Former KGB Maj. Nikolai Nazarov sits at his temporary desk at Prudential Associates, a private investigations firm in Rockville, surrounded by copies of Inc. magazine.
The boss once worked for U.S. Army Counterintelligence.
The guy in the next office is a former CIA agent.
Put it this way: If through some time warp Nikolai Nazarov, KGB counterintelligence officer, should encounter Nikolai Nazarov, novice capitalist entrepreneur, he'd have to place himself under arrest.
But Mr. Nazarov, 38, urbane, balding and bearded, takes the little joke history has played on him in stride. He's here for five weeks as a guest of his old enemy, the U.S. government, to learn how Americans run the kind of business he wants to build.
"Communism? I still consider the idea of communism to be very attractive," he says, with a trace of sadness, in the almost flawless English of the KGB Academy. "But it's the horizon. Everyone sees it. No one can reach it."
What he believes he can reach is less lofty. If once he struggled with tomes of Marxist theory, now he pores over "Guerrilla Marketing" and "How to Write a Business Plan."
"I want to create a highly profitable business, perhaps not so much for me as for my son," he says. Indeed, the business cards he's just had printed bear the quaintly capitalist name, "Nazarov & Son" -- even though his son, Sergei, is just 10 years old.
"I'm an optimist," Mr. Nazarov says.
The U.S. Information Agency program that has brought Mr. Nazarov and about 350 other Russian optimists to this country this year -- including 30 to Maryland -- is called Business for Russia. It places novice Russian entrepreneurs in internships with U.S. businesses, exposing them to the intricacies of the market.
"It's been a great program for us," says Brandt Hagedorn, regional operations manager in Baltimore for Hobart Corp., a major manufacturer of food-preparation equipment, where Sultan Tarchinsky, 37, of Moscow has been interning. "I guess the surprising thing for me is that after living in that system all these years, Russians still have the desire to be independent, to build a business of their own, to make a profit."
A few placements have worked out poorly. Some Russians with inadequate English were not screened out, while a few have taken advantage of the free airfare and then failed to pursue their internship. Of 270 interns who arrived in last spring's contingent, five were sent home early, says Katharine S. Guroff, a senior U.S. Information Agency program officer.
Some positive surprises
Other surprises have been more positive. Many of the Russian interns have picked up the Western art of networking, unheard of in the hierarchical and suspicion-bound Soviet economy. "After they go home, they're keeping in touch, sharing information and making deals," Ms. Guroff says.
The Russians have been struck that business people here incorporate more than profit in their definition of self-interest. "They're surprised to see that the Americans care whether potholes are filled in their towns, and that there's an ethic of community service and philanthropy," Ms. Guroff says.
The cost to U.S. taxpayers is about $7,000 per intern, or $7 million for the 1,000 Russian interns expected next year as the program expands.
Mr. Nazarov's placement was determined, appropriately enough, by the Rockville private eye's advertising. Richard Schreck, a University of Maryland official who administers Maryland's portion of Business for Russia, initially called police departments, but realized they couldn't teach marketing. So he looked in the Yellow Pages, where Prudential Associates' number -- (800) SAM-SPADE -- caught his eye.
Robert L. Miller founded Prudential 21 years ago after getting out of the military, where he'd performed background investigations for Army Counterintelligence and wanted to put his experience to work in the private sector. So he appreciated Mr. Nazarov's ambition to do likewise.
"All his time here, every waking hour, he's been working on his business ideas," says Mr. Miller. "On his days off, he goes to the Library of Congress."
Mr. Miller, 54, says that more than anything else, he's tried to convey American self-confidence.
"I think I can do anything I set my mind to do. Russians are more pessimistic and accepting of limitations," he says. When he introduced Mr. Nazarov to a friend in the vending machine business, "I told him straight out, 'Vending machines can make you a multimillionaire.' "
But Mr. Nazarov is determined to stick to what he knows, and what he knows is investigations. For more than a decade, ending with his resignation from the KGB in early 1991, he kept track of foreign visitors to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and Soviet citizens who might be recruited by foreign intelligence agencies.
After leaving the KGB, he worked for a Soviet-German shoe-making venture and then started an investigations firm with two former colleagues.
But he wanted still more independence, so he bought out his colleagues and struck out on his own. He hopes to persuade U.S. companies to hire him to check out prospective Russian business partners.
Network of informers
Nazarov & Son will benefit from his KGB contacts and his skill in handling bribe-seeking apparatchiks, he suggests -- though not in so many words. "We've created an exclusive network of informers," he says.
Mr. Nazarov's first U.S. trip, in February, was a disaster, he cheerfully admits. He made few useful business contacts and discovered that his KGB espionage skills were no match for New York subway pickpockets.
"I hate New York," he says.
This time he's going home with a head full of ideas on how to build his business and warm memories of a few former U.S intelligence officers, such as former CIA agent William E. Handford, who occupies the next office at Prudential. "There's a mutual respect between guys like us," Mr. Handford says.
"We never considered ourselves enemies," Mr. Nazarov avers of the spies on opposite sides of the Cold War. "We were just, uh, counterparts. And right now, we're in the same business.
"They're teaching me about marketing tools," he says, standing in smoker's exile on Prudential's back porch. "Good American phrase, 'marketing tools.' "