Chapter 2
Assignment Moscow
Around the time when I accepted the assignment to Moscow, Veronica was transferred to her new place and my boss, technical manager of the company called me into his office. He offered me the place of hers. I asked him about the chances, I meant, would Peter be finalized at the UN or not. He could not assure me. Then I told him my would-be mission. He realized that if he could not tell me it would be final, I would choose the fix solution. We agreed in it and he expressed his gratitude for my frankness. Reviewing on my years with the company I can say that beside Veronica he had been the only truly honest manager to employ me.
The successor of Veronica became Emery, of about the same age as me, who had been working that far on the department I had not chosen at joining the company. Olga went with Veronica, and her younger sister, Susan, became the secretary of Emery.
Susan has been a piously religious person, member of the sect Witnesses of Jehovah. We had much less time to discuss things, than with Olga, but we found it anyway.
One day I managed to find Ivan by phone and he agreed to come to my office after working time. I told him my ideas. My son was soon to get his enlisting order. If it looked as if he could avoid being enlisted only by coming with me, he would accept this solution.
He has not been very happy with my suggestion. He said:
"If I were asked to save him from being enlisted I could tell you O.K. Now the number of young men is higher than demand of the army. But to ensure he would receive his order is risky. Then the machine would be in motion and to stop it is hard.”
I understood, but it did not make me content. I asked him to tell me his opinion.
"You are a fool to take that job”, he said decidedly.
"There is no way to get enough money for a renovation of my house. The flat roof is sure to leak, the question is only when.”
"Try another country.” He looked a bigger fool than me. He did not realize how hard even that mission was to ensure.
Ivan has been our adviser for a time. When we were in Addis Ababa, my wife has heard from the wife of John, our representative, that Ivan and she had been good colleagues. We then wrote to Ivan and our letters went and came.
Now Ivan began to let his opinion come out on me. He said, my marriage would be destroyed and I would deserve it with leaving her alone for four years. He told me he was wondering why my wife loved me at all.
"There is no sense in loving a perfect person”, he said.
"Whom do you mean to be perfect?”
"You, of course. You would not afford any mistakes, you do all right, there is no way, she could help you. You do not need her and she is feeling it.”
I was hit by astonishment. The last thing I would imagine about myself was being a perfect person. I knew perfectly how imperfect I was with so many failures in my life and career. He was so passionate in his mood that Susan, who has stayed a little longer and now she was not able to leave, told me the next day she thought he would beat me. Just to be assured I asked her what she thought about that conversation.
"He overemphasized his opinion.” She did not comment it more and we forgot it.
But I guessed, I would go alone and knew that it would be a hard time.
Political developments in our country have not left me alone. After changes I have mentioned above the socialist party of the country has split itself in two and authorized its members to decide, if they were willing to go on the same way or were not. In October 1989 the congress of the party ended in no statement. Its members were let be registered on a geographical basis instead of the former system, in which every company or institute was assigned to register party members among their employees. The new parties, that had been formed in the preceding months, have been on geographic register from their establishments.
After the congress I was found soon by district activists and I decided to help them in the organization of election campaign. It was a completely new task and I do not think I would do it ever again. But once in a lifetime it is worth trying.
As soon as the reform faction within the party began its activities – it was around the end of 1988 – I would not hide my opinion that there was no rebirth without death. I meant by it that our socialists would have to lose power to be able to regain it at future elections. About the latter I was sure as all governing know-how has been within that party. As much as the communist faction of the old party was concerned, that became a communist party on the old name, I was convinced they would never get any vote in future politics.
Numbers of election results proved that I had been right. Only it was a pleasant surprise that the number of votes for socialists has not been less than former party membership. It meant the rate of those who had joined the party at its high for selfish reasons had been less than rumoured by the opposition. The next election would prove me again.
My attempts to get my family to come with me to Moscow had been a failure. I had to accept the situation. The arrangements have been made for a single man and the company would only gain on it.
Changes within the company to be expected in the next five years have begun before my departure. The company had had a branch in Vienna for some years. Now, beside the branch, the management decided to establish a representative office of their own. The sales manager – called transport and traffic manager – has been selected to be sent there and for a time there was a vacancy in his place. After a long hesitation the former economic department head has been promoted. He would make a good sales manager, only he would not have real authority, he would depend on the general manager’s decisions.
Most important changes have been launched in London. There we had had an office. That territory – the whole of Great-Britain – has been assigned to a joint venture with a 50 to 50 percent rate of ownership established from our company and a British forwarder. The new enterprise would represent our company, too. The new venture has got the name of Eurogate and it had two offices, one in London, the other at home. In both offices there were two directors, a Hungarian and a British one. The London branch – called Eurogate London – had the former representative of our company in our London office as the Hungarian director. He had been working as technical secretary for the general manager before his term in London.
Actually the same game has been started that had been successfully played to the end in Machine Tool Works, to help the state property to go into their own pockets. Soon the London branch began to take on more territories and within a short time the tail would wag the dog.
The government of the country – the new one after the elections – has begun to put budget and external debt of the country into order. There were many ways for that, they began with strengthening of the fiscal policy, namely, to reduce lost customs revenues. In favour of that goal the establishment of a network of customs yards have been started near the border points of international transport routes. These yards would be properties of entrepreneurs – both state or private companies – and customs office representatives would be placed there. Customs clearing of import goods would be arranged only in these yards, or a guarantee would be needed for the owner of the goods from a reliable person or company to be provided to customs offices, until final clearance would be finished.
It has only been the strict execution of a much earlier law that had been taken not too seriously. Our company had been present for some years on the border stations to assist our own drivers in customs formalities. From that time on, we would have to extend our activities, e.g. giving guarantees for other entrepreneurs.
To establish that new business, my former boss, Veronica, has been transferred from head of the venture office to director of Customs and Border Services. It has been a great promotion for her from a 10-man department under the general manager to an independent cost centre of about 400 people. It goes without saying, she would have to learn a lot about customs formalities and would have to get acquainted with the upper circles of customs administration. This latter has been the hardest, but her manner has been proper to gain the trust of key persons.
I had to do a lot before my departure to make things easier for my family in my absence. I wanted to switch our boiler in the basement to oil from coal. Oil burners could work automatically, while coal had to be shovelled in three times a day. As our older generation began to come nearer 90, I would not risk anything. Fortunately, the new local government was organizing installation of municipal gas supply and with an unimportant first payment we have registered ourselves for that installation.
Now I could concentrate on my mission. In June I flew out to Moscow to survey conditions and to measure the apartment. I have been allowed to replace the 9-year-old furniture, but later this permission has been altered. It had been purchased and transported there by Veronica, who acquired the apartment at the beginning of her term.
My predecessor, Joe B., has taken me both to our office and to the flat, but helped me nothing. The office had been shared with another firm, actually our only competitor. Each firm had a representative in the office. It has been situated just outside the inner road-ring, on the road leading to the Foreign Ministry building. The office had been rented to us by the agency of our Ministry of Foreign Trade having Moscow an independent status, unlike in other countries, where that is only a department of the embassy. Actually our office has been an apartment in a building for foreigners. On the ground floor there had been a shop in the hands of a Hungarian retailer. The office had two telephone lines – both international in the Soviet sense, i.e. western countries could not have been available – and a telex connection with a rented telex machine, a truly international line.
The apartment has been in an ordinary apartment house, i.e. all my neighbours have been locals. It has been situated next to the French embassy, behind the Ministry of Interior and the National Bank of the S.U. A typical Soviet apartment house, it has been comfortable in the local sense – 62 degrees F during heating season in the flat, as I would learn in my first winter – with 3 rooms, a kitchen – no store for food reserve –, a bathroom and a tiny toilet.
The L-shaped corridor led from the biggest room to the kitchen, all the other rooms had their doors on it, except the balcony-room being over the biggest one. I checked all and found that all the furniture are ripe for replacement, except one cupboard of GDR make, bought two years before. I took the approximate measurements and drank tea offered by the hostess. As I understood they have been up to their ears with Russians.
My boss has not been happy with my report. Freshly returning from his second 4-year mission from Tehran – one of the rich fiancées – he has been named head of the group for domestic and abroad offices. I did not want to ask him how old furniture in his Tehran flat has been when he changed it and to whom the old one has been sold out. He would not let me buy a complete set of furniture. He instructed me to move in and, in case of complete failure with single items, I would be allowed to change them. He has also been negative in the question of wallpapers – I have been informed that there was a shortage of it in Moscow – to take it with me for maintenance, as well as a TV-set.
My last weeks home I have spent on various departments all over the company to get enough experience. It has been useful as, after my arrival in the Moscow office, those people would be my partners.
I had to take my money from the bank for a TV-set and a VCR. Together with their original packing I gave it into our duty-free transit store. Also a couple of wooden chests with my belongings have been given there, all to be sent out by truck to Moscow.
Before my leaving, my niece with her family visited us. They were on their holiday from Moscow. Some weeks before I called her by phone and informed her about my mission. She was extremely happy with the news. I have been informed by them about a lot of details of life in the capital of the empire.
I tried to write down all details for managing our house, heating, garden, especially grape vines. It has been in vain, as I would find it already on my first trip home. My wife would have a hard time during the first winter. The installation of gas would be finished, but the function of the new system would not be satisfactory. She would be forced to switch back to coal for a while, and only in the spring would all be in order.