied by El Patron. Every month, the Cocaine King made a $2.1 billion loss, but it didn't matter. Escobar's incredible wealth became a problem when he couldn't launder the money fast enough. According to Roberto Escobar, the cartel's chief accountant and brother of a well-known drug lord, he began burying huge sums of money in Colombian fields, hiding them in dilapidated warehouses and the walls of cartel members' houses. “Pablo made so much that every year we wrote off ten percent of our earnings because the money was eaten by rats in warehouses, water damaged or lost,” he said. Based on how much

Escobar earned ten percent, which amounted to $2.1 billion.

Escobar simply had more money than he could use, so the occasional loss due to rodents or mold was not a problem for him.

Every month he spent two and a half thousand dollars on rubber bands.

While the constant need to hide, as well as losing money, was one problem, the brothers faced another, more basic problem - how to organize banknotes neatly? According to Roberto Escobar, the Medellin cartel spent about $2,500 on rubber bands that were used to form bundles of banknotes.

He once lit a two million dollar fire because his daughter was cold.

In 2009, Pablo Escobar's son Juan Pablo, now known as Sebastian Marroquin, described what life on the run was like with the King of Cocaine. According to Marroquin, the family was living in a mountainside shelter in Medellin when Pablo Manuela's daughter suffered an attack of hypothermia. Escobar decided to burn two million dollar bills to keep his daughter warm.

Once a girl asked to give her a unicorn.

Escobar bought a horse and had a horn-shaped cardboard cone stapled to its head. Also, wings were sewn to the back of the horse, as a result of which the animal died from an infection. Escobar did not feel sorry for any money for the sake of his daughter when she had baby tooth, the “tooth fairy” left a suitcase with $ 1 million near her bed, allegedly in exchange for her tooth. When the girl asked how many billions he had, Pablo always answered her: “As much as the look of your eyes is worth, my princess”!

It is said that Escobar forced one of his mistresses, who became pregnant from him, to have an abortion only because the drug lord promised Manuela that she would always be his only and beloved daughter.

He was nicknamed "Robin Hood" when he gave money to the poor on the streets, built houses for the homeless, created seventy public football fields, and established a zoo.

He made a deal with the Colombian government and agreed to go to prison, but on the condition that he build it himself. So there was luxury prison Escobar "La Catedral"

In 1991, Pablo Escobar was imprisoned in a prison called "La Catedral", which he himself designed. Under the terms of the agreement concluded with the government of Colombia, Escobar could choose who would be imprisoned with him.

He was also free to continue his cartel business and receive visitors. The grounds of La Catedral included a football field, a barbecue lawn and a patio, and the prison was also close to another apartment complex he had built for his family. Also, representatives of the Colombian authorities could not drive closer than five kilometers to the prison.

End of career and death of Pablo

During his "imprisonment", Pablo Escobar continued to run a multi-billion dollar cocaine business. One day he learned that his partners in the cocaine cartel, taking advantage of his absence, robbed him. He immediately ordered his men to take them to La Catedral. He personally subjected them to brutal torture, drilling his victims' knees and pulling out their nails, and then ordered his people to kill them and take the corpses out of the prison. It is known that Escobar committed one of the two murders with his own hand.

Escobar has gone too far this time. On July 22, 1992, President Cesar Gaviria gave the order to transport Pablo Escobar to a real prison. But Escobar found out about the president's decision and fled.

He was free, but now there were enemies everywhere.

In the fall of 1993, the Medellin cocaine cartel began to disintegrate, but the drug lord was more worried about his family. Escobar has not seen his wife or children for over a year. On December 1, 1993, Pablo Escobar turned 44 years old. He knew that he was under constant surveillance, so he tried to speak on the phone as briefly as possible so that he would not be “spotted” by police and special services agents.

The day after his birthday, December 2, 1993, Escobar called his family. The agents hunting for him had been waiting for this call for many hours. This time, while talking to his son Juan, Escobar stayed on the line for about 5 minutes. After that, Escobar was spotted in the Medellin quarter of Los Olibos. Soon the house in which Pablo Escobar was hiding was surrounded on all sides by special agents. The commandos knocked out the door and rushed inside. At that moment, Escobar's bodyguard El Limon opened fire on the police who were trying to storm the house.

El Limon was injured and fell to the ground. Immediately after that, with a pistol in his hands, Pablo Escobar himself leaned out the same window. He opened fire indiscriminately in all directions. He then climbed out the window and tried to escape his pursuers through the roof. A Colombian police sniper who was hiding on the roof of a nearby house shot Escobar in the leg, causing him to fall. The next bullet hit Escobar in the back, after which the sniper approached Escobar and fired a control shot in the head.

It's hard to imagine life in the heart of a criminal empire in Colombia. However, more recently, some 20-25 years old back, city Medellin in Colombia was the most dangerous city on the planet. This status was given to the city due to the fact that in those years the city was captured and was in power, expelled from the government, Pablo Escobar, a strange figure, but interesting from a historical point of view.

The life story of the world-famous eccentric Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar A ( full name: Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, years of life: December 1, 1949 – December 2, 1993) to this day continues to attract the attention of many people around the world. A lot has already been written about him, and in 2014 another Feature Film "Lost heaven" With Benicio Del Toro starring. This film does not reflect even half of the horror in which the Colombians lived in those years.

Benicio Del Toro, "Paradise Lost"

During his lifetime, Pablo Escobar was an ambitious and cruel man. Rivers of blood flow behind his deeds, with which the city of Medellin and its environs were washed for many years in a row. The Colombians who lived in Medellin in those years were simply afraid to live. The authorities were bribed by Escobar and worked for him, so ordinary Colombians had no protection from the terror staged by the most bloodthirsty drug lord of our time. In our time, the city of Medellin no longer poses a great danger. Recently, more and more tourists can be seen on its streets. Russian emigrants also chose Medellin for its mild climate and convenient infrastructure.

On the Internet you can find information on excursions who are now in Medellin in the places of the odious drug lord. If you ask yourself, then such an excursion can be easily organized by yourself. So we decided to visit the most iconic places associated with the life of Pablo Escobar on our own.

To begin with, I will say that Colombians are not eager to remember and talk about Escobar, as many of them still remember the terrible time that they had to endure, and strive to forget it as soon as possible. This is understandable. It is probably even indecent to ask someone in Colombia about Pablo Escobar and the horrors of those days, especially in Medellin. Of course, the years fly by, and much is gradually erased from memory. For young Colombians, all this is already part of history.

Sometimes it seems to me that in their desire to forget the tyranny of the era of Pablo Escobar and his associates, the Colombians have now gone too far. I'm talking about how, every week from Wednesday to Sunday, the streets in Medellin are buzzing with the sounds of a fiesta. until 3 am. This was unimaginable in 80s of XX century. Everyone, as if, continues to rejoice at the Escobar regime that has sunk into the past, plunging into the abyss of endless fun. Medelliners massively arrange noisy parties in numerous restaurants and taverns of the city, forgetting, or simply ignoring those who want to sleep at night. If not legal prohibition to the work of entertainment establishments 3 hours nights in Colombia, they would probably walk around for days on end.

For me, this revelry is very similar to expression of joy for Hard times drug wars in Medellin led by Pablo Escobar ended. The remaining drug cartels have left the city and are hiding far away in the mountains and forests. Or maybe it's just a manifestation of another trait Colombian character- idleness and cheerful disposition. The first one that I clearly remember a feature of Colombians is an optional. To promise, to offer something and not to deliver is the norm of communications in many Latin American countries, but in Colombia we have come across this feature many times. At first it's annoying, then you get used to it and don't pay attention.

Echoes of that high-profile era of the drug cartels of the times of Pablo Escobar, which still continue to operate on the territory of Colombia, can be found now. So, at discos, in a crowd of vacationers, you can see people sniffing white powder, and it is legally allowed to carry some small dose of drugs with you, and for this there is no death penalty as in some Asian countries.

So, we started our excursion into the history of Medellin of those times from the end historical events we decided to visit cemetery Montesacro Gardens (Cementerio Jardines Montesacro) in Medellin, since Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, his brother, parents and bodyguards who died with him are buried here.

The operation to search for and detain Escobar was carried out jointly with the American intelligence services and lasted more than a year. Pablo with his most devoted associates managed to hide from them for a long time. But one day he was calculated by phone call, he called his son the day after his 44th anniversary and made a serious mistake that cost him his life - he remained on the line 5 minutes.

In one of the following posts I will write more about the place where Pablo Escobar was killed.

To get to the cemetery Cementerio Jarnines Montesacro in Medellin, you need to take the metro to the station Itagui(on the blue line), and, not passing (attention here!) river Rio Medellin, on the footbridge to get out of the subway.

Itagui metro station on Google maps it is not marked at all where it actually is!

Subway station on google maps Itagui And Cementerio Jardines Montesacro are on different banks of the river. Rio Medellin, and if you look at the Google map, you will see that the cemetery Montesacro Gardens and metro station Itagui are very close to each other, and this is not true! In reality, from the metro to the cemetery is quite far (about 2-3 km).

A Google Maps mistake could cost someone a visit to Escobar's grave if you decide to visit it yourself.

There is still a real Itagüí metro station in Medellin on Google maps! It is not connected to any of the designated subway lines in the city, and is marked on the map as Metro Estacion Itagui. And the metro station itself Itagui and a cemetery Montesacro Gardens are on the same bank of the river Rio Medellin.

Itagui metro station is very close to the street Calle 50 in the place where Calle 50 goes across the river Rio Medellin.

So that you do not get lost, below I give detailed description from the Itagüí metro station to the Cementerio Jarnines Montesacro cemetery where Pablo Escobar is buried.

So, we leave the subway at the station Itagui, we don’t cross the river, but we go along Calle 50 in the opposite direction from the river to the street Autopista Del Sur(Sur Freeway, another name - Carrera 42) meters 200 .

at the crossroads and Calle 50 see metal bridge through Autopista Del Sur (Carrera 42), this is a footbridge. If you were walking along Calle 50, then here you need to turn left and, better, cross the street, since on the opposite side of the street there is a wide and convenient sidewalk. Along the street Autopista Del Sur (Carrera 42) from the subway Itagui there are no sidewalks at all in places, and you will have to walk along the side of the roadway with cars rushing along it at high speed. Therefore, let's move on. In addition, the cemetery itself will be on the same side.

Without turning anywhere, we go straight all the time. On the street Autopista Del Sur (Carrera 42) There are some buses, the routes of which we have not figured out. The area here resembles an industrial zone, the streets are deserted, but there is a lot of transport.

Minutes through 20 you will see a fenced area located on a hill. We reach the checkpoint with the gate, this is entrance to the Cementerio Jarnines Montesacro cemetery.

upstairs leads highway, and immediately from the fence to the right there are steps for pedestrians - we are here. We go up the stairs, and the first thing we see is gray Chapel building.

Grave of Pablo Escobar located at the walls of this Chapels at the cemetery Montesacro Gardens. To see the tomb of the self-proclaimed king Pablo Escobar, Chapel you need to completely bypass the right side. At the moment when we approached her, several Colombians were standing at the grave of the drug lord. Yes Yes! Colombians also come here to honor the memory of their hero. And it is true! For many Colombians who lived in Medellin during troubled times, Pablo Escobar was a real hero He helped the poor, built schools and hospitals for them. Probably, the families of these people are grateful to the drug lord, and do not see in him the monster he is presented to the whole world.

Escobar's grave modest, and in fact it is just a small tombstone, on which his name, date of birth and date of death are engraved.
All.
There are no pretentious tomb sculptures made of rare stone here.

Cemetery Montesacro Gardens the place is quite well maintained and modern, it is positioned as ecological cemetery which can be visited even with pets. The cemetery administration unobtrusively informs about this - small flags are installed throughout the cemetery, calling for people to come here with their pets, and in return only asks to clean up the excrement after them.

And, of course, this cemetery is strikingly different from most classical cemeteries in Latin America.

If we move counterclockwise from the Chapel with the grave of Pablo Escobar along the footpaths, then the next thing we will see is columbarium building.

You can go there and walk along the rows, along which small openings are built into the walls, where there are urns with the ashes of the deceased citizens of Medellin.

Inside the Columbarium, the guard forbade taking photographs.

Next to the Columbarium, to the left of it, under a canopy, there is a wooden sculpture Cristo De Los Andes ("Christ of the Andes") work Jose Horacio Betancur.

This one again surname Betancur (Betancourt), with which we are familiar from Cuba. Last name Betancourt Latin America belongs to a noble family. And in Cuba, we stayed at Casa Particulares, whose owners also have the name Betancourt. The atmosphere in that house was somewhat different from the rest of the houses in Cuba. The behavior and the way the mistress kept herself looked like an aristocratic one. Maybe just a coincidence.

At the cemetery Montesacro Gardens harmony and grace reign. The bushes and grass on the lawns between the tombstones are neatly trimmed, colorful butterflies flutter over the cemetery.

Even on a weekday at the height of the day there are people here, but there are not so many of them that this is a problem. Fortunately, the size of the cemetery allows everyone to scatter in different angles.

A bit further - Pantheon building Eternal Memory(Panteon de la Eterna Memoria), and behind it looks out an ordinary residential building. It is unlikely that sufficiently wealthy people live in this house so close to the cemetery. Calm and quiet, there is no dusty highway under the windows, and only a peaceful view opens from the windows of apartments in this building.

Inside Pantheon I did manage to take a few photos though. Here is vintage hearse, in which horses were harnessed at one time, and a coachman sitting somewhere up there with a mute face was taking his passenger on his last journey.

There are few people in the Pantheon either. I mean, living people. Marble slabs along the walls are decorated with flowers brought by relatives and friends of the buried.

Maybe the residents of that residential building were specially relocated here in order to constantly remind them of the frailty of life? After all, the other side of the window of the house overlooks part of the cemetery Montesacro Gardens called "Forest of Life" (Bosque de Vida). Any look from the windows of this residential building is a reminder of the perishability of being that surrounds a person every moment of his life. Have fun, don't say anything.

In this small, relatively new garden, as can be seen from the unsigned tombstones, Bosque de Vida, everyone can buy a place for their last resting place.

Here in the cemetery there is a nice little service - you can choose a shady place for yourself in advance under the overgrown spathiphyllum bushes (spathiphyllum), under the Indian mango tree, under the bushes with blue-orange flowers.

Or at all, if you want, you can buy a plot of land with a gate completely fenced off by a stone wall and equip it as you wish.

For example, like the patio of a house in London.

When we visited the cemetery Montesacro Gardens V March 2015, under "tree of life" growing in the middle of this wonderful garden Bosque de Vida, many more unsold seats. Yes, and fenced off areas in some places are still free. Here and there in the park-cemetery there are such birds with a crest, they quickly run between the graves and look like small dinosaurs looking for something to profit from.

In the middle of the cemetery mass grave with the monument "People".

In total, we spent about an hour at the cemetery. 3 . Time seems to stop here, and that heavy and sad aura that I feel in cemeteries in Russia is not felt. Cemetery Montesacro Gardens- it's like an enterprise, a park in which people work, maintaining cleanliness and order in their possessions. I wonder if they are funded by the state or is it a completely commercial structure that pays for itself by selling small plots of land into the future and eternal possession? And if so, what other related services do they provide to their regular customers?

Back to metro station Itagui we went the same way that we went to the cemetery. We caught a little rain, the heat subsided a little.

I already wrote about this, but I will repeat. In Colombia, it is not recommended to lean against the walls of buildings, fences and poles up to the height of the human causative organs. This is due to the fact that the Colombians are not shy to relieve a small need where they feel like it. I'm talking about commoners and ill-mannered people when viewed from above European civilization, of people. When asked about this mass Colombian phenomenon, my Colombian friends in Medellin shrugged their shoulders and answered that they had nothing like it in their country, and they had never seen anything like it. But I personally have seen more than once how a man walks down the street in the city, stops and begins to relieve himself, not paying any attention to passers-by and vehicles. In the old part of Medellin, it seems to me that the walls of buildings have been absorbing urine for centuries.- this can be seen from the unambiguous, sometimes fresh, smudges on the walls and is felt by the persistent smell of urea. It happens during the day, in the evening, at any time of the day. The human body can not relieve itself according to a schedule. That's what I wanted and that's it! What to do? He turned to a tree or a fence, unzipped his fly and let the whole world rest. By the mass nature of this phenomenon Colombia can only be compared with Guatemala and other countries are not too far behind.

This time I caught one of them with a camera in my hands. pisuna in Medellin on the street Carrera 42 in the middle of the day. We walked from the cemetery to the subway. Everything would be fine, but the nearby warning sign, as it were, hints at the fact that he doesn’t care if they look at him or not.

All in all, Colombia In this regard, it also reminds me India, where poor and uneducated people are not shy at all and relieve even great need in crowded places. Well, it sucked! What!? Put on pants? Sometimes you travel like this in India by train, look out the window, enjoy the beauties of local landscapes ... And here you are! The picture changes dramatically, and you already see something else - men and women squatting in rows doing their job and looking at the train. And you are on them. And they are on the train. A strange sight.

Let's leave this topic, vile for Puritan society, and let's go to where we are. the house where the father of Colombian drug dealer Pablo Escobar lived.

We took the subway to the station Aguacatala and went up the hill on the road. The area is quite decent and quiet.

At the intersection of streets Carrera 44 And Calle 15 Sur and there is a house that Escobar built for himself and his family.

Here he lived for some time, continuing to create his own, terrifying to Medellin, business. After Escobar killed in 1993 The house was ransacked and is now in complete disrepair. The authorities of Medellin still do not know what to do with this house, so it continues to deteriorate from year to year.

Not noticing anyone, we decided to try to move the gate in order to enter the territory and take a few shots. Hearing the hysterical creak of the gate, a uniformed guard appeared from somewhere in the courtyard of the terrible house and said that entry was prohibited. We replied that we are from Russia and we are doing a report for, and that we would like to take a couple of pictures closer. The guard surrendered without a fight and let us inside on 5 minutes.

This is the main entrance to Pablo Escobar's house.

Decorated richly for those times? Or was the richest man on the planet of those times simply no taste?

In the lobby are 3 elevator. The ceilings are very low. Of course, there is no greatness in all this now. And was it?

It was not possible to wander around the house due to the time limit issued by the house guard, so inside I took another shot through the gap in the door leading to the next room. I don't know what this strange place is.

In general, the architecture of the building is of absolutely no interest. So, we noted in one more Escobarovsk place.

In the backyard of Escobar's house there is a huge dish antenna. There were no mobile phones in those years, the antenna could serve for satellite communications.

And in the basement of the house is garage. The entrance to the garage is very inconvenient. You need to drive in and out of it carefully because of the wall standing directly opposite the entrance to the garage.

Pablo Escobar was a famous collector rare cars they were all here. Probably, something from the collection could be preserved, this good rests somewhere in the backyard of one of Escobar's admirers.

In the courtyard of the house there is a playground. One can imagine how the guards and other retinue of the drug lord whiled away the time waiting for the next brilliant plans of the villain.

In the far corner of the courtyard stands an inconspicuous wooden structure. Now ruins remain of it. From a distance it can be seen that the interior of this building is finished with ceramic tiles.

Not to say that all this is chic, but on a grand scale. Indeed, in Colombia, some people still live in wooden and cardboard boxes, and the social gap between rich and poor Colombians is widening year by year.

Well, since we are here, in this part of the city, at the same time we decided to visit another attraction of Medellin - Palace of El Castillo (Fortress). In general, a lot to tell how we walked around it for hours 3 I won't. I can only say that we were pretty exhausted that day, since this area is located on the hills, and all this time we went up and down through the sweltering heat and all around El Castillo.

Ask for directions to El Castillo somehow there was no one, there were no passers-by along the way. Completely exhausted and tired, we still found this palace El Castillo. It is located, as it were, in the center of a large, well-to-do park residential area, through which one cannot pass through, since the parks and squares near the houses are surrounded by fences with a checkpoint, like at the house of Pablo Escobar.

Approaching the entrance of the fortress, we learned that El Castillo Museum closes in 20 minutes, paid entrance. We twirled a little at the entrance, looked at the palace from afar and trudged to the subway.

If it were not for random passers-by, then again they would have wandered around this quarter of an hour 3 . And this is despite the presence of a map on which this entire huge residential area was marked with one green spot, which we initially took for a park. Of course, there is also a park there, but don’t ask how to get into it.

In the elite, so to speak, district of the city, in its very center, on the way to the metro, we met cows freely grazing on a huge field surrounded by a barbed wire fence.

All way back we hardly spoke, since any movement of the muscles, even the tongue, seemed heavy and difficult. But at home, when they arrived at their station Estadio, we unanimously decided to treat ourselves after such an intense walking tour that took all day - in the supermarket EXITO we bought the famous medellin Tres Leches (Three Milk) cake, and soda!

And with such pleasure they scammed half TresLeches for two, washing down with sizzling bubbles that taste like Pinocchio. Traditional Colombian treat, cake TresLeches is a biscuit generously soaked in sweet liquid cream, topped with a layer of condensed milk covered with whipped cream and a little bit of chocolate with coffee powder. They say that it is in Medellin that it is recommended to try this dessert. Made!

I wanted to describe all the events of this week in one post, but it turned out to be a voluminous material, and the week turned out to be saturated, that is still a week.

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He became a father for the second time - his daughter Manuela was born. Soon the Colombian bought a luxurious mansion in the city of Guatape in the north of the country and named it after the newborn. The manor "La Manuela" was one of his favorites, and now turned into ruins, on which people with pseudo-weapons jump.

A chic villa on eight hectares of land (for understanding, this is 800 acres, or about 133 typical summer cottages in the Moscow region) is unrecognizable: after the death of the cocaine king, it fell into disrepair. No one needed luxury real estate.

The estate was built to last: double walls, in the space between which money and drugs were stored, a swimming pool, a guest house, a pier, a tennis court, a football field - it was sometimes used as a helipad. The owner, who had the status of the wealthiest criminal in the world, did not deny himself anything.

This dacha idyll did not last long - Escobar was shot dead by the police in 1993, and La Manuela was blown up even before that by members of Los Pepes, a Colombian armed group consisting of ardent opponents of the drug lord. They laid no less than 200 kilograms of TNT in one of the rooms of the main mansion.

After the explosion, little was left of the building, but the auxiliary buildings survived. Over the next decades, they were empty, gradually falling into disrepair. The walls were partially painted and scribbled by vandals.

Untouched was the view of the beautiful Pegnol mountain reservoir.

To the estate long years no one was allowed in, and then the “bad villa” was chosen by paintball players. Where else to shoot, if not here?

Those who want to try on the roles of policemen, soldiers, militants or criminals who shoot back pay 170 thousand Colombian pesos (about 3.7 thousand rubles) for a full day of playing tough confrontation.

This rusty car is also Escobar's legacy. For some reason, it was not stolen and not dismantled for parts.

Other property was less fortunate - they dragged everything that survived. The walls in the buildings were broken to find treasures hidden by mafiosi - the same cocaine or money.

Nobody plays football here for a long time. There are no helicopters in sight either.

The guys, according to the caption under the photo, are desperately trying to reconstruct a typical party in Escobar's house. It turns out badly: no naked women, no white powder, no carpet of banknotes.

By the way, a bar was recently opened on the territory - you need to drink and feed crowds of people who want to play mafia.

Who said paintball is not for women?

Today, the former estate of Escobar belongs to the state. At the same time, the butler who worked for the criminal is actively trying to sue him. As one of the locals told the Daily Mail, the man claims that he has looked after the estate for 20 years, and therefore now has all property rights.

Escobar's daughter, in whose honor the estate was named, of course, does not claim it. After the death of her father, she was taken to Argentina, her mother changed her name and surname to avoid possible persecution.