I was born in Russia long before Perestroika, and I remember
times when life in Russia was much different. My home town
is Vladivostok, but I spend a large chunk of my life in
Khabarovsk as well.

I moved in the USA about 20 years ago by curiosity, but liked
it so much that settled here in the beautiful North-West, got
married, got two kids and have no plans to move anywhere else.

In my life I tried a lot of different occupations. Back there
in Russia, besides of graduating from Far-Eastern Technical
University in 1988, I built and run a small company selling
ice cream in home made cones on streets of Vladivostok.
Staring from scratch we grow to company of 28 employees with
2 production places and 4 street stands. The best thing, in
2 years of operating, we didn't pay a penny to bureaucrats, or
to the "security" service.

In the USA I started from a blank page again. I worked as
night janitor in the supermarket, valet parking attendant,
welder in the shipyard, carpenter for general contractor,
interpreter on the fish vessel, operation manager for fishing
company, factory manager, QA tester, software test engineer,
and lately self employee in the wood care business.

I'm not done yet. Hope to find the balance between earning
enough and time for spending it.