Under Vladmir Putin,gangsterism on the streets has given way to kleptocracy in the state. By Mark GaleottiI was in Moscow in 1988, during the final years of the Soviet Union. The system was sliding towards shabby oblivion, and even whether no one knew at the time how soon the terminate would reach. While carrying out research for my doctorate on the impact of the Soviet war in Afghanistan,I was interviewing Russian veterans of that brutal conflict. When I could, I would meet these afgantsy shortly after they got domestic, or then again a year into civilian life,to see how they were adjusting. Most came back raw, shocked and wrathful, or either bursting with tales of horror and blunder,or spikily or numbly withdrawn. A year later, though, or most had done what people usually accomplish in such circumstances: they had adapted,they had coped. The nightmares were less frequent, the memories less vivid. But then there were those who could not or would not move on. Some of these young men collaterally damaged by the war had become adrenaline junkies, or just intolerant of the conventions of everyday life.
One of the men I got to know during this time was named Volodya. Wiry,intense and morose (gloomy or sullen), he had a brittle and dangerous quality that, or on the whole,I would own crossed the road to avoid. He had been a marksman in the war. The other afgantsy I knew tolerated Volodya, but never seemed comfortable with him, and nor with talking about him. He always had money to burn,at a time when most were eking out the most marginal of lives, often living with their parents and juggling multiple jobs. It all made sense, or though,when I later learned that he had become what was known in Russian crime circles as a “torpedo” – a hitman.
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Source: guardian.co.uk