About
Denis Boyle was a member of the first group of Peace Corps volunteers (RFE-1) to serve in Russia after disintegration of the Soviet Union – in Vladivostok from November 1992 to February 1995 – a period that featured crumbling infrastructure and struggling public institutions as well as rampant crime, corruption, and social disorientation. There he worked as translation and copy editor for the weekly English-language newspaper Vladivostok News. Subsequently, from August 1996 to April 2014, Denis was the chief representative for a number of U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs where he traveled throughout Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East recruiting, testing, and interviewing candidates – in addition to conducting conferences and workshops for alumni of the various programs. In 2025, Denis continues to live in Vladivostok and maintains his residency in the USA.
Daniel Satinsky: I don’t know very much about you, other than looking at your LinkedIn page, and it shows that you were the representative of the American Councils for almost 18 years there in Vladivostok. And I don’t know how much you know about the book and about me, so do you want me to kind of…?
Denis Boyle: I can go first, or I would like to know more about what you’re doing, but I’ve got more history here than just American Councils. I guess I can, you know, just to say I came in November of 1992 as one of the first Peace Corps volunteers that came to Russia and the former Soviet Union, so that kind of sets me—I mean, I’m in a little bit of a different category than a lot of other people who came here. I was here for 27 months with Peace Corps, serving as a Peace Corps volunteer, and in that time met my wife, and then went back to the U.S. to the Philadelphia area for a year, and then returned in 1996. And after that is when I started my job with American Councils. I had more than two years living here before working for American Councils. And it was in the early days, which were not easy.
Daniel Satinsky: You first came to Vladivostok in 1992?
Denis Boyle: That’s right. November 23, 1992 I arrived.
Daniel Satinsky: Did you have any Russian language at the time?
Denis Boyle: Well, I studied Russian at American University in the ’74-’75 academic year. I graduated from American University in Washington, D.C. with a Bachelor’s in International Studies, so that was my real interest in Russia to begin with, I guess, or that’s when that began. I had a little bit of—I mean, I knew the alphabet and my pronunciation was okay. I was, the teachers said that—I mean, my pronunciation was the best. I was put into the advanced class, or the class with people who had some language experience. But it turned out I was not the best in terms of learning and being able to get to be conversational, but that’s more a matter of temperament, I guess.
Daniel Satinsky: When the opportunity arose for the Peace Corps, how did you learn about that? Was there an ad?
Denis Boyle: Well, yeah, it was interesting. My older brother at the time worked for the U.S. Defense Department, and was in Germany, living in, I guess in Frankfurt. I don’t remember exactly where he was now, Zweibruecken. But I went to visit him, and it was at Christmas ’91, December ’91, which of course was when Gorbachev made the announcement that the Soviet Union was dissolved, so I watched that announcement with my brother in Germany. And I don’t know if you know the Defense Department’s newspaper, Stars and Stripes, so I was reading a little article in that that said that they were planning to send 500 Peace Corps volunteers to the former Soviet Union to help with developing small and medium size businesses.
And I had, just a year earlier, completed an MBA, an executive MBA at Wilmington University in Wilmington, Delaware, and had worked for 13 years at Delaware County Community College, and had been teaching some business courses, so I was like “Frank, listen to this”. And I read him this little article, and he’s like “oh my god, that sounds like that’s got your name on it.” So, it was straightforward from there for me. I definitely wanted to do it.
Daniel Satinsky: Right, and just at the time what was your motivation for going? What did you really want to accomplish by being part of the Peace Corps?
Denis Boyle: You know, that’s a… [Laughs.] I don’t know about accomplishing anything. I didn’t have real big goals or anything, I guess. It was more a personal thing, I think. I had always wanted to live in another country, live in another culture, travel the world. That’s why I studied international relations to begin with. Russia was a particular interest of mine, and learning language was a particular interest. And I chose Russian. I had studied Latin and French and Spanish in high school and wanted to do something that was different than other people, so it was like Chinese or Russian. I decided on Russian. And it was always in the back of my mind.
It was sort of yes, kind of a midlife crisis. I was 38, 39 years old at the time, and had been working at a community college for years with people coming in saying, “man, what are you doing here? You should be somewhere else.” So, anyway, it was just an historic opportunity for me to be able to kind of fulfill a life dream, I guess, give it a go somewhere else, and to be part of history. I mean, the things that were happening were just unprecedented, and incredibly interesting to be part of that transition of going from communism and a command economy to democracy. It was just all fascinating for me. And it wasn’t a matter of well, I’m going to go change the world or accomplish something specific. It was more just a personal level, that I wanted to be friends with people.
Daniel Satinsky: Describe the process with the Peace Corps. Was there an application? Did you have some [Russian] training?
Denis Boyle: Yeah, yeah, it was… Well, the application, I guess, they were really hung-ho on this whole thing with the business people, so they actually recruited in the Wall Street Journal. It was really an unusual group. Usually a typical Peace Corps volunteer is like 27 years old, I think, and just out of college and that. Where they had in this group, a number of MBAs, and lawyers, and retired executives, corporate executives, so the average age was 40. I was 38. I think I turned 39. I did, I turned 39 within two weeks of arrival. So, it was definitely an unusual group. I was really proud to be part of that. And I put in the application.
They don’t guarantee anything with where you can go, but I made it clear that I wanted to go to Vladivostok. I had read about Vladivostok when I studied Russian back in ’74–75, and it was just one of those names and places that, I want to go there someday. The diversity of the area is still something that is really—and the location is really attractive to me. Anyway, being selected and getting medical clearance was kind of a pain in the neck, but eventually it all got straightened out. It was definitely a hassle kind of tying up all my affairs. I had to sell my house and quit my job and all that whatnot. I had a girlfriend at the time. So, it was a big deal making this move.
I think I heard you ask about the training. Usually in Peace Corps you have a 12 week training period which they decided to do in-country rather than beforehand. We had a, I guess, a pre-departure orientation of two or three days, maybe it was—it was like a week, like we came on Monday to Washington, D.C., to Rockville, Maryland to the hotel there, and then we left on Friday in late November, I guess it was November 19th or 20th, and we arrived in Russia on that Saturday, complete with, you know, there were 100 of us going to two different cities, Saratov and Vladivostok, so they split the group in two.
Daniel Satinsky: You didn’t have anything to do with the group that went to Nizhny Novgorod then?
Denis Boyle: No, I did not. I don’t know what you mean by the group that went to Nizhny—
Daniel Satinsky: Well, there were—I’ve talked to other people who were part of the Peace Corps that were in Nizhny Novgorod.
Denis Boyle: Okay, but there was never a group actually assigned to Nizhny Novgorod. There would have been individual volunteers that went to Nizhny Novgorod, I assume, but—
Daniel Satinsky: Okay, all right. But there were several of them that were there.
Denis Boyle: There were many groups. Peace Corps was in Russia for ten years, so yeah, there were many groups. Some of the people who were—you know, the bases were Vladivostok and Saratov to begin with, so people from Saratov may have been assigned to Nizhny Novgorod, because they also had kind of—the country director, I think, was actually sitting in Moscow because you always needed something in Moscow, administrative things. I really…it’s better not to talk to me about administrative stuff.
Daniel Satinsky: So, how many of you went to Vladivostok?
Denis Boyle: Well, it was supposed to be 50-50. It actually turned out 51-49. 51 of us went to Vladivostok.
Daniel Satinsky: And then what did you do when you got there?
Denis Boyle: Well, we had a 12 week training period, which was 12 weeks of language and business, I guess you’d call it cultural business and cultural training. We had people coming in and lecturing and telling us about the situation. We were housed at what was called the Marine College, which was sort of a junior college training people to be merchant marines, in the merchant marine, so they were young guys, 17, 18 years old that liked to just get drunk on Friday nights and fight. That was their sort of…their form of entertainment.
We were quite warned to not go outside, not be outside when it’s dark, that it’s dangerous. And we really didn’t do much of anything in terms of getting out. We were taken care of, fed meals and had a cafeteria, so were served three meals a day so that we didn’t have to go food shopping and that. And living in sort of a dormitory situation with roommates. They called it a hotel, but it was—of course the conditions were very different than we would be used to in the United States, but it was in some ways really depressing and difficult to make… I was actually voted the most likely—someone told me later that I was voted most likely to early terminate.
I was obviously depressed and distressed by the whole situation. And it was more a matter of I knew that I wanted to stick this out, but it was going to be really hard, and the thing that I was going to be good at if I stuck with it was that I would get good at being able to live in Russia, and that was what… It was not just a simple decision like do this for two years or not. I was making a life-changing decision, and that was what really weighed on me, did I want to be with this for the rest of my life or not.
Daniel Satinsky: And you saw it that way at that time?
Denis Boyle: I did.
Daniel Satinsky: You were setting up the next stage of your life, right?
Denis Boyle: I did. I mean, I really thought that what I’m going to get from this is the ability to be here, and to stay here, and to be connected to Russia for the rest of my life, yes.
Daniel Satinsky: Right. And so how long were you depressed?
Denis Boyle: Well, I mean, most of my life, really, so it wasn’t really kind of a new thing. And I talked to one of the other, an older volunteer, a woman, and she suggested that I go and speak to the Catholic priest that was here because they have sort of pastoral training, so I did that. And so I was talking to him for, I don’t know, months, and it was just more or less a process, I guess, of just getting kind of used to the whole thing.
Something that happened that…during this training we had classes and lectures all day long, and getting up every morning, and going to language class, and then going into the lecture hall, and going through all these different trainings and I don’t know, lectures and lessons. Anyway, there was a woman who was one of the teachers, or counselors, or administrative assistants, a Russian woman who spoke English very well, and she saw me in the hallway or on the staircase and just said—you know, and I mean, I was obviously not happy. And so she just asked me how’s it going. And I said, “you know… it’s all right.” And she said, you know, “I really don’t think you guys are going to make it, really. I think Russia is too tough for Americans. Americans aren’t tough enough.”
And I was like, you know, [thinking] “oh yeah? Well, I’ll show you.” And she’s the one that really—that was what really was the turning point for me, the critical point, I guess, that I said yeah? Well, fuck you.
Daniel Satinsky: And this was still while the training was going on then.
Denis Boyle: Yeah, yeah. This was like, you know, a month into the training. So, that was—you know, you asked when the depression ended. I mean, that’s kind of a separate question. [Laughs.] When I made this decision was, that was…it was her saying that that really made the point for me. And an interesting thing is that she has since emigrated to Canada, and I’m still here. [Laughs.]
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah. Interesting. And so when you finished the training, then what?
Denis Boyle: Yeah, I’ll tell you, that was really kind of a shock because we went from having our schedules completely taken care of. We were all supposed to be… The original plan was that this was a small and medium size business development project, and everybody was supposed to be set up into consulting centers, small business consulting centers where we would work in like groups of five, you know, like five functional specialists, and do these consulting centers. Well, it didn’t work out like that at all.
The one thing that the sponsor, the organization that accepted a Peace Corps volunteer, was required to provide housing. They had to give us a place to live, with certain conditions. I was assigned, with three or four other people, to, it was called, the Maritime Academy at the time, and it was supposed to be a consulting center. However, the people at the center, I mean, at this academy, didn’t really understand or accept that. They were bringing us on as sort of hired hands to—they expected us to teach business classes. We were like free professors for them. And they also did not really—and they didn’t have any appropriate housing for us. We were trying to, or they were trying to renovate this building way outside the city in the suburbs, and had planned for the four of us to live in this building. Actually one of the people, a young woman, she refused out of hand to work at this place, so there were three of us, three guys, and they were trying to renovate this thing.
And it never worked out, and they never really…you know, their system of education or the way that they organized classes was completely different. They wanted to get specifically what we were going to teach, how many hours of class time we were going to teach, and how many what they called lab hours or something like that. It was completely… And we were not university professors, we weren’t teachers. That’s not what people did. We didn’t know even how the American system worked, much less trying to develop a course for their system, so it was really ridiculous. Anyway, that—
Daniel Satinsky: Was there a Peace Corps supervisor that intervened or that you could talk to?
Denis Boyle: Well, yeah, I mean, we had the Peace Corps administrators, of course, the associate director and all the Russian staff. The thing is that most of the people, I mean, half of this group got assigned further north in Khabarovsk and half stayed in Vladivostok and the surrounding area. We didn’t get people asked so much to—I mean, there were some people that were sent to the smaller towns and whatnot, but I stayed in Vladivostok.
But they didn’t have housing for us, so we had to stay in the dormitory of this hotel at the marine college, to continue there. But we then had no continued support in terms of eating in the cafeteria and all that. We had to go out and find our own food and all. It was really kind of a—[laughs]—I mean, at that time there was hardly any food on the shelves. I remember a friend of mine giving me directions and saying you go past that Ovoshi Frukti store that has no ovoshi and no frukti.
And it was, you know. The other thing is it was interesting, going out to buy food and trying—you know, you really need to learn how to shop in a different country. They do things completely differently. They had a whole fish, for example. You bought a whole fish. I don’t know what to do with a whole fish. I’m used to buying fish, you know, nice and pretty packaged and all filleted and all that. And of course we had no utensils. We might have had a kitchen and a refrigerator, but no plates and frying pans and that kind of stuff, so it was…
And then there was hardly any food on the shelves anyway. And restaurants were not service oriented. They closed for lunch, for god’s sake. You know, you’d go to a restaurant, and it’s like 1:00 in the afternoon, and it’s closed, and they’re like, well, we’ve got to eat, too, you know. They had no concept of customer service, so it was really ridiculous.
At the time an American that I met almost immediately—you may have even spoken to him, Richard T—we became friends right away, and he was teaching an English class and had a couple of people who wanted to get some additional conversation practice. So, I was meeting with these two at the one guy’s house, and his mother would poke her head in the door and ask “do you want some fried potatoes?” And I would, you know, kind of shyly say oh, you know, “sure, I wouldn’t mind.” And it was my only meal of the day, actually.
Daniel Satinsky: Wow.
Denis Boyle: So, I kind of went there as many times a week as I could so I could get some fried potatoes.
Daniel Satinsky: Get some fried potatoes. This was in ’93?
Denis Boyle: Yeah, it would have been. We swore in on January 12, 1993.
Daniel Satinsky: Were there any hard currency stores in Vladivostok?
Denis Boyle: There were some hard currency stores, but I didn’t have any hard currency.
Daniel Satinsky: Oh, okay. So, you weren’t paid anything by—
Denis Boyle: No, we were paid with a… They came up with a… That was another interesting thing because they had no experience with how much we should get paid. They had promised that we would be able to live at the level of our counterparts that we were assigned to work with, but in many cases those people were the rectors of universities and in high level positions that were really, you know. It’s just such a completely different system that you can’t really work it out. They came up with a figure of $55 a month for our living allowance, and they’re dealing with 50 high powered, energetic business specialists who were like now how did you come up with that figure? They just pulled it out of a hat. They really didn’t know where that came from.
Daniel Satinsky: “They” being the Peace Corps administration?
Denis Boyle: The Peace Corps administrators, right. I mean, they just said that it seemed like a fair rate or something. And we were given that money in rubles.
Daniel Satinsky: In rubles, okay. Wow.
Denis Boyle: So, we didn’t have to pay rent, so basically that money was for food. And I just know it was…you know, there was not much food available. There was an American business going on trying to, you know, bringing in some American products. There was a thing called Globus. So, you just went around to stores and tried to find whatever you could. But you’d go into the old Soviet stores and there would be just some rotted up carrots and onions and cabbage, and like nothing on… You know, going into the markets and there’s, I mean, it’s these big stores, and the meat cases would be empty, and they were chopping up meat on tree stumps outside, selling the meat off of the hoods of cars and, I mean, just… I mean, nothing like living in the United States. And just trying to…
I ended up being invited by a host family to come stay with them because the situation with the sponsor didn’t work out. And it was a mother and daughter who really, I mean, they fed me and took better care of me, so that’s really… I mean, I survived by the kindness of Russians, to tell you the truth.
Denis Boyle: I can go first, or I would like to know more about what you’re doing, but I’ve got more history here than just American Councils. I guess I can, you know, just to say I came in November of 1992 as one of the first Peace Corps volunteers that came to Russia and the former Soviet Union, so that kind of sets me—I mean, I’m in a little bit of a different category than a lot of other people who came here. I was here for 27 months with Peace Corps, serving as a Peace Corps volunteer, and in that time met my wife, and then went back to the U.S. to the Philadelphia area for a year, and then returned in 1996. And after that is when I started my job with American Councils. I had more than two years living here before working for American Councils. And it was in the early days, which were not easy.
Daniel Satinsky: You first came to Vladivostok in 1992?
Denis Boyle: That’s right. November 23, 1992 I arrived.
Daniel Satinsky: Did you have any Russian language at the time?
Denis Boyle: Well, I studied Russian at American University in the ’74-’75 academic year. I graduated from American University in Washington, D.C. with a Bachelor’s in International Studies, so that was my real interest in Russia to begin with, I guess, or that’s when that began. I had a little bit of—I mean, I knew the alphabet and my pronunciation was okay. I was, the teachers said that—I mean, my pronunciation was the best. I was put into the advanced class, or the class with people who had some language experience. But it turned out I was not the best in terms of learning and being able to get to be conversational, but that’s more a matter of temperament, I guess.
Daniel Satinsky: When the opportunity arose for the Peace Corps, how did you learn about that? Was there an ad?
Denis Boyle: Well, yeah, it was interesting. My older brother at the time worked for the U.S. Defense Department, and was in Germany, living in, I guess in Frankfurt. I don’t remember exactly where he was now, Zweibruecken. But I went to visit him, and it was at Christmas ’91, December ’91, which of course was when Gorbachev made the announcement that the Soviet Union was dissolved, so I watched that announcement with my brother in Germany. And I don’t know if you know the Defense Department’s newspaper, Stars and Stripes, so I was reading a little article in that that said that they were planning to send 500 Peace Corps volunteers to the former Soviet Union to help with developing small and medium size businesses.
And I had, just a year earlier, completed an MBA, an executive MBA at Wilmington University in Wilmington, Delaware, and had worked for 13 years at Delaware County Community College, and had been teaching some business courses, so I was like “Frank, listen to this”. And I read him this little article, and he’s like “oh my god, that sounds like that’s got your name on it.” So, it was straightforward from there for me. I definitely wanted to do it.
Daniel Satinsky: Right, and just at the time what was your motivation for going? What did you really want to accomplish by being part of the Peace Corps?
Denis Boyle: You know, that’s a… [Laughs.] I don’t know about accomplishing anything. I didn’t have real big goals or anything, I guess. It was more a personal thing, I think. I had always wanted to live in another country, live in another culture, travel the world. That’s why I studied international relations to begin with. Russia was a particular interest of mine, and learning language was a particular interest. And I chose Russian. I had studied Latin and French and Spanish in high school and wanted to do something that was different than other people, so it was like Chinese or Russian. I decided on Russian. And it was always in the back of my mind.
It was sort of yes, kind of a midlife crisis. I was 38, 39 years old at the time, and had been working at a community college for years with people coming in saying, “man, what are you doing here? You should be somewhere else.” So, anyway, it was just an historic opportunity for me to be able to kind of fulfill a life dream, I guess, give it a go somewhere else, and to be part of history. I mean, the things that were happening were just unprecedented, and incredibly interesting to be part of that transition of going from communism and a command economy to democracy. It was just all fascinating for me. And it wasn’t a matter of well, I’m going to go change the world or accomplish something specific. It was more just a personal level, that I wanted to be friends with people.
Daniel Satinsky: Describe the process with the Peace Corps. Was there an application? Did you have some [Russian] training?
Denis Boyle: Yeah, yeah, it was… Well, the application, I guess, they were really hung-ho on this whole thing with the business people, so they actually recruited in the Wall Street Journal. It was really an unusual group. Usually a typical Peace Corps volunteer is like 27 years old, I think, and just out of college and that. Where they had in this group, a number of MBAs, and lawyers, and retired executives, corporate executives, so the average age was 40. I was 38. I think I turned 39. I did, I turned 39 within two weeks of arrival. So, it was definitely an unusual group. I was really proud to be part of that. And I put in the application.
They don’t guarantee anything with where you can go, but I made it clear that I wanted to go to Vladivostok. I had read about Vladivostok when I studied Russian back in ’74–75, and it was just one of those names and places that, I want to go there someday. The diversity of the area is still something that is really—and the location is really attractive to me. Anyway, being selected and getting medical clearance was kind of a pain in the neck, but eventually it all got straightened out. It was definitely a hassle kind of tying up all my affairs. I had to sell my house and quit my job and all that whatnot. I had a girlfriend at the time. So, it was a big deal making this move.
I think I heard you ask about the training. Usually in Peace Corps you have a 12 week training period which they decided to do in-country rather than beforehand. We had a, I guess, a pre-departure orientation of two or three days, maybe it was—it was like a week, like we came on Monday to Washington, D.C., to Rockville, Maryland to the hotel there, and then we left on Friday in late November, I guess it was November 19th or 20th, and we arrived in Russia on that Saturday, complete with, you know, there were 100 of us going to two different cities, Saratov and Vladivostok, so they split the group in two.
Daniel Satinsky: You didn’t have anything to do with the group that went to Nizhny Novgorod then?
Denis Boyle: No, I did not. I don’t know what you mean by the group that went to Nizhny—
Daniel Satinsky: Well, there were—I’ve talked to other people who were part of the Peace Corps that were in Nizhny Novgorod.
Denis Boyle: Okay, but there was never a group actually assigned to Nizhny Novgorod. There would have been individual volunteers that went to Nizhny Novgorod, I assume, but—
Daniel Satinsky: Okay, all right. But there were several of them that were there.
Denis Boyle: There were many groups. Peace Corps was in Russia for ten years, so yeah, there were many groups. Some of the people who were—you know, the bases were Vladivostok and Saratov to begin with, so people from Saratov may have been assigned to Nizhny Novgorod, because they also had kind of—the country director, I think, was actually sitting in Moscow because you always needed something in Moscow, administrative things. I really…it’s better not to talk to me about administrative stuff.
Daniel Satinsky: So, how many of you went to Vladivostok?
Denis Boyle: Well, it was supposed to be 50-50. It actually turned out 51-49. 51 of us went to Vladivostok.
Daniel Satinsky: And then what did you do when you got there?
Denis Boyle: Well, we had a 12 week training period, which was 12 weeks of language and business, I guess you’d call it cultural business and cultural training. We had people coming in and lecturing and telling us about the situation. We were housed at what was called the Marine College, which was sort of a junior college training people to be merchant marines, in the merchant marine, so they were young guys, 17, 18 years old that liked to just get drunk on Friday nights and fight. That was their sort of…their form of entertainment.
We were quite warned to not go outside, not be outside when it’s dark, that it’s dangerous. And we really didn’t do much of anything in terms of getting out. We were taken care of, fed meals and had a cafeteria, so were served three meals a day so that we didn’t have to go food shopping and that. And living in sort of a dormitory situation with roommates. They called it a hotel, but it was—of course the conditions were very different than we would be used to in the United States, but it was in some ways really depressing and difficult to make… I was actually voted the most likely—someone told me later that I was voted most likely to early terminate.
I was obviously depressed and distressed by the whole situation. And it was more a matter of I knew that I wanted to stick this out, but it was going to be really hard, and the thing that I was going to be good at if I stuck with it was that I would get good at being able to live in Russia, and that was what… It was not just a simple decision like do this for two years or not. I was making a life-changing decision, and that was what really weighed on me, did I want to be with this for the rest of my life or not.
Daniel Satinsky: And you saw it that way at that time?
Denis Boyle: I did.
Daniel Satinsky: You were setting up the next stage of your life, right?
Denis Boyle: I did. I mean, I really thought that what I’m going to get from this is the ability to be here, and to stay here, and to be connected to Russia for the rest of my life, yes.
Daniel Satinsky: Right. And so how long were you depressed?
Denis Boyle: Well, I mean, most of my life, really, so it wasn’t really kind of a new thing. And I talked to one of the other, an older volunteer, a woman, and she suggested that I go and speak to the Catholic priest that was here because they have sort of pastoral training, so I did that. And so I was talking to him for, I don’t know, months, and it was just more or less a process, I guess, of just getting kind of used to the whole thing.
Something that happened that…during this training we had classes and lectures all day long, and getting up every morning, and going to language class, and then going into the lecture hall, and going through all these different trainings and I don’t know, lectures and lessons. Anyway, there was a woman who was one of the teachers, or counselors, or administrative assistants, a Russian woman who spoke English very well, and she saw me in the hallway or on the staircase and just said—you know, and I mean, I was obviously not happy. And so she just asked me how’s it going. And I said, “you know… it’s all right.” And she said, you know, “I really don’t think you guys are going to make it, really. I think Russia is too tough for Americans. Americans aren’t tough enough.”
And I was like, you know, [thinking] “oh yeah? Well, I’ll show you.” And she’s the one that really—that was what really was the turning point for me, the critical point, I guess, that I said yeah? Well, fuck you.
Daniel Satinsky: And this was still while the training was going on then.
Denis Boyle: Yeah, yeah. This was like, you know, a month into the training. So, that was—you know, you asked when the depression ended. I mean, that’s kind of a separate question. [Laughs.] When I made this decision was, that was…it was her saying that that really made the point for me. And an interesting thing is that she has since emigrated to Canada, and I’m still here. [Laughs.]
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah. Interesting. And so when you finished the training, then what?
Denis Boyle: Yeah, I’ll tell you, that was really kind of a shock because we went from having our schedules completely taken care of. We were all supposed to be… The original plan was that this was a small and medium size business development project, and everybody was supposed to be set up into consulting centers, small business consulting centers where we would work in like groups of five, you know, like five functional specialists, and do these consulting centers. Well, it didn’t work out like that at all.
The one thing that the sponsor, the organization that accepted a Peace Corps volunteer, was required to provide housing. They had to give us a place to live, with certain conditions. I was assigned, with three or four other people, to, it was called, the Maritime Academy at the time, and it was supposed to be a consulting center. However, the people at the center, I mean, at this academy, didn’t really understand or accept that. They were bringing us on as sort of hired hands to—they expected us to teach business classes. We were like free professors for them. And they also did not really—and they didn’t have any appropriate housing for us. We were trying to, or they were trying to renovate this building way outside the city in the suburbs, and had planned for the four of us to live in this building. Actually one of the people, a young woman, she refused out of hand to work at this place, so there were three of us, three guys, and they were trying to renovate this thing.
And it never worked out, and they never really…you know, their system of education or the way that they organized classes was completely different. They wanted to get specifically what we were going to teach, how many hours of class time we were going to teach, and how many what they called lab hours or something like that. It was completely… And we were not university professors, we weren’t teachers. That’s not what people did. We didn’t know even how the American system worked, much less trying to develop a course for their system, so it was really ridiculous. Anyway, that—
Daniel Satinsky: Was there a Peace Corps supervisor that intervened or that you could talk to?
Denis Boyle: Well, yeah, I mean, we had the Peace Corps administrators, of course, the associate director and all the Russian staff. The thing is that most of the people, I mean, half of this group got assigned further north in Khabarovsk and half stayed in Vladivostok and the surrounding area. We didn’t get people asked so much to—I mean, there were some people that were sent to the smaller towns and whatnot, but I stayed in Vladivostok.
But they didn’t have housing for us, so we had to stay in the dormitory of this hotel at the marine college, to continue there. But we then had no continued support in terms of eating in the cafeteria and all that. We had to go out and find our own food and all. It was really kind of a—[laughs]—I mean, at that time there was hardly any food on the shelves. I remember a friend of mine giving me directions and saying you go past that Ovoshi Frukti store that has no ovoshi and no frukti.
And it was, you know. The other thing is it was interesting, going out to buy food and trying—you know, you really need to learn how to shop in a different country. They do things completely differently. They had a whole fish, for example. You bought a whole fish. I don’t know what to do with a whole fish. I’m used to buying fish, you know, nice and pretty packaged and all filleted and all that. And of course we had no utensils. We might have had a kitchen and a refrigerator, but no plates and frying pans and that kind of stuff, so it was…
And then there was hardly any food on the shelves anyway. And restaurants were not service oriented. They closed for lunch, for god’s sake. You know, you’d go to a restaurant, and it’s like 1:00 in the afternoon, and it’s closed, and they’re like, well, we’ve got to eat, too, you know. They had no concept of customer service, so it was really ridiculous.
At the time an American that I met almost immediately—you may have even spoken to him, Richard T—we became friends right away, and he was teaching an English class and had a couple of people who wanted to get some additional conversation practice. So, I was meeting with these two at the one guy’s house, and his mother would poke her head in the door and ask “do you want some fried potatoes?” And I would, you know, kind of shyly say oh, you know, “sure, I wouldn’t mind.” And it was my only meal of the day, actually.
Daniel Satinsky: Wow.
Denis Boyle: So, I kind of went there as many times a week as I could so I could get some fried potatoes.
Daniel Satinsky: Get some fried potatoes. This was in ’93?
Denis Boyle: Yeah, it would have been. We swore in on January 12, 1993.
Daniel Satinsky: Were there any hard currency stores in Vladivostok?
Denis Boyle: There were some hard currency stores, but I didn’t have any hard currency.
Daniel Satinsky: Oh, okay. So, you weren’t paid anything by—
Denis Boyle: No, we were paid with a… They came up with a… That was another interesting thing because they had no experience with how much we should get paid. They had promised that we would be able to live at the level of our counterparts that we were assigned to work with, but in many cases those people were the rectors of universities and in high level positions that were really, you know. It’s just such a completely different system that you can’t really work it out. They came up with a figure of $55 a month for our living allowance, and they’re dealing with 50 high powered, energetic business specialists who were like now how did you come up with that figure? They just pulled it out of a hat. They really didn’t know where that came from.
Daniel Satinsky: “They” being the Peace Corps administration?
Denis Boyle: The Peace Corps administrators, right. I mean, they just said that it seemed like a fair rate or something. And we were given that money in rubles.
Daniel Satinsky: In rubles, okay. Wow.
Denis Boyle: So, we didn’t have to pay rent, so basically that money was for food. And I just know it was…you know, there was not much food available. There was an American business going on trying to, you know, bringing in some American products. There was a thing called Globus. So, you just went around to stores and tried to find whatever you could. But you’d go into the old Soviet stores and there would be just some rotted up carrots and onions and cabbage, and like nothing on… You know, going into the markets and there’s, I mean, it’s these big stores, and the meat cases would be empty, and they were chopping up meat on tree stumps outside, selling the meat off of the hoods of cars and, I mean, just… I mean, nothing like living in the United States. And just trying to…
I ended up being invited by a host family to come stay with them because the situation with the sponsor didn’t work out. And it was a mother and daughter who really, I mean, they fed me and took better care of me, so that’s really… I mean, I survived by the kindness of Russians, to tell you the truth.
Daniel Satinsky: Were they paid by the Peace Corps to take care of you?
Denis Boyle: No-no. These people just, you know, they…they had nothing to do with the Peace Corps. We were all assigned host families during the 12 weeks of training, and those people were paid. They did receive money in order to feed us and to house us. So, we had both situations. We could stay with our host family or we could go back to the dormitory and stay there if we wanted. We had both things available to us.
Daniel Satinsky: I was told that the Peace Corps was the first aid program, because it was administratively most prepared. There was no USAID presence, there was no infrastructure to support American aid assistance, and that Baker wanted to demonstrate—James Baker wanted to demonstrate U.S. commitment to Russia. The Peace Corps was it because it was administratively capable of deploying people. It doesn’t sound like they were that administratively capable from what you’re describing.
Denis Boyle: I think that’s accurate. They were the most capable, but that doesn’t mean they were sufficiently capable and effective enough. When we arrived I think the group, the team that came had been here for a month making preparations and connections and setting up this kind of training program, and lecturers and connections with specialists and economists and people in the government and the university. So, they really did a remarkable job considering what they were dealing with. I never heard James Baker’s name associated with all this before, so that’s a little bit of a surprise.
But I did talk to—I don’t remember the guy’s name, but he worked for the State Department as a consultant, I guess, or for Peace Corps as a consultant, and he said that he had the original idea of setting up these groups of small business consultants, which never worked out because it just didn’t fit, it wasn’t appropriate, and you couldn’t get the ideal… That would have been the ideal situation, but that’s not how it worked.
In terms of the USAID money, they definitely announced that that money was coming, that the U.S. had committed something like $900 million, or I forget the figure, to aid projects in Russia. And the problem was that Russians thought that we were the representatives, the Peace Corps volunteers were the ones that were going to distribute that money. I didn’t realize that at the time, but it came to me later that they would call us in or try to impress us with their projects and proposals, and trying to get us to… They thought that we were making the decisions about who would get that money.
Daniel Satinsky: I see.
Denis Boyle: That was a real confusion that was difficult to overcome, I think.
Daniel Satinsky: Was the Peace Corps in Vladivostok, did it partner with the city administration or the regional administration?
Denis Boyle: Yeah. I mean, I guess that would have to be absolutely necessary. I don’t really understand all of those political connections, but they would have had to have the support of the krai administration, and the same in Khabarovsk and all of the administrative regions that they went to. We had to have…we were constantly having to turn in our passports, get these visas renewed and taking pictures. There was a whole Russian staff that was taking care of all this stuff, so I didn’t really know a lot of what was going on, but in later years and working with the American Councils, understanding more about visas and having to have the specific names of the cities and towns where you were going, and not being able to check into hotels, or being charged different rates and things like that, it was really…there was a lot of administrative, bureaucratic red tape, for sure.
Daniel Satinsky: Was it obvious to you or was it discussed at the time that this had been a closed city because of its military significance?
Denis Boyle: Well, I knew that and we were told that, of course, in the orientation. What do you mean by obvious?
Daniel Satinsky: Well, obvious in the sense that there were people watching you or people who were sort of concerned about who you were. I mean, this is the early days of post-Soviet times. Were you spies or, you know.
Denis Boyle: Well, I mean, that’s how it eventually came out, I mean, after 10 years the Peace Corps was kicked out basically because they decided that they were spies, that they were all spies. But definitely people were skeptical. They didn’t understand what Peace Corps was. I was sitting with some English teachers one of the first holidays that we had—I guess it was probably March 8th or something like that in ’93—and they were laughing like oh yeah, we’re so poor we’re sitting here drinking champagne and eating caviar, you know, that we really need a lot of help. They resented the idea that the United States was helping. We don’t need your stinkin’ help, you know, we just need… And the business people were like we just need your money to get something started here. We don’t need your advice. We need money to get this rolling. And it was more that kind of attitude.
I do have to say that in terms of mistrust and that regular people were incredibly interested in the United States, and in meeting Americans, and were really fascinated by us, and really the majority of people definitely wanted to get to know us, and were very friendly, generous, and hospitable, so it was really—
Daniel Satinsky: You’d meet…strangers on the street would invite you to come to their house.
Denis Boyle: Well, we had, one of our first sort of assignments—it was actually my birthday weekend—we arrived on November 23rd, my birthday was in early December, and that weekend we had a “See Russia” weekend, they called it, and so everybody had to go in small groups to smaller towns. I went with a group of five people to a place called Mikhailovka, which was a village just north of Vladivostok, and they told us it was a—it still is—an agricultural community where they raise chickens and do a lot of the farm products here. Anyway, the people were like… “man, you are the first Americans that have ever been here!”
It was really an amazing experience. The hotel was in terrible shape. But on a Saturday night it was the happening place. It was where you could go to the restaurant, and then it turned into a disco. I was not drinking at the time. I had given up drinking like two years before that. And I wasn’t smoking cigarettes, so I was really pretty clean, you know, and for the past few years before going into Peace Corps. And it was a good thing because I was able to dance and keep up with them, and we just had a hell of a time. It was a hell of a lot of fun. I didn’t get drunk and fall down like you might think.
It turned out that that drinking thing was…it was sort of a problem. We were invited to many official functions and meetings and that where the krai officials and all of these sponsors and whatnot, and of course Russians, you know, they drink vodka. That’s what they do with any kind of celebration. And I would refuse and say I don’t drink. And they were downright offended, and they were like “you’re not going to drink with me?!” It just did not compute for them.
And eventually, in January I was invited—well, Richard T got married, and I went to his wedding party at his apartment. The only thing available to—I mean, there wasn’t even water. We didn’t even have bottled water at that time, so there was beer, champagne, and vodka, and maybe some bottled juice from Korea. But eventually it was like ah, Geez, give me a beer, you know. There was nothing else to drink. And then a friend of mine was like, “oh, God, Denis, you’re drinking beer, the next thing you’ll be smoking cigarettes.” I was thinking.. that’s a good idea. So, that was kind of the beginning of my conversion, I guess. But I have to admit that life got a lot easier when I sat down and started drinking vodka with people. It made it much more interesting. They were much friendlier, much more accepting, and I was more one of them. It made a big difference.
Daniel Satinsky: Right. So, what did you end up doing for work?
Denis Boyle: Well, it turned out that, I mean, this whole Maritime Academy thing did not work out. Richard T at the time was…he’s a master linguist and Russian language expert, and he was doing translations—well, basically working for the newspaper, the daily newspaper called Vladivostok. The editor hired him to do kind of a news summary in English, just kind of a column in the Russian paper once a week, to take all the articles and sort of summarize them. And then that turned into an actual English language newspaper where he would take the articles that were written by Russian journalists, get them translated, and then put them into a four page newspaper, which eventually turned into an eight page thing, and it was called the Vladivostok News in English.
So, I was…they agreed to bring me on as a Peace Corps volunteer. I was kind of considered the business manager, although that’s not what I did because they completely controlled the whole thing and made all the business decisions. Making a profit was not their objective. All they wanted was to have an English paper. So, I ended up being more like a…not a translator, but an editor of the translations, and I did the copy edit. I also distributed the newspaper, taking it around to all of the restaurants and hotels and anyplace where Americans or English speakers would be interested in having a copy. We basically gave them out for free. We had a run of 400 copies a month [week?], and I took them around to all the places and delivered them, basically.
Daniel Satinsky: And there was enough of that community that wanted an English language—
Denis Boyle: You know, at that time there were a lot of people here. I used to call them the Brat Pack because…or the, you know, the… It was a bunch of young guys that were very smart, very talented in terms of just really savvy entrepreneurial types trying to make their way. I remember one guy who was representing Apple computers, and he would say – “I am Apple!” He was a really cocky son of a bitch. But they seemed to have some money. I’m not sure exactly where they were, you know, how things were working out, but compared to the Peace Corps volunteers, that guy in particular was able to go into a restaurant and order food and get a decent meal, where we were always kind of scrapping and pinching, trying to save money, figure out where, you know. And there was just a whole…
By ’95, which is—I left February 16, ’95, but by ’94, ’95 there were other projects. Catholic Relief Services was a big one that had a…I can’t remember what they called it. Not bartering system, but a way of distributing their aid where they would…I can’t remember exactly how it worked. It was very complicated to me. They would bring in stuff and then sell it, and then get that money to other charitable organizations. I forget exactly what they called it, but if you can talk with some of those people I think they could…that was a successful program. Eurasia Foundation was going. I know these two guys. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Eric and Allegra A. Azulay, but Eric and a guy named Andy W , they started a business doing logistics, basically. It was shipping. And these people, it was a group of people who had been on something called The Exhibit. It was a traveling exhibit that had been sponsored by the State Department back in ’91, maybe, where they traveled across the Soviet Union doing these exhibitions and shows to show off, showcase U.S. products and U.S. culture. So, these were young, recent college grads who spoke Russian, and they were brilliant, really.
Allegra, the wife in the duo, she was one of the first people to work for American Councils for International Education. It was called A-C-T-R back then, the American Councils of Teachers of Russian. And they were here, I was introduced to them in ’93, so they began, I mean, those… There was, under the Freedom Support Act the State Department sponsored, it was called…they called it the Bradley program because Senator Bradley from New Jersey started the whole thing. But it eventually became called the FLEX program, which took Russian high school students to the United States for an academic year to live with a host family and study in an American high school. And that’s who I eventually ended up working for.
But there was that organization. There was also IREX was in town. So, there were a number of people who were working for what they called technical assistance providers, nongovernment organizations that were funded by the U.S. government for U.S. government programs. And that’s in addition to or on the side of USAID. I never quite figured out the USAID project, but there was TUSRIF, the U.S. Russia Investment Fund that was trying to do this “Giant” supermarket project, which was a complete bust. But they had a guy named Dave P who was a brilliant Russian speaker and just an all-around smart guy who is quite successful today in New York City, eventually got an MBA from Wharton. Anyway, all of these guys were…
And I wish you could get in touch with these people, because they really are the core of what was happening here. The whole sense of entrepreneurship, and hope, and that this can really, we can really make something of this. And I think in terms of the Peace Corps project kind of coming in and trying to act like they were going to give advice and tell Russians how to properly do business is just, it’s completely stupid that they would think that they could be…that that would be successful. Russians didn’t know themselves… I mean, Russian business is for Russians. They’re going to figure out—I mean, buy low, sell high is not hard to figure out. And they were going to do it their own way no matter—you know, they’re not going to listen to somebody else.
And you’re dealing with, you know, I mean, basically Mafia situations where the city was broken up into five or six different groups that were vying for control of the whole thing. It was downright life and death situations. I remember one girl saying, when I was still in training, she said her dream, she would love to open a café and just have a nice little outdoor café like they have in Europe. And like, well, let’s do that. She’s like there’s no way, I could never do that. We had no Chinese restaurants. There were no Chinese restaurants in Vladivostok back in those days. Somebody invited me to a Chinese dormitory one night on a Sunday night and they were cooking up a storm, and it was friggin’ delicious. I was like hey, why don’t you guys have a restaurant? And they’re going – “Are you crazy? The Mafia would never let us do that.”
Any time you need to—I mean, the whole economic situation was such that, you know, and any time you were dealing with what would be a microeconomic situation in the U.S. you immediately ran into macroeconomic problems that you had no control over. And it was, you know, to start a business, talk about obstacles to entry. You could literally be killed if you became successful. It was totally trying to be controlled—I mean, even today they…well… I mean, since Putin took over in the early 2000s it’s come under Moscow control, and Moscow has really taken hold of that. And that’s what really kind of settled or cooled down the criminal situation, I think. And that’s why people love Putin, because he really got control of the whole thing, and really made the place prosperous.
Daniel Satinsky: But back in ’92, ’93 there were foreigners, there were Americans there.
Denis Boyle: Yes.
Daniel Satinsky: How did they manage to do business?
Denis Boyle: I don’t know that.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah, okay.
Denis Boyle: I really don’t know. There’s another guy that you should talk to if you can. He’s not an American, but his name is Martin T. He is from New Zealand. He’s now…he came, I think, in 1995, but there were…I know that he’s basically in agribusiness, and was importing Australian and New Zealand products, especially Anchor butter was a big thing to be bringing in. So, most of it was about importing, I think, and especially foodstuffs were a mainstay.
There’s another guy, I don’t know if you’ve heard of a guy named David Edick. He is in San Diego now. He’s been president of the San Diego-Vladivostok Sister City Association and also of the World Affairs Council in Southern California there. But he was here back in ’93. Actually, his son was born in October of ’93. He came associated with a company here called ACFES. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them. But that was a big company back then, A-C-F-E-S. And Dave, he had a small company himself called California Trade, I think it was called. But he ended up marrying his translator and they had a son in October ’93, so he claims the fame of having the first born American son in Vladivostok. But he’s still associated with Vladivostok and he’s a political economist, I guess, and does a lot of analysis, and would really be able to tell you a lot about what keys to success there were back in those days. If you wanted to contact him I can send you—
Daniel Satinsky: How would you spell his last name?
Denis Boyle: E-D-I-C-K. David Edick, Jr.
Daniel Satinsky: Okay. I’ll see if I can track that down maybe through LinkedIn or something.
Denis Boyle: Yeah, I’m sure he’s on Linked In, and also he’s a pretty popular…I mean, he’s not famous, but he’s pretty well-known.
Daniel Satinsky: I’ve found that if I put in a person’s name and then the word Russia next to it, usually it comes up.
Denis Boyle: Yeah, okay.
Daniel Satinsky: There aren’t so many.
Denis Boyle: He’s definitely based in San Diego.
Daniel Satinsky: Would you say there were 100 foreigners, 200 foreigners, 300?
Denis Boyle: So, you’re talking foreigners, not just…?
Daniel Satinsky: Not just American.
Denis Boyle: Not just Americans. Because I remember the courier services, what’s it called, DHS?
Daniel Satinsky: DHL.
Denis Boyle: DHL, right. There was a guy with them who was German. I would say at least 100 in this group. And people used to ask me about how many Americans are in Vladivostok and I would say—and I’m talking the late ‘90s—well, I used to say there are probably 50 Americans, but 25 of them are the Mormons, and that includes the six or seven diplomats at the consulate. Of course the consulate was always involved in this. And they treated Peace—it was interesting because they didn’t treat Peace Corps volunteers as anything special. They really weren’t interested in us. We weren’t invited to the July 4th parties, for example.
Daniel Satinsky: Really?
Denis Boyle: Or for Thanksgiving or anything like that because they were more interested in trying to curry favor or get relationships going with Russians, Russian officials.
Daniel Satinsky: I see.
Denis Boyle: So, the Peace Corps, for them, were just a pain in the ass, a bunch of sponges trying to get a free meal.
Daniel Satinsky: Wow.
Denis Boyle: So, it was kind of a nasty situation.
Daniel Satinsky: And there were a lot of Mormon missionaries at that time?
Denis Boyle: Well, eventually the Mormons—and this is probably ten years later that the Mormons became such a big presence—but yeah, it’s one of their missionary sites. You know how they have to do two years of overseas service?
Daniel Satinsky: Right.
Denis Boyle: No-no. These people just, you know, they…they had nothing to do with the Peace Corps. We were all assigned host families during the 12 weeks of training, and those people were paid. They did receive money in order to feed us and to house us. So, we had both situations. We could stay with our host family or we could go back to the dormitory and stay there if we wanted. We had both things available to us.
Daniel Satinsky: I was told that the Peace Corps was the first aid program, because it was administratively most prepared. There was no USAID presence, there was no infrastructure to support American aid assistance, and that Baker wanted to demonstrate—James Baker wanted to demonstrate U.S. commitment to Russia. The Peace Corps was it because it was administratively capable of deploying people. It doesn’t sound like they were that administratively capable from what you’re describing.
Denis Boyle: I think that’s accurate. They were the most capable, but that doesn’t mean they were sufficiently capable and effective enough. When we arrived I think the group, the team that came had been here for a month making preparations and connections and setting up this kind of training program, and lecturers and connections with specialists and economists and people in the government and the university. So, they really did a remarkable job considering what they were dealing with. I never heard James Baker’s name associated with all this before, so that’s a little bit of a surprise.
But I did talk to—I don’t remember the guy’s name, but he worked for the State Department as a consultant, I guess, or for Peace Corps as a consultant, and he said that he had the original idea of setting up these groups of small business consultants, which never worked out because it just didn’t fit, it wasn’t appropriate, and you couldn’t get the ideal… That would have been the ideal situation, but that’s not how it worked.
In terms of the USAID money, they definitely announced that that money was coming, that the U.S. had committed something like $900 million, or I forget the figure, to aid projects in Russia. And the problem was that Russians thought that we were the representatives, the Peace Corps volunteers were the ones that were going to distribute that money. I didn’t realize that at the time, but it came to me later that they would call us in or try to impress us with their projects and proposals, and trying to get us to… They thought that we were making the decisions about who would get that money.
Daniel Satinsky: I see.
Denis Boyle: That was a real confusion that was difficult to overcome, I think.
Daniel Satinsky: Was the Peace Corps in Vladivostok, did it partner with the city administration or the regional administration?
Denis Boyle: Yeah. I mean, I guess that would have to be absolutely necessary. I don’t really understand all of those political connections, but they would have had to have the support of the krai administration, and the same in Khabarovsk and all of the administrative regions that they went to. We had to have…we were constantly having to turn in our passports, get these visas renewed and taking pictures. There was a whole Russian staff that was taking care of all this stuff, so I didn’t really know a lot of what was going on, but in later years and working with the American Councils, understanding more about visas and having to have the specific names of the cities and towns where you were going, and not being able to check into hotels, or being charged different rates and things like that, it was really…there was a lot of administrative, bureaucratic red tape, for sure.
Daniel Satinsky: Was it obvious to you or was it discussed at the time that this had been a closed city because of its military significance?
Denis Boyle: Well, I knew that and we were told that, of course, in the orientation. What do you mean by obvious?
Daniel Satinsky: Well, obvious in the sense that there were people watching you or people who were sort of concerned about who you were. I mean, this is the early days of post-Soviet times. Were you spies or, you know.
Denis Boyle: Well, I mean, that’s how it eventually came out, I mean, after 10 years the Peace Corps was kicked out basically because they decided that they were spies, that they were all spies. But definitely people were skeptical. They didn’t understand what Peace Corps was. I was sitting with some English teachers one of the first holidays that we had—I guess it was probably March 8th or something like that in ’93—and they were laughing like oh yeah, we’re so poor we’re sitting here drinking champagne and eating caviar, you know, that we really need a lot of help. They resented the idea that the United States was helping. We don’t need your stinkin’ help, you know, we just need… And the business people were like we just need your money to get something started here. We don’t need your advice. We need money to get this rolling. And it was more that kind of attitude.
I do have to say that in terms of mistrust and that regular people were incredibly interested in the United States, and in meeting Americans, and were really fascinated by us, and really the majority of people definitely wanted to get to know us, and were very friendly, generous, and hospitable, so it was really—
Daniel Satinsky: You’d meet…strangers on the street would invite you to come to their house.
Denis Boyle: Well, we had, one of our first sort of assignments—it was actually my birthday weekend—we arrived on November 23rd, my birthday was in early December, and that weekend we had a “See Russia” weekend, they called it, and so everybody had to go in small groups to smaller towns. I went with a group of five people to a place called Mikhailovka, which was a village just north of Vladivostok, and they told us it was a—it still is—an agricultural community where they raise chickens and do a lot of the farm products here. Anyway, the people were like… “man, you are the first Americans that have ever been here!”
It was really an amazing experience. The hotel was in terrible shape. But on a Saturday night it was the happening place. It was where you could go to the restaurant, and then it turned into a disco. I was not drinking at the time. I had given up drinking like two years before that. And I wasn’t smoking cigarettes, so I was really pretty clean, you know, and for the past few years before going into Peace Corps. And it was a good thing because I was able to dance and keep up with them, and we just had a hell of a time. It was a hell of a lot of fun. I didn’t get drunk and fall down like you might think.
It turned out that that drinking thing was…it was sort of a problem. We were invited to many official functions and meetings and that where the krai officials and all of these sponsors and whatnot, and of course Russians, you know, they drink vodka. That’s what they do with any kind of celebration. And I would refuse and say I don’t drink. And they were downright offended, and they were like “you’re not going to drink with me?!” It just did not compute for them.
And eventually, in January I was invited—well, Richard T got married, and I went to his wedding party at his apartment. The only thing available to—I mean, there wasn’t even water. We didn’t even have bottled water at that time, so there was beer, champagne, and vodka, and maybe some bottled juice from Korea. But eventually it was like ah, Geez, give me a beer, you know. There was nothing else to drink. And then a friend of mine was like, “oh, God, Denis, you’re drinking beer, the next thing you’ll be smoking cigarettes.” I was thinking.. that’s a good idea. So, that was kind of the beginning of my conversion, I guess. But I have to admit that life got a lot easier when I sat down and started drinking vodka with people. It made it much more interesting. They were much friendlier, much more accepting, and I was more one of them. It made a big difference.
Daniel Satinsky: Right. So, what did you end up doing for work?
Denis Boyle: Well, it turned out that, I mean, this whole Maritime Academy thing did not work out. Richard T at the time was…he’s a master linguist and Russian language expert, and he was doing translations—well, basically working for the newspaper, the daily newspaper called Vladivostok. The editor hired him to do kind of a news summary in English, just kind of a column in the Russian paper once a week, to take all the articles and sort of summarize them. And then that turned into an actual English language newspaper where he would take the articles that were written by Russian journalists, get them translated, and then put them into a four page newspaper, which eventually turned into an eight page thing, and it was called the Vladivostok News in English.
So, I was…they agreed to bring me on as a Peace Corps volunteer. I was kind of considered the business manager, although that’s not what I did because they completely controlled the whole thing and made all the business decisions. Making a profit was not their objective. All they wanted was to have an English paper. So, I ended up being more like a…not a translator, but an editor of the translations, and I did the copy edit. I also distributed the newspaper, taking it around to all of the restaurants and hotels and anyplace where Americans or English speakers would be interested in having a copy. We basically gave them out for free. We had a run of 400 copies a month [week?], and I took them around to all the places and delivered them, basically.
Daniel Satinsky: And there was enough of that community that wanted an English language—
Denis Boyle: You know, at that time there were a lot of people here. I used to call them the Brat Pack because…or the, you know, the… It was a bunch of young guys that were very smart, very talented in terms of just really savvy entrepreneurial types trying to make their way. I remember one guy who was representing Apple computers, and he would say – “I am Apple!” He was a really cocky son of a bitch. But they seemed to have some money. I’m not sure exactly where they were, you know, how things were working out, but compared to the Peace Corps volunteers, that guy in particular was able to go into a restaurant and order food and get a decent meal, where we were always kind of scrapping and pinching, trying to save money, figure out where, you know. And there was just a whole…
By ’95, which is—I left February 16, ’95, but by ’94, ’95 there were other projects. Catholic Relief Services was a big one that had a…I can’t remember what they called it. Not bartering system, but a way of distributing their aid where they would…I can’t remember exactly how it worked. It was very complicated to me. They would bring in stuff and then sell it, and then get that money to other charitable organizations. I forget exactly what they called it, but if you can talk with some of those people I think they could…that was a successful program. Eurasia Foundation was going. I know these two guys. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Eric and Allegra A. Azulay, but Eric and a guy named Andy W , they started a business doing logistics, basically. It was shipping. And these people, it was a group of people who had been on something called The Exhibit. It was a traveling exhibit that had been sponsored by the State Department back in ’91, maybe, where they traveled across the Soviet Union doing these exhibitions and shows to show off, showcase U.S. products and U.S. culture. So, these were young, recent college grads who spoke Russian, and they were brilliant, really.
Allegra, the wife in the duo, she was one of the first people to work for American Councils for International Education. It was called A-C-T-R back then, the American Councils of Teachers of Russian. And they were here, I was introduced to them in ’93, so they began, I mean, those… There was, under the Freedom Support Act the State Department sponsored, it was called…they called it the Bradley program because Senator Bradley from New Jersey started the whole thing. But it eventually became called the FLEX program, which took Russian high school students to the United States for an academic year to live with a host family and study in an American high school. And that’s who I eventually ended up working for.
But there was that organization. There was also IREX was in town. So, there were a number of people who were working for what they called technical assistance providers, nongovernment organizations that were funded by the U.S. government for U.S. government programs. And that’s in addition to or on the side of USAID. I never quite figured out the USAID project, but there was TUSRIF, the U.S. Russia Investment Fund that was trying to do this “Giant” supermarket project, which was a complete bust. But they had a guy named Dave P who was a brilliant Russian speaker and just an all-around smart guy who is quite successful today in New York City, eventually got an MBA from Wharton. Anyway, all of these guys were…
And I wish you could get in touch with these people, because they really are the core of what was happening here. The whole sense of entrepreneurship, and hope, and that this can really, we can really make something of this. And I think in terms of the Peace Corps project kind of coming in and trying to act like they were going to give advice and tell Russians how to properly do business is just, it’s completely stupid that they would think that they could be…that that would be successful. Russians didn’t know themselves… I mean, Russian business is for Russians. They’re going to figure out—I mean, buy low, sell high is not hard to figure out. And they were going to do it their own way no matter—you know, they’re not going to listen to somebody else.
And you’re dealing with, you know, I mean, basically Mafia situations where the city was broken up into five or six different groups that were vying for control of the whole thing. It was downright life and death situations. I remember one girl saying, when I was still in training, she said her dream, she would love to open a café and just have a nice little outdoor café like they have in Europe. And like, well, let’s do that. She’s like there’s no way, I could never do that. We had no Chinese restaurants. There were no Chinese restaurants in Vladivostok back in those days. Somebody invited me to a Chinese dormitory one night on a Sunday night and they were cooking up a storm, and it was friggin’ delicious. I was like hey, why don’t you guys have a restaurant? And they’re going – “Are you crazy? The Mafia would never let us do that.”
Any time you need to—I mean, the whole economic situation was such that, you know, and any time you were dealing with what would be a microeconomic situation in the U.S. you immediately ran into macroeconomic problems that you had no control over. And it was, you know, to start a business, talk about obstacles to entry. You could literally be killed if you became successful. It was totally trying to be controlled—I mean, even today they…well… I mean, since Putin took over in the early 2000s it’s come under Moscow control, and Moscow has really taken hold of that. And that’s what really kind of settled or cooled down the criminal situation, I think. And that’s why people love Putin, because he really got control of the whole thing, and really made the place prosperous.
Daniel Satinsky: But back in ’92, ’93 there were foreigners, there were Americans there.
Denis Boyle: Yes.
Daniel Satinsky: How did they manage to do business?
Denis Boyle: I don’t know that.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah, okay.
Denis Boyle: I really don’t know. There’s another guy that you should talk to if you can. He’s not an American, but his name is Martin T. He is from New Zealand. He’s now…he came, I think, in 1995, but there were…I know that he’s basically in agribusiness, and was importing Australian and New Zealand products, especially Anchor butter was a big thing to be bringing in. So, most of it was about importing, I think, and especially foodstuffs were a mainstay.
There’s another guy, I don’t know if you’ve heard of a guy named David Edick. He is in San Diego now. He’s been president of the San Diego-Vladivostok Sister City Association and also of the World Affairs Council in Southern California there. But he was here back in ’93. Actually, his son was born in October of ’93. He came associated with a company here called ACFES. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them. But that was a big company back then, A-C-F-E-S. And Dave, he had a small company himself called California Trade, I think it was called. But he ended up marrying his translator and they had a son in October ’93, so he claims the fame of having the first born American son in Vladivostok. But he’s still associated with Vladivostok and he’s a political economist, I guess, and does a lot of analysis, and would really be able to tell you a lot about what keys to success there were back in those days. If you wanted to contact him I can send you—
Daniel Satinsky: How would you spell his last name?
Denis Boyle: E-D-I-C-K. David Edick, Jr.
Daniel Satinsky: Okay. I’ll see if I can track that down maybe through LinkedIn or something.
Denis Boyle: Yeah, I’m sure he’s on Linked In, and also he’s a pretty popular…I mean, he’s not famous, but he’s pretty well-known.
Daniel Satinsky: I’ve found that if I put in a person’s name and then the word Russia next to it, usually it comes up.
Denis Boyle: Yeah, okay.
Daniel Satinsky: There aren’t so many.
Denis Boyle: He’s definitely based in San Diego.
Daniel Satinsky: Would you say there were 100 foreigners, 200 foreigners, 300?
Denis Boyle: So, you’re talking foreigners, not just…?
Daniel Satinsky: Not just American.
Denis Boyle: Not just Americans. Because I remember the courier services, what’s it called, DHS?
Daniel Satinsky: DHL.
Denis Boyle: DHL, right. There was a guy with them who was German. I would say at least 100 in this group. And people used to ask me about how many Americans are in Vladivostok and I would say—and I’m talking the late ‘90s—well, I used to say there are probably 50 Americans, but 25 of them are the Mormons, and that includes the six or seven diplomats at the consulate. Of course the consulate was always involved in this. And they treated Peace—it was interesting because they didn’t treat Peace Corps volunteers as anything special. They really weren’t interested in us. We weren’t invited to the July 4th parties, for example.
Daniel Satinsky: Really?
Denis Boyle: Or for Thanksgiving or anything like that because they were more interested in trying to curry favor or get relationships going with Russians, Russian officials.
Daniel Satinsky: I see.
Denis Boyle: So, the Peace Corps, for them, were just a pain in the ass, a bunch of sponges trying to get a free meal.
Daniel Satinsky: Wow.
Denis Boyle: So, it was kind of a nasty situation.
Daniel Satinsky: And there were a lot of Mormon missionaries at that time?
Denis Boyle: Well, eventually the Mormons—and this is probably ten years later that the Mormons became such a big presence—but yeah, it’s one of their missionary sites. You know how they have to do two years of overseas service?
Daniel Satinsky: Right.
Denis Boyle: And I was always amazed at those guys. I’ve always been really shy about speaking Russian and being obviously a foreigner, and since I had studied I really wanted to speak perfectly and not think that, people not know right away that I’m not Russian, which was an impossible thing to even consider, but it took me two years, really, before I started speaking. Actually, I guess a year, and it was only because of my wife, who did not speak English, and we’ve always spoken Russian together. It forced me to start speaking.
Anyway, it always amazed me that these Mormons could come in, dressed in their white shirt and ties, and dark pants and whatever, and go around knocking on doors, and people, you know, I mean, everybody getting steel doors, and you don’t open your door to any knock as it comes on. So, they’re talking through the door, people saying who are you, you know, who’s there, and talking to these people in Russian, and explaining what the hell they’re doing on their doorstep as a Mormon missionary. I mean, my god, what an assignment. And the fact that they could have any success at all is just remarkable to me. I think they’re still here. And they’ve even spread out. They’ve been assigned up into Yakutsk and Magadan and Khabarovsk Krai. I’m not sure they’re still here, but I know that the main office had been here until a couple years ago.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah, yeah. I think that there was government interest in getting them out.
Denis Boyle: I think you’re probably right. Because, you know, and this whole thing of foreign agents and what got our organization in trouble back in 2014, where they were re-registering all of the nongovernmental organizations, and that you had to register as a foreign agent, and especially if you received any kind of funding from a foreign source. And this whole thing of, you know, all of these different revolutions, you know, the Rose revolution and the Orange revolution and all that, that they were convinced that all of these U.S. government programs were designed and intended for influencing Russian society to be able to actively protest against the Russian government, and so they were inherently opposed to the Russian government.
And I think that…you know, and frankly, there’s some truth to it. I worked in it for 18 years, and consistently denied that that was the intention, that we were only trying to help, and that all of our programs were not trying to be a brain drain and take away the best and brightest from Russia. But we actually committed to the opposite, that people had to return, that they were not eligible to get into immigration status in the United States while they were on programs, and they had to return to their home country, and they were selected on the basis of what their intentions were, and how they would contribute to Russian society and Russian development, not on how they could help the United States.
So, it was, you know, I mean, that’s what I did for a living. And I’m very proud of the fact that I have many, many friends. I mean, I have interviewed thousands, literally over 2,000, almost 3,000 people for these programs, and mostly Russian teenagers, and I’m kind of Uncle Den, you know. I come from a large family, so I’ve got 37 natural nieces and nephews so I’ve been Uncle Den since I was 11 years old. But now I’m kind of figuratively Uncle Den for literally hundreds of Russians, and all over the Russian Far East. I traveled, as part of my job I traveled to the 10, 11 major cities in the Russian Far East every year doing recruiting and testing and interviewing, so I have friends all over the Far East here, and people who respect and love me to this day.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah. Well, that’s a testament. And you left and then you came back. Why did you leave and why did you come back?
Denis Boyle: Well, it was time to leave. The program was over. I mean, I…you know, I wouldn’t have had the visa support or anything, so I had to leave.
And one thing is that you were given the option of a plane ticket back or they would give you the money and you could find your own way back. I was the only one who actually took the plane ticket because I really had no international travel experience and had no money. And my biggest fear going back was that I really had no place to go. I come from a large family, but everybody’s got their own lives. I called my brother, my one brother before leaving and asked “could I come stay with you for a couple of months when I first get back to get reestablished”, and he said no, it’s not going to work. So, my fear was flying into Philadelphia airport, and getting a taxi, and not having anywhere to tell them to take me. A friend of mine joked, he said just tell the driver - “take me home.” And when he says “where’s home?”, you say “no, I mean… with you.” [Laughs.]
Daniel Satinsky: [Laughs.]
Denis Boyle: And that’s almost literally what happened to me. I mean, a couple of friends who lived in a small row house in Philadelphia took me in for a couple of weeks. And then I moved around to a few different places trying to find a job. When I left I promised Lena that I would either get a job that would be good enough to try to bring her over to the U.S. or that I would come back. And after a year of looking, eventually I ended up moving in with my brother and his family, who live an hour away. I got working part-time again at the community college where I had worked for 13 years. They sort of took pity on me, I guess, and gave me something to work with, and was trying to get reestablished, but it was just not working.
And I was communicating, sending emails with Lena, and eventually Richard T wrote me a letter and was like… “just come back here. You’ve got people, you’ve got a whole support system here, you’ve got a life here. You can make it here, you can do it here.” And a mutual friend got me an invitation from what’s now Vladivostok State University—VSUES they call it—Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service. So, they gave me an invitation and I taught a couple of classes there for them. I came back March 26, 1996 and moved in with Lena, and so we’ve been living together for 25 years now.
Then I did these kind of half-assed—well, the business classes and doing some private English lessons. And then eventually the job opened with American Councils. I started working for them August 29, 1996 and did that for years. By Christmas time Lena and I were able to take a trip to the U.S. so she could meet my family and friends, and while we were there we got married on January 2nd in Elkton, Maryland, so ’97. So, we’re coming up on 25 years of marriage. And we have a daughter who was born in ’98. She just graduated from the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, and she got a job as a software product analyst for Sentry Insurance Company in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. She’s a remarkable bilingual, bicultural, binational, so it’s really—I mean, the whole Peace Corps, moving to Russia, it changed my life. I mean, it’s just, you know, it is my life now.
Daniel Satinsky: So, you didn’t change Russia, Russia changed you.
Denis Boyle: That’s right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And well, I mean, I just, you know, I was talking to Martin T a few months ago, when we first proposed this interview, and I told him what I knew of your project, and he was like, you know, he’s got to come here, you’ve got to get him to come here and talk to people like us because he’s going to do the same thing that everybody does. They’re going to try and make this like it was…that the American programs were a failure, but they’re not. Martin feels like he and I are symbols of the success of these American programs. We’re not a failure at all, that the whole thing of improving relations and kind of one person at a time, developing partnerships and good relations between Russian and American people, that that’s what he and I are all about.
And in those terms I think we’ve been incredibly successful, and I’ve really taken it on as my mission in life to continue to improve people to people, person to person relations, and I intend to do that. One interesting thing that I started to say is that I just love Russian people now. They have this reputation, I guess. It’s a complex society and a complex character, I think. They have this sort of duality, this kind of combination of superiority and inferiority complex is going on at the same time.
And I always thought that there’s a big difference between the outside Russian and the inside Russian. When you first come here and you meet people in the street they seem like they couldn’t be colder, rude, insincere, get away from me, I’m not interested, and just, you know, very unwelcoming, especially to foreigners. But if you get inside, if you go to their homes and get inside their, you know, to be invited into their lives, they could not be more hospitable and warm and generous.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah. No, I have also experienced that, so I understand what you’re saying. And I think the whole question of failing or succeeding is an interesting one because if the intention of the program was to make Russia look like the U.S., then all those programs failed, and they had no chance of success from the beginning. But in terms of integration of Russia into the world, I think they were a great success, or a great utility, let’s say, in helping that process to take place.
Denis Boyle: I agree. One interesting question in your thing that you sent out to me it says do you agree that Russia ended up rejecting the U.S. model for its economy and institutions? If so, why do you think this happened? And I don’t know that there was any intention of…I mean, the question, I don’t understand the question, really, of rejecting the U.S. model for economy and institutions. Russia is going to do what Russia is going to do in its own way, and as far as I understand the Russian constitution is modeled on the U.S. constitution, so I don’t see that as any rejection of American institutions.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah, I guess, you know, I can explain the question, but I don’t know that it will make it much different for you. I think it has to do with…the question has to do with things like how capital markets developed. In the U.S. capital markets, through the stock exchange and stock ownership, are important ways to allocate capital to businesses. And when the reforms started, there was, Americans were heavily involved in creating the stock market and in the program for distribution of shares to individuals that were then supposed to be exchanged on the stock market in a way that mimicked the U.S.
That’s not what happened, and the stock market really only became a place for foreigners to invest, and the actual allocation of capital was done by Russian banks, done in a much different way than the market economy works in the U.S. So, there are people who say—and I’m not proposing to say it—the question is supposed to provoke a reaction. And so, you know, that was my intention with it.
Denis Boyle: Okay, well, I guess you succeeded for me in that.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah.
Denis Boyle: To me this…well, another person that was here, and probably Gary R referred you to him, but he was here when I first came as a Peace Corps volunteer, a guy named Andrew Fox.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah, I spoke with him.
Denis Boyle: Yes. He was here buying up vouchers to try and…and created a securities company, Tiger Securities. I’m sure that you got a lot of information from him on that.
Daniel Satinsky: Yes, yes.
Denis Boyle: I think this whole economic development and capitalism thing is really…I think that just to understand it, it’s all about self-interest. I mean, Adam Smith even says that, right?
Daniel Satinsky: Right.
Denis Boyle: Everybody’s after their own self-interest. And I think that’s how, you know, that’s what happened in Russia, that people took advantage of however they could to promote their own self-interest, given the situation that they were presented with. And that was a completely different development and different circumstances that created the development in the United States, so I think it would be really unreasonable to expect things to develop as they did in the U.S.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah. I agree with you that that’s an unreasonable assumption, but I do think there were many people who made that assumption in the early days, that over the course of a generation Russia would be integrated into the European, U.S. led world economic and trading system, and would look a lot like the U.S. Maybe not immediately, but the rule of law, contracts, arbitration courts, doing business through tenders, things like this which were antithetical to the way Russians do business. You don’t do business with someone you don’t know, and you don’t usually do business with someone you didn’t go to school with. I mean, you know, it’s—or family. So, there were unreasonable expectations. But on the other hand, I think there is an overlooking of the extent to which Russia has been integrated into the world economy, in trading, and in travel, and in… Moscow is a big European city.
Denis Boyle: It sure is. Yeah. And I think that it has been integrated, as you say, to a greater extent than people maybe want to admit, and that it’s the politics that really have screwed things up. And the thing that really annoys the hell out of me is the American attitude that they know best and that they can tell Russia or treat Russia as if it’s some kind of a recalcitrant child that needs to be taught a lesson. Russia and Russians are not going to put up with that. And nobody is. Americans would be like - “get the fuck out of here. You come in and try to tell us what to do?!” I mean, you know, it’s just [ridiculous].
Daniel Satinsky: My impression is that in the early days, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that Russians needed foreign expertise or skills for things that they didn’t have because they just didn’t exist in the Soviet system, and that over the course of ten years they got all those skills, and so the need for foreigners just kept decreasing over time.
Denis Boyle: Right, right.
Daniel Satinsky: Particularly after the 1998 crisis. So, it was a natural evolution as much as anything. But at the same time—and I do remember hearing people say Americans have to stop telling us how to live. And I think that sentiment also grew at the same time. Would you agree with me?
Denis Boyle: Yes, absolutely. I think it’s true. And I think the idea of needing kind of technical assistance or expertise is one thing—they’re fast learners. You don’t have to hang around and tell them in detail what to do. It’s like they got it, you know. And they’re going to do, you know, no matter how it worked in other situations, they’re going to adapt it to their situation and their way of doing things, and their way of looking at things. It definitely needed to be…I mean, it was definitely more flexible than the model might have required or whatever, but Russians… I mean, they’re incredibly resourceful and work things out. No matter what it takes.
I like to think that I’ve influenced them in some ways, especially with…I don’t know…what am I trying to say? Looking at it from the…ah. Customer service, I guess. The idea of looking at things from a customer’s point of view and not just doing things because this is the way we’ve always done it. I’ve worked with—you know, I had three or four Russians on staff, and whenever you’d go to do something, the first Russian reaction is it’s not going to work, no, we can’t do that.
Daniel Satinsky: That’s right.
Denis Boyle: That’s not going to happen. And then you have to kind of work with them a little bit, and then after a while it’s like okay, well maybe we could do this. And then you get them onboard, and then once they’re on your side they make it happen. And the thing is, like working with my accountant and other people where they’d say no, you can’t do that, that doesn’t work, it’s not going to happen, I’m like you don’t understand, we are going to do this. I need you to help me figure out how we’re going to do it correctly and properly and within the law. We’re not going to just not do it because you say it doesn’t work. We’re going to do this, now help me figure it out. And when they realize—I mean, I think that they learned from me, too, that things are possible and you can make things happen.
Daniel Satinsky: What would you say is the lasting impact of American Councils on the Russian Far East?
Denis Boyle: Ooh, of American Councils?
Daniel Satinsky: American Councils, American Councils program on the Russian Far East.
Denis Boyle: These are all U.S. government programs.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah.
Denis Boyle: Shoo. I mean, I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who even recognizes the name of American Councils. But I think the long-term effect is that there are thousands of people, Russian people who have been to the United States and have a lifelong affinity and commitment to American people that they will never go back—I mean, they’ll never go to a point where they say that Americans are terrible people and that they want nothing to do with them. It’s never going to happen. Because of all of these programs and the tens of thousands of people who have participated in them, they understand that there is a complete difference between American people and American government policy. And that’s a good thing.
Daniel Satinsky: Okay. And what are you doing now?
Denis Boyle: Well, I’m mostly doing stuff on Zoom. I don’t really think of myself as an English teacher because I’m not really good at preparation and objectives and that kind of thing. I call myself an English language consultant. So, I help people with translations into English. I don’t do English into Russian. I get Russian stuff. I edit stuff. I’m actually really good at editing, it turns out. And then I have conversational practice for people to help them with…a lot of people preparing for the IELTS test, with the writing and speaking sections of the IELTS test. I have done also—
Daniel Satinsky: What test is that? I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with it.
Denis Boyle: It’s called IELTS, I-E-L-T-S. It’s a British, I think Cambridge affiliated, but it stands for International English Language Testing System or something like that. And it’s used by, you know, American universities use TOEFL, and all the other countries use IELTS. But it’s also used for companies and whatnot. In addition to admission to universities they use it for just assessing people’s skills, corporate entities and government agencies and that, so it’s known around the world, I-E-L-T-S, IELTS.
Anyway, that’s basically what I do. I also do a preparation for GRE people. I’m still affiliated with…there’s what’s called…sorry, my brain doesn’t work as quickly as it should. It’s…oh. Educational Advising Centers that are funded by the U.S. State Department. And we have one here in Vladivostok. I used to supervise it when it was under American Councils. It’s now more independent. But the Educational Advising Center is still going. U.S.—Jesus. Why can’t I…? Education U.S.A. is the organization, and it’s funded by the State Department. They have a network of 400 advising centers around the world, encouraging people to seek, and promoting U.S. higher education.
One of the services they have in Russia is to give people assistance in preparation for the GRE, the Graduate Record Exam, so I’ve been contracted to work on the…what’s it called, analytical writing test. It’s interesting because I never really scored very well myself, and I’m not really very good at writing under pressure. I’m a good writer, but I’m not fast, so I’ve never really done well myself. But it’s kind of like coaches and film directors, you know, some of the best film directors are the worst actors. But they know how to get people to do it. So, I’ve really had, I think, pretty good success with that, and people really appreciate it.
So, I’m not really making a whole lot of money, but I don’t really care so much about the money. My wife is working full-time. She’s a librarian at the medical university here in Vladivostok. And we own the apartment. I don’t really have—I mean, I’m getting Social Security now, and that’s direct deposited into my bank account in the U.S. We make enough rubles. We own the apartment that we live in and we don’t have a car payment so it’s just, you know, if we make enough money for food and the drug store, and for gas, that’s all we need. And that really is minimal expenses, so basically my Social Security just accumulates in the U.S. and I withdraw when I need to, I mean, very minimal now. But I basically use it to support our daughter and that we can make trips. We went to the U.S. for a month in May-June, so, you know. Making a trip to the U.S. cost me probably $10,000, but I can afford that because I don’t have the urgent living expenses.
And I’ve been with Vid na zhitelstvo, you know, permanent resident here for years. Just last year they passed a law… In the past in order to be—I mean, I’ve been eligible to apply for Russian citizenship, but they’ve always said that I would need to give up my American citizenship. Well, of course I’m not willing to do that. But a year ago they changed the rules, that you can now have—you don’t have to give up the American citizenship, and you can have dual citizenship. My wife and daughter have both, and have for years, so I’m going to go with that soon. At my age—I used to have ambitions, I guess, of getting into the foreign service, but now I’m too old, I don’t qualify for anything, so having dual citizenship is… I can’t think of any down side at this point, so…
Daniel Satinsky: Do you work in any—you talked about trying to build understanding between Russian and American citizens, people, ordinary people. Is there any organizational form that you…?
Denis Boyle: No. And that’s another… You know, going through COVID, it’s been sort of soul-searching, and I’ve had this ambition for years that I would like to create an organization. I hesitate to… I’m not going to give you the name because I want to get…what do you call it?
Daniel Satinsky: Copyright.
Denis Boyle: A trademark on it—yeah, a copyright, trademark before I get started. I’ve got some Russian friends, lawyers and whatnot. But I want to create…basically I’m talking about what I’m thinking of as a center…how do I call it? A cultural and culinary center dedicated to international communication and understanding, I guess.
I’m going to be working on that in the next, you know, once I get the citizenship and can get kind of my legal status straightened out I basically want to get an organization that encourages interaction between the Eastern United States, basically the Chesapeake Bay area, which is my home area, and the Russian Far East, specifically Vladivostok and Primorsky Krai.
Anyway, it always amazed me that these Mormons could come in, dressed in their white shirt and ties, and dark pants and whatever, and go around knocking on doors, and people, you know, I mean, everybody getting steel doors, and you don’t open your door to any knock as it comes on. So, they’re talking through the door, people saying who are you, you know, who’s there, and talking to these people in Russian, and explaining what the hell they’re doing on their doorstep as a Mormon missionary. I mean, my god, what an assignment. And the fact that they could have any success at all is just remarkable to me. I think they’re still here. And they’ve even spread out. They’ve been assigned up into Yakutsk and Magadan and Khabarovsk Krai. I’m not sure they’re still here, but I know that the main office had been here until a couple years ago.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah, yeah. I think that there was government interest in getting them out.
Denis Boyle: I think you’re probably right. Because, you know, and this whole thing of foreign agents and what got our organization in trouble back in 2014, where they were re-registering all of the nongovernmental organizations, and that you had to register as a foreign agent, and especially if you received any kind of funding from a foreign source. And this whole thing of, you know, all of these different revolutions, you know, the Rose revolution and the Orange revolution and all that, that they were convinced that all of these U.S. government programs were designed and intended for influencing Russian society to be able to actively protest against the Russian government, and so they were inherently opposed to the Russian government.
And I think that…you know, and frankly, there’s some truth to it. I worked in it for 18 years, and consistently denied that that was the intention, that we were only trying to help, and that all of our programs were not trying to be a brain drain and take away the best and brightest from Russia. But we actually committed to the opposite, that people had to return, that they were not eligible to get into immigration status in the United States while they were on programs, and they had to return to their home country, and they were selected on the basis of what their intentions were, and how they would contribute to Russian society and Russian development, not on how they could help the United States.
So, it was, you know, I mean, that’s what I did for a living. And I’m very proud of the fact that I have many, many friends. I mean, I have interviewed thousands, literally over 2,000, almost 3,000 people for these programs, and mostly Russian teenagers, and I’m kind of Uncle Den, you know. I come from a large family, so I’ve got 37 natural nieces and nephews so I’ve been Uncle Den since I was 11 years old. But now I’m kind of figuratively Uncle Den for literally hundreds of Russians, and all over the Russian Far East. I traveled, as part of my job I traveled to the 10, 11 major cities in the Russian Far East every year doing recruiting and testing and interviewing, so I have friends all over the Far East here, and people who respect and love me to this day.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah. Well, that’s a testament. And you left and then you came back. Why did you leave and why did you come back?
Denis Boyle: Well, it was time to leave. The program was over. I mean, I…you know, I wouldn’t have had the visa support or anything, so I had to leave.
And one thing is that you were given the option of a plane ticket back or they would give you the money and you could find your own way back. I was the only one who actually took the plane ticket because I really had no international travel experience and had no money. And my biggest fear going back was that I really had no place to go. I come from a large family, but everybody’s got their own lives. I called my brother, my one brother before leaving and asked “could I come stay with you for a couple of months when I first get back to get reestablished”, and he said no, it’s not going to work. So, my fear was flying into Philadelphia airport, and getting a taxi, and not having anywhere to tell them to take me. A friend of mine joked, he said just tell the driver - “take me home.” And when he says “where’s home?”, you say “no, I mean… with you.” [Laughs.]
Daniel Satinsky: [Laughs.]
Denis Boyle: And that’s almost literally what happened to me. I mean, a couple of friends who lived in a small row house in Philadelphia took me in for a couple of weeks. And then I moved around to a few different places trying to find a job. When I left I promised Lena that I would either get a job that would be good enough to try to bring her over to the U.S. or that I would come back. And after a year of looking, eventually I ended up moving in with my brother and his family, who live an hour away. I got working part-time again at the community college where I had worked for 13 years. They sort of took pity on me, I guess, and gave me something to work with, and was trying to get reestablished, but it was just not working.
And I was communicating, sending emails with Lena, and eventually Richard T wrote me a letter and was like… “just come back here. You’ve got people, you’ve got a whole support system here, you’ve got a life here. You can make it here, you can do it here.” And a mutual friend got me an invitation from what’s now Vladivostok State University—VSUES they call it—Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service. So, they gave me an invitation and I taught a couple of classes there for them. I came back March 26, 1996 and moved in with Lena, and so we’ve been living together for 25 years now.
Then I did these kind of half-assed—well, the business classes and doing some private English lessons. And then eventually the job opened with American Councils. I started working for them August 29, 1996 and did that for years. By Christmas time Lena and I were able to take a trip to the U.S. so she could meet my family and friends, and while we were there we got married on January 2nd in Elkton, Maryland, so ’97. So, we’re coming up on 25 years of marriage. And we have a daughter who was born in ’98. She just graduated from the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, and she got a job as a software product analyst for Sentry Insurance Company in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. She’s a remarkable bilingual, bicultural, binational, so it’s really—I mean, the whole Peace Corps, moving to Russia, it changed my life. I mean, it’s just, you know, it is my life now.
Daniel Satinsky: So, you didn’t change Russia, Russia changed you.
Denis Boyle: That’s right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And well, I mean, I just, you know, I was talking to Martin T a few months ago, when we first proposed this interview, and I told him what I knew of your project, and he was like, you know, he’s got to come here, you’ve got to get him to come here and talk to people like us because he’s going to do the same thing that everybody does. They’re going to try and make this like it was…that the American programs were a failure, but they’re not. Martin feels like he and I are symbols of the success of these American programs. We’re not a failure at all, that the whole thing of improving relations and kind of one person at a time, developing partnerships and good relations between Russian and American people, that that’s what he and I are all about.
And in those terms I think we’ve been incredibly successful, and I’ve really taken it on as my mission in life to continue to improve people to people, person to person relations, and I intend to do that. One interesting thing that I started to say is that I just love Russian people now. They have this reputation, I guess. It’s a complex society and a complex character, I think. They have this sort of duality, this kind of combination of superiority and inferiority complex is going on at the same time.
And I always thought that there’s a big difference between the outside Russian and the inside Russian. When you first come here and you meet people in the street they seem like they couldn’t be colder, rude, insincere, get away from me, I’m not interested, and just, you know, very unwelcoming, especially to foreigners. But if you get inside, if you go to their homes and get inside their, you know, to be invited into their lives, they could not be more hospitable and warm and generous.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah. No, I have also experienced that, so I understand what you’re saying. And I think the whole question of failing or succeeding is an interesting one because if the intention of the program was to make Russia look like the U.S., then all those programs failed, and they had no chance of success from the beginning. But in terms of integration of Russia into the world, I think they were a great success, or a great utility, let’s say, in helping that process to take place.
Denis Boyle: I agree. One interesting question in your thing that you sent out to me it says do you agree that Russia ended up rejecting the U.S. model for its economy and institutions? If so, why do you think this happened? And I don’t know that there was any intention of…I mean, the question, I don’t understand the question, really, of rejecting the U.S. model for economy and institutions. Russia is going to do what Russia is going to do in its own way, and as far as I understand the Russian constitution is modeled on the U.S. constitution, so I don’t see that as any rejection of American institutions.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah, I guess, you know, I can explain the question, but I don’t know that it will make it much different for you. I think it has to do with…the question has to do with things like how capital markets developed. In the U.S. capital markets, through the stock exchange and stock ownership, are important ways to allocate capital to businesses. And when the reforms started, there was, Americans were heavily involved in creating the stock market and in the program for distribution of shares to individuals that were then supposed to be exchanged on the stock market in a way that mimicked the U.S.
That’s not what happened, and the stock market really only became a place for foreigners to invest, and the actual allocation of capital was done by Russian banks, done in a much different way than the market economy works in the U.S. So, there are people who say—and I’m not proposing to say it—the question is supposed to provoke a reaction. And so, you know, that was my intention with it.
Denis Boyle: Okay, well, I guess you succeeded for me in that.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah.
Denis Boyle: To me this…well, another person that was here, and probably Gary R referred you to him, but he was here when I first came as a Peace Corps volunteer, a guy named Andrew Fox.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah, I spoke with him.
Denis Boyle: Yes. He was here buying up vouchers to try and…and created a securities company, Tiger Securities. I’m sure that you got a lot of information from him on that.
Daniel Satinsky: Yes, yes.
Denis Boyle: I think this whole economic development and capitalism thing is really…I think that just to understand it, it’s all about self-interest. I mean, Adam Smith even says that, right?
Daniel Satinsky: Right.
Denis Boyle: Everybody’s after their own self-interest. And I think that’s how, you know, that’s what happened in Russia, that people took advantage of however they could to promote their own self-interest, given the situation that they were presented with. And that was a completely different development and different circumstances that created the development in the United States, so I think it would be really unreasonable to expect things to develop as they did in the U.S.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah. I agree with you that that’s an unreasonable assumption, but I do think there were many people who made that assumption in the early days, that over the course of a generation Russia would be integrated into the European, U.S. led world economic and trading system, and would look a lot like the U.S. Maybe not immediately, but the rule of law, contracts, arbitration courts, doing business through tenders, things like this which were antithetical to the way Russians do business. You don’t do business with someone you don’t know, and you don’t usually do business with someone you didn’t go to school with. I mean, you know, it’s—or family. So, there were unreasonable expectations. But on the other hand, I think there is an overlooking of the extent to which Russia has been integrated into the world economy, in trading, and in travel, and in… Moscow is a big European city.
Denis Boyle: It sure is. Yeah. And I think that it has been integrated, as you say, to a greater extent than people maybe want to admit, and that it’s the politics that really have screwed things up. And the thing that really annoys the hell out of me is the American attitude that they know best and that they can tell Russia or treat Russia as if it’s some kind of a recalcitrant child that needs to be taught a lesson. Russia and Russians are not going to put up with that. And nobody is. Americans would be like - “get the fuck out of here. You come in and try to tell us what to do?!” I mean, you know, it’s just [ridiculous].
Daniel Satinsky: My impression is that in the early days, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that Russians needed foreign expertise or skills for things that they didn’t have because they just didn’t exist in the Soviet system, and that over the course of ten years they got all those skills, and so the need for foreigners just kept decreasing over time.
Denis Boyle: Right, right.
Daniel Satinsky: Particularly after the 1998 crisis. So, it was a natural evolution as much as anything. But at the same time—and I do remember hearing people say Americans have to stop telling us how to live. And I think that sentiment also grew at the same time. Would you agree with me?
Denis Boyle: Yes, absolutely. I think it’s true. And I think the idea of needing kind of technical assistance or expertise is one thing—they’re fast learners. You don’t have to hang around and tell them in detail what to do. It’s like they got it, you know. And they’re going to do, you know, no matter how it worked in other situations, they’re going to adapt it to their situation and their way of doing things, and their way of looking at things. It definitely needed to be…I mean, it was definitely more flexible than the model might have required or whatever, but Russians… I mean, they’re incredibly resourceful and work things out. No matter what it takes.
I like to think that I’ve influenced them in some ways, especially with…I don’t know…what am I trying to say? Looking at it from the…ah. Customer service, I guess. The idea of looking at things from a customer’s point of view and not just doing things because this is the way we’ve always done it. I’ve worked with—you know, I had three or four Russians on staff, and whenever you’d go to do something, the first Russian reaction is it’s not going to work, no, we can’t do that.
Daniel Satinsky: That’s right.
Denis Boyle: That’s not going to happen. And then you have to kind of work with them a little bit, and then after a while it’s like okay, well maybe we could do this. And then you get them onboard, and then once they’re on your side they make it happen. And the thing is, like working with my accountant and other people where they’d say no, you can’t do that, that doesn’t work, it’s not going to happen, I’m like you don’t understand, we are going to do this. I need you to help me figure out how we’re going to do it correctly and properly and within the law. We’re not going to just not do it because you say it doesn’t work. We’re going to do this, now help me figure it out. And when they realize—I mean, I think that they learned from me, too, that things are possible and you can make things happen.
Daniel Satinsky: What would you say is the lasting impact of American Councils on the Russian Far East?
Denis Boyle: Ooh, of American Councils?
Daniel Satinsky: American Councils, American Councils program on the Russian Far East.
Denis Boyle: These are all U.S. government programs.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah.
Denis Boyle: Shoo. I mean, I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who even recognizes the name of American Councils. But I think the long-term effect is that there are thousands of people, Russian people who have been to the United States and have a lifelong affinity and commitment to American people that they will never go back—I mean, they’ll never go to a point where they say that Americans are terrible people and that they want nothing to do with them. It’s never going to happen. Because of all of these programs and the tens of thousands of people who have participated in them, they understand that there is a complete difference between American people and American government policy. And that’s a good thing.
Daniel Satinsky: Okay. And what are you doing now?
Denis Boyle: Well, I’m mostly doing stuff on Zoom. I don’t really think of myself as an English teacher because I’m not really good at preparation and objectives and that kind of thing. I call myself an English language consultant. So, I help people with translations into English. I don’t do English into Russian. I get Russian stuff. I edit stuff. I’m actually really good at editing, it turns out. And then I have conversational practice for people to help them with…a lot of people preparing for the IELTS test, with the writing and speaking sections of the IELTS test. I have done also—
Daniel Satinsky: What test is that? I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with it.
Denis Boyle: It’s called IELTS, I-E-L-T-S. It’s a British, I think Cambridge affiliated, but it stands for International English Language Testing System or something like that. And it’s used by, you know, American universities use TOEFL, and all the other countries use IELTS. But it’s also used for companies and whatnot. In addition to admission to universities they use it for just assessing people’s skills, corporate entities and government agencies and that, so it’s known around the world, I-E-L-T-S, IELTS.
Anyway, that’s basically what I do. I also do a preparation for GRE people. I’m still affiliated with…there’s what’s called…sorry, my brain doesn’t work as quickly as it should. It’s…oh. Educational Advising Centers that are funded by the U.S. State Department. And we have one here in Vladivostok. I used to supervise it when it was under American Councils. It’s now more independent. But the Educational Advising Center is still going. U.S.—Jesus. Why can’t I…? Education U.S.A. is the organization, and it’s funded by the State Department. They have a network of 400 advising centers around the world, encouraging people to seek, and promoting U.S. higher education.
One of the services they have in Russia is to give people assistance in preparation for the GRE, the Graduate Record Exam, so I’ve been contracted to work on the…what’s it called, analytical writing test. It’s interesting because I never really scored very well myself, and I’m not really very good at writing under pressure. I’m a good writer, but I’m not fast, so I’ve never really done well myself. But it’s kind of like coaches and film directors, you know, some of the best film directors are the worst actors. But they know how to get people to do it. So, I’ve really had, I think, pretty good success with that, and people really appreciate it.
So, I’m not really making a whole lot of money, but I don’t really care so much about the money. My wife is working full-time. She’s a librarian at the medical university here in Vladivostok. And we own the apartment. I don’t really have—I mean, I’m getting Social Security now, and that’s direct deposited into my bank account in the U.S. We make enough rubles. We own the apartment that we live in and we don’t have a car payment so it’s just, you know, if we make enough money for food and the drug store, and for gas, that’s all we need. And that really is minimal expenses, so basically my Social Security just accumulates in the U.S. and I withdraw when I need to, I mean, very minimal now. But I basically use it to support our daughter and that we can make trips. We went to the U.S. for a month in May-June, so, you know. Making a trip to the U.S. cost me probably $10,000, but I can afford that because I don’t have the urgent living expenses.
And I’ve been with Vid na zhitelstvo, you know, permanent resident here for years. Just last year they passed a law… In the past in order to be—I mean, I’ve been eligible to apply for Russian citizenship, but they’ve always said that I would need to give up my American citizenship. Well, of course I’m not willing to do that. But a year ago they changed the rules, that you can now have—you don’t have to give up the American citizenship, and you can have dual citizenship. My wife and daughter have both, and have for years, so I’m going to go with that soon. At my age—I used to have ambitions, I guess, of getting into the foreign service, but now I’m too old, I don’t qualify for anything, so having dual citizenship is… I can’t think of any down side at this point, so…
Daniel Satinsky: Do you work in any—you talked about trying to build understanding between Russian and American citizens, people, ordinary people. Is there any organizational form that you…?
Denis Boyle: No. And that’s another… You know, going through COVID, it’s been sort of soul-searching, and I’ve had this ambition for years that I would like to create an organization. I hesitate to… I’m not going to give you the name because I want to get…what do you call it?
Daniel Satinsky: Copyright.
Denis Boyle: A trademark on it—yeah, a copyright, trademark before I get started. I’ve got some Russian friends, lawyers and whatnot. But I want to create…basically I’m talking about what I’m thinking of as a center…how do I call it? A cultural and culinary center dedicated to international communication and understanding, I guess.
I’m going to be working on that in the next, you know, once I get the citizenship and can get kind of my legal status straightened out I basically want to get an organization that encourages interaction between the Eastern United States, basically the Chesapeake Bay area, which is my home area, and the Russian Far East, specifically Vladivostok and Primorsky Krai.
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