SIBERIA BOUND
Chasing the American Dream on Russia's Wild Frontier |
|
Single Page Format By noon the next day Sasha had sold all six tons of chocolate to his friends and business acquaintances over the phone. Few could pay cash up front, but they all promised to pay us after they had sold the chocolate. Sasha agreed. In the meantime, I made some very-long-distance phone calls. I was trying to find a train car full of cocoa beans. I found a company willing to sell us twenty-five tons of cocoa beans and send them by train from Amsterdam to Novosibirsk. It would take four weeks for the beans to arrive. The supplier expected to be paid in advance, of course.
Sasha and I needed some capital, and we needed in now.
The catch-22 of capitalism was upon us. You can’t make money if you don’t have any capital, and you can’t accumulate capital if you don’t have money. The solution, of course, is to borrow your start-up capital. But this was Siberian capitalism. There weren’t any banks here that loaned money to budding cocoa bean mongers. No problem. We would simply borrow our start-up capital from a communist.
I glanced alternately at the red-faced man behind the desk and at the portrait of Lenin staring down over his shoulder. Protruding from his desk was a long table. I couldn't tell if it reminded me more of a stage for naked women to strut or a pirate ship's plank. I sat on one side of this plank, Sasha on the other. Sasha and I were quickly becoming business partners, and yet, when I looked across the table, I realized that I didn't know him from Adam. It was Sasha's idea to come here to borrow money. I didn't know if I trusted Sasha, and I certainly didn't trust this crusty man with big red flags on stands in the corners of his office. Our prospective creditor had his back to Lenin. I had to look straight into the Bolshevik's eyes. But Lenin rarely looks you in the eyes. He most often has his severe gaze fixed on the not-too-distant future when communism will rule and the proletariat will be safe from capitalists¾capitalists like us.
“We’ll need about twenty thousand dollars,” Sasha said with a smile that made me want to trust him.
I tried not to look as nervous as I felt. I knew that we needed twenty thousand dollars for the cocoa beans. But now, after Sasha had actually said it out loud, “dvatzat tyisyach dolorov,” it seemed a ridiculously large amount of money, especially in a country where the average person’s monthly income was about fifty dollars and getting less each day. I was prepared to leave the room before we were thrown out.
All eyes turned to the piece of paper Sasha had pulled from his briefcase.
“We’ll return your money in three months, plus fifteen-hundred dollars,” Sasha promised. This time I couldn’t hide my surprise. We hadn’t talked about that! Sasha wasn’t looking at me. He had his bright blue eyes and his contagious smile targeted on our potential creditor.
The red-faced man looked pained. Then again, he had looked like that from the moment we walked in. “Agreed,” he finally said. “Only, no contract.” With his index finger he pushed the paper across the desktop, back to Sasha.