Siphon, scam, embezzle – a thread without end

Two executives of billionaire Viktor Vekselberg’s Renova Group were detained by Russia’s Investigative Committee in an 800-million rouble ($12.3 million) bribery probe involving the former governor of the Komi Republic, who has been under arrest since September last year. The chief executive of VimpelСom, Russia, is also wanted in connection with the case.

Russians’ slightly schizophrenic (or rather psychologically deranged) collective consciousness means that although it’s taken as read that stealing is an ingrained habit, the masses will always ‘respond sincerely’ (in the words of Soviet newspapers) to the desire to root out corruption.  

No one, it would seem, is more committed to nourishing Russian stereotypes than Russians themselves. Suffice it to recall a national aphorism: “If I fall asleep, wake up in a hundred years and am asked what’s happening in Russia, my answer will be drinking and stealing,” credited to the renowned 19th century satirist Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. In fact, he said no such thing, and the phrase instead came from the lips of singer-songwriter Alexander Rosenbaum, who erroneously cited Shchedrin in an interview in 2000.

The utterance has since become an online meme, replicated to such an extent that Adme (Russia’s equivalent of Buzzfeed) included it in its Top 30 Saltykov-Shchedrin quotes. Why? Because Russians have no doubt that Russians drink and steal. And even take a certain amount of pride in the fact, while shrugging helplessly. It’s in the blood, they seem to be saying.

The ‘fat cats’ are always first in line to feel the wrath of the people, followed by everyone else (always with the exception of oneself). The paradox is that almost every adult citizen of Russia has at some point dabbled in corruption, be it bribing a traffic cop, ‘helping’ a child into kindergarten or school, greasing the palm of a plumber or electrician, not to mention all kinds of tenders and contracts – even ones involving Western firms. Putin and the government seemingly have no hand in it. It’s all to do with the three magic laws of Russian market economics: siphon, scam, embezzle.

In a nutshell, the entire adult population of Russia could conceivably be sent down for bribe giving or taking, and most probably both.

Nevertheless, a manager who received a kickback from a contractor, say, is quick to go online and share a Facebook post about Alexei Navalny’s latest probe into one of Putin’s light-fingered chums, or a new palace built by the president’s former security guard. And they are righteously indignant. A change at the top is what we need to defeat corruption, they thunder.

And what of Joe Public, who slips 500 roubles to a traffic cop on his way home, switches on the TV and learns of the Renova scandal and its tangential link to VimpelCom, one of Russia’s three largest mobile operators? Without going into the details of unpaid utility bills running into the billions and the intricacies of thermal power plants out in the frozen tundra, the story runs as follows. The former governor of the Komi Republic, Vyacheslav Gaizer, has been put away – for a long time. And now he’s coughing up the names of anyone he can. And the more the thread is pulled, the more people are dragged out.

This is hardly a shakedown of VimpelCom. Or Renova. Or the latter’s oligarch owner Viktor Vekselberg. No, that would be the logic of Putin’s second term, and even his first, when ‘hits’ were precision strikes. No, it’s simply that the FSB (the investigation has those letters written all over it) is now going after anyone within touching distance.

There is a certain beauty in the Ding an sich. The system is devouring itself like the mythical Cronus did his offspring. Governors, oligarchs – no one is spared. No one is pitied or pardoned. And the people rejoice: the more ‘bloodsuckers’ behind bars come election time, the better.

There’s only one downside. The thread has no end. It could lead to absolutely anyone in Russia.