A tale of two crises

The current economic crisis will be over in a year - and is hugely different from the fall-out from the 1998 cataclysms. It's a bold prediction, but coming from Staffwell president and CEO Teri Lindeberg, it's one worth listening too. Lindeberg, who arrived in Moscow from New York in 1996, has seen it all in this city and reckons there are big differences between the current recession and its predecessor.
"The last one was very different," she said in an interview at her company's offices on Novinsky Bulvar. "We saw major companies leaving the market, constant uncertainty about what would happen next. This time everyone knows this is a one-year problem. Nobody wants to shut up shop unless they absolutely have to. Companies know that, candidates know that. It's temporary."
One major change has been in the world's attitudes to Russia over the past decade. "In 1998 there was a big reaction to what was happening here," added Lindeberg. "Many western companies were pulling out immediately without any thought, and Russia was getting very poor press in the West.
"Reports said the country was doomed, that the opportunities were gone forever, but as we all know now it's prospered. Russia's been fantastic for the past few years, and it will be fantastic again."
That doesn't mean that the current malaise isn't taking its toll merely that the potential for catastrophe, which seemed so imminent in 1998, isn't there. "Of course it's hard right now for anyone who has lost a job," said Lindeberg. "When times have been good nobody wants to stop and wait for a year going through the down time. And things are bad at the moment. There's no sugar coating - it's bad everywhere in the world and Russia is feeling it too."
It was partly a desire to escape getting stuck in a rut which first brought Lindeberg to Moscow after five years working in HR in New York. Faced with a choice between settling down in the suburbs and joining the local golf club, or embarking on an adventure, she arrived in Russia almost on a whim.
"A friend asked me if I wanted to come out here with him, and because I was at a stage where I was facing a decision I just said ‘yes' without really thinking about it," she said.
"I didn't know Moscow, I didn't really know what Russia was, I just jumped on it."
Even now, 13 years later, she admits her Russian language skills aren't all they could be - "it's on my list for this year" - but insists that it hasn't been a big problem.
And, having established Staffwell in 2000 and seen it grow into one of the leading players in the Moscow Executive Recruitment sector, she is still enthusiastic about living and working over here.
"The big difference between here and the West is that back home everything is built, whereas here we are still building everything," she said. "It's more exciting and creates more opportunities. When I had been here five years I started to worry that it would be like New York again and I'd want to leave.
"But in the end I sailed through that five-year barrier. I was conscious of it, but I felt like I was having a great time and I didn't want to leave."