Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 15, 1994 TAG: 9411150098
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CLAUDINE WILLIAMS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Larisa Mikhailovna Mahotkina was a free-lance travel agent when Delta Air Lines first began service to Russia three years ago.
"I was talking to some stewardesses and they said, `You need to start your own business,''' said Mahotkina. "I thought that was a good idea."
Mahotkina, a Russian native, launched her company, Charisma Tours, by advertising package tours in American publications. Single-handedly, she also arranged and conducted all of the tours, kept her accounts and developed a budget.
"The funny thing is that I did not know until last week that I was marketing my company," said Mahotkina, who said she lacks any formal business education. "I did not know anything about a business plan or strategy. I did very well with my company by just intuition and good fortune."
Mahotkina's intuition also helped her land such clients as Delta, Dow Chemical and Flint Co. She also worked with a wide range of American business people and tourists.
Mahotkina and eight other Russian entrepreneurs are spending a month as interns in the Roanoke, Bedford, Lynchburg and Rocky Mount areas as part of the "Business for Russia" program. It is sponsored by Legacy International, the International Trade Association of Western Virginia and the Piedmont World Trade Council.
The program pairs Russian interns with area companies so they can learn firsthand what it is like to run a business and can bring what they have learned back home.
The group gathered Monday afternoon to hear a lecture on legal issues presented by John M. Huddle of Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore, a Roanoke law firm.
"Most of us have technical skills," said Sergey Yurievich Saltykov, a team manager of ROS, a Russian company producing software and hardware for televisions and fiber-optic telecommunication. "But Russian business is a very young business. We don't have the business skills and we don't have the information we need to grow."
The Russians will spend about a month in Roanoke and surrounding areas, then spend several days in New York before returning to Russia.
"I have learned a lot about business and I have learned a new kind of English," Mahotkina said. "It is called Southern English and I hope to bring some of that back home with me."
by CNB