“We bring all the merchandise from Newbury Street to Harvard Square and continue the business,” he says.

MOSCOW ROOTS

Before starting his career as a business owner in the United States, Schiller, who earned a degree in fine arts from Moscow University, wrote scripts for educational programs that aired in the Soviet Union.

In one film, he compared photographs and paintings depicting Tolstoy to show the differences between the two mediums.

“One of the differences between America and Russia is that in Russia there’s actually a market for these movies,” Gross jokes of her father’s work.

While making a film on Michelangelo’s unfinished sculptures, Schiller says he felt the repressive weight of Soviet restrictions. He had to write the script without seeing the artist’s work in person, since the Soviet government would not allow citizens to leave the country.

“My dream was to be in Italy and see what I write [about],” he recalls.

When the Soviet government began to permit emigration in the 1970s, Schiller and his family decided to come to the United States. The real reason, he emphasizes, was to provide a better education for his children, who were five and 17 at the time—but the chance to see Italy didn’t hurt.

Many emigrants were routed through Italy, and Schiller and his family were in less of a hurry than most to continue on to America.

“All the emigrants rushed to be in USA,” he says. “And I came and asked, ‘Leave me one month more.’”

After passing several months in Italy, the family arrived in the United States, where Schiller opened the family business and his wife Victoria taught Russian at Harvard.

“She had a big success. The students like her very much,” Schiller says, proudly noting the positive evaluations she received.

Schiller had no previous business experience, since the only private businesses in the Soviet Union at the time were black market, but he says he was ready to try something new.

“Until 50 years I write the scripts. And after 50 you have to do something else,” he says.

CLOSING TIME