The King of Vodka: The Story of Pyotr Smirnov and the Upheaval of an Empire Immediately

The title "The King of Vodka - The Story of Pyotr Smirnoff and the upheaval of an Empire" captures only a fraction of a truly panoramic picture skillfully painted by Himelstein. She starts with a story about a serf who, without any formal education, builds the most popular brand of an alcoholic beverage and becomes one of the most successful businessmen in the 19th century Russia. She shows how this self-taught entrepreneur overcomes all odds that would have prevented any modern MBA from entering the business, let alone becoming its leader, including

1. tremendous competition (300 existing brands of vodka),
2. under-funding (he started from the proverbial scratch),
3. negative image (continuous anti-alcoholism campaigns at all levels),
4. inferior social standing, and
5. government hostility (which heavily depended on the taxes from vodka sales and periodically monopolized the entire industry).

Based on years of meticulous research, Himelstein turns a tale about an extraordinary man into a sweeping story about a dynasty, including several generations of his entire family, and stretching across almost two hundred years, starting with the inequities and the far reaching reforms of the Russian monarchy, the horrors of the Bolshevik revolution and socialism, and the first couple of decades of freedom and democracy in modern Russia. Her book is also a history of a brand, spanning two continents, from its creation and perfection in czarist Russia, to its choking but surviving in spite of mismanagement and internal feuds, to its complete vanishing under the communist destruction, to its awesome rebuilding in the United States. If starting a business that had to compete with 300 existing brands was not hard enough, think of starting it anew across the ocean in a country with centuries-old change-resistant culture of whiskey- and beer-drinking, and then driving the newly introduced beverage business to a multi-billion dollar operation!

A delightful reading for anybody interested in business development, large-scale change management, Russian history, or extraordinary biography.

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