"

How would you like to see Siberian gangsters in action?" asked Sergei.

"As long as I don't get shot," I said.

"No problem," he said. Sergei was having trouble with a business deal. He'd agreed to exchange $8,000 of merchandise with another entrepreneur. He had delivered his share of the goods, but in return received only a box of women's tight pants --far short of the agreed exchange. Now, the other guy refused to pay up.

Sergei's business is "re-importing" cars. He buys Soviet-made cars in former Eastern Bloc countries and brings them back to sell in Russia. It's profitable because there is no import tax on the re-imported cars, whereas the tax on foreign cars is monstrous.

He wouldn't tell me exactly what the other guy did. "It isn't important," he said, "He's just a businessman."

Biznessmen is the word of the times in Russia. The person in question might be anything from an ice cream vendor to a mafia boss. It means only that he is somehow involved in the free market, which was not too long ago called the black market. Despite the government's recent sanctioning of capitalism, the practice retains an illicit aura. Having grown much faster than the "new" government systems to manage it, the free market is anarchic. More regulation of trade comes from organized crime than from the government.

For business disputes like Sergei's, the courts simply do not work. Laws relevant to many kinds of business problems do not exist, and those that do are often too vague or antiquated to be useful. These days, business arguments are frequently settled with the help of what everyone calls the mafia. Each side utilizes his own svyazi (connections) or hires a gang to represent him. Tonight, the gangs representing Sergei and the other entrepreneur would meet to try to work things out. Sergei regarded the situation with obvious distaste, but he could not afford to lose $8,000.

Mafia has been adopted into Russian as a catch-all term for organized crime, an everyday fact of life in Tomsk. It is impossible to run a business in the west Siberian city without having some kind of dealings with the mafia, whether you hire a gang of your own to represent your interests or simply pay extortion.

"To do business in these times," lamented Sergei, "you can't be too ethical a man." Sergei's not a businessman at heart. He was working on a philosophy degree and had previously been a journalist. He got into the free market to afford a decent living --and he is in good company, highly educated company.

Tomsk is a university town, the site of Siberia's oldest university. Tomsk State and the numerous other educational and research institutions in the city, however, are severely under-funded by Moscow. Like Sergei, many scientists, doctors and professors have gone into business for themselves. A manage to get rich. One professor made a fortune on real estate but still taught his biology classes at the university --though, now he is chauffeured to class in a Mercedes.

"Let's go," said Sergei, "it shouldn't take long." In his re-imported black Volga, we drove to a place just off Tomsk's main street, next to the tram tracks. The sign said ³Grill * Bar±. Two men were standing outside. I had been in Tomsk long enough to recognize them as mafia. They wore a uniform as identifiable, though different, as the stereotypical double-breasted pin-stripe suit and wide-brimmed hat of the American mob. They were waiting for us.

One of the men, a Georgian named Igor, was a close friend of Sergei. He was a real movie-star gangster, tall and muscular with dark eyes and black hair. He wore a maroon overcoat. As Sergei introduced us, Igor shot him a look as if to say "What the hell did you bring him for?"

The other guy, Andrei, seemed like a good-natured football player dressed up like a mobster. He had a dopey face and a blond flat-top haircut. Over his muscle-bound shoulders he wore an expensive black leather coat, the signature of a Russian mafia man. Not sensing Igor's irritation at my presence, Andrei smiled and shook my hand and tried to say something in English.

The Grill * Bar was cold and smoky. The patrons wore black leather coats. "Chicago in the 1930s," said Igor to set the scene as we sat down at a flimsy plastic table. A music video came on the TV, and the barman turned it up to a deafening pitch. Sergei shouted the name of the group into my ear --Yanksters Gangsters.

Shortly, we were joined by another man, who wore a black leather coat and a natural snarl on his face. He looked mean and dangerous. He was shorter and broader than the other, had a buzz cut and deep, deep set eyes. His name was Sasha. He was the boss. Sergei leaned over and whispered to me that Sasha is a professional bodyguard and has a permit to carry a revolver. "He is my bodyguard tonight," he said.

Just as Sasha sat down, an old mama Springer Spaniel bounded through the front door. Very happy and soaking wet, she went from table to table to get a pat on the head. She tried to put her head in Sasha's lap. He snarled, "Fuu!" as if he might boot her across the floor.

As we waited for the other gang, Sergei recounted for the gangsters what I had earlier told him about Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They were very interested and leaned over the table to hear.

After a half hour, we had lost our patience. Cursing our tardy rivals, Sergei and Andrei went to find them, and Sasha went off somewhere else, leaving Igor and me at the table.

The TV was still blaring, but we managed a bit of small talk. Igor used to be a captain in the Red Army, he said, stationed in East Germany and in Poland. No doubt Igor was a tough guy, but as I listened to him, he also struck me as intelligent and even kind. He asked about crime and the legal system in the U.S. Pleased with the first-hand information, he no longer seemed annoyed and friendlily joked about some prostitutes at the next table.

Then, still laughing, he said, "Come on, let's get out of here."

We joined Sasha out on the street. A lackey was trying to impress him with his cursing. Sasha tolerated him, but was unmoved. The thin, dry-lipped sycophant kicked at the crumbling pavement and smacked nervously on his cigarette.

A tram rumbled past, and in its wake rushed Sergei's black Volga. He had found them. "Get in, get in," he urged excitedly. We bombed through town to a university dormitory. Sasha and Igor went in to check the scene.

School dorms are notoriously wretched places, practically like prisons, but I had never heard of them as mafia bases.

"Why the change of location?" I asked Sergei. The Grill * Bar was on our territory, he said. The other gang wanted to meet on their turf. Igor came out and waved in Sergei but motioned for me to stay put. Sergei, with his journalist's heart, insisted that I be allowed to go.

"Okay, but take off your hat and keep your mouth shut," Igor growled and pulled off my wool cap.

The foyer was dirty and cold. The watcher woman, a feature of most buildings in Russia, sat scowling in her brightly-lit booth. Behind her rectangle of glass, she stared with the disinterested eyes of a creature in an aquarium.

We walked into a smoky office where Sasha and Andrei were already sitting at a table. The other gang's spokesman, an Armenian, sat facing Sasha across a corner of the table. Behind him sat an arrogant-looking fellow in a green coat with a white scarf. In each back corner of the room sat a young thug. A fat, unshaven man paced back and forth. He didn't seem to feel well. He was the green coat's partner, and somehow everyone knew his name was Armand.

Our gang was definitely of a higher order, I thought.

There were two packs of cigarettes on the table. Each gang had its own and passed it around. We smoked Camels. They smoked Magnas. The hosts provided a case of one-liter boxes of orange juice, which were scattered around the table. Nobody can drink out of those damn boxes. To open them, you've got to tear off a corner of the container. There's no way to do it without spilling. Within a few minutes, the whole table was blotched with little orange puddles.

Sergei and I sat behind Sasha, the safest possible place, and Sergei handed him a long fax sheet. He began to present our case, voice booming. I could feel the words thumping my chest, like a bass drum with a nasty edge.

The Armenian listened calmly and occasionally smiled. His pleasant little grin even made Sasha cool his tone once or twice. But he couldn't completely pull off the nice-guy bit. He blinked his eyes too slowly --real slow, like a sleepy cat. It was a give away.

Sasha spread the long fax sheet out in front of him and and jabbed at it as he thundered away. Andrei kept busy keeping the tail end of the fax from fumbling into the spilled juice.

For more than an hour, the men argued over what had actually happened, about who had agreed to do what and who faxed whom. The only actual evidence appeared to be the fax the guy in the green coat had sent Sergei, which laid out exactly what the exchange would be.

The negotiations went around in circles. Armand paced, stopping only to pick his nose or to hack noisily and spit into an empty juice box.

From time to time, the green coat would start shouting; you could tell he was used to being in charge. He was no match for Sasha, though, who would snap right back at him --as eager for a fight as a Rottweiler. The green coat would quickly hold up his hands and sooth Sasha, "Ne nado, ne nado." Andrei tried to keep the peace, too, but no one listened to him. He'd start to say something, realize nobody was listening, then lower his voice with each word until his sentence ended in mumbles. Once, as he began a speech of friendship and goodwill, the fax slipped into the juice, and he had to stop short.

The two sides seemed at loggerheads until the Armenian suddenly announced that the fax was the only real evidence, and it weighed in Sergei's favor. "Golden words, golden words," Sasha smiled.

Sergei borrowed Igor's pocket calculator to figure out how much the green coat owed him. Sasha relaxed and moved to the other side of the table with Andrei. He opened a box of juice, spilling some on his hand. The Armenian leaned back, too, and took a drink from his juice box, dribbling on his chin.

Sergei announced his number. 'It's too much,' yelped the green coat --Sergei had figured in compensation. When green coat tried to barter, Sasha nearly choked on his juice and laughed, "Listen to this, bladt, we're at the bazaar."

"Oi, yoi, yoi," moaned Sergei, refusing the lower offer. They argued a bit more, and the green coat finally gave in. Sergei wanted it in writing. Everyone else got up to stretch their legs while the businessmen worked out their contract.

With a wink, Igor took my arm and led me into the foyer where he introduced me to a fat man in another black leather coat. "He wants to know all about the Russian mafia," Igor said and walked away laughing.

Sasha came up and happily shook the fat man's hand. He was in a good mood, but he still looked mean. I gathered up my courage and told him I had been impressed with how he had conducted the meeting. "You have a way with words," I said. To my surprise, a big grin appeared on his face, and he shook my hand.

"Meetings like these are the only way things get done," he said.

I asked how often such meetings take place. "All the time," he said.

"What if the two sides can't agree?"

"Then there's a fight," he shrugged.

"How often does that happen?" I asked, but he only made fun of my Russian and wouldn't answer.

Sergei emerged from the meeting room victorious and relieved. The two gangs shook each others' sticky hands, and the watcher woman glared unimpressed from her fish tank.

It all seemed quite civilized (for anarchy), even legal. There was little time to admire the scene, though. Sergei was in a hurry to get home. "My wife probably thinks I've been killed," he said.

-end-

© Corin Cummings, 1995 ©