‘‘My name is Nikolai. I mean you no harm. I just need to get to Moscow,'' I say, putting my hands up.
He turns and throws open the canvas. Bright morning light slants into the gloom. He turns around to me again, his eyes scanning my face, my torn clothes, and my cut and bleeding arms and legs. His face softens immediately.
"You are just a boy. Why are you alone?"
"It does not matter. I need to get to Moscow."
"You are already in Moscow.''
I scramble to my feet and begin to walk towards him. "Thank you for the ride. I will go now.''
"It is very cold outside. Where will you go?"
‘‘I will be fine,'' I say.
"No. I cannot leave you to go out in the freezing cold in those ragged clothes. You will come to my home and my wife will give you some clothes and food and dress your wounds.''
I look at him suspiciously.
"I have two boys your age and would hate to see them in your place," he says slowly.
After all these years of deprivation and brutality, I am reluctant to trust an act of kindness, but he is right, I need to wash off all this blood. My clothes are badly torn and I will freeze and die in this weather. I have a promise to my brother to keep. I can't leave him all alone in that bare cemetery.
"All right. Thank you. I accept your kind offer,'' I tell him awkwardly.
He smiles. "Good. You will be our honored guest. I am glad to be able to offer any little help I can. You can call me Yuri," he says, coming forward to extend his hand. Up close I see into his eyes and I no longer feel any suspicion. He has warm brown eyes. I take his offered hand and shake it.
Yuri lives in a small apartment. They are obviously very poor. His wife, Natalya, has made a pot of stew for the family. She has a homely, kind face and does not ask any questions.
"Eat. Eat," she encourages.
It is only after I have had three helpings that I realize she and her husband are not eating. There is not enough to go around.
"I'm sorry," I tell them, embarrassed and ashamed that I have eaten all their food, but Natalya lies and pretends that she has already eaten, and Yuri says he has a bad stomach. He will have bread and cheese later.
I realize then I cannot stay with them and accept their hospitality. I tell them I have to leave that night.
Yuri asks his wife to give me some clothes that their boys don't need. I wash in their tiny bathroom and get into the woolen sweater, thick socks, jeans, leather gloves, sheepskin coat, and a fur hat that Natalya gives me. I thank them both, and promise that I will not forget their kindness. One day I will return to thank them properly.
"You'll always be welcome here," Natalya says.
"Be careful, Nikolai. Moscow is a very dangerous place,'' Yuri warns.
The first night I sleep rough. It is freezing cold and my hands turn blue, but the second night I climb into a manhole. It is much warmer and safer. For the next few days I survive by begging and stealing. I don't need much. Just enough food to keep me alive.
Things change a little when Dmitry, the leader of a feral street gang of children called Black Bears, spots me stealing food and follows me to my sleeping place. He orders me to hand over what I've stolen. As far as he is concerned I'm operating in what he considers his territory.
I refuse and prepare for a fight.
He is tall with fearless eyes and we have a kind of Mexican standoff, but in the end, he sees that I will be a good addition to his gang and invites me to join them.
Dmitry has no family either. His father was killed on the train tracks where he worked, and his mother was an alcoholic who drank herself to death. Dmitry was sent to live with his extended family, but he was beaten regularly, so he ran away. He has lived on the streets ever since.
I fall into a pattern with them: participating in low level street crime and constantly fighting to keep the territory we roam in. We steal anything and everything we can get our hands on. What we steal, we sell for very little money, but it's enough to feed us and buy the cheap alcohol and glue that everybody in the gang is addicted to. We sleep under bridges, in parks, forests, just about anywhere we can safely lay our heads down.
I tire quickly of the daily fights, the drinking, and the lack of ambition, but I have no way to escape the quicksand of my existence.
Until fate intervenes.
While taking a shortcut one evening by a darkened alley, I hear the sound of someone crying out in pain. Stealthily, I step into the alley. Two large men are beating up a young man. It's clear he's no match for them, and is getting hurt badly. It's not my fight, but after years in the brutal cauldron of the orphanage I cannot stomach bullying of any kind. They're too busy putting the boot into the man to see me approach. One of the men stops kicking and reaches into his pocket.
For a gun!
I watch as he points it at the man on the ground. I lunge forward and smash my fist into the side of the man's temple. His legs buckle and his body staggers before he hits the ground. The other guy whirls around and squares up to me. He's really huge. At least 250 pounds. Probably more.
He snarls at me.
Staring at my face menacingly, he doesn't see the foot that crunches into his balls. He screams in agony, his face a grotesque mask as he drops to his knees. I put him to sleep with an uppercut to his chin. I extend an arm to the victim.
"Who the hell are you?" he asks.
"Who the hell are you?" I shoot back.
"Whoever the fuck you are, it's your lucky day. My name is Marat Ivankov," he says, rising to his feet while clutching his gut and wincing. He says his name like it should mean something to me. It doesn't.
"We'd better get out of here before they wake up," I suggest.
"One minute."
I watch as Marat rifles through the other man's pockets.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"Taking his gun,'' he says calmly.
"Who are these men that they have guns?"
"We all have guns. This is Moscow."
He collects both weapons, tucks one into the back of his pants, and holds the other one out to me.
I hesitate, then I reach out, take it, and copy his action.
"Come, let's get out of here," he says.
"What did you do to make these guys want to hurt you so bad?'' I ask curiously.
"It's not personal. Just business. If those hired gorillas had not struck me from behind, it would have been a different outcome. It's hard to mount a defense when you're already on the ground taking a kicking.''
"Who are they?''
"Just rivals,'' he says flippantly as if this kind of thing occurred to him regularly. "So, are you going to tell me your name or what?"
"Nikolai Smirnov."
"I live nearby. Want to come around for a drink?"
I didn't have anything better to do, besides, I was intrigued by the man.
His place turns out to be a gated house in an upmarket part of the city. As soon as we approach, his security guards rush out to help him. They want to keep me out, but Marat waves away their concerns and takes me into his home.
Whoever Marat is, he's certainly doing well as his house is like a mini palace. That night I enjoy the best sleep I've ever had in my lavish bedroom suite. The next day over breakfast fit for a king, Marat makes me an offer. He wants me to work for him and his family. I saved his life and now he wants to repay me by bringing me into the organization at a high level.
He explains that the collapse of the Soviet union created numerous opportunities throughout Russia, particularly for organized crime and his family is one of the most successful.
At first I am shocked to find myself sitting to breakfast and being presented with an offer to work for a violent Mafia organization, but the more Marat talks, the more I want the same. I accept his offer, and my new life of ruthless ambition begins.
For more than a year I get into the business of stealing cars, housing them in specialist garages that change the chassis numbers and the number plates and ship them off across the world. I also get involved in (kryshy) protection rackets: extorting businesses when they begin trading in the areas we control.
Yes, sometimes people die, but it's mostly rivals and those who had it coming, anyway. Marat tells me I'm a natural. I've got criminality running in my blood. I smile and say nothing. It doesn't matter what he thinks. I know why I'm doing it. Money.
Without it my promise to my brother dies.
Our financial agreement is that all the money earned by the members (Boyviks) passes to Marat, the Brigadier, whose position is similar to a caporegime in an Italian-American Mafia crime family. Marat is also responsible for distributing funds to the bookkeeper who then uses it to bribe government officials.
Marat's uncle, Viktor Ivankov, is the boss (Pakhan). The boss sits down with the power elite of the country: usually corrupt officials in high places, and the Chiefs of police to ensure we don't get any trouble.