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- Controversial motive: ex-producer of "Tender May" asks to check the actions of the investigators
Controversial motive: ex-producer of "Tender May" asks to check the actions of the investigators
Andrei Razin, the former producer of "Tender May" and its lead singer Yuri Shatunov, is asking the Moscow prosecutor's office to terminate proceedings against him and give a legal assessment of the actions of law enforcement officers, the editorial board found out. He believes that criminal prosecution is being used to put pressure on the courts dealing with disputes over the rights to the band's hits. The applicant fears that information about the proceedings will prevent the judges from objectively assessing the arguments of the parties. New details of the long—standing dispute can be found in the Izvestia article.
Criminal cases
On October 9, 2026, the Shcherbinsky Court of Moscow partially satisfied the claim of Yuri Shatunov's widow Svetlana Shatunova and declared the contract under which the singer's former producer Andrei Razin received the rights to 23 popular songs of "Tender May", the image and trademarks. However, so far only the operative part of the decision has been announced. The parties have not yet received a motivation, so they cannot evaluate the arguments and, if they disagree, appeal the conclusions.
Composer, poet, founder of the band "Tender May" Sergey Borisovich Kuznetsov, soloist Yuri Shatunov, vocalist Konstantin Pakhomov, producer of the band Andrey Alexandrovich Razin, musicians of the band Alexander Priko, Igor Igoshin and Sergey Serkov
This is not the first controversy surrounding the legacy of one of Russia's most famous pop groups. The proceedings on the rights to the songs of "Tender May" have long gone beyond the scope of civil lawsuits. In 2021, a criminal case was opened against Razin for fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code). The victim was the band's songwriter Sergey Kuznetsov. The investigation alleges that Razin used a forged contract with the poet for many years and illegally appropriated royalties owed to Kuznetsov. And on October 13, 2026, it became known that the ex-producer was put on the wanted list for a similar episode related to Yuri Shatunov.
Razin's defense insists that there is no convincing evidence of his guilt, and the criminal prosecution is being used, among other things, to put pressure on the courts considering the claims of the Shatunov and Kuznetsov heirs.
"I consider the criminal case not only an instrument of influence on the courts, including Shcherbinsky, who issued the last decision, but also a mechanism for suppressing my client's will to resist," lawyer Alexander Zharkov told Izvestia, commenting on the circumstances of the case.
The thirty-year dispute
Izvestia had at its disposal a statement from Andrei Razin addressed to the Moscow prosecutor. The producer asks to check the actions of the employees conducting his criminal case, including for abuse of office.
In a statement, Razin recalls that at the beginning of the work of Tender May, the soloists performed songs that he composed himself or worked on with Sergey Kuznetsov. According to him, at that time the co-authors did not argue about the rights to the compositions. After the collapse of the USSR, in 1992, they needed a contract to issue permits for the group's performances "in the new market conditions." According to this document, the exclusive rights to the songs were transferred from Kuznetsov to Razin.
In 2007, the Khostinsky district court of Sochi confirmed the authorship of the songs by Razin. But after 12 years, this decision was reversed. In 2020, a criminal case was opened on fraud committed by unidentified persons, and a year later Razin was charged with it, who, after selling his house, left for the United States.
Only five years later, in December 2025, the Tagansky Court of Moscow arrested Razin in absentia. The producer claims that even at the initial stage, the Petty-Bourgeois Prosecutor's Office revealed serious violations and pointed them out to the investigators of the Department of Internal Affairs of the Central Administrative District, who are conducting the case. In particular, the supervisory authority noted that the decision to initiate it was based on "information that had not been verified at the pre-investigation stage," and concluded that there was "no crime event."
According to lawyer Alexander Zharkov, the combination of these violations of the CPC should have led to the termination of the proceedings, but in six years this did not happen.
Businessman Andrey Razin and singer Yuri Shatunov
In addition, Razin claims that the investigative authorities illegally transferred the case materials to representatives of the heirs of Yuri Shatunov. According to the applicant, this could have formed an "inner conviction and a negative image" of the judge who was considering civil copyright lawsuits. In his appeal to the prosecutor, Razin asks to check these and other actions of employees, including for signs of abuse and abuse of authority.
A difficult legacy
Yuri Shatunov died on June 23, 2022, and Sergey Kuznetsov died on November 7 of the same year. Their legal successors, along with their creative legacy, have endured many years of litigation. Andrey Razin, according to his defense, is currently being treated in Turkey, where he was diagnosed with a disability of the first group, but continues to defend his interests in courts, including Turkish ones.
The main arguments of the parties are known. In the Shcherbinsky court, they interpreted the contracts of 2013 and 2019 in different ways. Shatunov's representatives insisted that the agreement under which Razin paid the singer 10 million rubles only concerned the transfer of rights to compensation claims for publications discrediting the honor and dignity of the artist.
Razin's defense claims that the contract had another subject — the transfer of copyrights to songs and other intellectual property. In addition, the parties presented to the court two versions of these agreements.
As Izvestia found out, the case file contains the conclusion of a handwriting examination conducted on Razin's initiative. Experts questioned the authenticity of Yuri Shatunov's signatures on the agreements submitted by his heirs. In particular, the signatures on the first and last pages of the 2013 agreement are different. According to lawyer Alexander Zharkov, Svetlana Shatunova's side used these documents to justify its position in the Savelovsky, Dorogomilovsky, Khostinsky and Shcherbinsky district courts.
Zharkov told Izvestia that the defense will appeal the decision of the Shcherbinsky court as soon as it gets acquainted with its reasoning. The lawyer also did not rule out that after that he and Razin would appeal to the prosecutor's office with a new statement about possible offenses.
Assessment of creativity
The parties can determine the value of the transferred rights themselves — this follows from the principle of freedom of contract, the head of the law firm, the author-performer Valeria Rytvina told Izvestia.
"However, judging by the information published in the media, such an agreement probably was not concluded," the expert noted. — Therefore, the amounts indicated in it have no legal significance. Even if they corresponded to market prices, this in itself would not confirm the value of the rights under the transaction, which actually did not take place.
According to the lawyer, the music catalog of a popular artist, the rights to which can be monetized through streaming platforms, can cost more than 100 million rubles. The exact amount depends on the composition of the catalog, the amount of rights transferred, the profitability of the songs, and other factors.
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