Bless the Babushkas!

There are the babushkas, bless their hearts. The babushka, or grandmother, has a special role in Russian history and life. They are the social conscience, and humorously, the collective mouthpiece of Russia. They have an opinion about everything.

They are fearless; they talked back tank drivers at the Russian White House in 1991, they march in political demonstrations (all sides), they guard the lobbies of apartment houses, they beat away gypsies attacking foreigners in the street (as they once did for me). They sat outside my building on long summer nights, petting the house cat, enjoying the children playing hopscotch on the pavement, complaining about the immoral price of milk or the crooks in the Kremlin. Yes, they also sweep the streets and sidewalks with stick brooms. Someone has to do it.

Sometimes intimidating with their dour, deeply-bred suspicious looks, they can quickly return a smile exposing a few gold teeth or none at all, or start a conversation, or willingly give a direction. They often live alone or in depressing communal flats struggling to maintain their dignity. They deserve help and are one group you don’t want to have against you. We help them. The Los Angeles/St. Petersburg Sister City Committee has been helping them for ten years. We love them.

Read more about Russian women, and the babushkas! Buy here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

“Russian music, like Russian literature, is always excited about something.”

When asked by a Westerner why I came to Russia, I give an MBA sort of answer, all about opportunity and growth, with statistics, etc., and of course that is right. When I am asked by a Russian why I came to Russia, I generally answer, “I like the music!” He nods, smiles, and says, “I understand.” Economic opportunity, sense of adventure, this is what the American wants to hear. But, the Russian understands other reasons. Really, it was the music.

I was unconscious of this until asked this question once by a Russian colleague, and I remembered my sister. The earliest music I remember was Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf.” Winnifred was a Russophile when, in the university it was popular to get caught up in the utopian notions of our ally, the Soviet Union.

By the time I was fourteen, I had collected, on scratchy vinyl 78’s, Prince Igor, Tchaikovsky’s Symphonies 4, 5, and 6, Rachmaninoff’s 2^nd and 3^rd Piano Concertos, and Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia. Almost all of my tiny salary from working part-time in a department store went for recordings of Russian music.

They say Russian music, like Russian literature, is always excited about something. Why is it then that almost all Russian music, even Shostakovich, is written in a minor key? Mozart wrote over six hundred pieces of music and eighty percent are in a major key. What is the difference? Russia is a melancholy land.

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Learning by Giving

I learn so much when I give a talk to groups about my books and my writing. The story I tell depends much on who it is told to. The audience determines my message, although sometimes there is still a surprise in there for me.

Recently, my talks and book signings are about my latest book “Dos Gringos,” the tale based on my immigrant Norwegian father’s escapades in the Mexican Revolution. Earlier it was, or still is, on my book “Walking on Ice – An American Businessman in Russia,” an account of my many years working and living in Russia. You can imagine the interests vary with the audience. But not always.

 Aside of the usual questions about the book, I often find interest in the writing process and how I personally evolved from a pure international business life to now writing novels based on my multicultural experiences in many lands. The audiences have expressed substantial satisfaction in the gatherings. In the process, I learn much, not only from the questions, but sometimes my own answers.

I enjoy the opportunity to interchange information with others. We all learn. Contact me via my Contact Page to discuss and schedule a talk in your area.

Buy here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

All About Tolstoy!

Whew! I now know so much more about Leo Tolstoy. Aside from his great novels, “Anna Karenina” and “War and Peace,” I have read some of his short stories and his “Confessions” and through that have grown to know more about this writer. Now I know more about him as a man. And what a man to know! Thanks to the Leo Tolstoy Centennial Festival held at California State University Long Beach last weekend we heard about many aspects of Tolstoy’s drive to make a difference in a chaotic world.

Of course there were readings of his work, and screenings of certain scenes from the many films based on his writing. We saw excepts of King Vidor’s 1956 version with Audrey Hepburn and Sergei Bondarchuk’s 1967 epic that won the Oscar and all sorts of other prizes. I saw this Russian six-hour classic last year at LACMA over two weekends   It was clear that as in art, the novel in its best form is to read and understood by the reader though his own eyes and each will have his or her independent story form as a result.  Central to the presentation was Vladimir Tolstoy, the great-great-grandson of Leo. With Vladimir were his two delightful daughters, Catherine, studying in Moscow to be an art historian and Anastasia, a PhD student at Oxford studying Nabokov. Vladimir manages Yasnaya Polyana, the family estate south of Moscow. The trio were wonderful guests who graciously shared their knowledge and opinions. Read more »

The Politics of Russian Business

One thing you have to understand is that Russia is a politi­cal country. You can’t do things alone.  Never mind about the Kremlin. That is another ocean you probably won’t have to challenge. But, even at the daily business level, it can be like crossing a big pond in a small boat. Or, as in the famous Repin painting above, like pulling the boat upstream. It is better to know you may need help on the oars and to prepare by choosing your crew yourself. In Russia they call it a “roof” which means political relationships that hopefully will be there to help when you need it. Also you hope they will leave you alone to manage your business and not interfere. In my company, we were fortunate to have trustworty and friendly connections which did just that. Some roofs leak in a storm; others are overwhelming and starve you of sun to grow in. Choose carefully.

It’s like getting married. Be careful to pick the right one as you may be with them a long time. So often I found Americans who had made some initial contacts, came to Moscow for a week and went home thinking they had made a deal. It doesn’t happen that way. Again, here is where patience pays. Patience is strength.

Buy here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

St. Petersburg is a City of Cats

St. Petersburg is a city of cats. From the streets at night, you can see their shining eyes, peering through the arches from the inner decay of “Dostoevsky’s St. Petersburg,” the faceless blocks of communal flats behind the Italianate buildings on the main streets. The cats hang comfortably in the dead trees, dine elegantly in the overflowing garbage, sit regally on the broken steps. In front of our office, in the winter, the last car to park was identified by the presence of the cats, healthy and fat, curled up on the warmest hood.

Petersburg is a proud city which keeps itself as different from Moscow as possible. On one hand it disdains the crass commercialism, the naked power of Moscow and on the other is jealous for some of it. But with Messers Putin and Medvedev and their colleagues from the city, changes are taking place.

St. Petersburg is a feminine city. She is an elegant and noble woman sitting draped with the jewels of her youth waiting for her prince to return. It is the most beautiful Italianate city in Europe. This “Venice of the North” with its symmetry, canals, architecture, statuary, museums, performing arts, palaces, gardens and languid summers with endless days make it a city never to be forgotten.

St. Petersburg is all things, but one wonders at times if it really exists. Beneath the 300-year-old veneer of classical European architecture and fantasy lies the decrepit relicts of communal communism, the “the Dostoevsky St. Petersburg”―and the satisfied cats. To me, it is the most thrilling city in Europe.

(Moscow is a city of dogs. Stay tuned.)

Read more about St. Petersburg. Buy the book here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

“Poor Russia” Platonov says. Chekhov is relevant today.

When I lived in Moscow, I heard a talk on the play “The Mechanical Piano” by Oleg Tabakov based on a drama by Chekhov, written by that great Russian author at eighteen. It was apparently Chekhov’s first play, overly long, full of everything he ever dreamed to put into a play―crashing trains and dancing gypsies. When he brought it to the famous actress Maria Yermalova, she told him it was terrible. He burned it. He never even gave it a name, but it is commonly called “Platonov” after the main character. But a second copy of that play survived. It resurfaced, modified as a movie by Nikita Mikhalkov in 1977 – “An Unfinished Piece for a Mechanical Piano.” Three hours long and according to some Russians, one of the best films ever made. The story became the basis for a shorter stage play now also called, “The Mechanical Piano.”

The characters are typically Chekhovian. Platonov is a middle aged man with great aspirations and no education or family pedigree from which to launch his life’s direction. He is in love with a woman married to a young member of the intelligentsia, who has achieved nothing with his degrees and high connections and is mainly occupied with thinking about Russia.

The following Sunday I went to see the play and the next week coincidentally happened to see on television the 1977 movie directed by Nikita Mikhalkov. The most humorous part is when Platonov, despondent about life, attempts suicide by drowning himself in the river; not realizing the river was only three feet deep. He emerges soaking wet with his cream linen suit shrunken by two sizes. Failing even at suicide, he is now even more discouraged with life, and can only blame it on Russia. “Poor Russia,” he says.

I borrowed this hilarious episode for my book “The Lady with an Ostrich Feather Fan,” based on the story of the “Yusupov Rembrandts” now in The National Gallery of Art in Washington. The murder of Rasputin, by Prince Felix Yusupov and friends had humorous parallels to the Platonov scene when the chains to sink the victim’s body in the river were left behind. In my new book, the discovery scene in the Yusupov Palace is recognizably similar. This new historical novel is planned for 2011 publication.

Buy the book here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

The “Russian Soul” and Russian Business—a connection?

 I was asked by the respected Russia Profile magazine to consider if there is a connection between the legendary “Russian soul” and the chaotic world of Russian business today. My answer was absolutely yes!

My resulting article, “The Piety of Soil and Spirit” is featured in the summer special edition of Russia Profile, the most respected English language magazine published in Russia and offering the most comprehensive and concise view of business, economic, political and cultural trends and processes underway in today’s Russia. See http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=About  and on that page in the left “Special Edition” column click on “The Piety of Soil and Spirit.”—that’s my article. There are more articles, really good ones, on this or similar subjects.

I learned soon after coming to Russia to start a business back in 1992, that business in Russia is like business anywhere else—but different. I call it “the third side of the Russian coin.”  In the RP article I write that “Soul” is important to a Russian. It explains the unexplainable. It is that conscious or unconscious essence that makes a people identify who they are. For the Russian, it is the “sense” of being Russian, a deep piety of soil and spirit.

There is too much to say on this topic for a short post, but if you go to the Russia Profile website you will see all the articles on “the Russian Soul” and it is very good reading.  And of course, read my book “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia” for a “from the trenches” account of my many years in that fascinating and challenging land.

Buy the book here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

“Grappling With Soviet Symbolism,” New York Times

In the May 15, 2010 edition of The New York Times, was an article by Andrei Zolotov, Jr. “Grappling With Soviet Symbolism. This paralleled well with the sentiments in my book  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia.” So, I wrote a letter to the New York Times and they, surprisedly, answered at once telling me it was going to be published in the International Herald Tribune. I expect to see a copy of that soon. Here is what I wrote:

 “What a welcome account of the obvious change happening in Russia today. It has been happening, but slowly and often unnoticed by the press. Lenin said Russia progressed one step forward and one step back. I say today it is three steps forward and two back, but we must acknowledge that residual step and help build on it. Zolotov covered it all well. Indeed, it is often the “blink” of events that help turn the head and then the body in a new and better direction. The Smolensk fatal crash killing the Polish leadership on the anniversary of the Katyn massacre may well have been that unexpected moment that turned the Russian heads. In my seventeen years in Russian business, it has been so obvious that the country was inching toward a reality first foreseen by Peter the Great, now led by the world-conscious young as they lead Russia out of the historic dark past into the light of the new world.”

Buy the book here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

Global Response to “Dos Gringos!” Great!

As a preface to a formal announcement of the publication of my second book, “Dos Gringos,” I sent an email notice to my personal mailing list. Within two hours congratulatory responses poured into my computer from all over the world: Hong Kong, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Budapest, London, Rostov-on-Don, and many more — and from all about the United States. It was such a pleasure to see this. I also learned that those who ordered my first book, ”Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia,” from Amazon, have received notice that “Dos Gringos” is now available. At this moment, the cover photo is not yet on Amazon, but that will come soon.

 To buy on Amazon go to http://www.amazon.com/Dos-Gringos-Norwegian-Irishman-Revolution/dp/1432746634/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271811133&sr=1-1