LYNNWOOD — Brothers Rostislav “Rusty” and Vladimir “Vlado” Voloshin have made quite an impression on Enterprise readers for the past three or so years.
The team has been voted Lynnwood/ Mountlake Terrace edition Carriers of the Year for 2004.
The boys, who are of the Ukrainian heritage, said it means a lot to them to try to do the right thing when it comes to their commitment as Enterprise Newspaper carriers.
“When we just started we didn’t have a lot of experience,” said Vladimir, 12. “Now we’ve done it a few years and have more experience – we put it on the porch and follow the rules.”
Reader Shirley Lyons wrote in to tell the Enterprise how she thinks the boys not only put her paper on the porch the right way and follow the rules, but are also “always polite and very business like,” she said.
The two routes started out primarily as Rusty’s. Now at 16, a busy sophomore at Lynnwood High School, he said he has been soliciting a little help from his younger brother Vladimir.
“I let him help me now whenever he wants to earn some extra money too,” Rusty said.
Money is the reason Rusty got involved as well.
“I just needed some extra money to buy clothes and some nice things for my car,” he said.
While the money he has made from the two routes he and his brother have isn’t much, he said, he has been able to add a nice stereo to his car.
Rusty also like to hang out with his friends, go snow boarding and play all kinds of sports, he said.
Rusty said what he likes best about delivering the Enterprise is collecting and getting money and also that it is great exercise.
What he doesn’t like, he said, is when someone doesn’t want the newspaper and they get mad about it.
But delivering the newspaper has never been as difficult as being new to the country and trying to meet new friends and go to school when there’s also a language barrier.
Rusty and his family, which includes his mother Polina, father Ivan and their six children, have been in the United States for the past seven years. Rusty said the hardest thing about coming to America was not knowing the language and getting used to all the different “American” foods.
Now he said his English is getting better all the time and so are his taste bud. He now likes pizza and teriyaki along with his traditional foods from Ukraine which contain a lot of potatoes, he said.
Now, Rusty is in the process of finding “a real job” he said, so he has his brother helping him on the route more than ever.
Vladimir doesn’t mind helping, and he said he likes to make some money so he also can buy clothes and go swimming at the Lynnwood pool, which is very near to where they live and deliver their newspapers.
“Usually it’s pretty fun to deliver the papers,” Vladimir said, “it’s not really hard, it’s a perfect job.”
Along with going to the Lynnwood pool in his free time, Vladimir likes to go to the library and to his friends’ houses as well, he said.
Both the brothers said they were surprised to be voted as the Carrier of the Year.
“It’s pretty cool – I didn’t think we would win,” Rusty said. “I don’t put a lot into delivering the paper — but I really like to be cool with the people.”
Vladimir, a seventh-grader at Alderwood Middle School, agreed.
“I was like ‘whoa!’ I never thought that would happen to us – it’s pretty exciting,”
If it weren’t for dedicated carriers like these brothers and all others, The Enterprise wouldn’t get out to the readers. Our carriers are very important to us, said Enterprise circulation manager Monica Moyer.
“I’m pleased that our readers take the time to acknowledge the carriers that are hard working,” Moyer said.
Now that they are the “Carriers of the Year” the Voloshin brothers said they think they’ll even do a better job on their route in the future.
Translated through their sons, their mother and father said they are very proud of the boys.
“I knew something like this would happen because they usually are so committed to doing their route right after school,” said their father Ivan.
“The readers should be proud of them because they’re pretty good guys and they have good grades in school,” Ivan added.
Their mother Polina said “They both try real hard to deliver the papers and take their time to do a good job.” She also said she feels happy and blessed with them.
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