Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, August 23, 1993                   TAG: 9308230081
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WAY OUT IN FLOYD COUNTY                                LENGTH: Medium

A BUILDING FRIENDSHIP CELEBRATED

In fact, you can't get much farther from anything than Misty Hollow.

And yet, there they were - 15 Russians watching a banjo player pluck out "Rocky Top" on the porch of a one-room cabin.

The bears must have been astonished. No one else was anywhere near close enough to hear the hoots and cries Friday night, as 150 or so Americans and Russians partied together like very old friends.

They were from Radford and Roanoke, from Pereslavl-Zalessky and St. Petersburg and Moscow.

One was from Hawaii.

They drank bourbon and beer and, of course, vodka, and ate barbecue and hot sausages stuffed in pita bread.

The mountains made one visitor pine for Siberia.

"I've always preferred the hills to the flatlands," said Victor Andreev, general director of the Russian-American joint venture Radoslav. Andreev said he lived in a mountainous region of Siberia for many years.

Friday night's back-country shindig capped a week of business talk and cultural mingling in Radford, some 20 or so miles away down the flank of the Blue Ridge.

The Russian visitors - most of them, anyway - were from the city of Pereslavl. The two cities have embraced as neighbors since a Radford company embarked on a business venture in Pereslavl six years ago.

Luther Dickens, president of the Radford-based Radva Corp., has struggled since 1987 to build a factory in Pereslavl to produce Radva's Thermastructure building panels. The expanded polystyrene panels, reinforced with steel, can replace traditional wood-frame construction.

A Russian Thermastructure plant began operation earlier this year. The plant is owned and operated by Radoslav - the joint venture involving Radva and several Russian companies.

Last week, the Radoslav board of directors came to Radford for meetings with Dickens and Radva's own board of directors. Their Russian party of 12 also included Pereslavl Mayor Vladimir Shesternjov and the Russians' spouses.

Dickens said the talks included the signing of a letter of intent for Radva to procure more American building materials for the joint venture.

On Friday night, with the dealing all but done, several of the visitors took time to talk about business - and Russia.

"Response [to Thermastructure housing] is positive right now," said Mikhail Sedelnikov, executive director of Argamak. Argamak, one of the Russian companies that make up Radoslav, handles housing loans, among other things.

Despite Russia's economic hardships, said Sedelnikov, many Russians have made enough money to afford the $100,000 to $200,000 Thermastructure homes.

Meanwhile, Shesternjov - the Russian mayor - said his most difficult task is convincing people to change the old ways.

"It is not easy," Shesternjov said of Russia's continuing transition to a Western-style free-market economy. "It's confused and contradictory. The most difficult thing is to change people's perceptions."

Shesternjov said his city benefits from the new technologies being introduced by Radoslav and another joint venture with Denmark in the field of wood processing.

There were other Russians here as well - more evidence, if needed, of the thaw in Cold War feelings.

Few were talking business.

Instead, the gathering at Dickens' secluded mountain retreat was a time to toast accomplishments, ponder differences and celebrate some unusual friendships.

Banjo picker John Viers recalled his first meeting with Radoslav director Andreev a couple of years ago, back when Viers was still a drinking man.

"I said, `I'll show you how to drink,' " Viers recalled. "He said, `You don't know anything about drinking.' "

Eventually the two got down to brass tacks with a vodka bottle, matching shot for shot. Viers ended up on the floor.

Moral:

"Don't drink with Victor," Viers said.

Such friendships are the work of Dickens, who has lobbied for cultural ties along with profits in his Pereslavl venture from the beginning.

As a result, ties between the two cities go far beyond Radoslav. Members of a Pereslavl children's folk ensemble have performed in the New River Valley, and a group of Radford area residents visited Pereslavl last summer.