In Memoriam. Сборник воспоминаний, статей, иных материалов

S.L.: Well, actually, that is a very general question for me to answer. What I can say, when I graduated from my school in 1952, it was necessary for me to find what to do later. And I was thinking, I was 18 years old at that time, and it was difficult for me to find what to do. But there was an interest for various reasons to study law. And I first decided to go to the law school of the Moscow State University. And I tried to find out what they were studying and so on. And I was not particularly happy. And then I was recommended to go to the Institute of Foreign Trade, to the law school in that Institute. And that happened to be most interesting for me, because the programs in that law school concerned not only Russian law, but also laws of other countries, related to commercial transactions, relationships and so on. It happened to be very interesting to me. And I studied in that law school, just to try, and it was really interesting, it happened to be very interesting to me, from year to year. I believe I thought initially that one year in that school would show to me whether it was interesting or not. And from one year to another year, it was more and more interesting to me. And I can tell you that this year I happened to be for arbitration in Germany, and I flew to Hamburg and then I went to Kiel. Why? In Kiel, there is my Professor, who was my Professor in 1954, in Moscow, in my law school, who was teaching private international law, Professor Boguslavskiy. And now he is very old, and he is living in Kiel, and I went to Kiel to see him. And I brought to him my notes of his lectures, which I made in 1954. I’m sorry, in 1951–1952, when I was graduating my law school. So I showed those notes to him. And it was very interesting for me, because it concerned international trade. Of course, I don’t have experience and knowledge about international trade, about economic aspects and so on, but certain aspects of legal regulations are very interesting to me. And for that reason I believe that foreign trade is a very important thing. Although I am not an expert in economic aspects of that field of relations between countries.

M.B.: If I may continue on that matter, already back in 1940, there was a Soviet-Swedish agreement on arbitration for the future trade. Could you say anything about the role of Sweden in arbitration, already back in the ’50s and ’40s? Did it play any important role in arbitration for Soviet trade already back then?

S.L.: Well, now you deal about arbitration in Sweden, and that is perhaps the most important aspect of our interview today. I tell you that I was a young student at that time, in my Institute of Foreign Trade in Moscow, which I graduated. And I worked for two years in the foreign trade organization here in Moscow. And I was a young lawyer. And of course it was important how certain disputes were to be decided. That is natural for a lawyer, if you are a lawyer you are always interested, how disputes, which can arise from the contracts with which you are concerned and involved, should be resolved. And you know, I had two old Professors, first of them was my Professor Aleksandr Keilin, who was my teacher in the institute, and then in my practical work. And then there was Professor Usenko, who was a famous lawyer in the Ministry of Foreign Trade. And I had contacts with them. And they decided to invite me to go with them to Stockholm, to be an assistant of Russian parties involved in arbitration in Stockholm. It was my first experience about arbitration in Stockholm.

M.B.: Which year was this?

S.L.: Well, with year, it is difficult to tell exactly which years it was. It was ’60s, about my first appearance in Stockholm. Not as an arbitrator but as an expert to Russian parties involved in that arbitration.

M.B.: So arbitration, Stockholm already then played an important role for arbitration for Russia?

S.L.: Yeah, I believe so. And for me it was important that these two persons whom I respected very much, they told that, perhaps, Stockholm was a good place to have arbitration between Soviet parties, at that time, and the parties from other countries. Not with Swedish companies, but other companies. So providing in contracts that arbitration should be held in Stockholm, such a provision. And they told me that it was a good decision. In spite of the fact that, of course, contracts provided for arbitration in other countries, including London, Paris, yes, but…

M.B.: Why Sweden?