Manage your dream. Your opportunities are endless

1994 year. Ural. Start into an unknown future

We submitted all the necessary documents for registration of our departure to Germany, and after six months a confirmation came, on the basis of which we handed over our foreign passports to obtain a visa for permanent residence. And then the moment came when it was necessary to get ready for departure. We had to sell our four-room apartment in Miass, all the furniture in it, a Niva car, a land plot for building a house near the village of New Andreevka, and it was not clear to us what to do with a huge amount of everything that had been accumulated over the past nineteen years and remained in the reserve at the cordon: agricultural machinery, all kinds of tools, boats, outboard motors and the like. We distributed a huge amount of all this to our relatives, including Father’s brother Nikolai. He lived in the village of Turgoyak, in his private house on the shore of a unique lake with the same name – the pearls of the South Ural. My father had three brothers – Gennady, Victor, Nikolai – and a sister Tamara. Only Nikolai and Tamara survived until the nineties. Gennady died in a fire, and Victor died at the age of 52 from tuberculosis. Tamara’s husband died at the age of 40 due to a heart attack, and ten years after his death she moved to live in the village of Upper Crucian Carps, in the house of her parents.

My ancestors on the line of my father moved from Murom to the South Ural, to the village of Upper Crucian Carps in 1938. In these, at that time deaf, lands, it was possible to feed the entire large family by hunting and fishing. The village is located on the shores of one of the largest lakes in the Southern Ural – Big Miassovo, and the southern border of the Ural Mineralogical Reserve lies seven kilometers from the village.

In the late summer of 1994, I quit my job at the UralAZ automobile plant and was finishing my last unfinished business deals. I sold the apartment to one entrepreneur, collected all my cash and agreed to buy currency at a special rate thanks to my friend Vadim, who was then working at a bank in Yekaterinburg, in a branch of this bank in our city. The amount for us at that time was considerable. My brother and mother and I arrived at the bank in two cars. My brother and I had the same sports bags with us. Despite the fact that no one except the bank employees and our family knew about the deal, I prepared and implemented some security measures. Times were not very calm. They were waiting for us at the bank, we promptly completed the transaction, packed the currency into one bag. I put my jacket in the second bag, which I was wearing in the bank. We left the bank and got into two different cars with my brother. Mom got into the third car, which was parked at the bank and was waiting for us even before our arrival. The road to the reserve was calm, no one followed us, everything went well. Two weeks remained before our departure at that time.

The next day – I don’t even know how to express my feelings – the default happened in Russia: the ruble exchange rate collapsed four times in one day! If we had delayed even for one day, we would have lost a colossal amount of money for us at that time.

What was it for us then – luck or accident? Today I would say – a pattern, or, in another way, our thoughts, goals and actions led to the outcome of these events.

On October 10, 1994, the whole family boarded the train at the Miass station and set out for our new life. We didn’t know what it would be like. We drove with the hope of saving our father – that was the first. Everything else will definitely be there – I thought so, I spoke about it aloud, reassuring my parents, who, for their part, also worried about us in the first place.

Hello, Germany!

Germany greeted us on October 14 with wonderful weather in the city of Braunschweig, located in the northern part of Germany, a hundred kilometers east of Hanover. When we got off the train at nine o’clock in the morning, the platform of the station, to my surprise, was practically empty. Mother’s sister Mina with her husband Victor and son Vladimir were already waiting for us at the station. We drove off with our suitcases loaded into two Audi cars. I didn’t remember my aunt at all, since her family left for Germany back in 1978 from Latvia. They specially moved there from the city of Frunze in the early seventies for this purpose. Since then, the sisters have not seen each other.

We drove along an incredibly flat autobahn to the neighboring town of Salzgitter, which translates as “salt grate”. It was founded in 1937 by General Goebbels. Here is one of the largest and to this day in Germany, the Prussian Metallurgical Plant, and the city has grown since its foundation due to the construction of standard housing for the families of the workers of this plant. I watched the extraordinarily well-groomed and colorful farmland as I drove along the Autobahn. Some of them were already plowed, some were full of different shades of green and yellow. These sections, with incredibly flat borders, were tightly adjacent to the freeway and gave me the impression of a neatly drawn picture. We were driving, it seemed to me, not fast, about a hundred kilometers per hour, and I checked with Volodya, who was constantly telling something and laughing merrily at what speed we were moving. To my surprise, the cousin exclaimed: “What are you, I do not go so slowly, we are now moving at a speed of one hundred and eighty kilometers per hour!” – and he laughed out loud. He was a very positive, open and cheerful person in his forties. Not bad, I thought then.

We arrived at the site about half an hour after we left the train station. We arrived at the two-story small but very cozy house of my mother’s sister, where she placed us for the first time, until we find ourselves an apartment. In addition, my mother’s sister accompanied us to the administration of the city of Salzgitter for about two weeks, as we had to draw up a lot of documents.

On the very first day of my stay in this country, I realized that I was not just in another country, but in another world. Incredibly clean streets, sidewalks, houses of various colors – it was like a picture in a magazine that I would call “New World”. Everyone always smiled at us on the streets and in the city administration, which seemed very strange to me: at first I felt a little uncomfortable, as if they saw in me a person asking for help. On the very first day, we were given a food allowance – about 250 marks per person per month, and in addition – another 500 German marks as a one-time allowance for clothing. I thought that we could save what we brought with us, since the money will still be useful to us.

The father was examined at the local clinic in a week. This was only the beginning of all subsequent analyzes and examinations for him. A little later, doctors told us that the father’s disease in Germany had not yet been fully understood, and there were no more than ten patients with such a diagnosis throughout Germany. Each patient was considered unique and was not just a patient of a medical institution, but also an object of study of the process of development of the disease, both the microorganisms themselves, penetrated from animals to humans, and all the changes that occur with the patients themselves.

A month after arriving in Germany, we already began to regularly attend language courses, which began at nine in the morning and ended at three in the afternoon every day from Monday to Friday. Our group consisted of fifteen people – representatives of different parts of the planet: Sri Lanka, Poland, Turkey, Albania and, of course, Russia.

We, like other participants, received a referral for language courses from the employment agency (Arbeitsamt). The time spent attending courses was counted towards our work experience. During this period, we were assigned unemployment benefits, which, although not much, were still higher than what we had since our arrival, and now amounted to 450 German marks. In the classroom, we were taught not only German, but also history, politics and some articles of legislative law. During these courses, I first learned what a resume is, which we also learned to write according to our training program. We also organized field trips on our own initiative and with the consent of the teachers. We got acquainted not only with classmates, but also with the teachers themselves at a barbecue on the shore of the lake. So we gradually, over the next six months, got used to the new life.

A new turn of events

Almost immediately after our arrival, my wife and I translated our diplomas into German and sent them for recognition to the Ministry of Education in Hanover. Six months later – we had already completed our language courses by that time – we received an answer from this department, which put us in a difficult position: we were denied recognition of our economic diplomas. The specialty in which we studied in Russia was called “Economics and Organization of Production”, and the diplomas of engineering economists we received could now be put on a shelf.

If the higher education we received in Russia had a technical direction, and not an economic one, then diplomas in Germany would be recognized. Therefore, I decided to look for a job, using the experience and special technical education I received at the training and production plant. I got it when I was in the ninth grade of a comprehensive school.

A month later, I received an invitation and could enroll in free tuition at the University of Hanover – immediately to the second year, without passing exams. My wife, unlike me, did not get the opportunity to study for free, as she had the status of a foreign citizen in Germany and for a long time lived with a Russian foreign passport, in which her visas were renewed every year for five years.

“Now what? – I said to myself. – Then I will look for a job, because I will not go to Hanover alone”.

Everything that I had in my twenty-four years, I left in Russia: friends, business, my favorite places, my habits. I left everything there. And now I have also lost my education. What did I have left at that moment? This question I asked myself, thinking about how I should be now. What do I have? – that’s what I thought, analyzing my position and morale. I won’t get anything back. So I have to accept this, calm down morally and not torment myself with all sorts of doubts and resentments.

But, on the other hand, everything is not so bad: my father now has the opportunity to receive the medicines he needs and undergo further examinations, the medical insurance company pays all expenses. And that’s great!

Further: if I find a job, I will be independent of the circumstances and will be able to change something over time. I thought this was true.

I am still young at twenty-four years old, and I have time to start from scratch! And, most importantly, I had a great desire to become again who I wanted to be in life!

I almost managed to achieve this in Russia, which means that I can do it here in Germany!

There was a certainty inside me that I would be able to become successful, become independent of circumstances, and become myself. I immediately took action.

The past does not pass without a trace

My past helped me in this situation. While studying at school in the ninth grade, we got industrial training. It was a full day once a week, throughout the year, when our whole class attended a training and production plant organized on the basis of the UralAZ automobile plant. I chose the specialty of a universal turner from the list of blue-collar occupations offered to us in the program. We received a working specialty and the corresponding document confirming qualifications at the end of the training program, having passed exams. In addition, we had to undergo an internship and for a month we worked at the plant. I got a job in a press shop for bodywork and worked there for a month, receiving a salary of seventy rubles, and a month later I received an additional bonus of thirty rubles. This was my first self-earned money. How did I spend it then? – one of you will ask. I bought a guitar for which I paid sixty rubles. Up to this point, I have played my father’s guitar and have always dreamed of my own instrument. I invested the first money I earned in my hobby: music was and is something special for me. Music is a part of my inner self.

I translated into German this certificate of a general-purpose turner of the third category ten years after its acquisition, and began to search for a suitable vacancy. I prepared my resume as we were taught in the courses, I looked at about twenty vacancies in the city that I could apply for. I selected three firms after thoroughly reviewing each company profile on the Internet and sent in my first envelopes with a resume, photograph and translation of my humble testimony.

The result was not long in coming, and a week later I received the first invitation from Theysohn Maschienenbau GmbH for an interview. How worried I was then – I still remember it. I prepared for the upcoming meeting thoroughly, I memorized some sentences in order to briefly but constructively tell about myself. The most important thing for complete success was to substantiate for what reasons I am applying for this particular specialty. In Germany, it is very important that the applicant’s profile, education and work experience match the requirements of the open position. If a candidate is retrained for a given vacancy or his work experience does not meet the requirements, the chances for the applicant to be in demand for this vacancy are minimal.

And now my very first interview brings me a positive result! A week later I went to work.

I am a simple but happy worker!

Here it is, my first success in this other and unfamiliar country. The criterion for achieving success can be completely different depending on the specific situation! Could I call it my success in Russia that I found a job as a turner? Of course not! I could not even imagine such a goal for myself. What determines this criterion of success, or the criterion for achieving the goal?

I believe that the criterion for success depends on the conditions and situation in which a person is at a given time and in a certain space! These conditions can change, and accordingly, the criterion of our success changes with them.

As time went on, in a few months I gradually joined the team and was already able to independently work in the area of polishing screws and cylinders. I must tell my readers a little about this.

Imagine a well-known worm mechanism inside a meat grinder, and now imagine it up to five meters long and three hundred and fifty millimeters in diameter. Of course, such orders did not come into production every day, but they did happen. On average, these were blanks from one and a half to three meters and a diameter of up to one hundred and twenty millimeters. Their complex geometry, consisting of several compression zones, made the work even more complex, varied and thus more interesting to me. Our department polished these screws in two stages: the first stage is the primary grinding of the raw metal after milling to the size according to the drawing data, and the second stage is the surface polishing to the required roughness level after the finished parts have passed the heat treatment process in special ovens. The company produced extrusion equipment and spare parts mainly for the chemical and petroleum industries.

For grinding and polishing parts, there was a simple set of tools, consisting of three special devices, a variety of attachments and sanding paper with polishing wheels. In addition, a set of personal protective equipment was needed: a long leather apron, leather gloves to the elbow, goggles and, most importantly, a breathing mask. I used four of these masks per shift on average. At the end of the work, I had to blow off a layer of metal dust with a compressed air gun, and when I removed my goggles, a bright light contour from the removed glasses remained on my face. These were the working conditions on this site. Our department worked in two shifts, sometimes we had to work at night if the order was very urgent.

What was the compensation for such a difficult, and besides, not harmless work?

According to my employment contract, I received 16 DM per hour net, excluding tax. The working week was 37.5 hours. In addition to the hourly rate, compensation for harm was paid – plus 25% to the rate, the surcharge for the second shift was 15% to the rate. Night hours, starting from 20.00, were paid with a surcharge of 50%, and the sixth, overtime night shift – plus 100% to the tariff.

I was waiting for the result in the payroll for the first month of work with great impatience. And now that day has come, and I receive my long-awaited payroll, in which, after all the surcharges to the tariff indicated above, the income tax was calculated at the rate of 24% of the total amount, and then, in a line below, the amount to be paid is indicated: DM 2950 ( in 2019 this amount is equivalent to the same, but only in euros). What could an ordinary working person afford with this money in 1994 in Germany? I’ll give you some examples:

– rent of an average apartment (three-room, 70 square meters) – from 450 to 600 DM;

– food per month for a family of three on average, without visiting restaurants – about 450 DM;

– utility bill per month – about 150 DM, electricity – 70 DM;

– petrol (1 liter) – 0.80 DM.

Our minimum budget, taking into account the cost of renting an apartment, food, clothing and other minor expenses, at that time averaged about DM 1,500 per month.

But my salary payments do not end there – I mean the calculation of the so-called “vacation pay”.

Vacation pay, as we all know, is the preservation of wages, which are calculated based on average earnings. But this is in Russia. And in Germany, the calculation is carried out according to a different system. The salary is calculated for all vacation days as the average salary for the period, that’s right. But vacation pay in Europe is not the saved average salary that you are paid in Russia, vacation pay is additional payments to the average salary saved during the vacation, and the amount of vacation pay is the average salary plus a 50% allowance. This is about one and a half times higher than the average earnings over the same period of time. Here it is, decaying capitalism, I thought then.

The calculation of payments for the holidays is carried out according to exactly the same scheme as the vacation pay: we have two days of rest for the Christmas holidays – we were charged an average salary, and to this amount there was also an additional 50%! It’s ingenious, this is even impossible to imagine in Russia.

I have worked very intensively in this enterprise. On the second shift, I stayed two hours longer and finished my working day not at 22.00, as it should be according to the schedule, but at 24.00. On Saturday, if my work schedule coincided with the first shift, I went to work for six hours – from 6.00 to 12.00, this was an additional, if desired, working day on Saturday. If I worked the night shift, then I went out on the sixth, additional shift. Sometimes the schedule dropped in such a way that I worked the night shift for three weeks, one after the other, working also the sixth shifts. One day off a week was obtained in this mode of operation – Sunday until evening, since the new week and shift began on Sunday at 20.00. So, I worked so intensively in overtime not because the money was very necessary, but in order to make it physically difficult and not to get used to this type of work and stay here to work forever, or, what was more real, not stay at this level for a long time!

I used to say to myself very often one phrase that I used in difficult times and during my service in the army: “It does not reach through the head, it will come through the arms and legs.” And my legs got very tired, as I worked standing up the whole shift. But it was hard for me not only physically, but – and even more so – morally. Despite the fact that I had a decent salary, I did not receive complete moral satisfaction from this work. Over the years, my hourly rate in the company, gradually increasing, reached DM 25.00 per hour. Compared to my initial level, the result was 60 percent higher after five years.

After a year of work, I decided to study at the same time as a welder. Having successfully passed the exams after six months, I received my diploma as a welder and continued to work at the same company, only now in a different area and as a welder. There were three welders in the entire enterprise. I welded everything and by everything: I owned electric welding, gas welding, tungsten-inert welding, cooked with a plasma-welding machine and all types of metals – from high-alloyed alloys to aluminum and stainless steel – and even cast iron. When I worked at night, on the third shift, colleagues from other sites often brought from home all kinds of tools and utensils that I had to repair by welding. These were shovels, cast iron, old barbecues, aluminum containers, and so on.

A year later, I started writing programs for our CNC machines. At first, these were simple programs, and then I moved on to more complex geometries of parts, and also began to optimize the existing programs. I started doing this because of my activity in the welding area. The fact is that when I studied our plasma welding machine, on which we welded about 80% of all parts, I used methodological materials from publicly available sources, optimized the welding parameters to such an extent that the welding process itself not only accelerated twice, but the quality of welding has improved significantly. As a result, the company’s management decided to purchase a new unit for 600,000 DM to stabilize the process, as the old unit could not cope with the load and was malfunctioning. One employee turned out to be superfluous after the modernization of the process in this department, and I moved to the area of processing parts on CNC milling machines.

Three years later, I was already working as a programmer for CNC machines. After four years of work, I entered the evening department of a technical school in the neighboring town of Braunschweig for a higher technical education. For four years, I went to class twice a week in the evening and every Saturday from nine in the morning until one in the afternoon. In 2001, I received a diploma in “Automated Production Management Systems”.

Here it is, my victory! The second and not the last victory in Germany, I confidently told myself then.

Chapter 3. 2001 year.

And again changes

“Life does not stand still. We set ourselves tasks and goals, and then we achieve them”.

This year 2001 a new and rather difficult stage of my life began. After seven years of working in one company, I nevertheless decided to leave Theysohn GmbH and change my occupation. I have constantly nurtured this idea over the past three years, I regularly tracked vacancies in the region that interest me, sometimes I sent a resume, finalizing, changing its content and striving to make it as effective as possible.

“What was my motivator for change at that moment?” – I asked myself many times before taking this step. At the company where I worked for all these seven years, I became a rather valuable specialist and a respected person: I was entrusted with the most difficult and responsible tasks, from programming new generation CNC machines to metalworking and welding. The level of wages at that time completely suited me, everything was stable and calm!

And nevertheless, I more and more often mentally returned to my previous goals, ideas and intentions, in those years when I was doing business. I remembered my friends, who have probably already stepped in the development of their business to a completely different level compared to the nineties. For these years I cut off all contact with the past world, I did not communicate with friends and did not come to Russia. My subconscious mind calmed me down from time to time, saying in an inner voice something like this: “Why are you worried, calm down! You are fine, you have a job, your family, your new friends (then I only had one friend, with whom we are very close to this day). You don’t need anymore, why would you risk changing jobs? What if nothing happens in a new place?” These were my worries and doubts. In a word, it was my fears.