Alexei Mironov got involved in the tourism business in 2000. For seven years he ran a cruise company that offered polar cruises: to the North Pole, the Arctic and Antarctica and the Russian Far East.

Mironov studied at IMD, one of the world’s leading business school, and running a cruise company gave him significant hand-on experience with chartering all kinds of ships – from tiny vessels to nuclear icebreakers – developing and getting approval for exclusive marine and land-based programs, the art of hospitality and the hotel business, recruiting personnel for hotels and tourism, organizing high-class catering on board and on the ground, obtaining permits for exotic itineraries, booking charter flights on planes and helicopters and visiting the ports of various countries.

Mironov has always been an avid traveler. He has been to Antarctica and the Arctic (including 16 trips to the North Pole), Japan, Papua New Guinea, French Polynesia, South and North America, Africa and Southeast Asia. He likes to travel with book in hand, comparing personal experience with that of an author who has visited a given place in the past. He also believes that fellow travelers share a special kinship.