Manage your dream. Your opportunities are endless

1993 year. New changes. Another life

I graduated from university in 1993. Sergei and I had earned a small amount of capital by this time, and it was time to properly invest part of the money we earned. We decided to open a line for the production of pasta in the region, near Yekaterinburg. Pasta is a product that is always bought, regardless of the economic situation in the country, income level and the status of buyers in society. In addition, this product, according to our preliminary calculations, gives a fairly decent profitability – from 100 to 200 percent. To do this, it is necessary to organize properly all processes, from the purchase of raw materials to the organization of production at a sufficiently high level, and most importantly, to establish sales of products. With regard to sales, we have already developed numerous contacts and connections with chain and individual stores; several dozen retail outlets and networks have cooperated with us. In addition, we were preparing a program for selling in bulk to other regions. Of course, the wholesale price was significantly different from the sales price, but the capacity utilization of the equipment we intended to buy had to be maximum. In addition, there are other economic indicators for the successful operation of any enterprise, such as fixed and floating costs of production, transportation costs, depreciation charges, taxes, and so on. We had a business plan ready. It remains for us to find suitable areas, which turned out to be not such an easy task. We tried to ensure that all conditions meet our requirements, namely: the distance from Yekaterinburg is no more than fifty kilometers, the proximity of transport links, the area must have a reserve for the subsequent expansion of production for the lines of baking bread and other bakery products. We also needed space for warehouses – both for raw materials and for finished products; the possibility of opening a company store directly at the factory and the availability of communications: electricity of sufficient power, heating, sewerage and water.

I was already married at that time. My wife studied in the same course as me. We practically did not know each other and did not communicate after my return from the army, having studied together for six months. And in March, I invite her to my twentieth birthday, which I was preparing to celebrate at the “Big Ural” restaurant. We began to maintain a relationship after this celebration, and we got married in the fall of 1993. The parents of my future wife were working in Cuba at that time, they were building a nuclear power plant there. She came to Yekaterinburg from Ukraine, where their family has lived for the past ten years.

The last, fifth course has come to an end. In June, we passed all exams and received our diplomas. Our student life ended there, the life that became a real discovery for me. These seven years of my life, including two years of military service, opened the gates to the future for me. These were the brightest, most dynamic and the most memorable years for me. During this time, I have created a foundation for my beliefs, goals and positive thoughts. I became who I wanted to be and who I wanted to remain for the years to come. Only one task remained – not to stop, but to develop and improve further.

I needed to decide on the next place of residence, taking into account our business plans with Sergei. At that time, I did not have my own housing in Yekaterinburg. But my wife and I decided to go to the nature reserve and visit my parents before we get to grips with the housing issue. I haven’t been there that often in the last three years.

The road to the Ilmensk Reserve, going through the towns of Kasli and Karabash, took four hours: the shortest route by bus from Yekaterinburg to Miass was 160 kilometers. It was very convenient for us that we got off the bus, passing the village of Novaya Andreevka, and, bypassing all other transfers, we found ourselves two kilometers from the Karmakkul cordon.

Many names of villages in this region, like the names of almost all the lakes of the Southern Urals, have Tatar names. The name “Karmakkul” means, for example, “hook lake”. Kul is a lake. The neighboring lake, two hundred meters later, is called Syrytkul, then, two kilometers later, Terenkul, and so on. The reserve itself was formed back in 1918, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin signed a decree on the creation of the Ilmensk mineralogical reserve. In our time, the reserve is called “Ilmensk Mineralogical Reserve named after V.I. Lenin”.

The walk to the reserve takes about twenty minutes: you need to overcome a kilometer ascent through the first mountain range 400 meters high, and then go down to the foot of Lake Karmakkul. Another ridge of the same mountain range stretches from the opposite side of the lake – Ilmensk. It is more picturesque than the first, and its height is already 650 meters. Lake Karmakkul is connected by rivers with two other lakes included in the reserve. One of the most picturesque and deepest reservoirs of the reserve – Lake Ishkul with several islands – is located in the northern direction, five kilometers away. The protected zone, for which my father was responsible, consisted of the territory from our lake and part of Lake Ishkul with a total length of eight kilometers from north to south, and from west to east – the entire territory from one to the other border with an average width of seven to eight kilometers. The peculiarity of the security zone is that the entrance and entry into the reserve is completely prohibited. For sixteen years the reserve has become my home for me.

When I came to my parents, I saw that my father’s health had deteriorated. The disease slowly crept closer and closer despite all his efforts and positive mood. The reason for the acceleration of negative dynamics was the fact that Russia stopped purchasing some medicines in Europe in 1993, and instead began to use analogues of domestic production. His condition deteriorated sharply in just three months, during which his father took a Russian-made drug. My mommy told me about this in detail, that’s what I still call her!

Father’s illness began to progress

My father had a very rare disease, the source of which has already been precisely established. It is caused by microorganisms that enter the human body when eating fresh wild berries or as a result of direct contact with wild animals. The most dangerous of all animals in this regard are foxes.

These microorganisms settle mainly in the lungs and liver of a person and begin to multiply there gradually. A person infected with such microorganisms at the first stage, sometimes lasting for years, does not feel anything until the number of microorganisms begins to manifest itself in mild shortness of breath and a slight (up to 37 degrees) increase in body temperature. At this stage, the lungs and liver cease to fully perform their functions, and the person begins to feel it.

Until now, it has not been possible to find a remedy that could completely cure a person from these microorganisms. Modern medicine has not yet developed such a drug. The existing German medicine allows only to stop the growth process of pathogens and reduce their activity, which leads to an improvement in the condition of an infected person. In 1995, my father spent several months in Hamburg, in a special clinic for tropical diseases, in which there were only four such patients from Germany.

And then, in 1993, the Ministry of Health of the USSR (Russia) stopped buying this medication in Europe, and the released Russian analogue, after a week from the beginning of its intake, began to have very strong and severe side effects on my father’s body. Our family at that moment had to decide where to get German-made medicines for my father. We found an opportunity to buy it in Germany. The cost of the course for a month was about eight hundred US dollars, and the drug had to be taken constantly throughout the rest of my life. So fate has set a new task for us: how to cope with all this?

It was not easy for us at all. But we all: me, my mother, my brother and my father came to this decision together, weighing all the “pros” and “cons”. Only one major factor was for me personally: my father’s health! There was no other way.

Chapter 2. First step into the unknown world…

Making an important decision

We decided to leave to live in Germany. At that moment, my mother’s three sisters lived there.

But what did it mean for me to leave everything and go to live in Germany, another country with a different way of life, different customs? But what about German, which I did not know? What about all this? I had to leave my startup business, my friends, my habits and go into a world still incomprehensible to myself! THIS were my FEARS at that moment, which I needed to cope with.

I thought that there should also be advantages in this situation, and began to list them: I am young at my twenty-four years old and, if necessary, I can get another or additional education in Germany, which will open up NEW, unknown opportunities for me.

I thought that for this I need to first learn the language, which will give me some advantages for my future. But that was not all. That time was very turbulent in Russia, my business involved serious risks, my safety was not guaranteed by anything. And it was not clear what Russia would be like in five or six years. My brother Dmitry, who was a year and a half younger than me, he worked in various places and earned very modest income, he had dubious friends and abused alcohol. I thought about him and worried about him. Departure from Russia should only benefit him.

And my father, to my proposal to leave for him with his mother alone, to Germany, replied that he would not go to Germany without me and my brother, and my mother supported him.

So, the decision was made, and we started the process of paperwork for the exit. Earlier in the family we did not speak at all about the fact that we have relatives abroad. Mom’s older sister went abroad in the seventies. She and her mother rarely corresponded, since in the USSR, living behind the “Iron Curtain”, it was dangerous to have relatives abroad. This could have far-reaching consequences – such a fact could significantly limit the choice of profession, career growth, self-realization as a leader.

But by that time, in 1993, all three of my mother’s sisters had already lived in Germany. My mother was German by birth, she was from those Germans who moved to the Volga region at the invitation of Tsarina Catherine II in the 16th century from Schlesia, the eastern part of Germany. Today these lands are part of Poland.

Russian Germans. Generational history

Immigrants from Germany during the time of Catherine II received land and could engage in agriculture. As a result, whole German villages with German schools, beautiful houses and good roads were formed in four hundred years. The inhabitants of such villages spoke only German, and this was their own little world for them. When we were about to move to Germany, we did not know that such villages existed in southern Russia.

Before the revolution, my ancestors owned a large farm, which in 1917 was taken away and passed into the possession of Soviet collective farms, and my great-grandfather named Rekovsky was shot by the Bolsheviks. But this was not the end of the ordeal for the Rekovsky family, as well as for many other Volga region Germans. 1941 came, the Great Patriotic War with fascist Germany began. At night, the entire village was surrounded by special services, and an order was given to evacuate the entire population. People could only take with them documents, which were later seized by the NKVD, and some clothes and food. All were put into a cargo train at the nearest station and taken to, but where – it is not known. These frightened people did not know how long they would take them and what awaited them ahead. And they faced difficult trials ahead: complete poverty, death of relatives from hunger or from work in the Gulag and “labor camps”.

The echelon reached its destination in about a week, it was the city of Novosibirsk. The people were put into trucks and taken to the forest about fifty kilometers from the city. There was no housing at all, and people were offered to dig dugouts. Yes, that’s exactly how – to dig dugouts and settle down, whoever can. (Further – from the words of my mother’s sister, aunt Mina.) The Rekovskys family had five children at that time, my mother was born after the war, in 1947. Just imagine: as soon as the family settled down, my grandfather Alexander Rekovsky (born on July 21, 1909) was taken into the labor army, grandmother Ekaterina (born on March 9, 1911) was also taken into the labor army, and a little later, three months later, the children were left alone. The older sister Mina, who was twelve at the time, took full responsibility for the younger sisters. The sisters were between two and six years old. Mina went from door to door, begged, got food and warm clothes, wandered through the garbage dumps, collected what could still be used for food, and, if possible, worked as a nanny. The two youngest sisters could not overcome the hardships of hunger and died one after another during the first year after moving to Novosibirsk.

Time passed and the situation got worse. Mina found out the address of the camp where her father worked and wrote him the following letter: “Our beloved daddy, we live in our last breath. Our two little sisters starved to death three months ago, and now it’s our turn. Come to us as soon as possible, otherwise we may not wait for you! Your daughter Mina”.

When my grandfather received this letter, only one person could help him in this situation. This was one of the camp officers with the rank of captain. After the main working day, the grandfather helped the family of this officer, who lived on the territory of the labor camp, – he prepared firewood for them. In the evening, grandfather brought firewood to their house and stoked the stove. And so, he once again fired up the stove and handed this letter to the officer’s wife with words of help and asked to give him the opportunity to go to Novosibirsk to bring his children. It was unlikely, but he nevertheless hoped very much: he had no other opportunity to get out of the camp, even for a couple of days.

And the very next day, my grandfather received a three-day leave of absence from the camp director. These were the most cherished three days in his entire life!

He received two cans of stew, a loaf of bread and a little sugar on the way from the officer’s wife. My grandfather returned to the camp three days later and brought with him three thinner, exhausted, but infinitely happy daughters. My grandfather’s luck set a good example for other fathers who worked in this labor camp. They began to intercede for the children before the leadership of the colony and to bring them from dugouts near Novosibirsk, left not of their own free will.

The year 1945 came, my grandmother returned from the labor camp, and the Rekovskys family moved to Novosibirsk. Despite the fact that they did not have the right to leave this area for several more years, they were happy that they were together after four such difficult years.

In 1947, my mother, Lydia Aleksandrovna Rekovskaya, was born. The Rekovsky family continued to live in Novosibirsk, since the regime established by Lavrentiy Beria after the end of World War II did not allow the Germans to leave the regions where they were deported in 1941. Only in 1954, after Beria’s death, did German families receive passports. Now they, like all free people, could freely move around the territory of the USSR. After so many years of hardship and the cold of the north, the Rekovskys decided to leave for the union Republic of Kyrgyzstan, in the city of Frunze, now Bishkek. There they built a one-story house with snow-white walls, in which there was a garden planted with all kinds of fruit trees that grew only in this strip. In the seventies and eighties, my family and I came to them every summer from the Urals on vacation to eat fruit and homemade sweet German krebel, which my grandmother so willingly baked.

I remember very well this kind and very lively granny, who in her life never spoke Russian, but only spoke German with the dialect of the Volga region, the so-called Plattdeutsch. In the summer after work, my grandfather was constantly swarming in the garden, preparing dried fruits, soaked watermelons and preparing his signature plum wine. It was their new, calm and measured world.

Transfer to the city of Miass. Temporary solution

So, I made the final decision to go to Germany, abandoned plans to organize a pasta factory and moved with my wife from Yekaterinburg to Miass, continuing to engage in wholesale trade. In addition, before leaving for Germany, I decided to get a job at the Ural Automobile Plant (UralAZ), in the commercial service. In the nineties, almost all enterprises in the country worked without money supply and barely kept themselves afloat. The primary task for any enterprise at that time was to close its debts for the supply of raw materials and the necessary energy resources for production, and for this they used the so-called “offset” scheme. I went to work in such a unit, which is responsible for all offsets at the enterprise, and which called the “department of commercial services”. There were seven of us. For a relatively short period of work in the department, in addition to small contracts, I managed to conclude one large contract with our customer from Khanty-Mansiysk for 1 billion 100 million rubles and send it to our suppliers of components through Ural- and Mostransgaz. I also gained a huge and valuable experience of communicating with the general and commercial directors of the largest enterprises in Russia, and regular trips to enterprises of partners made me even more mobile, collected and sociable. After three months of work, I got a Volga-3110 service car with a driver. It was already a success. But the salary for this work was purely symbolic for me, and it was enough for me for about a week. My main income came from my commercial activities, which I carried out in parallel with my main job. For these purposes, I found a driver with a VAZ-2103 car and arranged it part-time as my personal driver. His name was Sergei. It was a partner, not just a driver. Sergei was in the indicated place on one my call always, at any time of the day or night. I could always rely on this person as myself. Sergey has always clearly fulfilled my tasks not only in our city, but also in Yekaterinburg, as well as in other regions. He did not drink or smoke, and, moreover, he could sleep little and not lose concentration on the roads. Here it is, the skill of an experienced person!

I will tell you about one interesting case that happened to us in Yekaterinburg.

When I arrived in Yekaterinburg, my friend Miroslav Nitkovsky called me (I changed his name and surname for several reasons), he worked in the department for combating economic crime and asked me about one service. We met with Miroslav, and he explained what exactly needs to be done. Someone was selling freight cars according to an ad posted in a newspaper in Yekaterinburg. We had to call the seller and make an appointment to inspect the goods after the fact, then clarify the price, and this task was completed.

The next day we did so. The seller made an appointment for us at the “Sorting” station, we arrived. The car had Chelyabinsk license plates, everything looks believable. We met. The seller in a suit, very intelligent, showed us the cars, we bargained a little more and parted on the fact that we would inform about our decision by phone in the evening. Of course, we didn’t call him. My friend only needed the car numbers to track them after they were sold and set off. A week later, the operation ended, the cars were arrested after the illegal sale. As it turned out, an employee of the Yekaterinburg railway administration was selling them. The big boss with stars on his shoulder straps invited Miroslav to his office, thanked him for the excellent work and signed a report on his promotion and assignment to him of the next rank. And the boss briefly added before Miroslav left the office: “Miroslav Mikhailovich, you bring this matter into my office. We will deal with this comrade further ourselves!” This is how that system worked in the nineties.

2018 year. India, Goa

Today is Saturday, November 11th. I am writing the book for the sixth day, immersing myself in my memories to such an extent that I think and scroll through all the events of past years constantly in order to choose the most important and interesting for the reader and write about it right away. I start thinking early in the morning, when I wake up and am still in bed; I think when I swim in the pool with my incredibly active daughter Vlada, when I walk and talk with my beloved wife Catherine. My thoughts are completely immersed in those past years.

Sunset on the coast of Goa

In November, Goa is very comfortable in the mornings, the air temperature at eight in the morning is about twenty-five degrees. But as soon as the sun starts to warm, it gets pretty hot within an hour and the temperature rises to thirty degrees. I write every morning, sitting on a cozy semicircular balcony, planted around the perimeter of green plants in flower beds. I can smell a pleasant fresh scent of flowers, brought by a gentle breeze. Sometimes tobacco smoke from the neighboring balcony suddenly interrupts him. We have a spacious room overlooking the garden, behind which the pool of an unusual shape with a well-equipped adjoining territory is located.

Yesterday our three-year-old daughter took three new steps in her knowledge of this world. These were three discoveries for her.

– First: she learned to immerse herself in the water with glasses and hold her breath while doing so.

– Second: we climbed with her by parachute and made a short trip along the coast. We both shouted with delight: “How cool, we are flying!”

– And third: when we returned from dinner at a coastal restaurant, Vlada learned to find hidden crabs in the sand and pull them out of the shelter, taking them by the shell with her little hands! It was something! She screamed so much with pleasure when the crabs ran away from her on the sand, and she ran after them, illuminating their path with her phone.

Here it is, happiness – when we see and experience with our loved ones such moments in life. This is my new life, which began only six years ago.

After I returned to Russia from Germany in 2005, where I lived for eleven years, I worked for five years in Moscow, then for two years in the Moscow region, and in 2012 fate brought me to Nizhny Novgorod, where my ancestors come from father. After moving to Nizhny Novgorod, for the first year I lived in a two-room rented apartment in the Seventh Heaven area. I met Ekaterina by chance one Sunday afternoon. This happened in the “New Age” auto center, an official dealer of one of the European brands. I drove there that day after work to wash my car, and I drove out forty minutes later in high spirits after a short acquaintance with Ekaterina. It was actually Sunday then – at that time I often went to work on weekends, as new projects required it. I invited Ekaterina for coffee during a short meeting at the auto center, and we exchanged phones. She moved to Nizhny Novgorod from the Perm Territory with her parents ten years ago. In the city of Chernushka, where they lived before, the volume of oil production began to decline sharply since 2002, and later the prospects in their native land became less and less.

Forty minutes after our meeting, I was leaving the auto center and was already making plans on how to meet this bright brunette again. We began to meet on weekends, traveled around the outskirts of the city, went to the very village of Berezovka, where the story of my great-grandfathers begins. I was getting to know the city and at the same time looking for a suitable area on the outskirts, where I planned to buy a piece of land and build a small house from natural solid wood. At that moment, I assumed that I would stay in Nizhny Novgorod at this stage of my life for at least five or six years. That’s what I thought in 2012. As a result, I lived in this city, or rather, on its outskirts, for a full six years and four months. This place on the outskirts of the city has become another dear place for me, where I want to return again.