Val Karren - The Deceit of Riches

I continued to explain my hope for the paper, but the Dean interrupted my monologue.

“Mr. Turner, I would like you to now focus on the local effects of the corrupt privatization activities instead of continuing to research this on the national level. We need to produce something that has a direct local effect and leave Moscow to sort out Moscow’s problems.”

“But Moscow’s problems, Moscow’s abuses will have a bad long-term effect on Nizhniy as well and people need to know the country is being robbed blind!” I protested.

“We will survive to face those problems in the future I am sure. We survived Brezhnev, didn’t we? I will arrange a number of interviews with my contacts in the city and in the Nizhegorodskiy leadership for your questions and proposals about how to stop this from happening here. I want to have concrete academically researched policy proposals that we as the university can publish to push this agenda forward,” he instructed.

“That’s going to be difficult because the mention of Nizhniy Novgorod in the articles really is minimal up until now, except to praise Nemtsov for his support of privatization efforts,” I explained.

“And that is why you need to do your local research,” The Dean was adamant.

We paused and looked at each other intently. The wheels were spinning in both of our heads. We had caught a thought wave together and we watched it break. I broke the silence and spoke rapidly before he changed his mind.

“Through the six or seven case studies of the biggest swindles there was always a small start… and always through a deception… whether harmful or not, undeclared money becomes the seed of a banking or industrial empire. So, somebody earned some decent seed money working in the black market, and then they buy some party hacks who are now leftover civil servants from the Soviet period, who have no personal prospects for the future, who wouldn’t know what to do with a smelting factory in the wider world, but they do know what to do with two hundred fifty million dollars between the four of them! Then somehow, no big mystery, Yeltsin has given the businessman a franchise or he becomes, low and behold, a deputy prime minister making decisions that have HUGE conflicts of interest — in their own favour of course, and then move their money to Switzerland out of the hands of any future regulators, or the next mafioso who takes the office after he is sunning himself in Cyprus.

“So, if I am going to do my own research here locally, and put a provincial spin on it, I need to locate a little shark, even a petty shark who is trying to become a bigger shark — you know shark eat shark, and who is trying to make the next step up by trying to ingratiate himself with the politicians and business class, or trying to become an elected official himself.”

Dean Karamzin scratched his face somewhat dumbfounded and shocked with no words.

“You learned all this in my library?” He asked again with a befuddled expression I had never seen on his face before.

“Yes, and more,” and sat tight lipped and waited.

The dean leaned back in his chair and whistled a low thoughtful whistle, which to do indoors in Russia is akin to throwing money, but perhaps in this case, caution, right out the window. He sat up straight in his chair, leaning over his desk and looked me straight in the eyes and asked, “Will you be attending the university event at night club tomorrow night?” he asked, assuming I would attend.

“Yes, why?” I inquired.

“Keep your eyes open there and come see me on Monday after our history lecture.”

“Why, what am I looking for?” I asked still wound up and on high receive.

“How did you say it? A small shark who is swimming with some big daddies…,” the Dean smiled a mysterious smile.

“Say what? You’re sending me into the shark tank to take photographs?” I was quickly sobering up.

“I would leave the camera at home, but certainly go and take mental notes. We’ll talk in depth about it and I’ll fill in the details that you haven’t already figured out. You’re a sharp student. I think you’ll be able to figure it all out rather quickly.”

He stood up to bid me goodbye. We shook hands over his desk as the telephone there started to buzz. He shouted “Halloah” into the handset as I pulled the door carefully closed behind me. The man was always in demand.

As I emerged from the dark tunnel from the inner courtyard on to the street in front of the history faculty the sky was surprisingly bright and blue and the air was… warm! I stopped in my tracks and looked about to make sure I was really on Minin Square. Somehow, I had missed the fact that almost all the snow on the pavements and street had melted away into the gutters and sewers. What used to be fields of dirty grey snow were now pavements, muddy flower beds and dark green, trampled grass.

A warm wind from the south had come up the river the night before and the early afternoon was bright, the mercury had risen to six degrees on the digital thermometer on the front of the Sberbank branch at the bottom of Pokrovka. I wandered in wonder like a man who had just regained his vision after months of blindness, in awe of the colors that the sunlight contained. What was dirty and grey was now all shades and subtitles of red, blue and yellow. A freshly washed candy-apple red Volkswagen Passat with clean alloy rims passed in front of me as I waited under the shadow of the kremlin wall to cross the street. How it danced, how it glided in slow motion over the asphalt, quiet, luxurious! I removed my wool overcoat to feel the sunshine.

As I strolled onto Pokrovka an odd sensation overcame me. Liberated from the fur shapka and the wool overcoat with the sunshine on my face I turned my green felt cap backwards, put a pen behind my ear and in just my blazer for warmth bulldozed my way up through the shopping throngs to the snack bar and movie theatre where I met Hans to take in a film at the Kino-house.

I was told several times that when I was dressed in my own winter coat, black mink hat and boots that I surprisingly resembled Mikhail Gorbechev in his own winter get-up. For me these types of comments and observations were as good as gold in my quest to blend in and be considered as just part of the scenery. I had never before tried to make a scene or reveal myself to a group that I was anything but Russian. The wrong comment though at the wrong moment can create a reaction deep down inside, an irrational panic with the possibility that perhaps one has come too close to the edge of “going native” and perhaps have become too much like the locals.

After months of hard studying and research, and especially after the last month of being a hermit in the library, today with the sun on my back I needed to break free from being Russian for the afternoon. As I moved purposefully up Pokrovka I looked straight ahead, not at the ground in front of my feet like the throngs. I looked people in the eyes and smiled and even waved at a few particularly pretty girls who had also shed the heavy coats and bulky snow boots. They looked better than ever today; tall lean, shapely with bright smiles! I refused to speak Russian with the teller behind the window at the currency exchange bureau as I exchanged forty dollars for rubles. A number of the street vendors tried their best to speak broken English with me, one of them tried to communicate with me in German, but I just blinked at him incredulously. I bought a bottle of Pepsi and drank it as I walked, just like in the TV commercials with my head tipped way back and the bottle straight up in the air, guzzling the soda-pop in one breath.

I became immediately self-conscious of my bravado and remembered with a start and a shock that just a month earlier that I had run through the snow away from corrupt cops and gangsters who knew that I had seen their handiwork. Despite the sun and blue sky, I put my coat and scarf on again and resumed the afternoon as a local face. I wondered if Yulia was ready to speak to me again. I needed to be more careful.