ii. The Mormon Invasion
There are a high number of Mormons in Krasnoyarsk. In the wake of the collapse of the USSR, they came in droves from America to preach their God stuff. Once they had set up a big church they started giving free English lessons as a way to attract people. Before we met, Nastya used to attend these English classes just for the practice, and though she quite enjoyed being part of the community and being able to speak English for an hour, she wasn’t taken in by what she referred to as their ‘fake smiles’.
Being a staunch existentialist, I’m uncomfortable listening to anything remotely religious. I think this has a lot to do with my father, who, when I was young, would shout abuse at the television during any news items related to religious affairs. Although I really loved singing hymns during school assembly back in the eighties, when I became a teenager, growing up in poverty in a seriously run down neighbourhood, the idea that some bearded holy man created everything ‘for a reason’ just didn’t wash with me. Since then, much like my dad, if anyone talks to me about religious matters my ears automatically begin to switch off. Nastya usually had a lot of good things to say about her experiences with the Mormons, and made a great effort to convince me that they were a decent breed of people. We had to agree to disagree. However there were some points where we did see eye to eye: after each English lesson, the American Mormons apparently give an hour’s speech on gospel-related blah, and are normally very well dressed when they do this. Of course, these well turned out individuals attract a lot of attention. After all, they are foreigners, who are not only extremely polite and friendly, but smile when they talk. When a young Russian expresses a slight interest in the Americans they are then offered a private visit at home at a later date. However, instead of being visited by the actual person they spoke to, an ‘elder’ usually goes to their house with the intention of talking the curious person into joining the Mormons. This is, in part, due to the fact that it is forbidden for the American Mormons to have casual relations with the natives while on foreign missions. They are also not allowed to drink, smoke, or do any of the things I loved doing in my mid-twenties. When someone succumbs to the elder’s pitch, they are then invited to become a member, where they get to attend regular gatherings. This so called fellowship doesn’t come free. For a Russian person to join the Mormons they are encouraged to pay the minimum of 10 per cent of their income, which even Nastya could see was rather a lot of money.
As Nastya is still on good terms with the Mormons, despite having never joined up, we were invited to drink berry juice with one of her Mormon friends. During our meeting this Russian Mormon convert told me a controversial story that had happened about twenty years earlier. In the 1990s, when the Russian economy was at its lowest point, and security was a little lax, there was an incident involving a few American Mormon elders. Part of Krasnoyarsk is militarised, in the same way that part of St Athan in Wales is; and of course, while it’s fine to walk in the non-militarised areas, it’s completely illegal to walk through the gate into the military zone. Even so, this is precisely what the Mormon folk did, if they were indeed Mormons. When caught they gave the excuse that they had gone to preach ‘the word’ to the military. Apparently the barbwire and rows of electric fencing weren’t big enough clues that they weren’t welcome. This didn’t wash with the Russians who quickly deported them. Thinking about it afterwards I wondered just how many of these Mormons were actually spies. It’s the perfect cover. Mormons take particular care of their bodies, in the same way that the CIA do; it’s not unusual for them to wander around annoying people by asking too many questions, plus they have access to special religious visas because they are sponsored by the church. I still can’t help but smile to myself when I think of this story. There would have been no other way into that military complex, other than simply walking in. Those spies were either really arrogant, really desperate; or both.
Nastya, her parents, as well as a few of her friends and colleagues, told me that they thought the Mormon missionaries from America were mostly spies. Thinking about it, the notion that Americans would plant sleeper spies in Russia wasn’t so far-fetched. It wasn’t so long ago that the British government was caught red-handed during the spy-rock-scandal of 2006. Left near a tree just outside Moscow, a fake rock was fitted with all the latest gadgetry that could send and receive information from spies as they walked past it, using small computers in their hands to interact with it. What the British didn’t know was that they were being watched the whole time by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB). The affair became even more embarrassing when a video clearly showing British embassy staff walking past the rock, with eyes darting this way and that, was shown on Russian State TV. Following this there was the 2010 incident of ten Russian sleeper spies being discovered in the US, who included Anna Chapman, who became a national hero in Russia and a worldwide name. As a direct result of the discovery of spies in America there was another spy scandal, only this time it was a Russian accused of spying on the UK. In August 2010, Ekaterina Zatuliveter, a parliamentary aide to Mike Hancock, MP for the Liberal Democrats, was accused by MI5 of being a Russian sleeper spy and faced deportation. Although she was later released without charge, it came to light during the investigation that Mike Hancock had asked many questions in the House of Commons related to Britain’s nuclear weaponry; not only that but his office had requested information on the location of the entire British nuclear fleet, including an inventory of missiles.
In an interview with The Guardian on the 22nd of February 2012, retired KGB agent Boris Karpichkov said that even though the numbers of Russian intelligence personnel in London were expected to decrease at the end of the cold war; they didn’t. Apparently, as Britain shifted its focus to the War on Terror, following the terrorist attack on America in 2001, Britain assumed the Russian intelligence community would scale back operations. Although there is absolutely no evidence to support such a claim, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was proved true.
All of the incidents of spying listed above are due to what I call the unpublicised continuation of the cold war. Although the war was officially declared ‘over’ in 1991, and the Russians, Americans and British agreed to stop stockpiling huge amounts of nuclear warheads in accordance with the already existing ‘Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty’ (NPT), there is no treaty that I know of that asked countries to scale back their spying activities. Not only that but the vaguely worded NPT hasn’t exactly brought about the disarmament of nuclear states, instead recognised nuclear states continue to upgrade and improve their nuclear arsenals citing threats from ‘rogue states’ as a reason not to disarm.
While I make it quite obvious I’m not overly fond of religious preaching, I have to say that the Russian Mormons extended the hand of friendship further than any of Nastya’s other friends. While Nastya’s old school mates and work colleagues were happy to talk to me when they visited us, I was rarely invited over to their apartments. The Russian Mormons on the other hand often invited me to their homes, where they offered me herbal tea and snacks. Not once did any of them talk to me about religion unless I asked, and even then they were tactful and never tried to convert me.