Vitaly Alekseev zeros in directly when asked a question, such as "Why are you here?" He says, "To improve my English while I make money."
He and co-worker Ratmir Sabitov are helping staff the kitchen at the Bear Claw Bar and Grill north of Ennis this summer.
Proprietors Bob and Deb Miller have been wrestling with a chronic labor shortage and were faced with reducing open hours or cutting out lunches some days. But they identified a solution Bob says has panned out well.
They hired Russians Vitaly and Ratmir on three-month student work visas through a program offered by interExchange (
).
The young men say they are enjoying their experience in southwest Montana and hope they will leave with some jingle in their pockets, though both confess they may be spending more than they should on shopping and local entertainment options. Ratmir says he is "spending way too much on gasoline" for the car provided by his employers.
Vitaly says he enjoys travel and has been to Istanbul in Turkey, and Poland, and would also like to visit London. But apparently the Rocky Mountains are satisfying his wanderlust for now, at least.
"I like the mountains," he says, and has enjoyed "seeing the big animals...elk? Yes, elk, on the road. I take a lot of pictures. I bought a digital camera."
Indeed, when this reporter is ready to depart, Vitaly fetches his camera and asks to be photographed astride the reporter's motorcycle, and he is obliged.
The guys say they are also impressed with the wireless high-speed internet access available at the Bear Claw, out in the rural middle of the Madison Valley. They have taken advantage of the ready access to communication to keep in touch with families back home and to send them pictures.
"We meet a lot of people from other countries here," says Ratmir, and Vitaly adds he has made the acquaintance an American girl he is apparently fond of--"She's very pretty," he says.
Asked if they've found anything about America to be surprisingly strange, Vitaly says, "Not really. But we can't enter any clubs or buy alcohol." Then he adds, "The people are very friendly in Montana."
He tells us he hails from the Baltic seaport Kaliningrad, which was once a part of German East Prussia and was then known as Koenigsberg. It lies in the Russian corridor between Poland and Lithuania and has a population of 430,000.
Vitaly says he has one brother and that his parents are in business. His mother apparently runs a jewelry shop and his father is in construction. Vitaly has worked at both businesses.
What does the future hold for this 19-year-old university student? "Finish my education, maybe psychology. I'm not sure. I want to help my parents and travel more. I want to see the Russian mountains!"
As for Ratmir, he, too, has seen some of the world, most notably London. His family are "medics," he says: his father a radiologist, his mother a nurse and his sister is studying medicine.
"Four would be too much," he says, indicating he has plans outside the medical field. He is studying information technology and economics.
Ratmir lives in Astrakhan, which he quickly spells for the reporter. The city of 700,000 is a Russian river port situated on the Volga River delta as it enters the Caspian Sea. It is a relatively large port predominantly used for transit cargoes from Russia to Iran. It is 30 hours from Moscow by train, Ratmir reports.
Source: The Montana Tavern Times, August, 2006, published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.