Picnic at the Iron Curtain: A Memoir: From the fall of the Berlin Wall to Ukraine's Orange Revolution

by Susan Viets

  I made a cup of tea and sat in silence. I stared at the phone and wanted to call someone, to hear a friendly voice welcome me back, but I did not really have friends here, just colleagues. All of my friends lived somewhere else. I went to buy groceries and for a swim. The day slipped away.

  The next morning I arrived early at work. I went down to the canteen for coffee. Back in our office, I sat at a large desk with my coffee and spread the morning papers across it. I loved this part of the day, the breadth of coverage in the papers here, especially for foreign news. I heard footsteps in the hallway and looked up as my first colleague arrived. I saw his thumb, wrapped in a huge padded white bandage, enter first, then the rest of this man.

  “What happened!” I asked. He explained that another colleague had slammed this colleague’s thumb in the door. The reason for the feud and ensuing injury was so complex that I could not follow it, but I did understand that hatred lingered and this thumb – almost a trophy now – marked him as the victim in what he considered an unjust office war.

  As lonely as I sometimes felt, I think my Russian colleagues had it worse. At least I now heard my native language everywhere and had relatives in the U.K. My Russian colleagues had left so many family members and friends behind when they moved to London. They only functioned in their own language at work, though I guessed now that Russian world could be small and fraught. Oh well, I would never understand it. I turned back to my paper. Soon our office hummed again. Everyone was back at work.

  One morning I sat in my glass cubicle. I heard a conversation between two colleagues that floated in over top.

  “He’s been arrested – both men are dead. They think that he might have worked for the KGB, though they don’t know who actually pulled the trigger,” one said.

  “Where’s Alison?” asked the other.

  “She’s not here. She must be at home, in shock.” I heard many personal conversations at work, but even when I heard each word in hushed exchanges and could not help but piece together private affairs I pretended to know nothing unless directly told. Too curious now, I rushed out of my cubicle.

  “What happened?” I asked the men who stood nearby. They said that Alison’s husband, Gagik, had been arrested for involvement in the murder of the visiting Chechen prime minister, Ruslan Outsiev, and his brother Nazarbek.

  I could not believe what I heard. I just stood there and listened. I did not know what to say. Our boss came into the room. He looked grave.

  “Meeting in five minutes,” he said. Then he left to find others.

  In the room next door, a few people sat on desk tops but most of us stood as our boss summarized the facts. The police were holding Gagik and his friend Mkritch on suspicion of murdering Ruslan and Nazarbek. He told us not to talk to the press – an awkward instruction for a room full of journalists.

  I lingered in the hallway after the meeting. People stood in clusters and exchanged information. Everyone worried about Alison. No one had been in touch with her. Someone told me that Gagik had worked as a translator for Ruslan and that Alison helped arrange an invitation for Mkritch so that he could travel from Armenia to London.

  Deadlines loomed. A producer rushed by. Someone snatched a directory of employee home addresses and phone numbers from a tabletop and shoved it away in a desk drawer. Of course, we’d have to be careful now. Alison’s home address and phone number were listed in that directory, always confidential information, now more confidential than before. We drifted back to work. I sat at my desk and completed a morning assignment my mind only half on it, my thoughts still with Alison.

  On the way back from lunch, I showed my identity card as I passed the security desk at the front door, went up to my office, dropped my coat and left for a meeting. When I returned late that afternoon, Charlotte sat at my desk. She was back from Bosnia for a few days.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “What are you doing here?” I replied. “How did you get in?” I did not really need to ask. Charlotte had enough charm and journalistic skill to disarm any guard.

  “They’ve put me on the story. I’m the only one who’s been to Chechnya,” she said. So I was pitted now against my friend. I thought, though, that this served me right after all these years of prying into the lives of others for quotes and information.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you anything, not that I really know much anyway.” We left the office together, crossed the road and waited at a stop for our bus home. Black cabs whizzed past, faint drizzle visible in their headlights from moisture-laden air not quite filled with rain but more like mist from a cloud. A red double-decker arrived. We climbed the steps up to the top and sat near the front. Below, commuters inched their way home on crowded London streets.

  “Do you think she knew about Gagik?” Charlotte asked.

  “I wondered about a boyfriend that I had over there, so I’m sure that Alison did as well. But once you know someone for a while the doubts fade. They never disappear, but they slip to the back of your mind,” I said.

  “Well, Gagik must have been a bloody good actor,” Charlotte said.

  “I know. What horrible deceit.”

  “Do you think Alison ever suspected?” Charlotte asked.

  “I don’t know, but I can’t imagine that she did,” I replied. “I think he probably used her. Or maybe he was blackmailed and didn’t know what to do.” I asked Charlotte if she remembered Mykola, a journalist in Kiev. She did.

  “I remember advice that he gave me so well. He said, ‘Never date a man from here – they’re only after one thing, your passport. I know how they think.’ I thought those words a bit harsh and cynical back then.”

  “But Alison’s situation might be even worse than that,” Charlotte said.

  As the days passed my colleagues and I learned more about Alison, Gagik and Mkritch from news coverage. I also felt increasingly distanced from Alison. Stories written in a familiar journalistic formula turned Alison into someone barely recognizable – she seemed more a character in a murder mystery novel than a real person. I pieced her story together from what I read.

  Alison and Gagik lived in Chiswick, a neighbourhood in West London not far from Heathrow Airport. Gagik worked as a swimming pool attendant. In the Soviet Union he had been involved in an art venture with Mkritch.

  Alison helped Gagik launch business ventures in London. They shipped clothes and computers to the Soviet Union through companies they set up, Alga International and Orient Line. I remembered my own shopping deprivation and that urge to buy when goods appeared in shops. Alison and Gagik’s businesses could succeed, but so many others had the same idea that competition would be intense.

  I read that Ruslan was thirty-eight and Nazarbek, a boxer and very fit, was twenty. The papers provided more details. In the days immediately following Gagik and Mkritch’s arrest, articles described the Chechens’ lavish lifestyle. I sat at my desk with a cup of coffee from the canteen downstairs scarcely able to process what I read, so fantastic did it seem.

  Ruslan and Nazarbek bought a centrally located penthouse in Marylebone, not far from Madame Tussaud’s and the Sherlock Holmes Museum, for £750,000 in cash. They purchased furniture at Harrods. One bed bought there cost £9,000. Ruslan and Nazarbek’s cash resources exceeded anything that I had imagined – their source of wealth must have been Chechen oil.

  Their dining habits seemed equally extravagant. Some restaurant bills totalled £2,000. One waiter quoted in a news article said the brothers tipped him £100 for a meal. They also allegedly hired expensive prostitutes, several in one night.

  My mind wandered a lot at work during those early post-arrest days. I joined huddles with my colleagues in the hallways. We shared information that we read and tried to understand what had happened. I wondered how Gagik reacted. Was he jealous? Did he want a life like that? What did he learn translating for Ruslan? What shocked us most, though, was information about Ruslan’s secret agenda in London, a mission to purchase two thousand Sting
er anti-aircraft missiles. Some Russians in our unit considered this misinformation deliberately planted in newspapers. Others believed it, but could not agree on a motive for the purchase. My knowledge lagged behind that of my Russian colleagues, who had learned about Stingers during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I did not know much about these weapons, so I researched them to learn more.

  I collected news articles and documents about Stingers and stacked them on the floor beside my bed. Charlotte had returned to Bosnia, so I had the room to myself again. For several evenings I lay on the floor with a highlighter pen in one hand and flipped through the material. This research interested me more than my day job, where I often clock-watched, unable to adjust to the humdrum pace of desk work, bolting from the office at 5 p.m. sharp.

  I initially focused on U.S. sources as Stingers originated in the United States. They are about four feet long and designed for portability. In various accounts, fighters carried Stingers and propped them on their shoulders to shoot down planes and helicopters. Heat-seeking guidance systems and ultraviolet detection that locked on targeted aircraft meant that even a fighter with average aim could score good hits. Stingers now circulated on the black market and knock-offs were also being manufactured.

  I thought at once of General Dudayev in Chechnya. Russia had tried to intervene in Chechnya when it sent troops in by plane. The Chechens encircled the plane and trapped the soldiers. General Dudayev, with his airforce background, would understand better than most the enormous strategic advantage for his own forces if they could be armed with Stingers to counter any Russian advances by air.

  But the vast number of weapons did not make sense. I only understood the size of the deal Ruslan tried to negotiate after more research. One report said that the United States had manufactured about fifty thousand Stingers since 1981. This meant that Ruslan, from tiny Chechnya, tried to buy the equivalent of 4 percent of all U.S.-made Stingers in more than a decade.

  Then I tried to calculate the value of the deal. The U.S. report said that Stinger missiles sold for $200,000 on the black market in Pakistan. A purchase of two thousand Stinger missiles could have cost as much as $400 million, though knock-offs or a bulk order might have reduced the price. No matter what the discount, this deal involved a huge amount of money.

  At work no one quite forgot about Alison and Gagik but, with daily deadlines, our focus shifted, time passed. I flew home to Canada for summer holidays. I stayed with my parents at our cottage in Québec. Deborah and our brother, Mark, joined us. Cousins who owned cottages close to ours dropped by. Babies bounced on knees. This next generation still caught me by surprise. I could not believe that a cousin I had grown up with was now old enough to have kids.

  When our cousins left, we bought plates and glasses in from the verandah. My mother and Deborah went back out with books. My father and Mark watched tennis on TV in the living room. I went down to the dock for a swim. Chester, uninvited, came along. I would have to swim quickly. If he caught up, he would try to retrieve me. When I finished swimming, I floated in an inflatable dingy that my father had bought. Chester jumped on board. We drifted quietly until he spotted a fish and leaped out. This time I did not tip but floated on, water lapping against the boat, sleepy in the warmth of the sun. It was hard not to be seduced by thoughts of coming home. I would return one day, just not now. When my holiday was over, I flew back to London.

  In October 1993, exactly one year after I had moved to London from Kiev, Gagik was in the papers again, this time for his sentencing. My colleagues and I followed these developments through news articles and read more details in that grizzly murder mystery that I could scarcely believe was Alison’s life, and wished was not.

  Court documents said that after Gagik learned about the Stinger negotiations, he contacted Mkritch. Reporters described Mkritch as an agent for the Armenian KGB. This was confusing terminology since the KGB technically did not exist anymore. The reporters confirmed that Alison had helped Mkritch obtain a visa and find an apartment, but indicated that she did not know of his security service ties or anything about the murder plot that unfolded between Gagik and Mkritch. I felt relieved when I read this but also felt badly – she had really been used.

  At work no one had time to digest all the news, so we swapped details over coffee in the canteen. I learned that Ruslan accused Gagik of stealing £20,000 and also read that Ruslan planned to pass some or all of the Stingers onto Azerbaizhan, then involved in a conflict with Armenia. Both Gagik and Mkritch were Armenian. I wondered if personal allegiances contributed to their motivation.

  Once Mkritch arrived in London, events proceeded quickly. Mkritch said in a police statement that he met with Ruslan and asked him to abandon the missile deal. Ruslan refused. Mkritch then contacted his bosses in the security services. They ordered Ruslan’s assassination. They anticipated this could spark a blood feud, common in Chechnya, so they also wanted Nazarbek killed as a precautionary measure. Otherwise he would try to avenge his brother’s death.

  I kept a binder filled with information on the case. One article quoted Mkritch telling police, “The murders were planned by the KGB. I had no choice but to obey the KGB. They would have harmed my family.”

  Mkritch and his bosses discussed various options and decided to contract a hit man in Los Angeles for the job. Chechen gangs would be blamed for the murder, a plausible cover story given Ruslan’s history as a racketeer and Chechen gangs’ notoriety for revenge attacks. This plan failed when the U.K. denied the hit man from Los Angeles a visa.

  Mkritch and his bosses consulted further. Eventually Mkritch’s bosses ordered that he shoot Ruslan and Nazarbek. They would provide false passports, visas and misinformation for a cover story that the Chechen brothers had returned to Russia.

  “Now I understand the whole idea was to put me as a victim and finish the case,” Mkritch told police.

  Mkritch did not want to kill Ruslan and Nazarbek himself. He said that an assassin was hired. A young American smuggled the murder weapon, a gun, into Britain. A man named Arthur received the gun. Prosecutors in the murder case described what happened next.

  In late February 1993, Nazarbek checked into a London hospital for treatment of a sinus condition. He was expected home four days later. With Nazarbek, Ruslan’s brother and bodyguard out of the way, the assassin went to work. He arrived at the brothers’ flat and shot Ruslan at point-blank range in bed while Ruslan slept. Mkritch said Gagik was present but did not take part in the murder.

  When Nazarbek came back, he did not seem to notice anything unusual. He went to bed, fell asleep and the assassin struck again. He shot Nazarbek, like Ruslan, three times in the head with a Beretta pistol. Mkritch said the murder weapon was smuggled back to the United States. One key piece of evidence disappeared, but the bodies remained.

  I wondered if Alison had sensed a change in her husband after this – erratic behaviour or anxiety. The prosecutor said Gagik and Mkritch moved quickly to eliminate traces of the murders. They bought a new bed to replace one soaked through with blood. They also purchased a refrigerator. Then they called delivery men Patrick Johnson and Patrick Marsh and offered them £500 if they would move a large box from the Chechens’ penthouse to a semi-detached house in Harrow.

  When the delivery men commented on the heavy weight of the box, Mkritch told them that it contained a seventeenth-century statue. Gagik said the box contained a refrigerator. Markings on the packaging seemed to confirm this, but Johnson and Marsh became suspicious.

  “Four of us were trying to lift it. It was heavy and if it was a fridge-freezer it shouldn’t have been that heavy,” Johnson told the court. “It smelled like a fridge-freezer where everything’s gone rotten inside. There was a sort of lavender fragrance to camouflage whatever the smell was.” After the move, the delivery men telephoned the police. Police officers went to the house in Harrow, searched it, and found the box. When they opened it, they discovered Ruslan’s body inside. He still wore his pyjamas and earp
lugs. His body had been bound with tape, rolled in a carpet and then stuffed into the box. These details must have horrified Alison as she listened in the courtroom; they certainly horrified me.

  The police went to the Chechens’ penthouse. They found Nazarbek’s body. Then they staked out the building. The next day Mkritch and Gagik arrived with an electric saw and plastic bags. I shuddered as I imagined what might have ensued had the police not intervened. They arrested Mkritch and Gagik and collected evidence to convict the men.

  I next read with concern that Alison had been briefly arrested. News reports stated that the police had intercepted a vial sent from Los Angeles with a destination address of Alison’s house in West London. The vial contained enough snake poison to kill a hundred people. Reports differed on one key point. Some said that Alison had ordered the venom and was released because she could legally possess it. I did not believe this. Other reports stated that someone else had sent the venom to Alison, a more likely explanation, I thought.

  Mkritch also had snake poison. He kept it under a bandage on his body. Police found it when they arrested Mkritch. They identified that type of venom as a poison of choice for security service agents from Mkritch’s part of the world who might need to commit suicide. Mkritch succeeded even without his vial. He hanged himself in prison. Just before his death he told police: “The KGB would not forgive anyone at any time. By talking about these matters now, perhaps I am signing a death warrant for my family.”

  Gagik faced trial at the Old Bailey alone. Alison looked on from the gallery. The defence portrayed Gagik as an incompetent body disposer. It argued that he did not participate in the murders. The prosecution said that Gagik helped plan each stage. The detective inspector in charge of the case, Julian Headon, cited greed as a motive.

  Headon said that Gagik “was doing business with Ruslan. He knew all the contacts; Ruslan could not speak English and with him out of the way the Chechen government would either have to start again or let Gagik carry on with the [Stinger] deals.” According to Headon, “Ruslan’s death would have put Gagik into the big money…Millions upon millions of pounds.”