A Clean Slate

Russia's a very strange place. It can alienate you, make life difficult for you, make you regret you ever heard about it. But once you're gone, Russia has an even more strange way of staying on your mind. For the past year since my return, I've been casting off the little things about Russia and Moscow that had crept into my life. It's been a slow motion ceremony of closure. This weekend I took one of the last, and perhaps most obvious, measures; I shaved off the beard I had grown while on the road in Siberia.

The beard was born from a lack of hot water and otherwise inconvenient accommodations while I was travelling in April and May last year. It certainly wasn't my style - I have never gone more than a day or two without shaving - but it somehow ended up fitting my image of myself. It was a semi-romantic notion I had about a russophile trekking across the great unknown spaces of Eurasia, on his own with his wit to survive. Of course, reality was a little bit different. I sipped tea on comfortable trains, went to ballets and operas, and never really lacked for anything. As far as travel goes, it was on the low end of adventure and not on the hardship scale at all.

Reality began to set in slowly when I returned. I liked the beard and thought it looked pretty good. But having a beard is an active commitment - the trimming, the daily careful shaving around it, etc. It became apparent that the maintenance aspect was an unseen cost of the rather passive decision to grow the thing in the first place. It no longer really made any sense to me.

So, I lathered up my shaving brush with a beautiful sandalwood soap and shaved my entire face for the first time since mid April 2006. It was a satisfying experience - the smell, the sensation, the scratching sound of the razor. When I rinsed off the suds and looked at myself in the mirror I was startled by the change.

I suppose I look the same now as I always did for all that time that I didn't have a beard at all. But then, how could that be possible? All the things I had seen and done in the meantime have surely made me a different person. And now, in that brief moment in the mirror, it seemed that all my experiences had been stripped from me, negated and washed down the drain.

Of course, that's a rather poetic overreaction. But for a flash, it seemed like I had turned the clock back 14 months. Of course, memories and experiences don't even need physical form to seem real to us. And, I have my blog and wonderful photo albums to recall my time abroad. So there was certainly no need to feel that shaving my beard from Russia had in any way distanced me from that time in my life.

I came back to my senses and had a little laugh in the solitude of my bathroom. After all, everything was exactly the same. And it was all extremely different.

Arms Length Self Portraits

New Family Ties

In May, the Alfa Fellowship held its first ever alumni function here in NYC. All the important players from Moscow were there, as well as an impressive complement of former fellows, future fellows, and associated dignitaries. The press release does it better justice.

Russian Business Leaders Mikhail Fridman and Peter Aven Recognize Alfa Fellows

New York , May 22, 2007 – Over 50 Alfa Fellowship Program Fellows, alumni, and friends gathered on the evening of May 18 to celebrate the inaugural Alfa Fellowship Program Alumni gala. Distinguished guests and speakers included Mikhail Fridman, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Alfa Group Consortium and of the Board of Directors of Alfa-Bank, and Peter Aven, President of Alfa-Bank. Also in attendance were Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, and Consul General Sergey Garmonin, Consulate General of the Russian Federation in New York .

CDS International, a New York-based nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting international business training and intercultural exchange, collaborated with the Moscow-based international education and cultural exchange organization, Center for International Fellowships, to organize the Alfa Fellowship Program's first alumni meeting since the program's inception in 2004. Mr. Fridman delivered the keynote address and Mr. Aven presented awards to the Fellows in recognition of their participation on the program. During his keynote address, Mr. Fridman stated, “As Russia and the United States move farther from the days of the Cold War, it is vitally important that we each develop a thorough and accurate understanding based on the new realities which form the modern Russian–American relationship. We believe the Alfa Fellowship Program is one way in which this understanding can be fostered and enhanced, and we are proud to sponsor the program and look forward to its continued growth in the future.”

As mentioned, each of the returned fellows in attendance received a beautiful plaque commemorating our participation in the program. Its very nice looking and I have decided that it will be a central item on my "wall of power". I learned about the wall of power from Arkady, our director in Moscow. In his his restaurant, one corner of the lounge is covered in photos of him during his political career as an early democrat and Yeltsin man. Its really very impressive. I'd like to have one too, someday. So here's my first piece.


Perhaps we should all have one little corner where we display our bona fides, if for no one else but ourselves. It could serve as a mirror that reflects far more than just the physical. A mirror of our professional appearance lest we forget how we look to other people.

Anyway, one purpose of the meeting was to begin setting up an alumni organization for the returned fellows. Alfa and CDS would like us to create the stateside network for the Alfa organization. It really sounded like a good idea to the dozen or so of us in attendance, so a steering committee has been formed to start putting ideas together.

Somehow, my job was to come up with a vision and mission for the soon-to-be-formed organization. Perhaps because I waxed philosophical during our meeting about how we have a unique voice in the Russian-American dialogue and that we should be aggressive in our vision. After all, an enormous bank and a leading international educational exchange facilitator would like very much to provide us with any resource we could possibly need.

Of course, all meetings of Americans interested in Russia eventually end up in a bar. I'm sure I made good points, but I have to confess that I waxed even more philosophical than before. Since we're still in the vision stage, its acceptable. Right?