Matt Sundakov
Book and Profile
Biography
Travel Through Life
Based on the author's life which, even though quite turbulent and dramatic, is presented with vivid observations and good humour. There is also a lot of fascinating information on Soviet culture, traditions, customs and the mentality of ordinary folk, as it was seen and experienced by the author as he grew up. Learn about Matt's personal life, and more importantly - about life and feelings of his generation in the old USSR and the reasons for leaving that 'mysterious' country by so many people. From his boyhood up to and beyond his emigration to the West in the beginning of 1979.
Profile
Matt was born in the former USSR in July 1938 and lived there until his emigration to the West in the beginning of 1979. He lived in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) except for 3 years (1942 - 1945) in the city of Molotov (now Perm) near the Ural Mountains (where the surviving part of his family was evacuated from the besieged and starving Leningrad surrounded by German troops) and 2 years (1968 - 1970) when he worked in Siberia at Krasnoyarskaya Hydro Power station as one of supervising representatives from the Leningrad Design Institute 'Gidroproekt'.
In 1961 he graduated from the Leningrad Electrical Engineering Institute for Telecommunications Systems and in the following 17 years he worked at various design organizations as a Telecommunications Engineer, Senior Engineer, and a Team Leader.
In the beginning of 1979, he and his family emigrated to New Zealand via Italy where they stayed for almost one year.
In New Zealand, he worked for the Ministry of Energy, New Zealand Industrial Gases and from 1997 (after his engineering position became redundant) - as a real estate agent.
In the beginning of the year 2000, he founded his own company Comprehensive Book Translation Services (http://bookwebtranslation.com/). Matt has always been and still is very active as a writer, translator, and language teacher, and he intends to continue these activities - he does not plan to slowdown and the word 'retirement' is not part of his vocabulary.
Since June 2006, Matt has been living with his second wife Michelle in Melbourne, Australia. Apart from his business interests, he enjoys reading, watching world movies, and playing with their little grandchildren.