The beast and the tin man

He praised Adolf Hitler's ideology of National-Socialism in an Izvestia article. One of his books, "The Last Thrust to the South", advocates military aggression against Russia's southern neighbors as a way of achieving political stability in the region. He made headlines by threatening to take Alaska back from the United States, nuke Japan, and flood Germany with radioactive waste.

Yet anybody watching TV pictures of Vladimir Zhirinovsky lumbering around the dancefloor in an ill-fitting dinner suit would dismiss him as a harmless buffoon.

But you have to give it to Mr. Zhirinovsky: If nothing else, he is true to his word.

A master shock artist, he last year publicly banked his formula for success on the dreaded three-"bureaucrats, bankers and criminal structures specializing in economic crimes"-and promised a party that could support such a unseemly collective.

In September, he unveiled his Liberal Democrats" party list-and put his money where his mouth was. To be fair, not all of the party's top parliamentary hopefuls have been convicted in a court of law, but many have found that the law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy to follow.

Consider the players. In the No. 2 spot behind Zhirinovsky himself is Anatoly Bykov, a Krasnoyarsk aluminum tycoon facing a federal arrest warrant for money laundering. Last spotted in Montenegro, Bykov was not in town to accept his nomination.

Further down the list-No. 3 on the party's Far East lineup-is Dmitry Yakubovsky, a St. Petersburg attorney who earned notoriety for masterminding the 1994 heist of $300 million worth of rare manuscripts from that city's Russian National Library. Once head of President Boris Yeltsin's anti-corruption task force, Yakubovsky was released from prison late last year.

Then there is Ashot Yegiazaryan, a former banker and reputedly close acquaintance of suspended Prosecutor General Yury Skuratov, whose brother owned the apartment where the now-infamous video of (the person resembling) the prosecutor romping with a pair of prostitutes was filmed. You can't choose your family, it's true, but no matter-Yegiazaryan's political prospects aren't likely to be tarnished by his connection to the Russian government's favorite blue movie.

Between alleged money launderers, convicted art thieves and relatives of amateur pornographers, Zhirinovsky seems to have a lock on key figures in his glorified "shadow economy." Still, no one can accuse him of not speaking to the people. According to political analysts, LDPR stands as good a chance as many parties of resonating with its constituency-up to 20 percent of which may have a criminal record of their own.

The rough-and-all-too-ready Russian opinion polls do not, however, give Mr Zhirinovsky"s party much chance of conquering the Duma by the ballot. They show him with about 4 percent of the vote, much less than they give either Luzhkov"s Fatherland-All Russia bloc, Grigory Yavlinsky"s reformist Yabloko, or Gennady Zyuganov"s Communists.

In past elections the pollsters have greatly underestimated Mr Zhirinovsky's support, perhaps because many Russians were ashamed of declaring themselves. This time, though, the pollsters believe Mr Zhirinovsky's fans have got over their shyness. They insist that the figure of 4 percent is accurate.

The problem for Mr. Zhirinovsky is that by now he has been in the heart of Russian politics for many years; and, as with the cavalry officer who was so stupid that even the other cavalry officers noticed, familiarity has not helped him

Nor is Mr Zhirinovsky blissfully unaware of the fact himself, many analysts say. According to them, Russia"s erstwhile bogeyman-in-chief has long given up his presidential ambitions and now is simply running a business.

Alexander Vengerovsky, member of the LDPR and former deputy speaker of the Russian parliament, once told the Izvestia newspaper that listings in the party list for the 1995 parliamentary election were sold for $1million apiece.

And a sizable Duma faction can generate more revenue than, say, most of Russia"s oil companies. MPs were saying in private conversations that votes (and not necessarily only those of the LDPR) went for $50,000 each during Yeltsin"s impeachment hearings last May.

So how much did Mr Bykov have to put up for parliamentary immunity? "Not a penny," he says in a recent NTV interview from a "small European country." The curious thing is, Bykov may well be speaking the truth.

According to Sergei Markov, head of the Center for Political Studies, LDPR is now likely to win 6 or 7 percent of the Duma seats-thanks to Bykov, who might scare off 1 percent of LDPR voters but will attract another 3 or 4 percent.

Once upon a time in Russia

The beginnings of Mr Bykov"s illustrious career were similar to those of King David. In 1 Kings 25 we learn that David and his men were on the Carmil mount together with shepherds of a man called Naval and treated them nicely.

But then David sent his lads to ask Naval to give them something for their troubles. Naval refused. "Yes, in vain I guarded in the desert this man"s belongings, and nothing was stolen of his things," David said. "He now repays me with evil for the good I did him."

And he went to talk to Naval. Fortunately for the scrooge, his wife met David"s men on the road and gave them what was their due, so David did not have to kill Naval.
God, however, was not so forgiving: "Ten days later he struck Naval and Naval died."

Mr Bykov"s origins were equally modest. Born into a working class family in 1961 in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, he had to start making a living when 12 years old.

First, Bykov would ask people in the street for small change (Bykov"s favorite movie is Once Upon a Time in America). A few years later he was offering street vendors protection from local hoodlums for 20 kopecks apiece.

The word "racket" did not yet exist in the Russian vocabulary, when Bykov was already exploring the main routes of the renascent post-Soviet capitalism.

As an adolescent, he took up boxing. A graduate of the Sports Department of the Krasnoyarsk Pedagogical Institute, he returned to his native Nazaravo and for two years worked in a secondary school as a sports teacher.

In Nazarovo he started a security company, whose first employees were boxers from the sports club where Bykov worked as instructor.

Bykov provided protection, or krysha in Russian (literally, roof), to local businessmen with whom he would haggle directly and, depending on their relative strength and connections, come to an agreement, financial or otherwise.

For many Russian businesses, a krysha is a straightforward commercial arrangement, with payments, which may typically run to 10-20 percent of profits, invoiced monthly by a security company. The resulting protection is a hybrid of insurance, factoring, physical security, a lawyer and a friendly civil servant: good service costs more, but is more effective.

Those who skimped, risked paying large and unpredictable costs.
In 1991 Bykov met with the Chernov brothers who told him that there is a metal called aluminum. Bykov, in his own words, "became curious" and started supplying the Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant with foodstuffs.

"For two and half years I did not touch aluminum," our ascetic says. But he must have changed his mind by 1992 for then he already owned 10 percent of company"s shares.

Having risen from a physical education school teacher to a member of the board of directors of the Krasnoyarsk automobile factory, Bykov became extremely popular.

Moscow journalists have been taken to see 9-year-old girls composing badly rhymed poems about Anatoly Bykov-something along the lines of "Anatoly Petrovich arrived-and the sun rose from Krasnoyarsk."

It's not that the girl who wrote this was prompted, it's just that she lives in a children's home founded by Bykov. Bykov's popularity rests on several factors. One is his generosity.

Second, he is said to be an able administrator-no mean achievement in post-Soviet Russia. After seizing the Krasnoyarsk car factory (KrAZ) from the previous director, a fan of armor-plated Mercedes, offshore bank accounts and unpaid salaries, the former boxer turned the factory into a gem. He reconstructed its assembly lines, lowered production costs and increased output. Even after Aug. 17, the factory wasn't late with wages by even a day.

Third, he created a parallel system of power. Any local resident can bring his complaints to Bykov's office and in all likelihood be satisfied. It is said that one woman complained that her husband beat her. Some people of massive physique and sinister disposition went to see the husband and said: "Don"t beat your wife." And the husband did as he was told.

Krasnoyarsk Governor Alexander Lebed has called Bykov the leader of the Krasnoyarsk mafia and promised to have him put in jail. But after having successfully defended KrAZ against pressure from lobbyists of the Trans World Group, Bykov is widely regarded as a Siberian Robin Hood.

What is the secret of his success? Maybe, it is what Dostoyevsky once called "the impudence of naivete." "As long as I"m alive and well," Bykov said in an interview from Switzerland, "the [Krasnoyarsk] region will be mine. The papers say I"m a gangster. But if I were a gangster, I would have had Lebed killed long ago. I prefer civilized methods. And if today spheres of influence are being renegotiated in Krasnoyarsk, the situation is by no means unique. This is happening everywhere in Russia. I mean, you can find graveyards anywhere in the country. "

Or maybe it is simply because, like King David, Mr Bykov is a true believer-and God takes it upon himself to punish Bykov"s enemies.

For Bykov says he is a mystic-he became one after an unsuccessful assassination attempt on his life a few years ago. A bomb was placed on the road where Bykov was expected to travel. Usually very punctual, that day he was late. The bomb went off, but he escaped unscathed.

It was on that day that Bykov says the sense of his own destiny was born. Bykov soon found the man who organized the attempt-he turned out to be one of his former henchmen-but did not have him killed. Like King David, he said: "God will punish you." A few months later, the man was killed in a shootout.