WEBVTT - THE LAST SOVIET - EP 6: Pioneers and Pirates 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:15.319 In a Moscow TV studio. A thirty something guy with thick, 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:19.720 wavy hair leans forward in his chair. His name is 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:23.320 Artemy Troitzky, the barricade building journalist from the last episode. 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:27.840 He's about to invite you to something revolutionary from my 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:33.879 TV offices. I've made the last announcement alive, saying the 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:38.880 Gagart Party is starting very soon. You are welcome to 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:44.960 the first ever Rave in Moscow, the first ever Rave 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:49.400 in Moscow, a rager to end all ragers and named 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:52.839 after your Gagarin, the first human to journey into space. 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:58.600 And it will be techno music played all night, Russian, 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:04.360 Latvian and German and French DJs, and the location also 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:08.800 cosmonaut themed. The Space Pavilion a museum dedicated to the 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:15.720 glories of the space program. It was like Snayland. You 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:20.720 walk in, There's a curved ceiling made of glass. It's dark, 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.080 the music so loud you feel it in your chest. 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:29.840 All around you are models and relics from the Soviets 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:36.000 glorious space program, satellites, the capsule that sent Gagaren into space, 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:40.399 gagaren space suit from his flight. And the place is 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:46.399 packed bodies, sweating, bodies, dancing, throwing their heads up to 0:01:46.440 --> 0:02:00.640 the sky, young people free at last to party. I 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:08.480 think that the whole of cool Moscow was there, artists, actors, models, 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:13.560 the new generation creating something beautiful from the ashes of 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:18.320 the old world. We felt like a brand new country 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:23.400 which is aiming at the bright future, which will be 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:32.000 totally different from what we've had before. But what would 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:35.400 that mean for the cosmonauts, the Soviet citizens who once 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:39.440 represented the future? What would happen to them in the 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:46.880 new Russia. I'm Lance bass And from Kaleidoscope Exile and 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:58.560 iHeart Podcasts. This is the last Soviet mingling with the 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.720 rush hour traffic, army armored personnel carriers on the streets 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:06.520 of Moscow. The August nineteen ninety one, a faction of 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.639 hardline communists just tried to take control of the Soviet 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:12.840 government tanks in Red Square. The official tanks rattled through 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:16.000 the streets of Moscow and hundreds of thousands of people 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:19.280 stood up to them. Three civilians had died last night 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.480 when light tanks tried to slam through a barricade. In 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:26.040 just three days, the coup felled, the hardliners were pushed out, 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.760 and the people won. Tonight n Caligorbatrophia is again president 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.280 of the Soviet Union, the man who tried to bring 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:35.280 him down or either under arrest or being hunted. But 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.040 as the dust settled and all of the old values 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.400 and structures of the Soviet world fell away, a brand 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.920 new system was beginning to take shape. As if to 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:48.760 harold this new dawn, something very unusual was about to happen. 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:51.840 On the Soviet space station, where our man Sarage is 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:55.480 still hard at work. The cosmonauts on Mirror were about 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:57.840 to become the face of one of the most famous 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:02.080 brands in the world, Coca Cola. If you taste it, 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:04.560 there's the burn and bite at the back of your 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:11.400 throat for a moment that then gives you the In 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.840 the summer of nineteen ninety, Craig Kohan was twenty seven 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:19.159 years old, newly single, and ready to take Moscow by storm, 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.640 one can of Coca Cola at a time. I was 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:27.560 sent to figure out how to build the cocola system 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:31.520 in the Sovietinia. That was the brief. Craig was the 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:35.440 new face of capitalism, the alternative to the old Soviet 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:39.720 way of doing things. Remember, in the USSR, private enterprise 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:44.039 had been banned completely for decades. So Craig was a 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:48.400 representative of a totally new mindset, a totally new way 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.839 of life. And you could say Craig was born to 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.640 do this job. He grew up in Toronto and what 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:59.279 he called a McDonald's family, all the panti, sat sauces, 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:03.680 cheez pickles, McDonald's big Man. When he was a kid, 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.520 his dad, George Cohan, brought the first ever McDonald's to Canada. 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:14.080 Canadians went crazy for it. Break today at McDonald's where 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:19.680 your dollar gets a break every day. George Cohan even 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.599 had a bus called the Big Mac Bus, used to 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:26.000 raise money for charity. And then in nineteen seventy six, 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.560 during the Montreal Olympics, the Canadian government came to Craig's 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:32.760 dad with a strange favor. Would he please let the 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:36.000 Soviet delegation use his bus to get around the city 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.560 And so we met all the Soviets in nineteen seventy six. 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.440 They rode the big backbus and in the evening they 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:46.719 went out to dinner and what did they eat, Yeah, 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:51.120 you guessed it, Big Max. And that's when Craig's dad 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:54.880 had an idea. Watching these big Russian guys tucking into 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:57.719 burghers and fries. He thought, I know what I'm gonna 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:02.360 make my life's mission to bring McDonald's to the Soviet Union. 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:10.800 It became from my father a fourteen year, amazing epic 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:15.360 odyssey to get the first McDonald's built in Pushkin Square. 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:19.479 Pushkin Square is a square in central Moscow, a stone's 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:24.800 throw from the Kremlin. And so that was fourteen years 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:29.840 of conversations at home, conversations in the car, conversations at 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:33.880 dinner about the Soviets. Year in and year out, they 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:37.240 would host a rotating cast of Soviets at the Kohen Residence, 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:39.960 anyone and everyone who could get a word back to 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.960 the Kremlin about the wonders of McDonald's, whether they're ambassadors 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:49.120 or ballet dancers, or artists or politicians. And then in 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.919 January nineteen ninety, well, it's been fourteen years in the making, 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:56.280 and today finally McDonald's threw open the doors to its 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:00.720 first restaurant in Moscow. Thirty thousand people stood in line 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:03.480 that day. They started lining up this morning at four o'clock. 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:06.039 This woman doesn't know what she just date, but she 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:10.960 says it was unusual and delicious. Clearly George Kohen had 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.680 been on to something ahead of McDonald's. Canada waxed the 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:15.800 lyric in this day and age, it's nice when the 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.880 people can come out and get meat, reputations and milk 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.160 of the highest quality. Craig watched in amazement at what 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:25.200 his dad had just done. Happiness today in Moscow lay 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:27.880 in the communal pursuit of a big mac, but he 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:31.600 wanted to do something even bigger. For Craig, it was 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:35.400 about more than just business. He was an idealist, and 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:39.040 he had this vision that capitalism could actually bring Russians 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:42.320 together with the rest of the world, that East and 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.640 West could unite under the banner of a big brand. 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.720 In December nineteen ninety, he flew to Moscow to attend 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:54.440 the opening of his dad's McDonald's, and while he was 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:58.640 there he bumped into the CEO of Coca Cola. He 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.280 was drunk one night at the Kremlin after the opening 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:05.040 of McDonald's. The CEO of Coca Cola looked at Craig 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.000 and had an idea, and he said, Craig, I'm thinking 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:10.640 of three things. You the Soviet Union and you and 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:15.440 the Soviet Union. Big companies like Coca Cola saw an 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:19.080 incredible opportunity in the Soviet Union. It was an open market. 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:23.560 Western products basically didn't exist, so the potential for profit 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.800 was mouthwatering. And now the CEO has the perfect man 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.320 for the job, Craig Cohan, the son of the guy 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.800 who got McDonald's into Moscow. But this was a very 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:38.959 different challenge. Craig's dad had opened a single McDonald's. The 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:42.880 CEO of Coke wanted cans in every corner shop in Russia, 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:52.640 total domination. Craig accepted the challenge stage one reconnaissance. For 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:56.240 the first six months June of nineteen ninety December of 0:08:56.320 --> 0:09:00.439 nineteen ninety, I spent every day going to every single 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:04.600 metro stop in the city understanding how people drink beverages. 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:07.840 You know, they used to have these amazing vending machines, 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:10.920 or there was a single glass. Incidentally, just when you 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:14.199 expect hard frost, Moscow has a thirsty heat wave. So 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:16.640 buy yourself a cups. I'd think when you wash the 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:21.079 glass and you would get a cool beverage a cavass 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:25.400 out of that. Cavas not my favorite drink, but if 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:28.200 sour bread and liquid form floats your boat, you might 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.000 like it. And it's probably the second most popular drink 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:34.040 in Russia after vodka, which was definitely more my thing, 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:38.200 especially the infused ones. The pineapple very good. You would 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.640 wash the glass and put it back in the next 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:42.840 person and use the same glass, wash it and put 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.600 it back and put five copecks in. So that's how 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:50.760 people were experiencing beverages, very different to American vending machines, 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:53.920 and so Craig had a ton of questions he needed 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:56.520 to ask people lining up for their glass of cavas, 0:09:57.280 --> 0:09:59.480 although he was careful not to tell them he worked 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:02.760 for Coca. No one really knew that I was working there. 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:08.560 I was this interested guy doing a study on beverages 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:11.920 in the Soviet Union. It was like he was an 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:15.959 undercover agent. People just opened their arms to me for 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.000 all the information, and that's how I got data. And 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.000 then I worked at a chokovskis a vote for two 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.760 and a half weeks. It was a champagne factory, and 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:27.320 so I saw exactly how they mixed the product. I 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:30.760 saw how they mixed the concentrate. I saw the rats 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:34.360 in the sugar. I saw the whole system, the whole 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:38.040 Soviet system. After a few months Craig felt like the 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:41.640 reconnaissance stage of his mission was complete. But for Craig 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.760 and Coca Cola to actually launch themselves in the Soviet Union, 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:47.720 they needed a way to get into the hearts, minds, 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:51.480 and eventually the mouths of Soviets. So they were going 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:57.160 to have to get creative. Cocola never been on the 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.920 North Pole, and so we got colas a North Pole. 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.520 The company sponsored a famous Russian Arctic explorer. He put 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:07.720 a Cocacola in his bag, and he took his husky, 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:09.520 bringing huskies, and he went up to the North Pole 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:13.319 and took a pictures the North Pole crank, and then 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.320 it was time to head to the Kremlin. I made 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:20.520 sure that when Bush met Gorbachov there was a Coca 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:24.720 Cola on that table. So Craig starts thinking, what's the 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:28.640 next frontier. If you could go to the North Pole 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:30.160 and you can get it on the table at the Kremlin, 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:35.480 you could certainly get it in space infiltrating the Soviet 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:38.880 space station. This was going to be the most spectacular 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:45.640 triumph for Coca Cola and good old fashioned American capitalism. 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:48.400 And so Coca Cola's engineers started working away in a 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:52.200 lab in Atlanta trying to create a coke can that 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:56.920 could survive on mirror, and after months of work, it 0:11:57.000 --> 0:12:00.240 was ready, a little red can that looks a lot 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:03.959 like the ones we have here on Earth, except it 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.559 was fitted with a strange white nozzle and a metal 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:10.120 button on top. This was meant to stop it from 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:17.600 exploding in zero grabbing. On August twentieth, nineteen ninety one, 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.400 the Soviet Space Agency launched their M nine cargo spacecraft 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.800 from Bikanore in kazakh Stop. On board is a crate 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:28.760 of spaceproof Coca Cola cans, making their groundbreaking journey to 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:32.720 the space station. The next day, Sarage presses a button 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:34.800 on top of the can and it squirts the coke 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:38.760 into his mouth. Burn and bite at the back of 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:44.840 your throat. Even in space. It's a huge moment. Although 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:51.199 Serge wasn't really sure about the taste. His Ham radio 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:54.280 friend Maggie asked him, do you like Coca cola? What's 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:57.920 it taste like in space? And Sitgay said, It's all 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:02.120 right in space, he said, but insduce his better. No matter, 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:05.760 Coca Cola and capitalism had won the day. It was 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:11.680 like integration Finally, of these two opposing Cold War cultures 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:14.439 that have come together, and Coca Cola being a little 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:19.000 moment that brought people together. For idealists like Craig, it 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:21.560 seemed like the beginning of a new future for Russia, 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:25.520 Sergey and the space program. But there was a problem 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:29.439 lurking just around the corner. Not everyone in the New 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:32.839 Russia had such noble intentions as Craig. I think there's 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.440 two ways to approach this country, that's Gregg in an 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:37.960 NBC interview from the time. One is to be a 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:41.600 pioneer and the others to be a pirate and coming 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:46.360 here and try to courage the land. And it turns 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.840 out in the New Russia the line between pioneer and 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:55.040 pirate was extremely thin. Why did you put a rock 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:58.240 and propelled hand grenade through my office this morning? And 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:02.240 he said, I've been wanting to meet you, and I 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:07.760 really didn't know how else to get your attention. That's 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:22.720 after the break. Just a few months after Surge drank 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:25.240 the can of coke on the space station, the Soviet 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.640 flag came down for the very last time over the 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:33.440 Kremlin in Moscow. The hammer and sickle is lord for 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:37.120 the last time, the Soviet Union was over. The tricolor 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.320 banner of the Russian Republic now flies over the Kremlin. 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.800 Communism was dead, and while men like Craig Cohan saw 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:47.280 this as a moment of hope for the future, the 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:53.040 lives of ordinary Russians were plunged into uncertainty. I mean, 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:55.600 when you lose the system that you've grown up in 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.200 and you have no idea wor else to go. A 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:02.400 lot of people went out and planting potatoes at their dotches. 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:07.000 That's Serge Schmimon, the former New York Times correspondent in Moscow. 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.160 We've been hearing from throughout this series. Our office car 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.120 was a Volvo station wagon. So some of these people 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.800 would ask us to go with them to their dotch 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:18.800 and bring back their potatoes because you know, big bags 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:22.160 to bring them back to Moscow. They were planting potatoes 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.200 because at that point in time, potatoes were the safest 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.640 way to make sure you had food. The ruble was collapsing, 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:31.360 the shops filled up, but the number of people who 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:37.720 could afford anything plummeted. People's life savings were suddenly worthless. 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:40.800 So he went into a period of kind of an 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:45.200 elemental primitive economy where factories traded with each other. You know, 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:47.920 I'll give you a window if you give me a banana. 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:52.680 Remember hearing about the Russian black market. It always sounded 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:58.360 so spylike, so covert, so underground. Well here it is 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:03.600 at its lowest level, and strange things gained value. This 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.320 man stripped down a TV set, hoping to make enough 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.960 money just to buy milk or bread a peck of Marlboroughs. 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:15.880 Marlborough's cigarettes was roughly the equivalent of a dollar. You' Barnert, 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.800 who was a barter economy and never went anywhere without 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:24.920 four or five cartons of Marlborough's. A cigarette was better 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:29.560 value than cash. Because when communism collapsed, the new government 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:34.960 made a drastic decision. With the help of economic advisors 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:38.040 from America, they decided the best way to transition the 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:41.320 economy from a communist to a capitalist system was to 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:44.360 do it all at once. In the old Soviet Union, 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:49.600 the government controlled prices. Overnight, those price controls were removed, 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:52.040 which meant that the candy that used to cost one 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:56.520 rouble now cost two thousand. Shoppers stead in disbelief at 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:58.840 what they now have to pay for the most basic goods. 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:01.880 Ham for example, pull at more than a thousand roubles 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:04.840 a kilo. That's two months worth of wages for most people. 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:10.000 The economists called it shock therapy. You had to let 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.760 the system go, and it had to find its own bottom, 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:18.600 and it had to start rebuilding. Overnight the cash economy collapsed. 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:21.200 The problem for shoppers here these days isn't the long 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.600 lines Russians are used to waiting in line. Their concern 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:26.879 is what happens when they reached the end of that line. 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:30.000 There they'll find either bread or milk three or four 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:33.159 times higher than they were just weeks ago, or worse, 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:36.960 no food at all. This also led to a wave 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:40.040 of crime sweeping through Moscow. You had a lot of theft. 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:44.200 The streets became dangerous. They say that some people belong 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:47.159 to the mafia here. Do you know anything about that? No? No, no, 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:50.040 for us, you know, I mean we were a dressed 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.760 in Western closing in Western cars. Our car was stolen twice. 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:59.040 This man's parting shot my favorite. The mafia is forever. 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.600 Organized crime was emerging from the ruins of the Soviet Empire. 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:07.560 A period of straight up banitry set in. In order 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:09.840 to get by in the new Russia, you had to 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:12.280 do things that you would never have dreamt of just 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:17.399 a few months earlier. By early nineteen ninety two, Craig 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:20.240 Khan is setting up his Coca Cola factory in Moscow, 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:23.520 but he's beginning to realize this is not the friendly, 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:27.560 hopeful Russia he arrived in back in nineteen ninety. Things 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:30.920 have changed so quickly, and if he's going to succeed, 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.080 it's becoming clear he's going to have to change too. 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:36.800 I'm on the way to the office at five thirty 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.200 in the morning to try to start up all the equipment, 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:41.480 et cetera, etc. And I get a note from our 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:43.719 security that a Rocca propelled hand grenate just went through 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:50.600 my office. No one's hurt, but Craig is shaken. This 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:53.080 is a far cry from the quiet streets of Toronto, 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:55.560 and I said, oh, that's good. I'm glad it wasn't there. 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:59.000 So I asked the security where was it? Shot? From 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:02.199 otoshop from the big apartment block across the street. I 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:05.200 have this very clearly in my head, so I said, okay, 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:09.440 let's go find out who it is. So hard thumping 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:13.439 Craig climbs into one of those old Soviet elevators, about 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:16.160 the size of a porta potty and smelling like one too. 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:19.160 He's got no clue what he'll find at the top. 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:22.960 I go to the twelfth floor and I meet with 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.639 the head of the San Suski Simia, the san Subski family. 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:30.119 It's like a local racketeering group that started rough enough people. 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.399 I sat down with him, just one on one, and 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:36.960 I said, why did you put a rock and propelled 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.840 hand grenade through my office this morning? And he said, 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.840 I've been wanting to meet you, And I really didn't 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.199 know how else to get your attention, because I'd like 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:53.320 my guys just to be your drivers. And I said, perfect, 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:55.280 you didn't have to do that, and so I hired 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:59.520 a bunch of the guys. So now these grenade throwing 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:04.040 mobster are working for Craig and Coca Cola. The man 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:07.520 who'd come to the Soviet Union as a pioneer started 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:16.560 looking more and more like a pirate. A new breed 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:19.840 of person began to take control in Russia. While most 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:22.920 people lost their life savings after the Soviet Union collapsed, 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:30.680 a handful saw an opportunity, an opportunity to buy entire industries, oil, gas, 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:35.840 raw materials for peanuts. These people, you might know them 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:40.320 as oligarchs, became the rulers of the new capitalist Russia. 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:42.679 And that meant that people who used to be valued 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:48.600 in Soviet society, teachers, doctors, cosmonauts, no longer were. That's 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:53.440 when I remember long lines of really well dressed people selling, 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:58.879 you know, sweaters and whatever they could choose. It was 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:06.239 terribly said. Everything had turned topsy turvy. Those who had 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:10.440 been up were now down. University professors selling socks in 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:15.480 the subway, criminals working for Coca Cola, and cosmonauts now 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.920 making less money than taxi drivers. In early nineteen ninety two, 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:23.600 Serge was making five hundred rubles a month, just two 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:26.720 dollars and fifty cents at the new exchange rate. He 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:30.399 was a highly trained engineer, a national hero, still up 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:33.560 in space, risking his life for his country, and now 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:37.600 struggling to support his wife and baby daughter. And that's 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:40.400 when rumors started going around that things had gotten so 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:45.520 bad the cosmonauts were actually going on strike. There was 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:51.240 a silence from Citigay at that point. He's quite a voluble, 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:56.280 garrylous type of man. He always has something interesting to say. 0:21:56.320 --> 0:22:01.359 But there was silence at that point. That's after the break. 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:21.159 It's a sunny morning on the other side of the 0:22:21.160 --> 0:22:24.920 world from Moscow. Ham radio operator Maggie I Quinto is 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:28.640 out running errands in Colak, her little town in western Australia. 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:32.359 She parks her car on the wide, flat highway that 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:34.879 cuts through the middle of the town and gets her 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:37.879 shopping bags out of the trunk. She's heading towards the 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:40.880 bakery when a battered farm truck pulls up next to her. 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:45.600 I would be stopped in the street and people who 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:48.920 my heart they knew, would say, how are our cosmonauts? 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:54.800 Our cosmonauts. It turns out, in the months that Maggie 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:57.440 had been talking to Mirror, the whole town of Colak 0:22:57.520 --> 0:23:00.880 had fallen in love with these Soviet spacemen too. These 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:03.520 guys would pass me. I've never seen these farmers before, 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:06.520 and they look at me and point to the sky 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:12.560 and go are they okay? But today the farmer driving 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:16.160 the truck looks worried. He's heard things about the cosmonauts. 0:23:16.640 --> 0:23:21.040 The cosmonauts salaries are worthless. Their families can barely afford groceries, 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:27.679 so they're gonna stop working. They're going on strike. Maggie 0:23:27.760 --> 0:23:31.240 tries to dismiss the stories as rumors, but soon newspapers 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:34.959 or publishing stuff that's even more wild. Not only are 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:40.400 the cosmonauts on strike, they're actually stuck in space. These 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:44.720 newspaper stories have terrifying headlines like junked in space and 0:23:44.920 --> 0:23:49.600 stuck in endless orbit. They're being stranded there, They're being punished. 0:23:50.240 --> 0:23:52.960 That's what the rumors said, that they were left there deliberately, 0:23:53.440 --> 0:23:56.080 no one was going to bring them down. They even 0:23:56.119 --> 0:24:00.159 say Serage is ill. The journalists rang up Sigh his 0:24:00.280 --> 0:24:04.320 wife and asked her about his illness, which is must 0:24:04.320 --> 0:24:07.760 have been rather devastating for her to listen to. All 0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:11.920 this time, Maggie's thinking, what's going on here? She's been 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:15.160 talking to Sergee nearly every day and he seems fine, 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:20.400 chatting to her about their kids, his spacewalks, Newham radio technology, 0:24:21.320 --> 0:24:26.560 but she can't shake this doubt. Are they okay? Is 0:24:26.560 --> 0:24:33.080 there something they aren't telling me? And then one day 0:24:33.720 --> 0:24:36.800 Maggie gets a call. A radio station in Melbourne rang 0:24:36.880 --> 0:24:39.320 me and said, please, can you find out is it 0:24:39.400 --> 0:24:42.399 true about all of these things? Now? In the past, 0:24:42.480 --> 0:24:45.720 Maggie has stayed clear of asking Sarage about politics, not 0:24:45.840 --> 0:24:48.760 wanting to put him on edge. But today, with the 0:24:48.800 --> 0:24:52.400 world's press writing these strange stories and people stopping her 0:24:52.400 --> 0:24:55.240 in the street, Maggie decides she's going to be direct 0:24:55.240 --> 0:24:58.359 with Sarage. She's going to ask for the truth. What 0:24:58.560 --> 0:25:02.399 is really happening to her friends, her cosmonauts? So is 0:25:02.400 --> 0:25:05.800 it okay? I'll send them a message again electronically, and 0:25:05.840 --> 0:25:08.600 I'll ask them these questions. But there's no guarantee. They're very, 0:25:08.680 --> 0:25:10.880 very busy up there. They have much work to do, 0:25:11.000 --> 0:25:15.000 and I don't know if they'll answer. Her fingers shaking 0:25:15.000 --> 0:25:19.240 a little, Maggie started typing. So the questions. I asked them, 0:25:19.280 --> 0:25:22.920 where are you hungry? Is it true that you're on strike? 0:25:23.760 --> 0:25:27.320 Has your supply ship docked? Do you like being on strike? 0:25:28.400 --> 0:25:30.919 And they say, Segay, that you have fallen ill? Is 0:25:30.960 --> 0:25:36.400 that true? And those were the questions. Maggie hits send 0:25:37.359 --> 0:25:41.840 and she waits on mirror. Sarah Gay sees the question 0:25:41.880 --> 0:25:46.480 flood in. He's taken aback for months. Speaking to Maggie 0:25:46.520 --> 0:25:48.640 had just been a bit of light relief, a bit 0:25:48.640 --> 0:25:52.200 of fun, But between the lines of her anxious questions, 0:25:52.520 --> 0:25:55.320 he can see her concern for him. He knows he 0:25:55.359 --> 0:26:02.280 has to respond straight away. Minutes Maggie's old Tshiba is 0:26:02.320 --> 0:26:08.360 flashing with a new message, Greetings Rita, which is my name, 0:26:08.640 --> 0:26:11.320 he said. Australia is located at the other side of 0:26:11.320 --> 0:26:14.720 the Earth from Moscow. It's very far so news is 0:26:14.760 --> 0:26:18.119 greatly changed when it reaches you. People in Australia and 0:26:18.240 --> 0:26:21.280 Moscow wok upside down from each other. Maybe this is 0:26:21.280 --> 0:26:25.320 the reason your news arrives reversed. But what about the 0:26:25.320 --> 0:26:28.960 strike everyone's talking about. We're Sergey and his colleagues refusing 0:26:29.000 --> 0:26:31.720 to work, and he said that there was a threatened 0:26:31.760 --> 0:26:35.879 strike at flight Control. But it's impossible, he said, for 0:26:35.960 --> 0:26:38.400 him to go on strike. And as you can imagine, 0:26:38.520 --> 0:26:40.760 they have to keep things running on the space station 0:26:41.240 --> 0:26:43.680 and if they were to go on strike, they would die. 0:26:44.359 --> 0:26:48.080 Maggie is relieved, but then she gets another call from 0:26:48.080 --> 0:26:52.399 a journalist. Listen, I've got this tip off. You're not 0:26:52.440 --> 0:26:55.440 going to believe this, but apparently the Russians are thinking 0:26:55.440 --> 0:27:03.240 of selling the space station. Maggie thinks fake news. She 0:27:03.400 --> 0:27:06.120 knows things are changing over there, but the Russians would 0:27:06.119 --> 0:27:09.439