Daniel Satisky: Let's start with how you, even though there's overlap, when did you first become interested in Russia and how did you end up there?

Kim Balaschak: 1975. I was taking Russian literature and language studies at the University of Arizona. At the end of the year, I applied for a grant to go to the Soviet Union. I didn't have any money, so I applied for a loan. It was a loan, not a grant, and I was already borrowed out to the max, so I couldn't go. I continued to study Russian literature, but the language program only went two years. I never looked back but never forgot it.

Daniel Satisky: Right. Like learning to say "Здравствуйте" the first time?

Kim Balaschak: Yes, any culture that has one of the most difficult words as its greeting deserves credit.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: Russia didn't come up again until Jim started doing some work there. He explained the opportunity, and I said sure, I'm game. We sold our home and everything, packed up, and started a new life.

Daniel Satisky: Wow. You decided to move into a neighborhood rather than an expat community, right?

Kim Balaschak: Yes, we wanted to live in a decent place, but not in a compound. The real estate market was not formed at all. The people showing properties had never seen them. It was tough, but we met a former general who owned our first apartment, and we felt comfortable with him.

Daniel Satisky: Who showed you that apartment? Was it an American or an expat real estate agent?

Kim Balaschak: It was a referral from Jim's driver. He knew a woman who was setting up expats in apartments because he was linked with the expat community.

Daniel Satisky: Interesting. Everything is networked in Russia, right?

Kim Balaschak: Yes, and our language skills were limited. Jim's were more developed than mine because he had taken a three-year Harvard extension program. I took six months when it became clear this might be the direction we'd take.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: My skills were really basic. I met with other expats when we got there. One guy had been there for years and was still on the first list of words his instructor had given him. Finding an instructor was a project.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: I found a linguist who taught me like a baby. Living there, you don't have an excuse not to speak except for your own timidity. Eventually, I worked in the language and for a Russian company.

Daniel Satisky: Fantastic.

Kim Balaschak: I could type and look at legal contracts. I met a woman at the Moscow Country Club who wished she could speak Russian, but everyone around her wanted to speak English.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: Adults don't like to make mistakes. One of Jim's colleagues told me to just blurt it out.

Daniel Satisky: Right. Did you get to the point where you could write in Russian?

Kim Balaschak: Absolutely. I taught in Russian and worked with Greg Thain on a program called Stores, which gave retailers and manufacturers an idea of how to work together. I became certified to teach it in English and Russian. It was required for management in major cigarette and beer companies.

Daniel Satisky: So, let's go back to the beginning. When did you first become interested in Russia, and how did you end up there?

Kim Balaschak [00:16:41]: In 1975, I was studying Russian literature and language at the University of Arizona. I applied for a grant to go to the Soviet Union, but I couldn't afford it. I continued studying Russian literature and moved on but never forgot it.

Daniel Satisky: Wow.

Kim Balaschak: In 1995, Jim started doing some work in the former Soviet Union, and I decided to join him. We sold our home and moved to Russia.

Daniel Satisky: Wow. And you decided to live in a neighborhood rather than an expat community?

Kim Balaschak: Yes, we did. The real estate market was not formed at all. The people showing properties had never seen them. We met a former general who owned our first apartment, and we felt comfortable with him.

Daniel Satisky: Who showed you that apartment?

Kim Balaschak: It was a referral from Jim's driver, who knew a woman setting up expats in apartments.

Daniel Satisky: Interesting. Everything is networked in Russia.

Kim Balaschak: Yes, it is. Our language skills were limited. Jim's were more developed than mine. I took six months of Russian when it became clear we were moving.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: My skills were basic. I met with other expats, and one had been there for years and was still on the first list of words from his instructor. Finding an instructor was a project.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: I found a linguist who taught me like a baby. Living there, you have to speak the language. I became a fluent non-native speaker and worked for a Russian company.

Daniel Satisky: Fantastic.

Kim Balaschak: I could type and look at legal contracts. I met a woman at the Moscow Country Club who wished she could speak Russian, but everyone around her wanted to speak English.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: Adults don't like to make mistakes. One of Jim's colleagues told me to just blurt it out.

Daniel Satisky: Right. Did you get to the point where you could write in Russian?

Kim Balaschak: Oh absolutely. I had to write. I taught in Russian. There was an entrepreneur, Greg Thain. I don't know if you met Greg. I worked with Greg briefly. He had a franchise for a program developed at Insead called Stores. It was a simulation with live negotiation to give retailers and manufacturers an idea of how to work together. I became certified to teach it in English and Russian. It was required for management in major cigarette and beer companies.

Daniel Satisky: Right. So, let's go back to the beginning. So you arrived and at that point, you didn't have a job. You were looking for work. Is that right?

Kim Balaschak: I didn't have a job and I wasn't looking for work yet. I wanted to study the language.

Daniel Satisky: No, I don't. It's a rug salesman, if you can believe that. Okay.

Kim Balaschak: Yeah. No, I wanted to get a little command of the language. So, I found a Russian teacher and started learning.

Daniel Satisky: So, you used the time to study Russian?

Kim Balaschak: Yes. I studied with my Russian teacher, who gave me grammar books. I studied at least six hours a day by myself and went out among people to get the rhythms of their speech in my head.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: I couldn't understand what they were saying at first, but I started to speak. In January of 1996, I started working. I met Vladimir Grabowski through the United States Foreign Commercial Service.

Daniel Satisky: No, I haven't interviewed him.

Kim Balaschak: He was an early entrepreneur with USAID grants. He had a meat processing factory outside Moscow. When I met him, he was looking to set up production of pasteurized orange juice in the former Soviet Union. There was no pasteurized juice there, only juice drinks. He hired me to run this project.

Daniel Satisky: Wow.

Kim Balaschak: We had a grant from USAID to buy Florida Valencia orange juice concentrate. We produced in two plants, one in Podolsk and one in Sergiyev Posad. The infrastructure for refrigerated distribution was marginal, so it was a challenge.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: Our product needed to be held at a refrigerated temperature. The competition from Wim-Bill-Dann, which produced sterilized juice, made it tough. Eventually, Grabowski and Schwans decided it wasn't going to make sense. However, the knowledge we imparted stayed with the plants, and they continued to produce juice for the local market.

Daniel Satisky: Really?

Kim Balaschak: Yes, probably using concentrate from somewhere else, but they continued producing juice.

Daniel Satisky: How long did that project take?

Kim Balaschak: About a year and a half.

Daniel Satisky: A year and a half. Wow. And during that time, you must have had a lot of ups and downs.

Kim Balaschak: Yes, it was a really strange time from the beginning of 1996 through mid-1997, almost to the crisis.

Daniel Satisky: Do you have memories from the Yeltsin election in 1996? Was that part of your frame of reference?

Kim Balaschak: Of course, it was there, but I don't think I have anything special to offer about it.

Daniel Satisky: You were busy working.

Kim Balaschak: Yes, it was background noise for us.

Daniel Satisky: So, where did you go from orange juice?

Kim Balaschak: I think I went to work with another company that had a grant to help a pharmaceutical factory in Novgorod get its ISO 9000 certifications to export its pharmaceuticals into Europe. We helped straighten out the distribution and sales arms of the company.

Daniel Satisky: Okay.

Kim Balaschak: There was a German team working on production standardization. After that project, I went to work for Korn Ferry. I was working for Korn Ferry when the crisis hit in 1998.

Daniel Satisky: What happened when the crisis hit?

Kim Balaschak: Nothing good. We lost our client base. Many expats left. I don't know the number, but apparently, like two-thirds of expats left.

Daniel Satisky: Do you have any idea how many expats there were in 1998?

Kim Balaschak: No, but there were more than 10,000 or 15,000. The Moscow Country Club membership was about a third Russian, a third Asian, and the rest from all over. There were many Japanese, Korean, and European business professionals and their families.

Daniel Satisky: Okay. So, there was a huge exodus in 1998.

Kim Balaschak: Total expats? No, I don't. You know, in Moscow, it was what you know. See, I have a memory of reading the Moscow Times around that time saying that there were 250,000. But then other people, when I've asked the same question, have said maybe there were 10,000, maybe there were 15,000. But so I don't. I haven't been able to find any.

Daniel Satisky: There were more than. There were more than 10 or 15,000. Because you, you, I mean, we were members of Moscow Country Club at the time. And you know, the membership at Moscow Country Club was about a third, a third, a third Russian, you know, like say Asian and then everybody else.

Kim Balaschak: Yeah.

Daniel Satisky: And I mean, there were a lot of Japanese, Korean business professionals in town and you know, and their families too. You know, so yeah. And then, you know, people from all over Europe. I mean, Finland was heavily represented. Germany.

Kim Balaschak: Yeah.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah. I mean, they were much more represented than the US. We were in a minority.

Kim Balaschak: Yeah.

Daniel Satisky: So I don't know. I don't have a number. I know the first time I went to, I ended up eventually working for a British retailer. That we ended up quite an operation in Russia. But I remember that when I went to, to England, they said that there were a quarter of a million Russians living in London.

Kim Balaschak: So. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's possible that, you know, some of these numbers, I mean, that I'm not remembering correctly, but I do know that there was a huge exodus at that, in '98.

Daniel Satisky: It was a huge exodus. And in fact, Korn Ferry closed as we know it. Yeah. At that time. So I, I got all of like six months in executive search.

Kim Balaschak: Really?

Daniel Satisky: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kim Balaschak: We just embraced it. Jim and I just embraced.

Daniel Satisky: Right, right. That's what, that's the impression that I got from.

Kim Balaschak: Language homes.

Daniel Satisky: As well. And, you know, but you also had one foot in that expat community. So you were part of the people who embraced it but also part of the people who didn't. Yes. You know, and it's harder for me to interview the people who didn't, you know, either they weren't successful or they didn't want to stay there, or they it's just much harder to.

Kim Balaschak: You probably didn't make the same kinds of contributions, you know, in order to really, you know, in order to make any sort of, you know, an impact. You yourself have to be impacted, right?

Daniel Satisky: Right. Oh, right. So could you, you know, tell me a little more about the women's organizations because a lot of the story as I get it is from men and the experience of women in Russia in that period is, I'm sure, quite different than some of the many of the single young men who came there. So very different. Yeah. Yeah. So were the women's organizations like for social support and social life or sort of what were those organizations? What was the purpose of them? When did they serve?

Kim Balaschak: So there were primarily two that I would have any association with at all. And that was the International Women's Organization. That apparently was founded by the wives of diplomats. And it was a way for them to all get together. And then, you know, it expanded and to include, you know, other women. Although I do understand that you had to be the wife of a diplomat in order to be the president of that organization. But it was, I mean, it was huge. There were hundreds and hundreds of members of that organization. And they would put on cultural, you know, cultural events. And. I don't attend those as much.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah, I was working. Yeah. Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: They had a fashion show. I knew they had fashion shows. They had. Trying to remember. Honestly, Daniel, I wasn't very active in that organization. Okay, so I just have but there's a lot online about that organization. So if you if you wanted to learn more about.

Daniel Satisky: That I can I can follow that up. Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: You could. So the one though that I did attend and I did it because I, you know, even though I was working, I'm still an American woman. Yeah. And so you put yourself out there and, you know, I mean, I'd be working out at a, you know, a dairy plant and for adults trying to set up orange juice, walking in. And the guys who are cleaning the tank at the top have their feet dangling in the tank, you know, like, oh, my gosh, no. You know, so anyway, I I just needed that camaraderie. And in the early days, the American women just met in each other's homes. Yeah. Yeah. Twice a month. And we had coffee and pastries and whoever was hosting it would put out the cost. Coffee and the pastries. And I hosted it. And it was really, really nice. And you just kind of got together. Yeah. That was basically.

Daniel Satisky: It. Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: So and I wasn't I wasn't on the board or anything like that. I would just meet up with the ladies.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: Okay. So I know that they had, you know, I know they had other activities, you know, like fundraising things and even, I guess, things that I couldn't attend but.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: But then it grew. And being in people's homes no longer, you know, was feasible. So we started going to the Hard Rock Cafe on Old Arbat. And so you would you'd walk in there? Well, it's actually. No, it's diverse. So.

Daniel Satisky: You'd.

Kim Balaschak: Go in there and you'd walk in.

Daniel Satisky: And you.

Kim Balaschak: Didn't even have to ask where the ladies was. There's a certain there's a certain sound to a group of American women gathering. And it was on the second floor and, you know, and now they often had at these events a speaker. Which was, you know, and that was really nice. I was a speaker once. I gave a presentation on my ornament collection.

Daniel Satisky: Oh, cool. Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: So, you know, that would always be something interesting at these meetings once they got to the Hard Rock because then you had a screen and, you know, you had a sound system. And so the, you know, that organization evolved as well. So I just I really loved that. And that's where you really got to know people. Then they, you know, then some of the American businessmen were marrying Russian women. And so then the Russian women would come to the American Women's Organization. So it became, you know.

Daniel Satisky: Or.

Kim Balaschak: If you want to call it diversified, you could call.

Daniel Satisky: It. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. And how how how long did that organization exist? Do you know?

Kim Balaschak: Oh, it was going when I got there in 95.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: And it was still going when I the still going.

Daniel Satisky: We left. Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: Oh, I don't think it'll go anywhere. Yeah. As long as you have Americans there, you will have an American business people there.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: Some of them will be American women and will want to get together with other American women.

Daniel Satisky: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So any other I was I was really taken by your guys with it with the feet dangling in the tank. Do you do you have other things that you remember that just you know from that period that were just unusual?

Kim Balaschak: That's a good that's a good question. Maybe something will come to me right at this moment that the detangling was.

Daniel Satisky: Right or something. Well, you know, we're coming from a different culture, a different business culture, a different outlook. You're plopped in the middle of something where people have no idea what your outlook is now. Must have been difficult, you know, and there must have been miscommunications about what each other meant, even.

Kim Balaschak: Well, and also at that time, I mean, I had hired somebody to work with me, and he supposedly could speak a little bit of English. He was known to the director of Grabowski meat plant.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: So in the beginning, his name was Kirill. He would speak English, and I would speak Russian. That way, you're at least hearing what the other person is saying in your own language. I mean, his English was terrible, my Russian was terrible, but at least I got the idea of what he was trying to put forth.

Daniel Satisky: Right, right.

Kim Balaschak: Then it evolved. By the time we finished the project, we were speaking Russian.

Daniel Satisky: Okay.

Kim Balaschak: So, you know, that was that. But something did come to mind about skill sets. I was on the Consumer Goods Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce, and I happened to meet a representative from DuPont. He had said that he was working with this Russian manufacturer of fitness wear and thought that they were at this inflection point where they could use some assistance. So he put us in contact. After Korn Ferry...

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: I contacted this company called Solo Swallow. Indeed, they were making some fitness wear and swimwear, and they had no idea where they were going. They asked me to come in and take a look at their organization. They had a factory north of Moscow. They had started off just making stuff at home and bringing them in those great big bags to sell at the open markets on the weekends. But then they thought they might have something a little special. There was a growth in fitness awareness and health. Vladimir Putin, you know, sort of brought that. He doesn't drink or smoke because he does judo and so on. So, you know, that kind of starts to grow. I went there, and I basically said that if you want to put a brand name on any of these products, you're going to have to make them more consistent. Because they were a mess—you'd have black and blue pant fronts and backs sewn together, things put on inside out, blue thread on black pants. Quality control was done either after somebody bought it and returned it, because they did have a small limited network.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: So, you know, that's kind of what you need to do. Well, it ended up that I went to work for them.

Daniel Satisky: Okay.

Kim Balaschak: I worked for them for four years.

Daniel Satisky: Wow.

Kim Balaschak: This is serious. I became a vice president of the company.

Daniel Satisky: Wow.

Kim Balaschak: And that's why I worked for four years.

Daniel Satisky: For four years?

Kim Balaschak: Yes. First trying to get a handle on production.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: And then when you start to work in production, you realize people do what they get paid for. It's logical that the pants should get turned inside out at this stage, but this person just passes them on to the next stage because she wants to get more pieces and more piece count.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: Get paid more. And then, you know, it was hard to figure out what's going on. There were bags of everything. The place was a mess.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: Trash bags laying there with bags of unfinished goods. Over the course of this, and then, like, when are you going to buy thread to put on the sewing machines? It was every which way. They didn't know what they had. Sometimes they didn't have it. Oh, I guess we can't make that now. I gotta order some more thread. So it was, you know...

Daniel Satisky: This was not a Soviet enterprise making a transition. This was a new enterprise.

Kim Balaschak: This was... Well, you know, you can say it's Soviet in that they started making the swimwear during Soviet times.

Daniel Satisky: Okay. Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: And so used clothes that nobody else wanted. Then they turned them into swimwear for children. Then they started making a little money and wanted to get some new fabrics. That's how they came into contact with DuPont. Because of the Lycra products, the fabrics that are made with DuPont's Lycra.

Daniel Satisky: Okay, so they were aware of the materials and what they were doing. But somebody had to be bankrolling this disorganized production.

Kim Balaschak: Yeah, it was the husband and the wife who just kept pouring everything they had back into the business.

Daniel Satisky: I see.

Kim Balaschak: Do you need any special skills for that?

Daniel Satisky: No.

Kim Balaschak: Can somebody else clean the area? Yes. Can somebody set up what she has to do, her instructions, so that she doesn't have to go find the supervisor to get her instructions and then look and see what she's going to do? Yes. Can anybody else stitch these pants together? Oh no. Only she can do that. I said, okay, there you go. All of a sudden now the seamstress comes in, she's ready to go. She starts sewing because she's a skilled worker.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: So yeah, she's happy because her piecework goes up, right?

Daniel Satisky: Yes.

Kim Balaschak: Although we got rid of that system.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: And we moved towards more of a reward by the overall output. They added a second shift, so it was overall output. And then we also established new management trainees, other ways to give people opportunity and pride. I had heard from the owners that they got a contract. This was quite a few years ago after I had left. They were so excited because they think about everything that way in the process, right? They got a contract to produce children's swimwear for Metro Cash and Carry. That's the Costco of Europe.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: So, you know, I mean, that is like really cool.

Daniel Satisky: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so what you brought to them was a business process understanding that you got from Coopers and your own experience. Yes. And it allowed them to take their entrepreneurial drive and focus it in a new way.

Kim Balaschak: Absolutely. And I got a work permit. They got a work permit for me because they said, we have convinced the ministry of whatever it is that you are the only person that has the skill that we need. And I got to work from it.

Daniel Satisky: Wow.

Kim Balaschak: Yeah, yeah. So the significance of that is you are being paid by a Russian organization. If you are working for Coopers and Lybrand, you didn't need a work permit because you are paid by a foreign company.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: But to go to work for a Russian company, I needed a work permit.

Daniel Satisky: Wow. Okay. And you still have that somewhere?

Kim Balaschak: You know, I should. Should I look for it?

Daniel Satisky: Well, yeah. It would be interesting.

Kim Balaschak: It says something about a resolution. It's yellow. I'll look for my work permit.

Daniel Satisky: Okay.

Kim Balaschak: I was trying to find—we're in a band and we're doing the 60s concert and I couldn't find any photographs of myself from the 60s, so I gave them a 70s one. So they had to use that. I'll look for it. I want to look for it.

Daniel Satisky: Okay. So this is interesting to me because, you know, trying to look at what is the long-term impact of having had so many foreigners there. Clearly, you've had an impact because it was a skill set that they needed. Yeah. It allowed them to then do what they're doing now as a Russian enterprise.

Kim Balaschak: I think your question is really good and it goes deep into what all of us may not have thought we might have been doing. Yeah. But we did have something that the Russians did not have, and that is business experience, right?

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: And so by imparting that, you know, in I can speak for myself in the way that, you know, that I did. I mean, we would spend hours over these diagrams of inputs, outputs, controls and, and, and this and, and I mean arguing and, and it was so heated and some people were just walking out, you know, oh this is, this is, you know, that, you know, it was really difficult.

Daniel Satisky: It's yeah it's.

Kim Balaschak: Really, really difficult.

Daniel Satisky: Right, right.

Kim Balaschak: But that company then embraced that way of thinking. It was actually really progressive too because it was brand new at Coopers and Lybrand. I was part of the pilot of this way of thinking.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: And I wasn't even a full-time Coopers and Lybrand person. I was a contract worker, primarily when they had, you know, Russian companies. But then they merged with Pricewaterhouse, so that, you know, that did change a few things. But in any case, finished out those projects to go back. So they have this knowledge. They use it. They use it to improve their business. They use it to improve their business processes. Okay. Then they are able to export. So the whole perception of Russian production right is in some way elevated.

Daniel Satisky: You know, shifted.

Kim Balaschak: Right. You know, and so, you know, it's all kind of building up from the bottom, but yeah.

Daniel Satisky: So and, and when they started exporting only a few years ago. Is that what you're saying?

Kim Balaschak: Yeah. Yeah. And I wasn't. Well, no. Much more than that. And I was still in Philadelphia. So yeah, I think maybe 2010, you know. Yeah, yeah. Date wise I don't know. Alright.

Daniel Satisky: But it goes against the stereotype that Russia doesn't have any consumers.

Kim Balaschak: There you go. Exactly right.

Daniel Satisky: Okay. And, and, and this was a Soviet era factory that this couple got control of through privatization.

Kim Balaschak: So they built, they built the business themselves by sewing in their own home.

Daniel Satisky: Oh okay. Alright. And so they got to the factory stage and they were way beyond their capabilities.

Kim Balaschak: And that's, that's exactly what it is.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Kim Balaschak: They were beyond their capabilities to know, you know, like, okay, you get the production in order, like who are we producing for? You know. Yeah. So then it got, you know, we over the course of those four years, we identified our, you know, our consumers who we want to be to, you know, to whom.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: We did, probably one of the most interesting projects that I did with Solo is we hired one of these, it was like focus group companies, to help us identify what people want in a swimsuit or in their fitness wear. And we came up with two types of women: those women that like to show off themselves...

Daniel Satisky: Right?

Kim Balaschak: ...and those women who like to show more who they are from their core. It's a difficult thing to grasp. But like, say, for example, we had one designer who was putting all these doodads on everything. There it is. Women who like to attract attention to themselves or women who like to just simply express themselves.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: So it helped guide our design process. Yeah, because you've got to produce, you've got to design, you've got to distribute, you've got to market.

Daniel Satisky: You know we did. Yeah. Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: And, yeah, so just a little simpler.

Daniel Satisky: Right. So how did you develop your distribution? You were distributing to retailers, or...?

Kim Balaschak: Well, we were distributing to one major retailer, which was Sport Master in Moscow. I mean, in Philadelphia.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah. I remember that name.

Kim Balaschak: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sport Master was there. We distributed to them directly.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: But for the rest of Russia, we had distributors. So I spent some time out in Novosibirsk.

Daniel Satisky: I see.

Kim Balaschak: And that distributor had sub-distributors that covered the cities around Novosibirsk.

Daniel Satisky: And did you develop the same way, the culture of or processes for being a distributor?

Kim Balaschak: We did not have a chance to do that.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah, they did.

Kim Balaschak: We did not.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: So you know, you can only do so much.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: We couldn't spend the amount of time with the distributor. We just determined the terms.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: And worked out what would be the objectives and the goals.

Daniel Satisky: Well, yeah, I know that in some spheres of business, small businesses were at the mercy of bigger customers who would sometimes take advantage of them, either in delaying payment or refusing payment or, you know, generally pushing the financing costs off onto their smaller supplier because they could. Did you have that kind of problem at all? I mean, with Sport Master or anybody?

Kim Balaschak: No. Oh, no. There may be other Solos. There's a cup company called Solo. But no, I mean...

Daniel Satisky: In terms of the process, I mean, that they went through. Are there other companies that you think learned this, either not purely your methodology, but sorted themselves out in the consumer sphere to make, you know, compatible goods? Competitive goods?

Kim Balaschak: I'm not sure I understood.

Daniel Satisky: Okay, so you helped this company to transform themselves into a company that standardized their production, understood their market, was able to sell into that market and be competitive?

Kim Balaschak: Yes.

Daniel Satisky: Are they unique in that transformation, or do you know of other companies who made a similar transformation?

Kim Balaschak: I am sure that Russia is replete with stories of companies that have made transformations. But in the fitness and swimwear, yeah, I know there was other competition. They were developing, you know, in different ways. And then, of course, there's always international competition.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah, yeah.

Kim Balaschak: So, you know, you've got name brand competition and then you've got no-name brand competition.

Daniel Satisky: Right, right.

Kim Balaschak: So, you know, there wasn't a whole heck of a lot of loyalty in swimwear. There just wasn't. You just had to have a nice swimsuit on the rack, and it had to appeal.

Daniel Satisky : Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: So, the branding, selling it, yeah. Did you have Turkish competition? Chinese competition?

Kim Balaschak: I don't specifically remember Turkish, but I definitely remember Chinese competition.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah. Okay. Okay. Would you say this experience was the most memorable for you in your business career there?

Kim Balaschak: It was one of them. I also had, I mean, every experience I had was wonderful because, honestly, I'm not kidding you on that.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: The one that I had after Solo, I went to work for Monsoon. Do you know the company Monsoon?

Daniel Satisky: No.

Kim Balaschak: Do you know here in the United States there's a retailer called Anthropologie?

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: Monsoon is the predecessor to Anthropologie.

Daniel Satisky: Oh, it's a British company.

Kim Balaschak: They have two brands. They have Monsoon and they have Accessorize.

Daniel Satisky: Okay.

Kim Balaschak: After I finished with Solo, I had a very brief period of time with Saatchi & Saatchi. They wanted to open a division called Saatchi & Saatchi X. Now, Saatchi & Saatchi X is a really interesting business. I'd never even heard of it, but the perfect example is let's say, let's take wine. When you see a billboard for wine, right? What are people doing there? Standing around, laughing, hugging each other? You know, they've got this beautiful glass of wine in front of them. When somebody goes to the supermarket or Walmart, let's say for example, and goes to the wine department, you know, they're standing there, oh my gosh, you know, they're looking at a sea of labels.

Daniel Satisky: I see.

Kim Balaschak: A sea of prices, you know, and it's such a different decision-making experience. So, Saatchi & Saatchi X was formed with one company that was trying to help Walmart understand that. And so, Saatchi then wanted to open up Saatchi X places everywhere. So, I went to my training at Walmart in Bentonville.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: And we started the greeting cards department and the optical department.

Daniel Satisky: Okay.

Kim Balaschak: And I was, you know, just there for my training. But part of training is doing. People were standing there buying a greeting card, you know, they're trying to think of a loved one, you know, maybe a happy situation, maybe not. And you got these bright lights shining overhead and the racks, you know, are steel or white aluminum. And it's just not a good way to do it. And so, you study, you know, and you do focus groups on how people are feeling when they're buying these certain items. And Walmart completely redid the way that greeting cards are stocked.

Daniel Satisky: Wow.

Kim Balaschak: Shelves are lower. There's some wood. The lights are less bright. Same thing with the optical department. They had them organized by price: here are the $10 frames, the $15 frames. Well, nobody wants to be seen over at the $10 frames.

Daniel Satisky: Right, right.

Kim Balaschak: So, you know, you organize everything. You can have price, but it's got to be within style. So, you have your style category, you know, you have your contemporary, you have your classical. Then you can have price in there. That's okay. You know, so those are the sorts of things. So, I was briefly with Saatchi & Saatchi. Most of my time was in training. Those were really great. And then I got a client. So, I got this client Monsoon, right? And I worked with them for just a couple, and they wanted me to put a marketing plan together. She had this, she had 23 stores total. I don't know. When I left, we had 79 stores, so it was really amazing.

Daniel Satisky: So, Moscow center?

Kim Balaschak: This is Moscow only. Well, no, no. Russia. So, we had a store, we had, in the end, we ended up having 23 stores in Moscow. We had nine in Saint Petersburg, a couple in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Novosibirsk, Volgograd, Kaliningrad. I mean, they were all over the place. It was really great.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: So, anyway, then the director, who was a Russian gal, you know, she just said it's going to be much easier if you just come to work for me. So, I did, and so I went to work there, and I worked there for four years, and then we left Russia.

Daniel Satisky: Where did that director come from? What was her background?

Kim Balaschak: She was Russian, but she apparently had been married to an English chap. And so, she lived in the UK.

Daniel Satisky: Okay.

Kim Balaschak: And so, when she came back to Russia, she opened the franchise. She was fabulous. I loved working with her.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah, yeah.

Kim Balaschak: So, Natalia, she brought that outlook or sensibility with her?

Daniel Satisky: Rada, she brought that outlook or sensibility with her? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kim Balaschak: Now, she was a great business lady.

Daniel Satisky: So, you had a lot of respect for her.

Kim Balaschak: Yeah, yeah. And she was, you know, very entrepreneurial. She had a great sense of business, and she really knew what she was doing.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: And she was very good at managing people.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah, I can imagine.

Kim Balaschak: Yeah. And so, you know, it was a great experience.

Daniel Satisky: Right. So, how did you find the transition back to the States after that?

Kim Balaschak: It was difficult. It was really difficult. You know, because we'd been gone for so long, and things had changed. And we had changed. And it was just, it was a really tough transition. But, you know, we managed.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah. So, what are you doing now?

Kim Balaschak: Now, I'm retired. I'm doing a lot of volunteer work. I'm on a couple of boards. And, you know, just enjoying life.

Daniel Satisky: That's great. So, looking back, what do you think was the most important lesson you learned from your time in Russia?

Kim Balaschak: I think the most important lesson I learned was just to be adaptable. You know, things change. And you have to be able to change with them. And if you can do that, you can be successful anywhere.

Daniel Satisky: Where was it?

Kim Balaschak: It was my favorite place.

Daniel Satisky: I could show you doodads. I haven't missed my liberty. And several rugs from Dagestan. So, yes.

Kim Balaschak: There you go. It's just a grand place. So if you go, you know, in the early days when you would come in the main entrance, over to the right, everybody would have all these boxes with just rags over the box. And then anything from their house that they wanted to sell, it was separate from the souvenirs and the jewelry and the icons and the rugs. It's completely separate. And so that's where you would see people selling their ornaments.

Daniel Satisky: And these are homemade ornaments?

Kim Balaschak: No, they're really not. Most of them were made in factories or what you might call artisans. So an artel would be, some of the ornaments are little cotton figures. I'll use that as an example.

Daniel Satisky: Okay.

Kim Balaschak: A little cotton figure of, let's say, a little Uzbek dancer.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: So the people in the village would go to the factory, they would pick up all the supplies they needed to make that little figure. There would be complete instructions. They would get the cotton batting, they'd get the stick mold, they'd get the mica, they'd get the paints, they'd get any little doodads that needed to be attached. And then they would go home and make these things and then they would bring them back and get paid. So that's how that worked. Then you did have some factories where they would, you know, they were blowing glass.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: And so some of my ornaments are glass, some are cotton, some are wire, some are cardboard, papier-mâché.

Daniel Satisky: And they're all for the New Year's tree.

Kim Balaschak: Yeah, it's a New Year tree.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: Because in '36, that was the first time that the Russians were allowed to celebrate. The Soviets were allowed to celebrate a holiday and they only returned New Year without Christmas.

Daniel Satisky: I'm real. That and I didn't know 36. So from the time of the revolution until 1936, no holidays.

Kim Balaschak: Were not celebrating. There were some military celebrations, Roman Catholic religious immediately. I mean people still managed to celebrate in their homes a little bit.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah, but real quietly.

Kim Balaschak: I have this book. This woman, they had a plant downstairs and they would decorate it during the day and then they would take the decorations off just in case they got raided at night or something.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: So my collection spans from around 1890 when rich Russians who could afford ornaments from Germany or from one factory in Saint Petersburg started putting them on their trees, through the revolution and the dark period, and then the birth of ornament production and the New Year from '36 to '40. And then there's the war that interrupted production. They still produced during the war but they didn't use anything that was strategic. So they made things from nuts and wire scraps and fabric scraps. After '45, production resumed, and my collection goes through the mid-'60s until it became mass-produced. Then it was no longer interesting for me.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah. And how did you date them? And when you bought them, how did you know when they were from?

Kim Balaschak: Well, I developed friendships there with some of the other collectors. When I was approached by the Museum of Applied Decorative and Folk Art, which is from the video I sent you — that was the CNN video in 2002 — in advance of that, I laid out all my ornaments in my living room and I had two experts in the field, Russian historians, come by and help me separate those things that are later in time.

Daniel Satisky: Or...

Kim Balaschak: That are not considered ornaments at all. So I was able to do that. And of course, in that process, I'm learning a lot myself.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: After that, as I was acquiring new items and then I had another exhibition that was sponsored by Ikea. After that, I've got a really amazing collection, one of the top five in the world. Almost all of it, except for maybe about 400 items, is now in the Museum of Russian Arts' permanent collection.

Daniel Satisky: With the exception of 400 items you can't...

Kim Balaschak: That's only because I couldn't go this year.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: So we've got to get those 400 accessioned this year.

Daniel Satisky: Yeah.

Kim Balaschak: And then that will be 100%. And then Jim and I have a mark your calendar. I just got home from yesterday December 16th. We will have a reception commemorating this. And there will be a big exhibition.

Daniel Satisky: Okay.

Kim Balaschak: And a reception.

Daniel Satisky: Wow, that would be cool.

Kim Balaschak: Yeah. Somebody asked me, "Well, did you keep the bastards?" I said, "Why would I do that?"

Daniel Satisky: No.

Kim Balaschak: I mean, no, I didn't.

Daniel Satisky: Right.

Kim Balaschak: The Ministry of Culture, when they gave me permission to take this out of the country, they said to me that they knew I had some items in my collection that other Russian collectors do not have.

Daniel Satisky: But one...They covet them, I can tell you.

Kim Balaschak: Yeah, but she said, we're not going to ask you to purge your collection. We're not going to do it. Yeah, because she said that you've shared, you've shown that you share. Go back and share in the United States and show a positive side of Russia. And so that's exactly what we're doing. The Museum of Russian Art has an exhibition every year.