SIBERIA BOUND

The exploits of an American entrepreneur in the Russian Far East: adventurous, often ingenious, but also bathed in the righteous pomposities of a free-market zealot.

Blakely went to Siberia at the beginning of the 1990s to find excitement and “to help a few Siberians develop into entrepreneurs.” He aimed to be in the forefront of those bringing “democracy and the free market, the best institutions the West had to offer,” to a land known primarily for its gulags. The market did materialize, although hardly free, and democracy wasn’t even an issue. Blakely and his Siberian partner managed to insinuate themselves into the chocolate business, but the trade was hardly based on the putative twin pillars of Western greatness. Blakely isn’t happy with the way he had to do business—all the payoffs and shady dealings—but his partner put it to him bluntly: “If the system is crooked, you have to cheat the system. . . . In a crooked game, you have to play by crooked rules.” But it wasn’t long before the economy was in a shambles and in only a few hands, thanks to pyramid schemes, voucher scams, hyperinflation, organized crime, banking follies, greed, and indifference. It pained Blakely to realize that “money dictated morality, rubles overshadowed responsibilities, and self-indulgence came before self-respect,” but he still figures that capitalism is the best game in town. Indeed, he’s surprised that “given the crooked playing field” and considering “that for seventy years it was a crime against society to earn a profit, it is downright miraculous that every Russian entrepreneur isn’t a con artist or thief,” though some may sense an amount of hot air in such a sentiment. When Blakely takes a breather from his economic morality play, he offers an intimate glimpse of life in Novosibirsk, and readers may wish he had devoted his energies more to exactly such observing.

Ultimately, the author leaves Siberia with—remarkably—his capitalist fervor intact. (Photographs)