and literally within an extraordinarily short period of time, smirnov watkin was one of the top producers of vodka in all of russia. however, he was doing very well with the masses, people came from background ideas, but he really, really long to be accepted by the aristocracy. he wanted more than anything else really to be the trend for purveyor. and they were not hanging out at the pubs in moscow and in the countryside. these people were at restaurants and very swishy clubs. so he had to figure out something else. and what smirnov did essentially, also quite brilliant, he started first and enter competitions, international competitions outside of russia. so he went to vienna and he went to paris and he went to philadelphia and chicago. and he entered his liquors in these competitions. and he started to rack up some awards. and there was nothing that russians alike better at the time then for western europeaneuropeans to acknowledge that one of theirs was actually doing something worthwhile. so that was the first way he got some attention for himself. he racked up these awards. but what