Tough Business

Chapter four. Military

The fantasy of the leadership is in full swing, and we were born to make a fairy tale come true. The challenge to Oleg Borisovich is the formulation of my new task: uniform. It is necessary to purchase samples of military uniforms of the Russian army. The further fate of the purchases is not discussed, most likely it is the development of a supply channel for a mysterious customer – perhaps for American or Chechen friends (well, not to go in the office on Zaitseva Street in uniform!). I followed a self-imposed rule: no more than two questions! The first is samples of various branches of the armed forces? Yes, except for the naval (which means that the naval landing is excluded). The second is the quantity? Two or four copies of different sizes. We do not specify the deadline, and so it is clear: ASAP (as soon as possible) is an international abbreviation.

The fact is that in those years, the market reached the Russian army, «which will solve everything.» The Ministry of Defense has created a department for the sale of military property – a step, in general, sound, a lot of things have accumulated in warehouses. You can buy decommissioned or unnecessary vehicles, but you can’t buy an AK-74 machine gun or a tank. Sergey smiles after my calls to the military – he has his own version of purchases, but this is a secret. I work out a list of eight dozen items on the nomenclature, approve the money, sign the contract by fax, issue a power of attorney for myself to sign the contract in Moscow, pay the bill. The next day I am already in the capital, we are completing the formalities, I receive an order for the removal of goods from the warehouse – so, I can go home. In the subway underpass on Nogin Square, I saw a table with books, out of habit I looked to see if there was anything useful? I was interested in the directory «List of foreign firms and joint ventures in Moscow» with addresses and phone numbers and bought it, of course. Subsequently, this book played a crucial role in my career.

The next day in the office, according to the instructions from above, I handed over the list of goods to the supply department for delivery and received a response from the head of the department :

– Go yourself.

Khazir Daudovich was in the office – I had to knock on his door. For the first time I heard how he knows how to talk tough with subordinates – you can’t envy his interlocutor… Three days later, the ordered military uniform was in the room next door. I brought forty chairs into this room, carefully hung out and put officer’s jackets, trousers with red, blue, green piping, caps, flasks, belts on each chair. It turned out well. Felix Andreevich visited the exhibition as a military consultant and said:

– Vladimir Ivanovich, you will go far!

The Vice President and the president appreciated the exposition. There is a great atmosphere and a new assignment in Khazir Daudovich’s office:

– Take some photos in the form.

– Who should I photograph?

– Anyone you choose in the office.

I really wanted to make a joke and offer those present, but I was smart enough to restrain myself.

– Allow me to act according to the formula «In the name of the president»?

– I allow it, – smiles Khazir Daudovich.

The next day, with a camera, I go into the drivers’ office, and there were about ten of them there, I choose a nice young guy and say strictly:

– Come with me.

The people were stunned, many still did not know me, but here they are in charge… The photos turned out wonderful, from the cycle «They protect the Motherland».

Yesterday in our office I unexpectedly met my friend, the one who told me about the Holding company on the stairs during a smoke break six months ago. He was leaving the reception room with the president. Without a doubt, Vsevolod Valentinovich organized the meeting. We greeted each other, looked closely into each other’s eyes and it seemed to me that he was both happy for me and sorry about something.

Chapter five. The new head of the department and the first success

Felix Andreevich is going on a business trip to Germany. Whether on business matters, or on his personal – we do not know. He made it clear that the management allowed it as a sign of past merits. Recently, he was in the hospital, apparently, he made a final decision for himself about his future fate. He showed me a picture of himself in Las Vegas. Las Vegas! Before leaving, he called Sergey and me and said:

– As you wish, but for the duration of the business trip I appoint the acting head of the senior – Vladimir Ivanovich.

Sergei clearly did not like it, he considered himself a favorite and so presented himself to others. I didn’t need it either, as it brought tension into our relationship. In addition, Oleg Borisovich was clearly on Sergei’s side: he gave me tasks for language skills, and then called Sergei to him for «information». Upon his return, Felix Andreevich quit, and we were left without a boss. But not for long.

Viktor Vasilyevich Voytalyuk is our new head of foreign trade. Without a doubt, this has strengthened the authority of our department. Graduate of the Higher Red Banner School of the KGB of the USSR named after Dzerzhinsky, Lieutenant Colonel. Among the positions held is Assistant to the Rector of Leningrad State University for International Relations. Who does not know, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin once held the same position.

Viktor Vasilyevich and I are about the same age, thanks to his personal qualities and experience, we immediately developed working and even friendly relations with Sergey and, I hope, with me as well. Viktor Vasilyevich has opened up new opportunities in the development of our business: for example, contacts at high levels in the space and nuclear fields are no joke. Suffice it to say that two heads of the Aerospace Consortium came to us for talks, including cosmonaut number two, Colonel-General German Stepanovich Titov. I had the good fortune to see the legendary hero in person and get his autograph on our letterhead. It was said that the meeting with the cosmonaut from the holding was attended by: the president, Voytalyuk and vice-president Amir – a dense brunette of typical Caucasian appearance. Despite the fact that Khazir Daudovich kicked his vice-president under the table, because he got the Hero of the Soviet Union so much with his questions after a glass of cognac that Herman Stepanovich – Doctor of Technical Sciences, associate professor – could not stand it and uttered a succinct scientific phrase:

– I’m going to have a drink and a snack here, and you, a Jew, go to …fuck you!

But the most important thing is that Viktor Vasilyevich brought us to a serious buyer from Moscow – let’s call him Andrey. I went to Moscow to establish contacts and negotiations. Andrey had direct access to the head of the Moscow Oil Exchange. A handsome, intelligent and educated young man with a degree from Leningrad University, he was optimistic about our cooperation. Potentially, he was ready to buy ten thousand tons of fuel oil, and Khazir Daudovich was ready to supply this fuel oil from the Grozny refinery. We signed a contract for the supply to the Svetogorsk Paper Mill and in August 1993 successfully fulfilled it. This was the first major contract in the history of our department, and its employees managed to survive this success with dignity. We were morally supported by the management and financially rewarded, although we had not been in trouble before – our salaries increased more than twenty times due to inflation, we were given coupons for free meals in the canteen «Rumb» and in addition to our «Lada» car we sometimes used the «Fords» of the management for official purposes. It was spectacular – to drive up, for example, to the Kirov district police department to resolve the issue, although I never got hung up on it. We gained self-confidence, and now no Holding service could oppress us. By the way, yesterday’s heroes from the investment department were fired for a failure in their work, one with a heart attack and bad consequences for the other. We smoked Dunhill, Marlboro and Camel cigarettes right at our workplaces and made plans for further conquests.

Chapter six. New direction

Developing the first success, our management established promising contacts with the administration of one of the refineries in the central region of Russia. The advantage was that this plant had the status of a special exporter and shipped products abroad. Decisive in this situation was the consent of the plant’s directorate to the shipment of products by our buyer. In other words, if you have an export contract, you are already the king. At that time, the profit for various types of petroleum products ranged from ten to fifty dollars per ton. Shipped a «chopper» (three thousand tons) – and you have a hundred thousand dollars in your pocket. Due to the difference in prices in Russia and abroad, some clever guys made redirects, that is, they indicated a foreign station at the final station in Russia or on the way. It was illegal, the prosecutor’s office was initiated, but these heroes did not always get what they deserved. By the way, so, according to some sources, one Russian oligarch also started, but his criminal case mysteriously disappeared on the way from Komi to Moscow.

In connection with the above, a new influential man in a black suit from Cardin, who kept all contacts with the Kstovsky Refinery, Vladislav Konstantinovich Gorchakov, appeared in our office. Vladislav Konstantinovich, a senior officer of the Ministry of Defense, was on close terms with the management of the Holding, addressed without a patronymic, and with us, guys from our department, at a long distance only. And the department itself actually turned from foreign economic to oil, reflecting the main line of activity, which added specifics and corresponded to the historical specialization and spirit of the city of Grozny. The bet was on the wholesale sale of petroleum products, large funds were invested for the purchase of goods, but with the right trade policy, the profit promised to be also significant with a small number of staff. Since there were already volumes of goods for sale, we tripled our efforts, looking for buyers from nine o’clock in the morning to nine in the evening. That’s where the reference book I bought in Moscow, in the underpass, came in handy. Scientifically speaking, it was pertinental information, and it turned out to be very valuable.

One fine August day, the phone rang on my desk and an unfamiliar voice asked me to answer the phone. We have been waiting for this moment for a long time – the Swiss company Konechim has shown interest in purchasing fuel oil in the amount of twenty thousand tons with delivery to Ukraine. Having clarified the details with me, the manager of the foreign firm, Viktor Sergeevich, promised to send an official purchase offer in my name. This was received two hours later by the fax of the assistant Khazir Daudovich, and the president literally burst into our office with this paper. It followed from the letter of Konechim that they were ready to conclude a contract, but lowered the purchase price by one dollar per ton.

– Vladimir Ivanovich, can you write forty-six?

– Khazir Daudovich, – I answer calmly, – I will settle this question on the phone for our original forty-five.

And so it happened. The next day, our president left for Moscow to sign the contract, and Vladislav Konstantinovich went to Nizhny Novgorod to coordinate the contract with the refinery.

And it started spinning. The contract was not easy, as we supplied fuel oil to sixteen sugar factories in Ukraine under the order of Ukrzaliznytsia, the Ukrainian railway. The contacts of specialists in Kstovo were transferred to me, and now the standard work of the commercial department has started: shipments of goods, tank numbers, quality certificates, acceptance certificates, invoices… And conversations, conversations – with the refinery and Moscow. The situation turned me into a mining leader, and my colleagues into assistants: the head of the department reprinted the numbers of three hundred tanks, Sergey piled up a draft bilingual contract in Russian and English, and I finalized it under specific conditions. Sometimes Sergey first to pick up the phone and introduce himself to Viktor Sergeyevich, but he politely and invariably demanded me – he did not conduct any negotiations with other persons and did not transmit any requests. I have always had respect for this person – both as a specialist who taught me a lot, and as a real intellectual. When I had the opportunity, I stopped by his Moscow office, of course, on business.

No matter what aesthetes say, but the main thing in business is money. According to the terms of the contract, Konechim paid us part of the goods, and the rest was paid upon delivery, after specifying the actual amount of fuel oil shipped. Oleg Borisovich called me to him and asked a question – can Konechim pay earlier? He generally liked to build a situation «for himself» and sometimes forced me to be a magician. It was a good school, and I adopted this principle – «I can do the impossible.» Well, I called Viktor Sergeyevich, asked, and they paid. Upon completion of the contract, we, the trio from the Foreign Economic Department, were rewarded according to our contribution to the victory, as in the fairy tale about Masha: the author of these lines – in the bowl of Mikhail Potapych, the head of the department – in the bowl of Anastasia Petrovna, Sergei – in Mishutkin’s bowl.

Chapter seven. Tough Business

You may ask – well, where is the tough business, the mafia smacks? Standard work of an average firm. But don’t rush – I have a few trumps for you! Some of them I will post immediately, and some will be presented in the process of narration.

American criminologist economist Annilise Anderson from Stanford University is one of the leading foreign experts in the economic analysis of organized crime. Anderson formulates the following final definition:

– Mafia is a group that is characterized by profit—oriented criminal activity, the use of violence or the threat of violence, the use of a significant part of its resources to prevent its members from cooperating with the police, as well as corruption of legitimate state authorities.

I do not know the sources of the holding’s financial resources, the ways and methods of concluding profitable contracts, I do not disclose the names of foreign legal entities, the names of bank officers and their countries of deployment, with whom I personally had to communicate in the course of performing my daily duties. My functions did not include brute force techniques: shoot, punch someone in the face, give bribes, threaten – but I had no right to allow anybody to threaten me, because in this way they humiliated those who led me and questioned our independence and fearlessness. Without overestimating, I saw myself as a combat unit designed to make money legally or almost legally. For a more accurate description of the prevailing atmosphere, I must share a saying that exists in our environment:

– Who knows how, he earns money, who does not know how, he runs with a gun.

And there were undoubtedly such guys in our organization, given the fact that in those years the Holding was the largest and almost the only Chechen company in St. Petersburg that was trying to gain a foothold and expand its influence in the region. From the point of view of such a science as system analysis, in addition to the interaction of objects, there is also the resistance of the environment surrounding them, in this case – strong competition in the oil business. And it was necessary to defend and defend their interests. An additional circumstance was the national and status factor – both in the external environment and within our organization.

At the beginning of my activity, I had the opportunity to make an impression of the Chechen people by their young, well-educated and well-mannered representatives, whose parents held senior government positions in the Chechen Republic. My leaders taught me in my forties the courage of ideas, breadth of views, determination and firmness. For my part, I brought the technical competence and experience of the engineer with Voenmekh diploma, the ability to solve non-standard tasks, diligence and responsibility inherent in the military industry, the ability to establish contacts with people. Later I learned to speak the same language with both bandits and foreigners. I passed a kind of tests for professionalism and decency, and most importantly – the ability to remain silent. I had mistakes, and they didn’t pat me on the head for them, but they never humiliated my dignity as a subordinate and as a Russian by nationality. And there were many reasons for this, especially during the Chechen wars, when blood was shed, sometimes I heard emotional reproaches from people who survived this hell. However, my position has always remained unchanged – I serve, but I do not humiliate myself. I did not try to learn the Chechen language, because in this way I left communication free for their native speakers. From time to time it was necessary to defend the right to historical, not «national» truth. Any national tragedies are terrible, but I also had irrefutable arguments – my relatives survived the blockade… Later I talked with Chechens of different ages, status and beliefs, and once again I was convinced that the more ardent nationalism (not to be confused with national pride) and hatred of the Russian world in a person, the lower his intelligence, no matter how many academic degrees were indicated on his business card. On the other hand, their national characteristics and traditions have always created an undeniable advantage when uniting in the fight against an external enemy, since their fighting qualities are honed in the family since childhood, boys become men capable of standing up for themselves, and for their family, and for their kind (teip), and for their land.

Nevertheless, the difference in age and mentality still affected. There were times when I did not understand someone from the authorities, and they did not understand me. A typical example from life. The president calls to me, and there are five people in relaxed poses.

– Do you sell diesel fuel for Russian supplies. And how?

I answer that buyers are interested in the product quality passport.

– And why do you need a passport if there is GOST (Russian standard)? – someone from the audience asks rather sharply with a slight accent.

I calmly explain that GOST 305—82 «Diesel fuel» specifies ranges of values of controlled parameters – cetane number, water content, flash point and so on. The buyer is usually interested in specific quantities: sulfur, mechanical impurities and other characteristics. After the explanation, silence reigned in the office. And this is not the main argument. Well, I won’t tell them directly that this is how those who are far from the supplier sell most often, in fact it is «air», and I earned my reputation with blood and everyone takes my word for it. You’re suggesting that I become Baron Munchausen and undermine the reputation of the firm. But sometime it’s been tougher:

– Call London and tell them that we will have twenty thousand tons of something soon…

The Englishman, stunned by the news, asks me a hundred questions in his native language, to which I have no answer – both in fact and because of the limited vocabulary. What should I do?

– Be patient, Cossack, you will be ataman!

But I also have a personal limit, my own border, which I cannot cross. Once we signed a contract with Gazprom, and the boss asked me to sign a contract on the terms of deferred payment. This meant that it was good for our company, but for me it was a personal responsibility worth millions of non-Russian rubles. I had a choice – to accept the offer and agree, show loyalty, and then suffer for a long time, bearing the burden of moral responsibility (there were examples), or refuse and have a loss of perspective and trust of the leadership, but sleep peacefully. I chose the latter, had a tough one-on-one conversation and disappointed the president with my «no» and «I can’t». But I did not overstep himself, my experience and my beliefs. But I did not become rich either – I say for those to whom I seemed a proud hero in the description of my actions. I think a more accurate term is Don Juan’s definition of «controlled stupidity,» which Carlos Castaneda wrote about.

And here is the first trump card in favor of our selectivity and strength. Actually, many of our compatriots could find out about our valiant team on December thirtieth, 1993 at ten p.m, after watching an hour-long program called «Evening Concert» on the channel «Russia». As the notorious Fantomas used to say:

– Even a great man is nothing without the press.

Following this principle, the financial association «Holding» announced its existence to the whole country: this is evidence of the high ambitions of his leadership, inherent in truly powerful structures.