David closed the door and returned to the sofa. He poured himself a large whiskey and stared into space.
“Who’s behind this crap? Could this shit get any worse?”
20 You and I will Change the World
Kiev, 2001
At the beginning of the new century I felt invincible. Every business that I touched turned to gold. And most importantly, it seemed that luck was on my side. With good luck you don’t really need anything else.
I was now approaching thirty. I felt experienced and clever, and with parliamentary elections approaching in Ukraine, I decided that it was time for me to go into politics.
One clear motivation was that as a politician I would have more power and more connections. Being a politician could be good for business. Instead of buying politicians I could be one.
Another reason was that I had some genuine aspirations to change the world. I believed that perhaps with enough money and political power I could help Ukraine to be a better country. I had no intentions to cease corruption, since it was highly profitable. However, I wanted to see more of the country’s wealth actually go to its people.
It was almost a decade since independence, so perhaps it was time to start thinking about Ukraine’s people. Maybe my destiny was to change the way it was. I wanted to make a difference and start building a legacy.
Deep inside, I knew that these aspirations were probably too noble for me. I would likely abuse my parliamentary powers for more mundane goals, such as making more money for myself. However, there was nothing wrong in feeling noble, especially if you were drinking something noble at the time you were thinking the noble thoughts and I was just pouring myself a third glass of delicious French cognac. Some of my worst and best decisions were a result of drinking alone.
When I settled in Israel I lost my Ukrainian citizenship. Unfortunately, I required the citizenship to run for parliament, so I arranged for it to be reinstated retroactively. Although the Ukrainian constitution didn’t allow dual citizenship, nobody would know. I was Moshe Shaarim in my Israeli passport and Mikhail Vorotavich in my Ukrainian passport. Two completely different, unrelated persons. Who would find out?
Soon enough my new party was registered: The Ukrainian Liberal Party of Progress and Order. I didn’t have pangs of remorse for plagiarising the motto of Brasil. I felt Ukraine needed it more at the moment.
I had no aspirations to compete with Ukraine’s political leaders. At least, not yet; but I was convinced that I had a decent chance of winning more than twenty seats out of the four hundred and fifty in the Verkhovna Rada. I based my conviction on two factors that were critical for the success of every politician: money and bullshit.
I had plenty of money, and I could raise even more through my connections and business associates. Many of them would be interested to see me entering the Ukrainian parliament as the mutual business benefits were obvious.
As for bullshit, I had been practicing it all my life. I learned to look people in the eyes and lie like there was no tomorrow. I didn’t like it, but it was nothing personal, only business. I didn’t think that anyone in Ukraine and Russia became really rich without being economical with the truth on his way up. Bullshitting came to me as naturally as breathing.
I was in no doubt that I had all the skills that a politician needed.
To get into parliament I needed to convince a few million people to vote for my party’s list. I could nicely supplement the vote by rigging some of the election’s results, where possible, but rigging wasn’t sufficient to gain the desired number of votes, especially since all influential opponents were rigging too. So there was no other choice but to organise a professional election campaign.
I hired a campaign manager, Vladimir Tischenko. This balding, middle-aged guy, with a thick ginger moustache was clearly both a sycophant and a sleazy character, but he was a seasoned expert in Ukrainian politics and possessed all the suitable credentials.
He told me, “You want to get into parliament? No problem. I get you into parliament. I know all the tricks in the book since I wrote the book. I can get a monkey into parliament if the monkey does what I tell it to do.”
Vladimir organised advertising campaigns; events for Jewish voters, conferences for businessmen and road shows for the workers at factories across villages and small towns. My people toured the country for months.
And that was only the tip of the iceberg.
While it was challenging to swing votes from established parties at the national level, it was much easier to ensure that my candidates would win at the local constituencies. I nominated my old friend Anton Lozinski as one of my party’s local candidates. Anton had lost a lot of weight but gained a lot of popularity after serving two years as the Minister of Energy and Coal Industry, acquiring the reputation of a reformist.
My other people were spread over the areas where I felt strong. While I was from Kiev, I decided to run in Lugansk, where as an owner of Lugansk Steel and its attached local football team I was insurmountable. Besides, I thought that I looked better on TV and appeared closer to the laymen with Lugansk in the background. Its industrial scenery, full of chimneys, smog and rattle of heavy machinery, looked far better than Kiev’s posh environs.
At the local level, where we felt a powerful opposition, we used every dirty trick to eliminate competition. We intimidated and beat up rival candidates, and paid generously to others to concede their candidacy in our favour. We were well prepared for carousel voting, where our buses full of supporters would drive around on the election date, casting their votes multiple times.
The main policy of my political manifesto was an unequivocal change of Ukrainian external policy towards joining the European Union. This was something that I genuinely believed in, and the polls indicated it had strong support.
All the other political agendas were purely opportunistic. It was easy to make promises during the elections because I knew that as a politician I would never have to make good on any of my proposals since it wasn’t an enforceable contract. Promises are cheap, delivery is costly.
We gave the men bottles of vodka and the women crates of food and promised that they wouldn’t lack for either if they voted for us. We promised to invest millions in developing the rural areas, and millions in developing the cities. We promised more capitalism to businessmen and more socialism to workers. We promised higher minimum wage to employees and lower minimum wage to employers. We would’ve promised to put a Ukrainian donkey on Mars before the end of the century had it brought us votes. We promised, and promised and promised.
Pretty soon the elections turned nasty. All the dirty laundry that could’ve been discovered about me and my people was made public. Unlike Russia, where all the significant media was subdued to state control, the Ukrainian media was much more independent. Silly freedom of speech.
My Israeli citizenship was soon disclosed. The prospect of being ruled by the Jewish tycoon Moshe Shaarim, the true hidden identity of Mikhail Vorotavich, was projected as the most evil disaster that could possibly befall the Ukrainian nation.
This was an official PR stunt. Dirty, and openly published in the media for all to see. Unofficially, my opponents were far less subtle. They clearly played into the fear that a zhid like me wanted to overtake Christian Ukraine. This was taken straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the hoaxed Jewish plan for global domination.
They claimed that I would ban pork fat and borsch as they weren’t kosher. Although I was Jewish, these were two of my favourite dishes. Some extremists, I was sure, went further and alleged that at night I was eating the flesh of tender Christian children and used their blood in Jewish rituals. Simpletons, as many of the voters were, bought this bullshit.
The campaign cost a fortune. I spent millions from my own pocket, as well as millions that were contributed by my largest supporters. All this huge investment was threatened because of this anti-Semitic nonsense.
The elections took place on 31st March 20
02. The good news was that I won my seat, along with seven of my people at the local constituencies. The bad news was that at the national level we didn’t even pass the threshold barrier.
I aspired to gain the balancing power for a coalition. In Ukraine the parliament was made of many parties, and the ruling parties generally needed to form a coalition to have a majority vote. So even with a small number of seats I was hoping to be able to have a small sphere of influence at a national level. However, the election results were such that my eight seats weren’t needed for the coalition’s votes. My success was minor, in particular compared to the huge monetary investment.
I had failed, and failure tasted bitter.
***
When I was young my father taught me the basics of Judaism and the Hebrew language. The Ten Commandments in Exodus, the first book in the Torah, had a big impact on me.
While I was at the Institute of Higher Education in Kiev, we watched the 1956 movie ‘The Ten Commandments’ with Charlton Heston playing Moses. Moshe, my chosen first name in Israel, meant Moses in Hebrew. I would never forget the scene when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments.
“Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not give false testimony against your neighbour.
Thou shalt not covet your neighbour’s house. Thou shalt not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.”
The Ten Commandments were beyond religion. They were the fundamental principles of ethics. Follow them and you are a good person. Don’t follow them and you are an evil son of a bitch. Black and white.
I had murdered. I had committed adultery. I had stolen. I had given false testimony. I had coveted my neighbour belongings and sometimes his wife. If he had a donkey I would’ve coveted it as well.
I was a real son of a bitch without any morality. Forgive me father, for I have sinned.
Sometimes I woke up at nights and couldn’t fall back asleep. My mind raced, thinking about all the immoral sins that I had committed. Yes, I made millions and I was richer than I ever dreamed possible. But still, was I better than any of those crooked, corrupted thieves who stole from the weak, undefended poor? Was I the evil in all the books that I read growing up? What good had I ever done to anybody? I was a lowlife scum. I was a piece of shit.
And pieces of shit are always punished in all the stories.
***
One of the guiding principles throughout my career had been to keep a low profile. Fly below the radar and you wouldn’t get shot down. My brief venture into politics breached this principle. I exposed myself to the world. This was a mistake and you pay for your mistakes. The consequences were unpleasant.
On a fine early summers day in June 2002 I met the recently appointed First Deputy of the Minister of Defence of Ukraine for a business lunch at a highly recommended Georgian restaurant in the centre of Kiev. Arthur and David, our group’s military experts accompanied me. John came along as well, as I thought the meeting would be an opportunity to integrate him more into the Ukrainian way of doing business.
The meeting was very informal - more a ‘get to know you’ courtesy to the new First Deputy, so nothing of importance was discussed. After a light lunch and a round of toasts, the First Deputy excused himself and left for yet another meeting. The four of us stayed behind to drink coffee and enjoy some Georgian sweets, while discussing our conclusions of the newly-appointed official.
We left the restaurant, and my driver, Nukri, a cousin of late Gigo, jumped out the driver’s seat and rushed around the vehicle to open the doors for us.
As we approached the car, enjoying the summer sun gently warming our faces, a black Mercedes pulled away from the kerb about twenty metres away and started moving slowly towards us. As the car passed by, two barrels of automatic machine guns appeared from its front and rear windows and started spraying us.
Before I had time to react, Arthur instinctively jumped on me and took me down to the ground. He almost broke my rib cage as I landed face down, with Arthur’s muscular frame on my back.
David, who was walking slightly behind us, also dropped to the ground drawing his gun as he fell, his military training kicking in instinctively.
John, on the other hand, just stood there like a deer in the headlights.
Nukri, who was standing with his back to the road, holding the car’s door open, was shot five times in the back. He was thrown a few metres in the air and fell on his face, landing next to me, dead before he hit the ground. Before we could return fire, the Mercedes sped away.
Arthur jumped to his feet with his gun drawn, but it was too late to fire back at the disappearing Merc. The whole incident lasted less than five seconds.
John continued to just stand there, his eyes bulging and his body frozen with fear. The poor guy was in shock and nobody could blame him.
“Goddamnit,” was all he kept saying.
I was in shock as well. Without a doubt, this was an assassination attempt on my life. I was lucky to have Arthur with me and Nukri as a human shield. Poor Nukri had stepped right into the line of fire as he rushed to open the car door for me, taking the brunt of the majority of the bullets.
Immediately, my brain went into overdrive, trying to work out who had the audacity to try such a thing. If someone tried to kill me in broad daylight, in the centre of Kiev, just after meeting the First Deputy of the Minister of Defence of Ukraine, nothing would stop them from finishing the job.
I wondered whether the Deputy Minister was involved or someone from my own inner circle. Obviously, the assassins knew about the lunch as they knew where and when to find me. Our security routine ruled out the possibility of being followed without my security noticing it, so this wasn’t an opportunistic attempt at my life.
Two days later, and before the dust settled, I suffered another huge blow. Anton Lozinski perished in a car accident. His Mercedes hit a truck that crossed the Kiev-Odessa highway at an accident black spot and hit Anton head-on. As Anton was speeding close to two hundred kilometres per hour the collision was spectacular. They had to collect together his remains, which were splattered all over the road. I didn’t believe the bullshit that it was an accident; it had a clear stamp and stench of old KGB techniques that were used to get rid of unwanted people.
We were hunted now. I was being punished for the sin of pride. I should’ve stayed behind the scenes and not exposed myself in the political arena. I felt ashamed, in particular in front of Boris, who had known Anton for years.
Somebody had to pay immediately. It had to be Vladimir Tischenko, who clearly lied to me about how promising my campaign was; like the wild exaggeration that we had 7% in the polls. All his projections proved to be complete crap.
His direct fees were over three million dollars. Naturally, he deserved no payment out of the promised ten million bonus, which was conditional on success. I felt that I needed to punish him. I was a novice in politics and he, supposedly, was a veteran. He should’ve warned me that the anti-Semitic card that was played against me was a trump.
I instructed Arthur accordingly. Surprisingly enough, Vladimir probably had good intuition, as he disappeared even before all the ballots had been counted. I was furious. By running away, Vladimir signed his own death warrant.
Three years later his body was transported to Ukraine from Paraguay for burial as cargo 200. If late Carlos were alive, he would surely have used such a brilliant opportunity to smuggle in a few kilos of coke into the country inside the coffin. Apparently, Vladimir had been suffering and died from a strange long-lasting disease, incurable by the local medicine in Latin America. He got what he deserved.
***
Because of the recent elections the governing elite changed. While under the previous government I had a strong backing, under the new one some of my business rivals enjoyed equal backing. The balance of power had shifted away from me slightly, so perhaps my
rivals felt that this was the opportunity to get me out of the way for good, before I re-established my connections with the new government. By entering parliament I gained immunity from prosecution, but not from bullets or car bombs. I felt that my enemies were closing in on me. I had to get away.
I was never the bravest. I always found a lot of wisdom in the saying ‘there are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots.’ This was the reason that flying below radars always appealed to me. It was time to fly low. It was time to go to stealth mode.
I felt like I had turned full circle. However, this time instead of leaving the country broke and heading to Israel, I was leaving the country rich and going to Switzerland.
Switzerland seemed like a good location to get away from Ukraine because I would be not too far away, and could continue managing the Group. Ukrainian government officials enjoyed visiting Switzerland, in particular when all their expenses were paid so they could come to visit me for business meetings. It was also convenient for them to personally deposit their cash payments at their Swiss banks while visiting.
The weather wasn’t bad. The food wasn’t bad. And it sometimes seemed that there were more Russian speakers in Geneva than French or German, as Switzerland was one of the favourite destinations for Russians and Ukrainians for private banking or keeping a low profile.
I rented a suite in a five-star hotel in Geneva, packed my bags and moved there, along with Masha, who was now a permanent fixture in my life. After couple of weeks I bought a house that she wanted, although it was less to my liking. But if she wanted it, why should I argue. What were a few millions compared to the happiness of your future wife? Happy wife means a happy life. I managed the group from Switzerland, leaving Boris and David as my people on the ground in Kiev.
Rise of an Oligarch: The Way It Is: Book One Page 19
