I Was a Potato Oligarch: Travels and Travails in the New Russia

by John Mole

  “We now have feasibility for Barents Sea.”

  “Sorry, Andrei. Our board has finalized our strategic plan. There’s no place for sea shells.”

  His ears twitched back, his furrowed forehead cleared, his eyes narrowed and for a split second he was a Tatar.

  “We have found dredger. Special sea-shell dredger. Here is offer.”

  “Sorry, Andrei, my board’s decided. What can I do?”

  It felt strange being on the receiving end. It was usually my crackpot ideas getting the brush-off. The flash of the Tatar again. Andrei looked right and left and over my shoulder. The swarthy waiter set down our coffee.

  “Fireworks. We have ship of fireworks in St Petersburg harbour. Certified by Russian authorities. Ready to sail. Five thousand dollars downpayment. Russian fireworks are the best. You have fireworks in England?”

  “Fifth of November.”

  “Not fourth of July?”

  “Fourth of July is somewhere else”.

  “They will keep to November.”

  “I’ll take it to my board but I don’t hold out much hope, Andrei.”

  “Wolfram. We have licence to prospect wolfram in Kazakhstan. It is biggest wolfram concession in Soviet Union.”

  “What is wolfram?”

  “For light bulbs. Very hard metal. Also for warheads.”

  “Tungsten? You have a licence for tungsten?”

  “One final payment and we have it.”

  “Five thousand dollars?”

  Andrei shrugged. He took a slug of coffee. His hands were shaking. All the blood in his face had drained to the red blobs on his cheeks.

  “Two thousand dollars. I have the papers with me. Two thousand.”

  He took out a sheaf of onion-skin papers, closely typed and smudged. He held them out to me, but I did not take them. I was no longer entertained by this poor Russian Tatar. I felt sorry for him. Sea shells, fireworks, tungsten. Three more for the list of improbable dreams touted in hotel lobbies all over Russia.

  “What do you really want, Andrei? Why do you need two thousand dollars so badly?” This is what I wanted to say, but I didn’t want to get involved. It would be cruel to string him along.

  “Take the papers,” he said quietly. “One thousand dollars.”

  “They mean nothing to me, Andrei.”

  He looked hard over my shoulder. His shoulders sagged and he slumped back in his chair, the papers quivering in his lap. He looked over my shoulder again and I turned round, but the lobby was empty. He was desperate, but it was not my problem. I finished my coffee and stood up. He stood up too, laboriously, leaning on the table for support.

  “I will come with you,” he said, throwing the papers in his briefcase and slamming it shut. We came out of the alcove. The lobby was deserted. He looked about him right and left. He gripped my arm and steered me towards the front door.

  “Sir,” said a voice behind us.

  Andrei walked faster.

  “Sir,” said the voice again, louder and with an edge.

  I made us both stop and we collided.

  “We must pay,” Andrei said.

  Behind us was not the swarthy waiter who brought us the coffee but a bigger, tall blond man. His white jacket was too small for him. Over one arm he had a napkin that covered his hand. He was wearing black-and-white Reeboks, which was odd for a waiter.

  Andrei let go of my arm and turned for the door. There was a sharp phut. He pitched forwards. The briefcase skidded across the floor.

  I looked up at the waiter. So this is it. Run away? Legs stuck in treacle. He went past me and through the revolving door, his hand in his white jacket pocket.

  Andrei lay on his back. His forehead was smooth and the Tatar’s face had come through for good. From the back of his head streamed a red river of blood onto the brown marble. There was a pungent smell and I was sorry he had soiled himself. When I was out in the street I realized it was me.

  I don’t remember going home. I certainly didn’t wait around for the police. It took me a couple of days to get over it. I stayed in the flat and shook and shouted and wept. I didn’t answer the phone. Didn’t let anyone in. Every few minutes I tiptoed to the hall and put my ear against the door.

  Why didn’t I leave? Get on the first plane home? Reason told me I was in no danger, otherwise I would already be dead. Intuition told me I had unfinished business. And a small voice, of which I was ashamed, told me that secretly I was enjoying it all.

  It turned out as it usually does?

  We were nearly there. Suppliers, equipment, staff and accounting systems were lined up. The Union would bankroll the payables and the rent for the first year. Fitting out, equipment and advertising would cost half what it would in London. We were making progress with financing. Feelers were out, grants applied for, presentations made, assurances given, intent exchanged.

  The most important issue was a supply of good potatoes. Our restaurant would need 250 tons in the first year. This represented between 5 and 10 per cent of a total crop. I had secured, as well as I was able, options and contracts on seeds, storage capacity, fields and farmers, with back-up and fallback, of almost 5000 tons. I was confident we would be able to dispose of the surplus to McDonald’s or Chechens.

  At last we found premises for the pilot restaurant. I had seen scores of sites, from new-build shopping centres to ratinfested bufyets. Afanasy introduced me to a cooperative that “owned” the Soyuz milk bar at the Kremlin end of Novi Arbat, a busy main street. Cooperatives were hangovers from the privatization of the Gorbachev era. Virtual ownership of state-owned businesses was handed over to the employees, who elected one of their number as manager. The Soyuz had gone out of business, closed down by the city sanitation department.

  “Jarn, there’s nuttin’ wrong widdit. They wanna get their hands on the property. By no means. They owe the Union money so we got a first in.”

  Quite how the Union had a first in I didn’t understand, however hard Afanasy tried to explain. There was no commercial legal system. Sure, there were laws, but without courts or arbitration or enforcement they were worth nothing. The validity of the Union’s claim depended on how much influence they had at City Hall. The gist of Afanasy’s explication was that we had enough.

  The place would need remodelling. The present decor was Birmingham public lavatory circa 1965, floor-to-ceiling white tiles, green dado, terrazzo floor and neon lights. The starkness was relieved by Soviet tiling technology. In the West you start with a smooth wall and then use adhesive to stick the tiles on, with levels and plumb lines and spacers. In Russia you stick the tiles directly onto wet cement, so it’s difficult to lay them flat and in straight lines. As a result a tiled wall is faceted and curvy.

  The main room was just big enough for us, about twenty tables and a counter. There was a good-sized food-preparation room at the back, like a big old-fashioned scullery, with access to a yard for deliveries. The cellar was the basis of the sanitation department’s decree. It was dripping with fungus and scuttling with creatures when the light turned on, but nothing that a good scrub and a few well-placed bribes could not take care of.

  The cooperative could dissolve itself but not sell itself. We would have to license it or franchise it or something similar, whatever the lawyers could invent. There was no legal precedent. It was exciting, in a small way, to be adding a brick to the growing edifice of the market economy, or its ramshackle bureaucracy, depending on your point of view. My biggest concern was that the members of the cooperative should have nothing to do with the new operation. Afanasy arranged for me to meet them at the premises.

  The manager was Viktor, a middleaged man with slicked-down dyed black hair and an enormous belly hanging over the trousers of his black barathea suit and moulded into a giant Gouda by a red pullover. His face was not fat to match but almost gaunt, with what flesh it sported drooping like a beagle’s, a congenitally thin man grown fat in defiance of nature. His fellow cooperatives were nine women, between 30 a
nd 50 years old, big girls in every way, well nourished on the milk and cheeses and creams and tasty little pies they used to purvey. They circled us like a herd of curious Jerseys. I was nervous that they would bluster and bully me into taking them on, but they were intimidated by a foreigner and touchingly grateful for the pay-off, a handsome ten dollars a month each.

  Early one morning, before eight, I was brooding over a mug of peppery coffee and planning fried eggs when the phone rang. It was Afanasy. By no means. He was outside in the square. What was he calling on? In those days the only mobiles were satellite phones. No one other than wealthy people and foreigners used them. He wanted to introduce me to someone who would help with the business. What sort of help? He wouldn’t say.

  I put on a jacket and tie, locked up the flat and went downstairs. As I struggled with the front-door lock I had more curious thoughts. Why had they come to the flat and not the office?

  Afanasy was waiting at the bottom of the step. Behind him was a large black Mercedes sedan with tinted windows. The back door was held open by a fresh-faced youth in a bulging leather jacket, purple jogging pants and shiny white trainers. Gold on his wrist and neck glinted in the sunshine. The title on the job description of such chaps is “Bull”.

  “Good morning, Jarn, please...” said Afanasy, pointing to the car.

  “No way, Afanasy. No way am I getting in that car.”

  I glanced around. It was a nice morning, but no one else was in the square. One look at our visitors and they had found urgent things to do behind their steel doors. I patted my jacket pockets.

  “Ah. I forgot my business cards. I’ll just go back and get them. Won’t be long.”

  “Jarn, they know who you are. By no means. Please. It is a meeting.”

  “Whose idea was this? Are they friends of yours, Afanasy?”

  He shrugged. Through boweltrembling panic twittered the sweet voice of reason. I didn’t owe them money, I wasn’t in any criminal business. Drugs, gambling, prostitution, extortion, money laundering, oil, aluminium, diamonds... baked potatoes... it didn’t fit. What was there to be afraid of? It could be interesting. And Afanasy was with me.

  I got into the car. The bull slipped in next to me and slammed the door. Another bull was driving. His fingers were covered with the blue tattoos of Russian convicts. Afanasy waved goodbye.

  As we drove through the streets the sweet voice of reason had to shout louder over the tremulous voice of my imagination. What if they weren’t so clever and had got the wrong man? It crossed my mind to fling open the door and jump out, but apart from the danger of tumbling into the road I suspected the door was locked.

  I attempted polite conversation, but they ignored me. I tried the gambit that has rarely failed me with men of all conditions and ranks and castes and races and backgrounds.

  “What team do you support?”

  “The Meat.” This was less ominous than it sounds, it’s the nickname of Spartak Moscow.

  “Birmingham City.”

  “We never played you.”

  And that was the end of it. These were hard men.

  We cruised down Leningradsky Prospekt and took the Outer Ring to the south, until we reached Gagarin Square.

  We turned down Leninsky Prospekt and drove past Vladimir’s Institute. A mile or so down the road we pulled up in front of a 1970s concrete building that proclaimed ABAHA in stark lettering. Havana. I had walked past it a couple of times on the way to Vladimir’s flat. It was a Soviet-era restaurant and I had never been tempted or invited to go inside. I waited for the bulls to open the door for me and walked between them to the crinkly faux-copper door.

  New Russia had come to the Havana. Dim lighting. An enormous revolving glitter ball shedding jellybean colours. A bank of blinking slot machines on the right. Whirling wheels of fortune on the left. A naked pole dancer impersonated a fireman on a stage at the far end. Men played cards or ate on tables in the middle and booths round the edges. Waitresses clothed in feather headdresses and harem pants and nothing in between bounced on high heels among them.

  My bull led me to a booth occupied by a man in a dark-blue suit and open-necked white shirt, with a crucifix on a gold chain instead of a tie. He waved me to the bench at right angles to him. I sat down obediently and we sized each other up. He was a pleasant-looking chap in his early 30s, blond hair brushed forwards over his round head and nice blue eyes. His upper arms and chest inflated his suit and his bull neck filled the shirt collar. I guessed his sport was wrestling or steroids. He pointed over my shoulder and I turned to face a wobbly pair of 36Ds. I turned back to my host, unsure of what I was being offered.

  “What do you wish to eat?” he asked in carefully enunciated English. “Whatever that you desire”

  It was inappropriate to ask for two fried eggs, so I had scrambled.

  “Mister Mule, I am pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Barees.”

  “You speak excellent English”

  “I made a Cambridge proficiency. It is good for my work.”

  “What work might that be?”

  “We give service to companies.”

  “Do I need your services?”

  “You will make your business in Novi Arbat. This comes into our responsibility.”

  The mafia, or brotherhood as they preferred to be called, divided Moscow into a dozen territories. Exactly how many at any one time depended on who had merged, split or been rubbed out. I wish now I had asked which family I was dealing with, how they were organized, who their competition was, how many employees they had and all the other questions I used to ask company executives when I was a bank lending officer. That would have tempered the fantasy and conjecture that filled the newspapers. But it was more prudent to speak when I was spoken to, especially as my voice had gone small and squeaky. In a mixture of equally unproficient English and Russian we clarified his terms and conditions.

  “Mister Male, a business is not safe in Russia if it does not have friends. We are your friends.”

  “We already have a roof.” I was showing off - roof is slang for protection. A cloud passed over his sunny face.

  “Who is your roof?”

  “The Farmers’ Union. It is a governmental organization.”

  The sun came out again. He chuckled at what he thought was my joke.

  “We make sure you will not be troubled by hooly-gons. You will have a security guard twenty-four hours. Inside and outside.”

  Great. A leather-jacketed bull with tattoos on his hands at the door. Very welcoming. I wondered if we could get them to wear a beefeater’s costume, but now was not the time to ask.

  “Why do we need you? What about the police?”

  He laughed again at my joke.

  “You do not call a wolf to help you against the dogs. The garbage are never there when you need them. And they come when they are not welcome. Let me tell you what will happen. They will come and say that according to the police regulations you must have bars on the windows at the back of the restaurant or you will have a big fine. You put in the bars. Then a fire inspector comes. He says that according to the fire regulations you must not have bars on the windows so people can escape in case of a fire. You take out the bars. Then the policeman comes back and says you must have the bars. You know they want a bribe, but how much? And different policemen come and different firemen. The city inspectors, the food inspectors, the building inspectors, the tax inspectors, the traffic inspectors... it is the same. They will bleed you dry. This is how they live. Their salaries are nothing. It is our responsibility to take care of such things. You will not have the trouble and you will save much money. We want to see your business do well.”

  “The wolf hires himself out cheaply as a shepherd.”

  “Ah, you know Russian proverbs”

  “The ones about wolves.”

  36D arrived with breakfast. Eggs for me, steak for Barees, a pot of coffee and a carafe of vodka. One of her nipples was sprinkled with breadcrumbs. I was minded
to dust them off with a napkin, but thought better of it. Out of some inverted machismo it was the done thing to ignore the girls. With all this at breakfast time, what did they do for stimulation in the evening?

  Barees poured and we clinked glasses. Po paniatiam was the toast, to our understanding.

  “You have another problem. You are in the food business. You have ordered many potatoes. Yes?”

  “You know a lot about our business.”

  “The Blacks will not like this. Vegetables is their business.”

  “The Blacks?”

  “Our Chechen brothers. How will you get your potatoes to your shop? They will kill your drivers. They will steal your trucks. They will sell your vegetables in their markets. We will make sure you do not have a problem. We have agreements.”

  “So what do you charge for your services.”

  “10 per cent. We are very reasonable.”

  10 per cent. This wasn’t bad at all. From what I had heard I was expecting at least double that. I made another of those jokes that he found so amusing.

  “Is that 10 per cent of profit before tax or after tax?”

  “Oh, Mr Meal, that is before everything.” He laughed again.

  “What do you mean, before everything?”

  “It is very simple. At the end of the day you will give to our man 10 per cent of everything in your cash box.”

  “That’s 10 per cent of sales.”

  “Of course. What did you think it was?”

  He poured us another glass. I took out a pen and reached for a paper napkin. I scribbled down some numbers. Say income is 100. According to our conservative projections, all the costs would be about 80. That left profit before tax of 20. Boris’s 10 per cent of sales would be 10. In other words, 50 per cent of our pre-tax profit. Leaving us 10. But we would pay tax on the 20, as mafia protection was not an allowable expense. The effective tax rate once you took into account profit tax, local tax and VAT was 90 per cent of the 20, which would come to 18. So we would make a loss of 8.

  I patiently explained to Boris that 10 per cent was most unreasonable. The most we could afford would be 1 per cent. Dark clouds floated again over his sunny visage. He patiently explained the situation to me in proficient Cambridge English.