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A few loose screws inspired a programmer to recreate 3D reality on the computer screen
Vladimir Putin has announced he will stand for the presidency in 2012 again. Would a third Putin term be good news?
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PAGE 6 from personal archives
wednesday, 29 september 2011
viktor bogorad
A paid supplement from Rossiyskaya Gazeta (Moscow, Russia), which takes sole responsibility for the contents
Distributed with European Voice
Politics Ousted liberal party leader accuses Medvedev aide of engineering his downfall
A billionaire’s political humiliation Business tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov thrust Right Cause into the big time. But then party rivals turned on him and his political career looked to be at an end.
his own field and told blue jokes, bordering on obscene, as though trying to play up to his reputation as a tough, successful businessman who knows how to enjoy himself. At the time of that interview in September 2010, he claimed to have no intention of going into politics.Yet his words revealed his ambitions and self-esteem. The 46-year-old Prokhorov’s success story is, in many respects, typical of the Russian ‘oligarchs’ who emerged out of the downfall of the Soviet Union. Son of a midlevel Soviet government official who headed the international department at the USSR Sports Committee, he received a good education by Soviet standards, graduating from the State Financial Academy. He was an active member of Komsomol (the Communist Youth League) and joined the Communist Party.
viktor dyatlikovich
reuters/vostock-photo
special to russia now
“Success is something you just can’t share with your children,”Mikhail Prokhorov said. “You can leave a legacy to them, pay for their education, explain how to run a business, but there is something you cannot hand over merely by wishing you could. It is precisely the talent for business – the mixture of luck and intuition that distinguishes a true leader from merely a successful person.” There can be no doubt that Mikhail Prokhorov considers himself to be a ‘true leader’. In his enormous office in the centre of Moscow, with a glass dome for a roof, he treated his guests to a watermelon grown in
Mikhail Prokhorov after losing the Right Cause leadership. He later said he would consider whether to stay in the party.
Public health Beer drinkers may shift to microbrews
Anti-alcohol laws aimed at youth Major brewers and small kiosk owners alike are already bracing for new restrictions on beer sales and advertising, set to take effect in 2013. Vladimir Ruvinsky russia now
Brewers in Russia are expecting a major jolt after the Duma in the summer finalised policies promoted by P re s i d e n t D m i t ry Medvedev that designate beer as an alcoholic beverage and restrict sales. While this distinction may come as no surprise to beer drinkers in other parts of the world, until recently, the intoxicating drink was con-
sidered a food product in Russia, making it possible to buy or sell beer with little to no restrictions on time, place or age. Over the past 15 years, beer consumption in Russia has grown fourfold, according to Dmitry Dobrov, head of Russia’s Union of Liquor Producers. Research by consulting company ID-Marketing shows that between 2000 and 2009, beer production in Russia doubled to 120 million hectolitres, which made the Russian beer industry the third largest in the world in terms of sales, after China and the United States. Russians are in the widespread habit of
drinking beer instead of soft drinks, since they are about the same price, about 30 rubles (€0.70) per bottle. Brewers themselves link this trend to the growing popularity of beer among youth. Substance abuse professionals now believe there is a growing problem of alcoholism among teenagers as a result of beer drinking, and in response, restrictions have been imposed on beer ads. Additionally, in 2005, a ban was imposed on the sale of beer to minors under the age of 18. However, the ban has been poorly observed, and beer consumption has continued to rise. New restrictions set to take effect in 2013 are similar to those currently in use in many European countries. continued on PAGE 3
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Expanding Moscow Over decades, a new government quarter will rise
Russia’s civil servants plan mass exodus Medvedev and Moscow Mayor Sobyanin enthuse over the gargantuan project but many office workers would rather stay in the centre. AnTON MAKHROV RUSSIA NOW
A new district for government offices and staff is set to be built on the outskirts of the Russian capital that will inflate the capital’s boundaries to create a ‘Greater Moscow’. The idea, which President Dmitry Medvedev announced in June, has now evolved with Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, unveiling detailed
plans for creating the enormous administrative district in a year’s time. The new home for the city’s bureaucrats is to be built on 1,400 square kilometres of land to the south-west of the present city boundary, more than doubling the area of the city, which now covers just over 1,000 square kilometres. Within it, 45 million square metres of offices and 60 million square metres of housing are to be created – the equivalent of what Russia usually builds in two years. continued on PAGE 8
continued on PAGE 2
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A billionaire’s political humiliation Prokhorov did not, however, shy from doing such jobs on the side as handling freight as a student or, in the era of cooperatives, selling jeans. His education granted him access to the Soviet financial system: In 1989, he started working for the International Bank for Economic Co-operation, where he met his future business partner, Vladimir Potanin. Together, in the early 1990s, they set up first the International Finance Company and then ONEXIM Bank – the basis of their future business empire. The notorious loans-for-shares auctions of the Yeltsin era, which allowed businessmen to gain control over a number of big companies, made them billionaires when they acquired the oil company Sidanco and Norilsk Nickel. Prokhorov’s subsequent biography is an unending success story, despite a painful breakup with Potanin. Prokhorov managed to emerge a winner even from the global financial crisis: just before the crisis, he sold billions of dollars worth of assets, which enabled him to buy up bankrupt companies. More importantly, Pro khorov has always known how to get along with the government, has accepted all the rules of the game it imposed and has demonstrated his understanding of a concept dear to the Kremlin, the ‘social responsibility of business’. Basketball in Russia needs a boost? He creates the strongest European club, CSKA Moscow. Biathletes need helping out? He sets
reuters/vostock-photo
CONTINUED from PAGE 1
Prokhorov talks to the media during the Right Cause congress in June, when he was named party leader.
Right Cause, a liberal party created in 2008, was available, but it lacked an articulate programme, reputation and sufficient popularity, and, most importantly, a charismatic leader. Someone like Prokhorov – a loyal and successful businessman who does not shy away from publicity – was just what the Kremlin was looking for. First, of course, Prokhorov had to sort out the dos and don’ts with the Kremlin. “Registered parties in Russia observe certain restrictions – tough restrictions,” political scientist Alexei Makarkin said. The first ‘don’t’, he said, is to never associate with the street opposition, with the ‘orange’ forces. The second is not to stray beyond the estab-
I have lost my illusions, Prokhorov blogged after party rivals booted him out. up and finances the Russian Biathlon Union. Russia’s innovative potential needs improving? He launches theYo-mobile hybrid car.
A party in need of a leader
With this year’s parliamentary elections close at hand, the Kremlin needed a convincingly competitive rightwing party to demonstrate their legitimacy and to act as an accumulator of builtup protest in the more liberal segment of society.
lished political limits, not to raise issues putting the government at a disadvantage, not to trespass on another party’s electoral field – above all, that of the ruling United Russia party. Such a fix-up was not unthinkable for Prokhorov – it was the kind of thing he had long been acquainted with in business. “Letting somebody down or not, performing obligations or not … It is a very difficult question,” Prokhorov said last year, trying to explain the intricate system of relations in Russian business. “There are arrangements and understandings according to the ‘code of the underworld’ and there are legal agreements. The former prevailed in the 1990s, while now everyone
has switched over to Russian or Western legal standards. This is a normal evolutionary process.”
Playing by his own rules
When he took the reins of Right Cause, Prokhorov embarked on an aggressive campaign, drawing into the party savvy people who were out of favour with the government. One such person was Yevgeny Roizman – an adamant campaigner against drugs and a controversial, albeit charismatic and very popular, figure. “Russian political parties have long since ceased to see failure as a disaster”, Makarkin said.“Parties just symbolise the presence of various political move-
ments and forces for election purposes. But Prokhorov is the wrong sort of man for that – he would see failure as a serious blow.” “While he was slated as a sparring partner, he started an actual fight”, political scientist Gleb Pavlovsky said of Prokhorov, and this precipitated his duel with the Kremlin´s chief ideologist, Vladislav Surkov. “Vladislav Surkov tried to impose his own candidates for the Right Cause party list. Prokhorov, assuming that Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin had given him carte blanche, refused to accept them,” said Pavlovsky, himself a Kremlin insider and political adviser to Medvedev until earlier this year. Surkov also objected to Roizman’s presence on the party list. As Pavlovsky sees it, the old political hand Surkov was able to engineer Prokhorov’s ouster by his party rivals. “Even after 20 years in business, I still had some illusions. They were dispelled yesterday," Prokhorov wrote in his blog after the coup. As a result, Right Cause has lost any chance of making it into parliament, and Prokhorov is momentarily at a loss. He has promised to demand Surkov’s dismissal from Putin and Medvedev and has spoken of trying to build a new political force. “I value my mistakes just as I value my successes,” Prokhorov has said.“They show me the limits beyond which I cannot go.” The Right Cause affair has shown the billionaire how narrow the limits are.
Interview vladimir churov
Russia’s election chief: Let the observers come TURNOUT IN RUSSIAN ELECTIONS IS STRONG, AT 60% AND RISING
vladimir ruvinsky russia now
Whatisnewsincethelast parliamentary and presidential elections four years ago? In the December [parliamentary] elections, nearly 6,000 polling stations will be fitted with automatic ballot-counting equipment. There will be 1,000 electronic voting devices that do not require a paper ballot sheet. Voting will remain secret. Doyoushareexperienceswith your colleagues abroad?
short, they can watch everything that happens at the polling stations. When we asked to be allowed to do the same in Finland, our request was turned down – not to mention the many restrictions in various US states.
The Central Election Commission has established relations with electoral bodies in 20 countries. We often find that Asian and South American countries have the most advanced voting procedures and electoral laws. For instance, 100% of polling stations in Brazil, India and Venezuela have electronic voting. How will the work of international observers be organised? Russian legislation in this sphere is among the best structured in Europe. Of the 54 OSCE states, only 23, including those in the CIS, have passed laws recognising the institution of international observers. There
ria novosti
Central Election Commission head Vladimir Churov says Russia has a more transparent, fairer electoral system than some Western countries.
Churov demonstrates the new electronic voting machine.
are no such laws in the United States, Germany, France, Poland, the UK, Belgium or the Netherlands.
Here, international observers have the right to be present at election commissions of all levels. … In
Recent opinion polls have shown that many Russians believe the ‘against all candidates’ box should be restored to the ballot paper. I am not aware of such a poll. The ‘against all candidates’ box has been abolished all over Europe because the ‘against everyone’ candidate does not physically exist. … I repeat, there is no ‘against all’ candidate and introduction of that
box is intended to cheat the voters. Critics say that refusal to register parties in Russia infringes upon the right of citizens to be represented in the State Duma. The legitimacy of elections is determined by two factors, the most important of which is voter turnout. In this country, it is about 60% and growing. Second, representation in parliament, i.e., the percentage of voters who cast their votes for deputies who have received mandates. Here it is 92%, that is, only 8% of voters in 2007 voted for candidates to the State Duma who did not obtain a deputy’s mandate. That is a very good European result.
Society
Russia now www.rbth.ru 29 september 2011 section sponsored by rossiyskaya gazeta, russia
03
Public health As major brewers’ ad spending dries up, microbreweries could see their business start to climb
Anti-alcohol laws aimed at youth SABMiller: “They will just completely switch to selling at retail stores,”Klyagin said. Vadim Drobiz, director of the Centre for Federal and Regional Alcohol Market Studies, doubts that the new rules will reduce the consumption of beer overall. “The ban on beer sales at kiosks in Belarus, introduced a year and a half ago, has not reduced beer consumption, and it has actually increased,”Drobiz said. “And in Sweden and Finland, which have state monopolies of alcohol sales, restrictions have not reduced alcohol consumption at all,” he added. Nevertheless, according to a recent poll by Russian market researchers Romir, labelling beer as alcohol will nudge one in ten Russians into giving it up entirely.
continued from page 1
A silver lining for small breweries A beer after school: From 2013 scenes like this should no longer be possible.
AFP/eastnews
From 2013, sales of beer on the street will be completely prohibited. Following the lead of the Baltic countries, the sale of hard liquor will be forbidden between the hours of 11 p.m. and 8 a.m. It will no longer be permissible to drink beer in public places. But the most important restriction is the complete ban on beer ads – on television and outdoors. “Beer sales in the last 10 years have increased due to persistent advertising,” said Pavel Shapkin, head of the Centre for the Development of a National Alcohol Policy. For Russia, these moves seem radical. In the 1920s, beer was not even considered to be an alcoholic drink, and people drank small amounts just to quench their thirst in the heat. Mass production of cheap beer in the Soviet Union began in the 1970s when the government wanted to reduce the consumption of vodka. In the 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev launched another anti-alcohol campaign. He used a simple tactic – he closed the majority of wineries, vodka distilleries and liquor stores. For all the shortcomings of Gorbachev’s campaign, between 1985 and 1988, consumption of alcohol in the Soviet Union fell by approximately 27% and male mortality rates immediately declined by 12%. The new restrictions are not as sweeping, but au-
thorities in Russia today also hope to lower the rate of alcohol-related fatalities. According to the World Health Organisation, currently one in five men in Russia dies from alcoholrelated causes, compared with the world average of one in 15. But this attempt at saving lives could kill small businesses. Street sales currently account for about
25% of all beer sales. The nationwide small-business association Opora Russia says the owners of street kiosks will lose about 40% of their revenue and many will be forced to close. Additionally, brewers may take a hit, and the Union of Russian Brewers believes that the law in its current form “will not reduce the scope of alcohol consumption.” According
to brewers, the problem behind alcoholism lies in Russians’ social discontent, and new restrictions won’t solve that. Maksim Klyagin, an analyst at investment company Finam, believes that the new rules will not significantly affect the beer industry, 85% of which is controlled by five major internationals: Carlsberg, InBev, Heineken, Efes, and
Klyagin says that for business, the only potential beneficiaries of the new law will be microbreweries, which have begun to appear everywhere in recent years. Currently, major manufacturers account for 90% of the beer market, according to Shapkin. Those bottled beers are full of additives, whose impact on the body Chief Narcologist Evgeny Brune compares to“chemical warfare agents.” In recent years, Russians have been trying freshly brewed beer, according to Klyagin, and the demand for it will only grow. But
numbers
85%
of the Russian beer market is controlled by five major international brewers
120
million hectolitres of beer: Russian production in 2009, third spot worldwide after China and the US
18
litres of pure alcohol: amount the average Russian consumed in 2009. Experts warn of the health risks.
this market is largely dependent on beer gardens and beer restaurants, establishments that are still in their infancy in Russia. Anatoly Zhamaldinov, director of Tinkoff Brewery, believes that it’s still too early to discuss the possible benefits of beer restaurants, since administrative barriers to opening them remain. Nevertheless, said Shapkin,“As a result of the new law, advertising for major brands will go away, and small breweries will have a serious opportunity to grow.”
Smoking Government bill would ban smoking almost everywhere and end tobacco sales from street kiosks
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Smoking at stations and airports would be completely outlawed from 2014, and smoking areas in bars and restaurants become a thing of the past. And if you want to have a smoke in the entrance of an apartment building you will first have to obtain written permission from the owners. These restrictions will not
1988
just extend to cigarettes; all gr nd ee ce La nicotine prod40% Smokers ire in Russia ucts will be affected, inSmokers cluding austr in Austria Smokers ay ia norw in Spain hookahs, chewing to36% 26% bacco and maLta ia n snuff. Lithua Opinion polls conSmokers ducted this ita ce Ly an 30% in Belgium s u m m e r Fr showed that 70% of the population generally say they are in favour restricting the sale and use of tobacco, and even that four in ten spondents said smokers claimed to supthat even if the price port the idea. However the of a packet of cigarettes respondents were some- law. The new pricing of cig- was to double this would what less confident about arettes met with particu- not be enough to make the actual provisions of the lar scepticism: 55% of re- them give up smoking.
2007
Smoke-free airports and streets
the ban on smoking in public places comes into force in
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The sale of cigarettes in Russia, like alcohol, has for years been subject to very light restrictions. There was nothing to stop people lighting up almost anytime and anywhere, and any restrictions imposed on the sale of tobacco were generally ignored by business. That is set to change when the Duma considers a tobacco-control bill this autumn. Duma deputies seem to be listening to the health professionals who warn of the
smoking campaign follows the same timeline and strategy as the drive against teen drinking. The Ministry of Health and Social Development wants to see cigarettes disappear from street kiosks by 2013 and tobacco advertising severely cut back.
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effects easily available, cheap cigarettes are having on Russian society and who demand strict legal controls. According to the World Health Organisation, 40% of the Russian population smokes, compared to 34% in the UK and 17% in Brazil. Russia is fourth in the world in terms of the number of cigarettes consumed each year (around 400 billion), yielding only to China, India and Indonesia – and these are all countries with far larger populations. Tobacco is far more easily procurable in Russia than in most of Europe. A packet of cigarettes costing €4 in western Europe can be bought for €1 in Russia. The government anti-
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Russians generally support anti-smoking laws, but many are not convinced that measures contained in a new bill will work.
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Hard times ahead for smokers and tobacco merchants
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Business
Russia now www.rbth.ru 29 september 2011 section sponsored by rossiyskaya gazeta, russia
first person georgy Pachikov ceo ParallelGraphics
Virtual manuals to the real world european voice
Georgy Pachikov’s computer screen displays a large white museum hall. A race car, a large backhoe on wheels and an airplane engine sit on platforms. Everything can be viewed threedimensionally. Quickly, Pachikov grabs the backhoe with his mouse pointer and it morphs into Leonardo da Vinci’s armoured proto-tank. “See, this cog turns here and that simultaneously drives the tower.” After 10 seconds, he zooms in on a lathe: “This is where you horizontally insert the rough wood and the graver is inserted vertically from above here. This button turns the machine on. The longer you press the mouse button, the deeper the cut. Look! Whoosh!”Pachikov says enthusiastically. Pachikov is the founder and president of ParallelGraphics, a software house that develops animated user guides, repair manuals and technical documentation in 3D. His business helps answer a question he’s been asking since childhood: “How does that work?”
It all began with a broken washing machine
ress photoxp
In a T-shirt that poses a different question – “How do you feel today?” – sitting in an Asian café in downtown Moscow, Pachikov describes how he and his brother Stepan founded a company called ParaGraph in 1989. “Back then we were the first worldwide to simulate the everyday on a computer, long before Second Life,” Pachikov said proudly. The brothers programmed a virtual environment in which each user could stroll across Red Square as their alter ego. “Each avatar has a speech bubble above its head where you can chat.” As innovative as it all was, success did not follow.“After
biography Occupation: software developer age: 58
Georgy Pachikov was born in 1953 in Tbilisi, Georgia. He studied economic cybernetics in Moscow. Until 1988, he worked as a software engineer in the state gas industry. In 1986, he started the first Soviet computer club with his brother Stepan and the chess player Garry Kasparov. In 1989 the brothers founded ParaGraph, going on to sell the company to the US software giant Silicon Graphics bought in 1997. ParallelGraphics revenues in 2010: €4 million
the opposite direction: a Russian invents something and only afterwards worries about what to do with it and where a market for it might be found,” he said. Pachikov, on the other hand, knew what audience he was targeting. After a two-year development phase, ParallelGraphics introduced Cortona3D, a software program that converts technical descriptions of individual tasks into three-dimensional animation.
from personal archives
Alexej Knelz
a while, all the users left their avatars behind and limited their activity to chatting – interpersonal communication was still the most important,” Pachikov said. Nobody really knew what could be done with 3D graphics. The market wasn’t there yet. When Pachikov moved to a new apartment in 1999, his washing machine broke. With a friend, he took the machine apart,“down to the last screw.” When they reassembled the machine again and turned it on, it worked, but there were five screws left. “We had no idea where to begin: the user manual was in French and there was no translation. And even though we are both engineers, we were at a complete loss,” Pachikov said. The washing machine gave the programmer a brilliant idea: “An animated 3D repair manual that explains each individual step sequentially, translated into multiple languages – that would be the saving grace for all technicians!” That same year, he founded ParallelGraphics. His newly assembled team soon began testing ideas, even though, for Russia, they were acting counter-cyclically. “In this part of the world, innovation processes run in
Explaining complicated things simply is the secret of Pachikov's success.
Boeing and Airbus came knocking at the door
Pachikov’s first large client was the US aircraft maker Boeing. “Boeing maintains a design centre in Moscow where the boys scan the Russian market for innovations and new talent,”he explained. After his presentation, ‘the boys’ offered him an exclusive five-year contract. It was 2001. The collaboration was very successful. “The same day
the Boeing contract ended, Airbus knocked at the door,” Pachikov said. More big names followed, including General Electric, Honda and Siemens. ParallelGraphics created all the technical documentation for the HondaJet small business plane. And in 2011, Pachikov signed a general partnership with Siemens. His virtual documentation is integrated into the electronics giant’s Teamcenter package of computer-aided
Complex processes automatically transformed into animated user guides Cortona3D is a software programme that automates the development process of technical documentation. Application areas for the software are almost limitless, Pachikov boasts: from Foucault’s pendulum to a hydro-power station. All the software needs to simulate a technical device are the computer-aided design files, which are converted into one of the international formats for technical documentation. The animation process is completely automatic. Afterwards, the files can be integrated into the repair and maintenance manual as a video sequence that shows each task step by step.
Duma elections: Russians will go to the polls in December. Who are the key players?
design, manufacturing and product control systems. The applications in industry are huge, according to Pachikov: “Because of our software, General Electric saved 70% off the cost of technical documentation,” he said. The software also makes it possible to put a product on the market more quickly because it speeds the development phase. Beyond business applications, Cortona3D can be used for training in technical schools. “In the future, every auto mechanic, every electrician will have the individual steps readily available on their tablet PC and can then implement them,”Pachikov said.
The biggest technical museum in the world
Then he opens his laptop once more to the museum hall, the entry to his dream idea. He zooms in on an engine, grabs it with the mouse, disassembles and reassembles it virtually, lets the turbines spin. “Imagine a virtual museum where every technical device ever invented by man is collected. And you can walk through and operate each one, take it apart and reassemble it.”And answer the question: “How does that work?”
from personal archives
Georgy Pachikov reversed the typical Russian way of innovation – he found an audience for his product before he developed it.
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Features
RUSSIA NOW WWW.RBTH.RU 29 SEPTEMBER 2011 SECTION SPONSORED BY ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA, RUSSIA
05
Urban art Moscow’s underground railway is a living museum as well as an essential way to move around the city
A trip down Moscow’s time tunnels GETTY IMAGES/FOTOBANK ITAR-TASS
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Komsomolskaya station opened in 1952. Alight here for the grand baroque style of the Stalinist era.
Welcome to the 21st century: The vestibule of Sretensky Bulvar station. One of the system’s newest, it opened in 2007.
The Moscow metro breathes history through its art and architecture. You’ll meet Lenin, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin and other famous Russians in its stations.
great state. Art historians claim that the richly-decorated underground was a deliberate ideological move to eulogise the young Soviet country. Much of the design and decorations from this period is worthy of special attention. For example, the ceiling mosaics at Mayakovskaya station (called
ALENA LEGOSTAEVA
SPECIAL TO RUSSIA NOW
As you travel on Moscow’s metro, the history of the city’s last eight decades unfolds before your eyes. The stations range in design from palatial marble and granite structures to modern day steel and glass constructions – revealing the tastes, ideas, hopes and disappointments of the generations that first used them.
First steps underground
Construction of the Moscow metro began in 1931, although engineers Pyotr Balinsky and Yevgeny Knorre submitted their first designs to the Moscow City Duma as far back as 1902. The Duma, then made up of wealthy people, was not convinced at first: after all, they lived in the centre of the city and didn’t have to travel in overcrowded trams. But, after five failed proposals, the Duma finally ap-
proved the plans and building began. On 15 May 1935, 18 years after the Bolshevik revolution, the metro threw open its doors and carried its first passengers down the escalators and on to its new wagons with padded seats (unlike the wooden seats in trams). The first metro line
Until the mid-1950s metro stations were grand, ornate palaces for the people. – from Sokolniki to Dvorets Sovetov (now known as Kropotkinskaya) – was 11 kilometres long and had 13 stations. The system has since grown to over 300km of track with 12 lines and 182 stations at from five to 80 metres below street level. The city’s development plan for 2020 envisages that by then another 120km will have been added to the existing routes.
The Lenin rebrand
For the first 20 years of its history, the metro was named after Lazar Kaga-
novich, the “iron commissar”and Stalin’s right-hand man, who oversaw construction of the first stage (he also gave the order to blow up the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in December 1931 as part of the Proletarian Capital project). In 1955, however, the metro was renamed after Vladimir Lenin. Although Russia has long since changed its political path, you can still find portraits of Lenin in the underground network, including busts of him at Belorusskaya and Komsomolskaya stations, impressive mosaics at Baumanskaya and Kievskaya stations, and a tile panel in the passage between the Borovitskaya and Biblioteka Imeni Lenina (Lenin Library) stations. Images of Stalin, which were omnipresent on the metro in the late 1940s, were gradually removed after his death in 1953 and the subsequent denunciation of his legacy.
Architectural eras
The first stations, up until the mid-1950s, were conceived and built as luxurious ‘palaces for the people’, grand architecture for a
Characters from Dostoyevsky’s novels inhabit the station named after the writer. The 24-hour Soviet Sky) and at Novokuznetskaya station (called Heroic Labour of the Soviet People on the Home Front), based on designs by artist Alexander Deineka, were made by famous mosaic artist Vladimir Frolov, who also created the much marvelled-at mosaic icons in St. Petersburg’s Church of the Saviour on Blood. The Ploshchad Revolyutsii station is decorated with 76 bronze sculptures of workers, soldiers, farmers, students and other Soviet role models. People rub the nose
If you are on the platform of a Sokolnicheskaya (Red) line station you might catch one of its specially-themed trains. The Aquarelle Train (pictured) is painted with flowers and fruit on the outside. Inside, it is a gallery featuring reproductions of paintings from the Viktor and Apollinary Vasnetsov Museum in Kirov. The Reading Moscow Train carries extracts from illustrated literary works for
AFP/EASTNEWS
All aboard: experience poetry, art, literature and history in motion both adults and children. The Poetry in Metro Train is a mobile exposition, updated this year, dedicated to Italian poets. All the poems and biographies are displayed in both Russian and Italian. The Sokolniki Retro Train looks exactly like a carriage on the first Moscow metro train, both inside and out. Painted brown, it has padded seats, period wall decorations and retro lamps.
of the frontier guard’s dog for good luck. According to the chief architect of the system, Nikolai Shumakov, “Architecture developed along the same lines, both above and below the surface.”Thus, by 1955, the good times for Russian architecture – both underground and above ground – were over after the Communist Party decreed that extravagance in design and construction were to be eliminated. Dull stations, without any stucco work, mosaics, columns or other “unjustified”elements, were built under the slogan“Kilometres at the expense of architecture”. Things were the same above the ground, where entire cities were built of commonplace fivestorey apartment blocks, all looking the same, nicknamed ‘Khrushchevkas’ after the then leader, Nikita Khrushchev. Tverskaya, Kitay-Gorod, Kolomenskaya and other stations built between the 1960s and 1980s reflect this period.
A return to design
In 2002, with the reconstruction of the Vorobyovy Gory station, which offers commuters a splendid view of the Moskva River, the Luzhniki Olympic Complex and the Academy of Sciences, design returned to the metro. Architectural styles of the 1930s and 1940s were reintroduced and artists were once again involved in decorating the stations. Sretensky Bulvar station boasts silhouettes of Pushkin and Gogol and of Moscow sights; Dostoyevskaya is decorated with black-and-white panels featuring the main characters from Dostoyevsky’s best-loved novels, and Maryina Roshcha station
THE NUMBERS
11
km: length of track when the Moscow metro first opened in 1935. The first line had 13 stations.
300
km: total track length today. The system has grown to 182 stations on 12 lines.
41.6
km/h: average metro train speed. Minimum headway between trains is 90 seconds.
flaunts its pastoral mosaic landscapes. In 2004, the metro system embraced Russia’s first monorail – an elevated track in northern Moscow, linking the All-Russian Exhibition Centre and the Timiryazevskaya metro station. The evolution of the Moscow metro continues. It’s still a work in progress, with ambitious plans to involve passengers even more closely into its workings over the next ten years, not just by adding many kilometres of new track. “We want to strip the stations of everything we can,”chief architect Shumakov says. “We are trying to show the passengers the framework – what the metro is made of. Cast iron and concrete are beautiful.”
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Opinion
Russia now www.rbth.ru 29 september 2011 section sponsored by rossiyskaya gazeta, russia
five REASONS TO invest in PUTIN I
t’s easy to criticise Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Over the years, many voices have readily – and often rightfully – called Putin to task on issues such as growing corruption, selective justice and his rollback of democracy. Putin’s announcement on 24 September that he would run for the presidency in 2012 cracks open the door to new worries about the fate of Russia’s democracy and civil society, since Putin is all but certain to return to the Kremlin for a sixyear term, and possibly another six-year term after that. But a third presidential term for Putin is far from all doom and gloom. Here are five reasons for foreign investors to cheer Putin’s announcement at the United Russia convention and his economic-related remarks a day earlier at the same event.
1.
The uncertainty has ended over who will run in 2012. Although Putin has long been seen as the captain at the country’s helm, the lack of clarity from Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev on who might run has bewildered investors for months, if not years. Repeated promises of a continuation of current policy clashed with what seemed to be conflicting statements from Putin and Medvedev about domestic political reforms, foreign policy and even when an announcement might be made on who would run for president. With just five months left until the election, the 2012 riddle was erecting a potential hurdle to ongoing investment and looked positively embarrassing, especially in contrast to a developed democracy like the United States where opposition hopefuls are already jostling
to take on President Barack Obama more than a year before the vote.
2.
The US-Russia ‘reset’ will continue.While Medvedev and his perceived more liberal policies have been credited widely with improving ties with Washington, it is now clear that Putin has been in charge the whole time, and thus engineered the reset. Medvedev indicated at the United Russia convention that he and Putin had tentatively agreed on Putin’s return when they first settled on their ‘ruling tandem’ arrangement in 2007. The good news for investors is that the political reset appears to have been a resounding success and will remain in place because of the two sides’ many strategic interests on everything from Afghanistan to the Middle East. Under Putin, both sides will be able to push forward with their
agenda to move the reset into the economic arena. The economic reset already appears to be bearing fruit – first and foremost with an agreement for Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organisation just around the corner. A reset of sorts has also taken place with the European Union, and there is reason to expect economic relations to continue to improve and flourish during a Putin presidency.
3.
Stability. If Putin has proved anything during his 11 years in power, it is that he is a strong leader interested in bringing stability to Russia. His means of ushering in stability and maintaining it have bred corruption and raised worries about the state of democracy and civil society. But at the same time, the investment climate has markedly improved from the chaotic 1990s, with, among
other things, the passage of key legislation and regulations that allow investors to work within an understandable – if often violated – legal framework, a demonstrably greater effort by the authorities to consider and act on investors’ concerns, and a steady increase in the standard of living that has led to growing consumer demand. Incidentally, an important part of stability is predictability, and Putin is reliably conservative on political and security issues, and patriotic and fairly pro-business on economic issues.
4.
TheYukos takeover won’t be revisited. Many investors have long ago stopped fretting over the merits of the state’s legal assault on former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and its takeover of his oil company. But a shadow of doubt has hung over the affair, fuelling wor-
ries that the scandal might be revisited and the assets might be redistributed again. A Putin presidency promises to lay lingering investor jitters to rest.The assets that were seized fromYukos and awarded state-owned Rosneft will stay put. One wonders in retrospect whether Putin gave US energy giant ExxonMobil a heads-up on his plan to return to the Kremlin when he blessed its multibillion-dollar deal with Rosneft on 30 August. For the US company, the strategic agreement was purely business; but for the Russian company, it was purely politics.The agreement gives legitimacy to Rosneft, and by extension to Putin, in its ownership of former Yukos assets. Incidentally, it is also clear now that Khodorkovsky will remain in prison for years to come.
5.
Hope is growing for further improvements in the invest-
ment climate. Putin suggested at the United Russia convention that he and Medvedev would swap hats next year, with him returning to the presidency and Medvedev replacing him in the White House as prime minister. Pundits are debating whether Medvedev would make a better prime minister or, perhaps, chief justice of the Constitutional Court or State Duma speaker. But no matter where Medvedev lands, investors can hope that he will be in a position to push ahead with the modernisation, anti-corruption agenda that he has made the hallmark of his presidency. More important, Putin stressed at the convention that he would oversee the drives for modernisation and against corruption by, like Medvedev, working to reduce the economy’s dependence on energy exports and tackle key investment hurdles like corruption and the weak court system. “We must speak openly about the dependence of our economy on raw materials, about the dangerous level of social inequality, violence, corruption, about the feeling of injustice and vulnerability that people feel when they are dealing with government bodies, courts and law enforcement,”Putin said. “All this, unfortunately, continues,”he said.“We can and must overcome these problems.” We may never know whether the Medvedev presidency was little more than a charade. But it’s now obvious that Putin deserves to sit in the Kremlin. He has always called the shots and made the decisions, and the only place for the CEO of Russia is in the CEO’s office overlooking Red Square. Originally published in The Moscow Times
EUROPEan union FACES A SOVIET-STYLE COLLAPsE Boris Kagarlitsky
A
sociologist
t the same time that Russia is marking the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West is beginning to talk seriously about the possibility of the collapse of the European Union. As with the Soviet collapse, the more politicians try to save the EU, the less viable it becomes. The EU is threatened with disintegration by the very institution that was supposed to unify and strengthen the continent: a common European currency. Back in the early 2000s, many economists, including
myself, argued that trying to integrate countries with different economies and national cultures into a single financial system would not lead to greater unity but to increased conflict. We also argued that the euro would cause inflation in less developed southern EU countries to spread like a plague to their more developed northern neighbours, and that financial policies aimed at austerity and maintaining a stable exchange rate for the euro would strangle the economies of Greece, Spain and Portugal. Unfortunately, these predictions have proven true. The unified financial system has led to a reallocation of cap-
ital in favour of Germany, the most powerful European economy, while the countries with the weakest economies suffered constant financial shortfalls and
In many ways, the EU is less of an integrated body than the Soviet Union was. were forced to borrow increasingly larger sums, pushing them to the brink of bankruptcy. Many had hoped that integration would improve the performance of less-developed Eu-
ropean countries, but this didn’t happen. Meanwhile, countries with weaker economies were tempted to use whatever political leverage they had to improve their status within the EU. This was an important factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union and could have a similar impact on the EU. The fact that Germany and France propose strengthening financial integration as a means of overcoming the crisis only proves that politicians have not learned anything from recent events. Stiffening the demands made by financial and political institutions will only widen the gap between those institutions.
Worse, it will decrease people’s standard of living. It is instructive to compare the EU to the Soviet Union. In many ways, the EU is less of an integrated body than the Soviet Union was. Social, cultural and economic institutions were more homogeneous in Soviet society, but under the pressure of market reforms, the ethnically diverse Soviet republics began to diverge quickly. Historically, market forces have divided social groups. Brussels was more or less able to cope with these divisive forces when the economy was booming, but in a recession the situation has worsened significantly. Unfortunately, rather than acknowledge the problem
and institute reforms to correct the negative effects of recent policies, European leaders are trying even harder to put their failed ideas into practice. The result will be disastrous. The Soviet Constitution granted republics the right to secede, but the EU Lisbon Treaty does not offer the same right. This only means that if the EU starts falling apart, it will be even more chaotic and uncontrollable than the collapse of the Soviet Union. Originally published in The Moscow Times
Boris Kagarlitsky is director of the Institute of Globalisation Studies.
Comment
Russia now www.rbth.ru 29 september 2011 section sponsored by rossiyskaya gazeta, russia
07
viewpoints russia and the arab spring
INTERVENTION OR LAISSEZ-FAIRE? slapped his colleague down. The When Vladimir Putin likened the Western alliance’s air strikes on Libya Russian leadership’s cack-handed handling of the Libyan affair may to a crusade, Dmitry Medvedev Eugene Ivanov
political blogger
is realpolitik on its way out?
T
he mass protests that have rocked the Middle East and North Africa since the beginning of the year came as a surprise to many of the world’s governments. As a result, their responses to the Arab Spring have been largely reactive and often inconsistent; it’s hard to name a country that has succeeded in designing a unified approach to the events taking place in countries as diverse as Tunisia and Yemen. This has not prevented some pundits from criticising Russia’s Middle East policy as being particularly chaotic: one said,“Russian policy toward Libya [is] …a study in ambivalence”; another called it“a zigzag policy”. Western analysts tend to ascribe every ‘inconsistency’ in Russian foreign policy, whether real or imagined, to disagreements between President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime MinisterVladimir Putin; volumes have been written about a public spat between the two following Russia’s vote on the UN Security Council resolution to authorise a no-fly zone over Libya.Yet, a careful examination of Russia’s recent behaviour in the region reveals the presence of a rather consistent strategic line, an approach that is based on three general principles. First, Moscow shows little appetite for bold solo moves in the UN, including using its veto power, which has been applied only four times in the past 15 years. These days, Russia prefers following the crowd of its fellow Security Council members. Russia supported imposing an arms embargo on Tripoli; this resolution was unanimously adopted by the Security Council. Initially opposed to Resolution 1973 authorising the no-fly zone,
Russia eventually decided not to veto it and abstained instead. In so doing, Russia joined a respected group of major international players, such as Brazil, China, Germany and India. Second, Russia’s sensitivity to regional sentiments helps explain another ‘inconsistency’ of its Middle East policy: Its decision to abandon Qaddafi while continuing
Moscow seems to have abandoned its old habit of sticking forever to ‘friendly’ dictators. to provide diplomatic cover to the Assad regime in Syria. Russia took note of the fact that Resolution 1973 was supported by the Arab League, an organisation that repeatedly condemned the Qaddafi regime for brutality. Syria was a different matter; there was no regional consensus with regards to the amount of pressure to be applied on Damascus. For as long as the Assad regime enjoyed some support, however tacit, from two regional power brokers, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, Moscow saw no reason to do any heavy lifting on its own in the Security Council. But that did not stop Medvedev from warning Assad in August that Russia’s approach to Syria may change if the Syrian strongman fails to implement promised reforms. Third, Moscow seems to have abandoned its old habit of sticking forever to ‘friendly’ dictators; it now prefers to engage all the parties involved in a conflict. Thus, Russia kept in communication with Tripoli; at the same time, Medvedev sent his special
Letters from readers, guest columns and cartoons labelled “Comment” or “Viewpoint” or appearing on the “Opinion” and “comment” pages of this supplement are selected to represent a broad range of views and do not necessarily represent those of the editors of Russia Now or Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Please send letters to the editor to ev@rbth.ru
representative, Mikhail Margelov, to meet with the opposition stationed in Benghazi. After Margelov’s trip, the rebels put out the Russian flag and proclaimed Russia an “ally”. The same approach is being applied in Syria. In June, Margelov hosted a meeting with the Syrian opposition and called for an end to“any and all forms of violence”. Margelov then made it very clear that Moscow is willing to deal with any eventual winner in the Syrian conflict. Needless to say, this message was well received. Russia’s hard-core realism in the Middle East is nothing new: it’s a continuation of the pragmatic foreign policy Moscow has been conducting since Putin came to office. Yet, some new, surprising elements seem to be emerging. When justifying Russia’s position on Libya, Medvedev accused the Qaddafi regime of “crimes committed against its own people”and directly linked its “abhorrent behaviour” to Russia’s refusal to veto Resolution 1973. In other words, by taking into account the domestic conduct of the Libyan leadership, Medvedev essentially rejected the simplicity of ‘realpolitik’ and introduced elements of the value-based approach that until now has been completely foreign to the Kremlin. Medvedev’s words were echoed by Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the State Duma’s foreign-affairs committee. In a recent article discussing the situation in Libya, Kosachev argued that foreign interventions into domestic conflicts could be justified “when people’s lives are at stake”.This argument essentially rejects Russia’s longstanding position that sovereign rights of the nation are paramount. We must wait to see whether these statements are no more than tactical one-offs or perhaps signal a paradigm shift in Russian foreign policy. Eugene Ivanov is a Massachusetts-based political commentator who blogs at The Ivanov Report.
signal a shift to a foreign policy that respects values no less than naked power. Konstantin von Eggert
journalist
RUSSIA’S LIBYAN CLIMB-DOWN
D
avid Cameron and William Hague have to be grateful to the Royal Air Force. The British prime minister and foreign secretary flew to Moscow as winners of the war in Libya, and this definitely created extra respect for them during difficult talks with the Russian leaders, President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime MinisterVladimir Putin. The Russians might not care much for the British, with the Litvinenko murder and BP misfortunes serving as irritants. But in their hearts they have always had high regard for military prowess. Actually, Medvedev and Putin must have felt a bit jealous. Moscow could have easily been among the winners of the Libyan campaign instead of suffering the indignity of having its Qaddafi-era contracts with Tripoli effectively suspended by the new transitional government. I am still baffled: why did the Kremlin commit such a gross error of judgement which lead to such a visible humiliation? From the moment Russia chose not to veto UN Security Council Resolution 1973 Muammar Qaddafi’s game was up. He had the world’s most powerful military alliance against him and hardly any support even among the fellow Arabs. Moreover, Jordan, Qatar and United Arab Emirates gave military support to the allied operation in the Libyan skies. Moscow could have voted in favour of the no-fly zone resolution and could even have sent a symbolic frigate or two to Libyan shores – thus securing a place of honour among future winners. Still, abstention gave Russia a free hand to adjust its attitude later. And of course it was quite clear from the beginning that
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Resolution 1973 gave a green light to the allies to root out the Qaddafi regime. No other outcome would have satisfied them. But instead of being consistent and keeping a distance, Moscow almost imm e d i a t e ly r u s h e d t o condemn the NATO-led operation and, implicitly, support Qaddafi. It soon found itself in a particularly bad position: the Libyan dicta-
Russian leaders worship sovereignty because they saw the Soviet Union vanish overnight. tor did not trust Russia after the UN abstention; the rebels felt Russia was working against them. Medvedev’s special representative, Mikhail Margelov, flew to Benghazi for talks with the Transitional National Council in June. Regrettably, the Russian leadership did not follow up his promising mission with any concrete steps. In a humiliating climb-down Moscow had to recognise the rebels as Libya’s legitimate government when it was too late. So why did Medvedev, Putin and their foreign policy advisors miscalculate? I think the roots of this mistake lie in Russia’s internal situation and mentality. Post-Cold War humiliations, some real and some perceived, created an ideology based on anti-Western attitudes, as well as denial that values and ideas, as opposed to naked interest, play any role in international relations. (For values, read ‘Western values’.) Moscow decision-makers and the Russian public view global politics as a zero-sum game, where someone’s gain is al-
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ways someone else’s loss. This is at the same time the consequence and the reason of Russia’s peculiar and tortuous post-communist transition. The country is neither here nor there, no longer an empire and global superpower but not yet a fully-fledged nation state. This makes the Russians uncertain and consequently defensive. They worship sovereignty – understood as a sort of pre-World War I right of governments to do whatever they want within their national boundaries – because they saw their own country, the Soviet Union, disappear overnight. They are unable and unwilling to accept such concepts as ‘humanitarian intervention’ and ‘responsibility to protect’, which underpinned the intervention in Libya. This leads to a recurring situation in which Russia finds itself on the wrong side of history trying to bail out dictators long past their expiry date. It happened with Milosevic in Serbia, Saddam in Iraq, and now Qaddafi, and one wonders if the situation will not recur with Syria’s Bashar Assad. Global politics today are an interplay of interests and values, opportunism and idealism. Missing this very real point leads the Russians to believe that any event over which they have no control – such as the Arab revolutions – is by default a sinister conspiracy, usually a Western one and involving oil. This belief is by no means an exclusively Russian phenomenon. Many readers of the British Guardian newspaper seem to share this view too. But among the G8 nations it is only in Russia that such attitudes are as widely spread among politicians and top civil servants. It might take quite some time for my people to start adapting to 21st-century reality, although Russian leaders have it in their power to speed up the process and finally get real themselves. Konstantin von Eggert is a former editor-in-chief of the BBC Russian Service Moscow bureau.
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08
Society
RUSSIA NOW WWW.RBTH.RU 29 SEPTEMBER 2011 SECTION SPONSORED BY ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA, RUSSIA
Russia’s civil servants plan exodus The local governments of Moscow and the Moscow Region have already approved the ambitious project. And an international competition for developing the concept of Greater Moscow is soon to be announced. It’s not the first time the capital of a major city will be recreated to accommodate the government staff. Brazil, for example, built its capital, Brasilia, from scratch in the interior, far from the nearest cities. Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev took a leaf from the Brazilian book when he transferred the capital from Almaty to Astana. The move helped to sever the corrupt nexus between government officials and members of the elite classes, by replacing them with people who had no connections to old, often criminal, schemes. Government offices are also relocated for more practical reasons, such as streamlining administration.That’s why France created its highrise district, La Défense, on the edge of Paris. Medvedev seems to be thinking more along the lines of streamlining rather than replacing officials, as the proposed site is within commuting distance of central Moscow. The move will also help to relieve traffic congestion in the city.
Money matters
It’s not clear how much the new city for bureaucrats would cost.“The cost is not yet known because there are no concrete projects,” is all Sobyanin would say. His deputy mayor for economic policy. Andrei Sharonov, favours drastic measures: “It makes sense for everybody to move. If some institutions stay in the old centre and officials have to shuttle backwards and forwards between offices, the transport problem will remain unresolved.” Artyom Tsogoyev, project manager with Trinfico Property Management, doubts that Sharonov’s optimism will be shared by local governments: “Russia has the unhappy experience of moving the Constitutional Court to St. Petersburg. The plan did not work very well because the judges still have to spend most of their time
AFP/EASTNEWS
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
A man steps over the "river" of a scale model of Moscow. The miniature city has been on exhibit since 1977.
in Moscow in the line of duty”, Tsogoyev said. “As a result, we may face a situation where all the government institutions are nominally outside the capital but still have a major ‘branch’ in the city centre.”
A new city at zero cost
In any case, the bill will be hefty. “Every government official needs 12-15 square metres, each costing $3,000. And you have to bear in mind that the official will be accompanied by his secretaries and staff and that
they, too, need space. So it may cost between $50,000 and $100,000 to relocate a single government official”, mused Konstantin Kovalyov, managing partner with estate agents Blackwood. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, however, feels that the relocation would virtually “cost nothing”. He said the transfer of personnel would free up premises, property and other assets in the city centre. If these buildings were reused effectively, the cost could turn out to be zero. The declared goals of the
project do sound impressive.“To improve the development of the Moscow megalopolis and simply to make life easier for a vast number of people”is the task set by the president.“Development density will be reduced several fold and Moscow will breathe more easily,”Sobyanin explained. “It will change the look of Moscow. Today it has hundreds of buildings housing government institutions; new and more comfortable buildings may appear in their place,” presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich said.
ci, a commercial property firm. “While business activity is likely to be concentrated in the administrative centre, the city’s residents will spend their leisure time in the neighbouring villages and townships.” Architects say such a largescale development presents significant challenges. And the need to blend administrative offices and business centres with residential development and social infrastructure will require careful planning. “The plan has to be implemented over 25 to 50 years, otherwise the new city will
Ambitious, but not impossible
“The bureaucrats’ city may be small but it must be selfcontained,”argues Mikhail Khazanov, the vice-president of the Moscow Architects’ Union. “Top federal executive bodies are not only about the offices in which the bureaucrats sit. Housing, a social and transport infrastructure, and
Growing Moscow
Imagine Moscow twice as big – that’s the idea Moscow city planners are at work on the ambitious plan to turn a large swath of the suburbs into a federal centre with relocated ministries and government buildings. The proposed development has the working title Moscow-2. Experts say over 100 million square metres of real estate could be built in the area, and it ultimately could be home to two million people. “Building the satellite city will be a shot in the arm for developing nearby districts in the Moscow Region,” said Vladimir Avdeyev, a general partner at S.A. Ric-
What the project amounts to is a fully-fledged city of between 10 0,0 0 0 and 500,000 people, specialists say.
commercial services are needed. It takes all these elements to make a normal city”,the architect said. If a city is unfit for living, there can be no question of a government migration, he added. It is an ambitious but realistic plan, according to Sergei Tkachenko, director of the Moscow Master Plan Institute. “Some ideas as to how to implement the plan were proposed several years ago. Architects and urban developers must always be ready to tackle new tasks and we have been considering the options,” he said. Even so, previous attempts to build a Moscow version of La Défense have had little success. The idea of finding a new centre to accommodate the entire government was mooted during the administration of the previous Moscow mayor, Yuri Luzhkov. In 2005, plans for an administrative district on 800 hectares of land north-west of the Moscow City business centre. Factoring in the cost of shifting about 100 industrial enterprises out of the area, the total cost of the project was estimated at €58 billion. As a result, the project never got off the ground and experts are sceptical about the usefulness of Moscow City itself. Anyway, urban developers still have time to avoid making the same mistakes: according to the Property Market Indicators analytical centre, the president’s idea will take at least 10 to 15 years to be cast in stone.
outgrow whatever we build,” said Pavel Andreyev, an architect with the state design bureau Mosproject-2. Some architects recommend building Moscow-2 symmetrically. Astana, Kazakhstan's shiny new capital, was built on the same principle with development branching out on a hub-and-spoke plan from administrative and residential nodes. A key goal for Moscow will be the creation of integrated transport networks within the newly developed area to prevent it from becoming a burden on the region's already overcrowded roads.
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