I started my move back to Russia in 2019, when my son was born. I understood that I didn’t want to live in Canada because of what was happening there. And while some of my acquaintances stayed to fight the fight or moved out temporarily to acquire knowledge, capital, and strength to eventually come back and make Canada great again, I didn’t particularly feel doing it because I wasn’t born in the country and didn’t grow too attached to it. I don’t generally grow attached to things anyway. Russia was an obvious choice because I was born there, I have some family and friends there, and I assumed it wouldn’t take me long to adjust quickly. My Latin American wife, my son, and I were warmly met by my mother in the old small city where I grew up (2 hours away from Moscow) and accommodated in a house that was actually mine on paper. So we had a place to live right away, which was good. Our own water well, a gas tank to power the stove. We only had to pay for electricity, the internet, and snow cleaning in winter. I bought a car to move us around, and our Russian life started. I won’t spend time here describing the material side of life in Russia as I did that in my previous article. Straight to business. And business was what I wanted to do, and preferably something not connected to bitcoin brokerage — for that, I’d have to live in Moscow. So I started looking for opportunities and experimenting. As usual, I hated overthinking and preferred to act. ## Virgin Lands As I was fully consumed by the idea of building a “citadel” at the time, the first thing I did was purchase land. It was initially 9 hectares and has now grown into ~30 hectares (~74 acres). It was basically virgin lands far enough for anybody to bother me but close enough to a federal highway to be able to get anywhere quickly. Right away, I decided that we would build our paradise and live there. There was no master plan, of course. Just whatever I felt like. During the process, my opinions, plans, designs, and wants changed. The first couple of objects were a small farm compound where we would have pigs, chickens, ducks, sheep, bulls, and a cow. I wasn’t going to farm myself, so we hired a couple from Tajikistan to be our farmers and gardeners. But they had to live somewhere on the premises, so the next project was a little house for them. It only took a month because my construction crew was good at building wood-frame buildings. Finally, we started working on our own home. It turned out to be a fairly big stone house, though a little disharmoniously looking due to the lack of a proper project (again) and constant changes during construction. As soon as our house was ready, we moved to the village. It was exciting, and we liked the challenges that we were facing. There was a lot of room: both inside the house and outside. Living in a large house surrounded by vast land that is all yours is quite a feeling. You won’t get it in a city. But we were rarely alone: the farmers and the construction crew were with us almost daily. Farm animals made some noises, too.  ## The Farm Having our own farm was a great experience. Our own meat, eggs, milk, and everything that came with it — we tried it all. As I said, I’m no David Beckham, so I had people helping with those things as I wanted to do something else with my time instead of feeding, cleaning shit, milking, slaughtering, etc. The division of labor, you know. But even when labor was divided and people were paid and well taken care of, things were often done badly or not done at all. Workers changed or were replaced, but the quality of work wasn’t good: as soon as we stopped supervising or micromanaging, things would go awry. I must add that no Russian would take this job, so only immigrants from Central Asia were available. As time went by, I got pissed off more and more and really started valuing the work of professional farmers: it’s very difficult, and they deserve praise. In my mind, the division of labor had to go to the next level: actual farmers would produce food, and I would buy it from them. Dead simple, a lot cheaper, and way less headache. The result is that we have only chickens left at this point as they are the easiest to take care of (even children can do it), and it’s nice to collect 15-20 fresh eggs daily. No more farming!  ## Plants as a Business One of the construction guys, whose name is also Yuri, mentioned that his wife and he had experience growing and selling seedlings. They knew this trade almost from childhood but had to land to start with. I had land, but not much was going on there besides the aforementioned activities. That was a match! Fast forward to today, I have a plant nursery on my land managed by these two people. Yuri mostly stays on the premises and manages day-to-day operations while his wife does sales in the city. We started small-ish and have already worked for two seasons. The second season saw a 100% increase in sales, which tells me that the prospects for this business are good. Indeed, if you think about it, plant seedlings are always in demand: private gardeners, landscapers, and even the government needs them for its reforestation efforts. At this point, we do a little bit of everything, but I already want to niche down. Decorative plants seem like a good way to go because they can mostly be multiplied by cutting; no grafting is required (few people know how to do grafting properly) — fur-trees, pines, junipers, thujas, cedars, and some non-evergreen deco trees and bushes. The first several seasons we will mostly sustain ourselves by reselling, but my plan is to become a producer. That’s why we have already started working on our own planting material. In the future, we will need large professional gas-powered greenhouses, work stations, machinery, haul-truck driveways, etc. I never thought I’d be involved in a plant business, but here I am. It may take a few years before it becomes really profitable (for now, all receivables must go back into business), but I’m ready to wait and see it grow year by year. Low time preference.  ## Building Buildings As I was having my house built, I really got into the process. Seeing an empty plot of land and pile of bricks (in my case, concrete blocks) turn into a building that I can touch and later live in was a really good feeling. I had a crew and a bit of capital to play with, so why not try here, too? Well, there are reasons why not. As I mentioned, labor shortages are a problem. Good specialists are rare. While my core team was competent enough (they had built a lot in the past and had been recommended to me), we still had to hire additional help for routine tasks. And those were no good. Russia is now in turbulent times, so construction material prices were also growing like crazy. You can start with one rate and, by the end of the project, you understand that you aren’t likely to see the same prices again. As the central bank key rate continued rising, you could hardly rely on mortgage buyers to sell the project, so you had to wait for cash buyers, which made the sale process longer than I was ready to wait. Altogether, we built two houses: one stone and one wood-frame. I sold the first one and moved my mom to the second one. My mom is happy. I’m more experienced. No more construction!  ## Kinder Surprise! When the war started in February 2022, we got stuck in Mexico because all the flights were canceled. We had to spend an extra month vacationing. At the time, we were already thinking of what to do with the two children we had in terms of their pastime. We would only consider a good private kindergarten, but there were none in our city. So, either out of boredom or wanting to be first at something where we lived, we decided to open a private kindergarten. Our nanny, who had professional education and had worked in municipal kindergartens before, was excited about the idea. She ran the thing. We didn’t want to do everything from scratch, so I looked for a franchise. The search wasn’t long; I found one quickly. We signed the contract, and the process started. The commercial real estate market wasn’t that good in our city, so we leased a space that would later prove to be unfitting with an even less fitting owner. But we did our best to prepare it for the launch, and the franchise representative helped a lot. We operated for 1.5 years. Our children actually loved it, and so did the clients and their kids. Multiple reviewers called it the best kindergarten in the city, and it was objectively so. So what went wrong? Firstly, it was simply unprofitable. Our city is not that big, and not many people were willing or able to pay the fee. Our clients were mostly businessmen and people from Moscow who worked remotely (and earned Moscow salaries). In Moscow, such private nurseries are profitable because of virtually unlimited traffic. In our case, we had to fight for each client. Secondly, the business itself that the franchise sold us was in the grey area. In Russia, kindergartens have to get an educational license, and that involves a lot of bureaucracy (the one thing I hate the most). But the franchise had told us we didn’t need one; we just needed to carefully word our offer. It may have worked in some of their locations, but it wasn’t destined to work in ours. One day, the regional prosecutor’s office employees, along with members of other agencies, showed up with an unexpected inspection and did what such people do best. As a result of the inspection, we got some minor fine as well as a ruling that our business was illegal because it was unlicensed. For me personally, this was the last drop in the bucket, so I made the decision to shut down as fast and easily as I had previously decided to open. No more kindergarten!  ## Glamorous Camping The plant nursery, a successful venture so far, is located at the entrance of my plot and will likely spread all around as we develop it. But at the end, there’s a nice parcel adjacent to a forest. It’s somewhat remote and peaceful. When the war started, Russians found it hard to travel abroad, so they began exploring Russia itself, boosting internal tourism. I wanted to take advantage of it and dedicated the quiet parcel to a small glamping site. Glamping stands for “glamorous camping”: comfortable guest houses with all the amenities you’d find in a city apartment but located in nature. My master plan includes 5 guest houses of different sizes, a banya (Russian sauna), a BBQ area, a pond, a sports playground, and whatever else we can think of down the road. All of it surrounded and mixed with beautiful decorative plants that we grow ourselves. Well, that’s the plan. Right now, we have 3 guest houses, a banya, and a pond. And it works! Totally seasonal, of course, but when the season hits, there’s plenty of work. Looking forward to seeing how the place will turn out in 3-5 years. Yes to glamping!  ## Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop As you see, only 2 projects have proven to be the right choice. But I had to try. That’s how I roll: in my lone-wolf life, experience is my greatest teacher. No mentors or even idols to look up to, just my own desire to learn through radical action. What I wanted was to do something unrelated to bitcoin. I did. Now, I think I may need to go back to the industry I loved and still love. We are now in a warmer place since my Latin American wife can’t get used to the Russian winter. And who knows, we may stay here a bit longer than we thought. The Russian business is well taken care of; it can be managed remotely. As for me, I will take it easy for now, rest from chasing butterflies, and probably tend to my inner garden so that butterflies come to me on their own eventually. I can’t stop doing things, but I want to learn to do them differently this time. Onward!