The Deceit of Riches Read online

  The Deceit of Riches

  by V M Karren

  Fly-By-Night Press

  Ⓒ Copyright 2017 by Val M Karren

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations with citing.

  Today is a little worse than yesterday, but a bit better than tomorrow.

  - Russian proverb

  The following is a work of fiction, as was most of official Soviet history.

  FORWARD

  Dear Reader,

  As husband and wife living and working in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia during the same tumultuous time period as the author, we so identify with this gripping novel. Though Peter Turner might be fictional, the chaos, the explosion of crime and the mafia, and the struggle for basic necessities were not. This was a dangerous, yet exciting, time to be in Russia but also deeply sad to see how the Russia people suffered due to all the changes enveloping their country—criminal and otherwise.

  Val Karren brings to life this crazy, unsettling time during the fall of the Soviet Union by telling us the compelling story of Peter Turner, an American university student in Nizhny Novgorod, who inadvertently gets caught up in the local power struggles. He experiences first hand many of the day-to-day struggles facing the common man and woman; describing some of the repercussions of what Russia’s new-found freedoms brought to the Russian people and their culture. Through the eyes of Peter Turner, the author is also able to give us a glimpse of the difficulty of moral choices when circumstances become dire, and nearly everyone seems corrupted, either through need or greed.

  A positive thing that does come through the author’s words is his love for the country of Russia itself; its beauties and the paradoxes of the Russian culture and its people.

  This story will be entertaining and enlightening for anyone interested in this period of Russia, especially as seen through the eyes of someone who was actually there. For those who experienced Russia, while all this tumultuous change was happening, this will be a particularly great read. It is a glimpse of life that most outside of Russia and the Soviet Bloc know very little about; it shows hardship and how it can change people—for good or bad. Also, and perhaps most importantly, it shows that there are people who will fight for what is morally right—even when the outcome is in doubt.

  We are looking forward to many other stories about the “Motherland” and Peter Turner’s adventures from author Val Karren!

  Mike and Bonnie Ramsdell

  Best-selling Author of A Train to Potevka

  0. Obituary

  PRESS RELEASE: RUSSIAN AVIONICS HERO IVAN SERGEYEVICH S. FOUND MURDERED

  November 14, 1994 / Union News Services

  Moscow / Bishkek

  A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation this morning expressed his condolences to the family members of Ivan Sergeyevich S. who was found dead in his Bishkek hotel room in the late evening of Sunday, November 13, 1994. The Kremlin, it was stated, is committed to a full investigation into the death of S., which has been classified as an act of terrorism against the Russian Federation. The authorities in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan have committed their full cooperation to solve the crime and bring his murderer to justice.

  Ivan Sergeyevich S. was a decorated veteran of the armed forces of both the Soviet Union and Russian Federation. S. was awarded the medal “Hero of the Red Army” in 1978 for his contributions to the advancement of both Soviet and Russian military aviation.

  S. served in the Red Army in the German Democratic Republic in the 1950s after the liberation of Europe from fascism, helping to restore peace and security on the borders of the Motherland after the Great Patriotic War.

  A graduate of Moscow State University with an advanced scientific degree in radar and radio sciences, S. served his country heroically in the research and development of aviation supremacy of the Soviet military, successfully protecting our homeland against the imperialist aggression of the United States & Great Britain for thirty-five years.

  This morning the President of the Russian Federation, Boris N. Yeltsin, had awarded S. the highest civilian honor of our country for his selfless sacrifice in fulfilling his duty to the Motherland. S. was murdered while taking part in a security operation with the RF state security agencies against the theft and smuggling of Russian military technology through former Soviet republics in central Asia, to Chechen separatists and terrorists.

  S. is survived by his wife Natalya Federovna and his only son Igor Ivanovich who live still in the Volga river city Nizhniy Novgorod. S. directed radar technology development at the Government Institute of Military Avionics in that provincial capital city since 1979 until his untimely death.

  Glory to the Heroes of the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation!

  1. Yulia

  Up until the moment that the airplane touched down at Moscow’s International Airport, the nerves and doubts played over and over in my mind on a repeating loop. It had been seven months since my last stay in Russia. I was unsure of what would happen once I was again on the ground. Would I still be able to speak Russian? Surely, I’ve forgotten too much already! Will I make it to my hotel without getting mugged? Why am I doing this again? As soon as the wheels touched the runway, all my insecurities scattered as quickly as cockroaches from the morning sun. Finally!

  The only question from the stern-faced woman controlling my passport behind the thick, scratched glass was: “Do you speak Russian, Mr. Peter Turner?" She asked me with disapproval in her voice.

  “Yes, of course!” I answered with no hesitation but taken aback that she even addressed me.

  “Where did you learn it?" she asked looking up from her computer terminal without moving her head, her eyes on me with a glance of suspicion.

  “On the Volga,” I replied again with a wisp of nostalgia in my voice and a smile.

  “On the Volga?” she asked surprised and looked me full in the face.

  “Yes, On the Volga,” I repeated with animation, “In the towns on the river like Yaroslavl, Plyos, and Nizhniy Novgorod.”

  “Very nice,” she muttered with just twinge of a smile in her eyes.

  She stamped my student visa and my passport and slid both back to me under the glass with a lingering trace of curiosity on her face. I collected my documents and nodded my thanks to her.

  Perhaps more unusual in this exchange than an American happily speaking Russian to the stern, khaki-clad immigration officer in Moscow, was the smile on the officer’s face as I stepped away. Centuries old ingrained suspicion of foreigners in their country was melting quickly with the changes in the early 1990s. Russians expressed pleasant surprise when westerners spoke fluent Russian with them. Such exchanges perhaps went to validate a citizen’s hope in the post-Soviet shift, as Russia lurched ideologically closer, with abrupt starts and stops, toward Europe and the United States. If foreigners were learning their language and coming to stay, they thought, perhaps it wasn’t such desperate situation after all. Maybe the sun was just about to rise again!

  Russia, in the early years after the rejection of the Soviet Union and its communist mandate, had embraced the ideals of free market reforms and the privatization of the country’s entire infrastructure and economy. It was moving quickly to undo the almost seventy-five years of state control over almost all economic activity and personal choice. Unfortunately, most citizens were not ready for the rapid changes dictated from the top down which clashed with all they had known and learned from childhood. Groups of very clever, dishonest people in high places within Moscow’s inner circles of power, and criminals who violently usurped it, were those who benefited the most. Those same people also accelerated the p
ace of reform where they could before their advantage evaporated with the re-education of the population. While foreign money poured into Russia to invest in newly privatized hotels, factories and oil fields, which was being reported with glee in western newsrooms, the workers and pensioners were being swindled out of their shares and homes by con-men and gangsters who could more deftly adapt when the wind changed directions. Banks weren’t just robbed, the banks were stolen and moved to Switzerland. What once belonged to everyone, now belonged to only a few. Those who couldn’t stand the motion sickness caused by the untempered gyrations towards capitalism and democracy were simply ground into the dust that covers the cars and buildings in the cities and villages across Russia.

  Russia’s potential in that time was intoxicating and irresistible to any entrepreneur, foreign or domestic. The present was latent with possibilities. The intelligence, the perseverance, the long suffering of its populace offered the children of Russia a future of prosperity and freedom unknown ever before to the children of the Motherland if only Moscow would allow it.

  Moscow for the last several years had been eating its own children. Mercy and decency were not to be found in circles where money and power were being consolidated. President Yeltsin, who was surrounded by self-seeking, opportunistic figures from circles of both politicians and criminals, seemed unaware or unable to control the wholesale theft of the country’s future. The new laws of deregulation were strong with new ideology but void of a long-term perspective for Russia and her people. The ability for the country to correct its path before it was too late was slipping quickly away with each new assassination, car bomb, and back alley murder. The future was up for grabs and everybody was grabbing what they could before the music stopped!

  On the numerous billboards along the Leningradskiy Highway, on our way into central Moscow, I could read that Christmas had been officially rehabilitated and was once again in fashion. The taxi driver, a young man with small children who needed gifts from Dedya Moroz (Father Frost) in the morning, charged me an extortionate sixty dollars in cold hard American cash for a lift into town. It surely hadn’t taken long for the principles of supply and demand to be understood on the streets of Moscow.

  I sniffed the air in the cabin of the cramped car and looked with suspicion at my driver.

  “What’s that I smell?" I asked suspiciously.

  “All is normal, all is normal,” my driver responded without actually reassuring me that everything was fine. Seeing my continued distrust the driver leaned across me, his left hand still on the steering wheel, and reached into the miniature glove compartment of this mud splattered Lada, and produced a glass flask of Vodka and showed it to me with a proud smile.

  “Thanks….but no,” I held up my hands to refuse his hospitality with even more concern on my face.

  “It's for the windshield!” he insisted as he waved the bottle in the air motioning to the dirty glass we were both squinting to see through.

  Right on cue, a large freight truck passed us on the left spraying the windows with a thick mud from the slushy street. For a second or two we could see nothing but brown sludge out of the front windows. The smell of strong alcohol filled the cabin of the car again as the windshield wipers worked frantically to rinse away the mud and snow. Another shot of vodka from the lever on the steering column and we could see the dim street lights again as we hurled down Leningradskoe Boulevard passing the northern river station on our right.

  “It never freezes, and it’s cheaper than the real stuff, and I can get it anywhere!” the driver continued to explain his enterprising use of Russia’s magic elixir.

  “Clever!” I snorted with irony.

  With a gleeful smile, he closed up the glove box before swerving to exit Leningradskiy Prospect just before Belorusskiy Train Station and swung on to the northern bend of Moscow’s outer ring road towards Prospect Mira, and my waiting bed.

  “Nope! Nothing has changed since I left,” I said to myself and settled into my seat as we careened through the slushy roads and falling snow, just as Moscow’s skyscrapers came into view through the Christmas snow and urban twilight. Ruby-lit stars burned visibly in a halo above the old city center. It was good to be back!

  “Wah wah wah — wah wah wah wah? ” Is all I actually understood from the ticket window at the Kazanskiy Train Station after announcing my destination.

  “The cheaper the better,” I replied and waited for the large, gray woman behind the glass to tell me a price for the lowest class ticket for the overnight train to Nizhniy Novgorod.

  As I moved slowly with my luggage to the train platforms, an older police man in his blue shapka and muddy boots lazing at the side of the gate, eyeing a foreigner, stood up right and asked gruffly, “What are you?"

  “American,” I answered with a bit of annoyance in my voice.

  “Where are you going?” he inquired holding out his hand to signal to inspect my travel authorization.

  “To Nizhniy,” I answered him with a glance upward to the departure board displaying the same destination.

  “You? To Nizhniy? We’ll see about that,” He took my passport, visa and train ticket and inspected them all with a suspicious surprise and asked, “What is your program?"

  “Linguistics and Literature,” was my official reply.

  “Show me your invitation letter,” he demanded.

  I produced a faxed copy of my acceptance letter from the Nizhgorodskiy State University stating I was excepted on the tenth of January to begin lectures and readings in Russian linguistics and literature.

  After a check and recheck of my documents, he handed all the items back to me. He eyed me up one last time looking for any reason to refuse me. Finding nothing out of place, he relented. With a flick of his head, he waved me on to the platform to my waiting third class sleeper car, wherein I hardly slept a wink of the four hundred kilometer train ride to Nizhniy Novgorod.

  Both the surprise and suspicion of the police officer about my intention to travel to Nizhniy Novgorod was expected. Nizhniy Novgorod was until just two years early a “NO GO” city for all foreigners. During the Cold War, the city was a hotbed of research and development of Soviet military technology and was therefore off limits to all without express permission to be there. When the leadership of the Soviet Union wanted to make Andrey Sakharov unreachable to the outside world for his peace activism around the world, they exiled him to this closed bastion under house arrest, where the foreign press and Nobel committee couldn’t reach him. To meet an American traveling unaccompanied to this city just a few year earlier was unheard of in the USSR. All requests to visit would have been summarily refused, and any credentials stating the opposite would have been highly suspect and most likely forged.

  Nizhniy Novgorod has been a Russian manufacturing base of both military and civilian machinery since before the Second World War and the revolution of 1917. Renamed Gorkiy during the communist period, to honor a socialist author from the city, the engineers here produced Russia’s greatest technological developments. The SOKOL aircraft factory has been designing and assembling fighter planes since the Great Patriotic War in the 1940s and more recently the MIG fighter aircraft during the Cold War. The ubiquitous black Volga sedan that mid-level apparatchiks and their staff drive around Moscow, as well as the light blue versions for taxis, are all assembled in Nizhniy Novgorod in the Avtozavod (car factory) region of the city. The massive GAZ trucks, born here, roll constantly over the streets of the town, cruising up and down Prospect Lenina on the western bank of the Oka River making deliveries to the plethora of factories. Through the decades Gorkiy developed into Russia’s third city after Moscow and Leningrad due to its strategic location on the Volga River which flows through the heart of Russia’s interior. Students in the province could receive top rated education in aeronautics, mechanical engineering or classical music without having to relocate to either Moscow or Leningrad. In the skies, the streets and waterways around Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia’s latest techn
ologies were being tested and unveiled well out of sight of the curious onlookers, benign or otherwise, until the early 1990s.

  When the Soviet Union came apart at the seams politically and economically in the mid-1980s, the orders which kept the factories of Gorkiy producing at full steam started to falter. As Russia focused on reforming its failed economic system, its military and industrial orders slowed to a trickle and many factories were shuttered and fell into disuse. Viable factories that could find foreign markets for their products were privatized and turned into Joint Stock Companies and the directors traveled abroad to market their wares. Simple laborers suddenly became clueless stock holders in their factories. Smelling an opportunity through others’ ignorance, gangsters quickly resorted to violence to gain control of the newly privatized factories. A select few became very wealthy by any standard, while many lost their jobs and started driving mini-cabs to try to make ends meet. A degree in radio technology became useless. Learning to sell Snickers bars, Wrigley’s chewing gum, pantyhose and cheap alcohol among a huddle of similar kiosks near the train and metro stations is how youth of Nizhniy Novgorod were earning their bread and salt. Then came the protection rackets.

  It was still dark in Nizhniy Novgorod when the train pulled into the Moscovskiy Station at seven-thirty in the morning. In January at these latitudes, the sun doesn’t break the gravity of the horizon until nine-thirty, and by late afternoon the street lights turn on again. Luckily, winter days, although bitter cold, are usually bright and sunny, except when it's snowing, which is too often in January.