Legends

“The Oligarkh’s brother was one of those who immigrated to Israel. His name was Akim Ugor-Zhilov. One fine day in 1993 he turned up at Ben-Gurion airport with a wife and three young children in tow, claiming that he had a Jewish grandmother and had, in any case, converted to Judaism; naturally he had affidavits to prove all this. He has a livid scar over one eye. Claims he was wounded in Afghanistan, though there is no evidence he ever served in the Soviet army. He installed himself in a heavily guarded villa in Caesarea surrounded by a high electrified wall and staffed by Armenians who served in the army and knew how to use weapons. The Russian speakers in the Mossad called them chelovek nastroeniia—“moody people.” One minute Akim would scream insults at the Armenians who worked for him, the next he would be purring like a cat and bragging about his business prowess. Besides the fortress in Caesarea, he has a duplex in London’s Cadogan Place and a house on the Grande Corniche above Nice.”

“How did he make ends meet in Israel?”

“He brought in something like fifty million dollars over the years and invested it in government bonds, which earn six or seven percent interest, tax free. He also has a piece of a newspaper delivery service, a hotel in Eilat, half a dozen gas stations around Haifa.”

“Where does Samat fit into this picture?”

“Akim and Tzvetan Ugor-Zhilov are brothers. It turns out there was a third brother, name of Zurab. He was a medical doctor, a member of the Armenian Communist Party and married to a Jewish woman. When Tzvetan was convicted of shaking down local merchants and sent to Siberia, his brother Zurab was arrested as an enemy of the people—under the Soviet system relatives of criminals usually suffered the same fate as the criminal. Zurab wound up in a Siberian gulag and died there of scarlet fever.”

“What happened to Zurab’s wife?”

“After the arrest of her husband, we lost all trace of her. She vanished from the face of the earth. The two brothers, Tzvetan and Zurab, had been very close, which explains, in part at least, why Tzvetan loathed the Soviet system: He blamed the communists for his brother’s death. Zurab left behind him a son named Samat.”

“Which makes Samat the Oligarkh’s and Akim’s nephew.”