Val Karren - The Deceit of Riches

“I have an offer for you that I want you to consider,” Del stated.

I was sincerely surprised as our relationship for the last three months was purely one of camaraderie, nothing official and certainly nothing binding.

“I mentioned to you a few weeks ago when we came back from Germany that we had cut through some red tape and my employer was ready to take the next step. Well, that is now going forward and we’re ready to make preparations for the next step. I won’t bore you with the details but this next step will open up some opportunities that I would like your help with,” he said frankly.

“You would like my help? I don’t know what I could possibly offer you,” I was honestly doubting I could help with much.

“Just listen, it’s not as difficult as you might first think. My employer is now putting together a project team that will eventually replace me and I will move on. I’m not an architect or a builder and I do not run hotels. I’m a wedge that pushes the door open for the rest of the organization. Once they have a foothold, a legal standing and are correctly connected, I move on to the next project. So, now that the project team is being picked and I have already submitted their documents for their work and residency permits, the next step is to find them a place to live during their term here in Nizhniy. As you have discovered, and the reason I am here is that there are no decent hotels that could safely and securely house a group of professionals. The organization is not authorized to purchase real estate to house the staff, and the staff ain’t gonna invest for themselves in a Russian home, when nobody really knows who will have a right to it in two years time, and that is where you come in,” he explained.

I sat up straight in my easy chair and leaned in to catch the details.

“Els and I see a chance to exploit this hole in the business plan and set up a rental agency which will then rent apartments for the expats coming to town which they can expense to the company. The company itself may not sign the leases. Red tape. So we will set up a new company, rent apartments from the current owners for two years at a time and then rent those out for more than double the rental price… well, I think you get the picture,” Del was getting excited by his own explanation.

“Do you realize that I pay all of twenty-dollars for my room, and could probably rent the whole thing for sixty dollars if I wanted to and have all the room I could possibly need. Nobody would pay five or six hundred dollars for what they could get for one hundred,” I commented skeptically.

“Ah yes, but you are a student on a student’s budget. Do you have a telephone in your apartment?” Del challenged me.

“No,” I replied.

“No telephone line means no fax and no email service and you’re cut off from the world. Do you have any security at your place?” he pushed again.

“No, I have my babushka and that’s about it,” I replied.

“Do you have a kitchen?” he was really touching the sore places.

“Good point,” I conceded.

“Do you have a shower, a lift, good shopping, and restaurants or a theatre or museum nearby?” He was going for the kill.

“No, I live in the workers neighborhood,” I admitted.

“How long does it take you into the old town,” he was mocking me now.

“Thirty to forty minutes on the commuter bus or metro,” I confessed

“Exactly! Expats expect a certain standard and ease of living or they won’t, can’t even be enticed to go abroad for even two months and live like a student, not even if somebody else is paying for it. Being asked to go to Russia to start with already hikes the hardship surcharge up to the armpits, so if you get an employee so far that they will accept an offer to staff a Russian operation, and then outside of Moscow or Petersburg!? Well you had better be ready to pamper them, or your staff won’t stay.” Del seemed to know what he was talking about.

“OK, so where do I come into this,” I asked curiously.

“I would like you to work with Misha, my local office manager and bookkeeper to scout out apartments, advertise, whatever it takes, and then evaluate was is being offered as if you were a western expat from the USA, France, Germany or England and give us a thumb- up or down. It’s that simple. Misha will take care of setting up a little real estate agency registration in Nizhniy that has a license to broker the renting of apartments and other property. You could consider yourself a type of quality control manager of the properties offered. Does that sound like something you could manage between your studies?” he asked.

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound too difficult or complicated. Maybe I could even find myself something better to live in, closer to town!” I answered.

“Listen, I will pay you a running commission for every apartment you and Misha secure and are able to rent to the expats. It will take some weeks to find the right sort of property, but then it will pay off eventually,” Del offered.

“I don’t have permission to work. I’m here on a student visa,” I stated cautiously.

“Peter, don’t try to be holier than the Pope. Nobody cares. You’re here and that’s all that matters. It’s Russia. Half the taxi drivers in Moscow are here illegally from Tbilisi. If you hesitate because of technicalities you’ll miss your boat,” he scolded.

“Agreed.” I said firmly.

“Great, I’ll get you Misha’s telephone number and ask you to meet up with him at your first chance and set up a regular schedule for viewing apartments,” Del instructed.

“Sounds like a good way to earn my tuition for the fall term.”

Del invited me into his office where he had hanging on the wall technical maps of the old city and conceptual sketches from an architect showing what the hotel would look like and the master planning for a parcel of land for which Del was negotiating with the city and provincial councils to be allowed to develop. To my surprise and my unexpressed concern this planned hotel was on the upper embankment walk just out past Gordost and just a stone’s throw from The Monastery. The site would have a great view of the river, perched on the bluff, and have great proximity to the city’s best attractions and restaurants. It would certainly be a prestigious location for any new project.

On leaving the Sannings’ I called Yulia from a telephone booth on the corner of Minin Square before catching a bus across the river to the Moscovskiy train station to catch the metro line, which ran directly past her apartment and then on to mine.

The telephone booths, like most telephone booths in the world were not meant to be free of cost, yet they were all free for calls in the city. The pay phones had of course been designed to work on coins, and probably for fifty years or more, a five-kopek coin. Now that the Russian ruble was fifty-eight to the dollar, and a small loaf of white bread, a baton, cost two hundred rubles, the kopek was no longer circulated and the telephones were always active for whoever, whenever, without charge. If you dared to speak in length about anything other than the weather or a train time table, the line was yours!

Yulia answered “Halloah”

“Hi, It’s me,” I said without saying who I was.

“It’s late. Where are you?” she asked.

“I have some good news,” I couldn’t wait to share it.

“Not over the phone. Where are you?” she asked in a quick burst.

“Old town,” I said vaguely.

“Come by on your way home and tell us,” she ordered.

“OK, see you soon,” I agreed and hung up the handset.

When I finally arrived to Yulia’s apartment she was full of news. “Do you know who phoned me earlier tonight? Irina Ivanovna,” Yulia beamed.