It’s 7:00 PM in Germany, and with a cigar in hand, Karakov sits on his couch and prepares to sit and speak with me for the next 20 minutes. Karakov is enigmatic. However, he still manages to present a comfortable, hospitable, and kind energy. Anselm Karakov – also known as “Accurator” initially reached out to me through email after finding my call to creatives over on Spacehey, a blogging and networking platform that serves to emulate the warm, fluffy, pre-facebook energy of the internet of the mid-late 2000s. His personality matches the same curious vibe of his very writing.
Karakov is a private investigator and published author of the crime and mystery book, “Cuban Cigars” , which was written in 2020. He’s written three books, actually, once you consider the work with an unknown title currently in progress and the other currently in processing. Along with being an investigator and author, Karakov is formally educated in history – he’s dabbled in finance and logistics over the course of his life.
When asked regarding his work’s influences, Karakov gives what he calls a two fold answer – “In terms of literary, i’d say the likes of Oscar Wilde and William Gibson.” He notes which series he’s a fan of in particular; “The Sprawl Trilogy” and “The Bridge Trilogy”. He continues, “I’ve been reading Wilde ever since I was a child.” He also gives credit to David Lynch – claiming he attempts to capture the same surrealism and ambience that Lynch’s films evoke.
“2020 is when I began writing anything worth reading.” He responds to the question of “When did you begin writing?” He continues with a condensed tale of how he began writing – In which he credits his editor– who is a friend of his for the suggestion of such. He wrote Cuban Cigars between what he refers to as a series of frenzies and “smoke infused nights” between the months of March and July of 2020, making for a period of about five months between putting the pen to his paper to having it on shelves, a quite impressive feat for something of the magnitude of writing an entire book.
“Most characters I have written or am writing either stand for something, or are based on people that I know.” He replies between puffs of his cigar once I inquire on who or what his characters are inspired by. “In one way or another, nearly every character an author writes is a self insert in one way or another. It’s always reflective of some facet of the human conscious or subconscious.”
It’s at this point where I begin to feel a tug of curiosity regarding his work as a private investigator. I must find out more. The key difference between his work and the work of the average, run of the mill detective, is the fact that private investigators work for the most part independently with the help of others — as opposed to working directly beneath law enforcement as a means to the end of solving any sort of case. Despite the stereotype that most private investigators are cops or retired cops, he’s never worked as one, nor does he plan to. The idea of an investigator of his caliber is either the type of man who sits in the corner of a shady bar with a beer, shrouded in all black with a fedora tipped just over his eyes. Or that of a stalker who follows a woman around to see if she’s being unfaithful to her loving husband. He elaborates that neither are the case when pressed for an answer. “It’s a lot more sitting at a computer.”
“Whenever I discover something that’s fantastic!” He laughs when I ask him what his favorite part of the job is. “...Unfortunately, that’s maybe five percent of the job.” He describes the rest of the job, digging through cold files, asking around only to be met with radio silence instead of an answer, sending folders back and forth between yourself and your associates…
“It’s really an exponential effort.” He commemorates. “But mostly, it’s very rewarding.” He goes on to describe his personality and how it fits into his job – A curious person, one who likes to find out things and dig into things purely for the fun of it. “The challenge is enticing.” There are hurdles, such as the things he cannot do remotely, he deals with cases that go across the seas, he essentially employs his associates in areas that he cannot reach to help him find things out – things he cannot find out from a simple google search or forum post. “It’s almost sisyphean.”
Many cases he involves himself in are very personal and emotionally driven, I ask which case has stuck with him the most. “A man from Delaware who had very interesting things on his hands – his grandfather had recently died and he had found a very small oil painting, and a poem was written on the back in a language he didn’t understand.” He goes on to describe how the man came to him for help.
“I’m good at finding out things and I know a few languages, he shot me a text and asked if I could help him with this.” He reveals the language the poem was written in; Pennsylvania German, a language that he describes as “Close enough to Dutch for me to understand.” He wished for Karakov to delve into the poem deeper after finding the translated text interesting. Karakov proceeded to bury himself in books upon books, birth records, ancestry records, things that went back generations upon generations. There were connections to Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben – A german-american officer – that Karakov had discovered during his search. He had inadvertently uncovered a piece of history, something that he says he will carry his entire life.
As our 20 minute sit down comes to a close – I ask him about History, a subject he is formally educated in. “Due to my family ties in Latin America, I specialized in Latin American history.” He takes another puff from his cigar as he continues onward, describing his interest in ancient roman history. “The only noteworthy academic papers I have written were on Roman history.” If made to pick, he’d pick the imperial roman times. “I’m a big fan of Caesar's writing.”
He then proceeds to bestow a piece of knowledge that will stick with me, unto me – that most humans actually don’t have any genetic connection to Neanderthals!
“I think I would disgrace every other historian in the world if I did!” He responds when prodded with the question of “Do you consider yourself a historian?” His opinion is this – anybody who seriously and earnestly researches history is a historian in some form, formally educated or not… However, every other student of history would disagree with him. “So I must abstain.”