Петр Померанцев - Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible - The Surreal Heart of the New Russia

Cherkesov was a gray, dim man. His only strength was he could lie without blushing. When a superior would come in, he would leap up instantly, he was very obsequious and dependent on them [remembers Dolinin]. He would threaten us: “we’re not beating you, though we can use such measures.” But he was not especially vicious and not a great detective. He didn’t manage to find out the bulk of my dissident activities.

Igor Bunich was a witness in several of Cherkesov’s cases between 1980 and 1982:

During interrogation Cherkesov followed the principle laid down by Alexander Shuvalov, the head of the secret police under the Empress Elizabeth in the eighteenth century: “Always keep the accused confused.” At the start of an interrogation Cherkesov would lay out three pieces of paper on the table in front of a dissident. Each was a law the dissident could be charged with—all worded in a very similar way but carrying quite different punishments:

Law 190, “spreading anti-Soviet ideas,” usually punishable with an enforced stay in a psychiatric ward;

Law 70, on “anti-Soviet propaganda,” usually carrying five years’ imprisonment; and

Law 64, on “treachery to the Soviet Union,” which carried the death penalty (firing squad).

If the dissident cooperated and snitched, his case would be registered under Law 190, with a suspended sentence. If you didn’t cooperate you would be charged under the other laws.

Other dissidents he interrogated described how Cherkesov’s daughter would call during interrogations. He would pick up the phone, smile gently, and change his tone: “My pet, I’m interrogating now,” he would say. He had that ability all KGB men have, to split his personality at will.

But Cherkesov was also a poor judge of history. In 1988, with perestroika in full swing, he launched an investigation into the new “Democratic Alliance,” a group of activists who were calling for the end of the USSR. It was the final case ever tried in the USSR under the antidissident “Law 70.” Cherkesov called a press conference saying he had discovered an important anti-Soviet conspiracy. The thing was a farce: the young activists were soon deputies in the Duma, and the law itself was rescinded. Within two years the USSR didn’t exist.

After 1991 Cherkesov became head of the St. Petersburg KGB, supported by his friend, the future President, who was deputy head of the mayor’s office. When the young President moved to Moscow to become head of the FSB (the successor to the KGB), Cherkesov moved with him and became his deputy. The rumor in Moscow was that when the President was inaugurated, Cherkesov expected to become head of the FSB. But he was overlooked for Nikolaj Patrushev, also a graduate of the 1970s St. Petersburg KGB, but from the much more glamorous counterespionage department. The president gave Cherkesov the FDCS, the least important of the security organs. Starting in 2006 the FDCS launched a series of moves to capture the chemicals and pharmaceuticals industries. Overnight a whole host of chemicals had their status changed from industrial or medical to narcotic. Pharmacies that traded in food additives were raided, veterinarians who gave ketamine to cats and horses were marched into police stations, and the heads of chemical companies like Yana were suddenly informed they were drug dealers. The plan was to “break” these industries. Yana was meant to swing from the gallows by the edge of the road, a warning to everyone of what would happen if they disagreed with the FDCS.

She had been there four months. Most of the time she would tell herself: “This is a game, a test”; that’s how she coped. But once every two months they would wake her at 5:00 a.m. and take her down to the basement to await her trip to court to see whether she would be granted bail.

“ Yesterday was the worst day ,” she wrote in one of the letters to Alexey she never sent. “ The worst point is when in a dark, concrete, completely closed space 20 people start smoking at the same time. It’s horrible. Waiting for the van and its cages, concrete, darkness, metal, handcuffs, smoke, smoke. It’s very hard to make yourself feel this is all a game and everyone around you are just actors. ”

After two hours they put the women into a prison van and drove them, as if in a school bus, to various courtrooms around Moscow. When she saw Moscow everything suddenly became real.

“ We drove along the Garden Ring. I could see people walking along the street, hurrying about their own business. And inside I screamed: ‘I will return. This world can’t survive without me. I will return and forget all that has happened. I will cross it out.’ ”

And even more strongly she wanted to scream: “Pedestrians! Citizens! Stop! Help! Can’t you see me? I’m here.” Though of course she never did. And all passersby ever saw was a small prison van with dark, barred windows.

At the court they put her in a cage again. Her parents were always there, but the last time Alexey hadn’t come. Her mother would always wear her best dress, which was a way of showing that their spirit hadn’t been crushed. They looked good, and thus they were strong. Yana would repeat to the judge that she had no idea why she was in prison; none of the charges made sense. The judge would nod and give her another two months, and they would bundle her out again.

She had a new lawyer, Evgeny Chernousov. They had found him after he defended a few veterinarians in Yaroslavl against the FDCS. The vets had been charged with dealing ketamine, a drug they used as a painkiller for cats. Evgeny had managed to raise enough noise for the charges to be dropped. But there he had just gone up against provincial FDCS guys out to make a few quick bucks. Now he would be going against senior officials in a much bigger case. The plan was to make so much fuss it would become unprofitable for the FDCS to hold Yana: this was the opposite to what most prisoners did, which was to keep the case as quiet as possible and pay off the right person. Chernousov told Yana he would activate the human rights NGOs, business associations. He was a former cop himself, and he took on cases no one else would. He used to catch criminals, and now he liked to catch cops. He had served in Afghanistan and Ossetia, and it had done something to his head. More than anything he loved a fight against the odds, and he seemed tipsy a lot of the time. He told Yana not to lose hope.

She was almost happy when they brought her back to prison after these excursions into reality. She knew that outside her parents and Chernousov were trying to change the world for her, but beyond giving direction to the overall plan there was nothing she could do from the inside. Her task was to stay sane. She had half a dozen fitness “students.” They would exercise in the morning, and then again in the afternoon during their “walk.” They would take old plastic bottles, fill them with grit, and use them as weights. They were getting better, slimming down. A couple had even stopped smoking. As the “trainer” she had a certain status, was allowed into the showers first. She even managed to convince the others to sometimes change the channel from TNT and MTV to the news. The trick was to keep herself busy all the time. Writing letters, reading newspapers, learning English, doing push-ups. Never a moment to spare. She had almost perfected this.

There were several big NOs for all prisoners: never cry; never talk about the future or release; never, ever, talk about sex. But sex was on everybody’s mind. Tanya, an accountant on the bunk opposite her, would cut out pictures of men from magazines and put them beneath her pillow:

“Maybe I’ll dream of one,” she would say quietly.

Yana dreamt of Alexey every night. She would dream of his eyes when he had come to the FDCS headquarters to bring her bag. In her letters she worried he would forget about her: “ Does that make me an egoist? ” she wrote. “ But the only way I can keep myself together is to know there’s someone waiting for me. ”