Is the Russian Mafia Gunning for Putin?

It makes all the sense in the world that they would be

Photo by Ana Itonishvili on Unsplash

An American guy today asked me if the Russian mafia still existed or was the government now just the mafia. It’s not easy for foreigners to understand the way the Russian mafia exists.

In ways similar, and in ways very different, the Russian mafia is like the Italian mafia. It’s where you would expect it to be and it’s in places you would never know. It just is and in the way that violence is not good for business so too business without the threat of violence is not good for profits.

I opened a pizza place/cafe — you didn’t really call them bars back then — in St. Petersburg in 1997. Called “The Brooklyn Bridge Cafe,” my establishment was open for 10 months before I called it quits. The mafia was like a fin in the water, ever circling me. I was worn out. I had been nearly bled dry by all sorts of thievery and needed sleep.

At that time in St. Petersburg, shootouts between warring mafia groups, and on occasion between the mafia and the police were as regular as wet snow. Armored cars were being held up weekly. The Russian OMON, the precursor to Putin’s Rosgvardiya was ever moving through the city at all hours raiding nights clubs, offices, and shops that were fronts for drugs, prostitution, or stolen property…