MIR Corporation Travel's video: MIR s 30 Years: Back in the U S S R

Few people – if any – could have predicted the Soviet Union would collapse so quickly, breaking up into 15 countries. At that time in 1991, MIR Corporation was just five years old but already facing a major mid-life crisis: quit, or adapt to changing times? MIR Co-Founder and President, Douglas Grimes, recalls that challenging milestone in history that transformed travel to this region, and transformed MIR as well. * Handcrafted closed captions; video transcript below. * Read MIR's companion story, "MIR's 30 Years: Back in the U.S.S.R.” – https://goo.gl/7gglTl * Learn more about "MIR's 30 Years," from its early days in 1986 in the U.S.S.R. to 2016, with stories and videos of this award-winning travel organization: "MIR's 30 Years: MIR in a Nutshell” – https://goo.gl/wKhpP6 ______________________ SUBSCRIBE: MIR's YouTube channel, MIRCorpTravel: http://goo.gl/I0zCIM ______________________ CONTACT: MIR Corporation – http://www.mircorp.com Destination Specialists since 1986 Small Group Tours • Rail Journeys by Private Train • Custom, Private Trips • Siberia & Western Russia • Central Asia & Silk Road • South Caucasus 1-800-424-7289 _______________________ CREDITS: * Photos in video: Bil Adams, Jim Beers, Michel Behar, Devin Connolly, Douglas Grimes, Peter Guttman, Helen Holter, Martin Klimenta, Vladimir Kvashnin, Joanna Millick, Helge Pedersen, Paul Schwartz, Jake Smith * Video thumbnail photo: Vladimir Kvashnin – The Soviet Union's ubiquitous symbol: hammer and sickle. * Endslate photos: Lindsay Fincher, Douglas Grimes. * Video story created and edited by Helen Holter. ______________________ VIDEO TRANSCRIPT (Douglas Grimes, MIR Co-Founder & President) 00:00 "Certainly there's been gigantic transformation in the relations between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. from the time of Gorbachev until the coup and the collapse of the Soviet Union. There was so much changing in people's attitudes and understanding of the U.S.S.R. that it really helped break those walls down. We feel like we were a part of that, as a company, back in the U.S.S.R. days. 00:33 "It was one of our goals. It was a goal to increase the communications and understanding between our two nations. When the Soviet Union did collapse, MIR had had this focus of doing citizen exchanges for so many years. We also had to make a decision at that time: Are we done? 00:59 "And so as a company it was a very challenging time because a big part of our business – which was doing these exchanges – basically disappeared overnight. We made a commitment at that time to hang in there and retool as a company, and began offering tours that were more culturally focused. 01:22 "Since then, those individual countries have been finding their own way and looking back to their culture and their languages and history and archaeology and all kinds of things, which has opened up for travel all these great opportunities to visit places with a different perspective, too, than it was when it was the U.S.S.R. It's exciting to see, and look back, and have that understanding that I lived through that – back in the U.S.S.R. days."