Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change

You cannot get away from the mafia in Russia. Nothing happens without their knowledge and involvement; they are intimately connected to government, business, the military, even the arts. They are as visible as bureaucrats were in the Soviet system: you see their cars—top Western models without license plates. Most have a slick but sleazy look that is very much their own. The men have broad shoulders and tend to stand with their legs apart and their necks forward, in a pose Russians call “the bull.” Their women are usually pretty, expensively dressed, and completely silent. The Russian mafia is growing at an incredible rate, and more and more young people are choosing to join. “It used to be fashionable in Leningrad to have an artist for a boyfriend, or a rock singer or a journalist,” says Irina Kuksinaite. “Now, the attractive girls want mafia boys.”

One of my mafia contacts, a thirty-two-year-old Muscovite, says, “You know that in our country the government offers no structure or control. Without these things, a nation falls apart. The mafia is all that’s holding this country together. We do provide structure, and when we take over a business, that business works. It’s noble work. A young man of ambition, someone who wants to have an effect on this society, he’d have to be a moron to think the way to do it is to join the Parliament. If he’s smart, he’ll join the mafia.”

My contact is extremely charming and helpful. He explains which ethnic mafias (there are seven major ones) dominate which areas and provides a sort of ideological structure within which to understand all mafia activity. He himself “takes over” companies, puts money into them, and then puts “good people” in charge of them. “Of course we all started off as petty criminals,” he says. “But with time, you move beyond that. The mafia includes most of the smartest people in the country.” He has become a patron of culture. “It’s sometimes hard to know how to spend all my money. And for me it’s a great pleasure to move in different circles. Many mafia people get bored by the company of other mafia people, and to move in different tusovki—that’s our ideal.” The art people are delighted by this patronage.

“We have a lot of fun in the mafia tusovka,” he says, “and we laugh a lot. When I get in trouble, the family helps; I was in prison in Finland, and they got me out. But it has its downside also.” I later learn that his partner was brutally murdered a few weeks ago because of a difference with another ethnic mafia that began when the partner’s wife, rather drunk, made insulting remarks at a restaurant.

Another mafia contact has been close to international drug traffic. He is twenty-five, good-looking, tremendously articulate, and entertaining. He is an expert at spending money: he puts together parties, buys art for mafiosi, makes useful introductions. He speaks excellent English and has read a surprising range of books. “The big guys in the mafia like this about me,” he says. “A few years ago, when organized crime was just getting into full swing, they were a bunch of coarse vulgarians. But then they saw all these American Hollywood movies about the Italian Mafia. The Godfather and so on. And they decided that they liked this idea of being hyper-refined and hyperpolite. Though, of course, there is still that common element, mostly doing the dirty work.”

“Killing people?” I ask.

“You’ve seen a lot of movies, too. Of course there are hit men around, but it’s very much out of fashion in sophisticated circles. The same guys who were killing each other a few years ago are now involved in financial manipulation, which is more pleasant and more profitable, white-collar. The killing part of the game—those people are really very unattractive.”

I go out several times with another contact who is part of the Azerbaijani mafia. On our first such evening, we go to an expensive restaurant in a hotel owned by a well-known Western chain. We sit down at the best table with a few heavies; one of them takes out a lump of hash the size of a baseball and starts to roll joints. I am a bit startled. “Do you think it’s a good idea to smoke hash in the middle of this restaurant?” I ask. “You know, this is a Western hotel.”

He laughs. “My friend wondered whether you would mind if we smoked here,” he says to the manager, gesturing languidly at the lump of hash.

“Please,” says the manager, looking rather green. “Have a nice smoke. You do whatever you like.” He stands smiling meekly at us.

At a party a few days later, one of the young mafiosi offers to introduce me to his boss, a plump man with blond hair and a scruffy beard. We have a nice chat about cars. He hopes that what I have been learning is interesting. “Our mafia is the best,” he says.

“And what do you actually do?” I ask brightly.