[00:00:00] Announcer: Due to the themes of this podcast, listener discretion is advised. Lock your doors, close the blinds, change your passwords. This is Secrets and Spies. Secrets and Spies is a podcast that dives into the world of espionage, terrorism, geopolitics, and intrigue. This podcast is produced and hosted by Chris Carr. [00:00:37] Chris Carr: On today's podcast, I'm joined by author and entrepreneur, Bruce Talley, and he joins us today to talk about the complexities of running a business in Russia as an American. We've got everything here from navigating the complex legal system to corrupt border guards and Bruce's encounters with the FSB, which is very interesting. Bruce also shares some insights from this recent visit to Ukraine, so we've got a jam packed episode here full of insights. So I hope you find this episode interesting and enjoyable. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. Take care. [00:01:07] Announcer: The opinions expressed by guests on secrets and spies do not necessarily represent those of the producers and sponsors of this podcast. [00:01:30] Chris: Hello, Bruce, welcome to the podcast. How are you? [00:01:33] Bruce Talley: Fine. A little bit tired after a return trip last night from Ukraine, but glad to be here with [00:01:38] Chris: you. Chris, you've been traveling a lot through some interesting places, which we'll get into. But was your journey sort of to and from Ukraine? What's that like of traveling in? 'cause there's an active war zones that must be quite challenging. [00:01:48] Bruce: Yeah, it's um, it's uh, a lot of overland travel. I usually fly into, um, Warsaw, Poland, and travel. I've traveled by car, bus train, uh, from there that there is a direct train that goes from Warsaw to, uh, Kyiv. It's about 17, 18 hours and then Oh wow. And then we tried, we were, were there for a few days for business, did some things quite busy, and then went to Aviv and wound up, uh, which is on the Slovakian border across from there. Flew back out of Che to, uh, points West. So, [00:02:23] Chris: out of interest, is it expensive getting into Ukraine on the train and stuff? Well, [00:02:28] Bruce: the, the train, um, it, it kind of depends on the class service that you get. There are, uh, occasionally you get a two, two person, uh, cabin more often. It's four. Um, it's, it's not terribly expensive. I think it was something like. A ticket ticket and it was an overnight ticket, so it wasn't, wasn't so much, um, traveling within Ukraine right now is relatively inexpensive. There's not huge demand in the hotels, as you might guess. Yeah, yeah. Um, and restaurants are very expensive, and my memories of Ukraine pre-war are that it actually seems less expensive, which seems a little counterintuitive with some of the shortages that might happen. But yeah. For the benefit of the audience, [00:03:08] Chris: please could you just tell us a little bit about yourself? [00:03:10] Bruce: Sure. Um, I, I've kind of bounced around a bit. So I was born in South Dakota, grew up on a farm there. Later on moved to about as soon as I could to Southern California, and I found myself in the, uh, American capital markets, working for an investment banking firm that specializes in bond issues. We underwrote and sold, traded, uh, municipal bonds. California has a huge market for those. For your, um, non-American, uh. Listeners, it's a great way, or it's a way that under the American system that a lot of the infrastructure is finance. So there are thousands of issuers and it's a, it's huge market. I did very well working for that company. Our offices were in Solana Beach, fantastic spot in coastal, north San Diego County. Um, uh, eventually I beat, I ran west coast sales for that company and then later on I had this idea that Russia was going to democratize and, um, have a, I guess, the rule of law and join the responsible community of nations and that there would be a lot of opportunity there, as it was a huge market. Had somewhat romantic notions about Russia from earlier reading and following, um, you know, the Soviet Union in the press from reading a lot of Russian, Soviet literature and, and history. So, um, I. Maybe a little bit naive on some of the, my ideas about what, what Russia was really like. Mm, well, well I often say that, you know, whenever I see the, um, anything about the Dunning Kruger effect, I think, well, let's see. There were extended period where I, where I was at the mountain of stupid there, when I thought I knew a lot more than I did. So, [00:04:49] Chris: wow. Yeah. That's fun. Being in the twenties, I remember, you know, in the early two thousands. I, I regret it now 'cause I never went to Russia, but, uh, I remember reading a lot about Russia in my very early twenties, which was in the, um, early two thousands. And it, it seemed like a very exciting place to go. But, uh, unfortunately in the last sort of few years, it feels like, uh, probably a place to avoid for now. But maybe I'm wrong in that, but, uh, but yeah. No, you've had some good adventures by the sounds of things. [00:05:13] Bruce: Yes, I did. And, and, and I think your, your instinct is it's a good place to stay away from. I mean, I, uh, I don't know if that the risk calculation's quite the same for a British citizen, but as an American, you, um. You're target. I mean, um, and, and this was part of the reason, one of the reasons that I left in 2014 is I recognized it was no longer, uh, a safe place as an American. I mean, clearly I have high risk tolerance anyway, but, um, due to some interactions with the security services, um. Which you may wanna ask me about. Um, I knew, yeah, [00:05:45] Chris: yeah, totally. Well, tell us a bit about this sort of journey then you've been on. So you've been working in the financial markets in Slo Beach, California, and you ended up in sort of post-Soviet Russia, which is a remarkable journey in itself. So you mentioned you had this sort of romantic idea, so sort of originally drew you there, but what, what made you sort of stay in Russia and talk a bit about that early period. 'cause this is the early two thousands, or is it the late nineties you were there? Yeah. [00:06:06] Bruce: Yeah. So I, I, I went, I did a lot of traveling and scuba diving was kind of my forte, but I was also interested in, you know, other places in the world. So I, my, uh, my career allowed me quite a bit of independence and I just went outta curiosity. I'd read, as I said, I'd read a lot, um, when I was about, when I was very small, my. Father had this book, uh, Khrushchev's Memoirs, and I didn't understand everything that was going on in that book, but I read it and I was fascinated. And of course, this Cold War period and all this. And, um, so it was just in my brain. And then later there was a film that I watched. It was many, many years after it was made, but it was Dr. Z. Mm-hmm. And, uh, of course romantic film and um, you know, certain sort of universal themes. Kind of grabbed me, I think, you know, maybe Mexico does this to some people, or Italy or the United Kingdom, but there was something about it grabbed me. And so I always read about it. I had the opportunity in 1998 in the middle of Rubal crisis, my very close friend and I decided kind of on a whim, went to Moscow. And it was just as the rubal collapsed. And it was fascinating to see this post-Soviet City that really hadn't made the tradition to a, you know, big, fast place that it has become now. It felt a little dilapidated and, but it was interesting. And then I, I, I went back again several years later and, and, you know, did that a few times. And, um, of course I understood that, um, markets that were changing from Soviet command economy to a demand economy, um, that there were opportunities there. And, um. So, um, without boring you too many details. I began to meet people rather quickly. I found myself in Crescent Arc cry in the southern part of Russia where I had friends and I began to look at property and lands that hadn't yet been privatized. So, um, yeah, I thought that, you know, land was probably a good way to kind of get started. And I, I, I, there were a couple of things that drove my interest in Rassor. Um, having lived in California for many years and participated in the bond markets and seeing how California had had grown, of course this is really before me, but in the post-war period, California exploded. It would kind of became the heart of the American dream. You can go out there, reinvent yourself. Um, the weather's nice. There's lots of opportunities in many different areas, and, um, it's kind of a mental lane, not a restricting, restricting place. So. Um, and cry region. Is that part of Russia? It's, I dunno, eight, 900 miles south of Moscow, and it's along the Black Sea, so it's warm water, coastline, mountains behind it. There are advantages with agriculture, with oil and gas, um, and, and many of the smaller places in this, in post-Soviet Russia didn't really work economically. Mm-hmm. So there was a population movement towards Csar and I thought that, you know, c our region is going to experience some of the same things that, you know, on a smaller scale as to what California has. And, um, so [00:09:21] Chris: that was kind of my genesis of that. Yeah. What were your early days of business like? What impressions did you kind of get? [00:09:27] Bruce: Yeah, so, um, I started out, uh, opening companies up to acquire properties in, um, south Russia in 2005, 2006. And there were a couple of ideas that we worked on. In addition to property acquisition, um, initially I looked at smaller pieces of property that several cities had yet to privatize that I thought offered, offered opportunities. But I wound up at the end of the day buying property that, um, actually had been privatized simply 'cause they were in better locations, bigger pieces, better opportunities. But it, you know, it, there's some really, there were some really interesting experiences in this because Russian law was codified in a way that, um, there were conflicting, um. The, the law was written in con conflict with, with itself, so that if you were complying with one law, you really couldn't comply with another. And for instance, when I opened my first companies up, in order to have a company, you have to have a bank account. But in order to have bank account, you had to have company. And so we opened temporary bank account in order to open a temporary company in order to open a permanent bank account in order to open a permanent company. There were these fantastic workarounds and all this entailed many, many, many trips to one of the most powerful people in the region. And that would be the notary. Here in the United States, it's kind of a, you know, a pro forma thing. You pay a few dollars and sign it, and it's stamped and it's done. Became a very big and important business and virtually every document had to be notarized. And there was a special green thread and yellow wax stamp. Everything was signed and certified. So, um, it was quite an expensive process, but, you know, that extended those kinds of conflicts and difficulties with the law extended far beyond just, um, making sure you signed a lot of paper. Um, and, and because of the conflicts inherent in the system, you were virtually always vulnerable. Um, and there were people, special folks that went around looking for holes in your documents. And if they could find one, then, you know, that was a pressure point to either extort money or steal your property. They call 'em Raiders, so they use the same word in, uh, Russian as we do in English. [00:11:52] Chris: Yeah. How did you protect yourself from that thing? Because that must, that, that must require some really good lawyers, et cetera. Yeah. [00:11:59] Bruce: I don't know that there was really perfect protection from those things. I, one of the things that happened to me was a former employee, uh, ginned up a, uh, she stole some money, bought an office. She ended up a series of leases stating that I had leased these offices at exorbitant, exorbitant rates for years and o older, massive amounts of back rent. And, uh, the objective was to win, um, win a judgment against me in court and use that judgment then to go after the significant amounts of real estate that I owned. Mm. And so we fought that in court. This went on and on for years, but at one point she bought a decision in appellate court that, so my lawyer heard her bragging that, well, she'd already paid the judge so she was in good shape. So, you know, it's very, very difficult and it takes someone in Russian, they use the word, uh. I gotta be careful because there's rat and roof and the idea is that you need a roof to protect you. And as a small businessman in, um, provincial Russia, um, I didn't really have, you know, I discovered a little bit late to the game that that, that that's something that I sort of needed. Yeah. So I working, getting permits, um. You know, I bought several pieces of property, unified them, did a, did a lot of things in that process. But it, it, you know, it's very difficult, uh, to get those things done because you need somebody to help you. You, you, you need, um, someone to give those building permits. And if they're going to require a Russian to pay, then they're going to require an American. And of course, that's something we don't do, is we don't pay. Um, you know, we don't, we don't pay bribes. And, and once that process starts, it might start with your finger and wind up with your arm too. So, [00:14:01] Chris: yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like that saying, if you've give them an inch, they'll take a mile kind of thing. Were there, were there any kinda, like positives from your experience of doing business in Russia? [00:14:10] Bruce: There were enormous positives. Enormous. I mean, you learn about yourself, uh mm Um, when you, when you go there, and I, you know, I met some. Amazing and wonderful and kind and generous people. I met my wife there. I still have many close friends that came from Russia. And, um, you know, it, it, it's a great experience to get out of your, uh, comfort, comfort zone, I guess, your environment. Um, as the great Buckaroo Bonsai said, though, no matter where you go, there you are. [00:14:48] Chris: That's a classic film. [00:14:51] Bruce: Yeah. Well, one of the things, Chris, that happened to me when I first started going over there, I, uh, um, I began to feel like I was, you know, socially I really liked this experience because I would go to a small party with, you know, six great people and there's a loaf of black bread and a bottle of vodka on the table and just have this amazing time. And I thought, you know. The people are more present here. I'm having more fun with eight people in this Soviet apartment than I did with two 50 of the cool people in La Jolla. So I had this kind of idea for quite a while that, um, that was the case. And of course, you know, speaking Russia, I had Russian lessons for several years and I lived there for a long time. But speaking imperfectly, you always had to pay close attention to what's going on. And it took me some period of time to realize I'm not sure that those people are any more present than the people in La Jolla are. But maybe I was more present, you know, maybe it was, maybe the change was within me. Those are the kinds of things, I don't know if you've ever lived as an expat, but those are the kinds of, um, kind of ations you go through when, when you're living. Outta the friendly confines [00:16:07] Chris: in the United States of America. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I've never lived as an expat. It the only, the closest I've ever had that experience. I spent one month in South Korea in 2002 staying with a family, and after a little while you do start to, you know, you do feel like an alien for quite some time and eventually start to pick up on things. [00:16:25] Bruce: Well, and I can imagine, you know, I mean there are certain, Russia is certainly very, very different from the United States, but I imagine Korea, [00:16:34] Chris: you [00:16:34] Bruce: know. [00:16:34] Chris: Further from the UK, so Well, yeah. Yeah. Very, very rigid culture in, in Korea. I, I became a bit stressed because like, um, there's lots of honor culture, things you're not supposed to eat or drink before the older person, et cetera. And, you know, I I, and trying to be a good, uh, guest, you don't wanna make all these faux PAs all the time being the kind of terrible, you know, English guy who drinks before the oldest person in the family or something. [00:16:58] Bruce: Oh yeah. Well there's a lot of that. I faced a lot of that in Russia. Did you? And also I, yeah. And also I spent time in this defacto independent place called, which goes its own set of rules at a complete, in some cases very different. But yeah, you would go to a party or a wedding or something like that, and the drinking rules were. I don't really drink very much. And, and, you know, they want, of course, I became the guest of honor very, very often at these things. And everyone wants to drink with you and Yeah, you can't, you have to finish it and you, you know, you can't put it down on the table till it's finished. Mm. And um, you know, there were times that, uh, I drank this, uh. Caucasian beverage a couple times called Chacha, and in fact, I had it three times and twice. I never left my seat that night. And, but you know, there, there are all these cultural things and the Russian culture had a number of superstitions that at first I didn't really understand very well. And one of 'em was, you're, you're not supposed to reach across a threshold to shake people's hand or to hand them something. So that was regarded as bad luck. And I, I had this woman cleaning one of my apartments and I went up, she actually lived the floor above above me and she had a couple of small children. She, she didn't wanna leave her apartment, she didn't wanna invite me in because that was probably something that she felt personally uncomfortable with single man. And I couldn't reach across the threshold to hand her the money and she couldn't reach across the threshold to, to take it from me. And I finally had this moment where I don't know what to do and I just threw it on the floor, mocked off. [00:18:35] Chris: Oh my goodness. Yeah. I'm surprised they haven't invented some sort of, uh, system where you could just like put it into a little, uh, you know, pouch or something. [00:18:42] Bruce: And the Russians are quite inventive about these things, about work workaround, workarounds. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. That's right. [00:18:47] Chris: Yeah. That's quite funny. That's quite funny. So you were obviously doing business provincial Russia during a very volatile period. So what were some of the sort of toughest realities of operating in that environment? [00:18:58] Bruce: I used to feel jealous of the, the Americans and there are a lot of American and, and especially British and German ex-pats who are working for big companies, either foreign or or Russian big companies in St. Petersburg and especially Moscow. And they'd be afforded a beautiful apartment inside the garden ring. Maybe a driver in this, you know, kind of very nice lifestyle. And Russians always say Moscow's, not Russia. You know, it's quite different. So I would be kind of jealous of them, but now looking back on it, I think, you know, I really had quite the genuine experience because I started and owned companies in provincial Russia. So I, I had, you know, I faced problems, uh, that maybe some of those folks didn't have. And, you know, it forced me to learn a lot. Um, but one of the things that was kind of a consistent, especially the last five years I was in Russia, was the, uh, presence of the FSB in my life. Hmm. And, um, so, um, that started out, uh, I owned property in a small city called Kin, and I was living there. And so I unified this property and I. I had to build a fence. One of the requirements was building these ugly green fences around your commercial property. And I was kind of expensive and I, it was just a requirement you had to do it. And, um, so I had to register my documents with the authorities on a, on a regular basis whenever I came to the country. The problem was that no two people seemed to read those rules. Quite the same if you're staying in a big hotel in Moscow or St. Petersburg, they just took a good care of it for you. But if you're living in a provincial city, hotels didn't usually have the capacity. You had to register your documents through someone's home. And so for several years it was really not a big deal. I went to the migration service, registered my, my, my documents, and away I went. Well, the, the officer in charge changed and he saw that I built this, you know, that I owned this, uh, piece of property. And I went in to get registered and he asked for a, um. He'd like the money for a nice fence like that around their office building. Well, that was about $20,000. And I, uh, I told him using a couple of Anglo-Saxon epithets that I didn't think he would understand. We were speaking in Russian, that that wasn't gonna happen and um, might have made an enemy that day. I did take him an ice bottle of cognac back. But, um, so over the next several years he was continued to register my documents, but he was putting violations on my visa. And if you had but one violation, you were probably okay, but two or more you could be deported, have a visa canceled, be refused to get another one. And I didn't know this was happening. He put four on my, four of these violations on my, my, uh, documents. So, uh, when I found out there were a lot of sleep, sleepless nights and there were people who alleged that they could help me, and I understood that. This was just going to be a new kind of problem. So, um, anyway, I moved to Crescent where it was easy for, for me to, to get registered, get my documents registered, and I went back and forth to check my properties. Hmm. So I was living in Crescent, which was about 140 kilometers away, and I would go regularly to visit. And I did have an apartment in Cri Wakin where I would stay upon occasion, but for not very long. You're supposed to get registered every three days, every time you are in a different city for three days, or at least that was the rule at the time. But, so I'm in the night market buying something there, and these guys see me, well he's here, but we know he is not registered because he hasn't been in our office. So he arrested me, threw me in the back of the car, and took me to the police station, and I get to police station and I'm there for about five minutes. They take me upstairs to the office of the FFSB. And for your listeners who don't know who the FSB is, FSB is has many of the roles the KG B had that the NKVD had, that DeChea had. They're all these, uh, I think it was the Aron under the Imperial era. But these were people to be feared, had a lot of power, and it actually, in Russia very often, they were quite sharp people. The FSB was able to recruit, um, you know, better. Smarter people from the universities than probably the police force were, was. So anyway, they took me upstairs to the, the office of the fsb, and this is my first of hundreds, literally hundreds of encounters with FSB officers. Young guy, sharp guy, quite friendly. Um, I didn't, I didn't never do drugs, but they would ask you these questions like, oh, do you smoke marijuana once with a marijuana, you know, with a slice, smile on your face. Like anyone would admit that. Um, and I wasn't doing it anyway, but no. So trying to trip, trick you up. Trip you up. So I spent about five hours in this guy's presence. You know, it was more or less friendly. Um. Questioning. I mean, he was friendly demeanor, but questions were trying to determine what was I doing in this small, uh, provincial southern Russian city that I was the only foreigner there. And, um, of course all this is happening in Russia, and I thought, well, the training wheels are off. We're not in Kansas anymore. Whatever way you wanna put this. Um, I'm a long ways from, from help in this situation. And this was one of the first times that I was really surprised by something. Well, I mean, I was surprised by many things, but maybe shocked was a better term. So I'm sitting there for hours and, and, um, you know, at one point, I don't know, my neck got a little stiff or something like that. I turned my head and I see this large, large, uh, portrait. It's, you know, I, I'm probably a meter tall and two thirds of one wide. It's got the visage of Felix Jasinski on it. Well, Felix Zinski's nickname was Iron Felix, and I believe he started the checkup early, very early in the Soviet period. And you know, when they talk about making you have to crack some eggs to make an omelet, I think this was, I don't know if this was attributed to line or who, but, um, old Iron Felix made a lot of omelets, let's put it that way. And, and I was just, you know, shocked, surprised to see, uh, and he has got a particularly cruel Vistage, especially in this, in this portion. I was just shocked. And, you know, I'm thinking you can go to every police station in Germany. I'm pretty sure there aren't any pictures of Heinrich Kimler around. Um, so Right. So, but that's one of the problems in Russia. Um, and, and so I, you know, I see this and the guy said. He sees a shocked look on my face, and he said, you know what? And I said, well, you know, he had a lot of blood in his hands. And the typical response was something like, well, you know, difficult times, difficult times because Old Iron Felix made them difficult for a lot of people who wound up, um, you know, not alive. So yeah, it was, you know, it was a real eyeopener like that. And, and you know, Timothy Snyder said that Yale historian and person who I've read several of his books, he's written a lot about Ukraine and authoritarianism, and he says that, um, in order to have the democracies are self-correcting. If they stop becoming self-correcting, they stop becoming democracies. And that's really the case in Russian. But I noticed, you know, kind of in the mid late two thousands that there were all these programs on Russian television where they were glorifying the Soviet and especially Russian world during the second World War, the great patriotic war, as they say, [00:27:08] Chris: Russia today in the UK broadcast those same things. And then it would usually be sandwiched between shows about like the terrible state of homelessness in America or the Vietnam War and American failures. [00:27:20] Bruce: Absolutely, absolutely. United States is the, is the source of ultimate evil and Russia. The, the, the, the mass media portrays itself as both, um, well as a. Is virtuous and will be ultimately victorious. Mm. So I, I began to see all this and I, you know, I really didn't put it together, but if you talk to Russian people, um, very few of 'em understood that, well, you know, there was a pact with, between Stalin and Hitler, between the Soviets, and that's how they wound up with Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia chunks of Poland and Romania and, and, um, controlling areas that didn't really wanna be controlled by the Soviet Union. And so there was a lack of awareness of this kind of stuff. So they, you know, they really haven't addressed that. And I, I have got this great story that, um, where the juxtaposition, so later on, I owned a destination management company in Sochi, and we provided services to about 45 Olympic partners and sponsors. And I had a large, um, famous, uh, German company that, that I was doing a lot of work for. And I thought we were going to get some big contracts for, and we were looking at running something like. 2000 square meters of space for them bringing in people to work for them, liquor licensing, uh, places for them, these people to stay, catering, um, security. It was going to be really a massive contract. And I really enjoyed working with these people. They were great to work with, but we spent several months on this process and at one point, this would've been February of 2013, we're driving down the road and, um, we're kind of talking about what the process has gotta be. They've gotta take this in front of their board and it sounds like it's going to take about two months. And I said, well, some more or less if, if, you know, providing that you wanna move ahead with this, this, this will take about six 60 days. So maybe we could contract this in April, on April 20th. And the, these two German executives exchanges super significant glance between them and I. What's this about? And I said, uh. Well, the woman said, Julia said, well, you know what April 20th is, don't you? And I, I wasn't thinking in this context, and I, I do, but I, I didn't. And I said, no, what are you talking about? She said, well, that's Hitler's birthday. So large company, German company, with some kind of historical connections to the Hitler era. Um, you, they were sensitive to that. They were aware of that, and they thought, you know, if we can do it, let's probably do it another day. I, I, I don't think it would would've been any great public relations disaster for them, but it, it reflected on an awareness of their, of, of the history. Meanwhile, we're traveling down. Lenina, which means street of Lenin Street. And so, you know, there are statues around Russia, of Felix Drazinsky. There are names for people who committed atrocities and ran the gulag and, you know, killed people. So I think this is a reason why, you know, we're faced with a Russia that we are, um, you know, their president, their, their leader has an, a historical, uh, idea about, you know, what, what Russia's role in the world is and what they should be doing. And, and they pass it along to their people. [00:30:48] Chris: Yeah, yeah, indeed. What is it? I mean, I, I've, over the years as I've been running this podcast, I've become more aware of something that we call Putinism, which seems to be this idea that the west is inherently trying to destroy Russia, and it's sort of this sort of victim mentality. Um, and also I've noticed how Russia seems to appeal to sort of both the far left, uh, for historical reasons 'cause of Soviet Russia, and then the far right, uh, with, through sort of. Um, kind of an extreme version of kind of Christianity and Putin likes to present himself as the kind of savior of the white Christian world, if you if to put it that way. I dunno if you, did you ever encounter any of those sort of things? Oh, oh, oh, yeah. [00:31:32] Bruce: Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, yes. They, they refer to Moscow as the third Rome, and they're the, they're the guarantors of, uh, you know, Christian virtue. And they've created, in my view, an unholy alliance with the elements of the, you know, the Russian church and Russian nationalism. So, you know, Timothy Snyder and other folks call it rash, which is Russian fascism. Mm. And, um, yeah, there's a merging of corporate interests and, and you know, certainly the government and, um, there are folks within the Russian church who are on the, you know, extreme far Christian nationalist. Right. Um. Yeah, so I, there's, there's really a lot to sort out in there. And then you see that sometimes there are British American Canadians who go over there and think, oh boy, I'm, this is gonna be a really nice place for my family. They're promoting Christian values and, and, um, to my understanding of Christianity is it's quite different than, than theirs, let's put it that way. And, and so I, I think that some of those folks are, um, you know, kind of diluted and, and wind up, uh, maybe regretting their decisions. Yeah, but you see it, you would see it around. And I spent several years crawling on top of virtually every building in Sochi city Center, the Adler District, where the Olympic Park was up in Sana Pana, where they held the, uh, mountain events. You know, we looked at every mini hotel and building, we were looking for TV studios and locations, warehouses, offices, all kinds of things. And one of the things I noticed very quickly was how prominently a, uh, Russian Orthodox Church had been constructed right next to the Olympic Park. Well, they displaced people to build all these objects, you know, that the, the, the, the Olympic stadiums and venues. And, uh, there wasn't really a lot of blowback from the Russian church on this stuff. And I think that that's one of the things that's happened is that they've constructed a lot more churches in the, in the Putin era. Um. You know, and get [00:33:48] Chris: support from some folks. Yeah. It seems obviously that support for whatever reason seems important to, to Putin and kind of holding onto control, so, yeah. Yeah. He likes to surround himself with the, the symbols and things of, of that. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, let's take a quick break and be right back with more. You've got an upcoming book called Counting Grasshoppers, which is a very unique title. So what does that mean and where did that come from? [00:34:29] Bruce: Yeah, thanks for asking. Um, well, I grew up in a farm in East Central, South Dakota, and you know, now they've, they've gotten so much better with the techniques, the tools, the seeds that they use and the ground is so much more productive than it used to be. But, um, you know, a difficult place when I was a out a living. My father was both a mail carrier and a farmer, and I had two older brothers and an older sister. I was the youngest one, and so I had a lot of bosses. And so when I look back on it now, it, it's really was an interesting thing because I, my, you know, my father, I was the youngest of a string of children. My father was a World War II veteran, and, uh, wanted nothing more than to go back to South Dakota after war and farm, which he did. But there were all these tasks that you wound up doing as a farmer that. Maybe didn't seem terribly productive. Um, one of the earliest things that I had to do was to watch the sheep all day to make sure that they didn't get into the o field. 'cause as my father would say, they were harder to keep in the pasture than a hog with wings. So they were, they would get in the O field and without getting too far into, um, you know, ungulate production here, they, they'd eat too much oats and it would kill them. And you did, they'd destroy the oat crop and you'd kill your animals at the same time. So, but it was kind of a futile exercise in a way. You're, you're just preventing something bad from happening. You're not really producing anything. And there were a lot of things like that I think in farming. And I grew up around these people, my father's friends, other farmers around there, my older brothers. There's a tremendous amount of work to do all the time. There was never a shortage of that. And some of these activities weren't, didn't seem necessarily. Necessarily very productive. And when I wanted to, uh, to start participating, which happened really early, by the time I was eight, I was taking care of sheep in the wintertime. But when I wanted to start participating, my oldest brother would say something to me like, um, well, why don't you go out and count grasshoppers? And I don't know if you've seen them, but they're identical and when they show up, there are hundreds of millions of them, and they don't stay in the same place. So there could be no greater or more futile activity than, um, counting grasshoppers. Yeah. And, and you wound up feeling that there were these things that you had to do in Russia. You just simply had to do them. But they had no real productive, they weren't in a direct line between your, where you sat and where you wanted to go. They weren't a productive activity. But if you didn't do them. You weren't gonna get to that point. And so there was a lot of that kind of stuff. And, and I've got another little story to tell about this that, okay. So, and again, this didn't actually take place in Russia. Russia has, uh, the eastern portion of place of Moldova, it's called, uh, Transtria, and it's so along the Nester River. And so Russian and, uh, separatists took control of this. And mold Moldova doesn't control all of its own territory, and the Russians have corrupted moldovan politics as it is. And then they, they have this, this long, narrow ban that is a defacto country. Um, by now, you'd probably guess that if there's a bend in the road, I haven't been around, I'm gonna go around it. So I sold some property in 2008 and I went to adea. I'd been already been to ADEA a number of times, spent a lot of time in Ukraine, and I, I hired a taxi driver to take me to Moldova because I. I've taken a bundle of rubles along with me, and you don't wanna leave 'em in a hotel room. You don't wanna leave them in your luggage. Um, you have to be sort of careful. I knew I could, I could change them in both Mul, Moldova and Ukraine. And, um, I'm, I've got them in a coat pocket. And there were a series of, of, uh, stops between leaving Ukraine, entering Transtria, leaving Transtria and entering Moldova. And along each one of these stops, there was a cursory check. Then there was, uh, customs and there was passport control. So there were about a dozen of these. And when I went on, on, on my way through, the first trans Tian guy wanted a gift and he, he asked me, he said, well, you know, could you give me a, a, a gift? And I said, well, you know, what do you have in mind here? And he said, uh, well how about 500 rubles? Which at that time was equivalent about $20 and that was probably pretty good money in trans in 2000, whatever it was, eight. And I told him, well, that's fine, but for 500 rubles, I get your sister's telephone number. He, uh, he thought that was funny. And let me go through, right. But when I was coming back through, when I left Moldova, I, I was coming back through and I go through the first cursory check before I'm going through customs and I've got this thick stack of thousand Rubal notes, all my money that I'm gonna spend in this, you know, several, several week period in my pocket because I'm. You know, I, I probably shouldn't even tell the story 'cause it doesn't really reflect well upon me, but I've got them in my coat pocket. Uh, I leave the trailer where the first cursory check happens, drape the coat pocket over my shoulder. Didn't, didn't, uh, button it. I hear this little thump and I look down and there's about a 35 mile an hour wind blowing. My money has hit the ground and it's blowing towards one of the most corrupt customs places in the entire planet at 35 miles an hour. Oh, no. Right. And I just, I have this moment where, okay, I can grab what's right there, which is maybe half of it, which would've been the sensible. And just forget about the run. Like hell and try and get past everything and scoop up everything I can. I do this, I'm somehow, I managed to outrun the wind, get ahead of all these, I scooped everything up, you know, I'm grabbing them madly and I'm watching these trans border guards, which is not a real country and is terribly corrupt. They made, you know, one of the main ways the country made money was by illegal arms production and trading. And, and, um, I, I somehow get around them and I get up and my driver, I've got all my money. I didn't lose, I did not lose a single thousand ruble note. But while I'm doing this, I'm thinking, is this kind of metaphor for what I'm doing? The, so post-Soviet space, am I just dumping my money on the. Yeah. So this, you know, and I had an interesting exchange at the, at the next customs place, but I would advise people to be very cautious about crossing through Transtria and of course, especially in, especially in these days. [00:41:55] Chris: Mm. [00:41:55] Bruce: So, you know, this whole counting grasshoppers, it's, it's, um, it's a, it's a question about, or, or, or, or I guess it's a comment about sometimes feeling that you are tilting windmills, that you're fighting against a power or a system that you'll never fully understand that it's completely, um, indifferent to, you know, whether you're successful or even live or die. And then that's, that's really a problem in Russia, I think, is the system. They're, they're not, they're, they're problems. Their goals, they're not significant. Yeah. [00:42:36] Chris: So you talked earlier about obviously being questioned by the FSB, um, but you've also, you were followed and you even had your, you were telling me we had a pre-interview. Um, you told me an interesting story about how your computer would crash on this bridge at the same spot daily. So when did you realize things were kind of no longer safe for you to stay in Russia? [00:42:55] Bruce: Well, that was ultimately 2014. But you have to recognize that with my risk profile, that that, you know, maybe it was quite a few years before that. And what happened to me was that, um, there's a small defacto independent country called the Republic and Language. And, uh, view themselves as a separate ethnicity to the Republic of Georgia. And, and for your listeners, and this is kind of a quick and dirty version, Acaia was, you know, at one point dominated by the Ottoman Empire. And I think sometime early in the 19th century, the Russians moved into the, uh, caucuses region. And so when you move forward to the Soviet period, uh, Azis status was a little bit undecided for several years. I, I think they had some autonomy. They, but at some point, uh, Stalin, who was of course an ethnic Georgian decided that Apia should be included within the borders of this, uh, Georgian Soviet socialist Republic. So when, um, but it was always kind of uneasy because. Some of these places were sort of ethnically dominated. Well, certainly Georgia was by the ethnic Georgians. Right. And so when you move ahead to the post-Soviet period, um, there were, by this time a lot of Georgians moved that had been moved in by Stalin and bi, who was also in Ian and or Georgian guy. And, and they didn't quite trust some of these smaller ethnic groups. They wanted to have them watered in places where they were watered down, especially by, I think Georgians. Ukrainians and Russians. I think that, that there was kind of an, an ethnic mistrust by those early and oppressive Soviet authorities. So they've moved some Georgian folks in who, you know, been living there for several generations. But in the early 1990s, there was some talk by the op authorities about some kind of autonomy, and that was really threatening to the Georgians who believed that Acaia was, you know, kind of their, uh, gem. And so there was a, a conflict, the Georgian army actually invaded. There was a bloody conflict. There was charges of ethnic cleansing and, and genocide and atrocities by both sides. And so Acaia was, uh, self-governing, but Georgia didn't control their borders. And I went down there. A lot of Russians would go down there. Um. For very modestly priced holidays during the Soviet period. It had been, along with Crimea, probably the two most desirous, uh, locations for the Noman cloture, the people who were running the Soviet system for them to go on on holiday. And so, but of course, nothing had been spent in decades on these, uh, crumbling resorts. You had a beautiful, beautiful, uh, series of caucuses, mountains that come literally right to the ocean's edge. And then you have a warm sea and nice food, and it's, it, you know, it's kind of a somewhat cooler or, or not so warm, uh, in the wintertime version of Santa Barbara or something like that. It certainly doesn't look like that in terms of infrastructure and how people live, but it's a beautiful location. And so I, I went down there several times outta curiosity, and what happened was that, you know, I'm always thinking about opportunity and it occurred to me that these people are existing in, you know, it's. Places, places and should it really be that way? Um, and I had some ideas about that. Um, and so I, you know, my social circle spread rather quickly. I had thoughts about how, you know, the United States might, the United States wasn't going to recognize Apia because it, it, it's part of the borders of at least what our friends re regard as Georgia, right? And, but should, should there not be engagement, should there not be the opportunity for the folks that are living there to participate in the global economy, to become a tourist just destination? Now, I began to write about this in my in press controversial idea because. The Georgia authorities feel like it, it ought to be up to them to make these decisions on who, uh, privatizes these resorts and who invests. Um, at one point I was written about The Atlantic did a profile on me and I love the Atlantic. Um, but they portrayed me a little bit like a guy who's selling stereos out of the back of a, outta the back of a truck. That's not good. Yeah, that's not good. Um, and, and, and you know, I mean, my position was that at this time, that around 2009 was that Russia's military presence, there was preventing violence between the Georgian periodically would talk about attacking and invading. It didn't like people, a terribly nuanced view. I thought the Russians were a Ben. I. Ha ha ha. Right. I mean, I, you know, I, I, I don't really think that anymore about any of their actions, but at the time, that was kind of what I was thinking. And maybe there was some motivated reasoning going on there. Um, but I thought that, um, OCA could privatize some of these state owned resorts, get their airport running, and people were approaching me and saying, wow, they're, you know, they've got this tremendous long, um, uh, runway that can be used. Um, it can be a hub and spokes, uh, arrangement for airlines. Um, this really can happen. And of course, Georgians didn't like this. Now, I wasn't interested in any property that had been abandoned by ethnic Georgians when they left, which a lot of Ethnics Georgians had done. I thought that there needed to be, you know, some kind of a political solution so those folks could come back. And there, there was one offered by the op, which was, you know, you can come back, but you have to swear your loyalty to the op state. And, you know, there aren't very many Georgians that wanted to do that. So, um, you know, it's sort of practicalities involved. And look, there's an opportunity here. Let's integrate, let's prove Russia right, and if they're wrong, let's get integrated so that they are not reliant on Russian handouts to, um, you know, to operate the government. And so I, I, I, I'm drawing a lot of attention. I got to know the president and Prime Minister, uh, of Acaia. And, um, I have some just really cool ideas I think, about how to get attention. And, um, the APCA authorities absolutely, absolutely agreed with me and wanted to support me. Um, but prior to this, what happened was someone came to me and said, you know, there's someone from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to talk to you. And I was pretty sure that that meant the FSB. So I didn't have anything to hide, so sure, I'll talk to him and tell him what I'm doing, you know? Uh, and so that's what, that was the genesis of that. So I'm, I was at the same time beginning my operations in Sochi, which is just across the border. I'm working in Acaia. I'm trying to bring investors and attention in. I've got some great ideas and I'm going back and forth. Sochi is sensitive because that's where the Olympics are going to be held. They're worried, of course, about a lot of things that people, that they displaced, uh, when they built all these objects, um, you know, and of course they're worried about, um, terrorists dis disrupting it. And then they're wondering what the only American in this defacto, uh, but not de state, what is exactly is this guy doing? And I, they thought, ICI for years. I time the frontier. So yeah, that was the, that was the kind of genesis of that. And, and so for years and years I would regularly meet with, there was one guy and, and, and, and really interesting. I got to be quite friendly with him. We did not have an antagonistic relationship at all. He disagreed with a lot of things that he thought about Russia, um, in, in, you know, some of the, some of the things that they were doing internationally. But he wasn't a cynic and, you know, so I regularly met with him, but in my travels I had a section driver that would drive me between downtown Adler where my family and I lived, or downtown, the city center of Sochi, which was charming place, an Adler district. Um, I had customers, I was doing all kinds of things to draw attention to myself, to get those customers. And every day we would cross this bridge and every day my computer would crash and reboot at the, within about a meter, you know, of this same spot on the bridge. And so I just assumed that they were, um, taking some information. [00:51:57] Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You talk a little bit about that. Is it an FSB guy you were meeting on a regular basis? Is that right? Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about him. What are they, what is he like, what are they, you know, what are the, um, is there an archetypal FSB type person? Is there a central casting? You know, what are they, they like generally? [00:52:15] Bruce: Yeah. I got taken in, um, you know, there were guys at the border who would be pretty friendly and I would see them on a regular basis. And, um, man, there were other guys. I remember one time I, I crossed the border. I, you know, I had to be cognizant of how much time I was spending in each country due to limitation. So I was, sometimes I'd cross very late at night and I, you know, there's this guy with a scar across his face who questioned me about three, three, you know, for about three hours. And he was a real un friendly character. Um, yeah. I didn't see it that way. I saw a lot of guys that were kind of doing their jobs, they were controlling border stuff. They were, you know, and then there were other guys that were a little more threatening. And then I met some people further up the food chain who clearly had, um, you know, a great deal of authority and, you know, you just saw it from the people, other folks that they were around. So I, I really didn't have a good picture of that. The one thing I would say is they were, they were smarter and more competent than the kind of local bureaucracy that running the, you know, the, in the police or that mm-hmm. Some of the other organs that. We were working there, so they were sharper. There was no doubt that, [00:53:32] Chris: yeah. Yeah, indeed. And, um, I remember you were telling me a little bit about, um, the, the Russian security services sometimes work to kind of compromise foreigners. Um, can you talk to us a little bit about that, how you sort of protected yourself from that? [00:53:47] Bruce: Things would happen? I, we put on these. I knew that they questioned the waiters and the waitresses and the restaurant. Uh, there was a friend of mine that owned a restaurant, and I knew that they were questioning those people about, well, you know, what was Bruce talking about? Who was he meeting with? They, they, you know, they knew what I was doing. Um, [00:54:09] Chris: quick question. You never had a chef called Ney Prego, did you? [00:54:15] Bruce: No, but there were a couple of times I went to restaurants and they said, uh, you can't go in here. Uh, at this time, Veev was president, or maybe it was already Putin again. But you couldn't go there? No, I didn't have any, any chefs like that. But they did, you know, they didn't question people around me. And I remember there was a guy that they questioned and he told me about it. He said, oh, a guy from the, some. He was Russian guy and I suspected that it was intentional that I get this knowledge that they wanted to see what my reaction was. [00:54:52] Chris: Mm. And who you'd ask about or something. Yeah. [00:54:53] Bruce: Yeah. And instead of saying, oh, who was it and what did he say? Um, because I, I was pretty sure whatever I was gonna say was gonna get reported back. I just said, well, doing you, you, myself. I I didn't really do that. I mean, I, I didn't have associations that were, I wasn't doing anything illegal. I was providing a service. I actually helped them quite a bit because my company became the largest destination management provider. A lot of the foreign companies, we were quite transparent. This is what we charge and this is how we do it. We actually charge more than the Russians, ultimately less because they would sometimes pad whatever costs were for the hotel or the venue, they would pad that. We were very transparent and they, I think a lot of people just thought, okay, here's an American guy. We have some that's no guarantee of character, but, um, clearly, but, but, but, um, one of the things that happened was that, um, they came to my office and my company, the company that I had owned, and, and my wife was a lawyer. I met her on a, on a bus in Csar. And, um, she. Uh, arranged for my company to provide a work visa for me. So I didn't have some of the restrictions that the business Visa had, but I had the FSB come by, um, when she wasn't there and question me about what I was doing one morning. And then they would come by our office and wanna look in the refrigerator. We had a little mini bar refrigerator to put a couple of Coca-Colas in, and they questioned because I was a foreign worker and I, I needed, they needed, the Russian company needed to be, make sure that during work hours I was getting the proper nutrition. So the question, my wife and I about the nutrition that I was providing to me as a foreign worker. Well, you know, I, I've got a few, I hope you don't mind me sharing these, but I've gotta get a few more stories about this. No, please. Go. And the first one, it, it kind of hearkens back to an earlier period, but, um. My wife and I hadn't been seeing each other that long, and I was down in, and the, the guy from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who never said he's fsb, and by the way, I liked him. I, I did, I as a human being, I liked him. He didn't, uh, I think he, that he understood at some point looked, this guy's genuine. I was a complete open book. I didn't offer any information about American or British or any other citizens. But as far as what I was doing, I was absolutely open and I didn't have anything to hide. A more cautious person would've said, well, just because you don't have anything to hide doesn't mean you can't become a target. And ultimately that's why I left. But anyway, he called me up. Before the May holidays, and of course, victory Day has become this, you know, pseudo religious holiday in Russia. When I was first there, I thought, oh, this is fun. It's early in the, in the year. And, you know, they have the, they have a parade and everybody's in a good mood. It's a nice time of year. And, and of course, later on it, it, you know, they kind of deified the whole Soviet experience and it, it, you know, my wife pointed, or someone else pointed this out to me that that was the case. But anyway, so my friend calls me up and he said, what are you doing? He knew I was in Alca because I would've told him when I crossed the border, what are you doing for the Victory Day holidays? I said, this girl's coming down to see me, who I've been spending time with and already fallen, you know, madly in love with. So, um, she's coming down to see me. Well, how's she getting there? Of course, she's taking the train from where she lived to Adler and the the, um. The train station in Adler was maybe, I don't know, five or six miles, maybe less, to the, to the, to the border with Acaia. And so he said, well, how's she gonna get from the border to the, from the train station border? And I said, well, I supposed to take a taxi. He said, well, I can give her a ride. And of course, I knew instantly the reason for this this has got, has got other things to do. But he wants to find out who I'm, am I, who I say I'm. And um, I really did not wanna put her in a position where she's getting questioned by them, even in a friendly way in the car. But I thought that if I try to hide her from it, she's probably gonna get it anyway and may a little less friendly. I've got something to hide, which I absolutely didn't. I was, who said I was, I'm trying to bring investors to ap and I was ultimately working in Sochi, so, um, but you know, this was quite suspicious to them. And I, you know, looking back on it, I can see why. I mean, you know, there's nobody else there. It was me. And, um, so he says, you know, can, can, can, can we take, give her a ride? Can I give her a ride to the border? And I said, yeah, sure. So he brings her to the border and there was this cinematic moment, uh, and the, the border can, there was a bridge over the, the river. I think it's the American sky river there, there's a bridge over the river. And you know, you leave Russia and you enter, uh, at that point. And, um, she's walking across the bridge. And Alexia is standing on the other side waving, and I'm standing on this side waving. It wasn't quite a prisoner exchange, but there was a security service involved and there was an American who was suspected involved. And, you know, it was kind of a cinematic moment for me and, and, um, uh, you know, so she came down there. But, but later on we had a lot of that kind of stuff. And especially because, uh, American media, British media as well, but especially American media, somebody came to town if somebody from NBC or Yahoo or you know, um, time Magazine, Newsweek, all these people came to town. They found out about me and wanted to talk to me. And there was a, a, uh, journal named Goldberg. Who was, uh, working for, um, Bryant Gumbel, who does, has had a sports program called Real Time on HBO for many years. So their, their, um, producers called me up, and this is maybe October of 2013. Producers call me up and we'd like to do a program about you. One of our segments about you. You're the American. And so, and you know this down, and I told a number stories about things I. Know there's a great deal of corruption around this massive, massive construction project. And I, I told him stories. I said, look, I, I'm not gonna talk about this stuff. I have a family, I have a visa, I have contracts with companies. I care about my reputation. I wanna be killed or kicked out of the country. So this stuff is off limits. There are a lot other, other things, interesting things to talk about in Russia and around the Olympic games, but I'm, you know, I told them stories, you know, off, off the record. They, they understood. They made it clear, they understood. So, um, some days later this Mr. Goldberg comes and he, he's also, uh, was a contributor Fox to Fox News, which is extremely ideological in a lot of cases. And, um, so he comes down and they said, Bruce, can you find a spot in front of the Olympic Park where we can do the interview? We wanna do an interview for you. We're gonna use it on HBO. Okay. I was super busy. I really didn't have time to do this stuff. But you know. It's an opportunity. So, uh, we had a, a, a, a small hotel of about 50 rooms and we were, we were putting, trying to put a company there, um, big contract. And I asked the guy, can, can we do the interview on the fifth floor, your hotel? He said, sure. I get up there, Goldberg gets up there, the producer's up there, there's a Russian film crew up there. We start to do the interview and he starts asking me questions that, you know, either I didn't know about or I couldn't answer about Russian corruption. And I stonewalled him. I don't know about this, you know, and he got really angry and he was yelling at the producers and he was upset with me. And But you told him? Yeah, I there and it was a stupid exercise because for one thing, this was not really in, a lot of this was not inside in information. It's gonna get me in trouble. Um, and, and, and there is of course an ethical thing about pointing out the truth. Um, but. Um, you're not coming to Russia and becoming a muckraker in three days. You wanna learn about corruption. Watch Alexia Navalny, um, anti-corruption, his YouTube series. You wanna, or you wanna read something, read what Masha Geen says, or er Kara Meza or, you know, a host of other people that, that know about Oliver Bullock from the uk who knows about Russian corruption in the uk. There are people, sophisticated people that know about this, but coming there and putting me on the spot was kind of the wrong thing to do. Mm. So I was pretty upset. I wasted the time. I go back to my office and I get a call about a minute after I'm in the office, and it's my guy from the fsb and he says, you did a good interview. Yeah, yeah. Right. That's what he said to you? No, no, no. He just, he says. He says, what are you doing? I said, well, I guess I'm going downstairs to the cafe and having a cup of cup of tea with you in about five minutes. Because that was kind of the standard. Yeah. And, and so I go down there and he says, what have you been up to? And I said, well, American journalist comes to town, asked me a bunch of questions about corruption I can't answer. And it just, it, it upset me. It was missed opportunity. There's great, other great stories to tell and you know, and he said. Well, you should have just pushed him off. Right. We were on the fifth floor of this hotel. He said, you should've just pushed him off. Now, I didn't take this in any sense as a literal threat. He was joking, but the thing was, I hadn't told him where I was. I just said, I did an interview in front of the Olympic Park. If I told you I'm doing an interview at the Olympic Park, what's your default? I'm standing in front of the speed skating arena. That's, that's your default. [01:05:09] Chris: Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was picturing when you first described it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like in a park. [01:05:14] Bruce: So he had the information. There was somebody that told him, you know, and that's just the way it was. That, yeah. And the thing that I, I couldn't decide was, does he want, was this just sloppiness? Does he want me to know how closely he is watching things? Hmm. You know, or is it just sloppiness? You know, and I never, I never really understood that the question, the answer there. [01:05:37] Chris: No. My goodness, my goodness. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's that's crazy really, isn't it? Uh, it's, um, yeah. So what, what, what was the point then you considered walking away from all of this? Because obviously this is quite stressful, all this sort of stuff. [01:05:53] Bruce: Well, and you know, it was stressful doing business because, you know, sometimes you'd have a contract with a company and they'd cancel with you, and because somebody else came along and offered it higher, um, a, a higher price. I worked 364 days in 2013, but I enjoyed it. You know, I was having a lot of fun center activity. We did have these expat parties. Um, I may be the only guy in the history of the world who's blown off a Nobel Prize, uh, an Nobel's Prize winner in economics. It's got, I had had these, these expat parties, uh, at the restaurant where the friends of mine, uh, owned and there'd be, you know, 30 or 40 Russian girls that wanted to speak English. And then the guys from Canada and the UK and the Netherlands and the United States would show up and, you know, we'd have little sangria and, you know, just kind of a nice time. And this, uh, guy comes over and he said, you know, I've been reading about what you're doing and I'm interested about what's happening in Sochi. And so I wanted to come in and introduce myself. He hands me a business card and I've got, it's my party. I've got 50 or 60 people to talk to and make sure they have a glass of cold sandria. I said, well, it's nice to meet you. I'll come back in a little bit and you know, I wanna talk to you. I didn't look at his card. I caught his first name as Daniel. Couple of days later, I look at the business card and it was Daniel Kahneman who wrote Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow. So as they say, I, I am the only guy who's ever blown off a Nobel Prize winner in economics. [01:07:18] Chris: So you were moving fast, but thinking slow that day. Yeah, [01:07:22] Bruce: I'm de definitely thinking slow. Very good one. Yeah. While in the middle of this I never considered walking away. Yeah. I. I'm in the middle of the stream. I have a family that I'm devoted to. I care a lot about what happens to my customers. You know, I worked for some wonderful people. I worked for the several Norwegian broadcasters. I, I can't say enough about those people. The people that worked for Adidas were just fantastic to work for. I mean, I cared about the results. If I signed a contract, I cared about the results for everybody that we've worked for. I bel I believed it was moral obligation. I wanted everybody to have an, you know, we provided TV studios, we relocated thousands of people sometimes with financial, um, management of the contracts. We provided staffing and interpreters and, and I used to joke, we provided laundry. And I said, if you see me on NBC Wash and underwear in the Black Sea, then you know, there's been a problem. Right? But, but yeah, we provided, we worked for some really, really great people and, um, worked for CBS. I just loved that company. They, you know, the broadcasters were so ethical and organized and, and just, just. Really a pleasure all the way through. So, you know, I didn't, I I never really considered, um, walking away, but what happened after the games was that I, I, I was, they, they had constructed these new, this new train system to go and, and a new, uh, uh, a new station in Adler, and then a whole new spur that went up to the mountains. And it really was beautiful system. But I began to get some man on the street kind of drunk antagonism towards me. They would hear my American accent. And this was the time when, uh, the revolution of dignity, right? When the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian folks were out in the maan in, in Ukraine, protesting, and there were allegedly at least Russian assassins on the rooftop. There were certainly some Ukrainians and they were killing people. And this intensely bothered me. Um, I've been to Ukraine many, many times during my time in Russia and really enjoyed myself. There are a lot of cultural and business similarities, but they're different countries. They're both children of the Soviet Union. And, um, you know, I had become disillusioned by this point with what Russia was doing in alca. I had several really great opportunities and, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was simultaneously encouraging me in acaia and putting unseen barriers up. I was on the verge of some great things. We had people talk, looking at privatizing a massive resort in Pete Sunda and investing potentially billions of dollars, dollars. And they didn't really want this stuff to happen. It just, they slow walked things after encouraging. They, they wanted to make it appear as though, uh, and I know I'm jumping from subject to subject here, but they wanted, the Russians wanted it to make it, make it appear as though, um. They're helping oia and they want OIA to develop, but that's really not what they wanted. And as an American or a British person, I'm pretty sure you and I would think the same way about this, that if, if OIA is successful, if it, it's, if it's able to build its economy and become a, uh, you know, a real citizen of the world, then that enhances Russia's credibility. It proves what they said is right, is this, this is an independent place. And I loved Opca. I really cared about, I had a number of friends in Opca, I, very different culture than Russia, but really interesting place. I met some wonderful, wonderful people there, and I, I really was disillusioned. Uh, it became apparent to me at some point that they have just put enough, uh, barriers, brick bats, trees, logs in front of me that it's just not gonna happen. So I was kind of disillusioned by this point with Russia and I, I, a smart person has gotta recognize. You know, maybe move in a different direction. Corrupting and controlling. And I saw this not only, not HAkia, and after traveling through Transtria, I realized that was, that was the game there too. It destabilizes, um, Moldova, it prevents Moldova from moving forward in a lot of ways. And, and that was, that was the thing. So when I saw what was happening in Ukraine, I I was really upset and disillusioned by it. And you care about what happens. I mean, I knew people who were schoolteachers and going hundred Ukraine to protest Russians busy saying that, oh, this has been engineered by the department. You know, all this kind of stuff, and I'm sorry. It's absolute complete, unadulterated, smelly bullshit. [01:12:09] Chris: Yeah. And on top of that, they also make out that Ukraine's a bunch of neo-Nazis, which is just outrageous. [01:12:15] Bruce: Look at the elections in Ukraine. Yeah, I don't think the far right in Ukraine has ever gotten more than 3% of the vote. It, it's not, you don't see Goosestepping Ukraine is far less nationalistic. I've spent a lot of time in both those countries, Ukraine, um, you know, many years ago. And then in subsequent to the escalation of the war in 2022, spent a lot of time there. I, it's not, it's not a fascist regime. It's not a neo-Nazi, it's not controlled by the United States. It's not controlled by nato. Of course, NATO is not, uh, it's a defensive alliance. And the reason the Russians don't want NATO in there is precisely the reason that they're not invading Estonia because it protects it. So it's not, yeah, it's, NATO is not an aggressive force. NATO is a protection, and, and of course they wanna invade Ukraine because as long as they. As NATO's not there. They don't have to worry about a response. It's exactly the opposite of what they said. And of course they're, they're, they're all of this shifting rationale. All their bio weapons labs, they're, they're neo-Nazis. It's nato, it's the American State Department. Um, and you know, when there's, when there're 10 reasons, I think they're all lies. And, um, you know, yeah, I, I, I really, I, I really didn't like that. So they came after the games in 2014 and they asked me, you know, what do you think about what was going, or maybe it was actually during the games, they came into my office and they said, what do you think about what's going on in Ukraine? And I told them, you know, I think Ukraine should be able to chart their own course. I think they ought to be able to do it without Russian interference. And that wasn't, you know, nobody came and arrested me or caused me a problem. And it wasn't a surprise. I knew they knew what I was thinking. They probably, you know, they had. They knew who I was talking to. They, I think they probably intercepted much of my communication, so I am sure it wasn't surprising. And that's kind of the way I think, anyway, they pro probably guessed that. But um, between that and the kind of man and the street stuff that I began to see, any American stuff and, and the anti-American stuff on television, it was really interesting because not only was America this, you know, tentacles everywhere, controlling everything power, but at the same time it was, uh, weak and, uh, corrupted and sexually promiscuous or sexually degenerate. You know, it, you couldn't be both, but it was, there was this cognitive dissonance and it dominated Russian media. So I told him what I thought and I knew, look Chris, I knew at that moment, it's just a matter of a time until somebody drops a flash drive into somebody's. And says they're committing espionage. I'm not the biggest target in the world, but I was pretty prominent in South Russia. You know, all the foreign companies knew who I was. So, um, you know, I'm not making the cover of Time Magazine, but locally sort of prominent. And I, I thought I am a, a very, very easy target on this stuff and it's time to get, get out. It's just time to go. Yeah. [01:15:21] Chris: Yeah. And it has happened to people, you know, so it's, uh, yeah. Yeah, you were wise to get out once you, you could really, [01:15:28] Bruce: yeah, yeah. I, I, I think so, and I, you know, it's regrettable. I mean, I was leaving anyway. I had a business in Brazil to do, I, I, I would've gone anyway, but I, I did everything to get my family out as quick as I could. And I have to say the State, state Department in this process, I explained my, my, my fears and the State Department was, I don't know if they expedited things, but they were very helpful. And so I'm, you know, grateful to the American government. I'm grateful to hold an American passport, although it, in these days, uh, maybe is not as popular as it [01:16:01] Chris: was. Yeah, no, unfortunately. Yeah. At the moment. But then, so that British passport's not always the most popular either. So I can, I can empathize. Well, [01:16:12] Bruce: maybe if you'd been in Afghanistan a century and a half ago, you'd have felt the same way. I dunno. [01:16:18] Chris: Maybe. Well, let's take a break and be right back with more. One thing I did really wanna ask you about, 'cause this, this bring this, this comes up a lot, a lot of people keep asking like, what does the west keep getting wrong with Russia? Because we've had the Clinton era in the nineties and then we've had the Obama reset in 2010. What are we missing? What are we getting wrong here? [01:16:52] Bruce: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you, you look at the individuals who are, who are behind this, they're not stupid people. They're, I don't think, they're not exactly naive, but there's somehow this idea that, okay, if we get Ray and Bob in the middle of the room and we can can talk this out, you know? Well the problem is that Russian, um. I think the Russian mentality, the Russian Way, business, Russian way, thinking about this stuff. And then this is, whether it's business or politics, it's a zero sum game. Hmm. So instead of, you know, we can both get something out of this, we're not gonna give anything up. We're gonna know, negotiate on your turf all of the time. And, um, I don't think while there's a Putin regime or you know, a child of a Putin regime in office, I don't think it's gonna change. And I think what they're going to do is say, okay, you wanna, you wanna reset things? What, what are you gonna give us here to start out with? They will take a maximalist approach in all their negotiations. And again, this is, I saw this in business and, and you see this in the headlines. They take a max approach. If it doesn't work, then. The negotiations have broken down because you won't come to an agreement. So you, you watch what the Trump Admin Administration has done in the last couple months, and it's just mind boggling that nobody seems to have learned anything or, and it, it, it appears that they're actually furthering as an American, I'll just say this, it appears they're furthering Russian interest for the Secretary of Defense to, to go out and say, Ukraine needs to give up territory and we're, we're not gonna put them in nato. These are the things, these are, first off, we shouldn't be negotiating on behalf of making decisions for the Ukrainians. Right. I mean, this is what the Biden administration said. No negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine. Ukraine. So they give them two of their first, um, requirements before they even sat down. [01:18:54] Chris: Yeah, it's very weird. [01:18:56] Bruce: No nato. No nato. That is, that just is an invitation to take another bite at the apple later. So I, I, I just think it, it's. Massive incompetence. I can't imagine any Secretary of Defense in the history of the United States government ever saying anything like that to, uh, uh, an aggressive, uh, colonialist power. Uh, as Timothy Timothy Snyder calls it, Roch combination between Russian fascism, Russian nationalism, and fascism. Can't imagine any anyone doing that. It's just, it's, it's, it's, I, it's immoral. And, you know, I like what Ely Weisel Beel said, you know, the Holocaust survivor, he said, in the face of oppression, there is no neutrality. You're either, if you are trying to be neutral, you're helping that side. And that's United States government has UK. [01:19:54] Chris: Yeah. [01:19:55] Bruce: You [01:19:55] Chris: know? [01:19:55] Bruce: Yeah. [01:19:56] Chris: And I think they're doing everything they can to get zelensky out, which is what Putin wants. That's the impression I get. That they, they're setting up a silly deals where Zelensky, if he's, you know, right-minded, will probably say no to them, and then they can turn around and say, well, Zelensky iss not cooperating. Um, you know, yeah. That, [01:20:12] Bruce: that shirad in the White House, it looked to me exactly like that. But we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna knock him down to his knees and we're gonna weaken him. He's gotta go. And of course, that whatever there is, some kind of struggle or the next, who's next that weakens Ukraine's position? I mean, I don't think there was an election. I don't think that they, uh, you know, when Winston Churchill was making his speeches about on the beaches, and, you know, there weren't elections being held at that point in time. This is a wartime economy. So I, yeah, I think it's criticizing the u Ukrainian government that doesn't help the uk. The Russian regime. I, I, I, I'm just so much dismay and, you know, I, I just returned, as you know, last night from u from Ukraine, and Ukrainian people have been so, so pro-American and grateful despite what they said in the White House. I've had so many American people say, you know, thanks a lot for helping, you know, whether it's bringing trauma kits or, you know, I call the, the Congress and say, we've gotta support them. I believe this is the issue of our time, and, but I'm not the most influential voice out there. And, and Ukrainians have been so very, um, expressed great admiration for the United States of America for the wonderful things that the US has done. And we haven't always done the right thing. We tried many times to do the right thing, try and find a time when the Russian government really was trying to do the right thing. I, I, I can't as many mistakes as many Iraqs and Vietnams, and these are horrible historic tragedies. You, you know, we've also done some, there is no Russian version of the Marshall Plan, you know? Mm. No. So, I, I, I, I just think that, um, it, it, it's, it's very unfortunate and fortunately in my, on my recent trip, nobody said, Hey, you dirty sobs, what are you doing over there? They all understand separate, um, an individual American from the actions of our government, which Americans aren't always the best at doing, right? So there is, you know, there are reasons why maybe this is happening. And I think people have done some, you know, speculating about what those might be. [01:22:32] Chris: Yeah. Well, yeah, you were, we were talking a bit about, um, I think in our chat about, because there's a big debate about whether Trump is compromised in some way or whether Trump's pro Putin. I think Trump's just pro Putin and wants to be like Putin and is doing everything he can. But, um, but you were talking to me a bit about, um, there's this sort of Deutsche Bank kind of connection. Where is it the Russians bought up his debt. There's some very interesting sort of things there. [01:22:57] Bruce: Yeah, I, I mean, I, I don't, again, I don't have any, any in insider knowledge about this. I, I, you know, when I was in the bond business, I watched, he got these, uh, licenses for casinos in Atlantic City and I don't think people looked at those deals as critically as they might, but I think folks at thought. Atlantic City. It's, it's a license to print money. He's not an operator. He didn't operate those things and went into multiple bankruptcies. They had crammed downs, which means a principal amount of the bond issues was declined and that the interest rates were declined. So investors lost, lost tremendous sums of money, and if you listen to him at some kind of, you know, financial triumph, um, but you do look at those things and you do wonder about the financial connections. Now, in the middle of the election, last year was announced that his daughter is, oh, she's flexing her real estate muscles again. And I think there's an island in Montego where a Russian developer was going to build a, uh, five star resort, and there was going to be some kind of participation by, uh, you know, the, the Trump family. Well, what's that about? I mean, that doesn't really look good. We had a president in my lifetime who sold this damn peanut farm because he was afraid of the appearance of impropriety. Yeah. Um, so yes. Now Deutsche. Um, was involved in that mirror trading scandal, which was allowing Russian oligarchs to move substantial sums of money. They, they, in, in a, in a very simplistic way of explaining it, they buy a stock in Russia and then sell it in on the London or the exchange or someplace in Europe and bingo, the money was someplace else. These, these folks that are running the system, they don't believe in it. You know, Putin allegedly has got vast sums of money outside the country. But, um, so if memory serves me correct, um, and again, I don't have any insider knowledge about this, but if memory serves me correct, um, Deutsche Bank loaned multiple times and despite a spotty track record loaned, um, Mr. Trump large sums of money, well Deutsche Bank relationships with influential people in Russia, if you wanted to influence American policy. There was an American president that had a substantial, like hundreds of millions of dollars of debt with Deutsche Bank. Do you think a guy like Putin wouldn't pick up the phone and offer to buy that loan off Deutsche Bank? You know, hey, you can we we'll take the risk away from you. You know, I mean, to me that's the shortest line. Doesn't mean it happened, but it, it, it, it's not hard to imagine any one of these participants taking the required action in the middle of all that. And it, it can be just simply as you say that he has a seeming infatuation with authoritarianism. So, you know, I know I'm talking quite a bit about the guy, but, um, I, I, I, you know, I, I, I'm, I'm really deeply concerned about, I care about what happens in Ukraine. I think it's really important. It's important not just for the Ukrainians. It's important for the people in Moldova and Poland, Estonia Lat, the Lithuania, and we, if we allow countries to redraw border, we've gone back to the 19th century, we've gone back to the, I dunno, 1930s. And it won't stop there. And you know, if you watch Russian television, you know, there there's all this de humanist, dehumanizing con to talk about the Ukrainians. They're diluted, they're Nazis, they're diluted Russians. We have to reeducate them and then we gotta take their kids away, teach 'em that they're really Russians. I mean, this is a war crime. This is an atrocity and it won't stop there. And, and who stops? When does this stop? I'm less, truthfully, I'm less worried because Ukrainians have got a strong military and they are a very resilient people with, there are a lot of folks there. They are. I'm less worried about kyiv than I am Estonia. You know, you've got a porous border, a small country without American support. I, I don't think that the British, the French, the Ger Germans, the Italians, the Spaniards together, I, I don't, I don't mean to say anything offensive here, but American military might, is unparalleled. We have got these nuclear powered aircraft carriers with hundreds of state-of-the-art airplanes, the best training, the best soldiers, the best leaders who's able, better able to respond. A threat in the Baltics and Trump's put all that in doubt. Now Trump's put all that in doubt. [01:27:49] Chris: Yeah. You know, the nuclear umbrella is the very thing that's kind of guaranteed European security. Obviously there are debates, some healthy debates about how Europe could be a bit more independent about this, but still, um, you don't sort of take that guarantee off the table until somebody's got the capacity to look after themselves is ridiculous. It's reckless. It's, yeah, [01:28:08] Bruce: it's, I think, uh, you know, you, my high school physics class, they talked about nature of abhorring a vacuum and I think it works the same way with this stuff. And when the United States departs or threatens to depart or changes the perception in Europe and Russia, China, all these places about, um, you know. Our part in it. There's a vacuum and there are other actors that will fill the vacuum. It's, you know, I hope it's France and the United Kingdom. I really do, but I'm not sure that, you know, it takes some time to do all of these things and you've got a, a number of parties that have to work together. It's, it's not so simple. And you, you have folks within the European Union that are trying to weaken it like Hungary. And so it, it, you know, it concerns me deeply and people will say to me, well, you know, it's so far away and. It isn't. [01:29:04] Chris: We're all interconnected. [01:29:05] Bruce: We're all interconnected. What happens in Finland, it matters in the uk and it certainly, it matters in the United States. These are cultural allies, these are military allies, these are our, our friends, these are our commercial partners. And, um, you know, I think it's, it's crucial. Yeah. [01:29:23] Chris: Alliances are very hard to build and they're very difficult to put back together again if you disrupt them or destroy them. And, um, this unfortunately seems to be the kind of era we're in at the moment is this sort of isolationist movement from the United States that's sort of just, um, taking a wrecking ball to a lot of very, um, important institutions that have been around for a very long time and doing a lot of good in the world. And the people taking the wrecking ball don't really understand what they do and it's really appalling. [01:29:53] Bruce: Yeah, I've had friends from Finland, Czech Republic, the uk, Ireland, France. Switzerland, Spain, all Germany, all across Europe, and probably have somewhat different political, political views on a host of different issues. But on this one, it's been unanimous. This is not, this is not the right development and I don't understand it. I mean, now we're threatening, now we're, uh, saying that Russia didn't start the war and we're threatening Greenland. [01:30:23] Chris: Yeah, well, yeah, Greenland, Canada is, it's just insanity. Again, all this helps should we say the enemies of the United States, uh, and the enemies of nato because if we fight amongst each other, we become weak and then it leaves opportunity for, as you were saying, to fill the vacuum. [01:30:40] Bruce: I wanna ask you a question, Chris. Yeah, yeah, please, please. How long do you think it takes? Let's suppose, and that somehow this, you know, we have concerns long term about democracy in the United States, in our election and our elections. Things that we never thought about before, but let's say we get through the next three and a half years. How long does it take before United Kingdom says, yeah, we can trust those guys again. You know, we, we can count on the United States. I mean, it didn't matter whether Reagan was president or Clinton was president, or Kennedy was President or Johnson or Bush Senior. It didn't matter about, about American trustworthiness on this. And, and I think that is a real, I I fear that's a real long-term casualty. [01:31:27] Chris: Well, there. Yeah. But we were just on this podcast just chatting with Shane Harris about the, the Five Eyes community and, and whether it's in danger or not, and how allies are reacting to the Signal Gate scandal, et cetera. And I think, I guess the answer is, is probably in how bad it gets over these next three years, um, and how many scandals there are, et cetera. And what happens, you know, if America does go and invade Greenland or Annex Greenland to put it that way, and then take a wrecking ball to NATO over that, that could. Changed the dynamic dramatically. Um, I think it's unlikely an invasion of Canada, but if, you know, I dunno what Trump's mental state is, I really don't, I think I'm surprised that his mental state hasn't been caught into question over these, this rhetoric over Greenland and Canada. I think its behavior's really abnormal for a president's in the United States. And, um, so yeah, I, I don't know the answer because it just depends on how bad it gets, but I think Britain always takes the special relationship very seriously. You know, we've got a lot of historic kind of connections. Um, and I, and I hope we all can kind of get through this, but I guess. It just sort of goes beyond Trump really, isn't it? 'cause I think there's a, 'cause we have a similar problem in the UK and in Europe as well, with this sort of rise at the far right. And you know, maybe people who don't quite understand how institutions were built and the importance of them, or even what they do. We seem to, for the last 20 years, um, the tech sector champions this idea of disruption and disruption's become this very popular word, but people are happy to disrupt things. We don't understand the consequences of that and don't understand how you have to rebuild things. And my example I use is the disruption of the TV business because I come from a film background and what's kind of ironic is all these so-called disruptors like Netflix, Amazon, et cetera. Who are all about, you know, being different from television and are moving away from the advertisement model. All they've managed to do is recreate television again and go back to the advertisement model because they realized what they were doing didn't work. And the original TV a um, you know, business model did work and they've disrupted it and now managed to make it work for them. But they've kind of taken a wrecking bull to an already established industry. Um, so it's, that seems to be the world we're in and that's the thing we need to kind of get a better handle on, I guess. 'cause this, even if Trump, you know, does manage to leave office and not totally destroy everything, um, I just worry about who's next. And again, like with the situation with the Democrats, who are the opposition to Trump, um, you know, the, the Democrats have faced an awful loss of negative messaging via social media influencers. I. Um, you know, people on the kind of AltRight who are, should we say the, the almost a Diet Coke of right wing extremism, um, they kind of put it in a, in a nice kind of, um, package where people who are listening to it don't really understand the roots of what they're, where they're coming from. And, um, you know, and so people are kind of adopting a lot of ideas about kind of critically examining them. Um, and, uh, and yeah, and going down very strange paths. So like the, the whole anti woke movement, which. Russia has also benefited from as well is a really interesting example about how very kind of right wing and should we say far left ideas in some areas too have kind of gone into kind of combat with each other and it's sort of, um, slowly sort of this whole debate kind of is wrecking democracy and it's very sad. Um, and ultimately. A lot of the woke ideals are pretty positive things, and yet there are people out there who are trying to take a wrecking ball to anything. So it's, it's, it's very weird. Um, I dunno exactly where it started. Um, you know, but it's certainly in the over the rise of the internet. A lot of these things, like with conspiracy culture and things, which is something I fell into in my very early twenties and thankfully got out of, is just this weird cocktail of, a lot of things have kind of come home to roost now, and it's just how do we get past that? I don't know. And that's a very long-winded, uh, answer to your question and probably not even answering it really. But, uh, [01:35:29] Bruce: well, I, I gave you nothing but long-winded answers, so, but I know who I am. Well, you. Is that, you know, the World War II generation sort of died out and that, I think those folks, whether they're on the left or right, there was sort of a moderated influence. Okay, I got strong opinions about this. Mm-hmm But I'm gonna temper this. I've seen what happens when people get too excited about that, their views are right. And then I watched how language is used and, you know, the, these words like disruption and my journey and all those words. I find that they're really, I think it's really obscuring meaning, I think disruption in a lot of cases. It makes it sound like, okay, we're, you know, we're, we're taking something apart and we're gonna rebuild it better. And really what it is, it's. Very often it's just destruction. It's just hiding. You know, Elon Musk is disrupting, uh, no. He's, he's, you know, he's taking funding away from centers that are providing rehabilitation for amputees in Ukraine. And I'm not saying that there's not mistakes and, and fraud and, you know, government operations, but you're more than throwing the baby out with the bath water. You're throwing a lot of babies out. And so I see that in the, the Canadian thing. I've had friends of mine from Canada have said, you know, it kind of looks to us like you're trying to destabilize Canada to, with the ultimate goal of annexing US United States. Of the United States of America. Wishes, wishes it was that strategic because I think the guy is just sort of ad hoc and hopping from subject to subject. [01:37:15] Chris: Yeah. If you go by his biographer, that's very accurate. You know, um, if that's the case, I, my, my working theory with my colleague Matt on the podcast was, um, there's two big security things involving Canada and Greenland, and I think Trump got some sort of security briefing, but his understanding was that he thinks he needs to take over those places when in fact all you need to do is just work with them. You know? 'cause you've already got really good ba, you know, bases, et cetera in Greenland, and you've got wonderful relations with Canada or did have, uh, and obviously Canada's connected to NORAD and there's some radars that need updating. That's all you kind of need to do. Um, you don't need to go and annex the places. Yeah. And, and this is why I think Trump's office rocker, to put it bluntly, [01:37:57] Bruce: and Mr. Vance is saying, Denmark has served Greenland poorly. And those fake people are saying, well. Five weeks of vacation a year. You want us to work, work weekends, you know? [01:38:07] Chris: Yeah, yeah. There's all sorts of crazy things going on at the moment. Yeah. [01:38:10] Bruce: Yeah. It, it's, it's, it's really hard to understand things, but, you know, I'm, I'm really glad to have an opportunity about this and, you know, kind of getting back to the original thing, I, I don't want anyone to think I hate Rush. I love Rush. Rush is one of the most fascinating places in the world. It. It's so interesting. It took me years to understand. I really didn't understand that much about it. And you, you see that as folks spend time there, it takes about five years before you you realize, oh, there's so much I don't know and understand. Um, but it is fascinating. There are a lot of wonderful people there. They're, they're not well served by their government. Um, they're hearing nothing propaganda all day long. [01:38:50] Chris: Mm-hmm. And, [01:38:51] Bruce: um, you know, I'm, I'm deeply concerned about Ukraine. I care a lot about it. Um, it's, uh, when you go on the square and, and, uh, if you, I'll send you some photographs of this, but you go on the square on my don and there are hundreds of thousands of flags and photos of people. And I, you know, I was there just a few days ago, um, and, and there was a young woman standing there and she was quietly weeping with sunglasses on and, you know, I mean. This is repeated all over the country all the time. And I, it's something about her, of course, you don't want to disturb someone in their, in their grief, but there was something about it. I could tell that she wanted a little interaction and she told me, oh, that's my boyfriend's picture right there. Mm. Oh gosh. And you know, I have many other friends there. And so, you know, she's having a death of a dream of family and children and of life with this person. And, you know, grieving that for who knows, you know, forever. And then, and the worst tragedy is the young man's life is gone for no purpose other than the imperial ambitions of one small, um, person sitting in Moscow. Um, you know, and lots of stories when you travel around Ukraine, there are so many stories like that. Mm-hmm. Um, a very good friend of mine who speaks a number of languages and translates for French television was telling me last year that he, uh, was going around in Eastern Ukraine, that close to close to battle zones. And, um, they were, I don't know, in a school or someplace where there were some internally displaced people. Their town had been bombed out and they were gonna be moved elsewhere. Guy comes in looking for his, the French folks, French television was interviewing, um, local authorities. Man comes in while they're in this process and he's, he's looking for his wife because there are some IDP around. They don't know where she is. They suggest he goes someplace else. Well, there were also body bags in this. Facility. So the guy goes someplace else and, uh, someplace else in the city where there's some other IDP, he doesn't find his wife. He's no thought in his mind other than that she's alive. He just needs to find her. Eventually comes back while a interview's still in process and shown up yet and looks around and they suggested, you know, maybe you try, have you tried calling her? Is your phone switch on? He said, yeah, I keep calling her, but she must have dropped her phone someplace. I can't, I can't, she's not answering. And they suggested that she, she, he dialed a telephone, he dials the telephone in one of the body in the corner ofs. Oh God. Yeah. And right in front of my friend, tti, this man finds out that the love of his life is, you know, so stories are this. An extraordinary story for you and I for Ukrainians. This is every day. Yeah. And this is almost every family. The families have been separated. There are people that are collaborating. I have a close friend in Kyiv whose family's broken apart. Um, and uh, you know, his son is collaborating in southeastern Ukraine and they don't really have contact, much contact with their, their granddaughter. And, you know, it, it, it's all over the country. Everyone's got everybody, there's got a story like this. [01:42:26] Chris: Yeah. What are your hopes for the future of Ukraine and what can listeners do as opposed to help get us there? [01:42:33] Bruce: Yeah, I mean, right now I'm involved in commercial enterprises there. Ukraine has got, I know it sounds crazy that they're fighting a battle and not a battle, you know, they're fighting a war. Um, but, um. It's got a bright future. It's going to be a manufacturing hub for Western Europe. There are some amazing cities, LA ViiV, Kyiv, Odessa standout. There are other great places. There are a motivated, educated population. Uh, costs are much lower than in Western Europe. I'm sure that manufacturers will see an advantage there. Um, Ukrainians. I don't know exactly what this is going to look like, whether we've got something, you know, kind of a long-term frozen conflict in the East. Um, I, I, I don't know what exactly how it looks, but I, I think most Ukrainians believe that the future of their country is gonna be driven by growth and development, especially in Kyiv and Aviv. So there are parts of Eastern Ukraine that probably will never be rebuilt or won't for a very, very long time. There was a population shift that started in about 2011 or maybe even before that. And a lot of folks are moving to Kyiv. You know, Kyiv has an outsized, um, importance within the, the Ukrainian economy, and it's a beautiful, vibrant city and. And so, um, we're working on, we see opportunities to help out in, uh, construction re residential field. There's, there's, there is, um, you know, a lot of infrastructure that needs to be rebuilt. There's not enough housing right now in Kyiv. There's something like 2 million square meters short of what they need. And, um, cities like, uh, on the Slovakian border, which is growing really quickly, there are a lot of defense in industries there, pharmaceutical industries there. Uh, a lot of companies have shifted west to Aviv. Le Aviv is going be a very important place. There's infrastructure going in with new airport and ring roads and things like this. Um, Ukraine has got a, a fantastic, um, agricultural sector. They've got 25% of the black earth, the very best agricultural land in the world. So, um, yeah, there are, there are some real uncertainties there, but don't stay away. Now is the time to get involved when, um, there still is uncertainty because once, once that uncertainty is off the table, those folks that the early adapters will, will be the ones that will have, have profited and help the Ukrainians a lot. So there's, there are chances to, to get involved, add liquidity right now to the Ukrainian economy and, and help folks. Yeah, so I have partnered with Leopard Capital and Leopard Capital invests in frontier, uh, markets, and they're forming several, uh, private real estate funds to invest in residential in Ukraine, which will add, uh, liquidity to the market and, uh, ultimately help in reconstruction and, and building of, of uh, uh, residential in that country, which is, you know, it's a big issue right now. There's, there's a shortage of housing and that will be even more acute when millions more Ukrainians hopefully. [01:45:56] Chris: Fantastic. Bruce, where can listeners sort of find out more about you and connect with you? [01:46:01] Bruce: Yeah, I would say either, either Destination Ukraine or bruce talley.com, either one. Um, brilliant. The, the, you know, the blog has a little different information and, um, destination Ukraine is really. Focused on Ukraine, so, [01:46:14] Chris: yeah. Fantastic. Well, Bruce, thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much for sharing your stories. I really appreciated everything you've, uh, contributed today. Um, so, you know, thank you for joining me. It's been a really interesting conversation. [01:46:25] Bruce: Thanks a lot. You're, uh, you're a great, uh, interviewer and uh, it's a pleasure to speak with you. Thank you. [01:47:04] Announcer: Thanks for listening. This is Secrets and Spies.