own way
Vladimir Shuglya:
‘I have both feet on the ground’ Back in his youth, this successful person, an Honorary Consul of Belarus in Tyumen, decided to build his life relying on the principle — ‘Do what you should and let it be what it should’. His success is the result of a hard-working person’s career, who, when moving towards the peak of his material and spiritual wealth, understood that it’s impossible to conquer this peak and stay there forever. Otherwise, a person won’t see new horizons. Mr. Shuglya is constantly in motion, and he doesn’t lack purposefulness, so he can allow himself such a luxury as becoming a poet. He sees the philosophical implication in ordinary things, and generously shares his experience of life apprehension with others.
Ivan Zhdanovich
O
18
беларусь.belarus 2014
f course, the meeting with Mr. Shuglya was part of our plan for our trip to the remote Siberian land. When talking to him in the Consulate office, we’ve learnt how wide the range of his interests is, and how great a sphere of the Honorary Consul’s application of force is. Moreover, the Consulate branch is more like an embassy, which the Honorary Consul maintains at his own expense, developing trade-economic, humanitarian and cultural ties between Belarus and the Tyumen Region (which unites the Khanty-Mansiysk and YamaloNenets autonomous districts — a vast territory). Learning that we’ll visit the Taiga villages of the Vikulovsky District, the home of descendants of Belarusian migrants who, during the time of the Stolypin agrarian reform in the early 20th century, emigrated to Siberia in search of a better life, Mr. Shuglya proposed to meet with us after we return to Tyumen. We didn’t object. It was rather difficult to object to this person. The president of Mangazeya Holding is very energetic and self-asserting. His charisma is felt both in his appearance, his manner of speech, and even in the atmosphere of his aesthetically decorated office interior.