The deceived shepherd

We feel at home in the small, friendly former spa hotel. Because guests have warned us about the smelly, dirty and expensive city of Novosibirsk, we decide to stay here longer than originally planned. We use the time again to write, reorient ourselves and make plans for the route ahead. I am approached by a man in German in the restaurant at the hotel. “You speak without an accent,” I say. “Sure, I’m from Germany. I’m only working here for a few weeks.” “What do you do here, if you don’t mind me asking?” I ask. “I’m a freelance trainer for combine harvesters.” “What?” “I train the combine harvester drivers how they can harvest more in less time. That means I show them how to set up their machine perfectly so that they have high-quality wheat in the container at the end of the day. Many of the combine harvesters are set up incorrectly so that the workers need a very long time to harvest the wheat. On top of that, they also mow weeds and other muck. If the machines are perfectly adjusted, which is not the case worldwide, and the driver can handle his machine perfectly, the yield at the end of the day is many times higher. That’s good for the driver as he is paid by the amount of wheat in the evening and good for the owner of the wheat fields because the profits increase enormously in this way,” explains the forty-year-old likeable man.

Over the course of the evening, I learn a lot about wheat cultivation, different harvesting and cultivation systems and much more. “How do you become a combine harvester trainer?” I ask. “Oh, that’s a long story. I used to be a shepherd.” “Shepherd?” “Yes, a shepherd. I had my first three sheep of my own when I was 18, although my family never had anything to do with farming or cattle breeding. As a 16-year-old boy, I helped a shepherd for a few days and from then on I was obsessed with the idea of becoming a shepherd myself. As I said, I realized my dream and owned my first animals. My personal goal was to own a flock of 1,000 sheep by the age of 30 at the latest.” “So, did you achieve it?” “I did. I even had 1,400 sheep. I now owned a farm in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. I moved there because of the sheep. Unfortunately, my luck didn’t last. One morning I observed a group of people stealing my herd. I immediately called the police, who came straight away but, to our astonishment, did nothing.

The thief claimed to own the animals. He had some weird guys with him. They were young thugs with big muscles and broad backs. When one of them tried to beat my mother to death with a pipe, I intervened.” “And the police didn’t do anything?” “No. That’s the unbelievable thing. They just stood by and watched. The police officers probably weren’t up to the situation and were afraid of getting hit themselves. Later, the police report just said: “And they got into another fight.” What nonsense. As if we were always fighting.

Oh well. I had no choice but to hire a lawyer and sue the thief. It came to trial. The judge said I had to prove that I was the real owner of my herd. I was able to prove that with witnesses and friends. But as my sheep were not marked, which was not common in Mecklenburg at the time, the witnesses were not enough. Even photos and film were not accepted in court.” “And what about the thief? Could he prove that the sheep were his?” “He didn’t have to. He said he had always owned the flock. Although it was known that the man never had any sheep of his own. Jurisprudence is a nightmare in this area. In the end, I lost 700 young animals and went bankrupt. I lost everything. My farm, my machines and in the end I had to take an oath of disclosure. The whole thing almost broke my heart. I was no longer worth anything and only had debts. Even when we ordered a washing machine from a mail-order company years later, I didn’t get one.” “How so?” “Well, they check to see if you have a credit record and if you do, you get nothing. Even when I said we would pay for the machine in cash on delivery, they didn’t want to deliver it. My mother then ordered the machine and the order was completed immediately. They were very humiliating years.

We later moved away from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. I then worked for many years as a contract shearer for other shepherds. I worked as an insurance salesman, helped with the potato harvest, was a combine harvester driver, truck driver and destroyed my back through years of hard work. Today, after 10 years and three herniated discs, I’ve made it. We are debt-free. Thanks to my soon to be lifelong experience in agriculture and the competitive pressure of contract threshing, I came up with the idea of the combine harvester trainer. It’s going really well. Today I am a sought-after expert and travel all over Europe. Now even here in Siberia. This job is a real gap in the market. There is hardly anyone like me in the world,” he says.

I listen to Martin late into the night. His stories are indeed exciting. We don’t say goodbye until around 2:00 in the morning. Once again I am dismayed at how people deceive their fellow citizens and once again I am fascinated by what pure willpower can do. Martin managed to free himself from hell with his own strength. Today, he is the happy father of two children and a successful businessman with a wealth of experience.

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