New skills for ex-officers in Russia

Russian army officers are learning a new trade with the help of their colleagues

By CNN's Ryan Chilcote

SMOLENSK, Russia (CNN) -- Located on the Western front of the Russian empire, Smolensk has always been a garrison town -- and a witness to a trying military history.

The armies of Napoleon in the 19th century and Hitler in the 20th made their way through this region on their way to the Russian capital.

In fact, the officer's club here was destroyed by Hitler's men and later rebuilt.

Now, as thousands of officers are being cut from the ranks of the Russian military, the club is being used to prepare them for the difficulties of civilian life that follow.

Inside, computers once used to plot the frontlines of military exercises now display the lines of a 21st century spreadsheet. The new enemy here: The old way of thinking.

"Most officers have very narrow military specializations and are used to taking orders," says Vyacheslav Kovalyov, general director of Parity, an organization of former army officers that coordinates the training.

"It's not easy for them to become organizers and leaders. They need to be prepared in management, marketing and working with people as leaders."

With funding from the Soros Foundation, Parity has set up a business incubator in Smolensk as well as the nearby village of Golynka, where officers are paid a salary to learn a new trade -- in this case, running a lumberyard.

A lumberyard in Golynka is serving as a business incubator for Russian officers

"Like in any army, these men know how to use weapons, and so if they can't find themselves a honourable place in life, they can end up becoming criminals. That's of course dangerous. That's not everybody though, but the psychologically defeated naturally can't bring any good to society," says Kovalyov.

At the Golynka lumberyard, two fighter jet engineers are getting hands-on training with the tools of their new trade.

"In the military, you know how everything works. Here, it's like starting at the beginning in life all over again, and you don't know what's ahead of you," says Yevgeny Lashkov, a retired major and lumberyard entrepreneur.

Early retirement here doesn't mean you can put your feet up. Lashkov's pension of $70 a month is enough to put groceries on the table, but only for one person. He has a family of four.

So Lashkov drives the same car he bought while serving in the Soviet army in Poland more than a decade ago.

His new mentor is a retired major who repaired strategic bombers before he was laid off -- and whose new responsibility is to make sure his apprentices know how to give their own orders before setting them free to open their own lumber yards.

An officer's pension can put groceries on the table for one person, but not a family

After two years of training, the apprentices are given loans to help them start their own lumberyards.

Lashkov is not the only one hustling. Some 70 percent of the officers' corps in this region has already been cut.

Russia recently re-affirmed a pledge to cut another quarter million officers from its ranks in the coming years, bringing the size of the Russian military to under one million.

About 40 percent of the residents in this region are former officers and their families, and 45 percent of the businesses here are owned by former officers.