John Schettler - Kirov

There were two kinds of lies in the Russian mind, and Karpov was a master of both. One was vranyo, the posturing and lip service everyone paid to the system, a little white lie here and there, whispered to an audience who knew very well it was a little white lie, and was perfectly content to stand as the willing believer, knowing full well that the other party knew the matter at hand was a bent and tarnished version of the truth. Russians traded vranyo with each other on a daily basis, one the liar, one the listener, and both knowing it was all a casual play. Dostoevsky had gone so far as to claim: ‘A delicate reciprocity of vranyo is almost the first condition of Russian society-of all Russian meetings, parties, clubs, and associations.’

The other lies were something more, called lozh, which was a conscious and deliberate intention to deceive. While most Russians were well adept at the subtle gamesmanship of vranyo, they often failed completely at the darker art of lozh. Writer and dramatist Leonid Andreyev wrote that Russians really have no talent for real lies, which were, ‘an art, difficult and demanding intelligence, talent, character and stamina.’ Karpov was an exception. His talent for spinning out real lies served him very well over the years. He made an accusation that ended the troublesome teacher’s tenure, and was skillful enough to make the lie stick. Karpov had learned early on that even the appearance of wrongdoing could have the same debilitating effects as a real misdeed.

Ambition was one thing, duplicity and deception another. People soon came to realize that Karpov’s ambition would always come in tandem with those darker elements. Getting things done in the sloth of protocol and paperwork in Russia took time, patience and more than a little conniving, he knew. After fifteen years coming up through the ranks at Gazprom, Karpov was a master of the subtle art of lying, a master of lozh, and he never blushed one minute for his behavior. Dostoevsky had said it best when he asserted that among Russian intellectual classes, transparent candor was an impossibility.

Karpov was a perfect example of this, scheming, controlling, subtly aggressive, and often shameless in the way he undermined his rivals. He had discovered that popularity only took a man so far in life, particularly in Russia. Fear was an equally compelling emotion for most people, a moral reference point any Russian understood well enough, and Karpov knew how to stoke those fires of doubt in any rival’s heart. He was indirect, yet ruthless and persistent. And in the end he was successful. Some men stood aside just to be out of his crosshairs, others opened doors for him just to be rid of the man and his constant harangue when he engaged them. And wherever there was a vacuum that would take him higher in the ranks, Karpov filled it with his considerable ego, and an intelligence and ambition that saw him rise quickly, making his current position of First Captain in just seven years.

With many enemies and few friends, he had become a cold man, arrogant within the hard shell of his own intelligence, and still preoccupied with details, rules, schedules and lists, still the young schoolboy in the locker room or assistant in the library. Now he shuffled the ship’s crew from one assignment to another, granted and denied favor, chastened and ground upon his chiefs, but yet his ruthless efficiency saw the ship as tightly wired as it had ever been.

They had rendezvoused with the replenishment ship 10 hours ago and taken on additional live ammunition to replace the rounds they would fire in these exercises. They were up between Bear Island and Jan Mayen on a cold late summer day, but they should be in a sheltered inlet where they could best ride out the coming storm. No use running at sea in a force nine gale, which is exactly what Rodenko, the ship’s radar man, had predicted over the next several hours.

His mind drifted to the likely play of the hours ahead. They would ride out the storm, then rendezvous with Orel off Jan Mayan and try again, if Slava managed to keep her targeting barges in line it would be a miracle. And as for Kirov, what to do about all those extra missiles crated in the holds below? Chief Martinov was taking far too long to store the munitions properly in the magazine. The Russian maxim: ‘They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work’ was well applied to that man. He would have to send Orlov down there to knock a few heads together if he wanted the missiles all sorted out in the next eight hours.

What would Severomorsk say about the delay, he wondered? The Admiral already seemed upset over the time lost by this mishap, and it led Karpov to believe that Volsky was worried about something back home. What could it be, he wondered? A personal matter? More likely it was something to do with ‘Old Suchkov,’ Chief of the Navy. He was aging, ten years older than the Admiral, and well past retirement age. Yet the old guard, as he called them, had been hanging on to power in the hierarchy above.

Suchkov was made Chief of the Navy in 2015, just six years ago, at the age of 68. Now, at 74, his failing health would prevent him serving out the usual ten year term at the post. Volsky was next in line, having come up through the mandatory billets as commander of the Black Sea Fleet, then the Pacific Fleet, and finally the Northern Fleet. If Suchkov retired, who would replace Volsky as Fleet Admiral here? Most likely Rogatin. He had moved from Novorossiysk to Murmansk two years ago, and now was comfortably installed as Suchkov’s Deputy Chief of Staff.

The Captain knew he was a long way from that chair. His normal route, after finishing at least three years here aboard Kirov, would be to take on a Missile Ship Division as Chief of Staff, then make Rear Admiral and take over operations at a base like Severomorsk or Novorossiysk. He would need to collect his medals, the Order of the Red Star, the Order for Service to the Homeland, the Order of Military Merits, the Order of Courage. Once he lined up enough color in the ribbons on his chest he could then begin the final approach to a Fleet Admiral position, and he would finally have the power he deserved.

He shrugged inwardly, thinking what a long and grueling slog it would be. Things took time in Russia. Things were promised but seldom delivered in Russia. Things too often had a way of going wrong, just like this simple live fire exercise. Karpov had already started courting the favor of men like Rogatin back home, thinking to get in with the man and possibly skip a few chairs. For now, he was proud of his post here aboard Kirov, and determined to make the most of the opportunity. He was finally out of the ranks of junior officers, a man to be respected and reckoned with, or so he believed.

Yet Dostoevsky’s line about old habits was all too true where the Captain was concerned: ‘The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.’ Now that he had been made First Captain of the ship, he sometimes repeated the foibles and jaded manners of the old Gazprom executive class he had come from, bending the rules to suit him, and exercising more license than he might have done while jostling in the ranks for promotion. This was common all through the calcified power structures in Russia, from the police stations in every town, up through government at every level. Rank had its privileges. There would be nice thin layered blini with melted butter, jam and honey on the officer’s table in the morning for breakfast, but not for the rankers below. One had to do whatever was necessary to put honey on the table, he thought, but what to do about Volsky?

Just as in his university days, Karpov had been involved in more than one deception with senior officers standing as potential rivals on his career path. He took it upon himself to investigate personal matters in the lives of men he found threatening. He learned their habits and foibles, the state of their marriages and affairs, the bars or clubs they frequented, and he became a master of spreading those subtle, destructive lies, lozh, often wrapped in the more familiar gauze of vranyo — a wolf in sheep’s clothing, as it were.