Are you in the market for a spiffy, handmade Tula shotgun? Maybe an electric samovar trimmed with brass bells? How about a shiny, 10,000-ton icebreaker to stash under the tree?
These are but a few of the stocking stuffers on a veritable, if sometimes bizarre, Santa`s list of goods and services the Soviets have hauled over the North Pole for display at the Soviet Export Goods Exhibition in New York, running at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center through Tuesday.
Under Mikhail Gorbachev`s ambitious economic reform program, a red dawn is slowly breaking through the murky fog of U.S.-USSR trade relations, and this exhibition, the first of its kind in New York, signals the Soviets`
eagerness to hasten the sunrise.
Featuring everything from the sublime, glossily enameled wooden Palekh boxes, to the awesomely awful, vaguely Porky Pig-ish rubber bath toy, the Expo`s 4,500 exhibitors pointedly profer a panoply of goods, stressing that vodka and caviar are hardly the only merchandise bearing the red label ”Made in the USSR.”
Whether a nifty space photography program that leaves the American LANDSAT system in the cosmic dust, the Soviets boast, or a precious pile of Russian Crown sables, perhaps the rarest, costliest fur, there is something for almost everyone.
And everyone on both sides, it seems, wants to get into the act. Despite miserable holiday timing, high United States Customs duties on Soviet imports and almost no advance publicity, except for the ill-fated plan to have Gorbachev open the exhibition officially on Dec. 8-he returned home in the wake of the earthquake in Armenia-Expo had drawn half of its 10,000 preregistered visitors in its first week, not to mention a walk-in crowd of the curious at $10 a head.
Some were there to buy from the Soviets; others hoped to sell to them. Some did both.
In the opening days of the Expo, Pepsico signed a multimillion-dollar contract under which it will export Pepsi-Cola concentrate to the USSR and import Stolichnaya vodka to the U.S., including a new upscale product called Stolichnaya Crystal, to debut next month.
”By the exhibition`s end, I think the contracts signed will exceed $200 million,” said Bagrat Aroutiounov, chief of Soviet exhibitions abroad.
”Already we have more than 100 joint ventures. It will be more.” He cited mechanical-engineering technology and road-building equipment as particular areas of future growth.
Compared to some $1.5 billion of U.S. goods exported to the USSR last year, the Soviets exported only about $400 million to the U.S., according to Romuald G. Tomberg, deputy head of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, who said the last two years` exports were the lowest since the early `70s.
”We expect it will increase again,” Tomberg said.
”This is a wide-open market,” said E. Dennis Fee, sales and marketing chief for Seattle-based Marine Resources Co. International, presiding over a punchbowl of cracked ice garnished with huge, rosy-shelled King Crab legs from the waters off the Kamchatka peninsula. In one of the largest U.S. joint ventures with the Soviets, Fee`s firm imports 2 million to 3 million pounds of the crustaceans annually, which sell to U.S. restaurants for $10 to $14 a pound.
But the surface has been only skimmed, according to Fee, who said the whole bottom-fish category has yet to be hooked.
But, like the path of a troika through the snow, the going is not always easy. Soviets clearly have not learned the secret of what makes Sammy, or Sasha, buy.
Observed over two days, Soviet exhibit booths often were left unattended and bereft of information sheets, or otherwise manned by non-English speakers, who would shrug helplessly when confronted with American queries or scurry off to find an English-speaking comrade. In many cases they never returned. Evidence supported the popular theory that the missing comrades were off conducting market research at Bloomingdale`s, Macy`s and Trump Tower.
Meanwhile, the blue-carpeted Expo aisles were littered with frustrated Americans seeking trading partners among the glossy orange Belarus tractors, banked in potted palms. Old Russian hands were not surprised.
”Everything you`ve ever heard is true,” said a weary, smiling George Carroll, president of New Jersey-based Torg International, who is accustomed to the laissez faire approach in Soviet business. Torg, which will introduce Zhiguli, the top Soviet beer, and Laggidze, a Soviet soft drink, to American supermarkets in the spring, is the first American company to have a majority interest, 51 percent, in a Soviet joint venture.
”Customer service in the Soviet Union has not been the most available commodity,” observed Jana Janus, manager of a full-service communications and facilities center for Western business people in Moscow, which her firm, Tucson-based AlphaGraphics, plans to open in February.
”These guys are going to have to learn the hard way,” said Fee, overhearing Soviets flatly refusing less-than-gigantic orders from small U.S. retailers who hoped to test-market food items. ”The Soviet way is `Our way or no way.` That`s no way to do business, and that`s what they`ve got to find out.”
Savvy Soviets sighed in exasperation: ”Let us say that marketing is not the strongest point of Soviet exporters,” said Valery P. Melekhov, Moscow-based project manager of the U.S.-USSR Trade and Economic Council.
”That`s why a special program has been made in the USSR to educate the people in international business schools,” he said, rolling his eyes at the thought of unattended booths.
”It can be said that the country has woken up, but it has only taken the first steps from the bed.”
Soviets hope to take the first steps into American closets soon, as the near-nonstop, high-energy fashion shows at the Expo attest. The staging and choreography for the sleek, high-cheekboned Soviet models were impeccably professional, a standard the clothes could not always reach. The work of top designers at Moscow`s All-Union Fashion House, the best designs played off historic motifs in classic shapes.
Shown to the strains of ”Lara`s Theme,” romantic, embroidered, Cossack- inspired tunics and jodhpurs; snappy, gold-buttoned military-style coats, wide-trousered suits and simple chemises could cut the mustard even in Paris. Little black dresses and jewel-colored capes over simple, shapely wool suits would have raised an appreciative look on the streets of Milan. But often, fit was off, fabric quality was dicey and frou-frou evening-wear should be a Soviet no-no for quite some time.
More solidly top-quality were the displays of amber jewelry from the Baltic republics and lacquered wooden boxes from the Palekh area near Moscow, with prices ranging from about $35 to $10,000.
Intricately enameled silver tea sets and jewelry from Leningrad, starting at $3,000, were breathtaking, as was a tiny enameled hen-shaped jewelry box filled with seven egg-shaped pendants, at $750.
The prototype Debut car, a bullet-shaped vehicle in metallic olive with dark smoked windows, received less than raves, despite such features as a
”transformable interior,” complete with ”dinner trays” and gray velvet swivel seats.
”It`s very bare bones, probably very functional but not very attractive,” said Bob Williams, who, with colleagues from NYNEX, leapt onto the car`s revolving platform and, like American men anywhere, began opening doors and checking it out.
Viatcheslav Artyushin, the car`s attendant, was aghast and became further piqued when asked the price:
”It is a prototype; there is no price. Why do you keep asking me questions for which there are no answers?”
Some Americans, less interested in buying than selling to the Soviets, came to the Expo on a reconnaissance mission.
”I`m here principally to see what items they`re showing because we`re in the business of manufacturing all types of containers,” said John H. Lockwood Jr., Chicago-based vice president in American National Can`s International Division.
”We`re told that as much as 90 percent of the food there is available only in glass.” His firm has been looking at the possibility of a canning operation in the USSR, he said.
”I think there are some very good opportunities.”
So does Norman Seltzer, chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange member firm bearing his name.
”I came hoping to talk to them about the possibility of trading futures options,” he said, adding that agricultural, foreign-currency and interest-rate contracts might be appropriate commodities for the Soviets.
He has no idea if his chats with Soviet officials will bear fruit, but he is taking Russian lessons.
”I believe it is part of their nature to be somewhat distrustful at the beginning, but once they trust you, I think you have a trading partner for life.”
”We are working on that,” Valery Melekhov said.
