Empire of the Ring

“The hunting dog will be freed by tomorrow.”

Jongil grumbled about his state since he had been tied down at the farm after sending most of the security crews to Korea for a break.

“You were supposed to protect the farm but all you did was drinking with young students. Besides, Serbian people were here, what did you even do?”

“When you’re in a leadership position, you’re mentally tired all the time. If you don’t know that logic already, you don’t deserve to be called a boss.”

Youngho smirked at Jongil’s ridiculous nonsense. Trying to hang out with young students at Baku University, Jongil had been coming back to the farm fully drunk at least twice a week. It seemed that he was enjoying his late college life. It looked like Jongil had become the leader of his college gang since he was working and older but they must’ve done that because he was a sugar daddy.

It was already the end of March.

In the beginning of the year, it was hectic because of the outbreak of war in Nagorno-Karabakh and after that Youngho dealt with Tracy’s weapon purchase.

Since he could not send the security crews for the New Year’s break, he sent most of them for a fifteen-day break except for the few who were on private guarding duty. For many of them, it was their first break off to Korea, and they must have been considered an elite people to their friends and families because they now work in a foreign company with a yearly salary of a large corporation high-ranker. Now that they even speak foreign languages pretty well, they must be popular to many Korean women.

Some of the crews, before they left Baku bragged that they would be bringing back their girlfriends from Korea. If that happens, Youngho would gladly make an apartment building for couples at his farm. To build a two-to-three-story apartment building, he requested a floor planning to an expert. If they bring their parents, they would need single houses but for a couple, a community apartment building seemed to be enough. There were plenty of spaces for any house or living complex on his farm which was about 71,170,000 sq. ft. in size.

Now that the amount of grape produce had grown much since new seedlings had been settled down, he wanted to pick places with a great view and turn them into living communities and refresh the farm’s environment.

At the moment, thirty houses were being built for Serbian newcomers but since the farm was too vast, it was not noticeable. The playground for little kids was also under construction near the farm’s reservoir after all of the grape trees around it were moved to other places. Youngho purchased all of the playground equipment from a German company and paid for the construction of it to them as well. Although the workers at the site were only assembling completed pieces into playground rides, they did everything with care following safety guidelines for kids. Youngho was impressed by the advanced country’s systems.

Previously, he had thought that playground equipment should be torn apart and rebuilt every three to five years but the German equipment company was putting efforts that could make the playground last for decades. Since they worked with such care, Youngho did not feel like he wasted money. Although he only planned to build the playground at Zeynep Farm and Serbian ranch, he requested the company to build a playground at Charles farm too since Serbian families and their children are living in there too.

German-style playgrounds were different from common small ones installed in living complex neighborhoods in Korea. Fun-shaped inline skate and bicycle track surrounded the playground area and there’s a climbing wall, clean sandy field, a seesaw, slides, trampoline, exploration equipment, and so on, that it even turned Youngho’s head even though he was an adult.

Youngho smiled thinking about kids coming to play together enjoying all the fun. Now that the playground was being built, he got more attached to his farm. He wanted to make his farms and ranch the safest place even though the outside world goes into turmoil. His desire made him more eager. Although everything seemed to be getting ready, he still felt like something was missing.

The weapons that Youngho’s crew stole from the freight train going into Armenia, such as; seven armored vehicles, two multiple rocket launcher trucks, portable rocket launchers, and so on, were now placed in a secret place of the ranch. It was not easy to take off machine guns and cradles from armored vehicles and to put them in containers. When they passed the border inspection point, they could pass through without any trouble only with Sevan’s help.

Sevan did not mind what Youngho carried or what was in the containers since he trusted Youngho. He only thought that Youngho was transferring illegal stuff without paying taxes. Even if Youngho had brought weapons, he was now considered Sevan’s far relative from Jongil and Karajan’s marriage. Also, Youngho was his business partner. It would put him in a weird position if he turned down Youngho’s request.

He would not be surprised if he saw weapons in Youngho’s container since they had found heavy firearms when they searched a mafia’s hideout in Baku a long time ago.

***

Youngho received a message that his friends who recently moved to Batumi had found a perfect site for Arirang Hotel.

When Youngho was getting ready to go see the site, Jongil followed along to see his friends in a long time. He had been skipping his classes since he had to work instead of Ilkwon, who had gone for a business trip to South Ossetia.

“Those fools will be managing the hotel? Dude! They don’t even speak English. They must be still stumbling even with Armenian. Man, if only I knew, I would’ve studied business administration.”

In terms of ignorance, Jongil was a formidable enemy of his friends. He only picked Physical Education for his major because it was an easy degree. Youngho interrupted Jongil.

“Oh yeah? Why don’t you change your major to business administration now then? Let me take advantage of your smart business skills, Jongil.”

“Hey, I was just saying, and if I change my major, my friends in the same department will get shocked. I can’t let that happen.”

Jongil made a foolish excuse. It was great timing to tease him some more but Youngho had to stop since the two friends whom Jongil had been talking back to were waving at them at the arrival lounge.

A property of 107,700 sq.ft. on a hill about a hundred meters away from a beach was out in the market. It was a perfect site but the price was unbelievable. The site had a four-lane road adjoining and had a great view but the owner was requiring six million dollars which was about six times higher than Zeynep Farm’s site. It seemed too high even though the city was a world-wide tourist attraction. When Youngho was astounded by the price, Jongil interrupted.

“You know, it’s an unimaginable price compared to our farm but it’s not too expensive if you think about it. You almost got the farm site for free since you had the government’s support and the CIA’s too. You were just incredibly lucky back then.”

Jongil had a point.

The farm site was a wasteland and the Azerbaijani government had given it at such a low price for development of the farm industry.

Cho Chulhwan also added to persuade Youngho to buy the site.

“Youngho, this is what I figured from living here for a while. I see why Batumi Port is called the best in the Black Sea. You know, all pipelines of the Caspian Sea have to go through here to get connected to Western Europe and they say major oil corporations are buying out lands here. The price might go up soon.”

“The owner might be taking advantage of that fact to make the price higher.”

“I think so. The realtor said that the site’s price was negotiated two-thirds of the current price before.”

If major oil corporations were buying properties here as Chulhwan said, Batumi must be a secure place to invest in.

The next morning, Youngho signed the deal. He did not waste too much time since there was a high possibility that the price would go up soon if he waited too long. After all, the site was great for his future Arirang Hotel. After signing the property contract, Youngho requested for building construction to a design company in Istanbul, Turkey. The reason that he chose a Turkish company was that more than 60% of the tourists in Batumi were Turks. Youngho thought that it would attract more Turkish tourists to the hotel if a Turkish company design and complete the building. Also, it would be easy to transfer construction materials from Turkey since the city was touching Turkey.

***

Though Batumi was a Georgian region, it was more influenced by Turkey. The place was economically subjugated to Turkey that people even would say that if Turkey sneezed, there would be a typhoon in Batumi.

Coastal states of the Black Sea all had to pass through Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait in order to get to the Mediterranean Sea. The Black Sea was only a big lake of Southeastern Europe. Although Turkey had become like a paper tiger now, it was still a scary tiger to the coastal states of the Black Sea since if their relationships with Turkey went sour, they would have to transfer the goods to and from the far-off land route. No nations could ignore Turkey.

Knowing that fact, Youngho had decided to hire a Turkish company for the hotel’s designing and construction.

About 53400 sq.ft. of floor area was enough to build a decent size hotel building and even an outdoor pool. The rest of the area would be used to install roads and parking lots for buses and cars. Since the surrounding view was great, there was no need to spare the land for major landscaping.

The architect in charge from Istanbul visited the site and showed Youngho a floor plan and some sketches of hotel designs. The company had shown their sincerity even before visiting the site since they already looked up the site using Google Map. The architect also impressed Youngho by showing him a list of leading construction companies in Turkey.

As soon as the architect heard Youngho was a Korean, he hugged him, saying that he was a blood brother. After a long meeting, they decided the details of the hotel building. It would be a five-star hotel with two basement floors and eleven floors above the ground. There would be 220 rooms, restaurant, bar, café, and an outdoor swimming pool. The construction cost was estimated to 70 to 80 million dollars, so they decided to talk about other details in the future.

Cho Chulhwan and Um Sangtaek bought their own apartments in the same building in downtown to live with their family. They only brought their wives and children since the rest of their family-in-laws stayed in Yerevan for now.

Youngho and Jongil had stayed in a hotel, but tonight they were drinking together at Chulhwan’s apartment since they would be returning to Baku the next day. Jongil’s tongue was already tripping.

“This hyung can’t sleep in concern of you guys. There is a college here. Why don’t you study hotel management there? Is your ignorance something to brag about?”

“You’re crazy! Are you being all smarty just because you’ve been in college for a few months now? We’ve gone to community colleges too. We’re more educated than you!”

Looking at them bickering at each other, Youngho had to hold his laughter since they were all about the same level but what Jongil had pointed out gave him an idea. It actually sounded great to send his two friends, who would be managing Arirang Hotel in near future, back to school since they were not busy at all at the moment.

“Chulhwan, why don’t you go to college around here with Sangtaek before you get busy with work? It sounds like a good idea. I heard it’s easy to get enrolled in colleges around here.”

Youngho suggested because everyone could be admitted to colleges if basic conditions were met and if they could speak the language. People here considered older people enrolling in college as ones with a passion. If they were going to live in here for the rest of their lives, it would be great if they could make friends from college and they could be their connections for business.

“Do you think I can keep up with young students at this age?”

“If you want to learn the Georgian language, you need to go to language school. Now is a great time for you.”

“Well, it’s been difficult to stay home every day without work. If my wife joins me, I’ll go to college.”

“Just study whatever you want and don’t worry about the costs. This hyung’s got your back!”

Jongil, who seemed to have fallen asleep, suddenly picked up his sleepy head to get up from the couch behind his friends and yelled. Although they had this conversation in drunk, from this day’s decision, Um Sangtaek would be walking on the path to becoming a professor in the future.

Batumi’s spring night was growing late.