Give it Tuva Boy

<< back << home

(Continued: Can you tell us about your travels?)

My family also had friends from Switzerland, Mexico, and Bolivia so I was always around an international crowd.

When I was 16, I left for a farm in Iceland on an AFS summer program. The farm had about 800 sheep that I had to chase if they got in the wrong pastor and dairy cows I had to milk every day.

The farm was 15 hours north of Reykjavik. The nearest town, Akureyli, was about 45 minutes away. That summer, the sun never went down. I got up every day around 5 and worked all day.

We would work a little then play, then work again until 11 at night. We played frisbee with the grandchildren who were there to visit until 2 or 3 in the morning, slept for a few hours and went back to work. I was never tired, probably because the sun was up all the time.

The parents on the farm had ten children and in the summer, all the grandkids would stay with them so every day for lunch and dinner, there were 15 to 20 people at the table. I had a blast.

I went to Russia while I was in college and afterwards. I actually got hired locally in the beginning of what was going to be a big economic boom. I spent five years in Moscow total.

After college, I did the Eurail thing because I felt like it was a right of passage. Then, I went to Wyoming to work for a season but I broke my knee skiing so I came back.

Why Russia? How was it to work there?

In 1986, right after Gorbachev met Reagan, Russia was the grey, the evil empire that would kill us with rockets. That’s what got me into the Russian kick. I kept hearing about Russia, it was on the cover of every magazine and newspaper but I had never seen or touched a Russian. So I decided to study the Russian language and culture in college.

I first worked at Traveler’s Yellow Pages. I did advertising, office management and some copy writing. Then I got hired by a software company, Scala. There I was selling to companies developing their market in the Soviet Union. This job was like getting an MBA. I managed eight countries, went to big embassy parties, and traveled all over Central Asia.

At the time, Russians were realizing that they could make money, travel abroad, I was working in the middle of this revolutionizing environment. It was amazing. There was a lot of uncertainty but also a lot of creativity, I guess like you would find in the Bay Area.

When working in Moscow, every time I went home, I brought three or four laptops back, sometimes up to $10,000 in pay roll. That was how things were done.

I also lived in Budapest, Hungary for a year and a half, managing a sales group. I love managing people but this was tough because I was young and these people would come to me with questions on how to solve their problems. Some of them were older and sometimes I had no clue what to tell them. Managing people is all about creating space for everyone, it’s not about you. I really like that.

As we got closer to 2000, I was going back and forth between Stockholm and Budapest. I was a hot shot! It was so cool, I would get on the phone and say things like “Ok I can meet you in Paris on Tuesday but I have to be back in London on Friday.” It was great.

Did you speak any Russian and Hungarian before living there?

Learning a language is like learning music. You listen then repeat, you mess up so you listen and repeat until you get it right. Once you can repeat it correctly, then you start improvising. You finally get to a point where you’re not only saying something correct, but you make it your own.

The next step is to learn things that you don’t say because of a grammatical or cultural reason. For example, there may be some last names that you don’t pronounce in Russia because it was the last name of a horrible person in history.

It’s like in music, there are some songs you don’t play, and you just have to learn these things.

I wasn’t a good student so although I studied Russian for three years, when I showed up the first time, it was tough. But I just listened and repeated—that’s how I was able to pick up some Hungarian and Russian.

What made you decide to come back?

I was sick of being a foreigner, sick of being asked questions every time I bought a candy bar or a beer. I wanted to be a regular person again, not stand out and have to explain why I was in the country. I just wanted to be a John Smith again for a while.

I still want to travel though; I can’t sit still for more than a week so I know traveling is always going to be part of my life.

Do you have any favorite places, good stories?

I’ve traveled to a lot of different places like Turkey, New Zealand, Spain to meet friends and family. If I didn’t go home for Christmas, I would meet my family somewhere for Christmas, so we got to spend Christmas in Greece, Turkey or France which is something we would never have done if I was living in the US.

Western and Eastern Europe are great places to go on business, otherwise, it’s not very interesting. I mean, I would go to Rome to party but not to explore. In Spain and some parts of the French Riviera, all you see are hundreds of buildings lined on crowded beaches with fat and icky people. If you want to relax go to Turkey or Sicily and hang out on the beach. For exploration, I want go off the beaten path.

Siberia amazes me. In Uzbekistan, the deserts are amazing, these places are my favorite when it comes to exploring.

The United States is also a great place, California blows me away. I love the Edward Hopper charm of middle America, the “Eat at Joe’s” signs, the faded Route 66, the classic values. The “strip mall-ization” of America makes me want to hurl, it really scares me.

Where are you going next?

I’m going back to Ulan Ude to be with my girlfriend, Olga. Our baby is due between March 20 and April 5. Ulan Ude is not far from Lake Baikal where I do tours with Aspera Explorations. By the way, we can get you there on a tour for $2,700.

What advice would you give someone who wants to go abroad?

Traveling is easy, it’s really not as difficult as people make it out to be. It’s easy for everyone, whether you like to have all the comforts you have at home or if you like roughing it.

My advice would be: be flexible. Give yourself extra time and don’t plan too much. Get the hell out of your hotel room and get local. You can be around other backpackers at home, you can find online forums and websites or meet them at a coffee shop but you’re not going to have dinner with locals unless you’re in the country.

Reach out to local people, ask for help and take them up on their offers. Some people are afraid of imposing but I say, impose and make local contacts. You’ll be doing a service to yourself and to them by accepting their invitations.

Helene Goupil is the editor InsideOut Travel Magazine. Write Carl at Carl_Pezold@yahoo.com.

<< home

<< back