ADVENTURES IN THE WORKERS UTOPIA OR HOW TO CHANGE COMMUNISTS TO CAPITALISTS

At one point, early in the year 2000, our company entered into a relationship with a Russian pipe manufacturing mill. The opportunity arose, because the pipe mill wanted to secure a huge pipeline Project, in Russia. And, under normal Russian business practises, may have landed the job. However this Project was owned by an American Oil Company, which meant that the pipe would have to be manufactured to some basic quality standards. “What” you say? “Blasphemy”, you cry out! Who would require the poor dears from the “Workers Utopia”, to make something to any minimum level of quality? As it turned out, this particular owner did. Because of this we were asked to partner with the Russian company. This meant, setting up our plant in their facilities, bringing in our crews and “kicking” their “game” up a few notches.

On being told of this new venture, my immediate reaction was to run and hide. As always, throughout my career, I felt a great apprehension when diving into the unknown. Additionally, my vision of the Worker’s Utopia was not completely positive. Although Communism was said to be on its deathbed, I still had ingrained fears of the red hoard, raping and pillaging their way around Eastern Europe. However, not being given a vote, I just sucked it up and prepared myself for what was to come. Soon I was involved in contract negotiations between our companies. Preparations were now being made for the inevitable trip into Russia. I was somewhat curious, apprehensive and filled with trepidation at the task I/we would face.

In the early stages, we put together a team of company executives, packed our bags and flew off into the unknown. each of us with our own visions, of what we would face. The more experienced exec’s had rode one of these raging bulls before. Therefore they had prior knowledge of the kind of crap storm we were flying into. In order to set the scene, picture in your mind a cold, windy, snowy bleak day in the Arctic and then picture something worse. Now you are close to what we encountered as we landed in Moscow. It was late in the evening and we were quickly gathered up and shunted off to an obscure airport. It was from this small, cold, dark airport that we would continue our journey, into the bowels of Russia.

We huddled in a small, dark waiting room that had no heat and little lighting. A beer, burger or magazine you might ask. Not bloody likely! Somehow we had managed to find the crappiest place in all of Russia, outside of Siberia, to transfer from. It was -17degrees F (-27 degrees C) outside and possibly 10 degrees colder inside the waiting room. While we waited, we all stood around blaming each other for picking this nasty place, to transfer from. Luckily, one time in my life, I was innocent and had no part of this arrangement. Some, who were ill prepared for the cold, were digging into bags and donning anything that looked, remotely, warm. Finally we see a big tractor looking thing, pulling what appeared to be a plane, up to us.

Our group, along with the 30 or 40 locals, joining us on this commuter flight to southern Russia, now lined up to board. We filed out into the dark and cold night and followed the line to the back of the plane. I don’t know what type of a plane it was but it squatted on the runway, with the tail near the ground and the nose up at about a 45 degree angle. Now we are standing outside in a line up, with no protection from the wind. Geezus, it was cold! One by one we boarded the plane, on a “one person” ladder, from the tail. We looked like a group of ants crawling up a goose’s butt.

Getting inside you just found whatever seat you could. I managed to plop down next to a dour looking red army soldier. Somehow I didn’t think we were going to get “tight”. Man was it cold on this plane. It seems like they had stored it in a deep freeze while not in use. The seats were like sitting on benches, sculpted from ice. They finally started the engines and some lights come on. By now I was truly starting to feel sorry for myself. Out of the front of the plane, appears what might be a steward, or maybe just the pilot with two jobs. He rattles off some commands, I guess. I truly had no idea. I groped around my seat, trying to find a seatbelt to fasten. What the hell, I can’t find either end of one. Hold it! I need help.

Waving my arms, I get the attention of the steward. He comes over and I point to my lack of seat belt. This did not seem to bother him. He calmly reached across my body and unclipped both ends of the seatbelt from my neighbour’s seat. And just as calmly, attached them, to both sides of my seat frame. He then turns and vanishes. Now, from behind me, I hear, “attaboy Jimbo you idiot, now you have his seatbelt, but he’s still got his gun!” Realization now sets in, however there is no way, I can figure out, how to give him the belt back. We now took off, for an uneasy ride to Volgagrad, in the south and west of Russia. By the time we arrived, it was late at night, however the plane was now starting to warm up. Great, now off the plane and back into the cold.

By this time, second stage hypothermia had set in and most of us were ready to give up. We gather up our bags from a pile on the ground, and trudge toward a dark terminal. Amazingly, we were met by an English speaking person who directed us to a waiting bus, for transport to our hotel. Why this sticks in my mind, is this. After being nearly frozen to death, I was completely unprepared for the wall of heat, that hit us upon opening the bus door. The driver had a heater big enough to heat a football stadium, and it was running full blast inside the bus. Never since Kuwait, have I felt heat as stifling as this. Within a minute, everyone is pealing off clothes and bitching about the overpowering heat. The driver, not understanding a word, just smiled and went about his business.

The next morning we are greeted by the same bus, same driver and same heat. We drove through the streets of Volgograd, in the middle of winter with the windows down. It must have looked like a bunch of tourists, to the locals. We drove along, windows open, enveloped in the cloud of steam, pouring from the bus. This journey took us right thru the heart of the city, towards our destination at the pipe mill in Volzhsky. What was the most striking of features in Volgograd, was the architecture. Volgagrad, as we all know, was a city completely destroyed by the Germans, before their ultimate defeat on the banks of the Volga River. The scene was truly amazing

This city of roughly, 1,000,000 people had been completely bombed out and destroyed by the siege. NOT ONE Building was left standing. Not only that, the Russians had never removed the debris! When it came to rebuilding the city, they left the ruins in place and just started construction up, over, and around the remains. This completely incorporated the war’s legacy, in the new buildings, forever. New, modern buildings would start with a piece of bombed out wall, from the old building. And then, leaving every piece, intact and visible, the new building sprouted up around and over it. It was common to see, a remnant of a broken brick wall, incorporated into a new, clean, white, plaster wall. The city was a monument in time to the devastation of war and the will of the Russians.

Finally we reached the pipe mill in Volzhsky, where I received the surprise of my life. I do not know what I was expecting, however what greeted me was the sight of 6 long metal clad buildings. Each one was over a mile long. They were, by far, the largest manufacturing plants I had seen in my career. One of our plants could fit 10 times into each one of their buildings. The amount of pipe they were capable of producing was staggering. At one end of the rows was an office building. It was faded, concrete, dreary, about 3 stories tall, and looked something like a prison. We entered, were given a room, served a very bad coffee and prepared for a meeting with our Russian counterparts. It seemed like the Soviet States did not include a coffee producing one. What they served was one or the worst, bitter, foul tasting imitations, I had even wrapped my lips around.

We met in a conference room and were introduced to the company chairman. I later found out that this guy was a former member of the Communist ruling elite and a hard ass Soviet. Much of his adult life was spent pounding the drum of the Communist party and extolling the virtues of the ruling society. The workers, on whom the party depended to keep them in power, were appeased by lack of demands in the work place. Apparently you didn’t need to work harder, than the next guy, to survive. You just needed to hide in the pack and not stir up Capitalist dreams. Come the collapse of Communism, the system had to change in order for Russia to survive economically. What happened in many sectors, including the one we had dived into, was that the high ranked Commies were given state owned companies; and immediately became capitalists.

Volhsky pipe mill was no exception. As I understand it, the ruling Politburo member for the area was given the pipe mill, by the state and instantly became a full blown Capitalist. And this is the guy we met and had to deal with. At the time of our arrival, the Worker’s Utopia had basically disappeared and life appeared bleak. The first act of the long term hardcore Communist, now a raging Capitalist was to discontinue the daily rations of Vodka to the workers. Indeed, after pounding the drum about their perfect society, they now took the last remaining perk from the workers. Previously, the loyal worker was entitled to a glass of vodka at morning break, and another during the afternoon rest. I believe a shot at lunch and to end the day was also called for. I guess you can imagine how the Vodka business thrived.

Soon after the arrival of the new “chairman” of the company, he determined that the Vodka ration was not helping production and was maybe even detrimental. In one foul stroke, everything that the worker had left, was cut, stopped, killed with one blow. Now you may be thinking, “well that’s not so bad is it?” Well maybe it is, if you have depended on it every day for the last 30 years. Additionally, times were tough, economically, in Russia and by the time we arrived, not many people in that part of the country were being paid anything! I came to understand that even people providing critical service, such as Doctors or Educators had not been paid in nearly 2 years. “Why didn’t they quit,” you might cry out. Well the reason being was there were no other jobs available and if you quit, someone else would take the job in hope of being paid “some day”. Hard to believe, but true. It seemed as if the Worker’s Utopia had, indeed, collapsed!

I understand, that workers at the pipe mill had not been paid for months and were currently being given “a bag of potatoes” every couple of weeks, to keep them going. I am not sure how much truth there is in that, but it is what we were told by our local translator. Understanding this, coupled with the removal of the daily stipend of alcohol, you can see that it was going to be hard to expect dedicated, hard working employees. Quality and quantity were not foremost in their minds. More, I believe, their thoughts went to eating, and the survival of their families.

Now negotiations started, Russian style. We were provided with a translator, a 30ish lady who spoke reasonable English as well as a couple of other languages. We were immediately aware of what we might say in private conversation, in front to her. There was no question as to where her loyalties went. The meetings were laborious, with the former Communists, now turned Capitalists, as hard to bargain with as the Thai’s. They had no perception of give and take. These poor dears were out for 100% win in every area we negotiated. They had learned the principles of capitalism very quickly, indeed. We spent quite a few long dreary days talking in circles, interspersed with little sidebars amongst ourselves. During these breakout sessions, we would exclude the translator from the room.

The chairman of the pipe mill, also required a full time translator, who spoke every word that came up in our conversations, directly into his ear, and was required to also leave the room. During our breakout sessions, we made sure that both ours and his translators were out of the room. Him and a couple of his top men would huddle at one end of the room, with us at the other end. Oh, we thought we were clever! Once, huddled in our small group we spoke quite freely amongst ourselves. I won’t bore you with details, however after many long days of head butting, we finally reached some sort of agreement. A celebration was called for. What the hell, if anyone was up for a celebration it was the group of guys that ran the company I was with.

We left the offices and moved to a local restaurant in the centre of Volhsky. This was a medium sized city, and had everything we required during our stay. I estimated its population at +/- 250,000 souls. Somehow, the pipe mill had found enough “English speaking” upper management personnel to seat one of them with every one or two of our people. What happened at this celebration, will stay in my mind forever. We sat around a huge, oblong shaped table, on wooden chairs with only a spoon and glass in front of us. It seemed kind of utilitarian, to me, but as it turned out this was about all you needed for a Russian party. The chairman of the pipe mill made a congratulatory speech, praising himself and his company. It was all dutifully translated to us, by his personal translator. Our president thanked him and agreed that we were set on a journey of trust and prosperity. Geezus, with all the love and camaraderie, I felt nauseous.

Now for the party. The restaurant staff brought out, wash basin size tubs of Caviar, and set one between each two or three people. This was world famous caviar from the sturgeon in the Volga River, that we were on the banks of. It kinda blew me away, because I had been thru Heathrow many times and admired the one or two ounce packages of Caviar for $200 each. Based on that, we must have had about $50,000 worth of caviar plopped down in front of us. As the caviar landed on the table, another waiter plunked down ICE COLD bottles of Vodka, in front of each person. Accompanying this was a half wash basin size bowl of iced butter and a large tray of, bitesize, dark, rusk toast. And that was it. Dig in.

The process of celebrating in Russia was for their top guy to fill his glass with Vodka (I mean to the top) and after a ten word speech hand it off to our top guy. Who was then required to drink it from top to bottom. It continued like this, fill your glass make a speech and pass it to the next guy. The glasses quickly moved around the table. Each glass contained about 6 ounces of “frozen” Vodka (it had been stored in the freezer and brought directly to the table). After the first round of vodka, then everyone dove into the caviar. The process was to take a piece of black, rusk toast, lather a hearty chunk of butter on it and scoop up, with your spoon, as much caviar as would balance on the toast. This large lump then was shoved into your mouth and ……. Bells went off, angels sang and my heart fluttered as I tasted the most exotic flavour in the world. OMG was it good. Coupled with the frozen Vodka, it seemed as if I had arrived in heaven.

It was amazing, how quickly the glass came around the table and how much caviar was consumed. Personally, I might say I ate as much caviar as I possibly could jam down, to a point where the Vodka numbed my memory and I lost track. At one point, I said to my counterpart, I think I need a beer to kinda slow down. This because I could no longer feel my legs and knew if I was to stand up, at that point, I would collapse into an insensitive pile on the floor. He looks at me sternly and wags a finger in my face. “No” he says, “if you drink beer now, you are going to get really drunk!” To this I had no response, although I could not imagine a state where I could get drunker. Somehow we survived, made friends, and didn’t insult Russian traditions. As far as I can remember, anyway.

I am sure everyone is finding this post, agonizingly long so I will try to bring it to a conclusion. The day after our celebratory party, we piled on a train in Volgograd for an overnight trip to Moscow. We now had to sign our new partnering agreement in front of the owner of the pipeline and a few other Russian dignataries. What transpired on this train was a thing of legend in our company, and taught us another good lesson in trust. During the course of a stroll thru the train, I passed by a birth where the Pipemill chairman was conversing with someone. I couldn’t help but hear him speaking, in clear perfect ENGLISH. I was gobsmacked!

I quickly went to get our president and told him,” you have got to hear this!” After standing for a minute outside the birth, he turned an ashen grey and said, “get everyone together, we’ll meet in my cabin”. For the next two hours we went over everything we might have discussed in our sidebars. We realized, that we had been duped by the Russians. He needed no translator to tell him what we said, he clearly understood each and every word of what we were talking about! I think that pretty much ended the fellowship and trust between us and our Russian partner. It was probably hilarious to them! In any event, we did work with them for a few years. It was an uneasy relationship; we never did trust them after that.