Eleven Days of Hell

by Yvonne Bornstein

  There was another complication with Rud as well. According to him, no one had paid the mandatory bribe money on that ill-fated fertiliser shipment, which may have explained the broken bags. People along the way had let the shipment through, but now they were coming for their IOUs—amounting to around $50,000. That, of course, had been Matthew’s job. Evidently, he’d just stopped paying the bribes on some shipments and kept the money for himself. Now, Rud expected us to cover the debt.

  High times had now become desperate times.

  Enter cloud number two, in the inscrutable form of Grigory Miasnikov, who could turn any sunny day bleak.

  In the days after we’d canned Matthew, Grigory moved quickly into the breach. Learning that Matthew was out, Grigory called from Moscow and all but invited himself to Melbourne, the purpose being to talk about the precarious state of the business. Needing any help we could get, we flew him in on October 6th; he would stay for one week.

  As soon as he arrived, the first thing he said he wanted to do was see our house. When we brought him to Brighton, he seemed to be transported into a new dimension. ‘Nice, very, very nice,’ he muttered again and again as he explored our house like a child at Disney World.

  It may have seemed an over-the-top reaction by a successful and hard-headed businessman, but entirely understandable in the light of Russian realities. By Western standards, our home was not overly opulent; it was no more impressive than any other home in the area. By Russian standards, however, it was undeniably a palace. He also seemed not to grasp what a mortgage was or that we were leveraged up to our necks. For all his dreams of grandeur and pretense of making high-powered deals, he was nothing more than a common Russian lowlife.

  GRIGORY’S VICTORY

  Why was Miasnikov really there? Money seemed to be on his mind, specifically how much the Weinstocks had and how much people they knew had. As it happened, during his stay, Ian and Wendy Rayman also visited Melbourne to visit Danny’s first wife’s family. One night, they arranged to meet Yvonne and Danny at Toto’s Pizza Restaurant in Elsternwick. There, they met Grigory, who was duly impressed that Ian was a doctor in America—again unaware of the subtle distinctions of Western life; in this case, that pediatricians are not the highest-paid doctors. The Raymans felt a little like they were being sized up.

  Then, too, several times during his stay, Grigory would stroll around the grounds of the Weinstocks’ home, a camera in his hand, snapping pictures of the pool and the tennis court as well as the exterior of the house. Yvonne and Danny attributed this to simple admiration for their lifestyle. But what was Miasnikov’s game? His fawning didn’t add up. Grigory, after all, was no fool. He had lived in England for a time, and his father had been a diplomat. Miasnikov had dealt with Westerners before. Was it credible that he had never travelled to Western cities, seen upscale homes? Moreover, he had arrived with a camera in his luggage yet took pictures only of the Weinstocks’ estate. Was this because he needed evidence to take back to Russia, to convince people like perhaps Mikhail Rud that the Weinstocks had money to burn? If so, did he now believe—debts and mortgages aside—that the time was right to make a move against them?

  Would any such plot require that Grigory inveigle himself deeper into the Weinstocks’ affairs at Video Technology? If so, he pulled it off like a charm. At the Video Technology office, he threw his weight around, acting as if he was in charge. With Matthew gone, he noted, ‘You need someone to replace him immediately.’ With not a trace of shame, he made it clear who that someone had to be: Grigory Miasnikov. On the spot, Yvonne and Danny cut him in as general director.

  Finally, having set the trap, he would need the Weinstocks to step into it. This he accomplished by insisting that the couple make yet another pilgrimage to Moscow, to sort out all the tangles of the business, specifically the mess with Mikhail Rud. While he probably could have convinced them to come on their own, he couldn’t afford to take any chances that they would not step onto Russian soil again. Thus, he grandly handed Yvonne and Danny a pile of traveller’s cheques totalling $5000. ‘This,’ he said, ‘will help you make the arrangements.’ That clinched it.

  When the cagey Russian went back to Moscow on October 13, he carried with him several rolls of film, the title of general director of Video Technology Ltd., and the knowledge that the ‘filthy rich’ Weinstocks would soon be taking the same trip.

  It had been, he may have told himself on the plane, a very productive week.

  Grigory had made it clear, as well, that we had no choice but to go to Moscow yet again, and very soon, to reassure Rud and the other joint ventures that we could cover the deals and to restate agreements that had stalled during the last few months. Danny and I knew we would need to do this. In fact, we’d told Rud we’d be back as soon as we’d taken care of business in Melbourne. By December, we had raised over a million dollars worth of capital, and we prepared to settle and extend all company business. We were feeling more optimistic than we had in months.

  In fact, things were going so nicely that we decided to let the Moscow trip wait until after the new year. We did fly off, but to America, in mid-November. The first stop on the itinerary was Las Vegas—appropriately, we laughed, given that this barter trade thing was such a gamble in itself—to attend what’s called the Comdex Exhibition, which every year boasts the newest high-technology items. We then made our way east to Wayne, New Jersey, to drop in on Ian and Wendy Rayman, who were having a twenty-fifth wedding anniversary party.

  I always found Ian to be a wonderful man who never had any hostility for me as the woman who had taken the place of his beloved sister. Although this was his day of celebration, he made sure to raise a glass to me at the reception.

  Knowing that Danny and I would soon be going to Russia, in the dead of winter this time, Wendy took me to a shopping mall so I could buy some outerwear—something I had never needed in Australia—and I bought a vivid purple snow coat in which I resembled the Michelin Man. When we said our goodbyes to Ian and Wendy, we issued the mandatory invitation for them to visit us in Australia.

  ‘Let’s talk about it when you get back home after Russia,’ Ian said. ‘Call us when you get back.’

  We returned home on December 8, to enjoy a warm and wonderful holiday Chanukah with our family, and I was thrilled that we were joined by my thirteen-month-older sister, Erica, who arrived a week later from Perth with her son Adam and would stay until January 8.

  On New Year’s Eve, Danny and I lifted our champagne glasses to making 1992 our best year ever. The first order of business in the new year, of course, was going back to Russia, a trip that we fully expected would dissolve all the business problems that had cropped up over the last few months.

  Evidently, people in Russia were eager for us to get there. Very eager. Just before Christmas, I had mailed out our applications for visas to the Russian Embassy in Canberra, via Express Post Service, with an extra $30 for fast priority shipping. Normally, this process can take weeks. However, someone must have put us on a very fast track. The week between Christmas and New Year’s, someone named Andrei Ovcharenko, who said he worked at the embassy, called from Canberra to say the visas had already gone out. On Thursday, January 2, they arrived by messenger at our door.

  Only three days later, a Sunday morning, we kissed the kids good bye and threw our luggage in the back of our Volvo. We were on our way.

  Danny was at the wheel, with me in the passenger seat. In the back seat was Erica, who would drive our car back after we’d taken off. En route to Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne, Erica suddenly had an odd thought.

  ‘Do you both have wills made out?’ she asked.

  I was a bit surprised. ‘Well, yes, but they’re out of date.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘if anything happens to you, I will take care of Melanie. She’s so gorgeous.’

  Worry wart, I thought. But then, both of my sisters were. Jan, my older sister was always skittish about these Russian adventures, not sharing my sense of wan
derlust. Jan’s husband, Colin, was an expert about Russian geopolitical affairs and had warned Danny and me right at the start not to get involved in this dangerous business.

  ‘Whatever you do,’ Colin would say, ‘don’t go to Russia. Don’t get involved with those thugs.’

  I just sighed. Having gone to Russia twice and returned in one piece each time, I was somewhat jaded. We would go there this time, take care of business, and be home in two weeks. Danny and I had done the tourist routine, we’d seen the Czar and Czarina’s jewels. This time would be all business.

  ‘At least I’ll get to wear my new purple coat,’ I said, laughing.

  ‘And you’ll need it,’ Danny piped in. ‘They say you don’t really know what winter is until you live through one in Russia.’

  POSTSCRIPT

  At about the same time, in a town called Noginsk some twenty-five miles northeast of Moscow, a turbid man with a bushy mustache sat at the kitchen table with half a dozen men and went over with them what would happen once the Weinstocks’ plane landed in Moscow. He checked his watch and said, ‘Anee Ee-doot.’ Meaning, ‘They are coming.’

  PART TWO

  THE ELEVEN DAYS

  8

  DAY ONE:

  JANUARY 6, 1992,

  MOSCOW AND NOGINSK

  Flying to Moscow is never easy. The trip is a long, tedious exercise in sustained boredom. On that morning of January 5, we flew again on Yugoslav Airlines and caught the 11am flight to Singapore, an eight-hour jag. While the plane refueled, I bought a large packet of Twinings tea bags to give to the ladies who worked in the Moscow office and a Mickey Mouse T-shirt for Melanie. Then we were off again, on a seven-hour trek to Dubai, landing at 3am local time.

  With hours to kill before the next leg of the flight and nothing open in the airport, we slept for a couple of hours on the hard seats in a lounge, then I sat and embroidered a doily for my Russian doctor friend Natasha Amankwa. Finally, at 7:30am, we took off on a three-hour hop to Belgrade, the last pit stop before the three-and-a-half-hour flight to Moscow. Just thinking of all the hours we had to kill makes me feel languid. Back then, it frayed our nerves. During those last hours en route to Moscow, Danny pulled out a copy of Russian Made Simple and began droning words and phrases over and over, making me a bit crazy.

  ‘You’re disturbing everyone on the plane,’ I said.

  ‘If they don’t like it, they can tell me themselves,’ he replied.

  I just gritted my teeth. If the plane didn’t land soon, I thought, we’re going to wind up hating each other. Being cooped up for twenty-three and a half hours was too much for any couple.

  When the pilot came on the intercom and announced we were in the skies over Russia, I studied the business agenda we had drawn up. It all looked very routine and uneventful. Perusing the nearly unbroken itinerary, my eyeballs nearly glazing at the agate type, I wondered if we would have any time during the next week to do anything but attend meetings with the partners. These were the areas to be discussed:

  1. Imports into Russia

  Food products, beer, meat, egg products, canned fruit

  Consumer products: cigarettes

  Raw materials: wool

  Business office equipment: computers, peripherals, electronic

  components

  Clothing from China

  2. Exports from Russia

  Fertilisers

  Scrap metals: coppers, aluminium

  Homewares: light fixtures, cutlery, rugs, fabric

  Metal Components: petrol filters, canistra

  3. Service Industries in Russia

  IBIS information database

  Computer software development

  4. Public Company in Australia

  Percentage of each joint venture

  US dollar contribution to each JV

  Contract: Ernst/Young Moscow office

  Transfer ownership from Video Technology Ltd. to CTI

  5. Investment Trust

  Raise $50 million for investment projects

  Multicom Port facility at Kalingrad

  Airport at Vladivostok

  6. Beresnev, Novosibirsk

  Management training in Australia

  7. JV Interine Ormset

  Computers from Video Technology-Hong Kong-John Fung-VTech, Computers

  8. JV Sparta

  Mr Lev Kofman visit to Australia—contact and meet for public company

  9. Minsk

  Mr Gulev, Minister of Light Industry

  Mr Mikhnevitch

  Letter to Mr Kiebitch

  10. Mongolia

  Copper-wire production facility

  11. JV SovAustralTechnicka

  Contribution to charter fund

  Service centre equipment

  Used clothing

  Racehorses

  Poultry farm

  BNTV satellite and cable equipment for transmission and reception for Australia

  12. Contact and Meet for Public Company

  JV Mayak

  JV Intervils

  JV Amra

  JV Multicom

  13. Business Relationship

  1. Company structure

  • Use existing bank accounts in Hong Kong

  • New companies: HK, Australia, Switzerland, Malta, Channel Islands

  2. Change authorisation procedure for bank accounts

  3. Accounting

  For overheads, overseas travel, administrative costs, buying commissions, selling commissions

  In the early afternoon in Moscow, the wheels finally touched down at Sheremetyevo Airport. With me wearing my new coat, we left the plane and approached the border guards’ inspection station, prepared to endure the usual drawn-out ritual of the guards combing over our passports and asking a ton of prying questions. Instead, remarkably—and, in retrospect, perhaps not coincidentally—they practically swept us through.

  ‘Business?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Stamp. Bang. We were done.

  Next we found a kacca, a cash control kiosk where foreign currency is exchanged for rubles—eighty rubles to a US dollar was the exchange rate then. We paid five rubles for a baggage cart, loaded it up with our bags when they came out on the carousel, then headed for the customs inspection table, normally another nerve-fraying hassle. However, once again, it was as if we were royalty. The agent didn’t even look in our bags and was so deferential he may as well have genuflected as we passed through. The reason for the red-carpet treatment may have become evident when we moved toward the glass door just beyond the table and saw the only person we knew who could apparently make Russian mountains move—Grigory Miasnikov, who was standing, arms folded, beside young Richard Markson.

  Seeing Grigory was a major surprise. We had expected Richard to meet us, alone. In fact, we had not been able to reach Grigory by phone during the previous week and were told he had left Moscow on a business trip, something to do with a scrap cable project. Even before that, Grigory had not been answering our faxes. Of course, we’d come to live with Grigory being unresponsive, passing it off as ‘just Grigory’s way.’ And, as much as he could at times be magnificently rude, we were genuinely happy to see him at Sheremetyevo He had been our Moscow sled dog, guiding us through uncertain terrain.

  Grigory, though, had no bouquets of tulips for Danny and me. Like a drill sergeant, after saying no more than a perfunctory hello, he was issuing orders to follow him out of the terminal door, with the hapless Richard struggling to keep up while pushing the luggage cart across the slippery floor.

  Outside, as I felt the bracing winter cold, Grigory met up with a tall, solidly built, dark-skinned man with a bushy mustache and covered head to ankle by a black overcoat.

  ‘This is Oleg,’ Grigory introduced him. ‘He will be our driver for today.’

  A little background: On our first two trips to Moscow, Grigory had arranged for us to go from meeting to meeting by sending drivers named Yura or Andrei. However, either Grigory or Richard had taken us from
the airport. So we were a bit baffled on a couple of counts.

  ‘Where are Yura and Andrei?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re still with us, but not today,’ he said.

  Odder still was that Richard began to load our luggage into the trunk of his familiar white Lada Niva, yet Grigory’s white Mercedes 220 was parked just behind it. Oleg had gotten into the driver’s seat, and Grigory directed us to get in for the ride to the Sputnik Hotel, where we were again to stay.

  As I walked to the Mercedes, I had an uncomfortable pang in my tummy that something was not quite right here. That feeling probably had a lot to do with Oleg, whom I found absolutely disgusting. Yura and Andrei had been friendly, lovely men. Oleg, with his beady, slit-like eyes, just seemed to be full of hatred. Not wanting to sit next to him, I slid into the back seat. Grigory got in next, to my left in the back. Danny then climbed into the front passenger seat beside Oleg, who started up the car and pulled away from the curb, with Richard following behind us in his car.

  As we turned out to the exit road, I looked out the window at the landscape of Russia in winter. It was very different, very depressing. Those bright hues of summer and autumn were replaced by a veneer of steel gray. It was not a terribly cold day, maybe around minus 1 degree Celsius (30 degrees Fahrenheit), but the wind was howling, the sky was pale, and patches of dirty snow littered the ground. Something else was different, too. I watched for the usual turn onto the main road, yet Oleg bypassed it, staying on the outer ring road that took us in a different direction. Before, we had gotten right out into heavy traffic. Now, no other cars were on this road. Oh well, I thought, Oleg must know a shortcut. I sat back, my eyes closing.