The fascinating, humorous, dramatic, and uncompromising history of its development, its struggle against communism, and various crises
Prologue. Alexander Grebennikov and Natalia Mavricheva and their family business.
Grebennikov Verlag is a modest family business. The company was founded by Alexander Grebennikov and his wife Natalia Mavricheva.
Alexander Grebennikov was born on 3 April 1962. After graduating relatively undistinguished from secondary school and then completing studies with honors at the Moscow Institute of Mineralogy, Grebennikov developed an interest in publishing books. He was already familiar with the production of underground press with the aid of a personal computer and needle printer, but with the onset of Perestroika, his plans to start a “samizdat” were dashed. Grebennikov decided to establish an official company and the engineer began his gradual transformation into a publisher.
Natalia Mavricheva was born on 24 May 1973. She studied at the Moscow Institute of Nutrition and earned a diploma as an economist. Even as a child, she dreamed of working in the field of media and advertising. When, in 1993, she first crossed the threshold of the publishing house and saw Alexander Grebennikov, she knew that she had arrived at the place where she was destined to realize her dreams. And that is also how Grebennikov unexpectedly became the man of her dreams.
1987 – The start of publishing and the struggle with communism
Alexander Grebennikov began setting up his first publishing house in 1987, when the very first private companies just started to appear in the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, Soviet authorities erected every possible obstacle to establishing new companies. After receiving refusal upon refusal and gradually coming to understand the Soviet bureaucratic hierarchy, Grebennikov managed to arrange a meeting with Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who at the time supervised the activities of Moscow entrepreneurs.
As this was still the disorganized time of Perestroika, the meeting with Luzhkov was scheduled for nine in the evening. Luzhkov nonetheless arrived a few hours late, so Grebennikov and his associate only appeared in City Hall at one in the morning.
– The party is against the establishment of private publishing houses, said the Communist Luzhkov.
– Why?
– What if you suddenly start to publish anti-communist literature, answered Luzhkov.
– But you are not against private underwear manufacturers, retorted Grebennikov’s companion.
– No, answered Luzhkov, surprised.
– And what if they suddenly started printing anti-communist slogans on the underwear?
– Next! called out Luzhkov, making it clear that Moscow City Hall was not the place for discussion.
In 1988, the USSR issued a law entitled “On Cooperatives”, according to which it was no longer necessary to obtain permission from the Soviet authorities to start a private company. Alexander Grebennikov and his friends registered their first publishing house. In 1991, during the anti-government putsch, Yuri Luzhkov supported Gorbachev and Yeltsin, transforming himself from a loyal soldier in the service of Lenin’s crusade into an anti-communist.
The year 1988 - The first book, or how the “fool Gorbachev” won in the fight for free speech
In 1998, Alexander Grebennikov wrote a book for new entrepreneurs, which he entitled “Guidebook for Those Wanting to Set Up a Cooperative.” The book became an immediate bestseller – and not only among new and inexperienced cooperative directors. One day, an inconspicuously dressed man came into the publisher’s office and asked if this was the place where the advice book was sold.
– Yes, it’s here! – came the pleasant answer with a glance towards an open bookshelf filled to the top with the rest of the print run.
– It’s here, – echoed the visitor. And from out of the corridor appeared a man wearing epaulets.
– Excellent, – he said exuberantly. – We’re confiscating the whole print run.
The authorities weren’t lucky this time. A lawyer happened to be in the office and he explained to the police that they had to present certain documents in order to confiscate the books.
– Well, could we please have just one copy? – said the police, somewhat taken aback.
– Only with the permission of the publishers, – answered the lawyer.
– Could the publisher then please accompany us to the permit department? – came the polite request from the police.
So, Alexander Grebennikov set forth to Petrovka, the offices of the main censorship bureau, for questioning.
Alexander Grebennikov recollects: “Today, it is possible to bear a weapon upon receiving a permit issued by the Ministry of the Interior. The Soviet authorities have also complied with the musings of the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and have equated the pen with a bayonet. This is why printed books and the equipment necessary to produce them require a permit in the USSR, similar to that of personal firearms.”
– We want a written declaration as to who gave you permission to print such a book, – insistently demanded the policeman.
– I won’t write anything. I can publish anything I please. We now have freedom of speech, haven’t you heard? – politely asked Grebennikov.
– What? You can write anything you please? – said the policeman with genuine horror in his voice.
– Yes! Can I even write Gorbachev is a fool? – answered Grebennikov with a question.
– You sure can! – agreed the policeman hastily and with a cry of “Wait a minute!” flew out of the office.
After forty minutes, a higher-ranking officer entered the room and announced that there would be no further questioning and that Grebennikov was free to go.
Тhus, at the end of the 1980s, Alexander Grebennikov’s books were some of the first to breach the armor of Soviet censorship.
The year 1991 - The first publishing house goes bankrupt and the Soviet Union falls apart
Alexander Grebennikov’s publishing house was the second private publisher after the “FACT” cooperative (subsequently “Kommersant” Publishing House), which printed business literature in the Soviet Union. By 1991, the publisher had more than 5000 steady clients and printed six periodicals, the most well known of which was the legal journal “Everything for Entrepreneurs.”
Grebennikov and his family experienced the August anti-government putsch while on holiday in Yevpatoriya, Crimea. For two days, Grebennikov the citizen battled with Grebennikov the family man. The first demanded that he immediately return to Moscow to join his friends and colleagues, while the second insisted that he hastily flee with his family to Turkey via the Black Sea. Yeltsin triumphed and the USSR, once the world’s greatest bulwark of socialism, fell apart.
The bankruptcy of the Soviet Union, in turn, triggered the bankruptcy of the publishing house. Internal problems stemming from managerial errors made by Grebennikov himself were exasperated by external problems. The number of clients decreased by more than half and this was coupled with a steep rise in the cost of paper. Soviet publishers of periodicals requested readers to subscribe at full cost. Expenditures at Alexander Grebennikov’s publishing company were one-and-a-half times greater than revenues.
Although the publishing house found itself forced to end its activities, Alexander Grebennikov’s first lesson in business was not in vain. In setting up a new publishing house, he took into account his acquired experience as well as his admitted mistakes.
The years 1993 – 1995 - The “Grebennikov” Publishing House. The first three years of persevering labor and ten thousand years of happiness
On 2 August 1993, the “Grebennikov” Publishing House was founded. This time, setting up was much more difficult. There were no funds, no group of like-minded associates, and no novelty effect. His only partner was Natalia Mavricheva, Grebennikov’s future wife and co-owner of the company.
Compensating for the lack of resources with his own time, Grebennikov established a number of personal records in terms of work:
* uninterrupted continuous work time (without food or sleep with breaks only to go to the toilet) – 60 hours
* uninterrupted work with sleeping breaks of (on average) one hour – 10 days
* work without weekends – 1 year
* work without vacations – 10 years.
Alexander Grebennikov recollects: “We worked in a small basement space that hardly let in any sunlight. Natalia slept next to me on a folding bed after a 20-hour workday. An ancient computer constantly froze up, unable to cope with processing the endless tables. Completed work frequently had to be redone several times. We lost our appetites. Anyhow, there wasn’t enough money for food. Coffee saved us from fatigue. After working 60 consecutive hours for the first time, Natalia called me out from my self-imposed imprisonment into the daylight and all at once life seemed to me brighter and more remarkable. Work was completed. I thought that now the most torturous was already behind me. Little did I know what lay ahead.”
These were the years in which the foundations of the publishing house were laid. The publisher began by printing the annual address directory “Reclamnaya Rossia” (Advertising in Russia) and the monthly “Reclamnaya Journal,” one of the country’s first advertising magazines. And although it has been almost 10 years since these magazines were discontinued, this work provided the publishing house with valuable experience that proved necessary for the publishing of 24 practical scientific journals that are still being printed today.
The year 1996 - Marketing and Market Research – the first journal of the new publishing house and the first political crisis in the new Russia. Yeltsin vs. Zyuganov or Russian business waiting for Godot
In this year, the “Grebennikov” Publishing House printed its first practical scientific journal - Marketing and Market Research. This was also one of the most difficult years in the life of the publishing house.
Business halted in anticipation of the presidential elections. Magazine subscriptions at the publishers practically ceased. Business owners and the directors of companies feared the restoration of socialism, which they concluded would be inevitable in the event of victory by Zyuganov, a communist.
The publishing house was receiving revenues of only around 1000 dollars a month, losses began to avalanche, and Alexander Grebennikov and Natalia Mavricheva sold their apartment in order to support their publishing business.
Boris Yeltsin won the 1996 elections and, for a time, Russia continued to travel along the road of democracy. The journal “Marketing and Market Research” subsequently received a number of awards from various associations and organizations as the best publication on marketing.
The years 1998, 2008, and other crisis-filled years
The crisis of 1998 placed the company in an extremely difficult position. Magazine subscriptions – the only source of income for the publishing house – fell by 30 percent. Inflation rose by 75 percent. Some 70 percent of subscription contracts were made according to pre-crisis prices and over the course of a year the publishing house was obliged to sell these magazines at a price less than the cost of printing. Staff wages were cut to 100 dollars a person and payments were often late.
Alexander Grebennikov recollects: “All of the staff understood the situation. No one wanted to quit. There were no jobs on the market, anyhow. A popular saying at the time went, “I don’t have a mobile phone, but I do have work.” My wife and I had to make do with a salary of 50 dollars between us. We had to switch to a three-meal schedule – Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. On weekends, we visited relatives so that we could eat lunch or supper.”
Starting back in 1999, the company had already been preparing for the next crisis, which emerged in 2008. First of all, it was decided to use all available media – magazines, books, conferences, and the Internet – to sell information. Secondly, the decision was taken to widen the range of published products from just specialized marketing texts to all business-related themes. And, finally, the company decided to expand beyond the boundaries of its economic zone, namely, Russia, as well as that of its existing clientele, Russian businesses.
The year 2007: New brands and new markets. “Grebennikov” Publishing House from the local to the global market
In 1999, “Grebennikov” Publishing House published three magazines, and, by 2008, it was publishing 28 journals. In ten years, the publishing house put out around 30 books, organized over a hundred conferences, and created an Internet archive with some 4500 articles. In this way, despite cutbacks in book planning and the discontinuance of conference hosting, the first of the two parts of the program to develop the publishing house could be realized.
In September 2007, a new stage of activities for the publishing house began with a photo session in Berlin. Alexander Grebennikov and Natalia Mavricheva took more than 6000 photographs of the city’s sightseeing highlights and these formed the basis of a new photo album entitled “Berlin – Sights and Museums.” This edition serves as the flagship of a new direction for the publishing house – the publication of literature and souvenir related products for tourists. In this way, the publishing house has commenced with the realization of its third and most difficult stage of its strategic development, namely, establishing new business for new clients in a new country. On 2 October, a new representative office was opened in Berlin – Grebennikov Verlag. Immediately foregoing a local strategy of producing for an insignificantly sized Russian market, Grebennikov Verlag began from the very outset to publish in the leading world languages, first and foremost in German for a Berlin readership. “See the wonderful amidst all the wonder” has become the slogan of the publishing house’s new direction of activities.
Grebennikov Verlag has thereby become the first Russian publisher to focus broadly on the national and international marketplace instead of relying on a strictly ethnic Russian clientele. «View Less
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