A flashback to the birth of the market economy in Russia— my dad becoming an entrepreneur

The story of my family in the 1980s, the final decade of the Soviet Union, had many rags-to-riches elements in it. We were a poor family at the beginning of the decade when my parents were very young, when we lived in a kommunalka (an apartment shared by several families). We were very well off in its final years, thanks to my dad’s spectacular career: at only twenty-eight he became the chief engineer of a big Soviet enterprise, that specialized in making defense systems against ballistic missiles.

The fall of 1990 brought a dramatic turn to the life of our family. It was a tunnel from one life to another. Dad and several other young, high-achieving managers from various Soviet republics were picked to participate in an exchange program with Germany, which was endorsed by Gorbachev and Chancellor Kohl. The Russians would get an opportunity to learn German and get work experience in the recently reunited Germany. It was called praktika, an internship. Even in its dying days, the Soviet Union continued to be a closed country, so the opportunity was extraordinary.

Dad left for Germany around October and at the beginning of 1991 we received good news from him: we’d be able to visit him in Germany. He had spent two months learning the language and had been placed as an intern in a small consulting boutique in Cologne. He had saved money, and his German boss had kindly helped with visa-related issues.