Other Travel Reports

Business travel in Eastern Europe!

“Imagine you are stuck in the departure lounge of a Balkans airport in winter, swirling snow blocking the runway, all flights suspended. Around you there are poor refugees on a last-chance flight to the west, flashily dressed Serb and Albanian criminal warlords, ... testy frontier policemen, and the dozens of political consultants, aid workers, UN apparatchiks, NATO soldiers and freelance spies all belonging to that multinational hotchpotch of good intentions known as the international community. The air is full of cigarette smoke. The lounge reeks of impatience, damp Kalashnikovs, and boiled poverty.” ¹⁾

To be fair, that description would also apply to a myriad of other East-European airports, and would equally be highly accurate.

So what did I think of when I started this job? One conjures up images of smart ladies and gentlemen in power dress, flying in and out of the world centres of international trade and business, staying in world class hotels, meeting the world’s leading business tycoons, earning millions along the way and having fun while they’re doing it.

I actually wouldn’t have minded doing that for a while.

Instead, my colleagues and I spent much of our time in grotty airports with grotty towns attached. Major cities like Moscow or St. Petersburg have caught up with their western equivalents in many ways, but that still leaves many other places which may have a certain rustic charm, or which are just plain unpleasant. It’s astonishing what Investment Banking can involve.

A note to other ex-pats - how do you know you’ve been in CIS countries too long?

In these pages you will find some interesting tidbits & trivia, plus a number of photographs (taken by my colleagues and myself), none of which lay claim to any artistic fame, but which may still provide you with a certain impression of what it’s like. The trips cover the period between 1993 and 2002.

Enjoy and come back!

Yours truly

Highlights:

Bukhara - “The Holy City”

Tashkent: historical photographs

How to survive a Hospital Stay in Kiev

Samarkand

Article on Kiev striptease on the Kiev page!

Other travel here (link to my other web site)
Route 66, USA
The Great Lakes, USA & Canada
China
South Africa
Mexico

CompuServe “Homepage of the Week” 14.5.01

A copy of the original review is here .
(the original CompuServe address is no longer valid.)

Last revised April, 2007

1) Source: The Economist, October 18^th 2003

Links are internal unless marked with . External links should open in a New Window.

With many thanks to all contributors! Special thanks to Eve for her valuable input!

Some maps courtesy of The General Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin.
Some maps Microsoft Encarta.
Some maps Encyclopaedia Britannica
Some images National Geographic Society

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