Vilis Vitols
Face to Face with Russia
With Face to Face with Russia, author Vilis Vitols has written an important book especially for the English language world. Why? While there are many books published in English about Russia, the vast majority of them are written from the perspective of Western academics and journalists. There are very few books written by people who live at the frontiers of this newly constituted Russian empire under the leadership of Vladamir Putin and it is about time a book is made available to the English speaking world. Face to Face with Russia is this wake-up book.
Vilis Vitols was born in Latvia. In 1944 his family fled as the Russians occupied Latvia and he emigrated to Venezuela in 1948. He holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the Universidad Central de Venezuela. Later, Vitols won a Ford Foundation scholarship to study at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Cleveland where he received his Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering. Vilis lives with his family in Riga where he is an renowned philanthropist and a respected public figure.