Equestrians Afoot

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As Communism falls in the former Soviet Union of 1989, one man has a vision for the world of free enterprise and privatization. Ivars Kasarskis views the new Russian market as one that will be catching up to the rest of the world, allowing him ample opportunity to use his economic prowess as he tries a different method of running things. He has his trusted assistant Maria Tereshkaya and his enforcer Esteban Cardona, but in order to test and develop his experiments, Kasarskis needs other people to help develop the many aspects to this plan, like cogs in the machine that he has envisioned.
Kasarskis needs a team for his think tank, and a particular man named Oleg Kagan to recruit this team. Oleg has his doubts about the think tank at first, but Kasarskis is not a man who easily accepts no for an answer. He needs people who are good at organizing to help him with a concept that could have the potential to revolutionize the commercial production sector by improving the quality of products, along with the quality of the work environment, so Tatania Rubova and Ky Doh are recruited to help. They take over a Russian appliance factory and begin a production regime that includes having classes for employees, offering onsite doctors for the employees, and onsite day care services, all to allow the employees to understand their product and take pride in making the product well.
Soon projects are underway and the Russians are building appliances that can compete with those of the West and still be affordable. More factories are started while the think tank researches and investigates the idea of flying cars for improved transportation, building models and testing them. The team members find ways to use their talents as improvements continue to be made.
The team encompasses a wide range of personalities, as well as ideals, from those who favor democracy and the appeal of capitalism, to staunch Communists and even a member of the Communist party. As the team grows and expands to explore new ideas, the lives of the people involved in all of these projects begin to unfold and become interwoven. Esteban, acting as the Cowboy’s personal police force, rescues Oleg’s wife Tonia from a violent local trouble maker and his cohorts, but while Oleg is away from home working on the think tank, Esteban an affair with Tonia while they are renovating a house. Ky Doh falls madly in love with one of the factory employees. The Cowboy’s lavish lifestyle rubs off on those that he works with and with the success from the first factory, as well as subsequent others and the thrill of building a flying car, the Cowboy and those close to him are lulled into a world of endless possibilities and decadence.
Eventually, in order to have more freedom in running the projects, the Cowboy moves them to his property, bypassing government interference as the government goes through a coup and other changes in leadership. However, all of these improvements and changes are not the only legacy that the Cowboy has set in motion. Unwittingly, his methods of getting his way and securing that he gets his way come at a cost. An enemy, whose sole existence centers around revenge, seeks to disrupt the continuity that the Cowboy and his associates have built over the span of a decade. As the millennium approaches, will the price of success be too steep for the Cowboy or his associates?
In this entertaining mix of Communism, Democracy with Wild West justice not so subtly in the background, Bruce White leads readers into the world he creates allowing them to watch as the Cowboy makes his own world of ideas a functional reality.

Keywords: Cowboy, Government, Ranch, Factory, Privatize, USSR, West, Market, Communist, Millennium, Equestrian