 Hi, thank you, nice to see you. Welcome to Seymour's world at Think Tech, Hawaii. Can you tell I just came back from Russia? I spent the last two weeks in Russia with my wife Sue. I was working a little bit and playing a little bit and we had an absolutely wonderful time. It was actually a trip to study a little. Can I take this hat off with you guys' mind? This is a military hat that we received as a gift from Konstantin, who is my host. Actually, we could bring up maybe a picture of his website and I'll explain a little bit about what he does. His name is Dr. Kostin and he works out of St. Petersburg, Russia. He was here in Hawaii and was a guest on Seymour's world. What Konstantin does is really help the government in all of their efforts in their economic planning. He is probably one of the foremost consultants when it comes to international planning as well. So when he came here to Hawaii, it was during the Sochi Olympics and he gave us a very, very in-depth interview of what was going on in Russia. Now that was several years ago and he asked me to come back to Russia because I had been there before and to study a little bit about what's going on in Russia and where it's at. So I'm not going to give you all of the sound bites, I'm not going to give you everything that you're hearing about, is Russia hacking all of the world's computers? Is Russia doing this or doing that? You can watch CNN and do all that kind of stuff. I want to give you a little bit more about the in-depth Russia. What's happening with the people in Russia? Well, first of all, we all know that one of the major issues has been the economy. And the economy has slowed pretty dramatically. The ruble has dropped by two-thirds. That means as a tourist coming to Russia, you are saving a huge amount of money and you could buy a lot of goods. And we're going to talk about some of these goods here. But more important than that is what's happening to the people because of the embargoes that are being placed by the Western world. In effect, the first issue we find is that most people are still very, very happy in Russia. They don't intend to move to the West. They like the opportunities of the West. But here's an example of what is going on and why it is going on. Sue and I were having dinner in a restaurant at the St. Regis Hotel, a very, very nice hotel in Moscow. And our server was a young woman, about 25, 20, no, a little older, probably closer to 30 years old, spoke perfect English. And we got to know her a little bit. And I asked her, you speak such good English. Did you learn it in school? In your gymnasia, gymnasia in Russian is the equivalent of high school. Or did you learn it in college? And she said, sir, I'm an attorney. And I looked at her and I said, pardon me. And she says, yes, I'm an attorney. I make about $400 a month. And I have to work as a waitress to help my lifestyle and what I have to do in life. And I was flabbergasted because we know in the West how much attorneys make. And then we found out the doctors are in the same boat. Doctors are also making an average of $400 a month. Now it's not all bad news because they get a free apartment with them. But the way the Russian government has made this work, you get the apartment, but you only get to own the apartment after you work for seven years. So for seven years, you have to work at very low wages. You live in that apartment, but then you get to own the apartment after seven years. Some say that's good. Some say that's bad. So I asked her point blank, I said, would you like to move somewhere? Would you like to move to the United States or England or anywhere? And she said, no. She loves her life there. She loves her family there. She wishes she could make more money. And she realizes that she is doing well where she's at. Not perfectly well, but she's okay where she's at. So I think one of the biggest topics that we have to discuss is, is everybody in that same boat? No. The first thing we have to realize is the style of living in Russia is very, very good. People are able to go out to dinner, restaurants are full, they travel quite a bit. They're not affected too much by the international economy because they live within their means in their communities and in their country. We of course look at products like this, caviar. And we say, wow, this is caviar from Russia and it's very expensive. This caviar here in the United States is $58 for this tin of caviar. It's not the most expensive. It's the middle of the road caviar, but it's $58. Sue and I bought this caviar in a supermarket in Russia for $3. Now vodka, we all know vodka. We know it comes from Russia. This happens to be a very good vodka. I priced the vodka here locally, not this exact brand because it's not imported directly as it is, but a similar brand. This vodka here is $38. This vodka, when you buy it in Russia, is $3, which is the same price as Coca-Cola in Russia. So it is so strange when you're sitting at a restaurant and you order a vodka and many people do orders vodka and they say $3. I mean, we can't even believe that it's that price. And then if you want to order a Coca-Cola, it's the same price. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to just take a little sip of the vodka, if you don't mind. Ah, thank you because I didn't want to show me drinking vodka in the air. It's probably not good. Let's start with the Kremlin. The Kremlin is what you're seeing right now. The Kremlin, of course, is something that you recognize as the home of Mr. Vladimir Putin or, as I call him, Vladi. No personal connection, but I like the name Vladi. The Kremlin that you see, the original walls are there, but the wall that you see that is on the right and the left side is the new wall of the Kremlin. It is a huge property. It is absolutely magnificent. We took a tour of the Kremlin. We saw everything that we could see. And the funniest experience I have is this story. Sue and I were with a number of other tourists there. There were probably a few thousand tourists. And I said, look at what's across the way. And when I looked across the way, I said, that's a very interesting building. I stepped off the sidewalk onto the pavement of the street. And immediately I was stopped by guards with machine guns. And they said, yet, yet, yet, which as we all know means no, no, no. And I had to step back on the sidewalk. And I realized, wait a second, this is pretty strict stuff. This is not that easy, not that free. So the story of the Kremlin and seeing all of what was going on during that time, it's an example that dictatorship is not the same as democracy. And the dictatorship that Vladimir Putin has, it may work very well over there, but I was not too satisfied with it. I think that, and, you know, Donald Trump has said something that a lot of people are taking offence to, that Mr. Putin has done a very good job. Well, I can tell you from the inside, we didn't see that he is not doing a very good job. The streets are so clean. There is not one bit of dirt on the street, not one homeless person on the street. There are people driving Mercedes and Porsches and BMWs and fancy cars. And then they could be part of the oligarch system. There's no doubt about it. And they could be part of the new Russia. But at the same time, we saw people from all over the world coming, visiting Russia, understanding what was going on in Russia. Here's an example, as you look on the screen, of a typical beautiful old building. And in this building alone, this was a very, very nice office building in Moscow. Look at the workmanship on that building. All of Moscow, St. Petersburg, most of the major cities are exactly like this. They are beautiful. You can walk for miles. And we did walk for miles. And every single corner, you're going to see buildings like this. Let's go to the next slide. Now there, of course, is the famous Armitage. No, I'm sorry, that's not the Armitage. That is Red Square. And the Red Square is where everything happens. Any time you see the marches and you see when they have their tanks and everything go through, this is where they do it. It's impressive. That building goes for blocks and blocks and blocks. It's really beautiful. Oh, there's Vika. Vika was our guide in Moscow. And there's Sue, of course. Vika, as you can see, is about six foot two. And Sue is, what I think, a very reasonable five foot seven. And she took us around to Gorky Park. I want to stay on that slide for a second, because Gorky Park is in the middle of Moscow, which is a 15 million, there's 15 million people who live in Moscow. And this is a huge, beautiful facility where all Moskvites come on the weekends, on the holidays. Everything is provided. They have bullcourts. I don't know if you're familiar with what bullcourts are, but that's a game that they play and people play and there's marches and it's a very, very amazing thing. If you could take New York City and take Central Park, this is about five to six times the size of Central Park. Absolutely beautiful. I want to tell you a little story about Vika. Vika is about 28 years old and she's married to her husband. And she is absolutely a wonderful young woman who's starting a new business. What's her business going to be? And part of what I do, as you know, is consulting. And she wants to open up a business catering to Chinese tourists. You're probably saying Chinese tourists? Yes, because Chinese tourists are the number one by 10 times of any other tourist coming to Russia. And we saw them in droves. We saw them in St. Petersburg. We saw them in Moscow. We saw them in the Kremlin. We saw them in the airmitage. There are so many Chinese tourists coming to Russia. And yet they don't have a way of truly servicing them. Here's the story that goes with it. Sue and I were in the gum department store. Gum department store is the largest store, it has about 450 stores inside the largest shopping center in Moscow. And we're touring around and we see all these fancy stores, Chanel's and Louis Vuitton and fancy watch stores and all that kind of stuff. And we go into one store that specializes in food, a matter of fact, like this. And we walk through the store and we buy a few things that we needed. And we get to the cash area and there's three Chinese men with shopping carts. And they get to the caviar's area like this. Nobody to help them. And they are taking the caviar and shoving it in because it's so cheap. And shoving it into their shopping baskets. They're taking vodka, they're taking these dolls that you see, and they're just taking as much as they can. Now it's amazing, you have to understand that being so cheap in Russia and being able to take it out may be a different story. But China and Russia have an agreement where there's no duty and no tax. So they're able to take all of this stuff back. And what Vika is going to do, she is going to set up a business where she will have an online store for the Chinese people to be able to buy goods from Russia. So I can tell you, I was so impressed with her. And a lot of the other people that we met who were not aggressive in nature but very interested in doing business, very interested in finding out how to do business around the world. And of course today, with the internet and social media, that is very, very easy. We've got to take a short break and we'll be back with more of Seymour's World in Russia. Let me just make sure you guys get a good picture of this, my hat. And of course I need to take another sip of my vodka. I'll be back in a minute. Thank you for watching Think Tech. I'm Grace Chang, the new host for Global Connections. You can find me here live every Thursday at 1 p.m., where we'll be talking to people around the islands or visiting the islands who are connected in various aspects of global affairs. So please tune in, and aloha, and thanks for watching. Hi, I'm Chris Leetham with Think Tech Hawaii, and I'd like to ask you to come watch my show, The Economy in You, each Wednesday at 3 p.m. For a very healthy summer, watch Viva Hawaii. We're giving you the best tips, and with our best health coach here. So Viva, health coach, Viva la comida saludable. Aloha, everybody. My name is Mark Shklav. I'd like you to join me for my program, Law Across the Sea, on ThinkTechHawaii.com. Aloha. Good afternoon. Howard Wiig, Code Green, ThinkTechHawaii.com. I appear on Mondays at 3 o'clock, and my gig is energy efficiency, doing more with less. It's the most cost-effective way that we in Hawaii are going to achieve 100% clean energy by the year 2045. I look forward to being with you. Aloha. Hi. Welcome back, or shall I say, Pasiba, Nastrovia. Welcome back to Russia, and our trip from Russia. You notice I refilled this a little bit, and this segment might be a little off, but we'll have some fun. Excuse me, will I get my throat? I think I could really start liking this stuff. Okay. Let's get back to Russia. I've got four pages of questions from people, so I'm going to try to answer them as best as I can. I'll take the hat off, because it makes me look a little strange, I think. The first question is, what do you see as a difference since the collapse of the Soviet Union? Well, I think the major difference is the freedom that democracy is given to Russians in many ways, and the first one I saw was religion. Every church we went to was magnificent, the Church of the Blood, and we're going to show you some. The Church of the Blood, St. Isaac's Church, the Hermitage, which, as you know, is one of the most beautiful museum churches in the world, the largest, by the way, in the world, is totally open. They're not warehouses anymore. All of it, everything has been redone, and the gold, and the lapis, and everything that you'll see is now back to what it was when religion was allowed in Russia. And here's a perfect example. This was actually in the Red Square area, and we walked into this church that you're seeing. It was beautiful. It was absolutely amazing. We couldn't take pictures inside, unfortunately. But you could see that the Russian government is allowing freedom totally. And you will see even a synagogue that we went into that is one of the nicest I've ever seen in the world. This picture that you're seeing is part of another church that we went into. You could see the dome on it and the ceiling inside, totally restored, spent millions and probably billions of dollars on restoring what was there. It was so beautiful. Let's see another one if we can get it. There is another ceiling of another church, and as you could see, it's all stained glass, all done by hand, all giving the feeling that you could express yourself in religion in any which way you can. Let's see the next one. The Hermitage. I want to stay there for a minute. The Hermitage is blocks long. It is magnificent. First it was a palace for Peter the Great, and then they turned it into a museum. So it's the only museum palace in the world. It is the largest. It would take days, days and days to see everything. We were extremely fortunate that we were able to get a private tour of the Hermitage. And after three hours it was like information overload, and when you have information overload, it's almost impossible to be able to see more and more. But look at the front of it. You see what's in front of the Hermitage that day? They're going to have a parade. They're going to show the people of St. Petersburg all of the equipment that they have ready to go for the winter. And they actually had a parade that day with thousands of these vehicles. It was incredible. Let's see the next one. Ah, another one of those churches in St. Petersburg that makes you think of a decorated cake. This is called the Church of the Saviors Blood. Beautiful, amazing. Entrance fee was $2. It was inside the workmanship was beautiful. I think we even have some pictures of the inside of this one I was able to show. There you go. Look at that. It was wild. And you can step right up. You can touch it. Everything there is for people to get very well acquainted with. That's a close-up of the domes of the Church of the Saviors Blood. Now you know that St. Petersburg is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And it was built by Peter the Great because he wanted to imitate Venice. So it was built on a system of canals. And the canals that he had connected the city entirely so that you don't need taxis. You could get anywhere by canal. St. Petersburg in my opinion, and I visited over 100 countries in the world, is probably one of the most beautiful cities. There's another picture of it, and that's taken from up above. Let's see the next one. Now this is a synagogue. Now I have to tell you that antisemitism is quite prevalent in most of Europe. And when you go to France and you go to Germany and you go to a synagogue to visit a synagogue, you'll see people outside. You have to go through a magnetic gate and you have guys with machine guns not here. And how impressive is that that you could go to St. Petersburg in Russia and walk right into the synagogue. It's beautiful as you can see, totally restored to where it was. There's 12,000, I think 12,000 Jews that participate in the synagogue with total freedom. So that was one of the things that I was most impressed with. Let's see the next one. And this is of course a typical Russian government building. And you could see it's in St. Petersburg. You can see the boats. That's one of the canals. It's beautiful. We couldn't get into the building because it is a military building. This is where their defense department is and all of their other departments. But it's really quite something. Now I do want to answer a couple more questions. Has capitalism truly taken over from communism? The answer is no. As much as we want to believe it, we all know that Mr. Putin won the last election by 86%. I have to tell you, he really won the election by 100%. Because it's very difficult to mount another party against him. There were others. We saw a lot of campaigning by other people. But he is truly a very, very smart man in his own way. And he has his finger on the pulse in Russian. And it's something that I don't think will ever go away. He is that powerful right now. Next question. What about graft and corruption, as described in the media? I really didn't want to cover this, but there is in every society, and I think even in our society. I mean, if you see what's going on with Hillary and with Donald and what they're accusing each other of, I don't think it's any different anywhere in the world. And I think I have no definitive proof about it, but obviously we believe it's there. I mean, just today, and today is the 7th of October, there was a release that Russia was truly responsible for all of the hacking. So who really knows? What do the average citizens think of Putin? Well, believe it or not, I honestly felt a very similar feeling to what I had when we visited in China, where the people respect their leader, but are not going to say much about them. And in my opinion, I think that most people in Russia and in China, and in Vietnam for that matter, are very cognizant of the fact that they don't want to say anything against their leaders, and Putin is one of them. Next question. What is the result of the oil price collapse? Well, I mentioned the first part, and the first part was the rubble. What's happened to the rubble? It's down by 65% right now. So their exports are obviously much less expensive, but the sanctions against Russia by the Western world is having a fairly large effect on it. You couldn't tell from the tourists, and they are bringing those tourists in by bus loads, by boat loads, and by plane loads. So tourism, I think, is going to be one of the major factors in the resurgence of Russia. Here's one, I guess, from somebody Jewish. Being Jewish, did you feel or sense any anti-Semitism? The answer is absolutely zero. I did not feel anything, and of course, that was well expressed in my discussion about the synagogue, zero. We did not feel any anti-Semitism whatsoever. So I felt more anti-Semitism in Germany than I felt in Russia or in France, for that matter. It is obviously prevalent, and it's there, but it's not evident, which is important. Is the ordinary citizen better off today? Probably the most difficult question to answer, because the ordinary citizen has to live within their means, and their means in Russia are not easy. With the rubble where it's at, they have to live with Russian products. If they're trying to import products, it becomes extremely expensive. So who knows, it's a difficult issue and not one that I can actually discuss without going into great, great detail. What you see on the table here are all Russian goods. So this is a box of wonderful chocolates. This is a box of chocolates for export, but given to people, and you could see all of the different highlights of, this is from St. Petersburg. And this box cost us $1, $1 US, but of course in rubles, it's much more expensive. Caviar that you see here at $3 in rubles is very expensive to them, and you don't see too many people buy them. Now this item that you see here is totally touristy, and of course, everybody buys it, and you know them as the Russian dolls. And what happens, of course, you put one doll into the other, and then it goes like this, and then it goes into here, and this goes into here, and this goes into here, and look at that. Can you see it? Now that is, I think, the quintessential Russian gift, because everybody calls them the Russian dolls. They have another name, I'm sorry, I can't remember it because I have too much of this. Excuse me, I have to take one more drink. So it's one of those trips that I had, and thanks to Konstantin, I have to say for those of you who are interested in doing business in Russia, you should contact him, and you could reach me or come back to our show and we'll give you his contact information. But he was, there's his website, Konstantin Consulting, and he was wonderful in explaining to us everything that, how what we saw was, how do you translate it into American thought processes versus Russian thought processes? I think if you ask me what was the most important feature of our trip, the most important feature was to see people smiling so much, people happy, no dirt on the street, no homeless on the street. So socialism is still alive and well in Russia, but capitalism is there too. That's how you see Mercedes and you see all of those other things that are going. So I wish I could tell you more about Russia, but unfortunately our show has to end today, or it has to end now, and I want to give you one final important fact that you must remember about Russia. If you want vodka, drink Russian vodka, because it's delicious. Aloha.