How Safe is Russia?

In recent years, the issue of crime in Russia has become something of a cliche, with images of armed robbery, gangland warfare and hired assassins clouding the minds of many frightened would-be visitors. We asked Russian Life Managing Editor Robert Greenall to cut through the media hype and sensation and find out what foreigners really need to do to feel secure in Russia.

At 5 PM on Sunday, November 3, American businessman Paul Tatum was gunned down from above as he entered an underpass near Moscow’s Kievsky metro station. He died on the way to hospital.

The incident was one of the worst nightmares imaginable for Moscow’s foreign community. One of its prominent figures had been slaughtered in the late afternoon in a very public place, while surrounded by bodyguards (who themselves escaped unharmed). His business was one of many promising Western joint ventures with Russian partners which had gone sour. But while many other businessmen in similar positions had fled the country when they sensed a threat, Tatum had stayed to fight, and took on his partners in a Stockholm court. As a result, one of the uglier phenomena of Russian crime in the 1990s, contract killing, claimed its first American victim.

The effect of the killing further afield was even more marked. But “the sound of an explosion magnifies in direct proportion to the distance you are from it,” pointed out Bruce MacDonald, advertising consultant for the Russian company Premier SV and a long-term Moscow resident. Western media and hesitant potential investors and visitors saw the killing as another reason to stay away from Russia altogether.

For the years since the break-up of the Soviet Union, every Westerner, whether individual tourist or corporate executive, has been bombarded with horror stories about criminality in Russia. But how much are foreigners really threatened, and what precautions can they take to ensure a relatively secure visit to the country?

Crime against the individual

The American image of big-city crime is often projected onto Russia, magnified by distance and spiced up by comparisons between 1990s Moscow and 1930s Chicago. It should be noted straight away, however, that street life in Russian cities is nothing like this — there are no thugs running wild on the streets or sleazy hoods hanging out on street corners. There are, admittedly, no shortage of tricksters, pickpockets, aggressive drunks, and the occasional gang of gypsy children, though all of these are less in evidence the smaller the town.

Precautions should be taken like anywhere else in the world (see box on Personal Safety), with the extra dimension that local police may not be as cooperative, or as efficient in solving crime as in the West. Prevention of crime, by precautions taken by potential victims, not by detection, is the key in Russia.

“The incidence of crime is no higher than in many Western cities,”explained MacDonald, “but what makes it different is the lack of familiarity, the feeling that you don’t understand the system that doesn’t work.”

For this reason, advice on ways to avoid becoming a victim of crime should be followed especially stringently, and this may mean some sacrifices. One example of an obvious high-risk group is those foreigners who come to Russia specially for sex, boozing and night life (notably Finns seeking to avoid strict licensing laws at home).

However, sensible (but not paranoid) behavior by people on private and tourist visits should be enough to ensure a trouble-free stay.

“There’s no reason why the individual should come out here to visit the place and not have a good time, as long as they’re aware of the problems,” said Guy Potter, a Moscow representative of Security Agency Kroll Associates. “But people do get into trouble — they get drunk and they get rolled.”

This is a lot rarer than might be supposed, though. Of the 5,000 registered crimes against foreigners (2,000 in Moscow) in 1995, over half involved citizens of China, Vietnam and other Asian countries, often themselves part of criminal organizations, and only 3.6% were against Americans [i.e. roughly 280 crimes]. Last year the figure appeared to be down in Moscow at least, with 641  crimes against foreigners in the first nine months, of which 63 were American.

Of these, the vast majority were not street crimes , but corporate or business-related.

Business in Russia — going in prepared

Perhaps more than anywhere else in the world, launching a business in Russia requires very thorough prior preparation, in the form of due diligence of potential partners, careful study of relevant legislation, acquiring formal security protection, checking out local personnel and arranging a risk management program. These services are provided by a number of Western firms — accountancy, legal or security consulting — and are a good, if expensive, insurance policy against future problems.

It is to be noted, also, that many businessmen believe they can apply their experience of the most corrupt and crime-ridden Third World countries to Russia. This is dangerously misleading — Russia is poles apart from Columbia, for instance, and nothing can be worse in Russia than thinking you know it all.

In fact, many businesses are genuinely ill-prepared for Russia, particularly in the realm of security. The American Chamber of Commerce has been trying to restart security seminars it began two years ago, but almost no one in the American business community responded positively. This is particularly surprising, as foreigners here know so little compared with their Russian counterparts.

“If a Russian businessman understands things at once, with foreigners we work longer and harder,” said Vyacheslav Zavoloka, vice-president of the Alternativa security agency. “We try to explain more painstakingly — if a Russian agrees with us without a word, a foreigner will ask, ‘why do you need to do things like that?’”

“It’s amazing how many companies come to this country without investigating or investing in any form of security advice,” admitted Edward Shah, senior consultant at Eagle Bear Security Company. “These ‘cowboys’ arrive, and say ‘we’re motivated, let’s make a fast buck.’”

One of the most common generators of crime and potential crime in Russia is the 50-50 joint venture formula. Here the ‘fast buck’ mentality can be fatal — setting up partnerships without checking the backgrounds of your partners often means courting disaster.

“Any lawyer in the world will tell you this is the wrong thing to do even with your wife,” joked Bruce MacDonald. “We sign protocols with them because they’re really swell people and they have access to government officials, but we don’t know the slightest bit about their backgrounds.”

It may be some time before the Western partner realizes he’s made a mistake, and the reason is almost certainly money.

RSI consulting firm President Bob Schenk, another Moscow expat veteran, explained: “Your business starts making a profit and after a while your colleagues decide, ‘well now it’s making a profit we don’t need you any more...’ Then they’ll simply say they’re going to kill you if you don’t get out.”

The lesson is: if you make a mistake choosing a partner, the earlier you find out about it the better. “At the beginning it’s easy to get rid of someone,” said Guy Potter, “just say, ‘you’ve lied, I can’t trust you,’ etc.. Companies sometimes buy a guy out, with a lump sum, it’s often the best way.”

If you fail to do so, you might find yourself having to take emergency measures. The last line of defense will need to be covered in your risk management plan — if your life is threatened, a trip to the airport under armed guard and evacuation may be the only answer.

Problems may also arise with individual employees or former employees as a result of poor recruitment choices. One obvious example is hiring people who are mentally unstable or have histories of mental illness. If they then become victims of staff cutbacks, the company could be faced with threatening behavior or worse.

Employees may conceal criminal records or past behavior. One Western firm hired a local girl as secretary. She was smart and efficient for a couple of months, then she slackened, and disappeared altogether with the contents of the safe. Three weeks later she was found, fired and asked to return the money, to which she replied by suing the company for $500,000 for defamation of character. Subsequent checks revealed she had accomplices, and had done the same to several other companies — had she been checked before being recruited, all of this could almost certainly have been avoided.

Security advice — getting a krysha

Other types of crime may not be so preventable by prior research and investigation, though a knowledge of how your area of business works in Russia can be a help against outside threats like racketeers too.

In the early years of the new Russia, stories of protection rackets became legendary. Every new arrival in Russia was taught to expect and fear a visit from local thugs thirsting for a large cut of the company’s profits. In exchange, the hoods would provide a krysha (roof) which would keep away the neighboring thugs down the next street.

“Before, when criminal groups were carving out spheres of influence,” explained a senior official in the Moscow Militia’s Regional Organized Crime Department (RUOP), “each one considered it necessary to visit those businesses which were on its territory.”

However, this practice was never as widespread as was generally believed, and now it is increasingly rare, a consequence, perhaps, of the ‘civilizing’ or ‘maturing’ of Russian organized crime.

One area where it is still common is in businesses handling large amounts of hard cash, such as banks, restaurants and casinos. But these are just as vulnerable to, say, theft or armed robbery, crimes which can equally be prevented by heavy armed security. Any attempt at extortion should be dealt with by the firm’s own security force, which is effectively the krysha itself, the difference being that it is legal and pays taxes.

Most companies have no need to fear such unpleasant visits.

“I can give you a mass of examples of foreign companies working without criminal structures,” continued the same official, “and no one upsets them, the question doesn’t arise.”

This is not to say that Western businessmen should not be aware of racketeering methods, which, when faced with increasingly sharp reactions by militia groups like RUOP, gets ever more sophisticated.

“Now, the most difficult form is the concealed form,” explained Vyacheslav Zavoloka. “Very educated young people come, and start talking about some project. Now racketeering has turned into a kind of soft fraud — they offer some form of cooperation, and maybe they’ll mention in the conversation that there could be difficulties, though there’ll be no threats.”

A company’s vulnerability to this kind of behavior depends on the kind of security it has, both in the form of guards to protect against physical attack and consultants to advise on more subtle situations like those mentioned above.

“Private security guards are now no longer a guarantee of security,” said Sergei Filatov, Alternativa’s press secretary. “There could be big problems with a deal, because it has not been studied — who is the partner, are there criminals standing behind him? This is also part of the concept of security.”

A number of Western and Russian security consultancy firms, including Alternativa, now work in tandem on a range of services, including legal advice, private investigation and security auditing. The last of these is important, considering the abundance in the past of security firms which were simply covers for criminal groups.

These firms are now also instrumental in an area where corporate and personal security overlap, providing a number of services to assist clients’ personnel in difficult, sometimes criminal, situations. These now go well beyond the traditional bodyguard service for top executives, which, as the Tatum murder shows, are, on their own, far from 100% effective. Helplines have been set up for businessmen and their families threatened by intruders at their apartments, to deal with kidnappings, road accidents and even domestic problems like plumbing. Alternativa now has a Quick Reaction Group, consisting of a driver, lawyer and translator, which can be at the scene of any problem within a matter of minutes.

Keeping to the straight and narrow

While Western companies and individuals may be a target for crime just because they are foreign or have a lot of money, if they go outside the law they could be in for much bigger trouble. And it is a great temptation among Western businessmen to use lawlessness in Russia as an excuse for not keeping to the law themselves.

“It’s amazing how people come from the West and forget their background and upbringing, and become very ‘wise,’ smooth Russophiles,” noted Bruce MacDonald. “‘Oh I can pay backhanders,’ they say, ‘oh you don’t have to pay taxes here, isn’t it wonderful!’”

No one likes paying taxes, and in Russia many do not. But if you are a non-Russian, and your business in Russia is profitable only if you avoid paying Russian taxes, you should think seriously about whether you should be there at all.

The reason is, law-breaking is noticed in Russia more than outsiders would expect. Any kind of breach, though it may remain beyond the reach of the forces of law and order, will almost certainly be noticed by organized criminal groups. Many of these have their people in the Interior Ministry, FSB [successor to the KGB] and the Prosecutor’s Office, and are sure to make you vulnerable to blackmail and extortion.

At the same time, options for seeking help and protection in these situations will be reduced.

“Once you’re dealing with [organized crime] you’ve got a problem,” continued MacDonald. “Even the police will say you’re tainted. The only piece of advice you can guarantee is: ‘once you start dealing with them we can’t help you.’”

The result is a vicious spiral, and only coming clean with the authorities can break you out of it.

“If you... ask for help as the opportunity arises, then you have a fighting chance,” believes Bob Schenk. “But if you go into it like you’re going to outsmart them, then you’re playing their game in their backyard — forget it.”

And if you do not come clean, you may as well not go to the authorities at all. What help can they be if they do not know the whole truth?

“When there’s no dialogue between people trying to unravel a crime, of course it leads to the carrying out of the crime,” remarked a senior RUOP officer.

He noted that US businessmen in particular seemed to have this kind of problem, citing a security firm which started having problems with a Chechen criminal group. It turned out they had been paying protection money to this gang for nine months already.

It is much easier to get involved than uninvolved.

“If we could stop this flood of people coming here with ‘impure’ thoughts and teach them how to behave themselves, that will be a significant step,” the RUOP officer concluded.

Steps have already been taken to do this. RUOP and the Federal Security Service are working closely with the FBI, Interpol and other Western police forces. Thus, apart from difficulties Americans will face in Russia for being less than honest, they may find themselves being charged under the Corrupt Practices Act back home.

A safe future?

Whatever the rights and wrongs of Tatum’s business dealings, nothing can justify his murder, or the 500-odd contract killings of top Russian businessmen, bankers, journalists etc., mostly still unsolved, which preceded it. As long as economic instability remains in Russia, so will violent crime on a major scale.

“We do not read about quite so many machine-gun attacks on the city streets, or blatancy of gangland shoot-outs perhaps,” remarked Bruce MacDonald, “but if you’re half way aware, you gotta be aware that 15 bankers have been shot over an X period of time. It’s very clear that although the nature of the threat has changed, the threat hasn’t changed.”

Foreigners in Moscow are watching closely the investigation of the Tatum case, but most fear it will not be solved, leaving them more vulnerable than ever to crimes of this kind. The only real hope they have is that it will stay open long enough for some progress to be made.

The optimists believe, however, that Tatum was an isolated, extraordinary case, and that the negative repercussions of his death will make criminals see that killing foreigners is just not worth the bother.

“Maybe organized crime will realize that it’s not in their interests to reduce their profits by doing this kind of thing,” believes Guy Potter.

It is these market considerations, rather than any fear of the law, which are dictating the tendency in Russia towards more ‘civilized’ business practices. “It’s just like at the end of the last century in the States,” observed Guy Potter “the bandits there are now WASP families on the East Coast. At one time they were hoodlums.”

That said, Russia is probably not as yet any safer than it was two, three or five years ago (though statistics show that detected crime is less this year than last). Visitors should be under no illusions about the dangers of certain activities connected with both work and pleasure. But a proper understanding of how things are done, combined with a confidence that you are prepared for the unexpected, will make your time in Russia both rewarding and unforgettable.

The sidebars to this article were compiled with the help of Kroll Associates’ 1996 booklet Guidelines for Safety and Security in Russia.