| When German authorities talk about the “last” Russian soldier who left German territory ten years ago, they do not take into account defectors who, for one reason or another, did not want to go home as part of their unit. Contrary to gloomy forecasts in this regard from local sociological experts, there were about 200 Russian soldiers, which is not so many against the backdrop of a 500,000-strong detachment of soldiers and members of their families who went home in a disciplined manner.
Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Svetikov lives today in Potsdam in a decent private house and is currently, as he himself told Vremya Novostey, busy building a bathhouse. The former deputy head of the army radio station "Volga", which for half a century broadcast simple propaganda programs for the soldiers of the Western Front on long waves from Potsdam, managed to create a strong Russian bookselling and publishing network "Helikon" in Germany. Its clientele, as Mr. Svetikov half-jokingly says, is diverse - from Russian-speaking immigrants of all waves living here, universities and research centers to students of the American intelligence school in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. With his book catalogue, the ex-lieutenant colonel reaches 15 thousand consumers throughout Europe. To achieve this, six jobs had to be created. Of course, this is quite modest for Germany with its 4 million unemployed. But local economists know that these “drops” of small and medium-sized businesses wear away the stone of unemployment.
The entrepreneurial idea that turned out to be so fruitful came to the propagandist officer Svetikov at the very beginning of the 90s, when the Western group, suffering from currency hunger, was left to survive. By this time, the network of 53 Voentorg bookstores, scattered across units and garrisons of the West Group, began to decline. There was no time for books, Svetikov recalls, people were more chasing the “demobilization goods.” The writer Yulian Semenov, who then owned his own publishing house, decided to become the savior of Russian military bookstores in Germany. Having connections in the then Central Committee of the party, he “organized” investments that for some time supported the most important stores. He “recaptured” Lieutenant Colonel Svetikov from the army and set him free to pursue a career in bookselling business. Soon Yulian Semenov died, and ex-officer Viktor Svetikov, who managed to create the Union of Russian Journalists Abroad, found himself alone with Russian books.
Svetikov opened his main bookstore almost ten years ago on Berlin's Kantstrasse 84. In this area in the twenties of the last century, when the German capital became a haven for almost 300 thousand representatives of the Russian intelligentsia, there was the center of “Russian Berlin” with its countless Russian-speaking people publishing houses, shops, theaters, restaurants. In recent years, the “Russian waves” have turned out to be different. Among other things, Kantstrasse is known today for its red-light establishments, the jobs of which are occupied mainly by our compatriots.
Viktor Svetikov, who was born in a village near Tambov, joined the army from the Suvorov Military School and served as a correspondent for Red Star in Afghanistan, connected his life with Germany. He “intends in principle” to remain Russian here, retaining Russian citizenship. In pursuit of new book releases, he endlessly travels between Berlin and Moscow. On Kantstrasse he misses the Mother See. But there he is again drawn home to Potsdam, where his Russian bathhouse is being built. Yuri Shpakov, Berlin
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