vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #162 / Business / Reading article...

Swords to plowshares, naval officers to auto mechanics and marketing directors.

With ceremonial flourish, the first in a series of retraining seminars for retired and laid off Pacific Fleet officers opened on Feb. 23, at the Japanese Center in Vladivostok. The two-week-long program, sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with Far Eastern State University and the Far East State Academy of Economics and Management, is training some 55 former sailors and naval officers in the “sale and technical service of automobiles.”

“Japan is certain that assisting in the retraining of former Russian military officers will directly advance Japanese-Russian relations,” said Japanese Consul General Tetsuya Hirose.

While countries such as Germany, Britain, and the U.S. have been assisting Russia for many years as it reduces its military forces, Japan has only just begun to offer financial and technical assistance to Russian armed forces. According to Toyohisa Kozuki, political counselor with the Japanese Embassy in Moscow, the Primorye program is the first of many technical assistance and retraining programs planned for the former Soviet Union. The exact amount of funding for the programs will depend on the success of this pilot program, said Kozuki.

The Japanese funding, along with the support of Germany and the United Kingdom will be much needed. In the next two years, an estimated 20,000 Pacific Fleet sailors are due to be laid-off; the first round of cutbacks is reportedly due to begin next month.

“In the future, if the Russians want to continue and develop this seminar in auto service and maintenance, we are prepared to continue,” said Osamu Suzuki, director of the Japan Center in Vladivostok. “The seminars themselves were proposed by the Russian side.”

During the seminar, former petty officers and torpedo-room engineers scribbled notes as visiting lecturer Toyotsua Momoto, discussed his work as a management and marketing director at the Maruma Company of Tokyo, which manufacturers auto parts and light and heavy machinery.

“Marketing is tactics. Management is strategy,” Momoto told the sailors. “Above all, remember that the customer always comes first.”

The seminars will conclude with three-week internships at various Japanese businesses later this year. Several sailors expressed cautious optimism about them.

“I hope to find something for myself here because I’m retiring soon and I will have to find a job,” said Alexander Glazarov,who served as commander of a mine and torpedo unit. “New knowledge can never hurt.”

“I can’t say anything definitely because I haven’t seen what [the seminars] will be like,” added sailor Vasily Yurkin.

“In principle, I suppose, this all will be useful.”