"Multiplying Sorrow" by Georgy Weiner, summary

This 1999 text describes the brutal destruction of a friendship between three former classmates against the backdrop of Russia’s savage capitalism. This book tightly interweaves a detective story with the realism of the financial machinations and gang wars of the 1990s. The author reveals the price of vast sums of money and political power, which can scorch human attachments to the ground.

In 2005, a television series of the same name was filmed based on the novel.

Return to Moscow

Interpol officer Sergei Ordyntsev extradites financial swindler Vasily Smagliy from Paris to Russia. On the plane, the arrested man asks to send his regards to their mutual friend, Konstantin Boyko. He provides a phone number for a secret call. Upon arrival at Sheremetyevo Airport, Ordyntsev is immediately picked up by Alexander Serebrovsky’s personal security detail. This unexpected maneuver saves the investigator’s life. The police convoy carrying Smagliy is ambushed on the ring road. The attackers open fire on the vehicles with automatic weapons as they drive. Smagliy and the police officers accompanying him are killed instantly.

Ordyntsev is brought to Serebrovsky. The former school friends had long ago firmly divided their roles in life. Serebrovsky had become a billionaire, the head of the enormous financial holding company ROSS i Ya. He is preparing to become governor of a large Siberian region. Ordyntsev works for a police agency abroad. A third childhood friend, former Olympic biathlon champion Konstantin Boyko, was in a penal colony in Perm.

Serebrovsky reports that Boyko has been released. The oligarch asks Ordyntsev to protect him from his former friend. Boyko accuses Serebrovsky of stealing their joint business, losing his freedom, and stealing his beloved woman. Serebrovsky’s wife, Marina, once passionately loved Boyko, and he still hasn’t forgotten her. The oligarch often compares himself to King Midas, whose touch turns everything to gold but leaves a person completely alone.

The Runaway Champion

Konstantin Boyko is indeed free. His early release was secretly orchestrated by the Betimpex concern, Serebrovsky’s bitter rival. The company’s owner, Gvozdev, wants to use the sharpshooting biathlete as a homing weapon of revenge. Boyko is brought to a Moscow hotel under the strict supervision of his burly bodyguard, Valera. The champion kills Valera with two pistol shots and quickly disappears into the city at night.

Boyko finds refuge with his girlfriend, Lora Teslimovka, in the residential area of Tyoply Stan. He has hidden a suitcase containing a Sauer rifle, money, and a secret computer diskette. The diskette contains damning incriminating evidence against high-ranking officials and Serebrovsky personally. Boyko instructs Lora to create a scheduled mailing. If he doesn’t contact her, the computer program will send the documents online. It’s a reliable insurance policy against his former friends.

Boyko contacts Serebrovsky’s mother, calling her at home under the guise of a social security inspector. On the street, he passes her a piece of black bread with pepper, wrapped in a piece of wallpaper. This is a prison thief’s mark. Serebrovsky clearly understands the threat. Champion secretly meets with psychic Gina Badalyan, who once healed his back and introduced him to Marina. Boyko asks Gina to arrange a meeting with his former lover.

Financial labyrinths

Ordyntsev delves deeply into corporate secrets. He begins a torrid affair with Serebrovsky’s personal secretary, Lena Ostroumova. The cynical and intelligent woman helps him unravel the holding company’s inner workings. An Interpol investigator uncovers the true cause of Boyko and Serebrovsky’s deadly feud. The long-standing conflict arose over a massive government loan to the Volga region.

Serebrovsky cynically won the bureaucratic battle for this money. Boyko was supposed to transfer the funds through shell companies and foreign offshore accounts. Then the champion decided to act independently and transferred the capital through the Second Voucher Funds. A huge sum disappeared into personal accounts. Vasily Smagliy was the dispatcher in this complex scheme. Gvozdev’s men killed Smagliy to cover up the details.

In August 1998, the Russian stock market begins to collapse. Oligarch Serebrovsky is the first to realize the scale of the impending disaster. He urgently transfers assets abroad, leaving his partners with nothing. The oligarch coldly fires his loyal financial director, Paley. The tycoon saves his capital, condemning his competitors to complete ruin. Serebrovsky meets with Bishop Arseny, proving to the priest that vast sums of money allow one to rule the world more effectively than empty sermons.

A game of nerves

Boyko demonstrates the billionaire’s vulnerability. He climbs onto the roof of a high-rise building on Sretensky Boulevard with a rifle scope. As Serebrovsky’s motorcade approaches the gate, the champion fires, but the bullet only pierces the wheel of the armored limousine. This sounds like a final warning.

Then Boyko bypasses Serebrovsky’s powerful security detail on the football field. The champion loads the oligarch’s son, Vanka, onto a motorcycle and takes him away. They ride a ride at the park, along a sheer wooden wall. Boyko teaches the boy to overcome his fears, after which he returns the child unharmed. This bizarre act proves to Serebrovsky the utter futility of his security detail. The tycoon immediately sends his son and his ex-wife, Lyudmila, to Switzerland.

Betimpex’s security service locates Boyko’s hideout in Tyoply Stan. They capture Kot and Laura. At that moment, an armed Ordyntsev and Lena appear. Ordyntsev skillfully neutralizes the militants in hand-to-hand combat, and Lena opens fire on the driver with a Browning pistol. They rescue Boyko and quickly take him away in a jeep.

Laura confesses to Ordyntsev that she hadn’t set up the automatic sending of incriminating evidence. She was afraid that publishing the diskette would be a swift death sentence for Kot. Ordyntsev puts the crying girl on a train to the Bryansk region. Boyko flatly refuses to take an Interpol passport and fly overseas.

Interchange in Barvikha

Serebrovsky is throwing a lavish reception to celebrate his thirty-sixth birthday. The entire Moscow elite, ministers, and prominent journalists are in attendance. General Safonov is in charge of security, secretly playing a double game, trying to please various financial groups.

Boyko enters the residence using a high-vaulting pole. He vaults over a three-meter-high fence with an electronic alarm. Inside, he is attacked by a ferocious pit bull named Mrakobes. Boyko kills the dog with a precise blow to the nose with a wooden stick and hangs its body from a tall tree. Serebrovsky falls into a blind rage over the security guards’ incompetence.

Marina Serebrovskaya can’t stand the emptiness of her affluent life any longer. She calls Ordyntsev and tells him she’s going to see Kot. Marina desperately wants to escape with him. Ordyntsev realizes that Safonov is tapping the phones and has already passed on precise information to the Betimpex militants.

Marina joyfully reunites with Kot. They climb into a red sports car to leave Moscow forever. Their road is blocked by two heavy-duty jeeps filled with armed mercenaries. A fierce firefight ensues. Kot’s friend Karabas fires a pump-action shotgun but is fatally wounded. One of the bullets hits Marina directly, killing her instantly. Boyko whispers to his dead lover, "We will always be with you."

Ordyntsev quickly arrives at the scene of the shootout. He threatens Safonov with publishing classified information in the Interpol database. The general retreats and calls off the police. Ordyntsev leads the broken Boyko away from Marina’s body.

Serebrovsky learns of his wife’s death. He is left completely alone in his vast, empty world. The oligarch grimly prepares to face the country’s impending default. Enormous wealth and absolute power have forever replaced his human feelings.