Terotej “Terry” Dvoraczekynski

Terotej “Terry” Dvoraczekynski was born in 1974 in a small village just north of Chekhov, Russia. His father was a pig farmer (as was his grandfather and great-grandfather), so most of Terry’s youth was spent helping out on the family farm - cleaning the pen, feeding the hogs, bathing the gilts and sows, castrating the boars, etc. It was hard work, especially for a young boy, but in his village there didn’t seem to be any other way. His family could barely make ends meet, but once a year, his father would fire up the Warburg 353 and take him into town to see a movie. It was in 1985 that he saw the American classic, Rocky IV, with his friends from school. For the weeks that followed, all of his friends would play and pretend to be the Russian champion, Ivan Drago. But not Terry…he wanted to be Rocky the American. Back at the farm, Terry would train every day to become as strong as Rocky - jumping rope in the barn, chopping wood from the forest, lifting bags of feed over his head, and racing the fastest boars in the herd across the countryside. It was here that Terry developed his love of fitness, despite never really gaining any muscle or strength. But by the time he was 13, Terry had had enough of the pig farming life. Against the wishes of his father, he decided to move to Nizhny Novgorod and see what else the world had to offer. Terry landed a string of jobs as a fitness instructor, but it was while moonlighting as a taxi driver that his life would be changed forever. The year was 1988, and he had just picked up a new passenger from the Stringing Airport (Аэропорт Стригино). As fate would have it, this passenger was the director of the National Pork Producers Council, an American trade association based in Des Moines, Iowa, USA. Impressed by Terry’s knowledge of all things swine and his love of America, the passenger gave Terry an old cassette tape to listen to while making the rounds in his taxi: Lee Greenwood’s You’ve Got a Good Love Comin’, featuring the most patriotic American song ever to be written, God Bless The U.S.A. That was all it took. Terry was hooked on America and hooked on American country music. He mercilessly played that song over and over in his taxi until he was eventually fired due to excessive complaints from his passengers. But Terry didn’t care. At that point, he had saved up enough rubles for a one-way plane ticket to Nashville…Music City, USA!