People in Blue
"If you're going to Chelsea, you should have at least something blue on you!" my friend nagged as we made our way to the coveted stadium through a raging sea of blue-and-white T-shirts, caps and scarves with the Chelsea logo. Alas, the only blue thing about me was probably my socks. But my tie, ironically, was bright yellow. And that's the color of Everton, the team that was to take on Chelsea that day. To be on the safe side, I stuffed the enemy accessory into my pocket and rushed to a stall where a burly lad in London cockney was praising his wares - the "right" blue T-shirts with the number "one" and the word Abramovich on the back.
The pleasure of feeling like Roman Arkadyevich cost about 40 pounds sterling, and I was about to reach for my wallet, but imagining how I would look in that outfit in my guest box, where a single ticket costs 575 pounds, and right next to the living prototype, I immediately shoved the pounds back. Especially since I had been warned in advance: at the stadium I was to pass for an oligarch - the day before, The Sun had written that the Russian Economic Forum in London, and accordingly the Chelsea-Everton football match, would be graced by the presence of three hundred Russian millionaires. Since far fewer of them arrived, someone joked that Moscow journalists and PR people should make up for the missing oligarch units with their appearance, so as not to upset the gullible English. And we made up for them as best we could...
Masonic lodges
We made our way into our VIP box through a cordon of security and a host of nagging but polite stewardesses who examined our tickets against the light. We took the elevator up and found ourselves in a narrow winding corridor where, as one of those present joked, two Bendukidzes could not pass each other. The nondescript doors on the left side of the corridor turned out to be the notorious gates leading to the abode of the fans of this world. It is behind these doors, according to London gossip, that football teams, oil companies and parliamentary factions are bought and sold. "Usually comrades from Moscow root for their teams here, here are people from Sibneft, here are people from Nafta-Moskva, here Roman Arkadyevich and his personal guests, and this is your box," the escort said, opening the door a crack into a small room that resembled more the office of a small but successful company. Guests have at their disposal a tiny cloakroom, a small kitchen, a modest buffet of ten dishes in Italian style, quite decent wines, well-trained staff and a stunning view from the windows: the giant bowl of Stamford Bridge stadium is visible as if in the palm of your hand. The blue-and-white stands were already seething there, the Game was already beginning. Though, as for the capital letter, I got carried away...
Ordinary Chelseaism
Much has been written and said about the talentless match between Chelsea and Everton. To sum up my impressions, twenty-two millionaires ran rather lazily around the pitch, trying to prove to one billionaire that this was a world-class game. In our stand, they even placed bets - everyone chipped in twenty quid and predicted the final score. No one guessed it: even diehard skeptics had not predicted 0:0, so all the pounds were returned to their owners.
So was it worth flying across the Channel to see, as one of the VIP guests put it, a match between two street teams? It was! You have to see how British national pride merged with the Russian national idea! How the vast stadium rose as one to "Kalinka-Malinka" and immediately roared: "Chelseeeeeeeeea!!!" You have to see how at these sounds Roman Abramovich himself stood up, standing at attention, as if to the Soviet anthem. How thousands of Her Majesty's subjects jump up and shout at the moment when a Chelsea striker moves to the opponent's goal line. And together with them, the grandson of Russia's first president jumps up and shouts just the same.
What has happened to the distrustful and prim Britons who have recklessly started an affair with the Russian Roman? They seem ready to forgive Abramovich everything: the crushing defeat in the game against Monaco, his incomprehensible wealth, his controversial role in the Yukos affair, and the fact that he does not live in the proper Belgravia, but in an area where Saudi nouveau riche have built tasteless villas next door. As one of those present remarked, "He is Abramovich, and that explains a lot..."
On the Russian wave
"Abramovich will understand everything and learn everything, just give him time!" say the English. "He has forgotten nothing and learned nothing!" the London Russians whisper biliously. And according to unofficial estimates, there are up to 200,000 of them in the British capital and its environs. Most of them are students barely making ends meet, semi-legal immigrants and people working on temporary contracts. But there are others - wealthy, successful, educated, anglicized to the core London Russians, settled in Victorian mansions in Chelsea, Mayfair or Knightsbridge. It is they who determine the Russian weather in the British house.
This Moscow-on-Thames was built in two phases. The first Russian wave was washed up on the shores of Albion in the first half of the 90s by the wind of cooperatives, joint ventures and the initial stage of privatization. The second, at the turn of the century, was brought by the default, optimized tax schemes, oil barrels and Putin's vertical of power. Interestingly, representatives of these two Russian waves cannot stand each other and take directly opposite positions on the Abramovich phenomenon.
"Yes, Romochka is very sweet and behaves modestly, but do you know how he took over the Bratsk aluminum plant? And all my friends were there... How can I shake his hand after that?" an enchanting representative of the first wave asked me at the social soiree "Russian Rhapsody".
"They sat here in London on their fat wallets at the moment when we in Moscow, including Roman, were suffocating under the rubble of the default," a no less pleasant lady from the second wave enlightened me five minutes later, sparkling with a diamond the size of the "Koh-i-Noor".
"Abramovich? Believe me, in about ten years the Queen will knight him and everyone will call him Sir Roman," chirped a lovely subject of Her Majesty in the tenth generation.
As for the question about Platon Abramovich Yelenin, all three ladies reacted the same way - they wrinkled their noses.
So what has happened to foggy Albion? Why does the unassuming Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich with his not very successful Chelsea, five-day stubble and shy childish smile intrigue the English so much? And why is Boris Abramovich Berezovsky - with charisma, Kremlin secrets, a resonant pseudonym and the aura of a victim of Putin's regime - wasting away from boredom and general indifference across the English Channel?
The Abramovich Railway
I personally have no answer to this question. I have only an intuitive guess. It seems to me that all men, regardless of age, status and nationality, are divided into two equal categories. The first are those whose parents gave them an electric toy train set (the very one, almost real, with switchable points and luxurious red carriages, in the windows of which, if you look closely, you can see tiny passengers). And the second are those whose parents were never able to buy one for them. The first quickly got tired of playing with it, put it in a big beautiful box, threw it on the upper shelf and forgot about it. Such people grow up quickly, get rich quickly, but no longer get a kick out of running a real railway. Yes, they are brilliantly clever, but at the same time, alas, they are boring and bilious, because they have forever lost the childish sparkle in their eyes (may Platon Abramovich Yelenin forgive me, as well as the owner of Harrods Al-Fayed and dozens of Saudi princes firmly settled in the British Isles).
The latter, who had to watch the magical toy only from behind the shop windows of "Detsky Mir," also build careers, earn a pile of money, but forever remain slightly children who spend the rest of their lives searching for Their Toy Railway. And having found it, they play with it selflessly and seriously. Apparently, Roman Arkadyevich, who in his childhood clearly had no time for expensive toys, has finally found his railway. And, in my opinion, he is immensely happy with it. Even when Chelsea, in the last minutes, failed to roll the ball into Everton's goal, Roman Arkadyevich, leaving his presidential box, only spread his arms and quoted to those around him the ending of a well-known joke about a horse: "Well, sorry, man, she couldn't..." And he smiled his trademark shy childish smile. Well, what Englishman doesn't love children?!