Issue #21/102, Oct 26 - Nov 9, 2000 
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PILLOW TALK
As announced in the previous issue, the eXile will be regularly publishing excerpts from Yellow Pages, a book recently released by our Russian sister publication Stringer. The book is a compilation of transcripts from various proslushki (taped phone calls) that have surfaced over the years. Some of these transcripts have been published previously, while others—including the offering in this issue of the eXile—have not.
When we first read the transcript of this call, entitled “Alfred and an Unidentified Man,” we thought we were eavesdropping on a pair of fat old queens. This is largely because one of the conversants, Alfred Kokh, has a peculiar telephone manner, constantly calling his oligarchical buddies by names like “bunny rabbit” and “golubchik,” ending his calls with audible kisses, and so on. Upon closer examination of this particular call, our suspicions were still not completely extinguished—neither we nor the experts at Stringer could explain away some of the creepier passages—but we’re willing to give ol’ Alik the benefit of the doubt, and just concentrate on the political undertones of the conversation.
“Alfred and Unidentified Man” is full of interesting material. It was recorded by the security service of Most-Bank sometime in the late summer or fall of 1997, and was among the materials seized by officials in the Most raid last spring. As eXile readers may recall, Most chief Vladimir Gusinsky was one of the losers in the auction for a 25.1% share in the state telecommunications company Svyazinvest—an auction overseen by Kokh, who was then head of the State Property Committee. After that auction, which was won by Vladimir Potanin, Kokh was hounded out of office after a public scandal in which he was caught accepting a book advance from a company owned by Potanin’s Uneximbank. The scandal was largely believed to have been instigated by another Svyazinvest loser, Boris Berezovsky, but as eXile readers will be able to see from this transcript, Gusinsky was also keeping Kokh under close surveillance at the time.
It is not clear to whom Kokh is speaking in this call, but it appears to be either an aide to or business partner of Potanin. Kokh calls the man “Akaky” (Shit) at one point in the call, but this might be a joke. Whoever it is, he has just gotten out of the hospital, and as a result has reason to complain to Kokh about his health. Kokh, for his part, has his own problems to complain about, most of them connected to the book advance scandal. The two joke about their respective miseries for a while, then get down to business.
As far as we can tell, the business appears to revolve around Uneximbank’s desire to acquire an interest in a smaller bank in order to carry out some kind of financial operation. Kokh and “Akaky” discuss the various options for banks Unexim might buy. Among the options they discuss is a bank connected with “Ashot,” who they describe as running around town, offering his bank to everyone in sight. Ashot is Ashot Yegaryan, chief of Unikombank, who at the time also controlled a Unikom subsidiary called “Bank Vozrozhdeniya”—a Moscow-region banking chain whose name translates as “Renaissance Bank” but is not connected to MFK-Renaissance. Around this time, Yegaryan was trying to sell Bank Vozrozhdeniya, with no success.
Readers might recall Yegaryan’s name from the “Person resembling Yuri Skuratov” scandal. According to several sources, the apartment Skuratov was filmed in belonged to Yegaryan. In any case, in this instance, “Akaky” explains to Kokh that “Vovka”—Potanin—rejected “Ashot’s” bank because there was a 700-billion ruble “hole” in the bank’s balance sheet (these appear to be pre-crisis rubles). Kokh explains that “Vovka” instead recommended the purchase of a different bank, Alba-Alliance.
A few other notes to this conversation. The “Sergeyevich” Kokh refers to is Anatoly Sergeyevich Kulikov, then-Interior Minister. Smolensky is obviously Alexander Smolensky of SBS-Agro, and “Boiko” here is Oleg of National Credit Bank, not Maksim of the State Property Committee.
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 Sergeyevich |
 Vovochka |
ALFRED AND AN UNIDENTIFIED MAN
A: What can I tell you? Put some weight on, bunny rabbit.
M: I’ll gain weight, of course.
A: About nine kilograms.
M: That’s the idea. The doctor told me that this was the main reason.
A: That I’m big?
M: Yeah.
A: I know. According to the plan you ought to be about ten kilograms lighter.
M: Exactly right.
A: Imagine pushing that much blood through your fat paunch. So quit pigging out, start jogging, buy that walker, and start walking on it. Are we ever going to actually go through with that real estate project?
M: Yes, let’s, we’ve got to.
A: Where’s our Nadyulka?
M: Yeah, we’ve got to find Nadyulka, and tell him.
A: You should give some phone numbers to my assistant or yours, so that they start working on this without us. This can be done by telephone.
M: Naturally.
A: So OK, while you’re sick, so that you don’t waste time, why don’t you start working on this.
M: Agreed.
A: And you’ll toss mine and yours the numbers, and I’ll hold down the fort in the meantime.
M: Agreed. And you and I still have to play sports.
A: I’m playing, unlike some others. True, I combine this with drunkenness, and that’s unhealthy, but all the same. The cops are all over me. I know that for sure. They’re already starting, how I got my apartment, how I traded them, they’ve dug up all the agreements, all the papers from the BTI [Bureau of Technical Inventory].
M: Those are all dead ends.
A: I understand. Apparently, they were told to “sic.” Sergeyevich, my comrade from the government, won’t quiet down for anything.
M: Not for anything, no.
A: They’re taping all my phone calls.
M: Yeah, from the looks of things, he’ll quiet down soon enough.
A: You think so?
M: I’m just judging by the way events are unfolding.
A: We have to hope. You understand, he’s got nothing to keep him busy. The country’s in total “kaif,” nobody’s been shot, nobody’s been killed. Nobody’s stealing anything. Just find out how Kokh got his apartment.
M: Exactly.
A: They found public enemy #1 in the country. Anyway, Akaky.
M: I’m always with you.
A: You and me, we’ll sit in different prisons, even in a Turkish one. [They laugh].
M: It’s pleasant to remember that. Have you seen Ashot yet?
A: I haven’t seen Ashot yet, because I don’t know yet whether to buy it or not. Vovochka told me that he ripped off a 700-billion hole…. He says that at one time, they wanted to buy it, but they looked at the papers and said, “No way.”
M: That’s a serious argument.
A: So Ashotik, he says, is now running around the market and offering to sell it to everyone. That includes Smolensky, Boiko, and us. Vova has his own opinion about this, and I have mine. He says, “If you want to know my advice, comrade, then it’s better to take ‘Alba’, but on the condition that the team stays.” They have that chief Anensky there, he’s reliable and he has brains. He says that he himself is worth some money.
M: Fine, then you and I will talk about it. I’m home all the time.
A: OK, good.
M: Bye.
Incidentally, Kokh’s comrade from the government, Anatoly Sergeyevich, really did “quiet down” soon enough—he was fired by Yeltsin on March 23, 1998, about six months after this conversation took place.
Anyone interested in acquiring the Stringer “Yellow Pages” can contact Alexei Fomin or Leonid Krutakov at stringer@stringer-agency.ru, or by telephone at 237-5487.
Stay tuned for the next installment of “Pillow Talk” in the next issue of the eXile. In the meantime, be careful what you say on the phone—and keep your weight up!
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