Past in the Present
I went to the Soviet Union in 1985 and my first visit to Kyiv—then known as Kiev—was a year after the Chernobyl disaster. They were still grappling with pain and loss, and suffering from PTSD in the aftermath of one of the biggest man-made catastrophes in history. And today, after so many years, my office staff, friends and acquaintances in Kyiv, as they call their capital in the Ukrainian language, are once again in pain and trauma of the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia. These inhabitants of Kyiv are both ethnic Ukrainians and Russians, and most of them have family members from both ethnicities and countries. I have seen them part ways with Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union and also experienced the incredible camaraderie between those who chose to stay back in the Russian Federation and those who became citizens of independent Ukraine.
Brothers at War
First as a student, then as a working professional, and now as an entrepreneur in that part of the world, once known enigmatically as the ‘Iron Curtain’, I have seen the paradigm shift in the two country’s relations from being closest allies to bitter enemies. Before its disintegration, the Soviet Union was a country that had centralised governance and administration and was following a planned economy. Once, the 15 countries of the Soviet Union could engage in foreign trade only through Moscow. Basically, if Ukraine wanted to import Indian jute bags for sugar packaging, they had to give a requisition to Moscow, which would then import it from Calcutta and Bangladesh before delivering those orders to the Ukrainian factories. And vice versa, when Ukraine wanted to export something, Moscow coordinated the foreign trade, sales and export.
So, when Ukraine and the other nations of the bloc attained independence one fine morning, the earlier trading system broke down immediately and naturally. And a country like Ukraine, which had a huge export potential of different products, didn’t know how to reach out to the buyers. That created new opportunities for people like us, who could speak the local languages as well as English, apart from having the experience of travelling outside the erstwhile Soviet landmass.
An Indian’s Journey
Under the umbrella of the Soviet Union, the people of Russia and Ukraine had sent the first human to space and launched the first satellite in space history. They had high technology and globally competitive products for me to take to the outside world from Russian and Ukrainian factories. So I didn’t lose the opportunity to venture into that previously unchartered territory and became an entrepreneur in Ukraine with my company, AMC Overseas, with the tagline of ‘Taking Ukraine to the world’. In these 25 years of my journey as an Indian enterprise selling Ukrainian products, I have taken my business to more than 75 countries across different continents. India has been a key trading partner of Ukraine as almost 90 per cent of our sunflower imports today comes from the Black Sea region. On the other hand, Indian pharmaceutical products have a big market in the country.
Personal crisis
I am also facing severe anxieties and stress due to the shocking blitzkrieg in Kyiv and the rest of Ukraine. My family home is there, and my caretakers have deserted the house to take refuge in their respective villages. My office staff, mostly women with children at home, are spending hellish nights cooped up either in underground metro stations or basements of their high-rise apartment blocks or in car garages as they have been asked to switch off lights in the night. One must not forget that it’s still a harsh winter in that part of the world with sub-zero temperatures. Nonetheless, millions of innocent people are the ones who are bearing the brunt of a geopolitical battle for supremacy. Of course, as a resident, businessman and promoter of peace through arts, I hope this mayhem ends as soon as possible with no more loss of lives. It’s high time they say proshai, or goodbye, as they say in Russian, to arms. Let peace prevail.
(The author is an entrepreneur, film producer and co-founder of Kyiv Classic Orchestra)
(As told to Suvam Pal)
