The King of Vodka (30 page)

Eugeniya implored Arseniy to curtail his extravagant spend
ing. He sued her, in turn, alleging that she had short-changed him on his inheritance. “Relations between my mother and me are pretty strained,” Arseniy wrote in his complaint. He questioned the financial allowances he had been given, noting that this would be “an issue of a lawsuit.”
¹⁸
A court found Arseniy's charges against his mother baseless, but the rift between the two remained. A court-appointed guardian was put in place to monitor his finances, and Arseniy was removed from his position in the Smirnov company. Eugeniya still had no intention of taking the helm of the company. By that time, she had met Umberto de la Valle Ricci, an Italian diplomat and the man she would later marry. It is likely that Eugeniya decided to spend time with him, either in Japan where he would serve as ambassador, or in Europe. She gave her power of attorney to a trusted confidante to run the vodka business in her absence.

Eugeniya seems never to have sought assistance from Vladimir during this period of crises. Their lives were completely separate…and he was dealing with problems of his own.

 

T
ENSIONS IN
S
T
. Petersburg were running high. The air in the city was heavy, weighed down by an unspecified uneasiness in the atmosphere. For the most elite members of society, like Vladimir, the mood was especially gloomy and foreboding. A book about St. Petersburg during this time described the city's “doom, a [feeling of] closeness to the end of the existing social structure.”
¹⁹
People responded to their fears in different ways—some did nothing, trusting tradition and the monarchy to take care of them; some got passports and fled to seemingly more stable lands; some dug in, intensifying their ardent support of the status quo; others joined the ranks of the disenfranchised, fighting for reforms and more humanistic policies. And some, like Vladimir, took more drastic measures. They armed themselves.

On June 26, 1910, Vladimir applied to the local police department on behalf of himself and a servant for the right to purchase and carry a revolver. He wrote in his application that his vast wealth and treasure trove of valuables made him a target of the city's criminals and the needy.
²⁰
He still lived in a huge and luxurious apartment on Nadezhdinskaya Street, one of St. Petersburg's most fashionable neighborhoods. His lifestyle was opulent and showy, and he continued to host lavish parties at chic restaurants. This life was what Vladimir wanted—and he sought a gun to protect it. He recalled all too well the frightening attacks he endured following the uprising in 1905. Little did he know that the greatest threat, at least at that moment, lay within his own inner circle.

His estranged wife, Aleksandra, was stewing back in Moscow, pining away for her eleven-year-old boy who had been ripped from her to live with his father in St. Petersburg. She was frantic with grief over the loss of little Volodya. Aleksandra now plotted her next move. She went to court, in part to secure her divorce from Vladimir and in part to gain official permission to see her son. The judge acquiesced to her request, but he allowed her visiting privileges only twice a week for just two-and-a-half hours each time.
²¹
For Aleksandra, though, this access was more than enough.

In March 1912 she boarded the train to St. Petersburg. Vladimir and Valentina were “living abroad at the moment,” according to a St. Petersburg newspaper, likely traveling on theater business. They had hired a tutor and a governess to look after Volodya full time. The tutor shared a room with the boy while the governess, who also inhabited the apartment, taught him music and foreign languages. When Aleksandra showed up on Vladimir's doorstep early one morning, it was not a day that she was legally authorized to see her son. According to newspaper accounts, which referred to Vladimir as a Moscow manufacturer even though he had not been in the liquor business
for seven years, she explained that she was unable to visit on her designated day. So she had come at a more convenient time. This was a lie.

Another article ran under the headline “New Adventures of a Millionaire's Son.” It reiterated the facts of the kidnapping, adding that Volodya had run into his mother's arms and that the whereabouts of the boy and Aleksandra were unknown. It was not Aleksandra's first attempt at nabbing her son. She had tried to escape with him earlier in March from a railroad station, according to the newspaper, but that plan had been foiled.

Aleksandra now had her boy back. The two soon surfaced together in Moscow. Although it is not clear what transpired next, in the end Vladimir declined to press charges against Aleksandra, allowing Volodya to remain with her. He may have determined that his son was better off with a more attentive, physically present parent. He had no intention of curtailing
his travels or pursuits in the theater world. His life with Valentina demanded flexibility and spontaneity. And too, he could not deny Aleksandra's deep love for their child—and Volodya's love for her. What's more, as the situation in Russia, particularly in St. Petersburg, grew precarious he may have reasoned that Volodya would be safer in Moscow.

 

T
HE TSAR'S CENTURIES-OLD
stronghold on Russia was weakening. Many factors contributed to this historic loss of confidence. First, the tsar's regime continued with its harsh punitive pursuits. Prosecutions, arrests, and exiles had accelerated as the Imperial Court sought to silence its critics. Executions, often in the form of public hangings, were commonplace; cruel, moblike displays of what could happen to those who spoke out against the tsar's authority. Censorship reigned, too, muzzling revolutionaries and their allies. The State Duma, once a promising symbol of democratic reform, had been virtually neutered. Its members heralded almost universally from the upper classes, and its legislative initiatives rarely amounted to more than political discourse since the tsar had retaken the power to reject any law it passed.

Contributing further to the instability was the emergence of Grigoriy Rasputin, the charismatic holy man from Siberia who penetrated the royal family's inner circle. Convincing the family that he was the only one who could heal the tsar's hemophiliac son, Rasputin came to be known by Nikolay II as “our friend,” while his wife, Empress Aleksandra, viewed him among her most trusted confidants. She sought Rasputin's advice on matters as far flung as ministerial appointments and on managing relations with foreign nations. Rasputin's influence was highly controversial. Many observers claimed he was a womanizer, a sexual deviant, a fraud, even a spy. He was also later accused of having an affair with the tsarina. Citizens, particularly
in aristocratic circles, were repulsed by his unorthodox opinions and lifestyle, and they secretly feared that his presence was poisoning the Romanovs and dooming their reign.

Overall, the public's tolerance of this situation and the monarchy was akin to a balloon on the brink of bursting. The government's two-faced stance on liquor did not help either. Despite the state's wishful thinking, consumption had skyrocketed under its vodka monopoly. The tsar's sobriety initiatives as well
as private efforts to curtail drinking proved to be miserable failures. Inside the Duma, which was proposing a series of measures to combat drunkenness, verbal attacks focused on Witte's replacement as minister of finance, Vladimir Kokovtsov. Accused of manipulating the vodka monopoly for the benefit of the treasury, Kokovtsov opposed any proposal aimed at fighting alcoholism if it did not also account for the state's fiscal needs. This unbending posture made the new minister of finance a lightning rod. The newspapers were full of harsh criticisms and featured cartoons playing up the government's hypocrisy.

Finally, in January 1914, Nikolay II had had enough. He decided to see for himself how his people were faring when it came to the liquor problem. He was horrified by what he witnessed, noting that he observed “tragic scenes of the degeneration of the people, the poverty of families, and the decline of households as a result of drunkenness.”
²³
He immediately dismissed Kokovtsov and demanded that his successor embark on a series of reforms aimed at weaning the state off its own vodka dependency. “We cannot make our fiscal prosperity dependent upon the destruction of the spiritual and economic powers of many of my subjects, and therefore it is necessary to direct our financial policy towards seeking government revenues from the unexhausted sources of the country's wealth and from the creative toil of the people, to seek constantly, while preserving wise economy, to increase the productive powers of the country and to take care of the satisfaction of the people's needs. Such must
be the ends of the desired changes. I am firmly convinced that they must succeed and that they are absolutely necessary for the good of my people, especially since both the Duma and Imperial Council have turned their attention to these needs of the people by revising our alcohol laws.”
²⁴

The march toward prohibition in Russia was on.

 

O
VER THE NEXT
six months, the state restricted the amount of outlets selling liquor, closed distilleries, gave greater control over alcohol bans to local officials, and replaced its monopoly-driven revenue with other sources. More than eight hundred petitions requesting the adoption of local prohibitions were approved by July 1914, and 1,100 retail shops had been shuttered. The tsar then ordered that the vodka monopoly, which had provided jobs to an estimated 200,000 men, including 23,000 barkeepers, be rescinded. A gradual, carefully orchestrated drive toward a dry Russia was on course, bringing with it, it seemed, the fate of Pyotr Arsenievich Smirnov's once almighty vodka empire.

But then, Russia had not counted on the Great War.

F
or a time, it seemed that World War I might save Russia from itself. The country had been plagued by an almost daily parade of strikes and other disturbances. Confidence in the government was at an all-time low. Trust in the tsar and his leadership was nearly exhausted. But with the declaration of war, Russians had a new, more alluring target for their rage: Germany.

People throughout the country rallied around their emperor and motherland, replacing their deep-seated resentments with heartfelt patriotism and pride. From nearly every window and rooftop, the tsarist flag flew. Peasants and aristocrats alike listened with renewed admiration as their leader, dressed in uniform, addressed them from the Winter Palace, promising a thrilling triumph. The Duma, which had been a nest of political bickering, snapped into place as a cohesive body, fervently backing the tsar and his wartime pronouncements. There was nothing the nation would not do to demonstrate its collective devotion. Symbolically, St. Petersburg was renamed Petrograd to rid the
city of its German-sounding moniker. Mobs raised and burned the German Embassy in the capital city; soldiers enthusiastically and confidently marched off to a battle certain they would win. “A torrent of love for Holy Mother Russia poured forth. The war had come at the right moment; it afforded an outlet for the frustrations and hatreds that for so long had been turning Russian against Russian. Once more, if only temporarily, things were back in proper order.”
¹

So united was the nation around Nikolay II that he threw out his methodical plan for sobriety and replaced it with an all-out prohibition. In tandem with ordering the mobilization of troops, the tsar essentially banned the sale of vodka, wine, and beer. Other nations grappled with alcoholism to varying degrees, but Russia went the farthest. Temperance was to be a pivotal ingredient to Russia's war strategy. Memories from the conflict with Japan nearly a decade earlier were still hauntingly fresh as Japanese generals credited drunken Russian soldiers with handing them at least one of their major victories. Other wartime failures were also blamed on the bottle. It was openly quipped that Germany was counting on meeting inebriated Russian troops. For example, a satirical cartoon featured a German soldier, armed with sobriety, as he faced his Russian enemy.
²

Neither the tsar nor his people could withstand a repeat defeat, so Russians enthusiastically cheered the edict of prohibition. The ban was to remain in place only until the mobilization was complete, but it turned out to be so effective, as soldiers readied for battle in half the time expected, that the tsar extended his order to cover the war's duration. The results were immediate—and stunning. At home, public drunkenness and overall consumption plummeted. Money that had been spent on vodka was now deposited in the bank, resulting in a sixfold increase in individual savings.
³
Crime eased, too. Reports from various regions heralded the newfound sober serenity. “Hooliganism has almost disappeared, and the police lockups, always
filled on bazaar days with drunken men, are now empty,” read one. Another stated that “the suspension of the vodka traffic has diminished crime in this city by 50 percent.”
⁴
In Petrograd, cases going before the Justice of the Peace dropped by 80 percent while the number of male beggars plunged by 75 percent.
⁵
Part of the newfound civility could have been attributable to the deployment of so many men to the war front, but nonetheless, the results of the prohibition were tangible.

The military, too, had undergone a magnificent transformation. A war correspondent for the
London Times
remarked in a column in March 1915: “One cannot write of the Russian mobilization or of the rejuvenation of the Russian Empire without touching on the prohibition of vodka; the first manifest evidence of the increased efficiency was, of course, in the manner and promptness with which the army assembled; but, from that day, the benefits have been increasingly visible, not only in the army but in every phase of Russian life…. In nearly six months association with the armies in many different theaters of operations I have not seen a single drunken or tipsy officer or soldier. This, then, was the first of what New Russia intended to do in this war. At one stroke she freed herself of the curse that has paralyzed her peasant life for generations. This in itself is nothing short of a revolution.”
⁶

The Smirnovs, despite being further hobbled by this prohibition, did what everyone else did and joined the war effort. Russia endured overwhelming casualties throughout the four-year conflict, significantly more than could be handled by the existing medical infrastructure. The Smirnovs, like others in their class, opened their spacious private homes to care for wounded soldiers drifting back from the front. The family's elegant dacha in Sokolniki outside Moscow, the scene of Aleksandra's earlier forbidden trysts, was used to treat dozens of soldiers. Sergey's sons opened their residence with twenty beds less than two weeks after combat broke out. Smirnov's youngest son,
Aleksey, accommodated sixty wounded veterans at a time in his house. Two hospitals named after Pyotr Petrovich, Smirnov's oldest son, opened up in the mansion on Pyatnitskaya Street and in another family-owned property.
^*

These were immensely charitable gestures, particularly given the family's increasingly precarious financial status. The combination of war and the new dry laws had dealt the business a devastating blow. Factory production dwindled to a trickle, and the rank-and-file dropped by more than two hundred men. According to an official report, which did not include revenue figures, no longer did the Smirnovs produce much in the way of grape wines, cognacs, or other liqueurs, nor did they manufacture vodka for export.
⁷
Business was off so much that Eugeniya began leasing some of the inactive properties. Two buildings, including a stone, two-story warehouse, became movie theaters. The state also used some of Smirnov's real estate to store military supplies.
⁸

There was one bright spot to the liquor ban. It had come with a slew of odd exceptions that were amended and altered throughout the war. Flavored vodkas, for instance, continued to be produced by manufacturers like Smirnov because they were less potent than other drinks and because forbidding them completely would have devastated the Russian fruit industry. These spirits also represented something uniquely Russian, a traditional symbol the state determined was worth preserving. The same exception was made for beer and grape wines—and for first-class eating establishments. Restaurants and clubs that catered to the wealthy were allowed to sell any kind of liquor its customers wanted.

These loopholes, though polarizing, kept the Smirnov business afloat, if only barely. Eugeniya, who spent most of her time
traveling with her Italian diplomat, signed over the day-to-day responsibilities to the company's remaining senior management. No members of Smirnov's immediate family seem to have been involved with the business. Vladimir and Valentina were mounting a new production in Warsaw at the outbreak of the war, followed by some work in the Ukraine region. Pyotr Petrovich's son, Arseniy, was still under guardianship, as was Pyotr's brother, Nikolay. Without the personal Smirnov touch, it looked as though the once-mighty vodka empire might be on a path to oblivion, right alongside the imperial traditions of the Russian Empire.

 

T
HE WAR REPRESENTED
the tsar's last chance to reassert himself as the indisputable ruler of a powerful, fearless nation. His test began with genuine promise. In 1914 Russia's military was awesome, totaling 1.4 million and eventually enlisting almost 15 million men. It was taken for granted that this immense army would crush its enemies, but the reality soon became clear. The masses of men heralded largely from the lower classes. Though exceedingly brave, they were raw recruits from rural villages, men drafted for a job they had no training to do. In addition, a lack of professional, seasoned leadership, and a dearth of vital supplies greatly undermined the war strategy. “It is hard to imagine how ill-equipped for modern warfare the tsar's huge army was. Thousands had no shoes, one man in three had no rifle, artillery was in pitifully short supply, munitions even shorter. In such matters as wireless, airplanes, transportation, the Russian Army proved helpless.”
⁹
There were some successes, of course, but the overall losses were nothing short of horrific. Hundreds of thousands of men perished, and vast areas of the motherland fell under German control. Troops were demoralized, hungry, and exhausted. The liquor ban took a toll, too, as the war wore on, with soldiers substituting their cravings with colognes, fur
niture polishes, and alcohol-based varnishes.
¹⁰
Increasingly, the tsar and his bureaucratic machine took the blame for this misery. The love fest that had been sparked by the war was vanishing.

Against the urgings of his most senior advisors, Nikolay II decided to follow in the noble footsteps of his ancestor, Peter the Great. He, personally, would assume control of his army, intent on bringing dignity back to his soldiers, respect to the monarchy, and an end to the constant suffering. It was a controversial move supported wholeheartedly by the tsarina and her most trusted adviser, Rasputin. With Nikolay II at the front, the duo assumed a greater hand in the daily affairs of the state, causing widespread mistrust and angst: Empress Aleksandra was German-born, a child of the enemy, while Rasputin's increasingly powerful influence was deemed by some as an unpredictable and frightening threat to the future of the empire.

The aristocracy was especially unnerved by Rasputin, fearing his presence could spark a mass overthrow of Romanov rule. Soon, a small cadre of nobles came together to plan the murder of Rasputin in December 1916 by luring him to the palace of Prince Felix Yusupov. First, as the legend goes, Rasputin gulped wine laced with enough poison to kill as many as ten men. Unaffected, his stunned murderers then shot him multiple times, causing him to fall but not die. They then wrapped Rasputin's body in a cloth and dumped it into the icy Neva River. When his body was retrieved on New Year's Day, the empress was hysterical with grief. Much of the rest of Russia, however, was relieved. The murderers were banished to their country estates but not charged with the killing. The tsar returned from the war to console his wife and assess the grave circumstances in the capital. A Swedish diplomat dispatched to Petrograd commented that the mood in Russia's capital city was “snappish and fretful…. One hears the thunder and sees the lightning…but the storm has not yet broken.”
¹¹

Nikolay II returned to a Russia he did not comprehend. The
war had corroded the Russian psyche, and Petrograd stank of despair. Few had been untouched by the disastrous battles, losing sons, husbands, or fathers. The wounded languished in hospital beds, forever crippled by the bloodbath they had witnessed. For the population at large, debilitating hunger had crept into their daily lives as food and fuel grew scarcer and costlier, doubling and sometimes tripling week by week. Long lines snaked outside food shops as women and young children waited for their meager rations, constant reminders of the hardships the war had brought.

Winter temperatures plunged to forty degrees below zero. Food trains, hampered by a lack of fuel and frozen tracks, could not access Petrograd, choking off the city from essential supplies. Families tugged apart wooden fences and pilfered whatever they could to keep their stoves warm. Schools closed, newspapers stopped printing, trams stalled. Liquor, again, found its way into the hands of many in spite of the official prohibition. Illegal production of
samogon,
or homemade vodka, multiplied in both urban and rural locales. Established makers of alcohol, including the Smirnovs, skirted laws by selling spirits out of their factories directly to customers. These transgressions were most often condoned, though the Smirnovs were fined 3,000 rubles at least once for engaging in this practice.
¹²

The tsar's advisors warned that he would face dark consequences if he did not do something drastic. The Okhrana, the secret police force of the Russian Empire, predicted the “possibility in the near future of riots by the lower classes of the empire enraged by the burdens of daily existence.” The leader of the Duma sent a telegraph to the tsar: “The situation is serious. There is anarchy in the capital.” Nikolay II remained unconvinced and worse, paralyzed.

Perhaps it was that so few in his circles were affected by the country's many calamities. Russia's rich still led glittering lives throughout the war. They packed into expensive restaurants
and patronized the theater and ballet, insulating themselves from the suffering of others. Horse-racing went on without disruption, as did the seasonal parties and celebrations. Vladimir and Valentina, part of this bejeweled set, returned to Petrograd; once home Valentina continued to act as if she were the living embodiment of her role in Offenbach's
Beautiful Helen
. “The war had not changed the life of Russia's nobility and aristocracy, although many socialites wore mourning armbands for their fallen.”
¹³
This ostentatious show became just another contribution to the population's discontent, an example of the imbalance ingrained within Russian society.

It was not until February 23, 1917, International Woman's Day, that the tsar began to grasp the depth of the fury raging through his people. In spite of calls for no strikes, women from some textile factories in Petrograd staged a walkout and asked for support from the metalworkers at the huge Putilov factory. An estimated 128,000 malcontents joined forces, parading down snowy streets with signs that read,
DOWN WITH THE AUTOCRACY
. They shouted “Give us bread,” as they made their way through the heart of the city. The following day, the number of protesters swelled to more than 200,000, and a day later, the walkout exploded into a general strike, with participants filling the streets and chanting slogans opposing the tsar and the war. Crowds of supporters from all walks of life cheered on the mushrooming processionals.