Russian Skating Troupe Stuck In Oklahoma -- Funds To Underwrite Tour Tangled In Web Of Red Tape

GUTHRIE, Okla. - Russian skater Alexei Zhukov trained 12 years for this moment: a world tour, wowing capacity crowds, gliding effortlessly across the ice amid laser special effects.

Almost three months after it was scheduled to open, Zhukov's dream remains elusive.

Instead of performing in American cities such as San Francisco and Fort Worth, he and 21 of his Russian Ballet on Ice comrades are stranded at a spartan, 263-acre church camp in the heart of rural Oklahoma, doubts growing daily that their 35-city inaugural tour ever will happen.

"As long as we're here, there's still hope," Zhukov, 27, said through an interpreter as he lounged inside a rustic, dormitory-style cabin last week.

Zhukov said he had thought about having to return to Russia without ever performing in the United States. But, he said, "this is something I try not to think about. I'm still hoping for the best."

Money tangled in red tape

What began with such high hopes when the Russian athletes arrived in New York in early September quickly degenerated into a harsh lesson in Western economics.

The $1 million that Texas-based promoters arranged through foreign investors to underwrite the first overseas tour of the Russian Ballet on Ice never materialized.

Brenda McLean, a partner in Peak Entertainment International, based in Midland, Texas, said the trouble was caused by bureaucratic red tape entangling the transfer of money from foreign to domestic

banks.

She has remained in Oklahoma City, working feverishly to line up new financing that can resurrect the tour.

"They've got to skate," she said. "They've got to make some money. If they get sent home without performing, they will disband.

"And that would be a terrible shame. You've never seen a show like this before."

But time is running out: The skaters are staying free at the Central Oklahoma Christian Camp, hidden in the rolling hills and trees on the southeast edge of Guthrie. But camp administrator Gary Weeks said the troupe must leave by Thursday because the facilities are booked.

He said the camp, operated by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), is all but out of money. It had cost $13,000 to house the Russians through last weekend - money he said the camp never expects to recover.

He said, however, a letter was being sent to Christian churches across Oklahoma last week seeking an emergency offering to help offset the unexpected expense.

"It's our understanding that they will not be treated well if they go back without performing at least one thing," said Weeks. "It's that sense of total defeat that keeps us hoping day to day that something will come along to rescue this whole thing."

Rink's owners sympathetic

The 11 men and 11 women skaters, whose ages range from 17 to 24, are stranded at the church camp, about 30 miles north of downtown Oklahoma City. They are housed, along with seven members of the technical staff, in two dormitory-style cabins, men in one, women in the other.

The women's cabin is self-contained, with restroom and shower facilities and a small kitchenette. The men's dorm has a kitchenette, but its residents must walk up a hill and around a corner to the restroom and showers.

The men's cabin sits at the edge of a farm pond, where several of the skaters and their technical assistants gather each day to fish for crappie and bass.

They have one bamboo fishing pole - though no one seems to know where it came from - but most simply hold a line in hand and toss their hooks into the water. Almost every night, they build small bonfires and use a sandwich grill loaned them by the camp to cook their catch.

The camp also provides breakfast and dinner at a conference center, a short walk from both cabins. A religious group, which asked not to be identified, provides two vans to ferry the skaters four times a week to Oklahoma City's only year-round rink, Iceland, for practice.

The group also serves the Russians lunch on the days they journey into town for practice.

Although the troupe owes the Iceland rink at least $7,500, McLean said, the rink's owners have such empathy for the plight of the Russians that they are continuing to provide the facility for practices.

Still, the uncertainty of their situation has taken its toll.

They are thousands of miles from home, away from family and friends, stuck in a rural area miles from any entertainment and without transportation. They are marking time, occasionally hiking, fishing, playing cards, checkers or chess, watching movies on a TV in the men's cabin, reading magazines.

"It's been a struggle"

The tension is palpable as the wait continues.

The Russian Ballet on Ice founder and artistic director, who sold everything he had and borrowed as much as he could to put the show together, became so angry with the troupe's interpreter that he fired her.

Weeks and Peak Entertainment's McLean demanded that the interpreter remain. She feared a medical emergency in which no one could interpret what was happening to a stricken member of the troupe.

McLean said she and her Peak partner, former Midland television weatherman J. Gordon Lunn, negotiated the $1 million in financing from an international investment trust through Khazar Investment Corp. in Los Angeles.

She said Midland sources provided about $400,000 to bring the troupe to America, lease the 35 arenas across the country and otherwise fund the tour's start-up.

But when the Russian skaters arrived, they discovered the $1 million through Khazar had not arrived.

As a result, their costumes, winter clothing and skate-repair equipment were being held by the U.S. Customs Service for failure to pay freight and storage charges.

With assurances that the money would be arriving soon, they traveled to Oklahoma City, where they were to practice before the tour's scheduled September debut in Denver.

For 75 days, the troupe waited - holed up in a Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge, about three miles up a boulevard from the state Capitol.

As the days turned into weeks and months, $53,000 in arena deposits were lost across the country. The local rink had not been paid for ice time. Neither had a local car dealership that repossessed a rental van used to transport the skaters.

On Thanksgiving Day, after running up a $40,000 motel tab and maximizing the use of credit cards, the skaters were told they would have to find another place to stay.

The Central Oklahoma Christian Camp, where 22 cabins sit adjacent to a lake and three ponds, answered the desperate call for help.

McLean said she is negotiating with other possible investors to jump-start the tour. But she and Khazar Investment Corp.'s Parviz Hariri said they hope the $1 million from the international investment trust eventually will arrive as promised.

"We have tried our best to get the financing, but it has not come through," said Hariri. "I don't know what to do . . . what to say. It is a difficult situation."

Negotiating for holiday show

McLean said the underwriting for the Russian Ballet on Ice was the smallest component in a $250 million investment package that Khazar was arranging.

Both said that government restrictions on the transfer of foreign money into the United States have tightened since the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal involving money laundering.

McLean said Hariri has been so concerned about the plight of the troupe that he has sent several thousand dollars of his own money to help provide meals for the stranded skaters.

She said she has been negotiating with officials in Fort Worth for a possible show just after Christmas that could help launch the tour. She and the skaters said they believe that if they could perform just once, it would generate sufficient revenues to get the tour going.

But it would be difficult, if not impossible, to perform with their costumes in New York and their technical equipment in Denver, awaiting the financing to get them out of hock and to be transported.