Insight RUSSIA Modern Gaming Era
Pekka Salmi continued to
be the most active investor besides the Dutch and
Belgians. His slot operation extended from Vladivostok to Odessa under the appropriate name of Eldorado. The Swedish
Cherry group was not far behind concentrating on Leningrad and the Baltic states.
besides the Dutch and Belgians. His slot operation extended from Vladivostok to Odessa under the appropriate name of Eldorado. Te Swedish Cherry group was not far behind concentrating on Leningrad and the Baltic states. Pekka was granted the first live casino licence in Moscow at the luxurious Savoy Hotel that Finnair had recently refurbished.
Travelling in the Soviet Union was done by train, mainly at night in the basic, but comfortable sleeping carriages. To travel to Siberia one had to use the services of the domestic Aeroflot, which was operated like a bus service, no seat reservation, no food besides tea and water (a state of affairs now adopted by many budget airlines). Te contact with ordinary Soviet citizens travelling to Moscow to shop at the Gum, was an unforgettable experience.
People were interested to know what happened on our side of the Iron Curtain, although they were also afraid somebody would regard their conversation as a threat to internal security, specially when travelling to
restricted cities like Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Khabarovsk Novosibirsk or Vladivostok. In general the "Soviets" were proud, self confident and always remembering to include in the many toasts one for the 40 million citizens lost in the war.
Tere was no bitterness towards the past enemies and they regarded comrade Stalin as the hero who made them a world power. For a westerner in those days of the Cold War, it was an astonishing statement.
Te dissolution of the Soviet Union meant that the laws were no longer laws and until new legal entities could be established by the individual countries, it was a free for all. I happily missed the first 10 years of chaos until I returned to Russia in the new century as the manager and president of a Japanese company. One surprise was to discovery that the short fat smiling Soviet girls had become tall, thin and unsmiling Russians, a second was that the office blocks on the traffic-free Kutuzovsky prospect on the way to Arbat, had discovered window cleaners.
NEWSWIRE / INTERACTIVE /
247.COM P45
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