Monte Carlo

This is what the Principality of Monaco looks like (photo below). A kind of reserve for billionaires and millionaires, all of two square kilometres, where they are supposed to feel perfectly safe and live long and happy lives. And that, in fact, is what happens. Housing starts at 65,000 euros per square metre. Life expectancy in Monte Carlo, by the way, is 89 years. Not bad at all, frankly!

There is one policeman for every 60 residents of the principality, and they are everywhere! Quite a few of them are in plain clothes, too.

On top of that, the prince has his own police force of 60 men, his personal guard, so to speak. They are said to be the most handsome policemen around. By what criteria they were selected, I could not say. Ordinary guys in white trousers, nothing more.

I am no judge of male beauty. If the prince's guard were women in short white skirts, now that would be a different matter...

Video cameras are installed everywhere, some in plain view and some hidden. It seems to me there are cameras even in the lavatories.

Almost everywhere, security checks visitors with metal detectors. At times it is irritating.

You just want a cup of coffee in a restaurant, but first you have to go through a total inspection at the entrance.

A Russian, somewhat inclined to anarchy, finds such total checks annoying.

At the slightest misunderstanding the police are called, and they converge literally from all over town. I had the chance to see their unprecedented suspiciousness and pettiness first-hand.

To be continued

A writer must have a big biography. His life must hold a mass of events, large and small. Of course there are writers who spent their whole lives sitting at a desk, but their books would be far more interesting and substantial if they ventured beyond the kitchen.

Then again, experience can be good or bad, but either way it does not go to waste. It goes into the writer's store of life and craft.

Here is what I am getting at...

I had always wanted to visit the Monte Carlo Casino, which I have mentioned in several of my books. In the novel "The Russian Thief" it gets several whole chapters. But the thing is, I had never been to this casino before and knew it only from literature: the oldest and most respectable casino in the world, the most heavily guarded, with guided tours and so on and so forth.

So visiting the Monte Carlo Casino and seeing it with my own eyes meant a great deal to me. You could say it was a certain kind of event. I wanted to look at the roulette wheels and gaming tables where my characters spent their time after setting off to seek their fortune in Monte Carlo.

All the way to the Principality of Monaco I took photographs. There was plenty to capture, so I did not listen too closely to what the guide was saying.

We got out as a whole crowd. We rode a lift up from the shore to the Monte Carlo Casino, and at the entrance a long queue had already formed, where a guard was checking visitors with metal detectors. Everyone briskly raised their arms, took off their hats and entered the "temple" of gambling with due reverence.

My turn came. I raised my arms, a female guard scanned me and was about to let me through when suddenly a lamp lit up on her device.

She frowned and demanded that I show her what I had in my right pocket. I pulled out a folding Swiss army knife, which has been with me since 1995, and announced:

- It's a knife.

The female guard stared at me with bulging eyes, then said something quickly to her partner. He reacted at once. He stopped his queue and came over to me.

To be continued

I have always had a weakness for beautiful women and for knives. Although it would probably be more accurate to say for knives and beautiful women. I turn to look at an attractive woman quite often, but I never walk past a shop window full of knives. I always stop, even if only for a moment.

I like to hold women in my arms, to feel their blessed warmth under my palms, to see their submissiveness.

But I also like to hold knives in my hands, of all shapes and outlines, with big handles and small, short blades and long.

The Cossack blood wakes in me when I see a beautiful knife.

I remember my grandfather had a Cossack sabre, and as a very small boy I tried to pull it out of its scabbard. I did it very badly. The sabre was heavy and very long.

The security of the Monte Carlo Casino had found my knife and was deciding what to do with me.

Then the female guard asks:

- Why do you need this knife?

It was a rather silly question:

- I'm travelling. To cut bread and sausage.

- We won't let you in with a knife.

I hold out the Swiss knife to her and say:

- Perhaps you could keep it for me while I look around the Casino?

The woman said something for a long time, protesting. Then she said confidently:

- You must throw it away completely, in the rubbish bin. Otherwise we won't let you in.

- Completely?

- Completely!

The Austrians I had ridden with on the bus pass by on the stairs, glancing at us with interest. They are a very curious people.

- Maybe I could just leave it outside the door?

- No, you have to throw it away.

- And where do I throw it?

- Go around the corner, there are rubbish bins. Throw it there.

To be continued

I had already made my decision.

I go around the corner. I see a bin and hide my knife behind it. The main thing is that nobody notices the knife when the rubbish is collected. Otherwise someone will pinch it!

I return to her.

- That's it, - I say, - I've thrown it away.

A new inspection begins. They check me quite thoroughly. It very much resembles a medical examination. They make me take off my cap. As it turns out, you cannot enter the Casino with a hat on.

And then this woman says to her partner:

- Don't let him in yet. I want to see where he threw the knife.

I think: "The bitch!"

A minute later she comes back with a very serious expression, shakes my knife triumphantly over her head and shouts that the police must be called. She puts my knife in her pocket. Her partner blocks my way while she talks loudly on the phone, calling the police.

I can't help myself and say to the woman's partner:

- What, have you found a terrorist in me?

- Aha, he's threatening me! He's a terrorist!

Well, I'm in for it now!

To be continued

The policemen appeared as if from nowhere. There were many of them, I counted six. For one unarmed writer, deprived of his pocket knife, that is clearly overkill. And several security staff came out of the Casino as well. I found myself in a tight ring that would be hard to break out of. If it was possible at all. Not that I tried. There seemed to be no point.

The female guard handed my Swiss pocket knife to a police officer and began telling him something quickly and emotionally in French. The officer looked on calmly and indifferently. It even seemed to me that he regarded me with a certain sympathy.

Then he opened my knife and tested the strength of the steel, which still bore traces of bread and Parmesan, and closed it again. He turned it over in his hands and slipped it into his pocket.

That's it, my knife is gone!

Now this policeman will be slicing his sandwiches with my knife. Though for such purposes he could have picked a newer and better one. There is such a wide choice nowadays.

To a certain extent this knife is a talisman for me. I bought it with the fee for my book "Myatezhnoye khotenie" ("Rebellious Desire"), published by the Moscow publishing house "Armada" in 1995. It was my fourth book and my first with a Moscow publisher. With that fee I also bought a teddy bear for my eldest son, who had just turned one. The knife has been with me everywhere, in different parts of the world, and brought me luck, and it was very upsetting to lose it in well-fed, prosperous Monte Carlo.

To be continued

I said to the policeman in German:

- It's my talisman. I would like to have it back.

He merely gave a faint smile. I understood what he was thinking: "You have something worse than the loss of a pocket knife hanging over you here."

Everyone who had gathered looked at me with frank interest. I must admit they behaved correctly: nobody raised their voice or tried to twist my arms. Nobody even touched me. Only this bodyguard woman kept giving me very stern looks, as though I had tried to drag her into bed against her will.

And suddenly, right next to me, a voice in perfect Russian:

- Carrying any kind of knife is forbidden in Monte Carlo altogether. No stabbing or cutting objects of any kind. They are very strict about it here. You should have been warned.

I turn involuntarily and see a lean fellow of about thirty-five in a black formal suit looking at me.

Among the security staff present, he was the senior one.

To be continued

- Maybe they did say so. I got carried away by the views from the window, took photographs, and missed it.

I analyse the situation. It's a pity I didn't bring my International Journalist's ID. I had never forgotten it before. And now that I needed it, it wasn't on me. It's a serious document, and I regard it as a kind of safe-conduct.

As for the consequences, there could be two outcomes:

1. They detain me for some time, throw me in the clink and enter me in all their ledgers as extremely unreliable.

2. A serious fine, which is unpleasant in itself. There are no small fines here, they hit you hard right away.

I simply see no third option.

My wife came out of the Casino (she had already been told of my detention) and began circling around me like "an eagle over her eaglet."

I must give her credit, she defended me as best she could. Her selflessness made an impression on the policemen. "There are still women in Russian villages..." True, I got my share too: someone had told her that I had gone at the policemen in a bayonet charge.

- Calm down, - said the Russian-speaking guard. - They will sort everything out now and your husband will be released.

- He isn't even worried, for him this is a small adventure that he'll describe in his books, - my wife said in despair.

She was very close to the truth and, it seems, was far more worked up than I was.

- There's no need to worry so much, - I put in. - Nobody will do anything to me.

- But you're not calm.

- Quite the opposite, I am very calm. I'm not shouting or waving my arms, just standing and listening. One must behave appropriately.

Outwardly I really do look perfectly calm.

I see that my serenity had a winning effect on the policemen. Somehow it even earns their sympathy. The ranks of policemen around me have noticeably thinned.

The woman demands my documents. I hand over my passport.

- He isn't even worried, for him this is a small adventure that he'll describe in his books, - my wife said in despair.

She was very close to the truth and, it seems, was far more worked up than I was.

- There's no need to worry so much, - I put in. - Nobody will do anything to me.

- But you're not calm.

- Quite the opposite, I am very calm. I'm not shouting or waving my arms, just standing and listening. One must behave appropriately.

Outwardly I really do look perfectly calm.

I see that my serenity had a winning effect on the policemen. Somehow it even earns their sympathy. The ranks of policemen around me have noticeably thinned.

The woman demands my documents. I hand over my passport.

The Russian-speaking fellow says:

- Don't worry, she will only check it and return your documents.

- I'm not worried. There is nothing in my biography that I would have any reason to worry about.

I hope there won't be a diplomatic scandal on my account, and that the two powers, Russia and the Principality of Monaco, will remain partners.

The woman handed me my passport.

- Everything is in order.

The police officer gives my talisman knife to my wife and says with a smile:

- You may visit the Casino. But only one of you, the one without the knife... And then you can swap. - Looking at me, he added: - You can take the knife, and your wife will see the casino.

- Better let him see it. It matters more to him.

My wife tucked the Swiss knife into her handbag with a sort of ostentatious vengefulness. It looks as though attempts will soon be made to deprive me of all sharp objects, forks included.

I went into the Casino and took a few pictures.

P.S. The guard turned out to be a fellow countryman. A Tatar from Riga, which is very pleasant, who has lived in Monaco for over twenty years. By the way, despite the ban on carrying knives in Monte Carlo, I saw pocket knives on sale there.