Issue #23/104, Nov 23 - Dec 7, 2000   

CONTRA-BAND

The Zhiguli already had about 600 liters of gasoline and diesel in it when Volodya went to go pay off the GAI. We were filling up at the lone gas station in an unknown Russian derevnya in the Rostov region, only a few kilometers over the border from Ukraine. There were no asphalt roads in town. Aside from a few cars and aging Kharkovsky tractors owned by the neighborhood kolkhoz, there was nothing that seemed to justify a 24-hour gas station in the village of Mozhaevko, even if it was just a shoddy collection of bricks and fuel tanks.

But it was doing good business. When we pulled up around 10 p.m., a VAZ truck was pumping the last drops of a couple thousand liters of diesel into giant vats sitting in its bed. While we were parked, two other Soviet era cars pulled up to fill the cars with canisters ranging in size from 15 to 100 liters.

“We’re all doing the same thing,” said Volodya. He meant that everyone was loading up to smuggle the fuel over the border into Ukraine. However, that night had something different in store for Volodya and me. A few minutes later, we were arrested. But first— a little background.

Mozhaevko is one of the favorite pick up destinations for Lugansk gasoline smugglers. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine has imposed its own set of tariffs on Russian-imported gasoline, leading to a primitive smuggling system which has emerged all along the border of the two countries. Lugansk, a Ukrainian shithole of 500,000 people, has become one of the largest centers of this trade, thanks to its exceptional poverty even by Ukraine’s miserable standards, and its proximity to the border.

The Lugansk Oblast ranks 25th out of 27 Ukrainian regions in terms of quality of life and work conditions, according to estimates done by the Institute of Reforms think tank. Ukraine as a whole gets similar ratings compared to other European countries. A shithole within a shithole.

Lugansk probably doesn’t deserve even that high of a rating. It boasts the only bar I’ve ever been to with an outhouse instead of toilets. The bulk of housing stock is Khrushovky and private houses that make shantytowns look luxurious. Along with frequent brownouts and perpetual lack of hot water, Lugansk residents claim that Ukraine’s president, Leonid Kuchma, is waging war against its economy. Last election, the Lugansk Oblast had the lowest turnout in Ukraine for the sitting president and since then has witnessed a rash of closings of state enterprises that outstrip other areas of the country.

“Of course it’s illegal,” said Valera, who spends his days standing on the side of a street pedaling Volodya’s fuel. “But that doesn’t really bother anybody.” On the contrary, everyone—excepting The State— seems to profit from small time smuggling. Given the resentment towards the government, there is little will even among the authorities to cough up any money to the national government.

All the local officials are on the take, from the border guards on both sides to traffic cops who pull over cars heading towards Lugansk. While spending a day hanging out with Valera and Volodya by a roadside fire, I saw two militsia cars being filled up with smuggled gas. “The city doesn’t have enough money to buy them gas,” said Volodya, “so we give them it for free and they don’t fuck with us.”

Even after we got arrested and were held for about 18 hours, they didn’t confiscate a single liter of gas from Volodya. Their complacence is not only to their own material interests, but also a reflection of the belief that everyone does what it takes to survive. Off the record, several of the officials detaining me agreed that small-scale contraband is actually a boon to the economy.

The only official who claimed to want to arrest them was obviously full of shit. He had a new mobile phone that no Ukrainian border guard could afford on his official salary. “We should throw all smugglers in jail,” he said. “We should treat them like Americans who arrest guys who smuggle guns from Mexico.” Later, Volodya told me that that specific officer, Igor, was a well-known asshole and as corrupt as all the rest.

The economics driving the smugglers are easy to understand. Diesel fuel in Mochaevno retails for R7 (25 cents) per liter. A few km over the border in Ukraine, it goes for Hr 2 (36 cents). Therein lies the incentive to buy it on the cheap in Russia and carry it across the border without paying any taxes. Then, the smugglers sell the diesel for Hr 1.75 (32 cents). Volodya stocks 76 octane, 93 octane and diesel. Every few minutes a car would pull up to buy gas.

A good run, in which Volodya pays minimal bribes (according to him, the authorities prefer to call them “thank yous”), will net him $50 on the 850l that he carries across the border. From that, he pays Valera, his smuggling accomplice and roadside sales assistant, Hr 30, or a little over $5.

The smuggling process is quite simple, as the border guards have no incentive to stop it. When Volodya took me along for the 50 km ride from Lugansk to the border, we took the direct highway to Russia, where the official check point is located. A couple of kilometers before crossing, we turned off onto a beaten-up side road that brought us to a less well-known crossing point. “Russia and Ukraine used to be a single country and they’ve got a long border,” said Volodya. “They can’t build a fence around it all.”

After passing through a couple villages, we pulled up to a bridge— Volodya said we were at the border. A five-meter bridge over a creek delineated the border. On the Ukrainian side, two border guards sat in a car waiting. Volodya got out, exchanged a couple of words with them and sat back in the driver’s seat. They told him that the Russians were busy eating dinner and thus he should pay up on his way back. The amount of the bribe depends on the volume of gas being carried. Generally, a Soviet style compact like Volodya’s means about a bribe of R150 on the Russian side and the Hr equivalent for the Ukrainians. The GAI, mentioned at the beginning, also took R150. “Of course, it depends on your personal relationship with the authorities,” said Volodya, “but I think I pay about the average.”

There are other routes, too. Many smugglers travel an extra 20 km to the Russian town of Donetsk, where it is easier to get across the border without paying any bribes. There, the border (which was only officially delineated three weeks ago) cuts through fields and forests. Smugglers simply drive off-road across the border. The risk involved is that if caught, the fuel might get confiscated.

According to Sasha, the Russians demand a fine equal to the price of the fuel seized. “If it is the first time you’ve been caught recently, say in the last two months, they’ll let you go with a bribe,” he said. “Otherwise, you’re fucked, and you can’t get your car back until you pay up.” The Ukrainians, he said, usually just take the fuel or a bribe.

On the road home, GAI specifically look for cars bearing heavy loads to pull over. Each time, there is another handout. Surprisingly, Volodya claimed that he doesn’t pay anyone to be his krysha. After a wave of violence last year, he said the mafia killed itself off, with a little help from the SBU (Ukraine’s FSB). “It was easier back then,” he said. “Then, you paid one guy, and he took care of all the bribes. Now each piece of trash [cop] only looks out for himself.”

In order to turn his 15-year-old Zhiguli into a tanker, Volodya gutted it completely. The back seats were removed to make room for three 100-liter canisters and an even larger canister was placed in the trunk. All remaining space is crammed with smaller jugs. Even when there is no fuel in it, the car reeks like a gas station. The beating it has taken over two years of smuggling is evident. Nothing but the basics work.

Currently, Volodya makes two or three runs a week, although he claimed that was seasonal. Over the long days of summer, sales were up and he would go every day. When the winter gets really bad, he plans on making fewer trips.

Accidents rarely happen when transporting the fuel. According to Sasha, who sells gas at the same place as Volodya and Valery, a Lada went up not long ago, but it was the first time he remembers such a thing. “Apparently, it wasn’t anything like Hollywood,” he said. “The drivers noticed smoke and got away from the car before it blew up. It took out all the windows within 50 meters, but no one got hurt. The police thought it was terrorism at first. Ha. Terrorism in Gerasimovka.” Gerasimovka is right across a stream from Mozhaevka, on Ukraine’s territory, and has a population of a few hundred.

One of the most striking things about Volodya is how much he resembles what journalists like Business Week’s Paul Starobin consider the emerging Russian middle class. He’s got a Russian-made car (although it’s not just for driving to the dacha), a VCR and a child. Most of the products he buys are domestic, but he admits his three-year-old has developed a liking for Snickers. There are carpets on his wall, and his wife works at Avon. His salary is well within the bounds of that fabled class of entrepreneurs, as well. The only major difference is that his work clothes reek of gas fumes.

Finding the smugglers in Lugansk is easy enough. They line the streets on the outskirts, sometimes standing only 50 meters away from competitors. They work without any pretense. Generally, as soon as they sell out of the fuel that they bought in Russia, they go on another trip across the border.

Others, who live in one of the many sections of collapsing single story private houses around town, have more established setups in their garages. These people have large tanks to store the fuel and the ability to make daily runs regardless of sales.

All sorts of people choose smuggling as a profession. I saw pensioners, peasants and kids all selling fuel. Ivan, a roadside smuggler in his 60’s, justified his profession as the only way he could make a living. “You think my Hr 70 pension is enough to feed myself on,” he said, unknowingly repeating a media favorite. “We aren’t the real contraband, I just don’t want to get caught picking through the trash like other pensioners here.”

Mostly, though, men in their 30’s seem drawn to the profession. Volodya had earlier worked as the head of a security agency until a drastic pay cut at the time of the crisis forced him to find new work. Among the men I talked to, none had higher educations.

They also had moral standards on par with the eXile. While hanging out with Volodya and Valera, Valera’s daughter came up to the fire. She claimed to be 16, but was probably younger. Within 15 minutes, Valera’s brother had offered to her to me her the night; she quickly offered herself for free. Valera didn’t seem to give a shit.

The presence of the smugglers doesn’t stop gas stations from springing up around town. Right across the road from the selling point Volodya had staked out, a new gas station was under construction. He didn’t seem too worried. “One station’s turnover is probably the equivalent of all the smugglers in town,” he said. “We don’t effect their business at all.”

Consumers who go to the gas stations generally do so because they worry about the quality of gas sold on by the smugglers. However, Volodya claimed that all the smugglers who cut the fuel with low-grade imitations have long since been shut down by the militsia.

Nor is gasoline the only thing subject to smuggling. While I was hanging out by the fire, one of Valera’s cousins, Vasya, pulled up. He had just come from Abkhazia, where he had loaded his trunks with mandarin oranges and drove 48 hours back to Lugansk. He said he had 300 kg of the fruit, which he bought for about 43 cents a kilo and planned to unload them for about 75 cents.

Sugar is another popular contraband product. Whenever the price differs drastically between Russia and Ukraine, whole legions of smugglers will quickly correct the situation. Near Donetsk, a bazaar is created on either side a couple kilometers from the border, and drivers make laps buying low and selling high. “There are whole caravans traveling across the border,” said Vasya with a mouthful of gold teeth. “When prices shift, people take the day off of work and we can transport up to 10,000 tons in a day.”

But what kind of public relations coup did I pull? What did I do to get on the front page of respectable Ukrainian papers and splashed across wire services like a sunken sub?

While Volodya was off bribing the GAI, another Lada pulled up to the gas station. But it wasn’t another smuggler as I had assumed. Rather, it was Captain Ivan Ivanovich of the Russian border guards. Ivan Ivanivich bore a striking resemblance to Inspector Clouseau of Pink Panther fame jammed into an ill-fitting fascist military uniform. He wanted to know what I was doing next to a car with 600 liters of gasoline in it. There are not many ways to answer that question convincingly, especially with a heavy foreign accent.

Soon, he had confiscated all my documents for making an illegal border crossing and signaled the beginning of a very long night. It was about 11 in the evening. He checked the documents of the other smugglers and, after being assured that they were kosher by his second in command, left them to continue with their business. Volodya and I, however, were stuck at the beginning of a Kafka novel.

Ivan Ivanovich had only been assigned to Mozhaevka a week ago. Thus, he didn’t know any of the smugglers and, more importantly, hadn’t figured out the status quo. While the previous commander of the post (now number two) expressed interest in settling all the problems with a reasonable bribe, Ivan Ivanovich wanted to convince his superiors that he was able to protect the borders from roving American aliens. Little did he know that in doing so, he was giving me more information about the incompetence and complacency of Russian and Ukrainian border guards than I could possibly have dreamt of. No amount of material compensation could dissuade him. Ivan Ivanovich was stupid enough to believe that catching an American was important enough to justify waking up his boss in the middle of the night.

Soon, Volodya and I were driving down to the border post, gasoline sloshing around the canisters. We got out and, in spite of numerous pleas to work something out, could not strike a deal. A fine was mentioned, but this outpost was too insignificant to collect the money. We would have to go to official border post and talk with a higher-up. When I pleaded my case - that it would be better for my future border crossings to work it out without paperwork and hinted at vast sums of money - the number two only shook his head mournfully and said, “Now it’s too late. Too many people already know.”

We sat in Mozhaevka for about an hour, during which time I had to answer a number of questions about my higher education, the reason I had a stamp in my passport from England, and my spiritual and emotional commitment to Russia. No one thought to ask where I worked. The office was a pit, although number two claimed that it would be remonted soon. The only decoration was a poster calendar with a practically naked chick and Xeroxed photos of the Chechen high command. A couple of them had Xs scrawled through their heads and one had a bullet hole.

After the questioning, number two (who was in charge of my interrogation and constantly badmouthing his newly appointed superior for detaining a source of income) decided that it would be in everybody’s interest to dictate to me my confession. As my written Russian compares unfavorably to primate sign language, I acquiesced. Unfortunately, my captor proved to be only marginally more articulate. We spent at least an hour writing my three-sentence confession. In it, I claimed Volodya and I were simply refueling on our way to Donetsk to visit his brother when we were caught.

Finally, around 1 a.m., we piled into two cars to make the pilgrimage to the main check point. Three recruits and Ivan Ivanovich accompanied Volodya and me. My car had Ivan Ivanovich and a soldier driver. The gas and Volodya’s Zhiguli stayed in Mozhaevka. I was presented with three bottles of fortified beer for the road, although the post was only 20km away.

In that, at least, Ivan Ivanovich showed a considerable amount of foresight; the trip took about two hours. The roads we traveled had never seen pavement. Stalingrad couldn’t have had so many pockmarks after the siege. Whenever the car would go through a particularly deep hole or even touch water, it would stall for ten minutes. At one point, my guard and I had to get out and push. During this joy ride, Ivan Ivanovich and the solider finally got to ask the questions they were really interested in and talk in the gutter slang they preferred. Fuck my reasons for crossing the border, what were American hos like? Do you really have to sign a contract before you fuck them? Am I married? Can I handle vodka? Samogon? What Russians play on the Boston Bruins? Do I fuck many Russians? They were intrigued about the 16-year-old I had met in Lugansk. The only genuine sympathy I got all night was when they realized I wasn’t going to get laid on their account.

During this ride, I had my only revelation of the night. As Ivan Ivanovich tossed one of my beer bottles into the Russian wilderness and said that he wished someday he could drink a few with me, mano a mano, I realized what was going on. These morons were asking me the same questions I have been asked every time I’ve ever been detained for more than ten minutes in the CIS. The limits of these baboons’ imaginations are the banal aspects of sex and alcohol. In other words, these guys are born eXile readers. Bureaucracy is not about incompetence. It is even more base: it is a shield that impotent losers who have been married since high school hide behind in order to exercise power over those whom they resent. Those who still have a chance to screw.

At last we got to the border post. It was around 3 a.m. and Ivan Ivanovich settled in to search for his superiors. He picked up the phone and dialed. One was drunk and his wife wouldn’t let him talk on the phone, while the other wasn’t answering. So in order to hide his frustration with the fact that his bosses weren’t excited about him catching an American - a “sex machine”, as my business card says - he started barking orders at the dezhurnik. First, he had to make us all coffee. Then get cake at the local cafe. Then lay a mousetrap. Then feed the dead mouse to the cat. Ivan Ivanovich was obviously scrounging for commands.

Finally, at five in the morning, he found a pair of officers in camouflage who shared his rank. They came in, if only to prove that his calls were not fruitless. Again, I went through an hour of inane questioning. No, I have never crossed a border illegally before. Yes, I have spent the last year and a half over here. Yes, Russian girls are hotter. They flipped through my passport in that drooling, deliberate way that all militsia are taught to do and asked me why I didn’t have any page attachments in my passport. They made no distinction between questions about my illegal border crossings and questions about being an American. I pleaded my case and asked if, at the very least, my friend Volodya could get released. But these shmucks had no more authority than Ivan Ivanovich. We had to wait. In the meantime they wanted to hear stories of sexual conquests. I made up as much as I could.

They assured me that the boss would not be long in coming. This was another tactic of theirs - salvation was never far away. Volodya and I never ate or slept during our confinement, because we were always on the verge of gaining our release. Just one more form, one more superior, one more hour.

Poor Volodya, he told me that he had never heard or seen anything like this. Obviously, there are not many sex machines in Lugansk. Our detainment, at the hands of men whom he had paid hundreds of dollars to over the last couple years, was nothing but an attempt to eschew the ordinarily uneventful life of a border guard in a place where the two nations are indistinguishable.

It was still not light when their superior came in wearing a crumpled Soviet suit. I took his lack of a cop uniform as a sign of authority. He interrogated me. Again the same questions, the same forms were filled out. This was my third interrogation, and each time the details of my story changed - my answers as to where I lived, worked and why I was in Lugansk depended on who I was talking to. I had quickly realized that whatever I told them didn’t matter. After all, they all knew Volodya and I had come for gas, and that wasn’t ever going to be printed. That would endanger everyone’s livelihood. When I understood that, I made no efforts at consistency.

As the sun rose, the newest official left. After Ivan Ivanovich, I gave up remembering names; they were all the same person asking the same ridiculous questions. Around that point, Volodya and I discovered a backgammon set. We played continuously until our release, only pausing for interrogations.

Dawn lead to a blurring of my memories; we still hadn’t slept and each list of questions were shockingly similar. Now, more soldiers started showing up for work. They were caught up enough in their own misery to worry about me. After getting the approval of the superior, one of them gave me a Kalashnikov to play around with. The boss explained to me why it was superior to American M-16. He might have had a point. Somehow he actually related shooting it to a good fuck and asked if I agreed. I have never fired an automatic and told him so.

He left to go to the nearest town, where even more important people awaited. Now it was daylight and there was no reason to confine my case to border post peons. The soldiers left to guard against smugglers went home, as did Ivan Ivanovich. Volodya taught me long backgammon. Now, every time the phone rang Volodya and I eavesdropped in, hoping that it would signal our freedom. Around 10 a.m., the new dezhurnik said that the boss was coming back.

An hour later, he returned accompanied by a bureaucrat in camouflage, who repeated the familiar questions. This time they arraigned the final version of the forms. They didn’t even glance at any of the previous forms that had been so painstakingly copied by illiterate apes. Conspicuously absent were any questions about sex. Even machines need to rest sometimes. I had lost my presence. And, as if to confirm my suspicions, they told me that I could go. Sexual strength and bureaucracy are inseparable. There was one problem, though. I still had to deal with the Ukrainians.

Things looked good, however. My sexual powers had waned after a night of no food, sleep or drugs, and I figured the Ukrainians couldn’t possibly want to live vicariously through me.

But we still had to wait. Around noon, as word of my plight was reaching the capitals of the world, some Ukrainian who wasn’t old enough to shave showed up with a soldier who had a huge welt on the left side of his chin. He gave me a vigorous interrogation - no one had disturbed his sleep - asking everything from how I had heard about Lugansk to the names of my co-workers, and writing everything down in his daily planner and always prefacing my name with “citizen of the USA.” I told him my grandparents were Ukrainian nationalists who fled Tsarist repression. Then he left.

When he made it to the Ukrainian side, he called to arrange the pick up. The Ukrainians promised to come at 2. Now, the only question left was to sign a couple more forms (including a hand drawn map of our exploits), pay an official fine of R417.45 for violating Article 183 part 1 of the Code of Administrative Legal Infractions (on illegal border crossings) and wonder which time zone 2 o’clock referred to. Volodya was set free and given a ride back to Mozhaevka. We agreed to meet on the other side.

Eventually, the Ukrainians came, either early or late at 2:30, and scared the shit out of me. I was placed in the charge of a bald man who couldn’t convince a whore to fuck him. Even in my sleep-deprived state, this man might find the sex machine in me.

I was right. After he received my papers, we got in an army jeep and he started from square one. How were Russian girls? Did I like Ukrainians better? Did I agree that Lugansk girls were the best? The only thing that saved me from continuous harassment was his occasional fondling of a mobile phone, bought with the proceeds of bribes. I could still be a long way from freedom.

I was spared finding out because of the international uproar that arose once word of my plight was broadcast. Specifically, a friend in Kiev, Olha, called Lugansk customs and promised that my detainment would cause a bigger scandal than when they found Gongadza’s headless corpse (a Ukrainian muckracking journalist recently murdered under mysterious circumstances), unless I was released immediately.

The Ukrainians made me sign one form and let me go. They didn’t even fine me. Volodya, whom they had also detained, paid less than $10. When we left, he told me that he dumped about half the gas in a where he could pick it up tomorrow. The rest was still in the car. Then, he asked me to sit in the back because he had to give a ride to one of the customs officers. It was the Ukrainian who interrogated me on the Russian side. He told Volodya that he expected a favor. Volodya started driving and the gas started sloshing around. Only then did I fully comprehend what a ridiculous game I just went through. After all that, these poor saps didn’t even confiscate the gas. I may have been officially marked as a sex machine, but in reality, I felt...totally impotent.

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