CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

130 Syndromes of Corruption
has been reinvested in Russia (Shelley, 2001: 250–252); instead, organized
crime has been a major force contributing to capital flight. Recently there
has been some speculation that mafiya money is shifting back into Russia in
response to more favorable domestic economic trends (Collinson and
Levene, 2003; Pribylovsky, 2003; RIA,2003), but the scale of any such
flow has yet to be demonstrated. In any event, major domestic investment
controlled by crime figures would be a mixed blessing at best.
Providing protection in a situation of insecurity is the essential activity
of most Russian gangs (Leitzel, 2002: 36). Under the Soviet order protektsia
of various forms was provided by party patrons, state bureaucrats, and law
enforcement officials, often corruptly but effectively. In the post-Soviet
era, organized crime (sometimes in league with police, sometimes in
armed conflict with them) can fill gaps created by the weakness of official
institutions. Entrepreneurs put a ‘‘roof’’ (krysha) over their enterprises
by paying local mafiyas for protection against ordinary crime, official
harassment, threats from other gangs, and of course from crimes by the
very people being paid off (Harper, 1999; Humphrey, 2002). Protection
is available from many sources: there is a booming legitimate private
security industry (Leitzel, 2002: 42) and corrupt police offer their services
too. Organized crime, however, is perceived by many as the most effective
source of protection – a view that only adds to long-term insecurity – and
mafiya leaders aggressively marketed their services during the 1990s
(Volkov, 2002: ch. 2). Getting out of such deals can be difficult, however:
one can fire a private security firm, but ending a relationship with mafia
‘‘protectors’’ is far more difficult (Leitzel, 2002: 37); for that reason
among others gangsters usually have the upper hand in dealing with
all but the most powerful business figures (Volkov, 2002: chs. 2, 4).
At other times, though, the point is not protection but violence.
Reformers, business rivals, and politicians all too often are assassinated:
twenty-seven bankers were murdered during a two-year period in the
mid-1990s. In the fall of 2002 Valentin Tsvetkov, governor of the
resource-rich Far East region of Magadan and an emerging entrepreneur,
was murdered in broad daylight in Moscow’s Novyi Arbat district. In
August of 2002 alone, murders claimed Vladimir Golovlyov MP, Vice-
Governor of Smolensk region; the Deputy Mayor of Novosibirsk; and a
prominent Moscow subway and rail transit official (Wines, 2002). One of
the most notorious murders was that of Galina V. Starovoitova, a prominent
democracy advocate and Member of Parliament, in St. Petersburg
in November, 1998. It is unclear whether such killings are carried out by
security personnel or by oligarchs’ mafiya cronies; corruption also ensures
ineffective investigations and a lack of prosecution (Birch, 2002; Myers,
2002a; Round, 2002; Weir, 2002; Wines, 2002; Yablokova, 2002).