Manage your dream. Your opportunities are endless

But besides fears, I had a great desire and belief in what I could. I will be able to change my life and direct it in the direction that I was already going before 1994.

And I have done this step!

A new stage in my life has begun. But this time I started it of my own free will – unlike 1994, when leaving for Germany was the only option to save my father’s life! I was in doubt and anxiety; I did not know how it would be in the new place, but I found the strength to overcome myself, overcome the subconscious and move on to action.

Job change

My new place of work was a private retail chain N & D-Markt. Its owner was an emigrant from Russia who came to Germany in the early nineties. I got the position of Director of Marketing and Sales. In addition, all issues related to personnel, from the search for candidates to the hiring process, were also part of my responsibilities. At that time, the network consisted of about fifteen stores in the northern part of Germany, from Hamburg to Bremen and Hanover, as well as in the territory of the former GDR: in Magdeburg and Berlin. The head office with a wholesale base was located in Braunschweig. The one-way trip to work took about 40 minutes – I arrived at the office after driving 60 kilometers from Goslar on the autobahn.

In 1997, my family and I moved from Salzgitter to neighboring Goslar, 35 kilometers away. At that time, my parents lived in this cozy historical town: my mother got a job in a kindergarten as the head of the economic department and she was provided with a service apartment, which was located on the last, third floor of the same kindergarten. The city of Goslar can be called a fabulous town, its history begins in 990, and in 2003 the city celebrated its millennium! There are only 48,000 inhabitants, there is no industry, but there are always many tourists from different countries of the world. Completely preserved, even after World War II, the architecture makes Goslar just a unique place. The main crafts during the founding of the city were the production of copper products and its extraction, which was carried out five hundred meters from the border of the old city, at the foot of the Harz mountain range. Harz is translated from German as “resin”. The very same mountainous region, adjacent to the eastern side of the former territory of the GDR, is considered a resort place and is appreciated for its clean air. All mountain slopes, overgrown mainly with conifers, among which spruce predominates, give the impression of the hinterland of the taiga.

Goslar – the pearl of Germany

When we moved, we settled in one of the most picturesque parts of the city – Siemensviertell, in a four-room apartment with a huge balcony-terrace on the roof of the garage that belonged to the apartment on the ground floor. It was a small, cozy three-storey house, and from our terrace there was a beautiful view of the mountains. The historic center could be reached on foot in five minutes. We felt very comfortable in our new home. Son Max at that time was two years old, he was born in Salzgitter in the summer of 1996. My wife decided to go to study at Goslar as an accountant. We moved here precisely because of this opportunity. At the age of two, Max began attending the kindergarten where my parents worked. Everything went well for us.

I worked at N & D-Markt for about a year. During this time, I opened two more stores, hired staff, hired students for internships, was engaged in advertising and design of flyers, which I printed in the printing house, and our agents distributed them.

Am Markt Platz, Goslar, Germany

Harz Mountains, Goslar, Germany

I was on the road very often, going from one branch to another, and at the same time I got acquainted with the geography of the entire northern part of Germany. During this year, the sales turnover gradually increased, and the first sales in the month exceeded the figure of 1 million euros, reaching a record turnover of 1.3 million euros a little later. Before I came to the company, the maximum turnover was no more than 700 thousand euros. But despite the good results, the business owner was unhappy and came up with all sorts of reasons why he did not want to give me the company car that was promised to me, so I still used my MazdaKsedes for business purposes. Over time, I noted one feature of this man: he purposefully tried to deceive everyone and, as they say, “come out dry from water”, coming up with new stories and all kinds of reasons. For example, the owner of the company regularly underpaid the sales bonuses promised to branch employees, he delayed payments to suppliers for shipped goods, while Mr. Nortenberg himself drove around in a Mercedes500L and lived in his own villa on the outskirts of Braunschweig.

I decided to speak to the owner of the business after watching what was happening. Once I went to his office and started talking, first of all, about demotivated employees in the branches who expect us to comply with the terms of the contract, working with full dedication, and in fact receive only promises about “tomorrow”. To which the boss replied as follows: “Do you know what your problem is, Vlad? You are very honest! And if I knew about this at the time of our acquaintance, I would not have taken you to this position”. When I heard such words addressed to me, I, smiling, answered rather shortly: “Dear businessman, if you call yourself that. We have to pay for everything in our life! Our past helps someone, but harms someone!” – and I calmly left the office. I quit a week later.

At the crossroads of seven roads…

Today is Wednesday 13 November 2019. I describe the events of my life in 2001. Last night we had dinner with a family who had come here to relax for ten days from St. Petersburg. We had already met on the coast for several days, sometimes had lunch and dinner together, but our interlocutors were rather laconic and reserved. In any case, so it seemed to us with my wife. We noticed, observing our new acquaintances from the outside, that they are silent in a sense consciously. If Evgeny, the father of the family, sometimes commented on something or told where they went to Goa in recent days, then his wife Irina only sometimes supplemented him, and his eight-year-old daughter Anastasia was always silent at all. But this did not bother us, and I continued to communicate on various topics. And yesterday, during the last dinner before the departure of our acquaintances to St. Petersburg, they “burst” into a conversation, I would say that!

Eugene started first: “We usually never talk about our work or introduce ourselves, but we decided that we can do it with you!” Then he smiled and seemed to breathe out his tension. Both spouses are psychologists: Evgeny is in charge of the department in the NPD, as he himself put it, and his wife is an employee in his department. I even asked what it means – “NPD”? NPD is a neuropsychiatric dispensary. Of course, I smiled broadly and added: “Well, you are my colleagues, given that I am writing a book about the influence of the subconscious on a person”. And Eugene continued, telling very funny stories about his patients. He, of course, did not give any surnames or names, but the very bright moments of practice in this area seemed to us rather unusual, and in some cases, rather ironic.

If in essence, then Evgeny answered my question very unambiguously, saying that the number of patients with mental illness does not depend on place and time – for example, on the size of the city and geographic location. But as for the deviations and disorders of our subconscious, or, to put it another way, the cases when people are worried about fears, doubts, experiences and great self-doubt, the number of such patients is increasing in large cities, and among quite successful and wealthy residents. The meeting with Petersburgers did not seem to me accidental, and I am sure that we will meet with these positive people again.

The day before the last dinner, Evgeny and Irina made a special order, and a whole baked stingray was brought to our table. It was very unusual and I have never tasted stingrays. After finishing dinner, we exchanged phones and shook hands. The next day, the family of psychologists flew to their place in St. Petersburg.

On my last day at N & D-Markt, I left my office and stopped by for a minute to say goodbye to my work colleagues and wish them good luck, after which I got into my beautiful car with a 6-V engine and drove home to Goslar. On the way home, I pulled off the Autobahn in the only possible place, stopped and got out of the car. Here, a beautiful view of the Harz mountain range opened up, and in good weather the highest mountain in this region was visible – Brokken, 1144 meters high. I stood and admired this landscape, thinking about how good it is to live where what you see pleases you. Over the seven years of my life in Germany, I fell in love with this country, and Goslar became for me the most beloved city from those in which I lived or visited. At the same time, I was thinking about this perhaps unsuccessful attempt to change my future or myself. “For what reason did everything turn out the way it is?” – I mentally asked myself a question. “But I myself have left this company now, because no one drove me out of there. I did not agree with the rules and principles by which the company worked. I lived according to other laws of my inner state and it was for this reason that I left. Yes, for sure: the reason for leaving was my thoughts about why everything is happening this way. So it was my choice, my decision, and nothing terrible happened”.

I stood for a few more minutes and went on to my favorite city. It was early fall 2001. Despite the fact that I was “at the crossroads of seven roads” and did not know then where to go next, I was very calm. Confidence in myself and in the future, incomprehensible to me then, made me so calm.

Additional knowledge

That autumn it was a year since I, in parallel with my main job, began my four-year evening study at a private higher school in the city of Braunschweig with a degree in “Automated Control Systems in Production”. The lack of a recognized higher education in Germany haunted me, and I constantly thought about how I could fill this gap. And now such an opportunity appeared. That’s right – this opportunity itself found me! When I was working at Theysohn Maschienenbau GmbH, the production manager came up to me and told me about the new program that has been in effect this year for those already employed who are ready to invest their time and get a higher education. Without hesitation, I asked where and when I can get it.

These next four years of study here in Germany reminded me of my student years in Yekaterinburg. I met new people who were interesting to me, who in their goals and views were much further than those with whom I was familiar until now, working at the enterprises of this country. I quickly improved my German, and I had a passion and interest in higher mathematics and mechanics. In higher mathematics classes, I solved any mathematical problems with great pleasure, and especially complex equations seemed to me entertainment. I and one of my classmates, his name was Frank Witte, began to compete in who would solve the problem faster, and all the students closely followed us. At some point, I was even nicknamed “professor” for my success in our group. It was a very friendly company, especially when after the first year of training there were only 14 of the 24 participants left. When I came to study on Saturday, sometimes after the sixth night shift, which ended at 6:00 in the morning, I was already at 7:00 on the campus, and I reclined the back of my seat in the car and fell asleep. At 8:30 sharp, Eric, my classmate, woke me up by knocking on the car window. He was holding in his hands freshly made coffee from the cafe of our institute. “Vlad, get up! How did you sleep?” – he said and smiled cheerfully. All my groupmates knew that I was sleeping in my car at this time. After drinking coffee in the circle of our comrades and discussing the latest important events, at exactly 9.00 we went up to our classroom, where classes began.

In the next six months after I left N & D-Markt, I managed to work in two more firms – four months in one and two months in the other, and somehow everything was wrong! In the first company, I worked with small parts of the multi-batch production of photographic lenses of the famous Rollei brand in Braunschweig. At another firm, my team of colleagues consisted, in my opinion, of people-“bears” with very limited communication, and the production of brake discs with a small set of simple metalworking operations turned out to be a very boring activity for me. And despite the fact that the last enterprise was located only five kilometers from my house, in the forests of that very mountainous region of Harz, I resigned from there too.

How did I become an entrepreneur:

success or complete failure?

By that time, after seven years of work in Germany, I had some savings, sometimes I bought securities and shares in small packages. But my past drew me to those activities where I could fully realize myself. I began to hatch plans for how to start my own business here in Germany. Germany is not Russia, the market is dense here, it is very well developed in any area, with intense competition. But that didn’t stop me. I considered various options and collected the necessary information. And at some point I decided that I would devote most of my free time from May to September to making ice cream!

A few years before that, I met a family of immigrants from Russia, they had an ice cream parlor in a neighboring town. I received from them all the necessary recipes and ice cream production technology. The trading base for this market was in Hannover, and the suppliers of ingredients just wanted to come to you and show you how it is better, cheaper or more expensive, and most importantly, how to prepare this sweet product tastier and faster. I want to say that the cost of producing one kilogram of ice cream, even from very high-quality ingredients such as whole milk, natural cream, frozen natural strawberries from Poland and fresh, ripe bananas, seemed very attractive to me.

From the end of January, I began preparations to open my own ice cream production in May next year with its further wholesale. I rented a suitable space in the very center of the old city, bought a Mercedez Sprinter and started refurbishing it. I needed a special freezer and other equipment that still needed to be made. And I also needed everything I needed to get permission from special bodies of technical sanitary and hygienic supervision for the transportation and storage of ice cream. I also bought a used Italian mechanical ice cream machine, two large freezers for storing the finished product, and other equipment for making products.

In May, as planned, I opened production. Sales were strong, but the weather had a huge impact on them. There was practically no demand on rainy and rainy days. Goslar and his tourists only saved me. All the cafes in the old part of town were filled with them. I have delivered ice cream to several cafes in the city, cafes at summer pools and all kinds of outdoor events. The summer was successful, I made good money.

Autumn began, and I began to look for an opportunity to organize something else additionally that could bring profit all year round, regardless of the season. I have had connections in Russia since the days when I bought the products of the “Sweetly” factory in Yekaterinburg. Since this all started.

I renewed contacts with the sales department of this candy factory (of course, these were already other people), requested a catalog of goods and prices to assess the possibility of importing to Germany and selling in bulk. When I worked in Germany in the same N & D-Markt, I already knew well what types of products of the candy factories are in demand in Germany. In addition, I had information about the purchase prices for Germany of well-known factories in Russia, such as “Red October” or “Rot Front”, and some other factories from different regions of Russia. The products of the “Sweetly” factory were not yet available on the German market at that time.

In Yekaterinburg, they were very interested in my proposal, and my friend, who lives there, became the representative of our German company. We studied together at the university. He negotiated on site and we got a decent discount on the factory’s wholesale sales prices. And so the first truck with forty tons of “Sweetly” products was shipped and went to Germany.

By that time, I had rented a warehouse with a small space, in which I planned to set up my office and hire a sales manager and accountant. But I also needed a small truck to transport products to customers directly to the stores. To do this, I turned to a former colleague with whom I worked at N & D-Markt. I offered him to work with me as a partner. Delivery on request from retail stores should have been his responsibility. My former colleague knew very well all the shopkeepers in our region. Alexey Pyatkin listened carefully to my proposal and a week after our conversation he accepted it. We invested in the opening of our enterprise in equal shares of 50 x 50 and opened the VolkWestGbR company. VolkWest translated from German means “People of the West”.

At first I had the idea to name the company a little differently: VolkOst, which in Russian means “People of the East”, but the theme of “East” is associated in Germany with the eastern part of Germany, or rather, with the former GDR, which I have not seen especially warm attitude from the people of the West at that time.

Subsequently, Alexey carried out purchases of fruits and vegetables at the wholesale market in Hanover, which also brought good profit when selling in parallel with the main product.

We hired an accountant and a sales manager who offered our assortment to stores by phone. Our company worked as a small team of four people in a friendly manner and together, each doing his own thing. We clearly assigned responsibilities with my partner and did not overlap, organizing quite effective and well-coordinated work. We sold 50% of the first delivery in two weeks and ordered the next delivery, adjusting the assortment and order volumes. The second car quickly passed customs control and arrived at the warehouse two hours after arriving at the customs terminal, already using the experience and contacts at the customs office in Goslar. At the factory in Yekaterinburg, we were given the green light: “VolkWest” orders were shipped out of turn. Delivery by a transport company to our customs terminal in Germany took seven calendar days.

The interest rate for customs duties mainly depended on the sugar and cocoa content and averaged about 25% of the value of the product itself. Sales were gradually growing, we successfully coped with competitors, bringing orders exactly on time and selling vegetables and fruits in parallel. At the request of clients, I began, together with the “Sweetly” company, to develop special packaging for the German market for certain types of goods, and I also began to invent my own names. In addition, the factory itself began to print stickers with information on the composition of the ingredients included in these products in German. This was a prerequisite for complying with German trade rules and very convenient for us: we no longer spent our resources on translating and printing this huge number of stickers. Our business started to develop. During the month we sold on average about 80 tons of “Sweetly” products, about 20 tons of fruits and vegetables, and I began to develop, together with Polish suppliers, pickles according to my mother’s special recipes: pickled tomatoes and cucumbers in cans, as well as canned vegetable salads.

By that time, my wife and I had lived seven years in Germany, and in the last three of them our family life has not been very good. We became neighbors to each other, we practically stopped talking to each other, and our relationship lost its meaning. I once asked my wife: “Do you think our relationship, which we came to after ten years, should remain so for the rest of our lives?” I continued after a short pause: “But what about the warm attitude towards each other? For example, before leaving for work, kiss and say “Darling, I love you”? ” But in response I heard only one sentence: “What are you, this only happens in the movies!” After what I heard, my soul became sad. I didn’t continue the conversation, I didn’t even say anything in response, I just left the apartment and went to my work. Perhaps I did the wrong thing and it was worth continuing, but, as it was before, many attempts to talk turned into scandals and mutual reproaches. I definitely didn’t want this anymore.

And the reasons for our quarrels were different, and it was my fault, I do not deny it. After a while we parted. I rented a one-room apartment in the village (officially it was the city of Finenburg, where our warehouse was located) and moved there. Since 2002 I have been living alone. Of course, I often met my son Max, then these were the brightest moments of my life for me. I remember how we walked with him along the shores of the small but picturesque Lake Finenburg, we swam there, organized picnics and went fishing. Already in those years I began to instill in my son a love of nature. It is very important that a person grows up with understanding and love for what he came from, where our beginnings come from, where each of us can find comfort and peace and, even being in solitude, does not feel lonely. All this is called in one word – “nature”.

When we lived in Salzgitter, we often caught carp with my brother Dmitry. Fishing without a special permit in Germany is prohibited, for this you need to take special training courses for a fisherman and pass an exam. Only after that you need to pay an annual fee of 150 DM (today it is 150 euros) and you can freely fish on all lakes. There are exceptions, but this applies to private reservoirs where fish are bred on purpose – fishing there is paid.

But what does it mean to “fish freely”? There are restrictions on the number and types of fish you can catch. To track this, a special fish log was introduced, which should always be with you during fishing. When you catch a fish, you must first measure it without removing the hook. If the size of the fish exceeds the minimum allowed for fishing, it must be stunned with a special device and only then put into the fishing chest by removing the hook. In the event that the fish caught by you does not meet the standard in size, then it must be released by carefully removing the hook. Fisherman courses are taught how to do this. We, of course, like real Russians, tried to comply with all the above rules and only in extreme cases and very rarely did we not have time to enter the caught carp in the register.

Once in the evening, when Max was three years old, we caught two good carps for an hour, but despite the fact that on that day we had already reached the limit on the number, we decided to sit with a fishing rod a little longer. As we joked in such cases: “Let’s cast the line for another half an hour, we’ll just wet the bait!” And so we pull out a huge carp – it was really a “huge carp”, weighing seven kilograms! I still have that photo in which my son Max, and next to me I keep the same carp. The fish’s tail touches the ground, and the head is slightly higher than Max. Well, we just had nowhere to write down this monster in our brother’s journal, and we could not release it back into the lake.

Today is already 2018, and my son comes to me in Russia every year during the summer holidays. He studied at the University of Braunschweig and this year he transferred to Munich after completing an internship at the BMW plant. My son loves traveling just like me. Sometimes he will load his travel essentials into his small car, including his bicycle, and after that he can travel 800 kilometers through southern Europe in three to four days and visit several cities. He loves to be outdoors. When he is with me in Russia, I prepare in advance and thoroughly, I plan our upcoming trip with him. It has already become a tradition that we go to a river or lake for several days every year. I have everything I need for outdoor recreation: a boat, a boat motor, a combined tent with three sleeping compartments and a spacious entrance hall, a gas burner, all kinds of dishes and everything else that is necessary for a full-fledged long-term stay in nature. A year ago, in 2017, I prepared a real challenge for us. We had to go on an electric train with all our equipment to the north from Nizhny Novgorod, get off at the Vetluzhskaya station, which is 400 meters from the Vetluga River, and raft in the opposite direction along the river for four days – towards Nizhny Novgorod, without having a tent. I want to talk about this in a little more detail.