In the summer of 1994, The Goodwill Games, which were like the Olympic Games and were held two years before the next Olympic Games, were being held in St. Petersburg, Russia. Because some of the venues were being held 50 or 60 miles outside of St. Petersburg, the Traffic Police needed a communications system that allowed them to talk to some of their people who would be stationed in the villages along the route to the particular venue. The reason was that many bus loads of people would be passing through the villages on their way to the venue. In these small villages, most of the homes are built along the road and all commerce takes place on the road through the village. People were moving herds of animals, moving push carts, riding bicycles, and so on. The Traffic Police needed to clear the road 5 minutes before the busses would be coming through. The radio system they had in St. Petersburg would not cover all of these villages. Our distributor in Moscow sold the Traffic Police one of our systems so that they could either make telephone calls or radio calls to handle the clearing of the roads. The system worked very well for them and no problems occured. I was invited to come to St. Petersburg in the Fall of 1994 to meet with the Traffic Police Communications Manager.
My distributor from Moscow and I took the overnight train from Moscow to St. Petersburg. It was called the Red Arrow and it leaves Moscow at 11:00PM and arrives in St. Petersburg at 7:00AM. It was very comfortable and we had a sleeping compartment so we slept all night. In the morning, upon our arrival, we were met by the Communications Manager and had breakfast. He then took us down to one of the canals. For those of you who may not know, St. Petersburg is a city of canals, just like Venice. Some of the canals are open to the public and some are closed to the public. The St. Petersburg police have several boats that patrol these canals. He took us on one of the police boats. We waited on board the boat for about 45 minutes. I asked my distributor what was going on. He spoke good English by the way. He said that he did not know. After a few more minutes, a taxi pulled up and an attractive woman and young man about 10 years old got out. It turns out that this was the communications guy's girlfriend and her son. He had told them that if he ever had a chance, he would take them out on the boat. I was his chance. Having a Vice President from an American Company who had helped out with the Goodwill Games was a good reason for him to be able to have access to the boat. We then proceeded to tour the canals....all the canals. It was fantastic! I was able to see parts of St. Petersburg from the water that most people would never see.
After the boat ride, we were supposed to meet the Mayor of St. Petersburg at 10:00AM. His name was Anatoly Sobzcak. He was an old line communist and he was assassinated a few years later. As it turned out, he was unavailable, so we met with the Deputy Mayor instead. We proceeded to the Deputy Mayor's office and it was something to behold. While we were in the outer office waiting for Deputy Mayor, I noticed how high the ceiling was. It must have been 15 feet high. There were two big cathedral type doors going into the Deputy Mayor's office that must have been 12 feet high. I had never seen anything like it before. The mayor's assistant finally got the call for us to come in. The big doors opened and the Deputy Mayor was there to greet us. He invited us in and we took our seats. The Deputy Mayor spoke good English but switched between Russian and English. He then presented us with a signed copy of a coffee table book about the Goodwill Games. Our meeting lasted about 15 minutes and then we were on our way out. Oh, by the way, the Deputy Mayor's name was Vladimir Putin. Yes! The same Vladimir Putin. Mr. Putin is originally from St. Petersburg and from early on, he was a protege of Mr. Sobzcak.
The fact of the matter is that I did not know who the Deputy Mayor was at the time. It was not until years later when I saw him on TV for the first time, did I realize who he was. You can imagine my surprise. The bad news is that I cannot find that coffee table book that was presented to me. What a shame. But even so, I still have fond memories of my 1994 visit to St. Petersburg.
Until next time, have a great day.
No comments:
Post a Comment