Once Upon a Time in Russia

by Ben Mezrich

  It has been decided, the words came again, either from Putin or Voloshin, though it didn’t really matter. Berezovsky knew exactly who was drawing the line that he would have been a fool to try to cross. It has been decided that you can no longer control ORT in this manner.

  The rest of the conversation was less clear and direct; after the fact, it was uncertain whether anyone had demanded that Berezovsky hand anything over to the state, or if Gusinsky’s name had ever come up in that room. What was certain, what was clear, was that Berezovsky had to step back from ORT. It wasn’t a matter for debate. Still, Berezovsky couldn’t accept what he was being told, he refused to be ordered around like a dog. He heard himself respond angrily once again, saying something about the government wanting to control the media, to destroy private business, to turn the clock back to the tyrannical old days. But by then, Berezovsky was sputtering, nearly incomprehensible.

  Eventually, he did calm himself down enough to understand that the meeting was over—there was nothing left for him to say. Voloshin shook Berezovsky’s hand, signaling that it was time to leave. And then suddenly Putin crossed the room to Berezovsky as well.

  “Good-bye,” the president said, quietly. “Boris Abramovich.”

  Berezovsky stared at him. It was the first time Putin had ever addressed him using the formal form of his name, the formal patronymic. Up to that point, Putin had always called him Boris. This was almost certainly a signal, and not at all a pleasant one.

  “Good-bye,” Berezovsky responded, with a hint of actual sadness. “Volodya.”

  If Putin noticed Berezovsky’s use of the familiar diminutive, he didn’t show it. He simply gestured toward the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  * * *

  August 27, 2000,

  Logovaz Club

  THE PHONE WAS LIKE a lead weight against Badri Patarkatsishvili’s ear, as he immediately recognized the voice on the other end of the line. It wasn’t the sort of phone call any Russian—or Georgian, for that matter—ever wanted to receive, and at that particular moment, the events Badri had been watching unfold on the television set hanging above his head only made the situation more terrifying.

  Just an hour or two before, Badri had settled into his usual roost at the club to watch the country’s newest tragedy unfold; both ORT and NTV had been replaying the bizarre footage over and over again, the dramatic report knocking the Kursk tragedy off of the screen—not because of anything Berezovsky or ORT’s management had decreed—but because another real-world event had suddenly intruded on the internal political battle being played out around them.

  Quite by coincidence, a true inferno had broken out within one of the most iconic symbols of modern Russia—Ostankino Tower, at seventeen hundred feet, the tallest building in all of Europe. When it was built, it was the tallest structure in the world. An architectural wonder, the tower—essentially a radio tower that also housed a restaurant and an observation deck—had been built in the late sixties, but was under constant reconstruction and repair—perhaps making it an even more apt emblem of the Russian state.

  And now, suddenly, it was burning. Huge plumes of flame burst out from the structure into an otherwise pristine sky, billowing black smoke filled the air for miles in every direction. According to the news, the conflagration had begun around fifteen hundred feet off the ground, somewhere between the fancy, upscale restaurant and the popular circular observation platform. The fire’s start had been followed by a small explosion that had caused the elevator that ran up the spine of the great tower to suddenly snap free. It plummeted to the ground, crashing and instantly killing an operator. At least three other people had already died, and it looked as though it was going to be some time before the emergency crews would be able to get control of the flames, because of the high winds at that height. And also because the only way up involved a winding, narrow staircase, since the elevator was now a shattered, mangled steel coffin embedded in the ground.

  Badri had been glued to the coverage most of the afternoon, a part of him marveling at yet another tragedy having struck the Russian nation. Then the phone call had come in, and one of Berezovsky’s numerous assistants rushed the receiver to where he was sitting. Hearing that voice on the other end of the line had immediately sent a jolt into Badri’s stomach. He considered himself a tough character—and certainly, anyone who had spent time with him would have backed that description wholeheartedly—and yet, when the head of the FSB called, even a man like Badri couldn’t help but think the worst.

  Badri did his best to swallow his fear as he asked the FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev if the call had something to do with the burning tower—which ORT owned—but the official was noncommittal, allowing the Georgian to believe whatever made him feel better. After a pause, Patrushev then suggested that Badri head right over to the FSB offices for a conversation. Badri was in no mood to chat, but it was exactly the sort of “suggestion” he had made in various business situations over the years—the sort of suggestion a prudent man didn’t ignore.

  On the way over to Lubyanka Square and the forbidding building that housed the FSB offices, Badri played over the meeting his partner Berezovsky had endured the week before. Unfortunately, Berezovsky’s emotions had still been riding high, and much of what he had communicated to Badri had been incomprehensible and contradictory. But the gist of it was clear enough: Berezovksy believed that he was going to be handled like Gusinsky. It wasn’t clear if Putin had actually uttered words to that effect, but Berezovsky believed that the state wanted their shares in ORT and that Berezovsky had gone much too far with his coverage of the Kursk incident.

  When Badri arrived at the FSB headquarters, he was led directly to the head office on the third floor, the same corner real estate that had been home to so many infamous leaders of the FSB and KGB before it, including Vladimir Putin himself. And, to the Georgian’s surprise, when he got to the office, it wasn’t just Patrushev who he saw was waiting for him, in a corner by the window behind the desk, but also the president himself, right up front, just a few feet inside the door.

  Badri’s heart beat heavily in his chest, but he did his best to remain calm. The president began the conversation, while the FSB director simply sat by the window, watching quietly. Putin started off by demanding to know what strange game Berezovsky was playing; the president insisted that Badri needed to talk sense into his emotional partner, that they were deadly serious about Berezovsky stepping away from ORT. At some point in the conversation, Badri believed Putin used the term clear out, and when Badri asked the president to clarify what that might mean, Putin explained that no one man should have that sort of power over a television station, that the media had to be treated differently than other businesses.

  From there, the conversation moved into a more intricate and specific conversation about what it would mean to completely clear out of ORT—by selling their forty-nine percent. Who might purchase it from them? Which companies might be willing to pay a fair price? Apparently, the government had given this much thought, and it seemed like there would be no other way for them to continue, as long as Berezovksy’s arrogance and stubbornness did not allow him to take a step back. He couldn’t be trusted to stay away from sticking his nose in the day-to-day operations of the station, which meant he wasn’t going to be allowed to keep his stake for much longer.

  From the moment Putin began speaking, Badri knew that this was not an argument or even a true conversation. This decision had already been made. The wind was blowing in an obvious direction. Badri was pragmatic enough not to disagree, and he was ready to accept a situation he could not change. By the meeting’s end, he had resigned himself to dealing with the practicalities; ORT would have to be sold, it was just a matter of how much they could get.

  When Putin was finished speaking, he moved to shake Badri’s hand. As they said their good-byes, Badri shyly apologized for his casual outfit. He explained that he had thought that perhaps he was going to be arrested, so he
had dressed for the occasion.

  Putin squeezed the Georgian’s shoulder as he led him to the door.

  “We are friends, Badri, go into any other business and I’ll continue to support you. But if you stay in television, you will be my enemy.”

  Badri had communicated many messages in his career. He had delivered them to managers of oil refineries, to dangerous men from the aluminum industry, to dirty car salesmen, even to terrorist warlords.

  There was no doubt in his mind; he and his partner had just been given such a message.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  * * *

  October 30, 2000,

  Private Terminal, Sheremetiezo Airport, Moscow

  FOR ONE OF THE first times in Berezovsky’s life, the Oligarch was moving slowly. Each step was like pulling his shoes out of thick mud, while his bare right hand clung numbly to the cold metal railing at his side. The retractable stairway leading up to his private Bombardier Global Express jet was barely taller than he was, but those six narrow steps felt like the longest journey Berezovsky had ever taken.

  The icy breeze pulled at the high collar of his overcoat, each breath stinging his lungs with a palpable mingling of scents: jet fuel, car exhaust, cigarette smoke. And yet, above all, it smelled like Moscow, the city that had been his home for so long. The place where he had built an empire, bought a government—and now he was leaving.

  He had fought this moment as long as he could. Putin’s warning—or threat, as Berezovsky saw it—reiterated to Badri at the FSB offices might have scared off a more prudent man. But Berezovsky had at first seen it as another challenge, another obstacle in his path. On September 4, after those fateful meetings, Berezovsky had gone on the offensive, although Badri pleaded with him to tread carefully. He had published an open letter in his newspaper, Kommersant, detailing Putin’s attack, as he saw it—outlining how the president and the government had demanded that the businessman give up his legally owned shares in ORT or face destruction. In the letter he had demanded that the government should instead give up its own holding in the television station, that Russia needed a truly free press, and that Putin’s efforts against him were part of an overall effort to take control of all the media in the country.

  Berezovsky had known that publishing such an open letter, a direct attack on the president, was incredibly risky. But he had hoped that the act would bring the people of Russia to his side, as well as the journalistic community. And yet the blow had turned out to be another miscalculation. No matter how he tried to couch the battle he was engaged in, he was an Oligarch facing off against a popular president.

  The next move had been Putin’s, and it had again taken Berezovsky entirely by surprise. On October 17, the Oligarch was paid a visit by the prosecutor general, who arrived at the Logovaz Club accompanied by a squad of federal agents. Although he wasn’t there to arrest Berezovsky, he had come to ask questions about Aeroflot—something that Berezovsky had thought he had dealt with before Putin’s ascension to the presidency. The prosecutor general had suggested that Berezovsky would likely face criminal charges again, that his involvement in the national airline involved financial fraud and currency smuggling. Furthermore, they said that businessman Nikolai Glushkov, one of Berezovsky’s close friends, whom Berezovsky had placed in charge of Aeroflot management, was also in danger of a criminal investigation.

  Another barely veiled threat—and this time not only against the Oligarch himself, but against a friend and colleague. Berezovsky had been unable to protect Litvinenko, a relative nobody, from eight months in prison—and at the time, Putin had been only the head of the FSB. He had no doubt that if the president wanted to put Glushkov in irons, there was little he could do to stop him.

  The government wasn’t finished with him yet. The very next day, Berezovsky received notice that he was being evicted from his beloved dacha in Alexandrovka, which, though technically state-owned, Berezovksy had been legally renting since 1994. The notice came with no explanation or leave for petition; Berezovsky simply needed to vacate the premises, immediately.

  Even so, even through the Aeroflot threat and the eviction, Berezovsky had intended to continue the fight. But on October 26, Putin had made his intentions clear in a way that Berezovsky couldn’t ignore. On his way to an official visit to France, the president had given an interview to the newspaper Le Figaro, speaking in words as clear and harsh as a Moscow snow:

  “Generally, I don’t think that the state and the businessmen are natural enemies. Rather, the state has a cudgel in its hands that you use to hit just once, but on the head. We haven’t used this cudgel yet. We’ve just brandished it, which is enough to keep someone’s attention. The day we get really angry, we will not hesitate to use it. It is inadmissible to blackmail the state. If necessary, we will destroy those instruments that allow this blackmail.”

  According to The Moscow Times, which published the exchange in its entirety the next day, there was no doubt whom Putin had been speaking to; the Times identified Berezovsky by name, and referred to the statement as both a warning and a threat.

  After that interview, Berezovsky had no doubt—he wasn’t just in danger of losing his dacha, his stakes in ORT and Aeroflot—he was facing actual, physical danger. Even Roman Abramovich, a usually calm and rational voice, who had been disturbed by Berezovsky’s handling of the Kursk incident and had tried to play the role of peacemaker with the Kremlin on numerous occasions, had admitted that Putin’s interview seemed threatening. For his part, the young entrepreneur still believed that Berezovksy and the government could find a way to work things out, if only Berezovksy could take a step back and calm his emotions. After all, Berezovsky and the president had once been friends; Abramovich believed that it was Putin who felt betrayed, that Berezovsky had turned on the hard-driving president, rather than the other way around.

  But Berezovksy was certain that they were now well past the point of apologies and stepping back. He could not rid his thoughts of that cudgel, in Putin’s hand, raised over his head. He had survived assassination attempts before, but this was the president of Russia, speaking in his own, direct words.

  On that breezy airfield outside of Moscow, moving slowly up the metal stairs, Berezovsky paused to take one last breath. He was near the top step now. He could already feel the warmth coming from inside the lavishly appointed jet. He could smell the leather of the interior and the slight wisp of floral perfume from one of his statuesque flight attendants. And yet his shoulders sagged beneath his coat.

  Despite everything, a part of him wanted to stay and fight, but even Badri agreed, the danger was too great. As he stood there, about to take that final step, his hands tightened even harder against the steel of the handrail. Putin had a cudgel and he was not afraid to use it; but Boris Berezovsky had been underestimated before.

  Gusinsky had underestimated him and his men had ended up facedown in the snow. Korzhakov had underestimated him, and he had gone from Yeltsin’s right hand to sudden unemployment. Even George Soros had underestimated him.

  Berezovsky raised his chin, and a slight, defiant smile moved across his lips.

  For a man with enough money in the bank, and the right sort of determination, the world could be a very small place—and an ocean, a very narrow distance.

  PART THREE

  It’s a hard winter, when one wolf eats another.

  —OLD RUSSIAN PROVERB

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  * * *

  November or December 2000,

  Cap d’Antibes, Côte d’Azur, France

  “QUITE AN ARMY YOU’VE built, Boris,” Badri murmured as he stood next to Berezovsky at the rear of the cavernous entrance hall to the oceanfront mansion, watching the nearby security team as they went about their protocols. “You would think we were about to be invaded by the Northern Fleet.”

  Berezovsky tried to smile, though he wasn’t exactly in the mood for jokes. He felt a warm hand at his waist, and he tried to relax his posture, glancing
back at Yelena, his girlfriend and cohabitant in exile. She was a striking sight, as usual, thin and beautiful, in her heels much taller than the Oligarch, with cascading, long brown hair and skin the color and texture of porcelain. A true natural beauty, and more and more his partner, although technically not his wife, she was the mother of two of his children. He had had two wives already, and in fact was still married to the second one, and he had sired two children with each of them, as well. Yet his feelings for Yelena were special. She was more than just an accoutrement, part of the trappings of paradise he had surrounded himself with since his exile from Moscow. She was significant in a way no material possession could be.

  “You can’t accuse a man of being paranoid after the second assassination attempt,” Berezovsky responded, but Badri only shrugged.

  “An army can’t protect you from yourself, мой друг, my friend.”

  Boris felt Yelena’s hand tighten a bit against his waist, and he patted her arm. She sighed, and then signaled toward one of the nearby house staff to start circulating cocktails. Lunch had ended just a few minutes earlier, and yet Berezovsky’s stomach still felt tight and shriveled. He hadn’t eaten much in the week since he had left Moscow.

  The Oligarch had heard Badri’s—and others’—words numerous times before. Many people believed he possessed a self-destructive streak. Even he agreed that he allowed his emotions to get out of control, which sometimes sabotaged his own efforts. Over the course of the past week, Badri had been like a broken record, reasserting again and again that Berezovsky had pushed things to this point. That he had allowed his anger and his arrogance to drive a wedge between himself and the government, one that could only have resulted in exile.