To arrange the tournament, we worked with Yakovlev and Moscow News, as well as Sasha Vainshtein, who had previously worked as a soccer reporter and written two books about soccer. Relatively to the situation then, his status was quite high: he had a car and an apartment, and was allowed to go abroad, which was very rare at the time.
We brought all the catering people and products from Switzerland in order to comply with the ATP regulations. We worked day and night to arrange the tournament on time with all the necessary preparations. Everything was a problem, from fish to seats. We had to buy and import everything. The investments grew bigger and bigger, and the Russian side wanted to ensure that tennis would be used to aggrandize the image of Russia in the world. We invited 40–50 private guests from among our friends form NY, Zürich and Germany, friends with whom we’re still in contact today. I was shivering, counting all our losses, but Sasson was so passionate about it, I just watched him fulfil his dream, which was worth any cost. We had one big sponsor, Bayer Company, which was our sponsor for 2 years, and a few small ones.
Gollar: For the first Kremlin Cup, I took 12 suitcases with me: two suitcases of medications; six suitcases of Cornflakes and Müseli for the players, in case we couldn’t find any, and two cases of winter clothing and accessories for our Israeli friends. I told them not to bring any because we had enough coats, gloves, stockings etc. The remaining two suitcases were for myself.