Val Karren: The Deceit of Riches

“Can you do that?” I asked with an exciting start.

“Yes, anybody can I believe. I have been living there since October last year,” he confirmed.

“Did you have to ask for special permission?” I pushed for details.

“No, the police don’t mind. I paid six months in advance so the owner was happy. I receive my own post in the letter box. It is very cozy.” Hans was very pleased with himself.

“Are the apartments expensive? Do you pay a lot for a place in the old town?” I was desperate to leave the dorms.

“It’s okay. I pay one hundred Deutschmarks per month, but the German government gives me one hundred fifty per month for a room in Leipzig, so I buy my food with that money too. It’s a big apartment and I can almost see the river from my balcony.” He seemed to be recalculating the deal he had while we spoke.

“Well, I’ve got to look into that! Just a week now in the dormitory and I feel like I’m a pickled beet,” I moaned.

Before our weekly support group broke up, Valentina Petrovna asked me to step into her office. I braced myself for another chiding. What could it be now?

Valentina handed me a folded paper across her desk. I unfolded it and read the name and telephone number. It didn’t mean anything to me. I gave Valentina an inquisitive look.

“It is the name and telephone number of an American businessman here in Nizhniy who lives in the city center,” she explained, “Maybe you would like to meet him. You have many interests in common. He asked me to pass you his number.”

I didn’t know what to say. I was speechless. An American businessman in Nizhniy Novgorod? That couldn’t be right.

“What more can you tell me about him? Which company is he working for? How long has he been here?” I peppered her with questions.

“Telephone him. He is not traveling this week and would like to meet you,” she said amused at my excitement.

“Thank you. I will call him tonight.” I was stunned to learn that another American was in the city, and maybe a bit disappointed at the same time that I was not the first American to set up an outpost in Nizhniy Novgorod. I was also very curious. Maybe he could be my step into the business world that was a constantly moving target. Deep down that is why I came to Russia; to make my fortune and become an unmissable part of a western corporation setting up its operations. I was no different from the other students I had already met who were dreaming of their financial success by helping bridge the linguistic divide between those with money and those with local connections and local know how.

After lectures, I met Yulia at the river station in the lower old city for a light dinner in a traditional cafe there on the waterfront. Even though darkness falls around mid-afternoon in January, the white snow illuminated dark corners in the city’s alleys and the opaque ice on the Volga lit up the vast expanse of the night so that black silhouetted ice fisherman in the middle of the frozen river were visible in the twilight at four o’clock.

“You look very tired!” Yulia said concerned as we took a corner table waited for soup and bread to be served.

“I am very tired! Haven’t slept well for almost a week and can’t get enough to eat. I am not feeling too chipper tonight,” I admitted.

“Why can’t you sleep?” She asked like a concerned mother.

“Jet-lag, roommates who stink and snore, and my goodness you’d never believe how warm it is in that room,” I complained like an over tired child. Everything annoyed and irritated.

“Can you change rooms maybe?” she suggested setting aside her menu.

“I have a better idea! I met another student today from Germany who is renting his own apartment in the city center, says he almost has a view of the Volga.” I perked up a bit when a warm bowl of borscht and black bread was put under my nose.

“It’s very expensive to live the city center,” Yulia commented from her financial perspective.

“Maybe I could get a room on your side of the river where it’s less expensive. Maybe a room, not an apartment?” I ventured.

“You need permission from the University and the police to do that,” Yulia cautioned.

“So, I’ll ask permission. And I’m pretty sure I can live anywhere in Nizhegorodskiy Province according to the stamp on my visa.” I had pulled out my passport and was reading the back of the yellow tri-fold paper with my picture on it.

“Really, can I read it please?” Yulia reached out her hand.

“I don’t believe it, but you’re right,” she confirmed, “It says you can live anywhere in Nizhniy Novgorod. We used to have our identity documents with our home addresses on it. I wonder why they changed?”

“Everything is changing my dear!” I smiled the smile of a robber baron sensing an opportunity for exploit.

After filling bread and warming borscht the frozen evening felt a bit more hospitable and so we strolled out to the land’s edge overlooking the frozen river, reminiscing about the time when we met on the river in the summer. We snapped a photo of the two of us ‘for old time’s sake,’ the dark abyss of the wide Volga behind us, our faces pale white from the flash.

“It sure would be fun to take another voyage this summer,” Yulia commented wistfully as we turned to walk back to the river station and the bus stop that would take her home.

I interrupted the nostalgic moment to tell her about my new contact in town, “Hey, you’ll never guess what. Valentina Petrovna handed a name and telephone number to me today of an American businessman living here in Nizhniy. He has invited me for dinner on Friday night. Wouldn’t it be great if I could get good work with him and stay on here for a few years after my degree, and well, just see what happens?” I suggested.

“Peter, keep your feet on the ground. You should be very careful when people speak about business in Russia. It is not always what it seems and there is usually something darker behind it,” Yulia cautioned me.

“What could be so bad about it?” I scoffed at her caution.

“Just be careful, Peter. You never know who is behind it. There must always be a Russian partner to set up a company in Russia, and the laws in Russia right now make these things sketchy. Somebody is dancing with the devil in order to get permits and stay protected from criminals if their partners aren’t the criminal types,” she said as we paced through the shin high snow in tandem.

I listened to her warning but didn’t question her any further. I remarked to myself that she was too cautious, too worried, but let her comments go unchallenged. She bade me goodnight with a peck on the cheek and boarded her bus in front of the river station. I watched as her bus disappeared down the quay into the remnants of a pale pink winter dusk.

Friday afternoons in the old town center of Nizhniy Novgorod were always flooded with the youth of the city. Lectures ended on Friday afternoon at lunch time and with the pending weekend, nobody was in a rush to head home, or back to a cramped dorm room. Hans invited me for lunch with him at a new fried chicken restaurant on the upper river embankment not far from his apartment. My mouth salivated at the thought of fried chicken and a cold Pepsi. My belt, already a notch tighter pleaded at me daily to fill my belly properly. I was truly grateful for Hans’ suggestion and invitation. Between the two of us, we bought and ate more chicken pieces than I could count. The bones piled high on the table. We sat for fifteen minutes, blurry eyed and satiated before we could stand to leave. I had to fight falling asleep where I sat.

“Peter, I think we should do this every week!” Hans commented as I picked the last scraps of oily meat from the bones on my plate.