Sunday, November 11, 2018
Vlad was a very compelling figure. Of the many teachers and professors I encountered throughout my schooling, his voice and spirit left the most lasting impression on me. Upon first inspection, he seemed quite imposing, though truly, he was kind and gentle. He was at once serious and earnest, but yet very funny. And certainly, he took the greatest care of those graduate students under his tutelage. I am very fortunate to have been of them.
Upon his retirement, some of his former students, colleagues, and friends were asked to submit their impressions of Vlad. What follows is mine.
When I think of Professor Treml, I think of someone who was, and continues to be, a
superlative mentor. I certainly would not have completed my dissertation had it not been
for his seemingly infinite guidance, wisdom, and great patience.
But Vladʼs expertise extends well beyond economics. He has also guided me to some of
the giants of Russian music. After I expressed an interest in the music of Shostakovich
in 1989, Vlad loaned me a copy of Testimony, a controversial memoir dictated by
Shostakovich to Solomon Volkov. I found the book riveting and set off reading several
more books on Shostakovich, while becoming familiar with almost his entire musical
output. In the interim years, I've become similarly engrossed in the biographies and
music of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Schnittke, and others. In
November of 2001 at the annual meetings of the American Association for the
Advancement of Slavic Studies, Vlad noted to me that Volkov had written a book on the
history of St. Petersburg that reads like a cultural who's who of 19th and 20th century
Russian and Soviet history, including, of course, Shostakovich. Later that Month, Vlad
sent me a copy of the book, which I am currently reading with great interest.
Thinking of Vlad also reminds me of scores of wonderful stories and vignettes, of which
I will share a few.
During the academic year 1989-1990, Chris Giosa and I took Vladʼs two courses on
Soviet Economics. During the winter of that academic year, Chris and I both grew full
beards. One day we decided that we should shave off just our mustaches to see how
Vlad would react. We could both imagine that outwardly Vlad would look at us in class
with a little smile and continue on with his lecture unfazed, while inwardly he would be
quite amused. Though we realized that imitation is the highest form of flattery,
ultimately, we chickened out and never went mustache-less.
Vlad loves to tell stories of how perverse incentive structures in the Soviet Union led to
seemingly bizarre, but in fact entirely rational, economic decision making. The story I
like the best is the one about the used light bulb market. For most of us, it is hard to
fathom the rationale for a market in burnt out light bulbs. But in the scarcity-driven
Soviet economy, the market was entirely reasonable. Light bulbs were rarely available
to individual consumers, but were obtainable for State-sponsored activities. Thus, it
would be difficult to purchase a light bulb for a new lamp in one's home, while burnt out
bulbs in State-run offices or factories where routinely replaced. So if someone
purchased a new lamp and needed a bulb, he would buy a used light bulb for a small
fee and replace a functioning bulb at work with the dud. He would then take the
functioning bulb home for the new lamp, while the burnt out bulb at the office/factory
would be replaced with a new functioning bulb. Meanwhile, the maintenance person at
the office/factory would take the used bulb and sell it on the used light bulb market.
In 1990 or 1991, Chris Giosa and I attended a talk by Stanislav Shatalin, one of Mikhail
Gorbachev's top economics advisers, whose radical 500-day plan for economic change was scrapped by Gorbachev in favor of a less progressive plan. Vlad had organized the
talk and had been hosting Shatalin and others from the Soviet Union during the week. A
short while into the talk, Vlad left the conference room with a rather serious look of
concern on his face. He never returned. We were shocked by the apparent snub to
Shatalin. However, Vlad had something much more important on his mind. Later in the
day, Chris and I bumped into Vlad and asked why he had left the talk in such haste.
Now with a look of sorrow, Vlad said slowly, "They drank all my vodka." He left the talk
to buy more Stoly so he could continue to be the gracious host.
Vlad has spent a good part of his career looking into the wonders and whimsies of
Soviet and post-Soviet economic statistics. One time during class, Vlad mentioned how
he had been reading a very interesting article on Soviet economics statistics. The article
had been translated from a Japanese economics journal. As he was reading the article
it became more and more familiar, as if he had read it before. Finally, Vlad realized that
he was reading his own article, which had originally been written in English, translated
into Russian for a Soviet journal, subsequently translated from Russian to Japanese,
and finally translated back into English. How much the last iteration of the article
resembled the original piece is still a mystery.
Erik S. Weisman, Ph.D. 1996
