Post-Soviet States Interviews

James Franklin Collins served as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation from 1997 to 2001. His long career in the U.S. Foreign service included two prior posts in Moscow, from 1973-1975 and 1990-1993. His expertise in Russia predates his diplomatic career, having earned a master’s degree in history and Russian studies from Indiana University and with research and teaching experience in Russian as well as European and American history, government, and economics. His diplomatic career also included positions in Izmir, Turkey from 1969-1971 and Amman, Jordan from 1982-1984. Stateside, served on the European and Near East bureaus and the executive offices at the Department of State, and on the National Security Council Staff at the White House.

Ambassador Collins has done an extensive interview spanning his life and career with the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project.¹ The present interview focused on topics of specific interest to the Post-Soviet States project, including the privatization of the Russian economy in the 1990s and the Russian energy industry.

Mark O. Henry is co-founder and Chief Financial Officer of Boston-based Bach Pharma. An accountant by training, he has worked as a CPA for Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co., a vice president at State Street Bank in Boston, and in numerous business ventures. Much of his career in the pharmaceutical industry has been aimed at establishing a market in the United States for Russian therapeutics. Most prominent in his work is a monosodium luminol product marketed as Galavit in Russia and as GVT in the United States. In this interview, Mr. Henry discusses his experiences working with the Russian and American medical communities beginning in the late 1990s and which remain ongoing.

Christopher R. King is a real estate broker based in Boston, M.A. who was the first Program Director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Moscow. Beginning in the late 1990s, he worked to successfully expand the presence of the chamber within the American business community in Moscow. He has also worked on commercial real estate ventures in Russia with Colliers, one of the first Western firms to enter the Russian real estate market. In this interview, King discusses his work with the chamber, its relationship with the Russian State Duma, and working on Russian land use and real estate projects.

Robert E. Langer is an American attorney and partner at Becker, Glynn, Muffly, Chassin & Hosinski, LLP. His legal career has included advising on venture capital investments, technology start-ups, and international education. A fluent Russian speaker, he has advised clients in the former Soviet Union and Russia since the late 1980s and was one of the first lawyers to work on projects under the auspices of the 1987 Soviet law on joint ventures. He holds a law degree from Tulane University and studied Soviet law in Moscow at the Institute of State and Law at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. This interview details the full range of Mr. Langer’s experience working in the Soviet Union and Russia, both on particular projects and more broadly on the rapidly-changing legal landscape faced by domestic and foreign lawyers alike from the late 1980s to the early 2000s.

Tito Pontecorvo is internationally renowned for his more than thirty-year career breeding Akhal-Teke horses in Russia and the United States. Having bred approximately nine hundred pureblood Akhal-Tekes in total, he is chiefly responsible for the development of the population of these horses that live in the United States today. In 1997, facing growing threats to his family’s safety, he fled Russia and evacuated seventy-five of these horses to a ranch in Texas. Prior to his career breeding horses, he worked for thirteen years as a professional oceanographer. He holds a PhD in oceanography from Moscow State University.

Daniel M. Satinsky is an attorney, author, and international business consultant specializing in technology and entrepreneurship in countries of the former Soviet Union. His career has involved work in Russia, Georgia, Uzbekistan, and elsewhere, with particular expertise on Russian regional business and government. He holds a law degree from Northeastern University, a Master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and is currently an Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. He is a co-author of Hammer and Silicon: The Soviet Diaspora in the US Innovation Economy — Immigration, Innovation, Institutions, Imprinting, and Identity. In this interview, Satinsky discusses his experience working on international joint ventures, regional business development, and government consultation throughout the 1990s.

Christopher G. Senie is an American attorney specializing in land use and land litigation. He has represented private, commercial, and residential clients on a broad range of planning, zoning, and other land use matters. Based in Brewster, MA, he is an alum of Hampshire College and the University of Bridgeport School of Law. In the early 1980s, he became active in citizen diplomacy efforts between Western countries and the Soviet Union. He worked for several years spearheading and negotiating the Rosinka real estate development outside of Moscow under the auspices of the 1987 Soviet law on joint ventures. In this interview, Mr. Senie discusses his experience in the Soviet Union and Russia working on citizen diplomacy, land use negotiations, and becoming subject to a hostile takeover.

Michael Rex Waller is an American lawyer and specialist in energy policy and regulatory law, corporate law, and international law. He has held positions as Special Counsel at Hunton Andrews Kurth, LLP and as Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of Delhaize America. His extensive philanthropy has included past support for the Strauss Center. In the mid-1990s, he relocated to Moscow to open an office for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP, where he worked for several years as Managing Partner. In this interview, Mr. Waller describes his time spent establishing the Moscow office, building partnerships between Russian lawyers and their foreign counterparts, and advising clients on major transnational energy projects, including the Caspian Pipeline Consortium.