Winter 1995/96
The New Year holidays stretched out for two months for Team A and me. I shuttled between the institute and the office, flipped through reports, wrote my thesis. At the end of February I defended it and got a «good.» The fact of receiving the degree left no trace in my memory. I think Yurik, Pasha, and I stopped by some dive on Kolomenskaya and got wrecked.
In the morning we got back to the main question: what to do with the plants that were barely breaking even, on the edge of profitability? Rebuild them or dump them? Sell off the equipment for scrap, lease out the shop floors, or scrape together money for a rebuild?
I buried myself in studying the Technical Department’s reports and correspondence with the finance people.
In March I set off on a tour of the plants doomed for liquidation. No spa resorts or saunas for the local overlords out there. The establishments were run by cops or criminals. Sometimes both at once, in a single person eager to get in on the carve-up as the local Dersu Uzala. As the prosecutor of Srednekamsk put it: «Doesn’t matter to us Tatars – hauling the screwed folks in or hauling the screwed folks out, same difference to me. Just give me the numbers, what and how.»
Visiting the district towns wore thin within a month. I fell into Groundhog Day and turned into a walking function: watching everything happen with no emotional response whatsoever. As soon as I got back to Moscow, I cornered Zhorik and unloaded on him:
– I can’t do this anymore!
– Can’t do what? – Zhorik put on a blank look.
– All this traveling.
– I thought you liked shaking down the peasant girls, – he shrugged. – Wasn’t this your dream? Riding around in a limo, thousands of women!
Hm. My cherished dreams turned out laughably absurd. Zhorik smirked:
– I get it! Home sweet home’s gotten old. Let’s send you abroad! Where do you want to go?
– Paris, – I blurted out.
Why? I had no idea myself.
Zhorik’s eyes carried the same question, but he settled for giving instructions:
– Look, here’s the thing. Developers from Turkey are moving in on Neftevolzhsk. Went to Istanbul yesterday, seems like the infidels are serious. Neftevolzhsk’s center is all private houses, you’ll wear yourself out buying up the cottages. But the plant itself sits pretty, between the train station and the embankment. We’ll get money for modernization off the warehouse with the dock. Turks know riverside apartments beat a downtown flat. They’ll pay whatever it takes. Now here’s the thing. So the land transfer doesn’t attract attention, run it past Marina and Seva. We’ll set up a company under the plant, we’ll contribute the land, the Turks the equipment. We’ll book it at the old valuations, the Turks will build housing for the workers on paper and ship the equipment in through Grzegorz. If it’s Paris, then it’s Paris. I’ll signal the Turks the final meeting’s there. You pick the date. Ida’s tied up, so sort out the visa and all that nonsense yourself. Don’t drag your feet. And ask the technical guys what needs upgrading in Neftevolzhsk.
Zhora left. I called Pavel and gave him a two-point assignment: «One. A list of equipment that needs replacing in Neftevolzhsk. Two. What to buy for the replacements, and where.»
Though the answer was obvious enough already. In Proma’s smoking rooms, questions like this got settled in a flash: «One. All the Soviet junk to the dump. Two. Buy new in Europe, top quality down to the packaging.»
I sat there a while, thinking.
I needed a map of Paris. Had no idea where to go or where to sleep. Called Yurik, laid out the task: let the front-desk girls handle it – «Get a tourist map of Paris. Urgent.»
I called around the travel agencies from the Yellow Pages, the «Foreign Tourism» section: I want a visa to France and a hotel with a view of the Eiffel Tower from the window. Cheap! Tomorrow!!!
You can’t fool an old hand with cheap tricks! If you demand a ticket for tomorrow, they’ll send you off sometime within the week. If you need a hotel with a specific view, they’ll put you up somewhere nearby instead. I’d never been abroad as a tourist, but I made full use of my experience selling booze. Every business boils down to the same thing: spin it, work it, hustle it. If the client doesn’t nail down clear boundaries on what they want and what they’ll pay, they’ll get hustled down to zero for nothing at all.
Phew! Called them all!
