Flashback No.5

January 1991. Just as scud missiles started flying towards Israel, with coalition forces ready to strike against Saddam, while the US were urging people not to travel, my boss decided I needed to be in Russia. I flew out on a Saturday night from the then Pan-Am terminal at JFK. The terminal was empty. My flight was empty. I was alone in Business Class onboard a Pan-Am 747. There were 4 other passengers on the plane, all in coach. They were Jewish activists on their way to Russia to help the last of the refuseniks (a few weeks later the first direct flights from Moscow to Tel-Aviv became something one would regularly see at Sheremetyevo 2 airport, so I am not exactly sure how necessary the type of mission these guys were apparently on was in those days).

My first Russian experience, in the dead of Winter, and my contact in Moscow decided this was a nice time to go visit the birth-place of the Russian Orthodox Church: Suzdal. This picture was taken in Suzdal, very early in the morning, around 7 am, as we walked around checking out churches which were each a few hundred years old. The picture is a little damaged, but let's just say that even those fancy hats were not enough to keep the cold at bay (and, no, I'm not really short - the guy I was with is VERY tall).

Black Friday

From today's New York Times:

November 26, 2005

Dawn Rush Hints at Strong Start to Holiday Sales

By MICHAEL BARBARO

At 12:05 a.m. yesterday, moments into the earliest store opening on the busiest shopping day of the year, the beleaguered employees at the CompUSA on 57th Street in Manhattan laid down some ground rules: no more pushing and no more grabbing deeply discounted merchandise out of the hands of other customers.

"Civilized! Civilized!" implored one employee, as he dumped a cardboard box full of computer equipment into the outstretched hands of two dozen shoppers, who nevertheless lunged at one another to secure some of the limited supply of wireless adapters and Internet cards.

I am not going to reproduce the rest of the article. You get the idea. The following picture was taken at CompUSA on Route 17 North in New Jersey on the famous "Black Friday", just as these two unidentified shoppers attacked some of the computer equipment on display.

Flashback No.4

I have been going to Poland regularly since 1992. Usually these trips are very "business" and I rarely get a chance to "see anything". One exception was a trip during August of 2000. I had some business in Southern Poland, for once, and therefore decided to visit Krakow. My father had often told me about his time in Krakow after the war. In particular he mentioned to me one specific address: Miodowa 26. I always liked the sound of that address. It sounded a little like "Mila 18". I still think that if he ever publishes his memoirs one day, he should name it "Miodowa 26". It was there that he was working for "Mizrahi" after the war. He even met my mother there at some point in their early courtship.

As soon as I arrived in Krakow, I made my way to that street, called up my father on my mobile, and what followed was an amazing experience. He described to me in detail what the street looked like in the 40's, and funny enough very little had changed. When we got to number 26, he described to me exactly what I was looking at, the door, the entrance, the steps, the Agudah building across the street (which unfortunately was in total disrepair). It was an unforgettable moment.

We then went for a nice walk in the town, and it was nice to see that "chinos" are very popular in Poland (check out the spelling).

A little sightseeing followed (that's my good friend Andrzej there with me).

Finally after some meetings in the Katowice area, I had to head for my next destination. I therefore went to the Katowice airport (and I use the term "airport" very liberally here). As we were getting ready to board our flight for Dusselforf, it seems our border guard felt the call of nature. He therefore had to take the necessary measures to ensure nobody "crossed the border" during his absence. So, as the picture shows, while Corporal Polanski was moving his bowels...Poland was closed.

Gadget

For those of you who know me, you know what kind of geek I am and to what extent little doodads that enhance and change the way you work, travel and entertain yourself get me all excited. Here's one I just couldn't contain myself to share with you. The shape of things to come, for sure. Check out this site.

Cheating

A little lesson in the scrap trade. We regularly go out to exotic (and less exotic) places to look at some material. Typically we’ll bring along a camera because our buyers always ask for pictures of the product on offer. The best way to take pictures of scrap is to place something familiar against the scrap, something like a pack of cigarettes or a pencil, in order to help the recipient of the pictures gauge the dimensions of the scrap. Last week a friend of ours went out to Africa to look at scrap. When the time came to take the picture, he didn’t have cigarettes or a pencil handy, so he took the...hmm...whatever he could...get his hands on....kinda thing The result is this picture.

OK, I’m cheating here. I didn’t take this picture (actually I have never set foot on the African continent), but I only travel 1 to 2 weeks out of every month, and therefore can’t always have fresh live pictures to post (hence all the flashbacks etc).

Flashback No.3 (part deux)

The previous entry just reminded me that the next day I flew into Tokyo to visit an old school friend, and while at first you can see my bewilderment at the hustle and bustle of that unbelievable city (see the first picture), by nightfall we were out on the town and having a good time (...and yes, that Caucasian girl IS holding a giant....thing).

Flashback No.3

Some of you on my tachko81 mailing list might remember this one. September 6, 2000, I was walking into the domestic airport in Guangzhou, China, on my way to Shanghai. We’re all used to walk into an airport and see a newspaper and magazine stand, maybe a music store or some place that sells candy and gum. But right there, literally in front of the check-in desk at this airport was nothing else but...a fresh fruit and vegetable stand.

(Feel free to click on the picture to see it up close). Now, some of us, when flying, we tend to use the time to catch-up on some reading, maybe do some work, we take a nap here and there. But it seems that Mr Fun Wan Gay (or was it Wan Fun Gay) likes to spend the time on the flight cutting vegetables into a bowl for a nice salad (dressing on the side, please) so that he can arrive at his relative’s house in Shanghai with something a little more significant and personal than a bottle of wine. A classic.

Back Home

It was snowing heavily when I left St Petersburg. The plane needed to be de-iced. Always an impressive sight (except, of course, when the picture is taken with a mobile phone camera).

Flashback No.2

Let's travel back in time to April 22, 2001. A Sunday morning. I had just spent שבת in Moscow (not something I ever enjoyed doing, I have to admit) and because of severe jetlag had not slept one single minute that night. Sometime around 6 am that morning I decided to go see Red Square (very nearby my hotel). For those who have been there, it is always a hustling and bustling place. I got there, and for the first time ever saw what was an almost empty Red Square. I was reminded of the first words of Gilbert Becaud's song "Nathalie": "La Place Rouge etait vide..." (Red Square was empty). Lucky enough this was one of those times where I DID have my camera with me, so here goes:

Coincidence

By profession I am a "trader", a scrap trader maybe, but trader nonetheless.
I grew up in Antwerp, Belgium.
So imagine my surprise when I ran into this ship at the port of St Petersburg yesterday:

Flashback No.1

Unfortunately there is a very sad reason behind my current trip to Russia. I was in Moscow to attend the 40th day memorial service (a Russian tradition) for my old friend, business partner and colleague, Aleksandr Semenovitch Feldblyum. Alex, Sasha to his friends, died unexpectedly in early October as a result of a routine surgery at the age of 50: a young man by any means of the word. He was an exemplary son, husband and father, someone I looked up to and enjoyed doing business with immensely. But our relationship extended well beyond just business, and we would spend hours discussing politics, be they in Russia, the USA or Israel, Russian or Western culture, Russian movies (which he would buy me on DVD and we would talk about after I would watch them) or translated Russian literature (from Bulgakov to Akunin and anything in between). Not a day would go by without a conversation which could range from the price of scrap, news about our families, or just shooting the breeze about whatever happened in the world on that day.
A doctor in physics and mathematics, who embarked on a new adventure 10 years ago when he decided to get into the scrap export business from his country, Alex was a proud Russian and someone who believed strongly that his motherland would continue to grow and offer opportunities to its people. I am including a picture which was taken on a previous trip to St Petersburg, actually on February 8 of this year.

Alex was loading a ship for us at the port, and this picture was taken on the deck. Alex is standing in the middle, sporting the proud mustache that was his trademark. I miss him terribly. תהה נשמתו צרורה בצרור החיים

First Entry

Just a moment I thought was worth documenting: rush-hour on Nevskiy Prospekt, St Petersburg, tonight.
Traffic in big cities like Moscow and St Pete is just unbelievable. I have been travelling to Russia now for 15 years. Things sure have changed over the years. Russians joke that back then, at night, you could lie down on one of Moscow's main arteries and sleep for a few hours without ever being disturbed. These days you get stuck in the type of traffic you see in the picture above. Very often you will be surrounded by the kind of cars that make one (ok, me) salivate: anything from Bentleys to Ferraris and everything in between (incidentally I was sitting in the Porsche Cayenne Turbo belonging to our main supplier in St Pete when I took this picture).
But funny enough sitting stuck in traffic like that allows one to take a good look around and really appreciate the magnitude, the beauty and the emotions evoked by a place like St Petersburg.

St Petersburg, Russia - on a cold November night - 2005:

Because of my job I have been travelling to some of the world's most exotic, and less exotic, places for the past 18 years. I have seen some crazy stuff over the years, some of which I have been able to document, but more often than not these moments live on only in my head.
Lately I have been walking around with one of these mobile phones with a camera, and suddenly it becomes so much easier to capture some of these moments and save them for prosperity (or until someone mistakenly unplugs the server before the back-up took place).
For now I'm just starting to record these things for myself, but who knows, maybe one day I'll find reason to share all of it with the world at large (that of course assumes that someone is actually interested in what I have to say or show, but we'll leave that for some other time).
At some point I'll try and find some of the more interesting pictures I DID manage to take over the years and place them here. These will be referred to as "flashbacks" for the sake of clarity.
OK, time for the first post.