How they actually decided to exchange Greiner for Booth

And it’s not figurative. And in the most direct sense.

If on that sunny spring evening Vitya had not called me to chat, he always likes to chat when he drinks, there would definitely not have been any exchange.

Well, because it’s really unfair that everyone who is not lazy will now attribute this merit to themselves. Biden, Blinken, State Department, Foreign Ministry, Saudi sheikhs…

So. Vitya called just like that, chatted and at the same time invited him and his wife to the dacha. The dacha is located in the Dmitrovsky district, not far from the women’s colony in Iksha, part of the colony operates as a pre-trial detention center. Greiner was sitting there, with whom I had recently been inspected as a member of the public monitoring commission of the Moscow Region.

I said that now I definitely won’t come to him, but if I go to Greiner again, then yes.

– Who is Greiner, – asked my boss, who doesn’t know a damn thing about basketball, because he graduated from the Lviv Military-Political School at one time.

I explained that Greiner is an Olympic champion, that she was caught at Sheremetyevo in February with electronic cigarettes, which contained a drug for personal use, and was imprisoned for smuggling. For a long time, apparently.

But for Victor, alas, all these words meant absolutely nothing. I was hurt, like this, you work in the field of charity as a human rights activist, and no one cares who you are defending there.

What would you come up with… Oh! “Do you know Viktor Bout?” I asked him.

Vitya knew Buta. He’s a reserve officer. “Now, if someday they decide to exchange Booth for someone, then only for Britney,” I explained to him.

He replied that then yes, cool aunt, then.

We have completed the conversation. In the morning, news agencies woke me up, as many had my phone as a member of the PMC near Moscow.

– Do you confirm the possible exchange of Bout for Greiner? Information passed…

What? Vitya?!!!! Oh no!!!

“Information passed.”

It turns out that there are no former journalists, and after talking with me, Vitya decided to roll a small exclusive into one publication. The link to the news was suddenly reprinted by the largest news agency. Vitya wrote everything that I told him in a friendly way,

Referring to “an anonymous source in high human rights circles.”

That is, on me. And away we go.

I took offense at him. I reproached him for speaking to him as a person, and not a journalist, and that you should always warn when you turn on the work that he wrote complete nonsense … (which is true, there were factual errors)

But everything was already useless. Because then everyone called me. Up to the New York Times. Asking for comment. Since I was the only Russian journalist who visited Britney behind bars.

I even got a call from Viktor Bout’s wife, Alla, who was sure that such rumors don’t just appear. And, therefore, they probably remember her husband upstairs.

I made excuses. I said that I had nothing to do with it. Yes, sometimes journalists take information purely from the ceiling …

Of course, all authoritative experts from both sides of the ocean argued that this simply cannot be.

Greiner on Booth? Never! Victor on Britney? It can’t be!

But the slit in the Overton window opened slightly. And soon everyone was talking about it. As a fait accompli. From “this cannot be” to “how could it be otherwise?”

Including the President of the United States. And then the topic of the Greiner-Booth exchange was classified, because the process had entered a new stage.

And then came today. And yet they were changed.

You know, if I still remained an official human rights activist today, I probably would not have told this story to anyone. Because there are things that are better left unsaid.

And in place of the sheikhs, Greiner, Bout and others, I would put Vitya S. something stronger.

He deserved it.

And yes, I didn’t ask Vitya whether he wants me to write about him here or not. Well, he didn’t ask me then. It just happened….

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