Bougainvillea Trade Company

Balalaika's office room

The Bougainvillea Trade Company (Russian: Бугенвиллия Внешторг; Japanese: ブーゲンビリア貿易 Būgenbiria bōeki) is a trading company that is the front business for Hotel Moscow's Thai branch in Roanapur. The building is located on a corner of Satanam Street, and the place serves as Balalaika's base of operations.

Business

Two cargo vessels that the company uses for shipping supplies and weapons are the Marya Zaleska and the Nefrit. The company's building in Roanapur has a sign showing the company's name in both Russian and English. On a higher floor, Balalaika's office is a large room with several windows, a wide bookshelf, a brown office table and adjacent gray-blue leather executive chair, one ceiling fan, a gray pedestal with flowers sitting on top, a rectangular coffee table in the middle of the room, and two oppositely-placed crimson chesterfield-style couches. In addition, there are two lamps in the room; one is a stained-glass dome lamp near the door, and another is a small bell-lampshade table lamp on Balalaika's desk.

History

Black Lagoon

Balalaika hired the Lagoon Company to steal an Asahi Heavy Industrial Co. disk containing nuclear weapon blueprints so that she could sell it back at a high price to the Japanese company. Soon, Dutch stole the disk from the Melanesia and called Balalaika at her office to confirm that he had it, so she commended him and told him to bring it to Roanapur. Kageyama, a manager at Asahi Industries, participated in a board meeting and told the other businessmen that Bougainvillea Trade Company was the party claiming to have the disk, adding that Bougainvillea was a front for the Russian mafia. When Asahi Industries' response seemed suspicious, Balalaika scoped the city to find anyone involved in hunting down the Lagoon crew.

Later when Dutch returned to Roanapur to give Balalaika the disk, he called her again. In Balalaika's office at the Bougainvillea Trade Co. building, she had her men interrogate a Chinese man, who was forced to inform Dutch over the phone about his boss in the Sun Yee On Triad hiring a South African mercenary company on behalf of Asahi Industries to hunt down the Lagoon crew in the city. Accordingly, Balalaika told Dutch to change the drop-off location to Palawan Island (or the port of Belawan in the anime) due to Extra Order's presence in the city. After the Chinese man stated the information, Boris and fellow Hotel Moscow members shot the man dead in the office as Balalaika calmly covered her ears from the gunfire. Eventually, the Lagoon Company arrived at the port with the disk, so Balalaika told Kageyama that Bougainvillea Trade Co. would discuss the payment with him.

Rasta Blasta

During Garcia Lovelace's initial imprisonment by Lagoon Company, who was trafficking the child, Dutch called Balalaika at her office for background on their client, the Manisarera Cartel. She responded that she coincidentally also took a job regarding the cartel, telling Dutch that she would fulfill his request since favors from him were rather uncommon. Because Dutch planned to go to the Yellow Flag to put his trafficking job on hold, she agreed to give him a call at the bar. Soon, Balalaika gathered the info in her office regarding the Lovelace family, and Boris listened to her mention the family history. When Balalaika asked Boris to look at Roberta's eyes in a Lovelace family photograph, Boris saw that she had the eyes of a soldier. The same night, Roberta began a rampage at the Yellow Flag in her attempt to rescue Garcia, gaining the attention of Hotel Moscow. Accordingly, Balalaika remarked that she owed a favor to Dutch, so she had Boris get the Vysotniki throughout the Bougainvillea Trade Co. building, and they all left to save the Lagoon Company from being killed by Roberta.

Calm down, two men

On several errands, Rock and Revy visited the Bougainvillea Trade Company building to speak to Balalaika about a late shipment. In a different room from her office, Balalaika was watching pornographic videos to identify someone, gloomily stating that she had a meeting to attend later concerning unauthorized drug shipments. She asked the two Lagoon employees why they came to her in-person instead of calling her, but Rock and Revy responded that Dutch told them to give her the news themselves. Before the two pirates left, Balalaika told them to call her for any new information regarding the unfamiliar drug shipments. Rock and Revy left as Balalaika continued fast forwarding through the pornographic videos, remarking that she wanted to die.

Bloodsport Fairy tale

When Hänsel and Gretel went to the Caribbean Bar to kill Hotel Moscow members, they used a Bougainvillea Trade Co. business card to gain entry so that they could wait to murder the two collectors who would later come. After the murders of Sakharov and Menshov at the bar, Balalaika and Boris arrived to the crime scene, and Chief Watsap showed them the Bougainvillea business card that the twins left behind during the massacre. Upon finishing listening to Watsap, Balalaika and Boris returned to the former's office at Bougainvillea Trade Co., and Balalaika called Rock to ask him if he recognized the phrases "Soră mea" and "Buona sera" that the twin murderers used.

Rock soon realized that the former of the phrases was Romanian and relayed that fact to Balalaika, who told Boris. The sergeant remarked that he remembered picking up some Romanian words during his service in the Soviet-Afghan War but was disappointed that he did not recognize the terms at first. Balalaika replied that his forgetfulness was just part of growing old. In deep thought, Balalaika asked if Rowan distributes black market videos, which Boris confirmed, so Balalaika coerced the shop owner to hand over all of the tapes that he had. Spending a night and half a day, she finally spotted the twins in a child sexual exploitation film, finding out their stage names in the show as well as their appearance.

After a meeting with Mister Chang, Balalaika called Boris to confirm that the Hong Kong Triad agreed to an alliance with Hotel Moscow to stop the twins, telling Boris to gather all their men for a combat mission like the ones in their military days. Later that night, Boris called all their troops into one room at the office building, ordering them to pay attention to Balalaika. She gave a quick speech about the brotherhood that they all shared with Menshov and Sakharov, confidently saying that the souls of their fallen comrades would transform their guns into a goddess of revenge. When the children's attack on the Verrocchio Family commenced, she advised Cho to relay to his boss that the Triad needed to leave the area immediately. After the Vysotniki managed to lure Hänsel into a trap and kill him, Balalaika and Boris returned to their base.

Meanwhile, Dutch was shipping Gretel out of Roanapur, irking Balalaika since she still wanted revenge on the child. Accordingly, Boris waited near the front door of Balalaika's office room while she called Dutch to confirm that Gretel would not escape alive. After the boat captain saw that Bougainvillea Trade Co. had paid off the Vietnamese Navy to force his boat to drop the girl off elsewhere, Balalaika finished the call and ordered Boris to get a hold of Elroy so that she could pay him to kill Gretel as insurance.

Fujiyama Gangsta Paradise

In order to travel to Japan for aiding Hotel Moscow's Japanese branch, Balalaika and her men used the Bougainvillea Trade Co. cargo ship Marya Zaleska to sail from Thailand to Japan. Later, knowing that Chaka would try to provoke her to a gunfight again, Revy told Rock to arrange the shipment of her Sword Cutlass pistols from Roanapur to Japan. At a metro station, Rock relayed the request to Benny, advising him to ship the guns to Japan by way of the Bougainvillea Trade Company. Subsequently, the dual Cutlasses were successfully smuggled into Japan, and Revy picked up the guns while the deliveryman asked her to tell the Russians to pay him better, to which she retorted that he should ask them himself.

El Baile de la muerte

When it was confirmed that Roberta returned to Roanapur, Mister Chang hosted a meeting between Roanapur's crime lords, including Balalaika, at The Golden Swingin Night Club. At their trading office, Boris informed Balalaika of the meeting, adding that Chang was likely going to tell them important information about the maid. Balalaika wondered who Roberta's enemy was, and Boris guessed that the people responsible for killing Diego Lovelace could not have been local forces or a political party since the latter would not need refuge in Roanapur, adding that it was likely a well-trained third party. Balalaika was impressed by Boris' deduction skills and was amused at how Chang would react to the situation, so she and Boris left her office to attend the meeting that night.

L'homme sombre

Company sign in Russian & English

Later after Rock found out the background of the assassins who were murdering Black men in Roanapur, he used the information on them from the traitor Le Majeur and went to the Bougainvillea Trade Company building to speak to Balalaika. Inside her office, he told her about his plan to use Dutch, a Black man who fit the assassins' target's description, as bait to lure the Frenchwomen into the open. Balalaika was skeptical at first, but Rock assured her that Le Majeur would fulfill her end of the plan to convince the women to spring the trap. Boris stood by as Balalaika listened to his plan, and she agreed to mobilize the Vysotniki three nights later to kill the women.

Shaitane Badi

In the first light novel Shaitane Badi, Dutch visited her office after Stanislav Kandinsky's attack on the Zaltzman, a ship belonging to the Hong Kong Triad, due to the fact that the mercenaries used a ship owned by Bougainvillea Trade Co. to escape. Although Balalaika joked that she would be laughing if she saw the look on Chang's face when the pirates attacked his ship, she denied any involvement, adding that she currently had good relations with the Triad. She confirmed that Bougainvillea Trade Co. did own the Nefrit that was used as the assassins' getaway vehicle, but only until three days ago because it was stolen, surprising Dutch. Neither Balalaika or Dutch knew the identity of the ship's attacker, but the latter showed her a spent casing of a Dragunov sniper rifle, a casing which Balalaika recognized. When she mentioned that the culprit was skilled in sniping as well as likely being a paratrooper, Boris' expression stiffened as Balalaika stated that any of her Vysotniki would fit the description. Before Dutch gave up and decided to leave to talk to Oswald Leroy, Balalaika asked him if he wanted to join her for breakfast, but Dutch politely refused since he needed a smoke break.

As Dutch exited her office room, the auditor Tatiana Yakovleva entered Balalaika's office, and both women exchanged harsh remarks. Yakovleva asked Balalaika why she did not report the theft of the Nefrit to her, showing that she eavesdropped on the conversation with Dutch. Taunting Balalaika, she sat right on her desk and looked at her to say that her sole management of Bougainvillea had been degraded to low standards by letting the company's finances being too shady. Balalaika then grabbed her by the collar, telling the former-KGB woman that she should stop being so prideful and employing fake smiles. Frightened but trying to keep face, Yakovleva still asked why she did not inform her of the ship theft, adding that she should have verbally made sure that Dutch would keep his mouth shut. As she left, the auditor insulted the Dragunov rifle that the culprit used as a mere antique, causing Balalaika to threaten that she could show her how "antique" the rifle would be hundreds of meters away.

Boris commended his captain for showing restraint, but he politely added that the Nefrit's involvement in the attack on Chang was cause for alarm, also recommending that she should call Dutch to be discreet just in case. Balalaika agreed about the caution but assured the sergeant that Dutch was a man who was always careful. As Balalaika talked to Boris about the possibility of the culprit being a Vysotnik, Boris had the same thought as her when she uttered that the sniper was likely a fellow ex-Spetsnaz paratrooper like them, given that the assassin knew how to calculate sniping in high winds. Boris in turn uttered the name Junior Sergeant Stanislav Kandinsky, also remarking that Stanislav had been dead for years, with Balalaika responding that she and Boris had also been dead for years.

Elsewhere, at Sankan Palace Hotel, a couple bodyguards from Hotel Moscow recognized Stanislav in the hotel lobby and came up to him and spoke in Russian. Stanislav reciprocated surprise since the men thought that he was dead, and they told Stanislav that his former captain "Pavlovna" (Balalaika) set up business in Roanapur. Although Stanislav denied familiarity with them, the Russian-speaking men gave him a Bougainvillea Trade Company business card if he wanted to contact them. After the men left the hotel lobby, Stanislav's accomplice Jake recognized the company name, telling the former that the company was the Russian mafia's front in Roanapur.

After Balalaika offered an ultimatum to Stanislav in the late night, she returned to her Bougainvillea Trade Co. office as the sun began to rise. In her office, she saw Yakovleva sitting in her chair, infuriating her. Tatiana rose up from Balalaika's chair in fear, albeit maintaining a smug demeanor. Balalaika threatened the former KGB spy to leave her office once more, but Yakovleva continued to tease her and asked her how she planned to deal with Stanislav. Balalaika only insulted her, and Yakovleva stated that she could easily use her information networks to transport Stanislav out of Roanapur and frame the Zaltzman attack on someone else.

In response, Balalaika rejected her advice and pulled out her Stechkin pistol to demand where Yakovleva heard the name Stanislav, but Tatiana admitted that she got the info about him from one of Balalaika's own Vysotniki. Balalaika calmly stopped her threat and sheathed her pistol, with Tatiana responding that Balalaika needed to deal with the matter instead of threatening her. Already prepared, Balalaika told her that she already had plans to attend a meeting with Chang at The Golden Swingin Night Club the next day. With Balalaika continuing to glare at her, Tatiana left her office once more.

Much later, after Balalaika had Yakovleva killed at Narita Airport, Japan, the former sat in her office at Bougainvillea Trade Co. when Vasili Laptev called her to urgently inform her about Yakovleva's murder, stating that their boss Slevinin called him a minute ago about the matter. He asked Balalaika if it was true that Yakovleva stole money from her office and attempted to flee Roanapur, with Balalaika sighing a confirmation that the story was true and hiding the real events from Laptev. When Balalaika asked Laptev why she planned to flee to Japan, he anxiously responded that he had no idea why she wanted to go to his territory.

He then asked her if her story was actually true since it was quite coincidental, with Balalaika nonchalantly asking if he suspected that she was behind Yakovleva's murder. When she added that they could get a third party from Moscow to investigate her murder, Laptev insulted her, but Balalaika calmly threatened him that he would disappear if he did not deal with the Chinese waging war against him in Japan, coldly hanging up the phone. After ending the call, Boris stood by as he prepared a cigar for Balalaika, who smoked the cigar and lavished its taste.

Ballad of the Sinful Wizard

In the 2nd light novel Ballad of the Sinful Wizard, Rock got a CIA cellphone from Lotton and asked Dutch to contact Balalaika as part of his plan to exchange Tricia O'Sullivan for money. The next morning at the Bougainvillea Trade Company building, the ex-salaryman visited Balalaika's office to her surprise. After he explained that the CIA's presence in Roanapur would be a threat to Hotel Moscow, he added that he wanted Roanapur's denizens to decide their own fates instead of being influenced by foreign control. Listening to his points and amused by his gambling on others' lives, Balalaika agreed to participate in Rock's scheme to hunt the CIA agent (which unknown to him was Eda) whom he blackmailed. Although he was pleased, she glared at him and warned him that she would not promise that she would participate in the CIA hunt because he had thought he could make her his puppet to directly do his dirty work.

After Rock left, Balalaika dialed a private number to call Mister Chang, who jokingly asked if she cared about "their promiscuity last night." Being blunt, Balalaika forwardly asked Chang if he was the one responsible for putting Rock in his situation, making Chang confirm with a fearless laugh. Knowing about Chang's curiosity, Balalaika told him that he was not the only one who had an interest in Rock, commenting to herself that Chang was only encouraging Rock's bad habit of gambling on other people's lives. Nonetheless, she remarked that she wanted Rock to be a better villain. Asking Chang why he did not get rid of the CIA himself, Chang answered that if the CIA were to take over Roanapur, then they might as well befriend them. Once finishing the call, Balalaika reminisced and admitted that she was a little jealous that Rock truly had a future, whereas she still had the shadow of a ghost nation clinging to her.

Afterward, Balalaika decided that she would deploy four teams of Vysotniki snipers to cover Rock from the Yellow Flag to his destination on Rachada Street. After the Vysotniki succeeded in killing Rock's would-be assassin, Balalaika was in her office and with binoculars had spotted Rock in a nearby alleyway, remarking that her four Vysotniki sniper teams performed fantastically. At that point, Balalaika ordered her teams to withdraw. Appreciating Rock for entering the "kill zone" in spite of his trembling movements, the Russian leader commented that she made Rock dance like a clown for her, not the other way around. Smiling, she then stated that she wanted Rock to survive for a while longer to please her and Chang, concluding that she would dance with Rock if he managed to stand tall in the valley of death.

Trivia

• In Chapter 52, the word "внешторг" on the Russian language part of the company sign is misspelled as "внещторг," and likewise the English language part of the sign has "Bougainvillea" misspelled as "Bugainvillea."