Linda Anatoilij Georgievich
Oil on canvas
25x30cm
"Because of depreciation and other government affairs I very quickly lost all my savings and was left with no job and a wife and two kids to look after"
Linda Anatoilij Georgievich
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I would love to start the story of myself as a pasanger of a 'Red bus'.
My name is Linda Anatoilij Georgievich, I was born in Litvenian SSR on the 23rd July 1946 and then, together with my parents, we moved to Riga –the capital of Latvia. Everything went as normal, following the same pattern as all Soviet Academia. School-University-Job at the same place until the pension, children, grandchildren, and finally the lamentation of the relatives at your grave.
I was lucky to brake this chain of events.
After the University, as I started work, I also became involved in Komsomol ('Communist Union of Youth') activities which helped me to join the Communist Party. It was not easy being from academia to join the party as the proportional representation of academics and working class in the party was 1 in 10 - one engeneer to 10 labourers who were not even that interested in joining the party - you had to pay the membership fees and they did not see the point in that. So we academics were left to sit and wait for our turn. The membership in the party promised great opportunities of climing up the ladder.
As a member of KPSS (Communist Party) I got in to the Moscow Akademy of Foreign Trade of the USSR. They only took 25 people a year, of which 75% through personal connections - 'by the hand' - that meant children of ministers, party activists and so on. The rest of the 25% were kinds such as me who were accepted on the grounds of their intelligence - they did need some people who would actualy do some work and studying in the university. So that was how I boarded the 'Red bus of Fortune' (that's the way I named it)
Without having any outside help or personal connections I managed to get in to the environment where you could actually earn decent money and more importantly get to go abroad where at those days you were payed big money - $800 per month. For comparison as an engineer I used to earn approximately $90. That was enough for living as all the services in the country were practicaly free - however the quality was corresponding to that.
Everything basically depended on your attitude to work. After I completed academy in 1979, I began to work in the ministry of external trade of the USSR and reached the position of Head of Economic Collaborations between USSR, Laos and Vietnam. I worked four years in the consulate of USSR in Laos and five years in Soviet consulate in Vietnam. In Vietnam I was a head of the economic department and had 7 colleagues.
The knowledge of five languages (that I learned of my own accord while studying in the Akademy) helped me a lot in my work. At the same time I entered Postgraduate studies in the Academy of Diplomaticks of the USSR - the Ministry of International Affairs of the USSR and submitted my doctoral thesis in 1991.
In 1992 me my wife Natalia, daughter Anna (1977) and son Andrey (1983) returned from a foreign posting in Vietnam. At this very time a radical changes had occured in the country. The USSR had fallen apart and in its place appeared the Russian Federation. Completely new people came to power and they had no need for old employees because by the 'kormushka' (trough) you couldn't have strangers - you had to have your own people - your own people would steal off you but they wont sell out.
That was the way I was kicked out of the 'Red Bus of Fortune'. Because of depreciation and other government affairs I very quickly lost all my savings and was left with no job and a wife and two kids to look after. I was literally left on the street with all my highest education degrees and doctorates. The 'Russian Business Era' began. I didn't know the rules of the game any more, but I decided to try a new way of life.
First I got myself in to one shady enterprise where I was conned for $35,000, then in to another one where I was conned for $50,000 - which I originally borrowed from my friends. I barely managed to pay off my debts, I lost everything and in order to survive somehow I started to work as an unofficial, independent minicab driver in my Zjiguli [note: pre-Lada car]. I managed to earn $600-700 per month which was good money at thise times. It went on for two years.
But it was not a satisfactory life for me. Accidentally, via my friends, I managed to get a job in large Russian company, where I started to earn $1200 a month. I worked as a stock manager for floor coverings (linoleum, carpeting,etc) in Europe and the world. My knowledge of languages helped me a great deal. In one year of my work in this company I learned the basic rules of “Russian-Style Business' – it's a separate Academy of Business, and I am very grateful to the people who run the company for that knowledge.
But the most importantly is that while I was working at the company I understood that I also could find my place in this new world, even though I am 50 and I have to start everything from the scratch!!!
Just at that time-in 1996 I was offered to become a representative of a Czech company 'BRICOL' in Russia and I agreed, although I new nothing about glass. The conditions of business were offered rather strangely - 'here is our name, and the rest you do the way you like it - just sell our product on Russian market - and you take all the responsibilities and risks. If it works, good. If not well its your problems then'.
In 1996 you couldn't get loans, basically as it is still now. So me and my wife decided to sell our flat and invested the $30,000 that we got for it into this unfamiliar business of selling souvenir bottles. It really helped me having had experience of working in a Russian company - and literally in a year-and-a-half the turn-over of my company was $1.5 million. I was happily rubbing my hands and building big plans for the future. But in Russia nothing is that simple, and in 1998 I lost it all again, although, thank God I had no debts.
So I had to start it all over again. However, my business contacts remained, the Czech company offered me a commercial loan and slowly I started developing the same business again. Within three years the new economic conditions had ripened in Russia, the prices had stabilised and been regulated. Only then did the business start moving forward, and now the turn-over of my company has reached its former level. There are some good future growth prospects, that is, if our government will not come up with some new tricks to empty our pockets.
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