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 those doomed for liquidation. The little bogdykhans out there owned neither holiday hotels nor saunas. Everything was run by cops or criminals. Sometimes both at once, in one person wishing to take part in the carve-up by right of being the local Dersu Uzala. As the prosecutor of Srednekamsk observed: «To us Tatars it makes no difference which end we’re dragging. Let’s have the figures, what and how?»

Visiting the district towns wore thin within a month. I fell into Groundhog Day, in which I had become a function.

Back in Moscow, I cornered Zhorik:

– 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. This week I ran over to Erzurum, the infidels are serious. The center of Neftevolzhsk is all private houses, you’ll wear yourself out buying up the cottages. But the plant sits richly, between the station and the embankment. For the warehouse with the dock we’ll get money for modernization. The Turks know: an apartment on the embankment beats a flat in the center any day. They’ll pay what it takes. Now look. So the alienation of the land doesn’t show, chew the subject over with Marina and Seva. We’ll set up a company at the plant, we’ll contribute the territory and the Turks the equipment. We’ll modernize the plant. On paper the Turks will build housing for the workers and ship the equipment through Grzegorz. If Paris, then Paris. I’m signaling that the final meeting is there. You choose the date. Ida is busy, so sort out the visa and the rest of the persimmon yourself. Don’t drag it out. And ask the technical people what needs updating 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!