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By Frederick Andresen
Author of Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia
“Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.” Alexis de Tocqueville had it right in 1831 about America and Russia. And his perspective is right today. How does the United States interact with its closest neighbor next to Canada and Mexico? Many Americans have worked hard at this. Some have failed and others have succeeded. Based on one of those successes, this nine-part series focuses on the issues and practices that make success happen in Russia today.
Part 3: Quest for Global Status
“You know the fact! I am the best. I wear Levis and Nikes” This was scribbled by a child in small English letters on the yellow brick wall of a residential Moscow building near where I lived in 1994. That said more about the future of Russia than any academic think tank.
There was an innocent quest for global status in those scribbles of the young. And that is where the promise lies — with those who can wear Levis and Nikes and still be Russian. That is “the fact.”
I wonder where that boy is today.
Today there is no shortage of the appearance of Westernization. In a country with hundreds of McDonalds, Pizza Huts, Baskin-Robbins and now Starbucks, it’s easy to conclude the Russians are “like us.” That’s a naive assumption, of course, but it has its value.
These Western, mainly American, fast-food icons of modern civilization indeed create a bridge to the West and eat away at the memories of not so long ago when even I remember the Russian waitress, when clearing the table, pocketed the uneaten bread for her children.
The TV and film incursions and the wide use of the English language add to the evidence. And at the other extreme of Western-style consumerism are the obvious posh boutiques on Moscow’s Tverskaya with prices for designer clothes that make the best Fifth Avenue stores look like factory outlets.
But that is a façade of short-term extravagance that well may fade as the economy matures.
Under that thin veneer is the real wealth of Russia, the achieving young. There was a joke early on about two young Russian men standing face-to-face in Red Square negotiating on the sale of a hundred computers. Finally when all the details and the price were agreed, one went off to find the computers and the other went off to find the money.
That type of entrepreneurship is widespread today. Nothing seems to hold these determined young back. Today, that young group is defined as under about 40.
In early January 1992 on a freezing Saturday night, there was only one light in a dark complex of old red brick factory buildings in the Volga city of Yaroslavl. My friend knocked on the door, and a pretty girl opened it. On the walls of the one room were pennants from Penn State and Syracuse, and the benches and desks were covered with computers, wires and gadgets.
The young men and women told me they were starting a computer business. Young people spending their Saturday night late at an office suggested the vision and dedication needed to spark change. I suspected then that whatever happened, Russia would be all right.
>> Read Part 1: Three Sides of the Coin
>> Read Part 2: Walking on Ice
>> Read Part 4: The Burden of ‘Yes’
>> Read Part 5: Tollgates, Not Roadblocks
>> Read Part 6: The Rule of Thumbs
>> Read Part 7: Deciphering the Culture
>> Read Part 8: Power of Human Capital
Title: Walking on Ice: An American Businessman in Russia
Author: Frederick R. Andresen, a 1958 graduate of Thunderbird School of Global Management, specializes in general business management, marketing, entrepreneurship and relationship building in Russia and other emerging markets.
Endorsement: This book “is mandatory reading for all who contemplate a tour of duty whether government or business in Russia or who have worked there … it brings back memories and reality. With insight, understanding, and a rare degree of humor, Fred Andresen tells us about working with the Russians,” Richard Weden, general director, American Express Russia, 1995 to 2004.
ISBN: 978-1432713522
Publisher: Outskirts Press (September 2007)
Information: www.fandresen.com
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