Moscow Mover
[интервью С.Н. Лебедева журналу «Shipping & Transport International», 2012 г.]
“My grandfather was a seaman in the Czarist Navy, and my father, a peasant’s son, became a captain in the navy during the Soviet era,” says Sergei Lebedev. “It seemed that I, also, was destined for a career at sea until my father took me on a trial voyage on the Black Sea from Sebastopol to Odessa – it was a complete disaster although the storm was comparatively moderate! My father was hugely disappointed that I was not cut out to follow in the family tradition and decided that, instead, I would have to follow a career on the land.” Lebedev, therefore, embarked on a ‘dry’ career, enrolling at the Institute of Foreign Trade in Moscow and entering Law School in 1952 where he specialised in international and private commercial law. He then worked for three years for a Russian chartering company, before attending the Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) as a postgraduate, where he is now a Professor and for 30 years was the head of the private international and civil law department. Student teams from his Institute regularly take part in the well-known annual VIS arbitration Moot in Vienna.
In 1961/1962, at the height of the Cold War, Lebedev attended the University of Michigan becoming the first Soviet student to study law in the United States. Not surprisingly there was a good deal of interest among students, staff and the local media. However, Lebedev says that he had to be careful in the answers that he provided. Consequently, he “took up smoking to give himself more time to think of answers.” He recalls that, during one interview, an American Professor exclaimed “Don’t you like anything about our country?” After careful consideration the young Lebedev replied, “Yes – I like your Marlborough cigarettes very much!” A local radio station picked up on the story and a few days later Lebedev received a large package containing boxes of cigarettes with a message “We are glad you like our cigarettes.” As a matter of fact, he says, the year in Ann Arbor was also very helpful academically enabling him to write comparative chapters for his dissertation on commercial arbitration.