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Inside Out: Building a Glass House in Russia by Glenn Williamson (© 2014, Archway Publishing, 186 pages)
Inside Out: Building a Glass House in Russia is the memoir of Glenn Williamson's time in Russia as a real estate project manager for Walton Development out of Chicago. Walton had developed one office building in Warsaw and had started another in the early 1990s when Russia was beginning to open up for development from other countries. Williamson had been assigned to Poland but was transferred to assist with the development of a new office building in St. Petersburg. The office building would be constructed with portions of the building that would be new (interior) while the exterior of the building was historic, converted from an Orthodox monastery.
The book recounts the many situations and challenges Williamson and his development team encountered while working in Russia, and the list is almost endless. Williamson graduated from Georgetown's school of Foreign Service and had wanted a career in that area, but ended up in finance early on and then in real estate development. His language skills in Russian landed him the position of project manager for "Krasotsky 23," the building to be developed. When Williamson first arrives on the scene in Russia,...