A FEW hours after Viktor Melnikov died of cancer at 91 on Feb. 5, his estranged younger daughter and nephew appeared on his doorstep with a retinue of lawyers and bodyguards to try to seize control of his house in the center of this city.
“My father’s body was still warm,” Ekaterina Karinskaya, Mr. Melnikov’s elder daughter, recalled bitterly. Ms. Karinskaya, the executor of her father’s estate, refused to surrender the house, and her relatives eventually left, but a mysterious car remained outside for two days, she said. According to Ms. Karinskaya, the three men inside it photographed everyone going in and out of the house, but would not disclose who had hired them.
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