Vlad Rekovski - Manage your dream. Your opportunities are endless

But this was not the last sad news. I started asking Dmitry: “How are your friends? How are Sanya, Yurka, Pasha, Seryoga? How are they?” Dmitry was silent for a while, poured a full glass of red wine, which I brought with me, and, before drinking, said with tears in his eyes: “You know, bro, and there is no one else alive. I was the only one left. Let’s drink to them!”

After I wrote these lines about the fate of my friend, I paused. I walked out onto the balcony of our apartment and looked out over the beautifully lit garden and decorative pools with fountains. It was already dark, and the gone heat of the day gave way to the pleasant warmth of the late evening. I felt a light, fresh scent of a green garden and, at the same time, the specific humidity of the Goa air. Voices came from the restaurant …

We stayed for two weeks at this hotel. Today our sixth day of stay ended here, and my family was very happy with both the hotel itself and the very warm, about thirty degrees, water in the ocean. We walked a lot in the evenings along the endless sandy beach, which at low tide turns into a huge coastal area with very dense coverage due to the minute sand. The hotel had direct access to the sea. The sandy beach and its bar and fish restaurant were separated from the main small three-story buildings by a golf course partially planted with coconut trees. More than a dozen white Indian herons roamed the field every day. Today is the seventh of November. For the fourth day I am writing my book, which, perhaps, will remain an essay about my life for my children. Maybe … This is only the seventeenth page for today, which I wrote, but at the time when you read this book, the page number will change to a higher number due to subsequent updates and changes in the text. I recall and describe those events in my life that are important to me, and which in my future played an important role in decision-making. So let’s go back to 1993.

1993 year. New changes. Another life

I graduated from university in 1993. Sergei and I had earned a small amount of capital by this time, and it was time to properly invest part of the money we earned. We decided to open a line for the production of pasta in the region, near Yekaterinburg. Pasta is a product that is always bought, regardless of the economic situation in the country, income level and the status of buyers in society. In addition, this product, according to our preliminary calculations, gives a fairly decent profitability – from 100 to 200 percent. To do this, it is necessary to organize properly all processes, from the purchase of raw materials to the organization of production at a sufficiently high level, and most importantly, to establish sales of products. With regard to sales, we have already developed numerous contacts and connections with chain and individual stores; several dozen retail outlets and networks have cooperated with us. In addition, we were preparing a program for selling in bulk to other regions. Of course, the wholesale price was significantly different from the sales price, but the capacity utilization of the equipment we intended to buy had to be maximum. In addition, there are other economic indicators for the successful operation of any enterprise, such as fixed and floating costs of production, transportation costs, depreciation charges, taxes, and so on. We had a business plan ready. It remains for us to find suitable areas, which turned out to be not such an easy task. We tried to ensure that all conditions meet our requirements, namely: the distance from Yekaterinburg is no more than fifty kilometers, the proximity of transport links, the area must have a reserve for the subsequent expansion of production for the lines of baking bread and other bakery products. We also needed space for warehouses – both for raw materials and for finished products; the possibility of opening a company store directly at the factory and the availability of communications: electricity of sufficient power, heating, sewerage and water.

I was already married at that time. My wife studied in the same course as me. We practically did not know each other and did not communicate after my return from the army, having studied together for six months. And in March, I invite her to my twentieth birthday, which I was preparing to celebrate at the “Big Ural” restaurant. We began to maintain a relationship after this celebration, and we got married in the fall of 1993. The parents of my future wife were working in Cuba at that time, they were building a nuclear power plant there. She came to Yekaterinburg from Ukraine, where their family has lived for the past ten years.

The last, fifth course has come to an end. In June, we passed all exams and received our diplomas. Our student life ended there, the life that became a real discovery for me. These seven years of my life, including two years of military service, opened the gates to the future for me. These were the brightest, most dynamic and the most memorable years for me. During this time, I have created a foundation for my beliefs, goals and positive thoughts. I became who I wanted to be and who I wanted to remain for the years to come. Only one task remained – not to stop, but to develop and improve further.

I needed to decide on the next place of residence, taking into account our business plans with Sergei. At that time, I did not have my own housing in Yekaterinburg. But my wife and I decided to go to the nature reserve and visit my parents before we get to grips with the housing issue. I haven’t been there that often in the last three years.

The road to the Ilmensk Reserve, going through the towns of Kasli and Karabash, took four hours: the shortest route by bus from Yekaterinburg to Miass was 160 kilometers. It was very convenient for us that we got off the bus, passing the village of Novaya Andreevka, and, bypassing all other transfers, we found ourselves two kilometers from the Karmakkul cordon.

Many names of villages in this region, like the names of almost all the lakes of the Southern Urals, have Tatar names. The name “Karmakkul” means, for example, “hook lake”. Kul is a lake. The neighboring lake, two hundred meters later, is called Syrytkul, then, two kilometers later, Terenkul, and so on. The reserve itself was formed back in 1918, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin signed a decree on the creation of the Ilmensk mineralogical reserve. In our time, the reserve is called “Ilmensk Mineralogical Reserve named after V.I. Lenin”.

The walk to the reserve takes about twenty minutes: you need to overcome a kilometer ascent through the first mountain range 400 meters high, and then go down to the foot of Lake Karmakkul. Another ridge of the same mountain range stretches from the opposite side of the lake – Ilmensk. It is more picturesque than the first, and its height is already 650 meters. Lake Karmakkul is connected by rivers with two other lakes included in the reserve. One of the most picturesque and deepest reservoirs of the reserve – Lake Ishkul with several islands – is located in the northern direction, five kilometers away. The protected zone, for which my father was responsible, consisted of the territory from our lake and part of Lake Ishkul with a total length of eight kilometers from north to south, and from west to east – the entire territory from one to the other border with an average width of seven to eight kilometers. The peculiarity of the security zone is that the entrance and entry into the reserve is completely prohibited. For sixteen years the reserve has become my home for me.

When I came to my parents, I saw that my father’s health had deteriorated. The disease slowly crept closer and closer despite all his efforts and positive mood. The reason for the acceleration of negative dynamics was the fact that Russia stopped purchasing some medicines in Europe in 1993, and instead began to use analogues of domestic production. His condition deteriorated sharply in just three months, during which his father took a Russian-made drug. My mommy told me about this in detail, that’s what I still call her!