Copying, reproducing, or distributing this book or any part of it in any form is prohibited. Photography www.karolesa.lt www.enjoyyourkicks.com [email protected] #enjoyyourkicks #mystory ENJOY YOUR KICKS ANDRIUS KOLESNIKAS AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL The story I had to tell. Especially for those who dream. Those who dream and create. Those who create because of dreams. I will never forget the day I purchased my first pair of Nike basketball shoes. The design, quality, and the joy I had by simply wearing them created a special symbiotic relationship. This brand has become a part of who I am. To me, it is not just a brand. It represents stubbornness, breaking the rules, pushing new boundaries, and above all, a passion for creating and moving forward. This is one man's faith in his biggest dream. SUMMER OF 2011 | 11 SUMMER OF 2011 “Hey, sleepyhead, get up, and let’s go!” “I'm going. I'm going...” I replied as I slowly sat up on the edge of the couch and tried to get used to the early morning. Outside the window, the sun had just begun to rise; it was only six o'clock in the morning. My former classmate Minde and I rented a two-room apartment in a suburban neighborhood. It was too expensive for us to rent separate apartments, and I was tired of living in my office. I wanted to have a place to relax after work. The apartment was in a grey nine-story block style apartment building and was completely student-like with a dated, dark brown patio door which had been drawn on, a light brown linoleum floor, and walls covered in brown wallpaper. Minde had brought his own bed, and I was content with sleeping on the squeaky sofa that had been left in the apartment, although to me, it felt like a bed made for a king. Finally, I had a place to call 12 | ENJOY YOUR KICKS home, and I no longer needed to worry about early morning customers catching me asleep. “Andrius, you're getting up, aren't you?!” I could hear my roommate preparing for his workday while incessantly urging me to get ready for our morning swim. “I said I was working on it!” I replied in annoyance as I stood up in no particular hurry. I had only gotten a few hours of sleep. Two points! Two points and a foul! Dunk! After watching an NBA basketball game on my computer all night, I had tried to imitate the players in my small room. I had even put on my sneakers, so it felt more real, like flying, like a real basketball superstar. I kept this up until the very end of the game, when I sat down on the couch and started feeling emotional. A real star has his own basketball shoes. The one thing I knew for sure was that my signature shoes will be in bright colors and visible from every inch of the arena. I didn’t even really care about the style of the shoes. One night, I found myself drawing futuristic sneakers, and the next, I tried to draw the retro style shoes with long-forgotten details. Sneakers were my passion, a passion that allowed my thoughts to flow freely and gave me hope that what I drew on paper would one day be laced up on my feet. With my mind on other things, I reluctantly got ready and headed off to the big quarry outside the city. We stopped at the main beach, near a small pier. During the daytime, this quarry was full of people, but in the early morning, we were alone. “Well, come on!” Dropping his clothes on a tree near the water, Minde jumped into the water and immediately headed to the other side of the quarry. In the car, the heat had been on as SUMMER OF 2011 | 13 high as it would go, and I had enjoyed the sauna-like conditions, but now on the shore, I felt frozen to the bone. I slowly stepped into the water and splashed around a bit until I finally summoned the courage to dive in. The refreshing cold surrounded my body as I began to swim. As I got away from the shore, the trees no longer shaded the quarry, so the water wasn’t quite as cold, and I became more comfortable. It was always so hard to get up in the morning, come all the way here, and get in the water, but swimming in the quarry just after sunrise was almost miraculous. After the first few slow strokes, I began to speed up and was quickly more than half-way to the other shore. I easily swam the half a kilometer to catch up to Minde. We both like to compete, and neither of us were happy with second place. Usually, he was the faster swimmer but not today. I felt an indescribable surge of energy. I started to swim even faster. With every stroke, I became lighter and found an even more perfect rhythm. I kept that pace and was the first to make it back to shore. “Who’s sleeping now?! Do I need to give you a hand, so you don't get too tired?” As I laughed, I felt myself wanting to keep my momentum going. “Wow, Andrius, you really took off in the second half of the swim today,” Minde complimented me as he climbed out of the water with a big smile. “The water woke me up,” I smiled. “I don't know where it came from, but I felt full of energy. I could probably even do another lap,” I replied while drying off. “By the way, Slava is coming today to talk about merging our businesses. I’m nervous but excited to see where it leads.” 14 | ENJOY YOUR KICKS “Just don't be in a rush to agree to anything.” Minde warned. “Figure out what’s best for you, and then decide if you want to work with him.” “That is the point of our meeting. I want to know more about him,” I smiled. As Minde left, I decided to linger for a walk down the shore. Today will be an important day, and I was anxious. Slava and I both sold sport and leisure goods, we both started about the same time four years ago, and we both worked alone. Slava had lived in the US for several years and had seen older generations stand in line right alongside teens to buy sneakers on release dates. He thought it had seemed totally absurd at first. Why stand in a huge line for some sneakers when you could go to another store and buy something similar with the same brand’s label? It had seemed even crazier that particular colors of a model would attract more interest and be gone in a matter of seconds while the same model in a different color would end up collecting dust on a store’s shelves. “Stupid Americans!” Slava had thought while watching people stand in those lines until he began to realize that the shoes people stood in line for were more than just sneakers. That realization had become a door to a whole new world, a world filled with different people. Those shoes ended up changing him. Slava grew in time when Lithuania was regaining its independence in the 1990s. During that time, it was common for businessmen to buy cheaper goods from the Polish market and transport them to various places within Lithuania and Moscow. It was a difficult period. More than once, Slava had his goods stolen. Frustrated, Slava decided to change all that. SUMMER OF 2011 | 15 Looking for a happiness, he flew to the US. When he left Lithuania, he looked like a true Eastern European, the kind you see in Hollywood films: Slava wore a long, black leather coat, polished black, business shoes, and slicked-back, black hair. In the United States, he had a few different jobs but spent most of his time driving a minibus and transporting goods. As he interacted with Americans more regularly, he became more comfortable and eventually let go of many of his prejudices. His first step towards fitting in had been throwing away all the “cool” clothes and even the gleaming, black shoes he brought with him. As he got rid of his sophisticated business shoes, sneakers began to fill his closets. He no longer saw sneakers as just practical, casual shoes for kids or simply athletic footwear relegated to the gym. He began looking into the history of various models, how they were designed, and why there was such a large interest in them in the stores. Gradually, he discovered the world of sneakers and decided to take this fashion statement back to Lithuania. Because of the popularity of football (or what Americans call soccer), Europe had already had some interest in sneakers as fashion, but Eastern Europe was a bit different. In the 1990s, after Soviet occupation, Eastern Europe was just becoming introduced to both independence and capitalism. After having to line up for bread and toilet paper, the idea of lining up for sneakers may have seemed absurd. Perhaps even more importantly, unlike the general European obsession with soccer, Lithuania was (and is) primarily a basketball nation. In fact, Lithuanians are fond of saying that their national religion is basketball. Nevertheless, viewing basketball sneakers as high-end fashion statements was new for even basketball- obsessed Lithuanians. So, he went to a local sports store, asked to speak with the manager and said he wanted to make a large 16 | ENJOY YOUR KICKS order.