A Russian Diary (47 page)

After the Borozdinovskaya incident, the rank-and-file soldiers of Chechenization demanded an additional indulgence for working as
hired killers. Ramzan Kadyrov fixed it with the mufti, who agreed to declare jihad. For some of the Russian state's Chechen hitmen, this is very important. They feel much better with the backing of a jihad. Much better means much less inhibited.

Confirmation of this was not long in coming. The very evening jihad was declared, the hitmen celebrated by committing a murder in the hill village of Shelkovskaya, in the Yamadaevs’ territory. It was a murder of exceptional brazenness and brutality.

At about 10 p.m. several silver Niva off-roaders drove up to the house of Vakhambi Satikhanov, a teacher of Arabic and the fundamentals of Islam at the local school and the forty-year-old father of a large family. Armed Chechens wearing camouflage fatigues took him some one hundred meters from his house and drew their Nivas up in a circle to form a small arena. His neighbors and fellow villagers tried to intervene, but the paramilitaries threatened to shoot them. Throughout the night people saw cars driving off and others appearing out of the darkness; they heard cries and shooting, but only at dawn did the butchers lift their blockade and drive away. Where the circle had been they found the body of Vakhambi with dozens of knife wounds, his fingers broken, his nails ripped off.

Vakhambi's neighbors are certain that he was murdered by men from the Vostok battalion of the Central Intelligence Directorate of GHQ. Its commander, Sulim Yamadaev, was awarded the title of Hero of Russia by Putin after the atrocities in Borozdinovskaya, thereby giving the highest possible sanction to what Yamadaev's paramilitaries had done there.

The declaration of jihad in Chechnya is further proof that the republic is allowed to live by customary law, to take life in defiance of Russian law. How does this differ from the lawless executions of Maskhadov's time?

The silence and failure to take corrective action are also the surest sign that the jihad has the tacit blessing of Putin himself. It is simply one more step along the dead-end road of Chechenization that Putin is traveling. Now the entire muftiate of Chechnya is implicated, just as at one time the Russian Orthodox Church was complicit in sanctifying the crimes of the Stalin and Khrushchev eras.

Life is savage now, even more savage than in the Soviet period, but the Russian people appear not to mind. Nobody has called upon the procurator general to declare the jihad null and void.

August 9

The mysterious deaths of people very close to the state authorities continue. In Sochi, Pyotr Semenenko has fallen from a window on the fifteenth floor of the White Nights Hotel. For the past eighteen years he had been the CEO of Russia's largest machine tools factory, the Kirov, which produces everything from sanitary ware to the turbines for nuclear submarines.

Semenenko was a major industrial player, and from St. Petersburg to boot. Most people suppose the main reason he was murdered is disagreements over the sharing out of major industrial assets under the Putin system of state capitalism. That he was helped to fall from the fifteenth floor nobody has any doubt.

In the Matrosskaya Tishina prison, meanwhile, Mikhail Khodor-kovsky has been moved from investigative detention cell No. 4, which holds four prisoners, to investigative detention cell No. 1, which holds eleven. He is no longer allowed to receive newspapers or watch television. The reason is undoubtedly his article “Left Turn,” written in prison and published in the newspaper
Vedomosti.
These are its main ideas:

In spite of all the state's deviousness, those on the left will win in the end. What is more, they will win democratically, in complete accord with the expressed will of a majority of the electorate. There will be a turn to the left, and those who continue to pursue the policies of today's authorities will lose their legitimacy …

We should not overlook the fact that our compatriots have become much cannier than they were ten years ago. People who have been fooled on more than one occasion will not fall for another bluff, no matter how ingenious or eloquently presented. Pulling off the Successor-2008 project is not going to be that easy.

The resources of the post-Soviet authoritarian project in Russia have been exhausted.

Not completely, I fear.

Novaya Gazeta
invited our readers to submit questions to Khodor-kovsky by e-mail and published replies that he sent from prison.

SERGEY PANTELEYEV, a student from Moscow: “The bureaucrats have decided to own the state, not to be its hired servants. Am I right in believing that this was the real reason for the seizure of Yukos?”

KHODORKOVSKY: “Dear Sergey, they do not want to own the state, but to own tangible assets, and in particular the most successful company in the country, Yukos. More precisely, they want to get their hands on its income. You are right that the seizure and plundering of Yukos is being carried out behind a smokescreen of talk about the interests of the state. Of course that is not the reality. Destroying Yukos will cause colossal damage to the interests of Russia. These bureaucrats are simply trying to deceive society by presenting their personal interests as those of the state.”

A question from GOBLIN (presumably a pseudonym): “Are you not hurt that your friends fled abroad, instead of ignoring all the risks and coming back to join you and Platon Lebedev?”

KHODORKOVSKY: “ Dear Goblin, being thrown into prison is not something I would wish on my worst enemy, let alone my friends. Accordingly, I am very happy for all my friends who have managed to avoid arrest. What I most regret is that some of my comrades and colleagues have been arrested in connection with the Yukos affair, notably Svetlana Bakhmina, who is the mother of two small children.”

A question from VERA, Tomsk: “You are being forced to start life all over again. Will you find the strength in yourself, or is your life's main work already in the past?”

KHODORKOVSKY: “ Dear Vera, in prison I have understood one simple but difficult truth: the main thing is not to have, but to be. What matters is the human being, not the circumstances in which he finds himself. For me business is a thing of the past, but I am not starting my new life from scratch, because I carry forward an enormous amount of experience. I even thank fate for the unique opportunity of living two lives, despite having paid so heavily for the privilege.”

On the same day, August 9, Khodorkovsky's and Lebedev's lawyers received an order setting a deadline for completing their study of the records of the court hearings. They had been allowed to see them at the Meshchansky district court from July 27, but all kinds of difficulties now began to arise. On July 28, lawyer Krasnov was not given the records to read “for technical reasons.” Lawyer Liptser was also turned down the same day, because part of the record was “currently being studied by the state prosecutor.”

Between July 29 and August 8 the lawyers were able to read only the records for 2004, because those for 2005 were said to be with the state prosecutor. On August 5 the lawyers received through the post a “second” notice (although there had been no first) instructing them to come to the court on August 5 (i.e., that same day), to receive “copies of the records of the court hearing.” When they read these, they discovered that they differed from the original and from the audio recording of the court hearings. Moreover, the supposed copies had not been officially certified, nor was there any numbering of the volumes, internal pagination, or a list of contents. The lawyers were indignant and lodged complaints and an official refusal to accept “copies” that did not correspond to the originals. In reply the court dumped the unsatisfactory “copies” on them through their chambers.

On August 9 permission to view the original records was refused point-blank. In order to prevent the lawyers from being able to complain to Strasbourg, the acting chairman of the court, Kurdyukov, refused to confirm in writing that they would not be given access to the official records of the court hearings and must work solely from the “copies.” They were given until August 25 to comment on them.

Why is Svetlana Bakhmina, whom Khodorkovsky mentioned in one of his replies, being held in prison?

The employees of Yukos saw their colleague's arrest as a warning. It was obvious to practically everybody in the company that, as part of the campaign against Yukos, the procurator general was targeting rank-and-file employees. In fact, if Khodorkovsky was being accused of things that could apply to the vast majority of leading Russian businessmen, then the accusations against Bakhmina could be applied to nearly all ordinary citizens.

Svetlana Bakhmina was paid a salary by Yukos throughout the almost seven years she worked there. According to the accusation concocted by the procurator general, for the greater part of this time she was guilty of a crime under Part 2 of Article 198 (“Non-payment of exceptionally large amounts of tax by private individuals”). Under this article, Bakhmina faces three years in jail, even though she has not in fact broken any law, any more than Yukos has when paying her through a so-called insurance scheme.

These schemes became widespread in Russia during the period when income tax was set at the punitive level of 35 percent, with even more punitive social welfare contributions. The essence of the scheme was that the employee insured his or her life using the company's money, and then received contractual insurance payouts that were effectively the wages due. Since insurance payments were not subject to income tax and were permissible under the tax legislation then in force, the system was used by many private companies, state institutions and ministries, including, let it be noted, the Ministry of Taxation and Excise Revenue.

Now it transpires that you can be imprisoned for this. You could imprison the vast majority of the adult working population for exactly the same offense. If the court finds Bakhmina guilty, the country's workers will be in serious jeopardy. The authorities would be able to bring criminal charges against huge numbers of people at will. No matter how law-abiding you might be, you could still be imprisoned for the tax policies of your employer, even if you knew nothing about them.

*

Putin was supposed to have nominated by today the forty-two citizens he wanted as the leading lights of his Social Chamber. He has been unable to, because those he would like to get, especially those with a reputation for independent-mindedness, have no wish to be involved, while those who do want to get in are too minor to attest to the democratic credentials of Putin, or so servile that the chamber would be a laughingstock.

August 11

In Urus-Martan six unidentified paramilitaries have abducted Natasha Khumadova, forty-five, the sister of the Chechen field commander Doku Umarov. Umarov is the second most senior field commander after Basaev. Nothing is known of her fate. In Urus-Martan this is thought to have been the work of Kadyrov troops.

The seizure of counter-hostages is becoming increasingly common, and this was clearly one such maneuver, intended to coerce Umarov into surrendering to federal forces. Some Chechens think this is fair enough, and that primitive methods work better than legal methods. Others are simply waiting for the right moment to wreak revenge on Russia.

August 12

In Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, forty-five members of the Union of Communist Youth have held a march for freedom and democracy. They marched through the center of town bearing anti-Putin slogans. People called after them, “Well done! To hell with their Putin!,” but didn't join in. By no means everybody cares for the Communist Youth. People are even rather afraid of them, with their portraits of Che Guevara and his ilk. I would not march under those portraits. These young people have no experience of the consequences of revolution and were born at the very end of the “period of stagnation,” or in the Gorbachev-early Yeltsin era; the ideas of Communism appeal to them.

Kasparov's United Citizens’ Front is aiming to bring everybody together: the Young Communists, provincial supporters of Rodina, what remains of the democratic right, Yabloko supporters in the regions who
have given up on Yavlinsky, the National Bolsheviks, and the anarchists. All unite against the regime! After we have won, we can decide what to do next. That's the best program the democrats can manage.

Today, an appeal was heard in Zamoskvorechiye court, with Judge Ye-lena Potapova presiding, against Deputy Procurator Yudin's refusal on July 22 to grant the militia a warrant for the arrest of Sergey Melnikov, a “simple Russian entrepreneur.”

Attempting to challenge the actions of the procurator's office is highly unusual, if not impossible. It is also very rare for Russians to agree to be witnesses against mafiosi, as the retaliation can be brutal and the state authorities give no support. Corruption, now more widespread than ever, ensures that those who can't pay get no protection. Accordingly, when Yudin refused to sanction the arrest of Melnikov, those of his victims who had given evidence were in quite a quandary when the deputy procurator decided to use his powers in favor of their tormentor rather than them.

Judge Potapova was nervous and irritable, but lawyer Alexey Zav-gorodny appealed to her to put herself in the shoes of Melnikov's victims, from whom he had been extorting protection money. Melnikov himself, of course, was not there, but his lawyer and confidante, Natalia Davydova, was.

Ms. Davydova is a loud, sarcastic woman who has been representing and advising some forty members of the Togliatti mafia for several years. The Moscow city procurator's office ought to be taking no nonsense from a lawyer with clients like these, but today its representative in court is Yelena Levshina. Levshina repeats to the court exactly what Davydova has already said. We seem to be listening to a monstrous, well-rehearsed duet, as the two ladies insist to the judge that it is impossible to create a precedent where the procurator might appear not to be in the right: he is always right. It is a reduction to absurdity of the principle that the procurator must be independent of the courts.