We arrived by Aeroflot in the evening in Vladivostok, having flown nine hours non-stop from Moscow. This was our first trip to the Russian Far East. We had little idea what to expect and couldn’t see much below in the fading light.

On the last part of the flight, we had flown over the low, rolling mountains of eastern Siberia. These had given way to flat, barren lands surrounding the wide Amur River, a black strip winding along below, reflecting the moonlight which made it visible, Russia on one side, China on the other. Below was the large Russian city of Khabarovsk, where the plane had banked right, turning south towards Vladivostok. We flew towards the North Korean border, then made a sharp u-turn, banking left towards the rugged Pacific coast, then banking left again, coming up from the south on our final heading, following the coastal highway to Vladivostok’s airport. At one point, we passed over an entire city of wooden dachas cut out of the woods, over one hundred summer and weekend cottages given to workers by their unions under the previous communist system that had collapsed two months ago.

As we made our final approach into the airport, we flew over a few abandoned airport hangars from World War II, sitting alone in the countryside, their runways grown over. Someone told me that one of Jimmy Doolittle’s B-25s, never returned to us, could be in one of those buildings. There were a few country houses below. The city was nowhere in sight, still a twenty minute drive north from the airport.

The airport terminal was a modest, but new two-story glass and concrete block structure with a control tower added on top. We taxied up the runway, passing half open cement mounds, where MiG 23 and 25s were partially concealed. Some were standing out in the open, their engine ports covered by tarps. None of the more modern MiG 29s were visible. We had expected to see military fighters, since the civilian airport shared runways with the air base on the far side.

We collected our bags at an outdoors turnstile amid a crowd of pushing Russians, and walked around to the front of the glass-faced terminal to catch a taxi to town. The Russians were wearing coats and fur hats. The first snows would come soon. Women in front of the terminal were crouched around small braziers, selling open-faced “sandwiches” of herring, cucumbers, or sausage. Some had metal containers containing Russian “pelmeni,” small meat or potato dumplings, plus hard-boiled eggs and yogurt drinks called “kasha.” There were also a number of Korean Russians, selling “kimche.” A few Chinese vendors were displaying Chinese-made clothing, nylon athletic bags, jogging suits, and parkas, spread on blankets over the sidewalk.

In the parking lot, arriving passengers from our flight were cramming onto yellow busses going to town, and the parking lot was full of private cars, mainly used Japanese ones, almost all white in color.

There were small, one-person kiosks in the parking area, displaying Western chocolate bars, sodas, coffee, chips, Western music cassettes, and canned meats from China. The free market was taking hold in a small way. Prices were good for us, but out of the reach of normal Russians. In general, the airport crowd looked poor, except for the mafia types, beefy young men who looked like what the Russians called “sportsmen,” boxers, karate instructors, and wrestlers, or else former KGB, police, and special forces officers. All were wearing black leather jackets and lots of jewelry, and were sliding into dark windowed Mercedes Benzes and BMWs. Most of these new “businessmen” were wearing expensive Italian made double-breasted suits. The Russian revolution under Yeltsin was barely two months old, and already there was a visible mafia class that the regular people visibly deferred to.

No one was waiting for us, which was a bit unusual since we had sent the local government our itinerary by telex. So, we tried several cabs parked in the queue, each displaying an illuminated small green light in the front window, a signal that the cab was available. When we went to the first cab in line, the driver just shook his head no, and nodded towards the cab behind him. That driver, who was standing with a group of cabbies on the sidewalk beside the cars, asked where we were going, and, hearing our American accents, said the taxi was not available. He turned back around to his companions.

Finally, a driver from this group stepped out and asked how much we would pay, indicating he would need twice the going rate, and in dollars. We agreed, but in rubles, although my traveling partner, David Ackerman, hated the extortion. The driver put our luggage in the trunk of his taxi, and we piled in. It was a real cab, with the checkerboard logo painted on the side, and driver’s photo and commercial license displayed above the dash, and not a gypsy cab, common in Moscow, belonging to a private citizen using his own vehicle as a taxi to earn some extra money.

Although David and I knew European Russia well, this part of Russia felt different. As we rode towards town, we were silent, taking everything in, and wondering what kind of reception we would receive, and whether our hotel would have a room for us. On the sides of the highway, we observed woods, and the occasional yellow light from a farmhouse, and, to the right, the dark sea would appear intermittently as the highway wound north along the coast, passing a large bronze column with a statue of Neptune on the top and letters saying “Maritime Province.” As we got closer to Vladivostok, we began to see large factory and apartment buildings like those in any large Russian city.

To break the ice, I asked the driver, “Are you a native of the region?” which in Russian came out like, “Russian Far East, your homeland?”

“Yes,” he said in his deep Russian voice, pulling a cigarette from his pack and sticking it between his lips at the corner of his mouth.

Dave was struggling to get his seat belt untangled from behind the seat cushion, and the driver said “not necessary.”

I said to David, who spoke much better Russian than me, “the seat belt is not necessary, David.” We both knew that you desperately needed a seat belt anytime you got into a car with a Russian taxi driver.

By then, we were barreling along the highway at 80 miles per hour in a rattling cab which sounded like it would run off its wheels, the driver fumbling for matches in the glove compartment as he drove. David gave me one of his resigned grins, shaking his head at the absurdness of it all. He finally gave up on the seat belt.

“How are things here,” I asked the driver.

“Nor-mal-na” he said in Russian for “normal,” the usual Russian answer that means okay, or as okay as things can be in life. Normal doesn’t mean good, but no one really expects that. Then he added: “times are tough, things are expensive, pensions nothing, unemployment. But, we’ll survive.”

I took a chance, “is Yeltsin popular?”

He shrugged his shoulders and thought how to answer, “He’s President,” in other words, of course.

“Are you English?” he asked.

“Americans.” There was silence.

Then he asked: “here on business?” It came out as one Anglicized word “biz-ness-myen?”

“No, we’re from the American Embassy, on a visit to see the region.” I didn’t tell him we were laying the groundwork for a new American consulate in the region.

He nodded his head like he appreciated having Americans in town, bygones be bygones. At least, I thought, he wasn’t paranoid about American diplomats, despite Vladivostok still being officially closed to foreigners for the time being. This part of Russia had sat on the sidelines during the recent, August coup in Moscow, which ultimately led to Yeltsin and to the overthrow of communist rule. Vladivostok’s Governor, like many others, had waited to see who came out on top before jumping on the democratic bandwagon. The commander of the Russian Pacific Fleet, based in Vladivostok, had supported the failed communist coup d’etat when Gorbachev was arrested in the Crimea, and, as a result, was being forced out.

As we got closer to the city, we could see the entire bay off to our right. We were encountering a few weathered, wooden houses and dilapidated collective farms. A sign pointed up a wooded side road to a restaurant called “Hunter’s Hut.” Suddenly, we were entering city streets, well lit, with stores on both sides. Large high-rise apartment buildings stood further off to the sides, but they were not well lit.

The stores were the same repeating pattern every few blocks: “vegetables,” “bakery,” “candies and sweets,” “shoes,” “kitchen and home supplies,” and “state food store.” All had large windows on the front, and were painted white, but, the stores were closed and no one was out window shopping or strolling about. The city seemed to be shut down for the night. This was different from Moscow, which was always awake. There were quite a few private cars, the usual “Zhiguili,” “Volga,” and “Moskvitch” ones, on the streets, a symbol of the changes taking place.

At our first stoplight, I noticed an attractive Russian blond-haired woman standing with her sailor boyfriend near the intersection. I made a standard comment, hoping to start some conversation.

“Russian women are pretty,” I said.

“All women are pretty,” the driver answered with Russian wisdom.

Ackerman threw in a witticism, using colloquial Russian, which I didn’t catch. He was fluent in Russian, a natural linguist.

As we got closer to the city center, we could see the port area, and I noticed that Ackerman was observing the Russian fleet at anchor. Before joining the Foreign Service, he had spent six years as a naval officer, and that was still where his heart was.

As we went up an overpass, we saw the new Russian aircraft carrier, “Kiev,” coming into view, sitting in the middle of the harbor near the Seventh Fleet Headquarters. David and I exchanged glances, knowing the Russians did not like American diplomats viewing their newest carrier. Several of our Embassy colleagues had been denied permission to visit cities where the carrier was in port. The driver didn’t say anything, but I saw him glance at the carrier and then at us in the mirror. He must have been wondering if he would get a visit from the KGB after dropping us off, unless things had changed already.

“I’m surprised,” I quietly told Dave, “that they let us come while the Kiev is in town.”

“You sure we got approval?” David said quietly. He knew that I had received a phone call from my contact, Vasily, at the Russian Foreign Ministry, responding to our formal trip request only at the last moment. David had been standing near the phone when I gave him the thumbs up sign, indicating that we got the go ahead. We had to rush to the airport to catch the flight.

“I think so. When I spoke to Vassily, I think he said all was approved.” But, I was thinking about the call, trying to remember, and the awkward silence on the other end of the line when I gratefully said “thank you” and hung up. Maybe, Vasily had actually said our travel was denied, and I had misheard, with my less than perfect Russian, the word “Vaspreshen,” or “forbidden,” from the word “Razreshen,” or “approved.”   Did I get it wrong? I didn’t say anything to David, but I remembered when I rang off, Vassily was trying to explain something in clarification that I didn’t catch.

I think David was beginning to wonder. We both knew I was always doing things like that, getting us into strange situations. He looked over at me and laughed quietly, shaking his head in disbelief. We were a team, designated by the Embassy to be “circuit riders,” assigned to explore the Russian Far East, and expected to be on the road almost all the time, as part of a U.S. effort to get to know the new Russia. Areas formerly closed to American diplomats were being opened. Other teams had “circuits” in Western Russia, the former Soviet Caucasus, and Central Asia. Dave and I had already made a trip to Khabarovsk, on our circuit, and we enjoyed being pioneers, on our own, far away from the Embassy.

When we reached the Vladivostok city center, we passed a large, two-story port complex, which took up an entire city block, the evening gathering place for Vladivostok’s teens. We turned left, going up a steep hill, passing brown and gray masonry and brick buildings on each side, and arriving at our hotel, the “Amursky Zaliv,” perched on top of a hill with a 270-degree view of the bay. The moon was full, and the impression was beautiful. All around was a shimmering dark gray sea surrounded by purple mountains lining the shores. The nearby hills, astride the bay, were spotted with small yellow dots, representing apartments. Not too far out was a scattering of small, forested islands. Beyond the bay, lay the Sea of Japan and Pacific Ocean. I was thinking how nice it was to be in this part of Russia on the Pacific coast, near the sea.

On checking in, we discovered we had no reservations, that the hotel had not received our telex. The clerk consulted with the manager, who called the Governor’s office, getting a duty officer, who did some quick checking and called right back. He instructed the hotel to give us a room for one night only, and to have us report to the Deputy Governor at 9:00 the next morning, since we apparently did not have permission to be in the city.

That night, after getting unpacked, we took a stroll to the port, just three blocks away. We knew they probably wanted us to stay in he hotel, but the duty officer didn’t explicitly say to. So, being experienced Russia hands, we pushed the limits. But, we would stay away from Russian Navy ships to be safe.

On the way down the hill towards the port building, we saw a lot of military jeeps speeding by. Shore Patrol police were visible on every corner, and they gave us a close look. Vladivostok was obviously a military town. There wasn’t much to see in the downtown at night, so we walked along the dock area called the “Golden Horn,” a horn shaped inlet into the heart of the city. Even at night, we could see that the city had the typical Russian, rather than Asian, appearance, and that it was industrial. But, it was draped over numerous hills, giving it a nice feel, like a Russian San Francisco.

On the way back up to our hotel, we ventured a block or two off the normal route, stopping at the Vladivostok Hotel and casino. The scene was bizarre, with expensive cars overflowing the small parking lot, each guarded by a thug wearing a black leather jacket. A large number of heavily made up young women were standing next to pimps, and you had to push your way in past them at the door. There were no hotel restaurants or shops to be seen, just people milling in the lobby in small groups, apparently local mafias discussing matters quietly, dispatching young men to carry out their instructions, or sending girls to clients. Well-dressed couples were coming and going from the casino, but we didn’t hang around. The overall atmosphere was rough. Even getting in the front door of the hotel, we had been stopped by a goon who looked us over before motioning us in.

When we got back to our hotel, we noticed that there were a few prostitutes there as well, sitting alone in the corner of the hotel lobby. We took the elevator down, since the lobby was on the top floor, but for some reason, the hall lights were out, and we had to feel our way along the dark hallway until we got to our rooms. You never knew what to expect on the road.

The next morning I met David in the lobby and he looked tired. He had received several calls during the night from young women, saying: “Mr. Ack-er-man, can I come to your room?”

“You must be famous among the hookers,” I said. David was a straight-laced family man.

“One lady called me ‘Mr. Japanese businessman.’ Do I look Japanese?”

“Maybe Japanese, if the Japanese look like Henry the Eighth.”

“The last call I got,” David snorted through a laugh, “was from a guy, after failing with the women, saying could I come to your room?”

We both enjoyed that.

“Have you had your coffee,” I said. “If so, we’d better head straight out to the Governor’s office. Don’t want to be late for our summons.”

We decided to walk the few blocks to the local “White House,” a twenty-two story, modern, Western style building overlooking the commercial port in the center of town. On the way, we walked by a kindergarten.

“Strastvitya,” for “hello,” I said to a group of preschoolers standing by the fence. They were holding onto the bars, watching people pass. I wondered if they would catch a slight trace of foreign accent.

A young girl shot back immediately, “wie, ot-kuda?” or “you, where are you from,” in Russian. Ackerman loved it.

The downtown area in daylight confirmed the distinctly Russian feel of the city. Most of the buildings had Beaux Arts and Neoclassical masonry facades over brick construction, and were not maintained, exposing splotches of chipped paint and plaster. Older Victorian buildings were interspersed with 1950s red brick ones, a mixture of Czarist and Soviet architecture.

A few of these buildings had Soviet slogans attached to the roof, like “Glory to the Homeland,” surrounded by a red wreath. More communist slogans with hammer and sickle had apparently been removed, except for statues of Lenin and the Red Cavalry on the central square. At the same time, there were a number of new advertisements for Western consumer goods, primarily cars and cigarettes, painted on the sides of buildings. There was a new hamburger stand, “Gamburger,” with a rendition of McDonalds’ golden arches painted on the side. The customers were sailors in uniform and their girlfriends. The streets were brick with tram rails, carrying a mixture of modern, colorful Western European streetcars, and older, Soviet rusty-red ones. The buses were modern and Hungarian, and bent in the middle. All were electrified, requiring a network of cables above the street.

When we got to the “White House,” we were escorted to the office of the Assistant Governor, a middle-aged Russian bureaucrat who spoke British accented English. He was joined in the meeting by two of his associates, both young. The meeting, which I thought would be cordial, was not pleasant. The Russian side was not smiling, always a bad sign. No tea or coffee was offered. The Deputy Governor went straight to the point, taking our presence in Vladivostok as a possible diplomatic incident and breach of Russian security.

“I’m afraid this is a delicate situation,” he said seriously, “since you are, according to our information, here illegally. You have appeared without special permission in a ‘closed city’.” He made it sound like we were spies.

“We understood that we had received permission from your ministry in Moscow before we left,” I responded. “It was by telephone at the last minute. We had to run to the airport to make the plane.”

The Deputy Governor gave no response.

“We submitted our request the required seven days in advance for special exception to visit a closed city,” I added.” My answer came out a bit too solicitous, but I was thrown off balance by the Cold War nature of the meeting. I felt a bit unsure of the game they were playing in this more conservative part of Russia. “We would appreciate it if you could check again. Our contact at the Foreign Ministry was Mr. Ustinov on the United States Desk in the Americas One Department.”

The Deputy Governor said, “I spoke personally with the Ministry last night, and they said you had not been given approval.” There were accusing looks from the Russian side. I could feel myself getting angry. Ackerman gave me a look to be patient. He knew me.

“Mr. Deputy Governor,” I said, adopting a more formal tone, “we are here representing the American Ambassador.” I paused and could see Ackerman wince, knowing what was coming. “I frankly don’t care if we visit your city or not. I am surprised to be treated this way, since the U.S. and Russia are now allies, your government wants greater ties, and we are in the process of exchanging new consulates, yours in Seattle, ours in this region. But, if you don’t want us here, let’s end this meeting now, and we’ll pack and leave today.” I closed my notebook. David didn’t look up from taking notes.

You never know how a Russian will react. Usually calmly, they are not beyond getting angry, usually icy cold. The Deputy Governor was quiet for a few seconds, thinking things over, then said in a polite, matter-of fact tone, that we had misunderstood, that they had nothing against American visitors, only that visits have to be approved according to our bilateral treaty, which is still in effect. The same protections apply to the United Sates, he said. From what we have said, this could be a simple mistake. He would call Moscow at 3:30 to discuss this.

He and the Governor, he added, would like to have more American contacts, noting that he had been to Seattle, and the U.S. was indeed a friend of Russia. I calmed down and added some nice words about Vladivostok, and our having had a consulate here in the past.

While we were talking, a call came through from the Deputy Mayor. The Governor’s deputy spoke to him for a few seconds in Russian.

When they hung up, he said: “that was the Mayor’s Office. They want to take you for a tour around Vladivostok. They will pick you up at your hotel at noon if you agree.” He seemed okay with this. I said we would look forward to it. He would let us know what Moscow said later that afternoon. We were to call him at 3:45.

When we got outside, Ackerman gave me that bemused look, rolling he eyes at my diplomacy. “Do you think they will expel us,” he asked.

“I doubt it. I still think I got permission.”

“What are you going to tell the Charge?” David asked. He was referring to the Embassy’s Acting Ambassador, our boss back in Moscow, who I knew would stand behind us. I shrugged.

“The strange thing,” Ackerman said, “is that the Mayor is coming to take us a driving tour of the city, even though the Governor feels we are not supposed to be here. Looks like power nowadays is everywhere and nowhere.”

When we got back to the hotel, the Mayor and two of his deputies were there to pick us up with their Japanese station wagon. They were dressed surprisingly casual, the Mayor in jeans. He was young, in his thirties, and was a Russian “democrat” who had won the local election on Yeltsin’s coat tails. As we drove around, they told us not to worry about having to leave, raising the matter of the new U.S. consulate we were establishing in Khabarovsk, and suggesting we should consider Vladivostok instead. They pointed to a former Communist Party education building across the street from the Mayor’s office, near a statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, saying it would make a good consulate.

The Mayor’s party eventually dropped us off at our hotel. David went to arrange a meeting with a local Western businessman doing import-export business in Vladivostok. We would arrange a meeting at our hotel. “If we are going to be flown back tonight, we might as well get in all we can,” David said.

I went to the hotel bar, and ordered a vodka tonic. The bartender was a young man, but had a blue-collar look. He was not the usual “Westernized” Russian, smooth, and fluent in English, which you expected to find in an Intourist hotel bar. He was pleasant and direct, and we started talking about the city, since he wasn’t that busy with customers. We spoke in Russian.

“Are there a lot of foreign businessmen in the hotel?” I asked.

He rocked his hands back and forth like a boat, indicating so-so.

“Businessmen many, results few,” he said.

“Why?”

“Russian businessmen don’t understand the market. Plus, many Western businessmen are not serious, they promise a lot, but don’t come back.”

“What about the Japanese?”

“No, the Japanese are clever. They know how to do business here.” He rubbed together his thumb and index finger, the sign of money, suggesting palms were greased. But, his negative expression made it clear how he felt about the Japanese. He said, “I prefer the Americans come, instead of Chinese and Japanese.”

“Have you been here long at the hotel?”

“No, before I was a fisherman, but most of the fishing jobs have been lost.” He meant since the Soviet Union fell. “There are no more big orders for fish, and no money to pay salaries.” But, “I traveled a lot, even the West, and learned languages, so I was able to find a job.” He paused to look around, to see if anyone was listening. “Sometimes, I translate for foreign businessmen on the side. Most other fishermen have nothing. Some now drive taxis.”

“How do they survive with no work?”

“Difficult. Enterprises pay only partial salaries now, but even this may not continue. One third of the employees receive a paycheck each month, on a rotating basis. So, you get paid every three months, in principle.”

I smiled at “in principle,” at the Russian irony. “The great fear is bankruptcy,“ he said in a more serious tone.

“Most workers,” he continued, “have an apartment that can‘t be taken away, since they are owned by the union. Everyone relies on their neighbors who are getting a paycheck that month. Everyone shares. Everyone in the apartment building helps each other.”

He paused, and helped some other customers, before returning to the subject. “The situation is bad. You see cars going out of town on Saturday morning, many cars. They are loaded with families, and they come back on Sunday night. It is like rush hour. What they are doing is going to the countryside to plant potatoes on weekends. Whole families. Some have dacha, but others just find a piece of land in the forest and put up signs. If there is famine, they will survive. Basements all over town are full of potatoes. Russians are strong, we will survive.”

“Are you confident that things will get better? Do people like the new direction?” I hated to ask Russians these straight political questions, putting them in an uncomfortable position. For obvious reasons, they preferred to ignore politics. But, I had led off with economic questions. Usually you get a non-answer anyway.

“Hard to say,” he answered. “local Communists are fighting the Governor, who is an academic, not from here, and who was appointed by Yeltsin. He is not a man of experience like factory directors. The local parliament is Communist Party mostly. They block reforms, including Yeltsin’s decrees. Everything depends on Moscow, what happens there.” Yeltsin was still battling the legislature, the Duma, in the capital.

“Are there business opportunities here for foreigners?

“Hard to say. There are opportunities yes, timber, fish, minerals. But, also many obstacles.” He looked at me like I knew the problems.   It seemed like all the answers on Russia were “trudna skazats,” or “hard to say.” Indeed, it was hard to say.

A group of four Russians looking to be in their early sixties and wearing business suits came in and took a table across the room. One, I noticed, was wearing the lacquered maroon, flag-shaped lapel pin of a Member of Parliament, the Duma, in Moscow. A player. They were ordering drinks and talking among themselves in the style of the old system, carefully thought out sentences with stress at the end for emphasis. The tone was a bit staccato, pedantic, sounding like lecturing. Toasts followed by more toasts. They looked like old Soviet party men, pudgy with red faces. They were a bit too serious. Their suits were older and gray and blue.

The waiter looked in their direction, and said under his breath, “former Governor,” meaning the former Communist Party First Secretary for the region. I recognized the one he was referring to. He certainly looked like a man used to exercising power, serious, firm voice, a bit athletic, a natural leader going back to the Komsomol student days, with quick, intelligent eyes, and a bit restrained. I had been told that he was our bete noir in Vladivostok, a man of the old elites, not giving up, and a force of opposition who still would not have anything to do with Americans and democracy, which he saw as the enemy.

He had been governor for a long time, making him a local Czar, until thrown out by Yeltsin. I glanced over at him, and he met my eyes just for a second, condescendingly, as if he, too, had been told who I was. His look said, “we will be back in power someday.” The others at the table were whispering to each other, and one looked my way. I recognized one of the men at the table as the hotel manager.

At 4:00, we called the Deputy Governor. He came on the phone and said everything was cleared up, and, it was now “convenient” for us to proceed with our itinerary, and to call him if we needed any help. He did not offer any explanation on whether approval had, or had not, actually been given in Moscow in the first place. I would find out on my own when I got back. There was no apology, but I didn’t make an issue of it, not wanting to damage ties on our first visit. He was our official point of contact with the Governor’s office. We, and American businessmen, would rely on his help in the future.

“What do you think is going on?” Ackerman asked.

”I don’t know,” I said.

Later, David and I met in the lobby with the resident Western businessman we had called. He was young and bright, with a Russian family background. He was also married to a local Russian girl. He brought with him three Alaskan businessmen who happened to be in town.

The Alaskans had lots of questions for the businessman about doing business in the Russian Far East. One wanted to sell foodstuff, it was strictly export for him, no investment hassles. The second was interested in entering a joint venture with a bankrupt Russian factory to produce American car batteries for the Russian market. The third was interested in opening a hotel. Alaskans generally got along well with Russians, who were also a bit rough and appreciated nature more than society.

The businessman gave them the benefit of his experience in Vladivostok, his “buyer beware” lecture, he called it.

“Your Russian partners will look like us, but they are not,” he said, ”don’t be mistaken. They don’t care about niceties or fairplay, it is the dollar they are interested in. They play rough and are cynical about your motives, believing all the propaganda they have been told for seventy years about capitalists and dirty business. As your partner, they put up the local contacts and get the permits and approvals, but they expect you to put up all the money and resources. Sometimes, after they have your resources and products on the shelf, they decide they don’t need you anymore. That’s when some rather heavy-set mafia guys, with an accountant in tow, come in and ask not too politely to see your books. They determine your true profits and announce that they will take half in exchange for protection.” He paused to let this sink in.

One of the Alaskans asked: “what legal protections do we have?”

“Few to none,” he answered, looking at me for verification. “A local attorney can get you legal permits and represent you in the Russian courts, if it gets that far, but their main job is only to handle the paperwork and see that contracts are drawn up properly, to meet the formal requirements.   This makes it a bit tougher to squeeze you out on a technicality, such as the need for Russian sanitary inspections on food imported. But, when it comes down to it, a lot depends on your Russian partner’s influence with the Governor, who decides what deals go through and which are honored. Your embassy, the businessman pointed to us, can help a bit with Moscow ministries, but, they and your lawyer can not always protect you from the local mafias or the tax police if you fall out of favor.”

The Alaskan battery guy looked at me as if I wasn’t meant to hear this, “Does that mean we might be pressured to make payoffs to the mafia or pay bribes? Are we asked to pay bribes? I hear that is how the Japanese do business here.”

“Usually your Russian business partner hires a local security firm who keeps the mafia at bay. The Governor can help somewhat. You are not allowed under U.S. law to pay bribes, as Mr. LeCocq can tell you. But, your Russian partner may resort to this without you knowing it. Bribes are often disguised as special fees.”

“How much privatization is going on,” the Alaskan asked.

“When the communists were thrown out, two months ago, the Party’s assets, in other words everything, including businesses, buildings, equipment, and banks, were sold off– handed over– to ‘private businessmen,’ who often happen to be the same Party-appointed managers who ran the factories before privatization. The workers were given ‘shares’ representing part ownership of the factory, but they were no longer getting paid, and were happy to sell their shares to the factory directors for pennies on the dollar just to put food on the table. There is some small-scale privatization going on– hair salons, business services companies, kiosks– but not much more. The big change is that joint ventures with foreigners are now allowed, provided the Russian side retains 51 percent control.”

“Can we find office and factory space to lease?”

“When it comes to a particular building you may wish to lease, often no one knows who owns it now. A private businessman may think he has the lease, since he bought it from the former owners, say the Ministry of Fisheries, but comes to find out that they didn’t have the right to sell it. It really belonged to another ministry, or was sold by another ministry, or is a former Defense Ministry annex, which cannot be sold after all. You will be told this building’s fate is in the hands of the property courts, which is where it will sit for years in limbo. Yes. Your Russian partner can find office space to rent, but you may have to fight to keep it.“

“Often,” he went on, “you think you have contracts for a certain building or enterprise, all approved by the Governor, the appropriate ministry, the mayor’s office, the local legislature, and the KGB, which runs customs and approves the location of your business. Then, after you have invested thousands of dollars, a new Governor is suddenly appointed and you have to start all over. The new Governor’s friends may be in competition with your Russian partner.“

The savvy Alaskan said, “so, it all depends on how much leverage your Russian partner has, politically.”

The Western businessman nodded. “Politically and financially. It’s complicated by the fact that you never know who is in charge in each sector. Even the governor is powerless in some cases. The situation is really confused and fluid. It’s like shifting plates beneath your feet. Or, to put it another way, you think you know what is going on, but you are really only seeing the shadows of puppets behind the screen, like Indonesian puppets.”

I added that the U.S. would be opening a consulate in the region and would have a commercial attache and a consul general to help American businessman. The consulate, I added, is being pushed by Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens. The Alaskans paid no attention to my interjection, obviously preferring to work free-lance. The fact of a new American consulate had no interest for them.

I whispered to David at one point, “I have a lot to learn about Alaskans.”

David smiled, knowingly. From Tacoma, he had worked for a summer on a fishing vessel in the Alaskan waters, pulling out king crab. He liked the Alaskan independent, frontier mentality and was a bit Alaskan and bear-like, himself. He knew what Alaskans thought of the U.S. government and Washington, D.C., and the lower forty-eight for that matter.

I whispered, “wait till he needs an American visa for his Russian girl friend.”

The businessman confirmed there were four Americans already living in town. One was a lawyer. Another was trying to open an American style supermarket. The third worked for Catholic Relief Services, in town to see if they could offer food assistance to the elderly and needy. And, finally, there was a Catholic priest from the Alaska diocese, ministering at a newly reopened Catholic church in town. There were a number of other American businessmen transiting the region, looking for opportunities, and a couple of young Americans in the nearby town of Nakhodka, doing shipping, consulting for Sea Land Container Corporation out of Seattle. Plus, he heard Alaska Airlines was thinking of running flights from Anchorage to Magadan, Vladivostok, and Khabarovsk. He looked at me to confirm this.

That night, the Alaskans dined at the “Hunter’s Hut,” which we had passed on our way in from the airport. They had specifically asked for it, as all Alaskan visitors do, knowing this was the one restaurant in town which served wild game like deer, boar, and bear. I settled for our hotel’s “kutleti,” breaded meat patties rolled into a large ball, along with some small boiled potatoes, and a tomato and cucumber salad, heavy on the mayonnaise.

Ours was the typical dining hall, expansive, with white table cloths, and water in glass decanters on large round tables. We were seated at the far end of the hall, at a table well separated from the other guests, Cold War style, and, as usual, the waitresses ignored us. About half the tables were occupied. There was a bandstand with instruments set up, but it was still early for the dancing and music. When we were finally served, there was no courtesy involved.

The waitress asked: “what we would have?”

I ordered the cutlets. David was brave and asked for the “Chicken Kiev,” which usually was greasy with the skin on. We called it “rubber ducky.”

“Chicken Kiev none. Perhaps kutleti?” the waitress said, looking around the room as if she was ready to move on.

“How about crab salad and pelmeni,” Dave said.

“Salad there is, but with meat instead of crab, but good. Pelmeni there is.”

“Okay, both” David nodded. She walked off.

“Some things haven’t changed,” I said.

“They don’t like to ‘push’ service on you,” David said, parroting a Leninist mantra. Service smacked of the bourgeoisie. David, having lived with a Russian family as an exchange student, knew the culture.

“A little competition will change that,” I said.

While at dinner, we got another call from the Deputy Governor on the lobby phone saying we were invited to stay in the guesthouse at the state dacha outside of town if we would like.

I put my had over the receiver and mouthed “state dacha.”

David smiled, amused at our sudden new status.

“Yes, We’d love to stay there.” The deputy gave me directions by commuter train. There was a stop at the guesthouse. He rang off.

“They are trying,” I said. ”We didn’t get that in Khabarovsk.”

Vladivostok’s central train station had the usual blaring loud speakers with a harsh female voice calling out train departures and arrivals. The terminal was built in the 1890s in the Tartar style you see in Moscow, bright green, with white-framed archways and multiple turrets. On the train, commuters sat quietly in rows of wooden benches. No one was smiling.

As we rolled out of the station, we passed through a stone quarry, and crossed the city slowly on an elevated rail. On one street below, we could see a police station, with blue and white Toyota police cars out front, and uniformed officers milling around. Further on, we passed an area marked by a sign as “Second River, composed of huge factories lining the hills. Then we were in the outskirts, passing old wooden houses and gardens and an occasional park with children’s play equipment. The atmosphere was lifeless and run down.

The tracks ran along the coastline, passing another area of warehouses, storage sheds, and garages, plus a massive, two story, tan building, with a large enclosed ramp running down to a special siding. It had slit windows at the top, and was surrounded by a high concrete fence. I pointed it out to Dave. From books I had read, this was probably the notorious Vladivostok Transit Camp, part of Stalin’s “Gulag,” a holding site for political dissidents and other prisoners being sent on to labor camps in the north. Many died in the transit building, including the poet Osip Mandelstam.

For much of the trip beyond that, we were hugging the coast, in fact the water seemed precariously close at times. Below the tracks were steep cliffs, but not too high, with rowboats scattered along sandy beaches. Some older tugs were sitting not too far out, but there were no beaches for swimming. There were scrap hulls of abandoned machines on the beaches as well.

When we got off at the state dacha station, we entered a public beach, with tennis courts, outdoor skating rink, picnic tables, and park benches facing the water. Judging from the signs, the city’s school children and Young Pioneers had been brought here during the Soviet era for summer camp. Further on, there were two large private resorts, or large parks, each fenced off from the public. One was the State Dacha compound, having two guest hotels for important Russian and foreign guests and conferences, where we would stay; the other was a Defense Ministry vacation resort for Russian naval officers and their families. Both had private beaches and birch groves.

As soon as we arrived at the station, David and I walked over to the ticket counter to get return tickets in advance. An elderly woman wearing a scarf and quilted gray work jacket was sweeping the platform with a broom made of birch branches. In the waiting room, there were a few elderly people waiting on benches. They looked at us with curiosity. I asked the cashier for two tickets, “kartochka” in Russian, for Vladivostok. She handed them to me without comment, sliding them across.

David was smiling when I handed him his ticket.

“You know, you asked for a small potato,” he said, pointing out I had placed the stress on the wrong syllable, making the difference between the words potato and ticket.

If you don’t behave,” I joked, “I will send you out to one of the small wooden houses nearby to find out if any are for rent.” I had sent him on such a mission in Khabarovsk, only to see David, all 250 pounds of him, racing back up the road, running from a small dog and an old woman trying to swat him with a broom.

The hostesses at the state dacha treated us like small children, taking special care of us, bringing extra tea to our room, plus cookies brought from home. They were the typical Russian mothers, warm and friendly. The rooms were clean and modern, with teak furniture and warm feather cushions for the beds. The next morning, they served us breakfast in a dining room filled with plants and flowers and with huge picture windows looking out on gardens.

That afternoon, we took a walk around the grounds and nearby forests, densely packed with maple and poplar trees. There was a feeling of vastness, walking beneath the light blue cloudless sky, knowing the ocean was just a hundred yards away on the eastern edge of Russia, with the steppes stretching to the west thousands of miles, all the way to the edge of Poland and the Baltic States. There was not a feeling of being in Asia. The impression was of timeless Russia.

The ladies at the dacha said they didn’t care for Moscow, which was far away and too big and corrupt. They didn’t like being close to politics. They also didn’t like the Chinese, but hoped for closer ties to the U.S. Pacific Northwest, especially Seattle and Alaska, which shared their pioneer spirit. A lot of the citizens in Vladivostok, they reminded us, had seen the U.S., as well as Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, China, Japan, and Australia, either with the Far Eastern Shipping Company merchant fleet, the Russian Navy, or fishing vessels. Vladivostok, being a port, they would say, is more open to the outside than Khabarovsk. Khabarovsk was the ever-present rival.

The day we departed, we were chauffered downtown to the central train station by the Deputy Governor, who invited us to dinner with his family on our next visit. We were catching the Trans-Siberian to Khabarovsk, flying from there to Moscow.

The Deputy, who had confronted us on our arrival, we discovered, was actually pro-West, brought in by the new, pro-reform Governor. He had worked for the Commerce Ministry in several Asian countries, which I assumed to mean he probably worked for the KGB. His children were studying English and Japanese in school, and his daughter hoped to go to the University of Washington in Seattle. They had Russian friends there who could take care of her. His wife taught English in the grade school. He, himself, had learned English as a student in Moscow.

On the way to the station, we were driving down fairly well trafficked streets during working hours. Housewives and grandmothers were scurrying about, carrying their stringed shopping bags. But, the city was fast becoming the wild east. The driving scene had touches of a futuristic world, which had reverted to barbarianism. We saw young hoodlums with their blond girlfriends in the back seats, racing each other, practically running cars off the road. One Mazda with the windows busted out was being driven by a skin-head with jail-house tattoos covering his skull. The traffic police ignored them.

When we got out at the station and said goodbye, David called the Deputy Governor by his first name and patronymic, a sign of friendship, and said that he especially liked being in a Navy town, as a former Navy man, himself. However, seeing all the naval ships and their awesome power reminded him that it was a miracle we had survived the Cold War. The Deputy nodded gravely, and gave David a firm handshake and bear hug. We had made a new friend.

My final image of our trip, which I carried back to Moscow, was of our departure from Vladivostok, in the red train car, with our private compartment and its fold down beds, and a linen-covered table between our benches. As we settled in, looking out the window, our tea order was taken by the “dejurnaya,” the lady in charge of this particular car. She was young and very helpful, and wore the standard dark-blue railroad staff uniform.

As we lurched to a start and pulled out of the station, while the “dejurnaya” was out making tea, the elderly “conductress” came by to punch our tickets. Before she left the compartment, she reached over and pulled our window shade down, apparently so American diplomats wouldn’t see the defense factories stretching along the tracks on the way out of town. David and I laughed, and raised the shade back up half way after she left. She walked by again on her way back through the car, and looked at the partially open window shade, stopping, but saying nothing.

A minute later, the young “dejurnaya” returned, bringing our tea and pillows, and, seeing the window shade partially closed, opened it up fully, saying we should enjoy the sunlight on such a beautiful day.

When we got back to Moscow, in the new U.S. Embassy, we went straight to the lunchroom, where we anxiously awaited short ribs prepared by the Embassy’s excellent Philippine cooks. The Acting Ambassador walked by our table with his tray and looked down smiling his ironic smile, noticing our weather-beaten, slept-in clothes and unshaven faces.

He asked in the gravelly voice of a man with no illusions, “How was the trip. How were things in ‘Vlad’?”

“Nor-mal-na” we laughed. An old Russia hand, he understood entirely.