Private Moscow

Chapter 48

We drove for an hour, passing through the city center and out east to a place called the Kuzminki District. We’d driven through areas of wealth and plenty where high modern apartment blocks mixed with classical villas, but Kuzminki was a blue-collar neighborhood with dormitory blocks inhabited by working Russians. We turned off a six-lane overpass and drove under the busy highway. A group of teenagers were racing mini-bikes in the space beneath the overpass. We crossed a major slip road and went up a tree-lined street, past a large red church with a golden dome, which dazzled in the crisp January sunlight.

“This is Kuzminki,” Dinara explained. “It was where the Soviet government housed people it considered undesirable. If the Central Committee didn’t like you, this is where you lived.”

“Here or the gulag,” Leonid added.

We drove past huge estates of high-rise apartment blocks, some dating from the Soviet era, others more recent, and no more than ten minutes from the highway we turned north onto a service street that ran between two sprawling estates. A group of young men stood in a clearing in the snow, huddled around an oil-drum fire. They eyed us as we drove by. Up ahead, beyond the gardens that lay behind the tower blocks, the road was cut short by a gate, and next to it was a small hut. A grim-faced man in a heavy black coat emerged as the old SUV rattled to a halt. When Leonid wound down the window, the guy smiled warmly.

“Leonid Boykov!” he exclaimed.

The rest of what he said was lost on me as he and Leonid conversed in Russian. The tone was light-hearted and friendly and I got the impression these men knew each other well.

“Welcome, welcome,” the man said to me as he raised the gate.

“That was Evgeniy Ertel. He used to be a captain in the riot police,” Leonid said as he drove on. “Tough as army boot leather,” he added as we turned into a large parking lot full of vehicles.

Beyond it stood a huge two-story concrete building that dominated the heart of a ten-acre lot. It looked like an old school or hospital. A handful of men and women gathered outside the main entrance, smoking cigarettes.

“This is your new home,” Leonid said. “Well, our new home.”

Dinara replied in Russian.

“Of course,” he said. “We can’t go home any more than he can. Not until we know what we’re up against.”

“What is this place?” I asked as Leonid pulled into a parking space.

“We call it the Residence. It’s where my brothers and sisters live,” he replied cryptically. “It’s like a retirement home for cops. A hospital too. If you don’t have family or money, this is where you come.”

“Like a veterans’ home?” I asked, getting out of the SUV.

“Maybe,” Leonid said. “It was a school, but the government doesn’t have so much money for schools, so they rented it to the people who run this place.”

I quickly realized this place was nothing like a veterans’ home as we approached the smokers. A dozen men and women: they must all have been under the age of fifty, and had the hard, incisive eyes of competent police officers. Inside, there were a couple of young men in wheelchairs, reading in the lobby, and I could see two recreation rooms off the large space, where former police officers between the ages of thirty-five and sixty played games, watched TV, drank, talked or sat with their heads in books or magazines. This was part convalescence home, part hospital, part social housing, part private members’ club, and I’d never seen anything like it.

“Boykov!” a booming voice yelled.

I turned toward a huge bear of a man with bushy brown hair and a matching beard. He hurried over to us, wearing jeans, open-toed sandals over thick black socks and a bright blue painter’s smock that was covered in splotches of color.

“Feodor Arapov!” Leonid replied, and the pair embraced.

‘Feo, this is Jack Morgan and Dinara Orlova, my colleagues.’

I offered Feo my hand, but he brushed it aside and gave me a hug that hinted at his strength.

‘Welcome, American,’ he said. ‘Boykov says you’re OK.’ He released me, and shook Dinara’s hand. ‘Never cuddle a lady without invitation,’ he said.

‘Very wise,’ Dinara observed.

‘I have arranged rooms for each of you in the west building,’ Feo said. ‘Come. Come.’

He headed into the large building, and Leonid, Dinara and I followed him into our new, unconventional home.