Robert Rozhdestvenskii, A Case Is Heard: ‘Businessmen’. September 20, 1960
Original Source: Literaturnaia gazeta, 20 September 1960, p. 2.
I was told: “A case is going to be heard in the Moscow City Court.”
And further: “You know, from a purely criminological standpoint it presents no special interest. It’s an elementary case of speculation in foreign currency.”
An elementary case.
But in the hallway of the court building there are mothers crying. They weep and gaze at the door behind which their sons are being tried.
Then they stare at the lawyers who stroll in the hallway during the recesses.
They stare as at an icon, prayerfully and anxiously.
“An elementary case-”
The majority of those on trial are in their thirties–31, 34, 35, 36, and 37 years old.
This is what is said about them: “an old hand with currency,” “a high-powered profiteer,” “an experienced swindler,” “been in the dock more than once.”
These are the ones who one after another stand up and say in barely audible voices: “Yes, I admit my guilt,” “Yes. I admit it,” “I admit everything.”
“An elementary case” of speculation in foreign currency-
And what was it you did, boys? How did it happen?
Here is the story.
Oleg Bondarenko lived in Moscow. He was a nice, ordinary boy. He studied at a ballet academy, and it was said that he was a competent artist.
But this ordinary lad was ruled by some uncommon desires. He had a crystal-clear childhood dream, as they say. His credo, if you will: Get everything you can out of life, no matter what it costs you.
And does not the end toward which the soul strives justify any means at all? What can one say to that?!
But as it turned out, there was something to be said.
Something for the investigator to say.
Something for the prosecutor and the presiding judge to say.
Something that established the circumstances in the case of the robbery by Oleg Bondarenko of a woman who was a foreign citizen.
And later on, the usual thing: “Court is in session. Everyone rise. I’m going to prison.’
And it was true, he was going to prison for a short term.
After his release, Oleg Bondarenko worked as a dancer in a Cheliabinsk theater. And what had become of his ‘goal in life’? Had Oleg any second thoughts about it? Have patience-
Bondarenko moved to Moscow and made a clean break with his artistic past. This time he went to work as a “middleman.”
Please do not look for a definition of this word in the Ushakov dictionary.
A “middleman” is something like this: An aggressive young man approaches a foreign tourist festooned with photographic equipment.
“Hello. Mister,” he says. -Wouldn’t you like to do some business?”
And what usually happens is that a part of the Mister’s possessions is handed over to the young man in exchange for rubles. It is handed over only temporarily, because this young man is quite willing to surrender these things to other young people-in exchange for rubles. Only this time the number of rubles is roughly ten times greater.
But then, it is possible to deal in more than simply junk. Of course.
“Does the Mister perhaps have some spare currency? I can exchange it at my own rate.”
Oleg Bondarenko was busy as a demon.
He was irked by the thought that he could not make much money in a one-man operation. He needed a wider range. A larger scale. Big revenues, so that hundred-ruble notes might rustle in his pockets and so his drinking companions might say:
“Oh, that boy knows how to make money.”
“I realized I couldn’t get along by myself,” Bondarenko explained to the investigator.
So he started to look for assistants.
He had had a friend once–Stepan Malyants. His old friend bad been located, but it was not certain that he would cooperate. In any case, there was no need to make him an offer immediately. It would be better to do it gradually.
And Oleg dropped in on Malyants more and more frequently. He brought him stories about the beautiful life of a thug and his fabulous profits.
Malyants listened.
Malyants ‘ripened.”
And then he was ready.
Three others were brought into the ‘business”: Kletsin, Volkov and Vasin. The home manufacture of foreign currency began.
However, the tourists were not forgotten.
The words: “Does the Mister perhaps have some spare currency?” were heard more and more often.
They were uttered by Nikolai Rakitin, who had already been tried for swindling. Georgii Komarov, an engineer at the Dynamo Plant, began to play what was by no means a minor role in the currency operation. He was a lad of 25, but he succeeded in winning fame as an “old hand with currency.”
New people came into the “business.’
Viktor Semenov, a student at a veterinary academy. Eduard Stepanov, a correspondence student in the journalism faculty at Moscow State University. Alexander Potekhin, who not long ago served a “stretch” for selling copper nuts and bolts as gold to a collector of valuables.
Oleg Bondarenko’s goal in life was close to their hearts and was understood by them. They dealt in currency.
And who bought it?
Eva Safanov, a modest salesman in a store of the Moscow Purchasing Administration, bought it both for resale and for himself, “just in case.”
Il’ia L’vovich Frank, a quiet pensioner in his 80th year, bought 18OO rubles’ worth of currency. This name is widely known among shady dealers. The worthies of the State Bank system have given the quiet pensioner no rest, and, in their searches at his place they have found a whole cluster of promissory notes.
The dealers acquired currency and paid good money for it.
The firm Bondarenko and Company came to know the charms of a beautiful life.
The rustle of bills was sweet; no one wanted to think about work, because as everyone knows, “work is fond of fools’ and “let the tractor work. It’s made of iron.’
A beautiful life!
The friends rented a small dacha outside Moscow, where they installed three agreeable and sympathetic girls. Bottles of various shapes and sizes cluttered the table. A phonograph played soothing music.
A beautiful life 1
But unhappy thoughts more and more often crept into their heads: “We’ll be caught, we’ll be caught, we’ll be caught!
A beautiful life!
And there were no friends. Not one. Because could the people sitting beside them really be friends? What friends they were! They were intent on snatching the bread out of your mouth.
And there was fear as well.
It is frightful, quite frightful, to live the beautiful life!
And finally it came!
Bondarenko, Malyants and Volkov were arrested. Rakitin and Komarov passed their last hours on the loose in restaurants, gripped by a nagging animal fear.
“Maybe we could confess and they’ll go easy on us,” one of them said from time to time.
But somewhere in the depths of the soul, hope flared up: Will we suddenly get out of trouble? Will a miracle suddenly occur?
The miracle was not to occur.
And here in the Moscow City Court the “elementary case” of dealings in foreign currency is being heard.
Those who sit in the courtroom look at the faces of these nonentities who crawl on their stomachs in front of foreign misters to get rags adorned with the labels of foreign firms. They look with a sense of revulsion and anger.
Answer for this, junkmen, middlemen, and currency dealers. Answer not simply to the court but to all of us, to the Soviet people. Have you forgotten the kind of country you live in? Do not expect sympathy or mercy.
We have done everything possible to ensure that no such people as you will exist among us.
Source: Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. XII, No. 38 (1960), pp. 14-15.