In the small cafes and bars along the Riviera they called him the Immigrant’s Friend, or simply the Helper. People often said of Pushkin that he was fearless, but the truth was of course that he lived in fear. It was fear that drove him on to take such extraordinary risks. And paranoia.
Pushkin’s story was indeed a paranoid one. His family were old, die-hard communists, ex-KGB. If they got it right during the Yeltsin coup, and did quite well out of the rich pickings to be had from the collapsing state, Pushkin himself ended up working for the One Who Shall Remain Nameless.
“I will tell you what happened,” he says to anyone who cares to keep pace with one of his vodka fuelled binges. “I was lucky. When they came for us, I wasn’t with the boss, but driving the back-up car.”
Pushkin chuckles. “You’re not going to believe this,” he goes on. “No one ever does. It was just like James Bond. I dump the car. They were chasing me through the woods in helicopters.”
“I was like ET trying to get home. Only I didn’t have a home. But I did not want to end up in the figlio di Putina’s gulag. No, sir. I stole some clothes I found in a barn and hitched a lift. When I got back to the city, I went to see one of my relatives. This relative of mine has good contacts and good business on the Latvian border.”
“I got out five years ago,” says Pushkin. “But it still feels like I am on the run.”
Anyone who has seen Pushkin’s cellar where he keeps his collection of guns and assorted kit would not disagree with this impression. When he is not throwing parties for the Cannes set, or working out in his personal gym, he sits in his surveillance room, sipping the finest Russian vodka and cutting deals over an encrypted phone.
“I feel safer,” he says, “when I can keep an eye on things.”
Though he looks at you in a way that makes you feel he is not so convinced.
“Moscow never changes,” he says. “They are always spying on you even when they are asleep.”