Frank & Charli

by Frank Yandolino

  We stayed at the National Hotel in Moscow, across the boulevard from Red Square and St. Peter’s Cathedral, with its design and architecture that looked like multicolored Carvel swirled ice cream, with iced donut peaks at the top. The Cathedral is where Stalin is buried in his simple coffin for everyone to see. One early morning I was walking around Red Square. On this particular day, the square and St. Peter’s had thousands of people waiting in a line that circled the building. Today was the anniversary of the death of Stalin. I decided to join in, waiting to view his body, shooting secret videos. My camera captured people who had come from all over Russia. From the north, they looked like Eskimos with slanted eyes and dark skin. Others were light skinned and blond, some young, some old. I joined the line not so I could pay my respects, but just out of curiosity. After waiting several hours to see Stalin’s roped-off, open casket surrounded by armed guards, I saw a dead man who looked like most dead people, sleeping stern and strong. I remember thinking this little mad man was Stalin, the tyrant everyone feared. I felt sort of happy that he was dead. After all, I still was of the belief that the Russians were the enemy.

  The National Hotel was a classic Russian hotel with a unique twist of contemporary, blended with complicated antique decorations. It was very charming, dark, and sexy. There were no elevators. You had to walk up a wide, maroon-carpeted, beautifully thick mahogany spiral staircase to my suite on the third floor. On each floor landing was a desk with an old Russian matron seated behind it, a major league Russian woman whose job was to monitor who was going into the rooms and look out for questionable women of the night, sort of like a guard. I’m sure she was paid off and let them in anyway. Everything had a system in Russia; everybody had an angle to beat the government.

  One evening, I was sitting at a small bentwood-type table and chair in the hotel lobby bar. Joel had gone to his room. Now on my second Stoli, I looked up to see a young, handsomely dressed girl approaching me. I think she was a hooker, although she looked young and sweet, even too innocent to be a professional. Maybe I was just being naïve. In those days people were poor and desperate; everyone was a prostitute in one way or another. She spoke broken English with a strong Russian accent, right out of a foreign espionage black-and-white 16 mm movie.

  “May I join you?”

  “Sure, please sit down. Can I offer you something to drink?”

  As she made herself comfortable, she said, “My name is Isalda.” My mind exploded. Another Isalda, I thought to myself.

  “Well Isalda, my name is Tristan.”

  She was surprised and amused by my answer. I continued with my standard position. “I must warn you … if you want to have sex you gotta rape me.”

  She looked at me, not saying a word, but I could read her mind. Who is this guy? I took another shot of Stoli. “And then I would have to have you arrested for rape. It’s the only way I can explain it to my wife.”

  Now she took a swig of Stoli, and I continued. I had her on the run. I knew she could tell I was not your ordinary easy mark tourist.

  I never had to call the cops. I look at having sex much like how I approach fishing. You have to jump on my hook; that’s how I know I got a fish and not seaweed. You see, I really don’t care if I catch anything even though I fish all the time.

  Always looking for some kind of ball to play with, I found one in Moscow when I met a very slick opportunist. This guy could get you anything you wanted, legal or not. He knew someone who was planning shows and exhibits to launch a worldwide tour that would eventually head to America. His idea was to present—for the first time legally—a photo exhibition of totally nude Russian models. The photo exhibit would be accompanied by some of the models as hostesses for press and photo ops. Naturally I agreed to help. They eventually came to New York. It was quite a show; this was a first. No one had ever been allowed to present or see nude Russian women before.

  Joel and my connections to and in Moscow were growing. We now represented famous Russian opera singers, composers, and Bolshoi ballerinas.

  Times were changing fast in the Soviet Union. You could see and feel it. The Cold War was taking its toll; food and products of all kinds were scarce. Little shops barely had enough food to supply the lines of hungry. The price of their beloved vodka was sky high—so unaffordable that people were drinking 100-percent grain alcohol filtered through slices of bread. Sidewalks and hospitals were packed with sick and dying alcoholics. People began colluding in secret. The black market and underground was growing and so was the “me” generation. Everyone cheated the government and the government cheated the people.

  There I was, seeing how they needed everything. I could feel rock ‘n’ roll and Woodstock Nation coming down the pike. The desire for freedom exists in everyone, and it can only be caged for so long. Just like in America, from the Revolution to Woodstock, it all happened underground first. Most American rock ‘n’ roll was banned in Russia; you couldn’t listen to it or buy it. But I’ve learned where there is a will there is a way. Rock clubs and Russian rockers developed the one-night rock club. The club and location would be promoted underground and would only be there for one night. The clubs and the groups that played there were becoming very popular and an issue for the government.

  I had this conversation with Khrennikov. He often confided in me and referred to me as his American friend. I was trying to get him and his colleagues to allow me to bring American acts to Russia for shows and sales of records. We were discussing inviting Khrennikov to America to perform with major philharmonic symphonies, along with The Bolshoi, prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, and anyone else I could represent. During our private conversations I presented my argument and theory by telling him something he already sort of knew, but with a twist he may not have thought about.

  “You know, Tikhon, there are rock clubs I have visited all over Russia now.”

  “I know this … we must, like a teakettle, let off a little steam or it will blow up.”

  “Well, realize this, Tikhon: once you let rock ’n’ roll, jeans, and T-shirts stream out, it’s like letting worms out of a can. You can’t get them back in.”

  “We will see how this revolution will end.’’

  I answered him, “It will end like all others—the people will win.” He answered me with a smile, ‘‘Good.’’

  Moscow’s subway system is something I imagine the rest of the world is not very familiar with. Most of the time you enter it in a seemingly normal way, down gray concrete steps into a gray dark tunnel and then take an escalator straight down a gray quarter of a mile. But when you enter the platform, you are shocked by the beauty. Each station has its own image and theme. You see crystal chandeliers, three-story-high columns made out of marble. You see frescos, oil paintings, sculptures, vases filled with flowers. Other stops felt futuristic with brass, chrome, and glass. It was unbelievable being down that far in such an ornate maze of tunnels and connections. It was very strange to see how above ground the people lived very modestly, some like peasants, while down below the subways looked like expensively decorated mansions. That is where the underground world operated, in the subways and tunnels, where you could buy or trade anything: US dollars for rubles, drugs, contraband, and women.

  The government tried to track every form of currency entering and leaving the country; whatever you brought in had to be counted at customs and documented in your passport. If you brought in $1,000, that amount was documented, and when you left you had to show receipts for exchanging your money for rubles and for everything you bought. Any leftover balance had to be held in cash. If you spent more than you had brought in you could be subject to high fines and penalties or risk your purchases being confiscated.

  The Russians have become very resourceful; under years of struggle they discovered ways around things we would never think of. The more the government took or controlled, the more resourceful the people became. Once, I was eating alone at the restaurant on the corner of the National Hotel. The menus were in Ru
ssian, the waiters were Russian, everything was very Russian. I asked the waiter what’s on the menu. He said something, shrugged his shoulders, and smiled. I couldn’t understand him.

  It reminded me of my friend Joe, the shoemaker’s son from Brentwood, Long Island. We were working after school at Hill’s Supermarket as stock boys. I was working in the produce department; and there was Joe, who always had a broom in hand, pretending to be working—a method I later adopted in the army. Replying to an old lady who requested he reach up to get her something she wanted on the top shelf, he answered her, faking a strong Spanish-like accent.

  “Me don’t understand. Me sweeping the floor.” No matter what she said or how hard she tried, he answered her the same over and over.

  “Me don’t understand. Me sweeping. Me sweepy the floor, me sweepy the floor.” The old lady turned to me. Not wanting to be outdone by Joe, I replied: “Sorry, I work in produce.”

  She walked away. I still regret not helping her and have never done that again.

  So this waiter was not fooling me. I had learned from the master of “don’t ask me I don’t understand,” Joe Gambino.

  The waiter was very persistent, though, and wouldn’t budge from sort of forcing me to agree on chicken Kiev. So I did. I mean I had no choice. It didn’t take long to get it either. After dinner, I requested the check, and several minutes later the waiter returns with a piece of paper with Russian scribbling, the total amount due written in large numbers. He wouldn’t give me the bill, not even to hold. Every time I motioned for it he backed up two steps. I was beginning to smell a rat now. I will never give up till I win, like a scorpion, so I paid him and asked for a receipt. Twenty minutes went by, no waiter, no change, no receipt. Now demanding to see the waiter, a new waiter came over asking, “What would you like to order?”

  “Order? I don’t want anything except my receipt, from the waiter who I already paid.’’ Now somehow this guy spoke perfect English.

  “Oh, that guy, he is not here.’’

  “Where is he?’’

  “He went home.” I quit. They wore me out. Later, I found out from Joel what the scam is. The waiter and the cook have an arrangement. Every food order a waiter writes down is connected to a piece of meat, fish, chicken, whatever, and the cook must account for it at the end of his shift. If they have twenty written orders there has to be cash to coincide with the twenty orders. So in their scam, the waiter reuses the same signed order form. They then have an arrangement with the cashier, so they all share in the stolen profits from the meals sold and not accounted for. The cooks may do this with several waiters at a time. This event taught me an important lesson: before you make decisions, before you grab the ball, it is always wise to understand your opponent’s position, even though I don’t always do that.

  Another major scam was called black money—money the government didn’t control; hidden, illegal funds. If you dealt with black funds you were given better rates than the banks. In Moscow, becoming a crook was the only way people could make any money. It was all controlled by the Russian mafia, who spread their territory from Moscow to Brighton Beach, Coney Island, in Brooklyn. All Russians wanted US dollars; with dollars you could buy anything. There were dollar stores where you could only buy things with dollars; rubles weren’t accepted. These stores mostly sold items only available to foreigners and not available to the Russian people—rare or illegal things like amethyst and gold, or hand-painted Russian folk art. With my dollars I bought it all and took it all back to America with the help of Khrennikov.

  Joel, as I said, had many friends in the arts, especially Russian composers, conductors, and musicians. One such friend was Maya Plisetskaya’s husband, Rodion Shchedrin, a fellow composer. They invited us to dinner. Maya was cooking a traditional Russian meal especially for us at their Moscow apartment. It was a modest five rooms, well appointed, filled with art, antiques, knickknacks, and photos of their past performances. Velvet and carved mahogany furniture that looked a little worn was neatly arranged with colorfully embroidered pillows, doilies, and throw blankets to keep you warm when there was little or no heat. Another thing I couldn’t help but notice in every home I visited was that people would turn the dials of their telephone and stick a pencil in one of the finger holes to keep the round dialer from returning to its stopped position, believing that by doing so no one could listen to their phone conversations. Russians were extremely paranoid, convinced that all phones and even light fixtures were tapped.

  After a wonderful dinner, Maya told us parts of her life story as we looked at old pictures of their youth and a simpler Russia. As we were leaving after many kisses and hugs, she gave me a present: two tin cans of rare Russian clams and a glass jar of Beluga Caviar. I still have them, twenty-five years later, in my refrigerator in New York.

  Several days later, we attended Maya’s performance of Swan Lake at the Bolshoi Ballet. I smuggled in my tiny Sony camcorder, so small no one ever saw it before or knew what it was, so I was able to record the entire performance. I also recorded private meetings and conversations in the Kremlin, regarding the exchange of artists’ performances that included Khrennikov, Billy Joel, Maya Plisetskaya, ballet, opera, philharmonic orchestras, and musicians of all kinds.

  The original idea we pitched was to go to Russia to interview Khrennikov. At least that was our disguise. In reality, we went to help resurrect the cultural exchange for our own personal interests. I was interested in tapping into and getting rights to the untouched insular Russian entertainment products, shows, and stars and of course in opening up their markets to American products as well, in order to import and export as much as possible. Joel had deeper and more personal goals. Behind the scenes, unknown to the both governments, Joel and I were arranging marriage agreements between US citizens and Soviet women, who agreed to marry and go to America to get their families out of Russia. I had at least a half a dozen balls in my hand and pockets.

  On my second trip to Moscow, walking through customs was a snap. I brought in banned music CDs that Khrennikov had requested. As I went through customs, an agent simply took out the CDs, never saying a word, as though he knew they were there. Weeks later, as I was departing from the Moscow airport, going through customs, the CDs were returned to my bag, again without a word, although now opened and accompanied by a slew of gifts. I was never questioned or checked. It was Khrennikov’s gift to me, sort of our own fair trade agreement.

  On another special occasion at the Bolshoi, Khrennikov was honored and presented an award for his contribution as one of Russia’s leading composers and writers. On that evening his ballet was presented. After the performance and the press party, Khrennikov introduced me to one of the ballerinas, Isalda. Yes, can you believe it? Another Isalda. She was at least six feet tall, and she looked and danced the part of the Spider Woman very well. I was in awe of it all. Khrennikov said a few words to her before she turned to me. “Come, I will take you home.”

  We got into her small Russian sports car and started to drive out of the city. The first thing she said was, “I could really use a radio for this car.” Why would she say that? I paid no attention to the comment and answered with, “Where are we going?”

  Before I go on, writing this episode about my experiences in Russia reminds me of the time, many years later, while I was a promoter and producer of live music and boxing events staged for TV broadcast from the Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, owned by multimillionaire developer Donald Trump, who was into everything he could get into, especially if it got him media exposure.

  Donald Trump

  I first met Donald Trump, a meticulous man who wore makeup along with his trademark bouffant teased hairdo to hide the fact that he was almost bald, at a sports luncheon in New York City where he was a guest speaker. At the meet-and-greet session, I mentioned my partner Louis Neglia, and explained Louis was a world-champion kickboxer and instructor and that we were producing kickboxing events in large clubs in Brooklyn and would like t
o do the same in Atlantic City. He liked the idea and invited us to meet at his office at the Trump Tower. During our meeting he agreed to let us promote matches at his Taj Mahal Casino.

  Everyone went to the club hoping to see Trump. I doubt many went hoping to see Trump pole dance.

  I still have the same philosophy and attitude I had then regarding paying for women. I really didn’t like the whole premise and didn’t understand how these gorgeous nude women were rubbing and dancing all over men who were sticking money in their bras and panties. In New York City a friend of mine just recently opened a multimillion-dollar strip club. While I was standing at a table the guy next to me arranged to have this pretty little girl strip, dance, and rub up against him, and he must have given her five or six $20 bills. The minute he stopped inserting money, she stopped dead in her tracks, got dressed in a blink of an eye, thanked and lightly kissed him on the cheek, and moved over to me, smiling with a look that said “You’re next.” In a strong Russian accent she flirtingly asked, “Can I dance for you?”

  I answered, “I just saw you dance naked right over there.”

  “But for you I will do a special dance.”

  She continued to undress again. She was no more than twenty-one, if that, a stunning little thing with a great body. I had to stop myself not to be blinded by the light. I had to set the record straight.

  “Look, let me explain something you should know. I’m from Brooklyn. Where I come from, if you show me your tits I’m supposed to fuck you. And there is no money involved. Actually, the way I look at it, if there was, you should pay me.” I’m sure that’s how Mike Tyson saw it …

  This time, if you could believe it, she got dressed even faster and scooted off to the next customer as she cursed me out in Russian. Even though I had no idea what she said, I got the vibe and answered back, “Don’t give me anything I’m not supposed to have.”