Eastern Europe Is New Stomping Ground for ‘Ultra Entrepreneur’ Curt Carlson : Enterprise: Hotel magnate sees his foray into old Soviet Bloc as a chance to spread capitalism around the world.

Curt Carlson used to go door to door hawking soap, then traded stamps to local grocers.

But that was more than half a century and billions of dollars ago.

The 78-year-old Carlson, who runs the Carlson Holdings Inc. conglomerate, continues to knock on doors, only his latest stomping ground is in Russia and other former communist countries.

He’s hoping to make an impact there with his upscale Radisson hotels.

“They’ve got treasures over there that you can’t describe,” said Carlson. “But the hotels were bad.”

Carlson, who likes to call himself the “ultra entrepreneur,” also sees his foray into the old Eastern Bloc as a chance to spread capitalism around the world.

“He sees himself as part of history,” said his daughter, Marilyn Nelson, who’s being groomed to replace her father as head of the $10-billion, family-run hotel, restaurant, travel and marketing business.

“The walls are coming down, and we’ve got a whole new frontier for tourists and for commerce,” Nelson said.

Industry analysts are skeptical about Carlson’s venture.

“I think it’s a big risk,” said Paul Wise, director of the hotel, restaurant and institutional management program at the University of Delaware.

“Do we really know what’s going to happen in Russia? There could be some changes there that could be devastating for them.”

Still, Wise said, the venture could turn out to be lucrative “if the country stabilizes and (the Russians) are able to get their act together in terms of developing a capitalistic society.”

Carlson got the idea of running a hotel in Moscow after he and his wife, Arleen, visited there a decade ago, when the Cold War was still raging and most Western businesses weren’t welcome.

He believed American tourists would flock to see the Kremlin, Red Square and other landmarks if only Moscow’s hotels weren’t dilapidated and lacking in Western amenities such as room service.

Carlson’s plans were frustrated for years by Soviet red tape.

But when the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia opened the door to Western businesses, Carlson already had one foot in and was far ahead of most Westerners.

“It was a calculated risk. We were fortunate it worked out,” Carlson said in a recent interview.

The Radisson Slavjanskaya Hotel opened in the summer of 1991. Carlson said the hotel is making a $1-million monthly profit and is the only one in Moscow that’s full every day.

The 430-room hotel caters to Westerners, providing the same type of services and accommodations found in America’s best hotels.

But it’s expensive, with a single room costing $215 a night plus tax.

Moscow officials recently hired Carlson to manage 13 former state-run hotels in hopes of enlivening the city’s tourist industry.

By managing the hotels instead of building and owning them, Carlson greatly reduces his risk while expanding his hotel enterprise.

Margo Vignola, a hotel analyst for Salomon Brothers Inc. in New York, said that most U.S. hotel companies find it difficult to own hotels outside the country because the way of doing business is so vastly different.

But “management contracts are lovely,” she said.

Carlson plans to operate more hotels in Russia and other Eastern European countries.

In addition to Moscow, the company recently opened hotels in Berlin and Szczecin, Poland.

“It’s got tremendous potential,” Carlson said.

For example, a tourist who wants to visit Moscow can buy a tour package from a Carlson travel agent, travel part of the way on a Carlson cruise ship and stay there in a Carlson hotel.

“We’re perfectly positioned. It’s a natural for us,” Nelson said.

Carlson started in business for himself in 1938 when he began the Gold Bond Stamp Co. in Minneapolis after quitting his job as a soap salesman with Procter & Gamble Co.

As stamps saturated the retail market, he moved into other growth areas and structured the company into marketing, hospitality and travel groups.

Today, Carlson Holdings remains one of the largest private companies in the country.

Its operations under the Carlson Companies Inc. name include Colony Resorts, Carlson Travel Network, and T.G.I. Friday’s and Country Kitchen restaurants, and its affiliated and franchised operations employ more than 98,000 people.