What was your role Steve?
How did you find Russia?
I was there seven years. I started in the Training department, running courses for new customers and advanced courses for existing customers who had a bit of experience. Most of the courses were held at Strelley Hall, the company HQ and the MD's home. He still lives there. Part of the building dates back to the 1200s, though most of it is later. I saw him just a few months ago. He's an old man now, stooped, but still as excited by technology as ever and rides his bicycle every day. Currently working on a project to measure the surface of paint to a ridiculous degree of precision. I have no idea why that is important, but apparently it is.
When the company created software to program CNC machines, I asked if I could be part of it,. I knew about tools and machinery, so my bos simply said Yes. So I trained customers how to use that, wrote Post-Processors to drive different controllers (Siemens, Fanuc, Colchester etc, all slightly different despite there being an ISO standard for these things...). Also, the software was far from perfect, it was released to meet a deadline rather than when it was actually fit for purpose. This rather annoyed some long-standing customers. I became something of a fire-fighter. Part of the software was a set of programming tools called UDCs, or User-Defined Commands. I got rather good at using these to circumvent gaps in the program's core functionality.
Whilst most of the training was done at company HQ, we (there were 3 of us) regularly went out to customers' premises. Sometimes in the UK, but often abroad. It was cheaper to send me to India than to send 20 Indians to the UK. I stayed at the Ritz. Now don't get excited, it was
a Ritz rather than
the Ritz. When I got there, there was no room at the inn, but they found me a "room at the back". There were coffee cups on the table and the bed was not made. The bedstead legs sat in tin cans of paraffin to stop creepy-crawleys getting onto the bed proper. In the bar, I witnessed the barman going round the room collecting half-finished glasses and pouring them back into the bottle.
There was a new, 5*, hotel in the city, but it was fully booked because the cricket world cup was on, so it was full of cricketers, TV crews and journalists. So no room for me. Even so, it was very interesting trip and I'm glad I did it.
As to Russia. Sigh.
Late 80s. Leningrad (now St Petersburg). There were not flights to Leningrad every day and there were none the day before I had to work, so I had a flight the day prior to that. Unfortunately for me, it was 1 day before my Visa was valid, so I got arrested by a man armed with a Kalashnikov as soon as I tried to go through Immigration. I was detained, not in a cell or anything harsh like that, but I wasn't allowed in. I thought they were going to keep me there until midnight and then let me in. Actually, all they want to ensure was that I was goingt o be safe, not on the street for a night. Fortunately I did have a hotel booked, so as soon as they had verified where I was going to be, I was allowed in.
I got a taxi. Sort of. This bloke picked me up and when we got to his car, I pointed out thet there was no Taxi sign on the roof. "Gorbachev taxi", was the answer. He was being an Entrepeneur. I was safe, but one of my colleagues went to the same place and was robbed, left standing with nothing. They even took his shoes, it must have been terrifying.
The hotel, the Prebaltiskia, IIRC, was a black granite monolith, 2000 beds. Unfortunately there were only 1200 covers for dinner. You had to book everything through the service desk, which didn't open until 9am, by which time I was in the office. So when I got back at 6pm, it was all booked up. When I asked how I was supposed to eat, I just got a shrug. I could see the tables for offiial tourists, all nice with tablecloths and flowers, but I was not a tourist and that room was not available to me. So I had to bribe people to make chicken and chips or somesuch.
On one occasion I suggested to the translator that we went out for dinner. I may as well have suggested that we go to the moon.. At that time Leningrad had about 5 million residents. There 5 restaurants. Nevertheless, one day I was informed that we had a table at a restaurant. It was very nice in appearance, nice tablecloths, the glasses only sighty chipped. As we walked in, the cabaret, male guitarist and female singer, were just finishing their set, so we missed that. When the food arrived, my host was drooling. I was trying hard not to gag. God knows what she usually eats.
Occasionally I did get a seat in the posh restaurant at the top. On one occasion a professional-looking bloke asked if he could share my table. I was a bit wary but agreed. He spoke decent English, but he was Russian. The hotel did not serve Russians, so all the staff ignored him. I ordered for him, we had a perfectly civil evening and he paid his half of the bill.
But on another occasion a couple ladies asked if they could share my table. I was niaive... I'd be about 30, one was a bit older thanme and the other was early 20s, I suppose. After dinner they asked if we could go to my room. I was VERY niaive! After a few minutes the older woman siad quite plainly that the wanted to have sex with me. Now I was a single bloke, no woman in my life, but even in that state I wasn't remotely interested. Apart from the ehics and bilogical risks of it all. They didn't smell very nice. Well you wouldn't smell nice either if you didn't have access to soap. So when they realised that they had been wasting their evening, they left. They asked if they could have the soap from the bathroom and the tub of peanuts (only available from the hard currency shop next door). I'm the only pesom I know who has paid prostitutes with soap and peanuts.. There were lots of prostitutes in the hotel, I began to realise. They were not allowed in, but once they got in, they stayed for days. I'd see them every day at breakfast with a different, much older, man. It must be a very sad way to have to live.
One Friday, one of the students was missing from class. The day after, my translator took me to the Hermitage museum. An amzing place. It makes the Vatican look like a junk shop. When we got there, there was a line of people down the steps, along the street and round the block, half way to Vladivostock. We just walked in. I asked why we didn't have to queue. It turned out that the day before, Dmitri was absent because he was standing in line to buy tickets so that we could just walk in.
There are more stories about that trip, but this is already a very long post. it was the longest 17 days of my life. It was such a relif to change planes at Helsinki and I could spent £20 on a BLT. It was the most delicious mouthful I'd had in over a fortnight.
S
. Great for helping with the cutting layout on sheet material. I've used it twice now to help me work out which *offcut* pieces of MFC and ply to use for pieces I needed. Saved me lots of time for sure.
