May 3, 1991, 8:00 AM – Leningrad Trucking Enterprise #7, Main Depot
The gates were rusted open.
Alexei stood before them, Ivan at his side, watching the morning light creep across the cracked concrete of the depot yard. Before them stretched a landscape of industrial decay: rows of parked trucks, their paint faded, their tires flat, their windows opaque with grime. Weeds pushed through the pavement. A single dog wandered between the vehicles, sniffing at garbage.
Behind the trucks, the repair facilities loomed—four massive buildings with corrugated steel walls and windows that had been broken and never fixed. Beyond them, the warehouses: three structures the size of aircraft hangars, their loading docks empty, their doors hanging open. And in the distance, the port depot—the crown jewel—with its rail sidings and direct access to the harbor.
All of it was his.
"Looks like a graveyard," Ivan observed.
"It is. We're going to resurrect it."
They walked through the gate, their footsteps echoing in the silence. A few workers drifted past, eyeing them with a mixture of suspicion and hope. Word had spread quickly: the auction was over, the company had new owners, and those owners were here to see what they had bought.
Grigory emerged from the administration building, his face bright with relief. "You came. I wasn't sure you would."
"The papers are signed. The company is ours. Of course we came." Alexei looked at the chaos around them. "Where do we start?"
Grigory gestured helplessly. "Everywhere. The trucks haven't been maintained in months. The repair facilities have no parts. The warehouses are empty. The workers haven't been paid in ten weeks. Some haven't shown up for six."
"Then we start with the workers. Call a meeting. Everyone who still wants a job. One hour."
9:15 AM – Main Repair Bay
Three hundred seventy-two workers gathered in the cavernous space where Ivan had watched the first meeting weeks ago. They stood in clusters, their faces wary, their arms crossed, their bodies radiating the particular tension of people who had been disappointed too many times.
Alexei stood on the same makeshift stage where the bureaucrats had droned about privatization. He waited for the murmuring to die, then spoke without introduction.
"My name is Alexei Volkov. As of yesterday, I own this company."
The murmuring surged. A boy. A child. Some laughed, bitter and disbelieving. Others stared, waiting for the punchline.
"I'm seventeen years old. I have no experience running a trucking company. I have no connections in the Soviet bureaucracy. I have no idea how to fix most of what's broken here."
The laughter died. Confusion replaced it.
"What I do have is money. Real money. Dollars. Enough to pay back wages, buy parts, and get these trucks running. What I also have is a plan. Not a Soviet plan—a real one. A plan that involves moving goods for people who need them moved, getting paid in currency that holds its value, and building a company that will survive whatever comes next."
He paused, letting that sink in.
"Here's the deal. Everyone who wants to stay gets their back wages within thirty days. Everyone who stays gets a raise—twenty percent, effective immediately. Everyone who stays works for me, not for the state, not for some committee, not for a plan that was written in Moscow ten years ago."
A voice from the crowd, rough with suspicion: "And if we don't want to stay?"
"Then you collect your back wages and you leave. No hard feelings. But you leave today, because I need people who believe this can work."
Silence. Three hundred seventy-two workers, most of whom hadn't been paid in months, most of whom had given up hope, stared at a seventeen-year-old boy who was offering them a future.
An old man near the front spoke. His voice was cracked, weary, but curious. "What's your name again?"
"Volkov. Alexei Volkov."
"Any relation to the General? The one at the Suvorov School?"
"My grandfather."
The old man nodded slowly. "I knew him. '45, just after the war. He was a good man. Hard, but fair." He looked at the workers around him. "The grandson of Vladimir Volkov is standing here, offering us a chance. I say we take it."
He stepped forward, crossing from the crowd to stand near the stage. One by one, others followed. A trickle became a stream. Within ten minutes, two hundred of the three hundred seventy-two had committed.
It wasn't enough. But it was a start.
11:30 AM – Kolya's Domain
Kolya had already claimed the main repair bay as his kingdom.
He stood in the center of the vast space, surrounded by the detritus of Soviet maintenance: greasy tools, broken parts, manuals that hadn't been updated since 1975. His face was alight with something Alexei had never seen there before—happiness.
"This place," Kolya breathed, gesturing at the cavernous space, "is a cathedral. Look at these lifts—hydraulic, German-made, 1968, but they still work. Look at this parts inventory—forty years of Soviet trucking, all here, all organized. Look at this diagnostic equipment—I didn't even know this existed."
Alexei looked. He saw rust, dust, and decay. Kolya saw potential.
"How many trucks can you fix?"
"All of them. Two hundred thirty. But it will take time. Months. We need to prioritize."
"Prioritize how?"
Kolya pulled out a notebook, already covered in his cramped handwriting. "Thirty-seven trucks are beyond repair—parts too rare, frames too rusted. They're scrap. Another sixty need major work—engines, transmissions, the kind of rebuild that takes weeks each. The rest—one hundred thirty-three—need routine maintenance: tires, brakes, fluids, minor repairs. They can be roadworthy in a month if we have the parts."
"Get the parts. Whatever they cost. I want fifty trucks running in two weeks."
Kolya's eyes widened. "That's—"
"That's what we need for the next operations. The bases are closing. The window is shrinking. We need to move now, not in months."
Kolya nodded, his excitement tempered by realism. "I'll need men. Mechanics. The ones who stayed are good, but there aren't enough."
"Hire more. Offer double the market rate. There are mechanics all over this city who haven't worked in months."
Kolya was already making notes. Alexei left him to his cathedral and walked to the next challenge.
1:45 PM – Warehouse Three
The warehouse was empty except for dust and the ghosts of goods long gone. But its potential was enormous—five thousand square meters of covered space, with loading docks, rail access, and a roof that only leaked in three places.
Alexei stood in the center, Sasha beside him, both men staring at the emptiness.
"This is where we store everything," Alexei said. "Copper, fuel, whatever comes next. Not scattered across the city, but here, secure, under our control."
Sasha nodded slowly. "And when we're not running operations? When the bases are empty?"
"Then we rent it out. Legitimate businesses need storage. We'll be the ones providing it."
Sasha looked at him with something like wonder. "You're building a monopoly."
"I'm building infrastructure. The monopoly is just a side effect."
They walked the perimeter, noting the loading docks, the security gaps, the potential for expansion. By the time they finished, Sasha had a list of repairs and upgrades that would cost perhaps fifty thousand dollars.
Cheap, for the asset it would become.
3:30 PM – Port Depot
The crown jewel was worse than Alexei expected.
The depot sat on prime waterfront, with direct rail connections and deep-water access. But it had been stripped—literally. Copper wiring had been pulled from the walls. Windows were broken. The office furniture was gone. Even the toilets had been removed.
Grigory, who had accompanied them, wrung his hands. "The workers took what they could, before the privatization. They said it was their wages, taken in kind."
Alexei didn't argue. He couldn't. The workers had been desperate, and desperate people do desperate things.
"Can it be restored?"
Grigory nodded. "With money, yes. The structure is sound. The rail lines are intact. The dock needs repairs, but it's usable."
"How much?"
"Maybe a hundred thousand. Maybe more."
Alexei calculated. A hundred thousand was manageable. The value of the depot, once restored, would be ten times that.
"Do it. Start immediately."
Grigory's face lit up. For the first time, he looked like a man with a future.
6:00 PM – Administration Building
The day ended in what would become Alexei's office—a corner room on the second floor with windows overlooking the depot yard. The furniture was Soviet institutional: a massive wooden desk, filing cabinets that weighed a ton, a couch that smelled of cigarette smoke. But it was his.
Ivan found him there, staring at the sunset.
"Long day."
"Long month. Long year."
Ivan sat on the couch, which groaned under his weight. "The men are impressed. You talked to them like equals, not like workers. That matters."
"It's how my grandfather talked to cadets. Respect costs nothing and buys everything."
Ivan nodded. "Tarasov will be back. He won't forget today."
"I know."
"He'll hit us where we're weakest. The trucks, the drivers, the workers. He'll try to bleed us until we sell."
"Then we make sure we're not weak." Alexei turned from the window. "Double the security. Vasiliev can train a team of our own people. No more relying on outsiders."
Ivan nodded. "And the drivers? The ones we hire?"
"Pay them well. Treat them well. Make them loyal. Tarasov can't buy what's already ours."
Ivan stood, preparing to leave. At the door, he paused. "You know what you're doing?"
"Mostly. The rest I'm making up as I go."
Ivan almost smiled. "That's more honest than most."
He left. Alexei sat behind the massive desk, alone in his new office, surrounded by the ghosts of Soviet industry. Outside, the yard was dark, the trucks silent, the workers gone home to families who would eat tonight because of what he had built.
Neva Transport. His company. His infrastructure.
He thought of Tarasov's face at the auction. The hatred. The promise.
He thought of his mother's photograph, still in his pocket.
Be better than this world.
He didn't know if he was better. But he was building something that would last. Something that would employ hundreds. Something that would move goods through a dying country and into whatever came next.
That was enough. For now.
He pulled out the address book, opened it to the next page, and began planning the next operation.