How a Russian musician left to grow vanilla in Madagascar

Entrepreneur Ilya Kleymenov told why, having left Russia, he did not want to stay in Switzerland, and how he learned to grow Madagascar spices and sell them all over the world.

Ilya Kleymenov has been making music all his life — in the nineties he played the trumpet in a state orchestra, then he left for Europe. However, European life did not attract him, the musician dreamed of living in Madagascar. And although Kleymenov had never been there, in 2010 he bought a one-way ticket and still flew away. At first, he tried to open his own travel agency, but realized that it was not his. On the advice of friends, he and his wife — a local resident — engaged in buying and reselling the spices for which the island is famous. A few years later, they bought their own plantation and now grow cloves, peppers and vanilla there.

Kleymenov told how not to communicate with local officials, why most Russians fail to build a business in Madagascar and why the mentality of local residents is interesting.

I first came to Madagascar in 2010 on the recommendation of my friend, writer, publicist and photographer. He really liked it there. I also wanted something new. I bought a ticket and on April 1, as I remember now, flew to the island. I wanted to try living there.

I flew to the island with a bottle of "Soviet champagne" and a bunch of heavy gifts that I would not have taken in ordinary life, of course. At the airport I was met by locals, where I stayed in the first two days. Then I met with the head of the organization of Russian-speaking Malagasy and university lecturer Madame Lantou. She helped me find an interpreter and an apartment hotel.

Before Madagascar, I had never been to Africa or Asia. I had a culture shock, but then I drove around the island and my eyes got used to the local life. I liked everything. In my opinion, it is absolutely safe here. In ten years of living in Madagascar, I only saw a fight once. Here the people are very peaceful, they always go around sharp corners.

After some time, I returned to music. I gave concerts, got acquainted with that part of the elite of the island that loves classical music. It's hard with the classics here: there are almost no people who perform it. I flew here on April 1, and already on May 8 I gave a concert of classical music with a German who had lived here for 30 years.

I quickly became in demand as a musician, I was invited to visit. But I wanted to change careers. Most people who move to such countries try their hand at the tourism business. I also decided to try it, opened a travel agency and even took a few groups. But I didn’t like it, it’s difficult for me to work in the service sector, I’m not suitable for this.

When I arrived, I did not have a very large amount of money with me. Rescued friends from Odessa. At that time, they were engaged in spices for a long time and offered me to buy spices in Madagascar with their money, so that they would get a certain percentage. By then I had married a Malagasy girl. We met almost immediately after my arrival on the island. She is also a musician, she performed with an orchestra in the restaurant of the apart-hotel where I lived.

We started a small family business — bought pepper, cloves, cinnamon and vanilla from local peasants, processed them and exported them. And this business went at first so well that we were greatly delighted. We immediately rented a big house and bought a nice car.

When you do spices, you need a decent turnover. The campaign begins. The peasants harvest the ripened crop and start selling it. The campaign runs for a limited time, say two months. For these two months, you need to buy as much pepper as possible, so that you can resell it later and get your profit. That is, your profit directly depends on the amount of money that you can spend on the purchase. This money is needed in a short period of time. Did you manage to buy 60 tons of — you operate with them.

At the end of 2011, we bought about 60 tons of spices for about 400 thousand dollars. After that, they brought to the warehouse, processed, packed and began to export. At first we sold pepper to Ukraine, then we had a trial batch in South Africa, we didn’t ship it anywhere else. And we send cloves all over the planet.

When we started doing this, we had no experience. We just got in the car and went shopping. We took care of the quality indicators, found out what the humidity should be, bought devices that measure it, found out what the density of pepper is and what it should be. They were wrong at first. We bought dirty, wet, light peppers. Over time, there were fewer errors, and we were already able to process large volumes of — three tons a day.

We decided that we should become producers, create our own plantation — then we will not have to depend on market fluctuations, and we will still receive our profit. Three years ago we started this epic, and now we have two main cultures — clove and vanilla. If you look at Madagascar's export earnings, vanilla and cloves are in the top spot. Nickel ore is also a success. But since a foreigner will not be able to get into the nickel business, we tried something that is more or less profitable.

We bought a plot of 15 hectares, three of which were planted with vanilla and two — cloves. We started by driving into an absolutely deserted place in Madagascar, with tents, staff, equipment, with two children — My daughter was four months old at the time. They set up tents and first of all built a small village for themselves to live in, then they began to plant a plantation. Now we have about 7-8 thousand guardians for vanilla. Guardians — these are the trees on which vanilla grows like a vine. Plus, about 3-4 thousand clove trees and the same number of cinnamon trees were planted.

In order to "put on your feet" such a plantation, together with the land, needs about half a million dollars. This includes the purchase of land, the salaries of staff, the construction of the necessary minimum infrastructure, all sorts of sanitary blocks; two warehouses — grocery and for materials; a home for us and maintenance of the plantation itself until it begins to bear fruit. The plantation needs to be periodically cleaned so that it does not overgrow, fertilize, look after the staff, because you stop following — will stop working. You need to be here and cook in all this, otherwise nothing will work.

Four to eight people are needed per hectare of land. This is especially true for vanilla, because it needs to be constantly looked after and tied up. Vanilla grows very fast. If you do not follow her, then she will begin to crawl along the ground and take root in it, and this is bad for the fruits. Then the pollination period begins, all vanilla flowers are pollinated by hand. Vanilla — a labor-intensive plantation that requires constant daily monitoring, but the profit from it is corresponding. Last year, vanilla cost $500 per kilo in bulk. Roughly speaking, we have one or two bushes that bring such a profit.

Very different — clove plantation. They planted a plantation, the trees have grown, and you see that they will not die. After that, you need to clean it all four times a year so that it does not overgrow, fertilize and plow the control strip so that the local "pyromaniacs" didn't accidentally burn down your plantation — Aborigines here still practice slash-and-burn agriculture. An established clove plantation must be present for two months of the year to harvest, process and ship. The rest of the time you can just live for your pleasure and travel. Carnation in this sense — the exact opposite of vanilla.

In September, our plantation turns three years old. This year we will have the first harvest of cloves, contrary to everyone who said that it is possible only in the seventh or eighth year. This has already been confirmed because 30% of the trees have buds. It is clear that the first harvest will be small. And as for vanilla, it does not bear fruit before the fourth year. This year it should fade, and we will collect the finished pods from April to June next year.

This is a long-term business: you need to invest a lot and wait. But you get a working enterprise, in which you then invest a minimum and get a guaranteed profit. And this is for centuries — clove tree lives 250 years, and you also leave the business to posterity.

However, without a confidant like my wife, for example, it's hard to build anything on this island. 98% of our citizens who come to Madagascar lose hundreds of thousands of dollars here and leave with nothing. They have the wrong approach: they do not try to understand the essence, they are looking for some ministers, assistants to the president, so that they solve their problems or give some kind of license for production. But in doing so, they make life difficult for themselves. The Minister will not solve your problem, he will only take money from you. You will pay endlessly and never get anything. On the contrary, one should be afraid of such connections, they do not work here. Local authorities love investors, they will open all the doors for you, but then questions begin.

We did everything bypassing top officials, and even if someone was "corrupted", it was not the minister, but some of his lowest assistant, who would do the same, but three hundred times cheaper. The minister would still instruct the person to whom we turned to do it. I know how my wife can solve these issues. Before giving someone money, she will think many times. Because if in Africa you gave someone money once, you can't do anything without them the second time.

There are other people here. If you don't control them, they won't work. In principle, we have the same, but here it is more pronounced. At first we hired day laborers. When the territory was small and everything was visible, it worked well. And then, when the territory increased to several hectares, they could go somewhere far away and just go to bed there.

The education of the locals is so-so. We have a technician — the guy seems to be literate, runs everything, understands solar panels, can fix electricity, build a house, cover the roof. But sometimes he makes wildly ridiculous mistakes. For example, in the kitchen I made a stove for a cauldron. He brought the pipe out and made the very top of it out of plastic. I didn't even know what to say. He just never saw it, did what he thought was right. And he is the most literate of the guys that work for me. But if a worker is very literate, this does not mean that he will work best of all, and he will have to pay a European salary. Local managers who head companies receive $3,000-10,000 per month — it is quite real for them. However, they do little. They are distinguished by the fact that they are beautifully dressed and can speak good French. The metropolitan beau monde here generally speaks only French, even with their children, although everyone knows Malagasy perfectly. Perhaps this is how they strive to show their difference between themselves and the rest of Madagascar.

Now our main goal — fully recoup the investment. After that, we will try to create our own brand. It is difficult, maybe it will cost even more than a plantation, but it will multiply the cost of the product many times over. The second goal — organize on-site final processing of products. We want to put here a complex for obtaining CO2 extracts from our spices. This is the most modern equipment to date, which allows you to extract essential oils. At the same time, we do not want to stop the production of traditional products.