Running Through the (Mined) Forest

 An Excerpt from On the Job Training - Berlin to Vladivostok (Volume One of The Rare Earth Series)    

      There are silly memories from childhood that come to mind when I tell this story. I remember scenes from WWII movies of soldiers crawling through mine fields or gingerly snaking their way across enemy lines through mine infested areas. The images of carefully raked sand in the no-man's land of Berlin's Check-Point Charlie or in the forests somewhere in Nazi occupied Europe come to mind as this story plays out in the forests of Western Poland north of Poznan...somewhere near Pila.

      July 22nd, 1983 was the official end of martial law in Poland. Imposed by the regime of General Wojciech Jaruzelski, historians mostly agree that martial law may have been the better of evils when compared with a possible invasion by the Soviet Union in response to the wave of protests and open defiance of authority by the Solidarity trade union in Poland. My first trip to Poland came during this event. I was with a group of Economists and other academics being hauled around the country for lectures, meetings, and debates on Economic Reforms in the country.

...As I got closer, I realized that there were some rather large dark bulky shapes at the edge of the tree line and some smoke coming up from one of them. I thought it might be a small farm house or shack. As I focused on these bulky shapes, I suddenly realized in a panic that they were tanks. There were also soldiers standing around them and I was close enough to begin hearing their voices. Russian was being spoken. I slowed to a jog and stopped behind a tree but made a loud cracking noise as I stepped on and broke a larger dried branch during my abrupt stop.

     A group of about five of the soldiers stood up and looked in my direction. I decided it was best not to hide. I exposed myself and raised my hands to them. Their surprise was evident. Some were standing with their mouth open looking at me. One of the guys started asking me questions quickly in Russian. Obviously upset that I was there, he seemed to be trying to figure out what the hell I was doing. He noticed my colorful Nike running shoes, shorts and tank top and the whole group laughed as he said to them something related to me being an athlete or related to sport. He gestured at my shoes and clothing. I had not said a word yet and waited for instructions from them.

     They waved me to come closer to them. At that point I said, “Do you speak English? I don’t speak Russian.” That caught them a bit off guard and one fellow radioed something to another location…obviously telling someone that they had found me. The one Russian that seemed in charge told me to stay put. He spoke in a mix of Russian and Polish using words that I understood like, “Stay”, “Stay here”, “Don’t move”, “Wait”.

...A Russian jeep came across the field bouncing across fallow rows of former corn, rye or wheat, and pulled up alongside of us. I was now standing with the soldiers, surrounded on all sides. They were talking about my clothing and asking if I had any documents with me. I had taken no ID with me and did not feel good at all about my situation. The arriving group stepped out of the “jeep” and asked “where is this foreigner you have found”. He walked up to me within a few feet and started laughing under his breath then asked if I spoke German or English. I said only a little German and English better. He seemed relieved. After taking a few drags off of a short cigarette, he coughs "What the bloody hell are you doing running through a mine field?!" almost in a yell at me.

My legs started to shake.

Getting Stabbed in Helsinki

Excerpt from On the Job Training - Berlin to Vladivostok (Volume One of The Rare Earth Series)


     The delegation from RR Donnelley, six of us invited from Poland to Finland in 1994 by the Myllykoski paper company, were being treated to a grand Mexican-style dinner at the Zetor Restaurant in Helsinki. We had already been treated royally for a couple of days by our immensely hospitable hosts and executives of the company. Juha's fun-loving, boisterous, and almost child-like play had us in stitches all night. His hilarious imitation of what he called a "Stukka Pilot" came out more than a dozen times as the flaming tequilas and vodka poured alongside our bottomless Corona buckets delivered to the table.
    
    
     Jussi, a bit more reserved and making an effort to balance Juha's wrecklessness, steered the discussion from time to time back to business. Jacek, the Manufacturing Manager from RRD, equally entertaining in his ability to keep a crowd in stitches, contributed to the growing energy level with his innate joke telling abilities, his singing, and his almost competitive zeal to drive the atmosphere to a frenzy. This table of 12 young Polish and Finnish business people had pretty much taken over the crowded restaurant in central Helsinki and the festive atmosphere had pulled in other folks from other tables in the crowd.


     ...It was loud in the restaurant and the Donnelley fiesta was still in full swing. What this guy had said to me took a few seconds to sink in and crowds of people had begun to form behind us and around the table. Surveying the situation, and not knowing if what I had heard really reflected his intentions or the danger he said I was in, a sense of helplessness came over me....     At that moment, he grabbed my arm with his free hand, stood up, almost lifting me along with him, smiled to everyone else at the table, and said, "Your friend and I are going to see what's going on at the disco!" The way he was holding his other hand in the coat pocket, I guessed that he had some kind of weapon he was planning on using. I assumed a knife.

    
     He powerfully pulled me through the crowd toward the pulsating music of the disco one floor below. Some of the Donnelley folks were following us. Juha was doing his Stukka Pilot imitation and I wished I could get Juha closer to us. His near two meter height and imposing frame, I thought, might discourage this guy from acting out his plan. The Donnelley folks veered off and I was left with this guy in the crowd.


     I started seeing white, afraid I was going to die in a pool of blood here in a Helsinki disco.

Speaking of the CIA, whatever happened to...?

Excerpt from Volume One of The Rare Earth Series:  On the Job Training - Berlin to Vladivostok


     The Blue Moon Tavern in Seattle was a frequent watering hole of mine in the years leading up to my departure for Poland in 1983 and before I left for good in 1985. Working at the College Inn Pub in 1982-83, the Blue Moon was on the way home and always made sense for an after work brew. It is a bit of a dirty, hippie era wanna be, throw-back to the Sixties' search for anarchy and a place to find other mad people that know none of the dreams will ever come true. Having said that, some of the brightest minds at the University of Washington called it home and there were even graduate seminars and colloquia held over endless pints of ale and Pabst Blue Ribbon. The Classics Department often met there in the evenings and "Deus nobis haec otia fecit" was practiced regularly. The tenured professors, mad Grad Students, a few talented undergrads, and other colorful characters - some homeless and some just homely - mixed for spirited conversation, all welcome at the Blue Moon.

     One such larger than life character was a Russian fellow by the name of Ross Lavroff. Whenever he was in, Ross always sat at the bar in the early and late afternoons holding court with whomever might be in that day. We was mostly friendly, had lots of stories to tell, was quite big, dark, and always wore a dark yachting cap. My interest in Ross grew one day as I heard him tell someone that he had been the Russian - English translator for the capsule communicator in Houston during the 1975 Apollo Soyuz mission. He started to show interest in me when he found out that I was traveling behind the Iron Curtain to Poland and seemingly doing this with ease. He was also interested in finding out if my Polish was good enough to look at some translations he was doing. The fact that this Russian was doing Polish-English translations got me interested in finding out more.

     What I found out and what he showed me on his house boat down on Portage Bay one evening was my first contact with the workings of the CIA.

Satellite Dish Antennas from the Ukraine -

Excerpt from: The Rare Earth Series, Volume Two: Trading Dangerously - Import-Export and a Little Thievery


     Some of my dealings in the grey market and black market of the pre and post Berlin Wall Fall era in Eastern Europe have already been described in some detail. This story describes my last trip to the former Soviet Union to do a deal.

     In what should have been a simple transaction between a small Polish trading company and a Ukrainian state satellite dish manufacturer in 1993, my trip to the Ukraine to carry out the purchase gets complicated. Sexual escapades in the train(not my own but I was strangely involved, nonetheless), a near diplomatic row with Ukrainian border guards, missing my contact in Ternopol, and a drunken factory director made this business trip quite memorable. It ends with a hospital stay in Przemysl as I barely make it back to Poland alive, poisoned by methyl alcohol during a party to celebrate inking the transaction. Other parts of this story include a near kidnapping, a rape, and garlic mashed potatoes - the only food I ate for ten days.

     The goods to be bought and sold in the West, six foot diameter satellite dish antennas used to monitor Western television transmissions from countries surrounding the vast Soviet Union, looked more like huge woks made for a big chinese stir fry party. What we found in the factory and what happened during our visit will also be described.

The Russian Trains Leaving Berlin for Moscow

An American businessman in Central Europe during the 1990's would have never trusted his ex-pat salary to the banks of the post-Soviet Bloc era countries. In fact, most were having their money deposited in so-called offshore accounts in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Cypress, the Cayman Islands and other tax havens that were, at the time, untouchable by the IRS and other tax authorities. The idea of "going offshore" and trusting money to an island country or a place where I didn't speak the language scared me enough that I decided to open a Deutsche Bank account in Berlin and deal with money affairs in a place that was more familiar to me. I made monthly trips to Berlin from Krakow and Warsaw to deal with banking affairs and shop for goods unavailable in Poland during both my FEDEX days and while working for RR Donnelley. Such trips were never without incident and provide an almost surrealistic vision of what the fall of Communism created in Central Europe.