Not even in Leningrad – 1987

In 1987 when substantial turmoil was underway in Russia, and Mikhail Gorbachev was trying to steer politicians towards multi-party polls. For this, he appeared daily on Russian television.  He was manipulating with the communist framework of governance, whose effect was felt in all the states, but for the Leningraders, it was simply a devastating turn of events, since it had affected them directly during the 1942 siege of its surroundings and environs, and they were still remembering the aftermaths. The veterans who had endured the torture, were still alive in 1987 when this book was started and when Gorbachev was delivering his discourses; their agonizing stories never ended.  Post the siege, when the lethal weapons went missing out of the scene, the unending dismal portrayal of innocent and vulnerable girls is all that we can talk about.

People were misguided and victimized by the not-so-efficient nor wise new government machinery which took for a ride the so-stated misguided development put on the course in 1980, in the name of perestroika^[1]. The whole situation led to confusion in the minds of the individuals as well as erroneous political thoughts in their duma^[2]. Some people are still confused about these terms. Because of glasnost[3], the behavior of commoners is something that the Leningraders, particularly, would like to wipe away from memory. The girls were willingly or forcefully subjected to a life of shame and men to a life of drugs and drinks. The human immoralities, as usual continued to bloom the agony.

As Russia was struggling to put its economic situation in place, it participated in floating dubious and ill-prepared tenders to several countries; Afghanistan, India and Laos are a few of them. The undercurrent of greed and deceit aimed to quickly sell poor quality, outdated or irrelevant weapons and systems to countries that had fictional and fractional wars with their neighbors. India was a victim of their cunning schemes. A suspicious “Electronic Warfare” tender was received by India, as a part of a global tender floated by the government of India.

As wisdom prevailed, Rajiv Gandhi the Prime Minister and VP Singh the defence minister demonstrated nationalism because of the well-known integrity of these two at the helm of affairs. They tried to go deeper into the technicalities of the contract, in order to politically save themselves and the voters from the swindle so received. They decided to send their agents and spies to unearth the truth.

The Russians on the other hand took evasive and defensive actions. They tried to neutralize the efforts by the only mode they were good at; by terrorizing the agents and providing them with fake information through attractive girls.

Mukul Roy, the leader, had to operate within the constraints of a life that the Leningrad veterans lived in villages, against the odds of a strong Russian army and the KGB supporting it. He was split in mind whether to go by the acceptance of the hoodwinked tender, or be carried away by the robust and persistent emotions of the Leningraders, which had manifested themselves in unending revenge against the German and Russian politicians and generals. The torture had resulted and constrained people to adopt an illegal or criminal life in which, by hook or crook, girls tried to make dirty money, and men tried to subjugate them by rapes, murders and over-drinking.

The situation forced people into a misconceived interpretation of the purpose of life, which resulted in an endless pursuit of useless buying of trendy acquisitions and abundance. A trend of the so-called modernity, that of squandering, wearing scanty clothes, general apathy and mutual intolerance of people is the result of that misguided orientation. The present-day culture of violence and existence of the mafia is part of the same degradation. All of these are in complete contrast to the old order of society with its literature, art, sculpture and paintings, that people all over the world have adored and will go on idealizing into the future as well. The happiness and pleasure that they thought would accrue, took many hiccups.

The story chooses a cross-section of people who simultaneously become the cause and effect of the situation. Natasha, Lyuda, and Inna were the women who strived to lead a normal life after discarding their dreadful past and were mercilessly killed. General Boris Polonsky, Christopher Von, and Andre Casanova became the hated ills of society. Captain Costa and Mukul Roy struggled a lot to fulfil their spy like missions. Did they succeed? Was Marianna Strombaski able to fulfil her dream of becoming a Matahari type of alluring spy and discarding her pin-up model profession?

Readers who like political or social intrigue, suspense and murder, would enjoy this story set between two competing governments and the spies who are caught in the middle. It uses the Oxford spellings and mentions the Russian translation in parenthesis.

Read on … the book has relevance today more than ever, about war crimes and ongoing genocide.

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[1] Perestroikais “reconstruction”, referring to the restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system, in an attempt to end the Era of Stagnation.

[2] Duma (дума) is a Russian assembly with advisory or legislative functions. The term comes from the Russian verb думать (dumat) meaning “to think” or “to consider.”

[3] Glasnost was taken to mean increased openness and transparency in government institutions and activities in the Soviet Union (USSR). Glasnost reflected a commitment of the Gorbachev administration to allowing Soviet citizens to discuss publicly the problems of their system and potential solutions.