One day an acquaintance of mine went to 'Planet Nails' for a manicure and became a witness to a bloodbath. A Ukrainian beautician was shot dead by a hired killer. As a result of a grenade explosion, three salon clients were injured.
Berlin quickly learned of the murder and just as quickly forgot about it. Berliners do not like being reminded that their city has become a place of rest and entertainment for sometimes uncontrollable 'new' Russians and Ukrainians.
Post-war Berlin was one of the havens for KGB and GRU officers, who easily seeped through the porous Wall. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, many of them did not leave but organized export-import companies, travel agencies, transportation firms, and, as they say, the city's best brothels. Today, a Russian coming to Berlin can get a haircut from a Russian barber, be treated by a Russian doctor, have his car repaired by a Russian mechanic. For those who know what Russian hairstyles, medicine, and car repairs are like, it may seem that these services have dubious advantages, but Russians have a supernatural ability to create a sense of home in a foreign country, and therefore Berlin should not seem so foreign to them.
Every weekend, wealthy girls with their mothers fly in from St. Petersburg for goods from Prada, Donna Karan, and Versace. All fashionable boutiques now have Russian salespeople taking phone orders from all over Russia. On Monday morning, 2012 dresses costing from $2,000 – minus VAT, since Russians can claim a refund – are already waiting for their buyers.
Less wealthy ones arrive on night trains in cheap jackets and roam around Russian Berlin. They supply local stores with new video cassettes, caviar in thermal bags, which will be sold through the back door to fancy restaurants.
In the Russian trading community, there is a collective understanding that this city is not only a place for buying and selling goods but also a safe haven. Despite the incident at 'Planet Nails', the fact is that Russian mobsters try not to kill each other on the streets of the German capital.
In this city, you can reduce the number of bodyguards, you can go to a casino without a weapon. Moreover, it is a city of culture. Vladimir Nabokov, during his Berlin exile, played tennis here, strolled in city parks. After the revolution, tens of thousands of White Russians settled in Charlottenburg, a district of contrasts, where luxurious houses neighbor shabby shops.
If you read the statistics, Berlin might seem like the front line of an expanding Europe: 2,300 Russian shops have opened here, 200,000 Russians are officially registered, who even have their own newspaper – 'Russian Berlin'. Sometimes it seems that Russia and Germany naturally complement each other. Russians are in dire need of modernizers and teachers; Germany needs energy and raw materials.
However, the reality probably is that Germans and Russians live on different planets. Olga is one of many Russian women with academic degrees who came to Berlin to work as waitresses. She recalls her first evening in this city ten years ago: 'I went to a German bar, there was wild merriment – people were drinking, dancing, shouting, talking. I thought: "My God, Germans are actually exactly like us."'
Unfortunately, it turned out that on that day Germany had won the World Cup in football, and since then Olga has never seen such merriment in German bars.
She married the Russian writer Vladimir Kaminer, currently works at a Russian disco, bringing Slavic merriment to the country. Kaminer has just published a book that was very well received in Germany. In it, he tries to explain that Russians, as well as other ethnic minorities, should be listened to, not ignored or pre-judged as criminals.
Apparently, Russians understand market principles better than the residents of the country where they live – Kaminer started by selling beer at Berlin's train stations, 30% more expensive than the regular price. Moreover, they are much better at creating a social circle abroad. Just be careful when you go for a manicure.