Berlin 1977

The Spy who came in from the Cold, Berlin 1977 In 1977, your writer attended a two-month international technical training program organised by Carl Duisberg GMBH in West Berlin with a United Nations scholarship. I flew Ankara Istanbul, Munich by THY. Then I waited for ten hours in Munich airport for the Berlin PanAm plane. I arrived at Berlin Tegel airport in the middle of the night. Today Tegel airport is closed. The newly built Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brandt international airport is opened, other airports are closed. The nearby Schoenefeld airport has been added to the Brandenburg airport. Mechanical engineers then at my age from all over the world came to the program. We were studying industrial engineering. They gave numerous lecture notes compiled from technical handbooks. We were staying in the institution building at the center of Berlin, having three meals in the same place and taking lessons in the same place. Our German guides took us around West Berlin. They took us to the famous Berlin wall. There was a mined area, barbed wire, armed soldiers after the wall in front of us. We were trying to get on the platforms and see the the other side. West Germans could not cross east Berlin. They could come from West Germany via a tightly secured highway or train. There was also an airline and only planes belonging to the WW2 occupation forces could operate. PanAm, AirFrance and British Airways. I asked our German guide who hosted us, if it was possible to cross the wall and visit East Berlin? Citizens of countries that have diplomatic relations with East Germany could show their passports and they can enter to East Berlin for a day. We could either go on foot through the "Check-point Charlie" gate then walk, or we could enter via the S-bahn from a single subway station in central East Berlin. Turkey was one of the countries that recognized East Germany. Turkish workers were arriving with their families from Istanbul to Schönefeld airport with a nonstop connection by East Germany or AeroFlot Russian aircraft, from there, they were traveling first to the center and then to West Berlin. There was no need for the long connecting flight I made. I took my passport with me one Sunday morning. I took the S-bahn train. The train entered from one side of eastern Berlin under the wall, stopped at the HauptBahnhof station, then exited from the other side. I got off at the station, got into a long passport queue, exchanged 50 DM for 50 East German marks. Under the gaze of bad and skeptical East German passport officers, I went through passport control, hand body search. I went out. Suddenly I found myself in the middle of the city of East Berlin. Were the Stasi agents of the East German secret service following me as I walked? I felt like I was in the 1965 film "The Spy who came in from the Cold" starring Richard Burton. You came to East Berlin, where would you go? I wanted to visit the Pergamon museum, which I was most curious about. I arrived at the Pergamon museum after asking on the way. The Pergamon temple stood inside in all its glory. When the Russians conquered Berlin, they did not touch the Pergamon temple. It was slightly affected by the air bombardment, but the main building was sculptures, frescoes. In return for the railway construction in late Ottoman period, the ancient building was dismantled, moved from Pergamon to Berlin by wagons and rebuilt into a large museum building. My whole day was spent in the museum, I bought children's books for my son from the museum gift shop with 50 German marks in my hand. I spent it all. In the evening, I went through passport control from the same s-bahn station. I took the S-bahn train, I passed to West Berlin. In West Berlin, nobody inspected me, nobody checked my passport. The next day Monday, I told my German guide that I went to East Berlin on Sunday, visited the Pergamon museum and took many photos. It was then a dream for him to make my trip. The Berlin Wall collapsed after 12 years, the mined land was cleared, and the destroyed historical buildings were rebuilt. Old buildings were repaired and renewed. Enlargement work still continues in the Pergamon museum. It is not possible to see the Pergamon temple yet. The bid hall place is closed. It is said to be opened within next 1-2 years, but the restoration work is carried out meticulously. There is no rush. During the Covid-19 process, tourist arrivals decreased, and museum visits decreased. In the last week of the program, we took a bus, toured major West German cities. Then everyone returned to their hometown. Now East- West Germany has been united. East- West Berlin also merged. In 1977, the old neglected dilapidated East Berlin was renewed and developed, city is beautiful. All the beautiful old buildings concert halls opera houses parliament were all on the East Berlin side. All renewed. Property prices were low in the past, after the renewals, real estate prices appreciated. Middle East refugees followed in recent years. A multicultural environment was created. University educated, foreign language speaking, professional young people flocked to the city and settled for a long time. They liked to live in a different multi-cultural environment that is not available in most other places. Everyone wonders how this life was sustained in West Berlin during cold war period, where there was a lot of energy and luxury cars in 1977. Every day, coal, oil, gasoline, food were transported here by many train wagons. There were coal-burning thermal power plants. These old thermal power plants are now closed today. Russian-made nuclear power plants in the former East Germany are also closing. There is great demand for renewable energy investments. To build a new thermal power plant in this period, is like buying a new fax machine for the office. Who needs a fax machine today? It is easier to take jpeg photos with iphone, send them with whatsapp so fast and easy. The most important feature that separates West Berlin from East Berlin even today is street lighting at night. The streets of West Berlin have white LED-efficient low-energy lamps. There are old yellow-lit streetlights on the streets of East Berlin. These lamps are still in use and they are still prominently visible even in space photographs. Since my son set up his business in Berlin, I had the opportunity to go and stay there for 1-2 weeks. My eyes are looking for 1977 years but no more. East Berlin has changed a lot. Ankara 21 February 2021 This article is first released in EurasiaReview, https://www.eurasiareview.com/22022021-the-spy-who-came-in-from-the-cold-berlin-1977-oped/

London 2001

CONTRACT NEGOTIATION in LONDON (2001) In 2001, we entered the tender for the transfer of operational rights of a large fossil fueled firing thermal power plant in the Western Anatolia region. We gave the best price and it was found the most affordable offer, the job remained with us, but the license fee we will pay was very high, it was not possible for us to pay it alone. We started looking for a competent foreign partner to undertake partial share of the financing and operation of the thermal power plant. There were those who were interested in American and European companies. We chose the reputable companies. We sent them detailed feasibility and due diligence reports in English. Officials of interested foreign companies and their proficient expert operators came to our Istanbul headquarter. We held face-to-face meetings. An American group wanted to see the power plant operation on site. We flew to Bursa with a private helicopter from a helicopter field on the ridges of Istanbul Sarıyer. Apart from the two pilots, there were three people from us and five from the American company in the helicopter. We arrived at the terminal named heliport in Bursa Organised Industrial Zone in 20 minutes. We drove for an hour with the bus waiting for us, we arrived at the thermal power plant. We saw and inspected the operation on site. The power plant was burning the local coal very well. The new flue gas desulfurization system had just been activated. Dust filters were doing their job properly. We had dinner at the power plant and returned to Istanbul on the same evening. The foreign technical experts were satisfied and returned to their country the next day. Then they invited us to negotiate financing and legal contracts at a hotel in central London. We flew from Istanbul to London THY business. We reached the center from the airport by metro. We settled in the JW Marriott hotel. The place we stayed was near Oxford street in the center of London. We negotiated contracts with lawyers for a week in a ten-person conference room of the same hotel. During their time with us, there were highly trained British lawyers and financing consultants who received a fee of 250 British pounds per hour from their clients they represented. Meanwhile I got cold somehow while flying from Istanbul to London on business THY. A flu condition called summer flu started in me. I had a runny nose. I had fever. I could not lift my head in meetings. The first day, I went to nearby Boot's, an over-the-counter drug store on Oxford Street. I explained the situation to the seller, I took severe drugs like aspirin-paracetamol. I took one each after meals. I was taking the meetings difficult. Meanwhile, on the first night the British employees of the American company with which we will cooperate took us to a Turkish restaurant in London, as if they were being kind to us, as if it was so necessary, as if we did not know any Turkish cuisine. They did not neglect to say "it was very good". It was a Turkish restaurant with many branches in London. The shish kebab that came before us was obviously awful. The red-white wines that came were the kind that we wouldn't look at the cheapest face on the local market. I don't know why, wherever we go, people will definitely take us to a fake Turkish restaurant. It is unlike anything you eat next to the artisan restaurants of our country that make great Turkish food. You often go hungry in foreign lands. Fortunately, the next lunch we went to the newly opened Vietnamese restaurant named Saigon. We had a large plate of chicken with vegetables, it was really great. My job was tough, I kept all the meeting notes in English with the laptop PC I bring with me. After the meeting, I distributed all the notes, then translated them into Turkish and sent them to Istanbul via e-mail. Then I went to bed and sleep all night. My fever fell on Friday morning at the weekend and then I recovered. We held the last meeting, we objected to the Turkish restaurant offer that evening and had dinner together at a very good Italian restaurant close to the hotel, and we returned to Istanbul on Saturday. Our British counterparty was unprepared in the negotiations, they learned everything from us at the meeting, they listened to us, and then they spoke in English for hours on legal and finance terms. Finally we closed the deal. We drafted the contracts to be signed by the decision makers of both sides. Our boss's command of English was not good, so I had to translate everything that was spoken, into Turkish. We returned to Istanbul, but there was an uncertainty in the projects, and then there was a distrust, abstention, and a neglect in our foreign partner. They scrutinized the feasibility, found the earnings, recycling figures, the payback period of the investment less, unreasonable low, they left the work to time. They started dodging. Then the projects were evaluated in social environments in the country, the transfer of public resources to private ownership was discussed in detail, and then political political decisions were effective. Contracts for the transfer of operating rights were completely canceled. The expenditures made by private companies in this regard were returned to them. Years have passed, and these local fossil-burning public power plants were again included in privatization. Everyone thought that after privatization, thermal power plants would be operated better. We thought that investments would be made and incomplete environmental equipment would be added. Studies on this subject have been delayed. Most companies that bought the power plants started to operate the plants at full capacity until the end, delaying their investments in environmental equipment. Today, thermal power plants have reached the end of their useful economic life. Big equipment steam turbine builders no longer manufacture for thermal power plants. They do not respond to requests for proposals. They do not even serve, they cannot. During the Covid-19 process, it is not possible to bring employees to closed mines and let them work there for a long time. Local coal lignite will probably remain underground for a while from now on and other opportunities will be sought coal use. Let's accept the reality of the world markets. There is hard to find financing for the construction of domestic coal-lignite firing thermal power plants. Developed countries are slowly closing down the old ones and not building new thermal power plants. Markets do not provide equipment or finance. In the new world after Covid-19, it is not incorrect to say that there is no easy solution for energy generation other than renewable energy investments. Ankara 23 February 2021

Bechtel Houston Texas 1998

Bechtel Houston Texas 1998 In year 1997, we conducted a due diligence study at Kazakhstan Tenghiz Chevron (TCO) facilities in 1997, together with experts from our US parent company, and then in time we sold four B&W package type steam boilers with a capacity of 80 tons per hour each. We signed the contract in London headquarters of Bechtel. Bechtel was the US partner of BEJV joint venture working on behalf of TCO. We got the tender for 10 million US Dollars. At the beginning of 1998, we received an invitation from Bechtel Houston headquarters. They were waiting for the representatives of the companies that had sold goods, equipment, machinery and services to them in the previous year, to the supplier sales exhibition to be opened in their Houston Texas headquarters. Our American B&W partner was participating, since we as JV won the tender, they also invited the JV joint venture company. We bought air tickets for the Lufthansa flight from Ankara, via Frankfurt, Dallas to Houston. Our travel expenses would be paid by the other party. B&W was already sending all of its staff in business class. My ticket was taken also business. I took a long distance flight from Frankfurt to Dallas, I suppose it took 15 hours non-stop flight. We waited two hours on the plane at Dallas airport. Finally I arrived at Houston airport. I rented a car, my suitcase was already full of company catalogs that I would distribute. I arrived at the hotel. There was a 10-hour difference between Ankara and Houston. I slept all night to overcome jet lag. The next morning after breakfast I wanted to go out and walk, it was terribly hot outside. I threw myself back into the hotel interior. On the afternoon of June 8, 1998, two salespeople from B&W Ohio headquarters came, we met and we further talked over dinner. One day later, we got in our cars in the morning and went to the Bechtel center. The inside of the car was cold and the outside was very hot, so the fog was outside. Cold ventilation had to be operated continuously. In the Bechtel headquarters building, I had difficulty again due to the very hot weather from the parking lot to the main building. The indoor building temperature was set at + 15C, it was very cold compared to the outside. They gave us a table in the lower entrance exhibition hall. Sales staff from B&W Ohio immediately set up mobile promotional boards and prepared company catalogs. Other than us, companies from all over the world came to introduce themselves. After 10 o'clock, technical staff from the relevant units in the whole building came to the exhibition hall, we explained ourselves to many relevant buyer technical personnel throughout the day, there were many Turkish personnel working at the Bechtel center. They couldn't believe a Turkish company was selling them four B&W-designed packaged steam boilers. For them this was not possible to happen. Turkish firms are used to do hard manual work at construction sites. They would produce the most simple, easy-to-design steel construction fabrications. In 1998, we were manufacturing the high efficiency steam boilers of the American B&W steam boiler company, which has the world's largest and most advanced technology, at our Ankara factory at very competitive world prices and we were able to sell them to the American Bechtel company by meeting their tough purchasing standards. We manufactured four steam boilers, which we received the tender for, within a year, moved them to Kazakhstan Tenghiz oil facilities, installed them on-site under the supervision of our supervisors, tested them and made the final acceptance. While in Houston, I called the Turkish engineers working at McDermott, the offshore platforms contractor and owner of the B&W group at the time. I found a METU Mechanical engineering graduate friend who worked in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan projects, we went out for dinner together and talked. Time has passed, we are still communicating by email. On my way back, I stopped by my late brother Haldun in Virginia. I made a transfer for Norfolk. I stayed for 2-3 days and returned home with Lufthansa business class via New York transfer. Long time has passed since then. That factory producing steam boilers was sold, the machines were purchased by interested parties, a shopping mall was built in its old place. In the ongoing Covid-19 period, this shopping mall is now empty, nobody goes because it is far from the roadside housing settlements. Kazakhstan Tenghiz TCO project was later named FGP (future growth project). An American-like city including a school and a market was established in Aktau. Twenty years later, the FGP has come to an end. Special ships were even built to transport the fabricated parts from South Korea. Billion dollar pieces were transported from the Straits to the Caspian Sea. While we were building and selling steam boilers in 1998, now we have to look at the ships that pass through the Turkish Straits with Korean items. Ankara February 5, 2021