In 1980, he left the military and went to Leningrad, where he first worked as a bartender in a beer bar and later entered the antiques trade, which is why he was later nicknamed “the Antiquary”.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Traber was granted a monopoly on the antiques trade by the city of Saint Petersburg in 1991, which allowed him to achieve great wealth.
He established close contacts in local politics and is said to have introduced Putin to Anatoly Sobchak, who later became mayor of Saint Petersburg.
Traber is said to have acted as the “accountant” for the Tambov gang during this time, which gained control of the port of St. Petersburg through violence and contract killings, with the support of Putin, who was working for Mayor Sobchak.
In 1996, he is said to have received four percent of the profits after he had given control of the oil supply at Pulkovo Airport to members of the Tambov gang.
[5] In 2019, Vladimir Kumarin, the leader of the Tambov group and a close associate of Traber, was sentenced to 24 years in prison in St. Petersburg for contract killings and organized crime.