CCI Friends,

Meet Vadim Vasiliev in the photo below. Vadim is one of CCI’s  6,000 Russian entrepreneurs who studied how to develop small businesses in U.S. companies during the ‘90s and 2000s. He provides his large showroom when we need space for visiting Americans to meet with local entrepreneurs. Here we see him describing the climate in which he and Russia’s brightest and best were reinventing themselves as they were trying to create businesses for the first time ever. CCI’s alumni are spread over 71 of Russia’s 85 regions, from Western Russia (outside of Moscow) to the Far East. We chose not to take applicants from Moscow since that one city was getting 85% of all foreign capital and programs sent into Russia. For Russia to succeed, their vast regions also had to succeed. We’ve never regretted this decision. Now we have businessmen and women all over Russia who are eager to participate when we visit their cities. One of Mike Metz’s fabulous Foto-Journal pages follows:

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

Back in his day, Stalin responded to idealistic critics by saying his was the best of socialism, “really existing socialism,” with the gulags, police state, purges etc. Hey, you want free education, housing, healthcare, etc., ya’ gotta’ put up with a little pain. It was a rough bargain.

As I listened to the Russian entrepreneur below describing his successful business I thought about the rough road these Russians have had to walk as they learned how to do real-life capitalism. He described all sorts of pitfalls and how he negotiated them one after another. Today he’s a small manufacturer with a growing clientele that succeeds in spite of sanctions and dips in the market.

Vadim was a teacher who loved the outdoors, camping, climbing, skiing, and in the 90s he was sewing his own jackets and mittens to be able to do that. He met Sharon Tennison of CCI who arranged for him to come to Colorado, and learn from people who ran outdoors companies. Then he went home and started his own company. Today he runs a Russian division of a Swedish outdoor clothing supplier. The room is filled with Russians telling of their small business successes, folks Sharon brought to the US to learn from our small business owners and Rotary Club members. [Continue Reading]

Dear CCI friends,

The largest and most extensive investigative trip to Russia is now history. Without a doubt there has not been another Russia trip dedicated to understanding where Russia is today (or yesterday), what her cities look like, how Russian people are faring, what their level of culture is, their social services, financial well being, education, their sense of the future, their respect (or lack thereof) of their leadership and a multitude of other indicators.

For this trip we intentionally forgot what US mainstream media prints about Russia and Russians and used our own lenses and ears to get at the truth.

Our 24 American travelers went to a total of nine different Russian regions and 14 Russian cities and towns, some huge ones, a few small ones and one tiny town. We traveled on planes, trains and in one case automobiles.  We got to see huge new airports, town-to-town train stations and back country roads. Those of us going to Yaroslavl traveled overnight in a Soviet-era train. It was the first I’ve seen in decades––clean but looking to be a relic from 100 years ago. Some of us got to see the huge new bridge connecting Crimea to Russia, the longest in Europe (19 kilometers or 12 miles).

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Dear CCI Friends,

We wish you could have been with us from August 30 to Sept 15 as 25 of us scattered across thousands of miles (kilometers) in Russia, meeting with Russian citizens for the first time in city-after-city.  We will continue to send you our Foto-Journals as they come in from travelers just returning to the states.

This is one from Mike Metz and his wife Kathy who stayed on in St. Petersburg after the group departed for the U.S.

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

“My dear friend” is how we are addressed frequently in Russia, by those with whom we’ve shared a meal, a museum, or a day. It’s endearing.

We spent yesterday with a fellow I’m happy to consider a new dear friend, Alexey, an interior decorator, painter of murals, and unparalleled expert on St. Petersburg architecture. Here’s a photo:

One of the best aspects of a CCI trip to Russia is the diversity of people and opinions to whom you’re introduced. On the hot button issue of Vladimir Putin the opinions are near 50-50. A media big shot says, “foreign policy good, domestic policies bad;” our young Moscow tour guide, “hate him but voted for him—he means stability;” and of course, the Crimeans love him, “he saved us from the fascists.” [Continue Reading]