RBTH Australia (December 2014)

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Thursday, December 11, 2014

This supplement is sponsored by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, which takes sole responsibility for its contents and is wholly independent of Fairfax Media. The supplement did not involve Fairfax Media editorial staff in its production.

Russia's Old Believers

Museum guide

The contemporary beliefs and practices of an Orthodox minority

Russia's best museums and art collections

P7

P 14-16

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New-look Moscow emerges from its grey Soviet past

DESPITE TENSIONS WITH THE WEST, RUSSIA'S CAPITAL CITY

PAGES 8-9

IS MORE EUROPEAN THAN EVER

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News

MOST READ

SANCTIONS COULD COST RUSSIA $170 BILLION rbth.com/41845

IN PICTURES AND NUMBERS

STOCKS

Firms quit London exchange Russian construction company Rose Group, which operates in Moscow’s upmarket real estate sector, is delisting its shares from the London stock exchange. In the seven years since its initial public offering (IPO), the company’s capitalisation has dropped from $US1.4 billion (£895 million) to $US272.2 million (£174 million).

On November 21, another Russian construction company, Gals-Development, announced its decision to delist from the London exchange, while in September, a similar decision was taken by Russian bank FK Otkrytie.

Analysts have said that these decisions are part of a broader trend of Russian issuers switching from European to Asian markets.

LORI/LEGION MEDIA

TRAVEL GORKY PARK AND RED SQUARE MAKE TOP 10

GETTY IMAGES/FOTOBANK

Russian companies abandon the London stock exchange in favor of Asia.

milk, the rest is vegetable oil,” Fyodorov told the TASS news agency.

In response to the minister’s accusations, Soyuzmoloko, a union of large Russian dairy producers of which Danone and PepsiCo are a part, has appealed to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev with a request for the accuracy and ethics of the Agriculture Minister’s statement to be thoroughly evaluated.

“In our company’s portfolio there is only one product that is produced with the use of vegetable fats,” Danone said in an official statement.

“And information about its ingredients is written on the container for consumers,”the company said.

OPINION POLLS

Separatism concern declines

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tional separatism as insignificant (24 per cent in 2013).

Another 16 per cent of those polled believe that this problem does not exist at all (9 per cent in 2013), and 13 per cent didn’t know, in a poll that was conducted across Russia from November 21 to 24 involving 1600 people.

Ninety per cent of respondents said they did not want their region to secede from Russia, while 8 per cent did

Transneft pipeline conflict the latest episode in the Russia-Ukraine fuel saga rbth.com/41929

want their region to secede.

Eighty-six per cent of those polled were also opposed to the possible secession of other Russian regions and only 6 per cent welcomed the idea.

When asked about the situation in the North Caucasus, 49 per cent of respondents described it as “favourable and quiet” – a higher percentage than in January, when 18 per cent held this view.

MULTIMEDIA

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BUSINESS

The number of Russian citizens who believe that national separatism (regions’ aspirations for autonomy or independence) is a major problem in Russia has declined this year. It is down by 16 per cent, from 50 per cent in 2013 to 34 per cent at the end of this year, the Levada Center told Interfax.

Thirty-eight per cent of respondents to the latest survey described the problem of na-

Ten police dead and 28 wounded in Chechnya

The cost of living in Moscow and St Petersburg a century ago rbth.com/41865

7th

Home to St Basil's Cathedral, Lenin's mausoleum and historic events and concerts, the UNESCO heritage-listed Red Square came seventh.

ONLY AT RBTH.COM IVAN KISLOV

Ten police officers were killed and 28 wounded during a special anti-terrorist operation to flush militants out of two buildings in Grozny, the capital of Russia’s Republic of Chechnya, on December 4, according to reports by news agency TASS. According to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who led the operation, at least nine terrorists were also killed.

The militants seized and occupied Grozny’s Press House and a nearby school in Grozny, after a firefight with traffic police in the early hours of December 4.

Local intelligence had said terror attacks were likely.

Photographs of foxes in Chukotka that went viral in RussiaIvnsula.

RBTH.COM/41595

PRESS PHOTO

Instaweek: statements in style captured on the Moscow metro RBTH.COM/41805

LITERATURE

Russian Agriculture Minister Nikolai Fyodorov has accused large international dairy producers Danone and PepsiCo of illegally using vegetable oils in their products.

According to Fyodorov’s official statement, the government subsidises the production of milk, then the international companies buy it, add palm oil and transform it into a dairy product, thus misleading the government.

“This dairy product contains only 10 to 20 per cent

PHOTOSHOT/VOSTOCK-PHOTO

Minister claims oil is in dairy products

5th

Gorky Park, which has been hugely popular with Muscovites since its redevelopment, was the fifth-most geotagged location in the world in 2014.

ANTI-TERROR

© SAID TSARNAEV / RIA NOVOSTI

FOOD REGULATION

Australian travel website traveller.com.au named the top 10 geotagged destinations on Instagram this year and two Moscow locations made the list: the beautiful 120-hectare Gorky Park and the city's iconic Red Square.

Five Russian books for your Christmas gift list rbth.com/41893

Speed, risk and dreams: the future racing champions of Russia

RBTH.COM/41901

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Politics

FRANCE BLOCKS MISTRAL SHIPS DELIVERY TO RUSSIA rbth.com/41739

President resolute on foreign policy stance

somebody’s tactical interests contrary to fundamental principles and common sense, in a way that suggests [the US thinks] everyone around is poorly educated and cannot read or write,”Putin said.

On sanctions

OLEG KONYUKHOV

On December 4, President Vladimir Putin made his annual address to Russia’s Federal Assembly. In it, he talked about Russia’s crisis in its relations with the West, economic policy in the context of sanctions and what Moscow sees as the reasons for the conflict in Ukraine.

Putin’s intentions to continue pursuing Russian geopolitical interests rather than blindly kowtowing to Western direction and notably US hypocrisy were key themes, which he expressed unapologetically.

On Crimea It is in Crimea, Putin said, that Prince Vladimir, who as a result baptised all of Rus, was baptised. That is why the “spiritual source for the formation of the diverse, yet monolithic Russian nation and Russian state”is located there.

“Crimea, ancient Korsun, Chersonesus and Sevastopol hold immense civilisational and sacred importance for Russia, just as the Holy Mount in Jerusalem does for those who profess Islam and Judaism,”Putin said.“And we will treat it in exactly this way for now and forever.”

REUTERS

RBTH

Putin is openly sceptical and critical of Western motivation.

On Ukraine

On the US

“Now is not the time to play politics or pass around loud empty promises; it is the time to aid the economy of Ukraine, of course, using reforms,” Putin said. Moscow is not going to submit to Western pressure in the Ukraine situation.

“We are correct to ask: for what is all this tragedy in Ukraine? Was it really impossible to resolve the issues, even contentious issues, through dialogue within a legal framework and legitimate processes?”

The US has always directly, or from behind the scenes, influenced Russia’s relationships with its neighbours, the president said.

The Russian leader reiterated the system of double standards wherein the provisions of international law are only remembered [by the US] when it is beneficial for their interests.

“When understanding the role and significance of international law, about which we talk so much, we must ensure it is not adjusted to serve

On the economy Putin proposed fixing and not changing the tax system that has been functioning for four years so that entrepreneurs didn’t need to worry about any potential unpleasant surprises from the state. The president also promised to give full amnesty to offshore capital provided it returns to Russia. The head of state discussed Russia’s war with bureaucracy, and announced that measures will soon be taken to prevent excessive bureaucratic control over business activities. It is hoped these efforts will improve business confidence.

30,000 a year die on roads

EU: Don't blame Bulgaria on gas

Road accidents kill about 30,000 Russians and injure another 250,000 every year, according to figures from Russia’s Interior Ministry’s road police.

These figures do not change much year on year.

Russia’s road accident mortality rate was reported to be 27,025 in 2013, which was 3.5 per cent less than it had been in 2012.

EU sanctions bill $50b: minister

MITYA ALESHKOVSY / TASS

Touching upon the theme of sanctions, Putin said that the containment policy in relation to Russia is not tied to the events in Ukraine and had, in fact, been going on for many years.

“We can easily recall who, and at that time how practically openly, supported separatism and even outright terror against us, calling the murderers who were up to their elbows in blood, nothing more than rebels, and then who received them at high levels.

“Notwithstanding our unprecedented openness, notwithstanding the fact that we looked at our former rivals as close friends and almost allies, the support of separatism in Russia from behind a hill – informational, political, financial and via special services – was absolutely obvious,” Putin stated.

President Vladimir Putin's annual speech to the Russian Parliament firmly outlined his stance in a variety of areas of foreign affairs.

IN BRIEF

AFP/EASTNEWS

Annual speech Moscow will not submit to Western pressures in Ukraine, says Putin

The damage the European Union could incur from the sanctions imposed on Russia could reach about 40 billion euros ($US50 billion) in 2014 and 50 billion euros in 2015, according to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov.

The level of Russia’s losses is likely to be comparable, the minister said in an interview with Interfax.

The European Union sees the statement that Russia has decided to halt the South Stream gas pipeline project because of Bulgarian opposition as an excuse for abandoning the economically unfeasible venture amid declining hydrocarbon prices, a European source told Interfax.

The South Stream is a very expensive project, and its construction has become unaffordable as oil and gas prices are going down, he said.

The source added that it was convenient to blame little Bulgaria for thwarting the project.

The source emphasised that the EU had never said that it opposed the South Stream. It had said that a company wishing to do business in it had to comply with its laws – the Third Energy Package – just as a European company wishing to do business in Russia had to comply with Russian legislation.

CO N V E RT I N G M O N O LO G U E S I N TO D I A LO G U E

Russia Direct is a forum for experts and senior decision-makers from Russia and abroad to discuss, debate and understand issues in geopolitical relations from a sophisticated vantage point.

INTERVIEW SERGEI NARYSHKIN

RUSSIA-DIRECT.ORG

Western media 'closing its eyes'

RBTH: Parliamentary ties were one of the first casualties in the souring relations between Russia and the West. What does the future hold for them?

Sergei Naryshkin: It is probably natural that we are hearing radical assessments directed at Russia from individual deputies of foreign parliaments. After all, radical statements are always the loudest statements.

However, there are many parliamentarians who have a completely realistic assessments of the situation surrounding Ukraine and of the

reasons behind the crisis of confidence in Europe.

We often hear European deputies sharply criticise their own governments and the EU. I remember someone even said that the EU had taken Europe hostage.

But unfortunately, the Western press mostly reproduces only anti-Russian statements and phraseology.

The Western press, assumed to be so free, is suddenly closing its eyes and ears.

Take, for example, our meeting in Paris with the French parliamentarians and our other colleagues. There were almost no French journalists there. Were they not interested?

Later we were told that they [the French legislators] had“done a little work”with the local media.

What can be done now?

[We must] Not grow weary, set forth our position, tell the truth. Speak at international parliamentary platforms such as the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the PACE, no matter how ambivalently they may feel about us.

SERGEY KUKSIN / RG

Sergei Naryshkin, the speaker of the Russian State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian parliament, spoke to RBTH about the current tense atmosphere between Russia and the West.

November Monthly Brief: What’s next for the G20

Read full version at rbth.com/41917

I was amazed. Russia is seemingly a young democracy – our constitution is going to be just 21 years old. But that kind of thing isn’t possible here. Our Foreign Ministry would have been ashamed to have behaved that way with journalists.

Will Russia make its payments to PACE? We will pay because Russia’s fee generally goes towards the work of the entire Council of Europe structure.

But if PACE doesn’t restore the Russian parliamentary delegation’s powers – and I mean in full – we’ll then think about whether or not to continue with Russia’s contribution.

Interview by Igor Rozin

In this monthly report, RD experts focus on Brisbane's recent G20 summit and what could be achieved by its participants. It examines the role the G20 can play in the creation of a new, multipolar world and how the group is acting as a foil to the G8.

December Monthly Brief: Year in review Never before have post-Cold War relations between Russia and the US been surrounded with such pessimism and uncertainty. Bilateral contacts in almost all areas and at all levels are frozen, suspended or stagnant. So where do we go from here? And what lessons could we come away with for the new year?

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Business

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HOTEL OPERATORS TO DOUBLE PRESENCE BY 2020 rbth.com/41761

Economy Russia’s Central Bank changes its strategy in relation to the recent instability of the money market

Falling rouble brings forward currency float pressure on the national currency, the Central Bank decided to accelerate the process. According to a new strategy, the Bank of Russia will not carry out full-scale currency interventions – that is, selling dollars on the Russian market. The maximum value of a Central Bank sale will be $US350 million a day, which, analysts say, will not affect exchange rates. The Central Bank’s press office explains that refusing unlimited currency interventions will deter speculators from betting against the rouble.

The decision has led to a dramatic change in the exchange rate: in the course of trading on November 8, the rouble fell by about 10 per cent against the dollar before rebounding to almost cancel out the decrease.

“The Central Bank’s decision falls into the strategy of switching to inflation targeting, a part of which is the free float of the national currency,” explains Dmitry Bedenkov, director of the analysis department at Russ-Invest.

At the same time, Bedenkov says that the Central Bank has reserved the right to intervene with more than the $US350 million announced if it senses a threat to the rouble’s stability.

The establishment of daily intervention limits on the borders of currency corridors

The dramatic drop of the rouble this year, which many analysts attribute to low oil prices, prompted Russia’s Central Bank to bring forward its plans to float the currency.

ALEXEI LOSSAN

At the time of writing, the Russian rouble had dropped by 60 per cent in relation to the dollar and euro this year alone.

“Currently, the key factors contributing to the weakening of the Russian currency are the decline in oil prices and other raw assets,” says Anton Soroko, an analyst at investment holding Finam.

On November 13, the price of Brent crude fell below $US78 per barrel, even though in midsummer quotes were about $US115.

According to Soroko, this process is occurring against the backdrop of the dollar’s aggressive growth not only in relation to the rouble but also the yen, Swiss franc, euro and other currencies.

“The dollar’s growth first and foremost reflects the shortage of the currency on the market, which is due to the increase in demand,”says Mikhail Khromov, scientific collaborator at the Centre of Structural Research of the Russian Academy Institute of Applied Economic Research.

“The decline in oil prices

REUTERS

RBTH BUSINESS EDITOR

The decline in the value of the rouble has helped the Kremlin to balance the federal budget.

is the main indicator, but for now, it affects only expectations, since investors are afraid of a decrease in Russia’s export revenues.”

According to Khromov, the second factor influencing the rouble is that due to the sanctions on Russia and geopolitical instability the country has no foreign capital inflow.

In response to the decline in the rouble’s value, Russia’s Central Bank carried out a

series of currency interventions at the beginning of October. To reduce demand for foreign currency, the regulator began selling dollars in order to support the rouble’s value. In October, the Central Bank spent almost $US29.3 billion supporting the rouble, and in the course of nine days from the end of October, sold more than $US2 billion a day.

“This way the regulator only smoothed out the mar-

ket fluctuations, but did not try to stop the current descending trend in the Russian currency,” asserts UFS IC’s chief analyst Alexei Kozlov. However, the large-scale intervention did not produce results and on November 7, the Central Bank decided to let the rouble float freely.

It was initially assumed that the Russian rouble would switch to a complete free float. However, in view of the

is intended to lower the pressure on Russia’s gold reserves, Bedenkov adds. The weakening of the rouble is also advantageous for the Russian government, since it leads to the reduction of a possible budget deficit.

According to Soroko, the fall of the rouble has a positive effect on the budget, since it helps compensate for the fall in revenues of oil and gas sales. The lion’s share of hydrocarbons is sold in dollars and euros, while the Russian budget is drafted in roubles.

The weakened rouble also places the Russian producer in an advantageous position since the value of imports increases, thus helping Russian producers to compete more successfully with foreign producers.

Khromov dismisses widespread fears that the low price of Brent will leave a hole in the Russian budget, which currently requires an oil price of just under $US100 a barrel to avoid a deficit.

“The average annualised price of oil remains above $US96 per barrel (the Russian budget is based on this price) since in August the price of oil was $US106, and even if oil will cost $US85 until the end of the year, the average annualised price will still be about $US100, which does not pose any risks for the budget,” he says.

Energy Altai pipeline to carry gas on ‘western route’ after Beijing agreement

Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation sign agreement for Russia to supply China with natural gas for 30 years via the new Altai pipeline.

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LEONID HOMERIKI SPECIAL TO RBTH

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and the chairman of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Zhou Jiping, have signed a framework agreement on the supply of natural gas from Russia to China via a “western” route.

The document, signed by the two parties at the APEC summit in Beijing on November 8-10, envisages an annual supply of 30 billion cubic metres of Russian gas from western Siberian deposits to China through the Altai gas pipeline for 30 years.

According to Miller, the supply contract using the

western route will be signed by the end of 2015.

In particular, the document touches upon conditions such as the volume and terms of delivery, the level of“take and pay” (the buyer’s obligation to pay a certain penalty in the event that consumption volumes are less than specified in the contract) and the location of the transfer point for the gas on the border.

In the future, the sides will have to sign a sales contract and an intergovernmental agreement. The contract value, and consequently the gas price, have not been determined.

“It is clear that the price will be lower than that of the deliveries made through the eastern route [the Power of Siberia gas pipeline, whose price per cubic metre is not known, though it is estimated at $US350 – RBTH], since the investments in infrastruc-

GETTY IMAGES/FOTOBANK

Gazprom secures 30-year contract in latest China deal

The Altai gas pipeline could become the world’s biggest.

ture (transportation and extraction) are significantly less,”says Grigory Birg of Investcafe.

According to Platon Maguta, general director at the Maguta Fund, the economically rational gas price for China is about $US380-400 per 1000 cubic metres. This is influenced by the fact supplies will mostly come from the deposits in the extreme

north of Russia (the republics of Yamal and Yakutia).

Gazprom has recently accelerated the pace of collaboration with its Chinese partners. The construction of the Power of Siberia, the world’s biggest pipeline, which will deliver gas through the eastern route, is moving at full speed, although the Altai pipeline may surpass Power of Siberia in capacity.

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ST PETERSBURG TOPS MOSCOW IN FINANCE RATING rbth.com/41863

Production Incentives on offer to foreign brands

goal, he explained, was to establish foreign manufacturers’ production facilities in Russia, in the same way that Russia did with the auto industry. “This is, of course, a task for the future,” he said, adding that “our textile factories already have good foundations to build upon”.

In particular, during meetings with the China National Textile and Apparel Council and some leading companies at the Super ex-

International clothing brands have been invited to localise their production in Russia, with new factories being offered long-term tax breaks until 2025.

IGOR ROZIN RBTH

Russian authorities are encouraging foreign clothing manufacturers to base their production in Russia, Deputy Industry and Trade MinisterViktorYevtukhov said in an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper.

Yevtukhov explained that state support programs envisage subsidies for partially recovering the costs of materials, technical upgrades and new investment projects.

New factories can also enjoy long-term tax breaks until 2025. Furthermore, the ministry guarantees manufacturers who accept this invitation a market share of the state procurement order.

Chinese companies don't just view Russia as a market; they are ready to invest in production there hibition in Milan, it turned out that Chinese companies don’t just view Russia as a market; they are ready to invest in product there.

At South-East Asia’s biggest fashion event, the Mercedes-Benz China Fashion Week in Beijing, a three-year strategic co-operation was agreed between the Russian Chamber of Fashion and the China Fashion Association.

The drive to localise production in Russia may bring down prices for clothes made

State support “Since the Soviet era, Russia has had a solid textile industry,” Yevtukhov said, adding that the industry occupied a middle-range price niche between Asian and European markets.

One way to achieve this

in Russia. “Consumer goods production requires a considerable safety margin in terms of prices,” Yevtukhov said.“If in terms of quality there are no issues, in terms of cost we are still running behind [our] Asian competitors.”

He added that in the mass segment it is important to establish relations with large retail chains and to develop sources of raw materials. As for external markets, there are more prospects there for high-tech Russian goods, such as technical textiles and nonwoven fabrics. At the moment, this market accounts for about 30 per cent of industry sales. Furthermore, over the past five years, the production of non-woven fabrics in Russia has increased eightfold, while in the EU market, technical textiles account for 50 per cent of industry growth.

First successes Consumer goods manufacturing in Russia has continued to grow despite the recent economic slowdown.

According to the Russian Industry Ministry, in 2013 industrial output in the country grew by almost 5 per cent.

And in the first nine months of 2014, clothing production

PHOTOXPRESS

Material gains tempt clothing companies

Despite Russia’s economic slowdown, consumer goods manufacturing has continued to grow.

in Russia grew by 7 per cent, whereas overall economic growth in the same period was just 0.7 per cent.

At the same time, following Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organisation and the subsequent cancellation of duties, the production of leather and leather goods dropped by 10.5 and 20 per cent respectively.

To address this, in August the Russian government banned the export of semifinished leather, and is seeking a similar ban on the export of raw hides.

“We are not alone here. For example, Belarus has already introduced this kind of ban,” Yevtukhov explained.“Arguments in favour of the move include a shortage of raw hides, a high demand for them from Russian manufacturers, and shadow exports.”

According to him, problems with the domestic production of fabrics are rooted in the loss of a considerable part of the raw materials base following the break-up of the Soviet Union: 100 per cent of the production of cotton fibre and natural silk re-

mained in former Soviet republics.

Despite the fact most types of synthetic fibres are imported, considerable progress has been made toward establishing domestic production,Yevtukhov said.

“Since Russia is a leading oil and gas producing nation, we have a good chance of successfully developing the production of synthetic fibres and yarns in Russia, including through developing a production chain at the high end of the petrochemical industry,” he said.

Energy Russia announces it will replace $55b South Stream with new pipeline

Gas pipeline project axed Russia will call off its South Stream project in order to construct a new gas pipeline to Europe via the Black Sea. ALEXEI LOSSAN

Russia has abandoned its project to build the controversial South Stream gas pipeline linking Russia and central Europe via the Black Sea, citing Bulgaria’s refusal to allow construction on its territory as a key factor.

President Vladimir Putin announced the decision at a one-day visit to Turkey on December 1.“We cannot start construction in the sea until we get permission from Bulgaria, and it would be absurd to begin construction in the sea, approach the Bulgarian coast, and stop there,” Putin said at a press conference.

He added that Russian energy resources will be redirected to other markets.

According to the president’s estimates, Bulgaria will miss out on at least 400 million euros ($US500 million)

PHOTOSHOT/VOSTOCK-PHOTO

RBTH EDITOR FOR BUSINESS

Bulgaria's refusal to approve construction a factor in decision.

a year in transit fees. Russian gas giant Gazprom will suffer even more – the company has invested $US4.66 billion in the project in the past three years. Operator South Stream Transport estimates that European companies will lose at least 2.5 billion euros because of the abandonment.

“The suspension of the project comes as no surprise given the fact that Bulgaria has long been talking about a ban on laying pipes through

its territory. We were completely unable to get our Bulgarian partners to budge,” said Ivan Kapitonov, an associate professor at the Russian Presidential Academy of the National Economy and Public Administration.

In August 2014, the Bulgarian Ministry of Economy and Energy suspended the project because it violated the European Union’s Third Energy Package. According to those rules, owners of gas

pipelines in the EU cannot be gas producers.

The cost of the project had ballooned to $US55 billion, which Kapitonov said must have informed Russia’s decision to drop it.

After the announcement, Gazprom shares jumped by 1.1 per cent. “Investors have a positive view of the decision,” the director of the Analytics Department at AlfaForex, Andrei Dirgin, said.

Later, Gazprom chief Alexei Miller said the gas giant will channel the pipeline away from Bulgaria to Turkey. According to him, the pipeline will carry 63 billion cubic metres of gas a year.

“In this case, Russia will get the same planned effect [as from the South Stream pipeline]: diversified supplies and a way around unreliable transit countries,” Ivan Kapitonov said.

He added that European countries may be surprised by the choice of a route through Turkey, since the EU did not anticipate any tradeoffs in the project.

As it stands, Russia is depending on Turkey as a transit country, but that is a necessary compromise, Kapitonov said.

A LOOK AT THE CHALLENGES FACING MOSCOW

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Society

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WHY RUSSIANS ARE DELAYING TYING THE KNOT rbth.com/41673

Religion Insight into Orthodox minority

Old Believers shun visibility despite new openness Old Believers are one religious minority who have become more visible in postSoviet Russia. And for many, their unusual practices symbolise pre-Soviet Russia.

MARIYA BASHMAKOVA OGONEK

REUTERS

Old Believers (called starovery in Russian) refers to groups that trace their origins to those that separated from the official Russian Orthodox Church after 1666, as a protest against church reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon in the 1650s and ’60s. Today, the lives of Old Believers in Russia revolve around their church and their confessional community.

Often perceived to be unsociable or even superior, Old Believers see themselves as the bearers of truth, and some believe that mixing with those outside their church threatens their identity.

It has been difficult to know the numbers of Old Believers in Russia because religious persecution discouraged them from identifying themselves. Before 1917, it has been estimated that the Russian Empire probably had between 15 and 20 million of this religious minority. Soviet religious persecution, however, significantly decreased their number.

Today, according to the Russian Ministry of Justice, Russia has 336 registered and functioning Old Believer religious organisations. Communities of Old Believers are concentrated in the cities of Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow, Kazan, St Petersburg, Novosibirsk and Ekaterinburg.

“What keeps us together?” considered the priest of the Old Orthodox Coastal Church Arseny Shamarin.“Recognition of the truth of our way.

Understanding that we are Orthodox faith, which we try to preserve and pass on to our children.

“For us, every man is responsible for the salvation of his soul. The reforms of the 17th century destroyed conscious faith. They turned the

Prisons Greater religious tolerance for Russian inmates

New bill protects rights of spiritual freedom in jail A Protestant priest who found his faith behind bars talks about the importance of religious freedom and how it could improve the lives of prisoners.

MARINA OBRAZKOVA RBTH

In August, a Russian governmental commission approved a bill to protect the freedom of religion of prisoners. The bill makes it possible for prisoners to adopt new religions and it gives them better access to spiritual education and guides.

Mikhail Senkevich, a member of the public monitoring committee for the implementation of public observation of human rights in centres of detention, spoke with RTBH about religion in Russia's prisons.

Senkevich is a Protestant priest and a human rights advocate. He has also spent more than 10 years in detention facilities, where, as a prisoner, he first adopted his faith.

“I had a completely normal family; my parents were in the military, and my brother was a scientist,”Senkevich recalled.“But I was drawn to the streets. I was first convicted at the age of 14, but the sentence was suspended, so I didn’t end up going to prison then. I got my first real prison term – a sentence of 27 years – for robbing a flat.

“I served six years, after which I was released. Later,

I got 10 years for a narcotics charge.”

Senkevich embraced religion in 1987.“Evangelists arrived with sermons to the detention centre where I was serving my sentence. They gave me a copy of the New Testament, and I started praying and going to meetings.

After a while, I became a group leader and began organising services myself.

“When I was released in 1990, I found my way to the church. With my criminal life in the past, I graduated from the International Bible College and I became a priest.

Then I started holding classes in prison because I wanted to make a difference in the lives of prisoners.”

Senkevich enjoyed eight years of freedom, which for repeat offenders is a long time. But at one point he relapsed and started using drugs again.

“I was sentenced to another 10 years that time. Being behind bars again made me come to my senses very quick-

ly,” he recalled. “I ended up at the Ulyanovsk detention centre, and I started spending time at the chapel. A group of worshipers eventually formed. The members of the group started to behave differently from the other prisoners. We stopped violating regulations, some quit smoking, we stopped evading our duties at the facility.

“There were about 30 of us.

The people in this group became immune to external pressure and influence, and the prison community began to feel uneasy about us.”

Antagonists convinced the warden that the group’s meetings were dangerous and that the members were not gathering to pray but to plan a riot. Prison officials responded first by placing Senkevich in solitary confinement and later by transferring him to a different prison.

According to his transfer documents, Senkevich was to be forbidden from interacting with people in general prison areas. In this case,

Reforms relate to new leadership Vladimir Osechkin, a human rights activist and organiser of social network gulagu.net, claims that the status of prisoners’ rights with respect to religious freedom has improved with the new leadership in the Russian Federal Penitentia-

ry Service over the past two years. Osechkin says: “Religious ceremonies are now being conducted, prayer rooms are being created and in Moscow prisons, there are Orthodox temples, synagogues and different places of worship.”

however, bureaucracy’s slow mechanisms actually proved beneficial. While officials were processing his documents and determining how to proceed with his case, Senkevich was able to spend an entire week among the general prison population.

“During this time I managed not only to become acquainted with two like-minded brethren, but also to demonstrate to the authorities that I was law-abiding.

They came to understand that I obeyed all the rules, and they never tried to isolate me.

Eventually, I formed another group of worshippers.”

After enduring these tribulations, Senkevich finally regained his freedom. He continued to serve the church, where he eventually met his future wife. Now in his 60s, he is the father of two young boys. He said that it is difficult for people to adapt to a normal life after living in detention. But with the help of religion, the adjustment process is a great deal easier.

Russia’s current Criminal Code states that a prisoner has the right to interact with spiritual guides, but the code neglects to explain the specifics of how this right is to be implemented.

Lawmakers are currently hoping to propose specific guidelines that indicate exactly under which conditions and for how long an incarcerated individual is allowed to speak with clergy representatives, and to which types of religious accoutrements prisoners should be allowed access.

Today in Russia, nearly every prison has an Orthodox priest. The majority of them also have places of worship for Muslims, Jews and Evangelicals.

However, because these religious amenities are not organised according to a centralised public policy, but rather at the discretion of each prison’s management, there are no official statistics about them.

LORI/LEGION MEDIA

Prior to the bill, the degree of religious freedom allowed in prisons varied and was at the discretion of prison managers.

sacraments and rituals into exercises and prayer into demands.”

Old Believers are brought up with strict rules, religious and domestic. These vary among groups, but some examples are not being allowed to marry outside their confessional group, not having passports and not being able to use the internet.

“Old Believer entrepreneurs don’t want to be visible,” explained historian Alexei Bezgodov, who heads a small publishing company.

“Many of us are in small and medium-sized businesses, and we have our own business alliances.”

The International Guild of Old Believer Entrepreneurs is registered in Latvia. There are also other informal associations based on personal partnerships. Industries that Old Believers often work in include building, traditional trades and crafts, forestry, farming and beekeeping.

Alexander Zagorodny is the chairman of the Ligovsky Old Believer community.

Zagorodny does not borrow money from banks, either for himself or for his business – he does not want to be dependent.

“It [borrowing money] drags you towards sinful attainments,”he said. “With the interest comes sin.

“Old Believers do provide loans to each other in the community, even to members of different confessionals. But they are, as a rule, loans without interest and money is lent on the basis of someone’s word of honour. I have used such loans and have provided them myself.”

Communities of Old Believers have also survived outside Russia. To escape persecution, Old Believers started leaving Russia after 1685, with many leaving shortly after 1917. Today there are large communities in Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Romania and smaller communities in Australia, the US, Italy and parts of South America.

Old Believer churches are found across Russia, also in Moscow.

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UNESCO TO CLOSE ITS MOSCOW OFFICE IN 2015 rbth.com/41567

Censorship New ruling on classified details seen as a step forward for freedom of information

Court reduces scope of state secrets Russia's Constitutional Court has ruled that information about a number of circumstances that were previously classified can no longer be state secrets.

MARINA OBRAZKOVA RBTH

Open information Even information gathered from open sources can sometimes be classified. For example, the physicists Oleg and Igor Minin wrote the non-fiction work The Institute of Applied Physics: Research Schools and Technologies.

A criminal court case was brought against them on the basis that their book revealed classified information and the publication was taken off the shelves. This provoked criticism from academics. The scholars’ father, Vladilen Minin, told newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta that the content was available in other open sources and that any-

Mikhail, who works in a large company engaged in research and development, confirmed Alexander’s words, saying that companies penalise their employees for disclosures. “Not only do I not have the right to talk about the details of [my] work, but I can’t even tell people what area I’m researching,”he said.

Levels of Soviet secrecy

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In October, Russia’s Constitutional Court forbade concealing the circumstances surrounding the death of relatives or close persons on the basis that the information was classified. In addition, the court ruled that according to the law on “state secrets”, it would no longer be permitted to classify information related to human rights or to forbid lawyers who do not have the right to access state secrets to examine pre-investigation material.

These new decisions lengthened the expanding list of what can no longer be kept a state secret in Russia.

The list already includes information about emergencies, disasters, the environment, health, demographics, education, culture, agriculture and crime. Other areas about which information can no longer be kept classified include the privileges of public servants, the violation of human rights and freedoms, the size of the gold and currency reserves and corruption. In the context of these reforms, what can still be kept a state secret in Russia today?

According to Russian law, a state secret is information protected by the state that could cause the state damage, notably in the areas of politics, economics, the military and intelligence. In order

to gain access to a state secret, a person must meet certain parameters defined by the level of the classification of the information.

Svetlana Boshno, head of the Department of Public Administration and Law at the Institute of Public Administration and Management at RANEPA (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration), said that she had come across someone who had been granted clearance for classified information but because he hadn’t reported that his sister had migrated abroad, his clearance had been revoked.

Boshno added that foreigners may face barriers if they want to work in Russian state agencies or state corporations, such as the nuclear energy giant Rosatom, or if they want to work with historical documents that might be classified.

The Federal Security Service (former KGB) headquarters at Lubyanka Square in Moscow.

body could have done the research. After lengthy investigations, the case was closed and the scientists absolved.

THE FACTS

Russia’s answer to WikiLeaks

Penalties for disclosures One source, Alexander, who was involved in developing weapons during the Soviet era, said that secrecy was necessary to safeguard important information. “If it was not this way, people would start to trade in secrets and it would damage the state,” he said. “And this is exactly how large companies protecting themselves from industrial espionage behave.”

SPEND THE HOLIDAY SEASON WITH RBTH

The anonymous website Secret was supposed to encourage whistleblowers. What is it really being used for?

David Byttow, the creator of the anonymous network www.secret.ly (Secret) believes that Russians do not fully understand internet anonymity.

Vladislav and Peter prove his point. Despite being security service employees, they seem to place showing how cool they are above online safety.

Given Russians’ nonchalance about online privacy, it is a little surprising that Secret, which went online in Russia at the end of May, has become so popular. The site allows users to make posts on an anonymous social network without having to worry about their identities being discovered.

Could the site be Russia's answer to WikiLeaks?

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There were several levels of secrecy and security clearance in the USSR. The most basic was the third. People with clearance for the third level could travel abroad and have access to documents marked “for official use” (FOU), said Alexander, who added that in Soviet times many documents, including reports from Communist Party meetings, were FOU. The second form allowed for the use of“secret”and“top secret”documents, but those with this access could not leave the country. There were also first and zero levels of clearance, which opened up access to information.

Russian historian and television host Nikolai Svanidze notes that there was no logic for classified documents in the USSR. “Vigilance transformed into general suspicion and persecution mania,” he said.“Everyone was feared – foreigners because they could be spies, ‘your own’ because they could be babblers.”

In Svanidze’s opinion, this tradition has been preserved to this day. “Now there are many documents kept classified due to inertia, or large agencies do it to justify their activities.”

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FIVE MOSCOW TOURS NOT TO MISS travel.rbth.com/destination/moscow

DEVELOPMENT MOSCOW'S NEW FACE RUSSIA'S CAPITAL HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED SINCE THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET SYSTEM. WITH THE CHANGES HAVE COME NEW PLEASURES AND PERKS – AND NEW CHALLENGES.

MOSCOW IS MORE EUROPEAN NOW THAN EVER BEFORE While political tensions have broadened the gulf between Russia and the West, at street level, Russia's capital looks more European than it ever has in its 900-year history.

SAM SKOVE SPECIAL TO RBTH

There was a time when a Customs declaration at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport meant a bottle of whisky for you and one for the border official. Today, the only alcohol at the capital’s main airport is behind glass in the duty-free shops.

KINGS AND QUEENS OF SUBWAY STYLE

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And a little past them, shiny new Aeroexpress trains wait to take arrivals to the city centre.

As political pundits debate the start of a new cold war, Moscow seems further from Washington or Brussels politically than it has been in decades. But the renewed political drama underscores a distinct irony: at street level, Moscow is looking more like a Western European metropolis than at perhaps any time in its 900-year history.

As the world marked the 25th anniversary of the fall of Berlin Wall last month, it might be said that no other major city has been transformed more dramatically since that event than Moscow. During the Cold War, Russia was cut off from international trends, and many Russians lived radically different lives from those of their Western counterparts.

Today, the city is in the throes of a massive facelift as the new mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, toils to undo the worst remnants of Soviet urban planning.

“Moscow is reborn in terms of architecture, green spaces and lighting,”says Justin Lifflander, an American who has spent 27 years in Moscow as an embassy driver, businessman and business editor for English-language daily newspaper The Moscow Times.

“When I moved here, the roads were ragged and devoid of vehicles,”he says. “The city was grey and so were the people.”

When it was the capital of the socialist world, Russia’s most important city presented Western visitors with something of an alien land-

scape. For many, the first impression they got after the airport was wide streets with few cars and no advertising.

Today, the city is struggling to clear mammoth traffic jams, while officials weigh measures to reduce the clutter of advertising.

The changes have rendered the city centre cleaner, more convenient and – thanks to bans on the sale of alcohol in public after 11pm as well as on drinking in the subway – more sober than anyone can remember.

In one sign of the change, a survey by British multinational bank HSBC recently named Russia the 17th best country in which to live for expats. Five years earlier, Russia ranked 24th out of 26 countries.

Throughout the city, landmarks to the Soviet past have been torn down and replaced with modern versions. In the heart of Moscow, directly opposite the Kremlin, once stood the colossal Rossiya Hotel. Built in 1967 at a scale meant to showcase rising Soviet power, the hotel boasted 3200 rooms and was for decades the largest in the world.

Today, the Rossiya has been torn down and the location is being redesigned as an open public space by a group of companies led by the New York architecture firm that designed Manhattan’s celebrated High Line, Diller Cofidio + Renfro.

Meanwhile, a small island in the centre of Moscow that was once the home of the Red October chocolate factory has been gutted and revamped.

Today, the island older Russians associate with Soviet chocolates teems with Rus-

sian hipsters scuttling between bars, cafes, galleries and media offices.

A few kilometres away lies the 120-hectare Gorky Park.

The socialist “people’s park” fell into disrepair after the collapse of the Soviet system, and the area became infamous for drug use.

The space has been transformed by design firm Wowhaus. The park has public art and free Wi-Fi and at weekends the sprawling grounds teem with Muscovites playing table tennis and bocce and doing yoga classes.

In the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, the city grew from a grey socialist netherworld into a wheeler-dealing metropolis full of entrepreneurs reinventing capitalism by their own rules.

“After the fake life of the Soviet system – big stores empty of goods, people lining up for lemons – this seemed like real life, real commerce,” says Michele Berdy, an American translator who moved to Moscow in the late 1980s.

After President Vladimir Putin took over in 2000, notes Nikolai Petrov, professor of political science at the Higher School of Economics, rising global prices for oil and gas turned Moscow into a city of “massive amounts of money, massive market growth, all accompanied by international interest in opening up stores, businesses and hotels.” Moscow became a “24-hour city”.

But as Berdy says:“No matter how many times I tell people, really, it’s a modern European city, nobody believes me – until they come here.”

IN NUMBERS

17

A survey by British multinational bank HSBC named Russia the 17th best country for expats to live in out of 26. Five years before it had been rated 24th.

Today Moscow is neither a grim Soviet capital or a wild gangland paradise.

Eating out City's love affair is cooling

Sanctions to slow the restaurant revolution Moscow's restaurant scene has boomed, with the number of restaurants growing by 15 to 20 per cent per year since 2002.

KIRA EGOROVA RBTH

Eating out has never been a big tradition in Russia. Just a few years before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, there were only 87 registered restaurants in the country’s capital.

An Associated Press article from 1981 wrote that Moscow had no Italian or French restaurants whatsoever, and noted dryly that the city’s lone pizzeria, on a narrow side street a few blocks from the Kremlin,“falls well short of world pizza standards”.

However, a revolution in dining culture has been gaining momentum. Official city statistics now list 11,000 restaurants, a number that has been expanding by 15 to 20 per cent a year since 2000, according to Andrei Petrakov, executive director of RestCon consulting.

Another Western tradition, coffee, has also been taking hold in Russia’s traditionally tea-drinking capital. Seattlebased coffee chain Starbucks opened its first location in Moscow in 2007; it has 70 branches in the city today.

But residents of Moscow have a way to go before they catch up with the dining-out habits in many Western countries. According to the Moscow Department of Trade and

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MUST-SEE SITES IN THE KREMLIN travel.rbth.com/destination/moscow

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$74b plan to fight the world's worst traffic congestion Home of the world’s worst traffic jams, Moscow has launched a major initiative to clear its roads, by introducing paid parking and raising the costs of car ownership.

SAM SKOVE LORI/LEGION MEDIA SHUTTERSTOCK/LEGION-MEDIA

In Soviet times, Moscow only had 87 registered restaurants.

Services, Muscovites spent 7.4 per cent of their food expenses on eating out in 2013. For North Americans living in big cities, the equivalent figure is 76 per cent, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Despite the recent rapid growth, Moscow restaurateurs may now face some challenges. Economic sanctions and the falling rouble have restricted purchasing power, and restaurants have been forced to change menus and suppliers, due to Russia’s

ban on food imports from the US and the EU. In October, the Department of Trade released a forecast showing that by the end of the year the city’s restaurant market may suffer a drop of as much as 15 per cent.

A spokesperson for the Federation of Restaurant and Hotel Owners told Russian daily Izvestiya that in response to these challenges, some chains have stopped opening new outlets and have begun a review of the existing ones.

SPECIAL TO RBTH

Moscow has launched an ambitious, multibillion-dollar campaign to unsnarl its notorious traffic jams, a gargantuan task in a city ranked as the world’s most-gridlocked.

Moscow aims to transform itself by 2020 through spending a total of 2.9 trillion roubles ($US62 billion) on a major investment in public transport, in a series of projects initiated by the city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin.

Meanwhile, a paid-parking regime and expanded toll roads will increase the cost of car ownership.

Amid signs of early progress, sceptics say success will only be able to come in degrees.“Even if you spent the entire Pentagon budget [on improving Moscow’s roads], you couldn’t solve the problem,” said Mikhail Blinkin, director of the Institute for Transport Economics and Transport Policy Studies.

The city’s twisted streets and centuries-old layout mean that“Moscow just isn’t a city for cars,” he added.

The plan, which includes suburban rail development, road construction and creating 300 kilometres of bike lanes, aims to save drivers 88 hours a year, said deputy mayor Maxim Liksutov.

A priority of the plan is trying to get Muscovites to park in approved spaces, instead of simply pulling their cars up on to footpaths or doubleparking in the road, as is the convention.

The latter creates an acute problem, by reducing traffic flow and creating bottlenecks.

To deal with the problem, city officials dispatched a fleet of small green tow trucks, which quickly became notorious for making off with inappropriately parked vehicles.

In 2013, paid parking, regulated by the towing fleet, began in the city centre then spread outwards.

In October, Sobyanin announced that the average speed of traffic in the paid parking zones has “risen by an average of 12 per cent”.

The plan also foresees an expansion of the Moscow metro, with the number of stations being boosted by 78 to 250, which will put 93 per cent of Moscow’s residents within walking distance of a metro station.

Moscow is ranked as the world’s most gridlocked metropolis, ahead of Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City, according to road navigation company TomTom’s 2014 yearly traffic report.

But it wasn’t always so. The roots of the city's problem with traffic stretch back to Soviet times.

In the Soviet Union, deficiencies in the socialist economy made cars a luxury item.

That left Moscow’s centuriesold byways largely uncon-

VLADIMIR ASTAPKOVICH / TASS

Transport Capital 'not a city for cars'

Moscow was ranked the world's most gridlocked city in 2014.

gested and meant that city planners had no need to plan for traffic.

When the Soviet system collapsed in the early 1990s, a pent-up demand for automobiles was unleashed.

As Russian incomes grew, car ownership exploded and Russia emerged as one of Europe’s top five auto markets.

Young Russians, whose parents and grandparents had never dreamed of owning their own car, embraced this new symbol of wealth.

In 2014, Moscow’s official population of 11.5 million was driving at least four million cars, according to the Interior Ministry.

Unlike the orderly grids of New York or Chicago, Moscow is not a well-designed city, and the business-heavy city centre is just clogged.

“Just look at [the roads] on Google maps – it’s like an asterisk,”Mikhail Blinkin said.

Yet even as Moscow grapples with its existing traffic problem, its population growth may only make the challenge even more difficult.

The city authorities estimates that Moscow's population may grow to 15 million by 2025 – and illegal immigration may drive the actual population much higher.

Blinkin noted that progress will depend in part on the city’s commitment to spending in the face of economic uncertainties.

In the meantime, accord-

ing to Alisher Budtobaev, a Moscow taxi driver, the construction associated with the plan is actually making the city's traffic problem worse in many places. “As soon as the construction ends, I expect it’ll become gradually better,” he says.

Millions of Russian commuters hope that he’s right.

NIZHNEKAMSK, PETROCHEMICAL AND OIL REFINERY CAPITAL

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VIEWS SHAPED BY COLD-WAR PRISM

TATIANA PERELYGINA

Andrey Sushentsov PROFESSOR

he debate over European security turns on the different ways Russia and the West interpret NATO’s expansion – and their different interpretations are rooted in the ways both sides viewed the Cold War. According to Russian leaders, the Cold War ended as a result of the joint efforts of the USSR and the US in the late 1980s to move from a relationship based on confrontation to one focused on co-operation.

After the agreed-upon end to the icy confrontation, Russians expected that the two sides would jointly determine the future of the areas where their interests overlapped, that is, primarily in the area of European security.

The main issue to be decided was the future of NATO, which had been established as a counterbalance to the Soviet Union.

In the late ’80s, in talks on the future of Germany, the subject of how German reunification would affect NATO was frequently discussed. As part of the discussions, the Soviet Union agreed not to oppose German reuni-

T

LOW OIL PRICES HURT RUSSIA AND THE WEST

fication and NATO member states agreed not to deploy the alliance’s military infrastructure in East Germany – an agreement they honour still. However, there was much debate as to whether the agreement not to expand eastward would apply only to East Germany or to eastern Europe generally.

Communist governments fell, the Warsaw Pact dissolved and the West had no impetus to engage in any negotiations or agreements with Moscow.

Motivation to negotiate with Moscow further decreased with the breakup of the USSR. Under Boris Yeltsin, Russia not only set aside Soviet demands for guaran-

Motivation to negotiate with Moscow further decreased with the breakup of the USSR

In effect, the West failed to create a coherent and purposeful policy for working with Russia

According to the personal notes of US Secretary of State James Baker, the subject was discussed in a conversation with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow in February 1990. But Baker’s notes are inconclusive about how the parties left the issue.

Despite the fact that the USSR was clear in its adamant opposition to NATO enlargement, no agreement was signed that would guarantee no expansion. During discussions in 1989-90, the issue did not come up because the Warsaw Pact was still in place.

However, from 1991, the USSR lost its control over central and eastern Europe.

tees that NATO would not expand, but even toyed with the idea of joining the alliance itself.

In 1990, Yeltsin, the chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet, wrote: “In what appears to be almost a mockery of our four and a bit years of perestroika, in a matter of days, the GDR, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria made such a leap from the past towards a normal, humane, civilised society that it is no longer clear if we shall ever be able to catch up with them.”

These words explain why Russia was so tolerant of former Warsaw Pact members’ aspirations to join NATO.

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For their part, members of the North Atlantic Alliance perceived the situation as a clear victory, and put forward a program to turn the bloc into a universal security organisation. In this context, Russia lost its status as an equal partner and became, as far as NATO was concerned, just another country that the alliance would deal with on its own terms.

From these beginnings profound imbalances around European security emerged, and these caused ongoing disagreements between Russia and NATO from the mid ’90s onwards. Over time, omissions and reticence led to a complete breakdown of understanding between the parties. In effect, the West failed to create a coherent and purposeful policy for working with Russia.

It was customary to believe that Moscow was moving toward the West, and therefore that the West could not do Russia any harm by acting unilaterally. While the goal of this policy was not to ignore Moscow’s interests, in practice, that was what it did.

This approach didn’t change even after the first serious disagreements between Russia and NATO erupted during the conflicts in the Balkans. At that time, the West acted unilaterally on its own interpretations of how to ensure European security, which included expanding NATO and deploying US missiles in eastern Europe.

When Russia baulked at these moves, Washington and Brussels responded that Russia could also take whatever steps it felt were necessary.

The West was not concerned with the corresponding steps Russia was taking to strengthen its own security because it believed that Moscow was not an adversary and did not represent a credible threat.

The widely held belief was that while Russia wanted equal partnership, it was not an equal partner.

The Ukrainian crisis is just the latest example of Russia and the West’s failure create a post-Cold War world order.

To prevent future conflicts in Europe, Russia and the West should agree on new rules of engagement, both in Europe and in the rest of the world.

Andrey Sushentsov is an associate professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and aValdai Club fellow.

PUTIN'S G20 EXIT MEANS UKRAINE STILL TOP ISSUE Alexey Dolinskiy ANALYST, SPECIAL TO RUSSIA DIRECT

ussian President Vladimir Putin left Australia’s recent G20 summit earlier than expected, returning home to “get some sleep ahead of the working week”.

This was largely interpreted as his way of saying that he was irritated with the reception he received in Brisbane. Whether or not the reception and the reaction were justified, what is important is what his early departure might indicate about the G20 and the future of Ukraine.

First, it means that the current crisis in Ukraine will continue, because no solution agreeable to all parties has emerged. In his final remarks to the media, Putin said that the bilateral meetings during the summit were almost exclusively devoted to Ukraine, even though it had never been part of the official agenda.

Essentially, he went to Australia to talk about Ukraine.

It seems the G20 as a global institution is of limited significance for Moscow at the moment. In Russia’s successful hosting of a G20 summit in St Petersburg in 2013, the goal was to organise the meeting in the most efficient manner, to prove once again that Russia belonged in the top tier of global financial players.

This year, the opportunity to meet with global leaders at the summit was far more important for Russia than the actual G20 agenda.

Of course, some core G20 issues are still pressing, but they are being superseded by Ukraine in the minds of Russian decision makers. That could be one of the reasons why Putin left early.

As the head of state, he deals with the issues he considers the most important and in the foreign policy domain right now that would be Ukraine. Having held all the bilateral meetings where the issue was discussed and having used every other opportunity to discuss it between the meetings, Putin could

R

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honestly say that his job was done. In that sense, the Australian summit was round three for Russia trying to establish a presidential-level communication mechanism.

First, Putin expressed his world views at the meeting of the Valdai Club in Sochi in October. Then there was the APEC summit in Beijing last month, where Putin had a couple of short conversations with US President Barrack Obama. Finally, there were the bilateral meetings in Australia. Yet there have been no indications of progress on the Ukrainian crisis.

The second outcome of the abrupt summit ending for Russia means that we all have to be more responsible. Global politics is no longer about closed-door, minister-level meetings. It involves numerous stakeholders including the expert community, media and the public.

Transparent meetings, as well as cameras all over the summit venue, prevented frank and open communication. National public opinion leaders and domestic opposition members essentially sit behind every G20 participant, looking for opportunities to capitalise on what could be perceived as indications of weakness.

Too much friendliness with the Russian President would probably have been seen this way. Diplomacy requires clear communication, and this is sometimes the reason why negotiations need to take place away from the public and the media.

Apparently, the leaders used the G20 summit, as far as they were able, to at least exchange opinions. But this is as far as things went.

Alexey Dolinskiy is a partner at Capstone Connections consultancy. He has a PhD in political science and is a winner of the Valdai Club Foundation Grant Program. He currently works in corporate diplomacy in the Asia Pacific region and Europe.

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PUTIN'S CHINA CARD MAY BE AN ACE Ivan Tsvetkov PROFESSOR

he processes by which great nations are born and die, global empires are transformed into mediocre states and obscure upstarts turn into rulers of the world, are mysterious and little understood, despite all the best efforts of academics and politicians to analyse them.

Today China is at the centre of the debate over this process, just as the US was 100 years ago. At the turn of the 20th century, the US was still waiting for its finest hour.

It had already made a remarkable economic leap, but had not yet received international political recognition.

There are many similarities in the historical development trajectories of the US and China at their moments of transformation into world hegemonies.

The founding father of China’s economic miracle, Deng Xiaoping, instructed his successors to be modest in their dealings with the outside world and wait for the right moment to come into their own. Similar recommendations some 200 years earlier were left by US founding father George Washington in his political will.

The US began to shed its isolationism only after it had overtaken all its international economic rivals, which occurred under Theodore Roosevelt in the 1900s.

China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, has much in common with Roosevelt. China’s “big stick” policy in the South China Sea, tough rhetoric and ambitious statements all in-

KONSTANTIN MALER

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dicate China’s desire to accelerate the process of spending its economic capital on foreign policy.

For the US, the event that removed all obstacles on its path to establishing its international political influence was World War I. A glance at today’s headlines prompts the conclusion that China will not have to wait long before it rises to the top of the global pedestal. Of course the confrontation between Russia and the West is a true godsend for China.

Just as the self-destruction of the Euro-centric world a century ago prepared the ground for building a new US-centric system, the weakening of the US in its standoff with Russia in the 21st

China will not have long to wait long before it rises to the top of the global pedestal

Of course the confrontation between Russia and the West is a true godsend for China

UKRAINE LET DOWN BY CORRUPT LEADERS Pat Davis Szymczak COMMENTATOR

n the 20-plus years since Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union, the country’s governance has lurched from one corrupt group of oligarchs to the next.

Transparency International ranked Ukraine 144 on a scale that sets 177 as most corrupt. Russia fares slightly better, at 127, and the EU member states are all well below 100.

I point this out not to defame Ukraine as much as to ask why Ukraine is always portrayed in the Western media as a “little bit of Europe”suffering under Russian

I

tyranny. It’s worth remembering that Kiev has run its own show since 1992, and in those 20 years Ukraine has behaved like a teenager: living off Russian gas but not wanting to follow Russia’s rules.

My friends and acquaintances in Ukraine sprout a rainbow of political opinions, but they all agree on one thing: Ukraine’s economy never had a chance to develop, because one group of politically embedded oligarchs after another have profited off the state, effectively bankrupting the country. Red revolution, orange revolution, and whatever colour it was in 1992, the old bosses haven’t differed much from the new.

In the mid-1990s, I interviewed Shell’s Ukrainian

country manager in Kiev. At that time, Shell was negotiating with Ukraine’s first post-Soviet government to reopen Ukrainian gas fields.

Shell’s manager told me that there was enough gas left to supply Ukraine’s domestic needs and even to export.

But the company abandoned the project when it couldn’t reach an agreement with the Ukrainian side.

The executive told me that the demands for payoffs had made it impossible to negotiate a deal, even though the project would have enriched the economy of newly independent Ukraine with new sources of tax revenue, new jobs and even energy independence from Russia.

Shell returned to Ukraine

century will result in its being replaced by China as the leading global power.

It is sad to admit that in both cases, the role of the key spoiler – the country that ruined the balance of the global power system – belongs to Russia.

In the opinion of many Americans, modern Russia does not present a serious force to be reckoned with internationally and can claim only the status of a regional power. They may be right as far as Russia’s positive capabilities are concerned, but its negative potential is immeasurably higher.

The real Russian threat lies in Moscow’s ability to destroy the US-centric world order by starting to play the China card in the hope of hurting

the US and compensating for losses resulting from Western sanctions.

The argument in favour of Russia forming an antiAmerican bloc with China and other countries, often repeated by Moscow’s politicians, is that a new international system will not be based on hegemony or bipolarity, but rather on equal partnership between the growing economies of Eurasia and Latin America, which form a counterbalance to the US and challenge the dollar’s global domination.

This utopia may have some propaganda value, but the problem is that even the masterminds of Russian foreign policy do not believe in it.

It is absolutely obvious that the sluggish progress in Rus-

only in 2013 to sign a $US10 billion deal to develop shale gas in eastern Ukraine. Shell drilled two exploration wells in the Yuzivska field before fighting around Slovyansk forced it to freeze operations this spring.

Shell’s agreement in January 2013 was followed in November by a similar $US10 billion deal negotiated by Chevron to develop the Olesska shale gas field in western Ukraine.

The US Energy Information Administration estimates Ukraine’s shale gas reserves as Europe’s third largest, at 42 trillion cubic feet.

Offshore it’s a similar story.

Shell, Chevron and Exxonmobil have tried over the years to develop projects there, together with Ukrainian interests. A New York Times article recently quoted experts as saying the energy potential of the Black Sea might even exceed that of the North Sea. But nothing ever really took off.

Ukraine’s inability to get its act together and take advantage of its assets has created an opening likely to be filled by the US, which has seemingly overnight moved from being an energy importer to a potentially massive exporter, at a time when Russia is struggling to maintain

Ukraine has behaved like a teenager: living off Russian gas, but not wanting to follow Russia's rules its position as the world’s top energy exporter in the midst of a production decline in its prolific west Siberian fields.

As the EU and US discussed its first round of sanctions against Russia earlier this year, Platts reported that Washington had let European leaders know it was prepared to shift US diesel fuel exports bound for South

sian-Chinese economic relations prior to 2014 and its substitution with grandiloquent, but ineffective, declarations and memorandums of understanding had only one reason: Russian President Vladimir Putin did not want to let China on to his territory. Now, however, in 2014 this resistance is no longer possible.

Putin has decided that the threat of China’s economic and demographic domination of Russia is less serious than the threat of the US provoking a “colour revolution” in Russia.

Suddenly, the future of the global political system has become less important than the more immediate fear of losing political control. Putin was faced with the dilemma of losing power under the Americans or retaining it under the Chinese. It could hardly be a surprise that he opted for the latter.

A similar strategic choice is being presented to the US. The recent series of East Asian summits has clearly shown that China will not miss this opportunity to fish in these troubled waters, so the US must now decide which is more important to it: to punish the aggressor, Putin, losing its world hegemony in the process, or to find a way of resolving the conflict with Russia, thus halting the process of China’s transformation into a political and military superpower.

Unfortunately for the US leadership, the choice is not as obvious as it was for Putin.

Ivan Tsvetkov is an associate professor at St Petersburg State University.

America to Europe, “if the price was right.”

The offer was to encourage Europe to consider sanctioning Russian diesel.

In May, Spain’s Iberdrola power company signed a 20year contract to buy $US5.6 billion worth of US LNG from Cheniere Energy Inc. And as talks commenced this summer on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – potentially the largest trade agreement in the history of the world – the Washington Post obtained a “leaked”document in which the EU pressed the US to end its ban on crude oil exports.

Events in Ukraine and distrust of Russia were cited as reasons.

Pat Davis Szymczak is the founder and editorial director of Oil&Gas Eurasia, a monthly, bilingual trade publication devoted to the application of Western technology to Russian and CIS oil and gas fields.

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Space Roskosmos will fulfil its international obligations until at least 2020

Web Coffee with a wave of your hand

TASS

Some modules that were intended for the ISS may be used in Russia's own new station.

While Russia will uphold its commitments to the International Space Station to 2020, sources say Russia may deploy its own high-latitude orbital station from 2017.

IVAN SAFRONOV KOMMERSANT DAILY NEWSPAPER

According to industry sources, Russia may begin work on the creation of its own space station in 2017.

It will have to give up developing the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS) but will fulfil all its obligations to the other participants in the program to 2020.

It is proposed that some of the modules that were previously intended for the ISS will be incorporated into the new station.

A source close to the administration of the Central Research Institute of Machine Engineering (the space industry’s leading research facility) said that creating a Russian high-latitude orbital station is one of the key provisions in a manned space program for the period up to 2050.

The program is being drafted by a joint group of experts from Russia’s space agency Roskosmos and associated research institutes.

The Russian station is proposed to be deployed between 2017 and 2019.

“The initial configuration will be developed on the basis of the multi-purpose laboratory and nodes of the OKA-T spacecraft,” the source said, citing the group’s proposals.

“The operation of the station will be ensured by Soyuz-MS and Progress-MS spacecraft, whereas in 2020-2024 it may be possible to test the energy and the node module used in the lunar program.”

Despite these plans, sources insist that there is no talk of ending Russia’s work on the ISS ahead of schedule.

Moscow is determined to fulfil its international obligations until 2020.

In May this year, as relations between Moscow and Washington were cooling and sanctions were being introduced, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the Russian space industry, said that Russia does not intend to extend the operation of the ISS until 2024, as proposed by the US, and will use the allocated funding on other space projects.

But there are still uncertainties around Russian participation in the ISS. Early last month, Roskosmos head Oleg Ostapenko informed NASA chief Charles Bolden that Russia will make its final decision on whether to extend the operation of the ISS until 2024 before the end of this year.

Reasons for the project One reason for the project is that the launch of manned Soyuz-MS rockets from the Vostochny cosmodrome (in the Amur region of Russia’s far east) to an orbital inclination of 51.6 degrees (which is the orbital inclination of the ISS) has risks for the crew during launch: in the event of a failure, the cosmonauts will end up in open sea.

Russia’s orbital station will be at 64.8 degrees, while the flight course during the launch phase will be above ground.

In addition, the station’s coordinates will make it possible to deliver cargoes there using rockets launched from the military cosmodrome in Plesetsk, in Russia’s Arkhangelsk region.

Before joining the International Space Station project [in 1998] Russia operated the Mir space station, which was ultimately decommissioned in 2001

Private push for mini-satellites At the end of last month, Mikhail Kokorich, the director of private Russian satellite producer Dauria Aerospace, proposed a new business project for the Russian part of the International Space Station (ISS). He wants to start delivering nanosatellites to the ISS using a booster rocket and then put the satellites into orbit for clients.

In Kokorich’s opinion, miniature satellites will make it possible to generate extra funds to develop Russia's space industry.

This new service was scheduled to be implemented in 2019, but because Russia is planning to abandon its use of the ISS in 2020, it is unclear whether the project will come to fruition.

Until recently, space programs in Russia were the prerogative of the government. However, several space companies have already managed to prove themselves on this sector. In addition to Dauria Aerospace, another promising company is Scandex, which supplies satellite images for maps for Yandex and Russia’s Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography (Rosreestr).

Read full version at rbth.com/41931

Russia will thus get access to civilian space exploration from two sites and will eliminate potential political risks associated with using the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

“The new station will be located in a geometrically advantageous position, with a possibility to expand the sector of earth coverage,” the source said.“From the station, it will be possible to see 90 per cent of the territory of Russia and the Arctic shelf, whereas for the ISS this figure is no more than 5 per cent.”

Another function to be performed by the new station will be conducting flight and development tests of manned lunar spacecraft.

“In effect, we are talking of creating a bridgehead of sorts: first, spacecraft will be delivered to the station and then proceed to the Moon,” the source explained.

Costs of new station The cost of the new station has not yet been disclosed.

For the initial phase of deploying the space station, modules and spacecraft being developed for the Russian segment of the ISS will be used. Experts anticipate that this should not involve any additional costs.

Russia has been taking part in the ISS program since 1998. Currently, Roskosmos spends just one sixth of the amount spent by NASA on its maintenance (in 2013 alone, the US allocated $US3 billion for the purpose), although Russia is entitled to half of the crew places.

Before joining the ISS project, Russia operated the Mir space station, which was ultimately decommissioned in 2001.

One of the reasons given for the decision to take it out of orbit was that Mir was expensive to maintain, costing about $US200 million every year.

In 2011, the former head of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, Yury Koptev, admitted: “There were no grounds to continue operating Mir because of the disastrous state it was in. There were even such critical moments when we simply lost control of the station when adjusting its orbit.”

In November, a session of the Russian-Kazakh intergovernmental commission was held in Astana, Kazakhstan, where heads of state, including Ostapenko and Rogozin, together with officials from Roskosmos, discussed this plan and Russia’s other space-industry initiatives.

SHUTTERSTOCK/LEGION-MEDIA

Russia may quit space station and build its own New cloud services are entering the Russian market.

'Internet of Things’ will unleash a new era of innovation The 'Internet of Things', the concept of objects interacting with millions of other objects and events, in Russia is attracting interest as an emerging market.

SOPHIE TEREKHOVA SPECIAL TO RBTH

The world’s first Internet of Things (IoT) was created by John Romkey, one of the fathers of the TCP/IP protocol, who hooked his toaster up to the internet. The Internet of People transitioned to the Internet of Things in 2009, when the number of connected devices surpassed the number of users.

The concept was born at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at the end of the 1990s and has only recently appeared in Russia.

However, it has already inspired Russian developers to create new start-ups.

GO+, a new cloud service, came to market last year. GO+ allows you to unite a variety of devices, quickly deploy your own services and create new ones.

Europe and the US already have an enormous number of these devices and protocols.

However, for Russia GO+ is a step into the world of IoT. Projects such as GO+ are tools that make it possible to introduce various devices to each other. In GO+’s case, it can be any device, even ones that operate on different communication protocols, starting with devices from the “smart home” concept such as motion sensors and lighting and ending with more sophisticated devices.

Now GO+ not only connects devices to control them, but also adds a developer environment in which you can customise your own control scripts between devices.

“For example, let’s say you want the coffee machine to prepare a hot coffee for you when you’re entering the office,”Alexander Grankin explained. “It will determine your location using a GPS tracker. Then you’ll get a fitness bracelet like the Jaw-

bone, and the coffee machine will be able to make your coffee with the wave of your hand.

“New devices are coming into being each day, and new demands and desires are coming into being with them.”

According to Grankin, everything started with a project involving the development of GPS and geolocation services. At that time it was called machine to machine (M2M) because it was based on transferring data between sensors from machine to machine. M2M became an integral part of the IoT, which was born at MIT. At its core, GO+ uses the architectural concept of the social network. The user adds devices and can provide other users access to their data.

The user does not have to have a single real device, but can be signed on to hundreds of others in his or her social environment – weather stations, transport trackers, airconditioners, video cameras.

A person can come to a cafe, sign on to an airconditioner in his or her GO+ profile and control it.

Internet services such as Twitter and fitness apps like Moves also fit into the IoT concept. For example, if Twitter and a GPS navigator were joined up, it could serve as an interesting solution to automatically broadcast data on the user’s travel directly to his or her Twitter feed.

All of the big brands are buying solutions making it possible to combine things with the internet.

“It is possible that the major brands are planning to take over the market this way, so that later they can combine all of the vertical solutions they bought up into one horizontal one,”Grankin said.

“Big corporations are preparing to pounce so they can occupy leading positions, because there isn’t a leader on the global market for the Internet of Things yet.

“So right now we’re like surfers waiting for a wave that’s really close.”

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DID COMETS BRING LIFE TO EARTH? rbth.com/41795

Pharmaceuticals Broad-spectrum antiviral drug to be on the market this year

New drug promises to lift fight against viruses

PRESS PHOTO

Russian scientists have developed a new antiviral drug that combats viral proteins and effectively fights a large number of viruses and infections.

DARYA KEZINA RBTH

By the end of the year, Russian pharmacies will be stocked with the broadly active anti-viral medication Triazavirin – a drug developed by researchers at the Chemo-Technological Institute at Ural State University in Yekaterinburg, in collaboration with other research institutes across the country.

The drug is said to be capable of helping to treat sophisticated viruses such as the Ebolavirus as well as everyday strains of influenza.

The drug has also been shown to be effective against Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, Rift Valley fever, the West Nile virus and other viruses that are dangerous for animals.

Its application is potentially so broad that it is being touted as the new aspirin.

International interest “The drug indeed contains unique pharmacological qualities,”says Professor Oleg Kiselyov, director of the Research Institute of Influenza and member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. “Currently, Russia is actively developing five analogues, which are directed toward various treatment targets.”

The launch of Triazavirin was organised at the Medsintez Pharmaceutical Plant. According to the producer's calculations, the optimal volume

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of production could reach 12 million packets a year.

In its first year Triazavirin will be sold only in Russia and only by prescription. In the future, however, the drug will likely be released in other countries too.

Kiselyov says that Triazavirin has already attracted international interest. For example, two years ago the US successfully tested it against the West Nile virus, and in September, the drug was presented at a World Health Organisation conference in Geneva.

the antiviral medications used today act by supporting a person’s immunity or by treating the symptoms of the illness.

“Triazavirin is an example of the realisation of the Russian scientific idea, of the product coming to the market,” said Alexander Petrov, member of the Russian Duma Health Committee and member of the Ural Biomedical Cluster Supervisory Board.

Petrov points out that Ural scientists Valery Charushin and Oleg Chupakhin were awarded the State Prize of

The drug is said to be capable of helping to treat sophisticated viruses such as the Ebolavirus

In comparison to existing antivirals, Triazinvirin's toxicity is considered very low

“A comparative analysis of antiviral drugs against Ebola showed that Triazavirin is one of the leaders,”Kiselyov said.

“Out of all the drugs that are on the market today, it is one of the best: it is the least toxic, it has a good therapeutic index, it can be administered intravenously to the extremely ill and it is compatible with other therapies.”

The new drug belongs to the triazolo-triazine group, which has a special mechanism: it suppresses the early stages of cell infection that are important for a virus’s development.

By interacting with the virus’s proteins, the Triazavirin molecule makes the virus non-viable. But the drug also helps protect the body at any phase of viral infection. Such drugs have never been used in clinical practice; most of

the Russian Federation for the development of the fundamentals of the triazolo-triazine organic synthesis and the Triazavirin medication.

Low toxicity According to Vladimir Rusinov, a member of the scientific group developing Triazavirin and director of the Chemo-Technological Institute at the Ural State University in Yekaterinburg, a broadly active antiviral drug already exists: Ribavirin.

However, Ribavirin is toxic and can accumulate in red blood cells.

During the SARS epidemic in China, those infected were given unprecedentedly large single doses of Ribavirin and the virus was eliminated, but some patients were left with damage to the liver and blood-forming organs. In

Triazavirin is being compared to aspirin in terms of its capacity for widespread application.

The drug has been shown to stop viruses developing in the early stages of infection, and it has been proved to effectively treat a broad range of viruses, including Ebola. Research to date also suggests that it is low in toxicity.

comparison,Triazavirin’s toxicity is considered very low.

“During the testing stage, even increasing the dosage of the drug, we were unable kill lab mice,” says Vladimir Rusinov, who claimed that this was proof that it had insignificant toxicity levels.

20 years in development The medication was in development for more than 20 years and was a result of research that started as far back as the 1990s.

After many years of laboratory testing on mice and primates, the drug was used to treat humans. Clinical testing to study the drug's therapeutic effectiveness on people infected with influenza of moderate severity was carried out successfully at the Research Institute of Influenza in St Petersburg.

The medication was first highly praised by Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova in 2009, when Russia needed protection from the swine flu pandemic.

After this, thanks to the Healthy Ministry’s support, the drug went through phase II and III of clinical testing and was registered in connection with the necessity of being able to treat Ebola.

The main contributions to the research and development of Triazavirin were made by the Postovsky Institute of Organic Synthesis inYekaterinburg, the Yeltsin Ural State University, the Russian Health Ministry Research Institute of Influenza, the Scientific-Research Testing Institute of Military Medicine in St Petersburg and the Virology Centre at the Russian Defence Ministry.

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HERMITAGE TO OPEN NEW BRANCH IN THE FAR EAST rbth.com/41783

Photography Some of Russia's leading Instagram users take part in an unusual creative project in the Hermitage

Portraits of a museum on its day off Seventeen popular Instagram users were given free reign in the completely empty halls of Russia’s most famous museum – the Hermitage – for just one day.

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ALEXANDRA GURYANOVA

Russia’s most active Instagram users have been given the opportunity to explore the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg on its day off.

On November 10, 17 leading users of the online photo application took part in an action called #EmptyHermitage, which allowed them to browse the completely empty halls of the museum and take photographs at their leisure.

The museum is traditionally closed on Mondays.

The group of amateur photographers was selected by Instagram Russia based on the popularity and activity of their accounts.

This is the second event of its kind under a joint project

by Instagram Russia and Russian cultural institutions. In October, Instagrammers took over the empty Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

According to the organisers, the main purpose of these events is to open the doors of beautiful buildings to talented Instagram photographers during off-hours, when they are completely devoid of tourists.

The Instagrammers had to conform to a strict black-tie dress code to take part in the Hermitage event.

“The idea of dressing up also helped us at the meeting at the Bolshoi,” Instagram’s community manager for Russia and Eastern Eu-

INSTAGRAM.COM (4)

RBTH

Popular images from the #EmptyHermitage project include (1), (2) and (4), which were taken by the Instagrammer "Katia Mi", who has about 10,000 followers, while image (3) was taken by the user "evgeniaanikeeva", who has about 30,000. The photographers were asked to dress in black-tie for the project, and they themselves ended up becoming subjects in the photo shoot, which took on an impromptu theatrical life of its own.

rope, Olesya Shayakhmetova, told RBTH.“It’s really important to unite people prior to the shoot.

“It makes the photo session really more interesting. At the Hermitage it’s as if we were reincarnated into the protagonists of a captivating movie that was unfolding in one of the world’s most famous museums.

“We had chases, love stories – everything was like a real movie.”

The Instagrammers seemed to get a lot out of the experience. “You have the opportunity to view the space and photograph the museum from any angle in silence and calm, without thinking about visitors getting into the shot or ruining the composition,” Shayakhmetova reflected.

Instagrammer Yekaterina Mishchenkova said: “It’s amazing to feel the breath of the empty Hermitage. It’s as if you’re inside an enormous living organism.”

Photographer Anastasia Kopteva agreed.“Without the crowds, you immediately get a special sense of just how much power and beauty there is in this space,” she said.

Instagrammers captured not only the empty halls of the Hermitage but also unique episodes involving the museum’s employees.

In some of the photos, you can see light bulbs being changed in enormous crystal chandeliers and picture frames being dusted.

“I was able to observe student artists who work at the museum on its days off – the Hermitage as a theatre with its own special life behind the scenes,” Melekestseva said.

Performance The additiion of Mariinsky II has created one of the world's busiest and most influential cultural institutions

Maestro brings new glory days to imperial theatre Under the leadership of maestro Valery Gergiev, the Mariinsky Theatre has remained one of Russia's most revered and influential cultural institutions.

JOY NEUMEYER SPECIAL TO RBTH

The twin peaks of Russia’s classical world— the mintgreen Mariinsky Theatre, the pride of the tsars, and the sleek modernist glass of Mariinsky II, completed last year – look over St Petersburg’s picturesque Kryukov canal.

Today, the Mariinsky (known affectionately in Russian as the“Mariinka”) is one

of the busiest and most frenetic cultural institutions in the world. It premieres six or seven major new productions a year (while the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow typically premieres two or three.)

It also hosts St Petersburg’s annual Stars of the White Nights festival, which this year presented 118 works by companies from Russia and abroad. The theatre brought to the public some of the world’s top singers and ballet dancers, including Fyodor Chaliapin, Anna Netrebko, Anna Pavlova and George Balanchine.

After the collapse of the Soviet system brought the proud

imperial theatre to its knees, the Mariinsky’s reincarnation as a modern juggernaut has been largely due to one man:

The Mariinsky's reincarnation as a modern juggernaut is largely due to one man, Valery Gergiev Valery Gergiev, the maestro who has headed the company since 1996.

“Under Gergiev,” wrote critic Dmitry Rezansky, “the Mariinsky transformed into an immense theatrical multiplex working, if not to

breaking point, then to the very edge of its abilities.”

The institution first opened its doors in 1783 as the Bolshoi Stone Theatre. In 1860, when it was rebuilt after a fire, it was rechristened the Mariinsky in honour of Maria Alexandrovna, the wife of Tsar Alexander II. Under the tsars, it was frequented by the imperial family as well as luminaries such as poet Alexander Pushkin.

In the latter half of the 19th century, the theatre premiered ballets including The Nutcracker, Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty and operas such as Boris Godunov and Prince Igor. Under the leadership of Marius Pepita, it produced the canonical versions of ballets that would become the bedrock of classical repertoire worldwide.

In the Soviet era, the Kirov (as it was renamed in the 1930s) continued to be well

regarded and well funded.

During this time,it staged influential performances of ballets and operas such as Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades, though it lost two its of its most celebrated dancers, Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov, to the West. After the collapse of the Soviet system in the 1990s, Gergiev embarked on a heavy

The powerful and crisp acoustics of the Mariinsky II have earned it enthusiastic reviews touring schedule to keep the theatre afloat.

Under Gergiev, the theatre also began to expand. First came a new concert hall in 2007. Then, with the backing of Russia’s President, a close ally of Gergiev’s, the maestro

was able to achieve his dream project, the Mariinsky II, a 2000-seat theatre that cost more than $US700 million.

The new theatre, which hosts opera and ballet, eschewed the chandeliers and gilding of its predecessor for a sleek wooden auditorium with windows that look over the canal (a bridge also connects it to the old theatre).

Despite early snubs by the city’s cultural elite, who derided what they considered its bland design, the powerful, crisp acoustics of the Mariinsky II have earned it enthusiastic reviews.

The Mariinsky’s sheer size now dwarfs most other classical theatres. When its two theatres and concert hall are working, it has more than 5000 seats. When discussing the expansion, Gergiev, 61, told newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta that he won’t be going on holidays any time soon.

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Galleries Collections rival world's best

Little known outside Russia perhaps, Russia's leading art collectors are up there with the world's best. RBTH looks at five of them and where their collections are today.

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Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery is hosting an exhibition of works from the collection of George Costakis, one of the best-known collectors of Russian art. It turns out that the storerooms housing one great collection of art have for a long time been hiding another. RBTH has decided to use this occasion to recall the biggest collectors of Russian art and find out where their treasures are kept now.

Trinity) through the realism of the Peredvizhniks movement (Savrasov, Shishkin, Repin) to the uncompromising avant-garde art of the early 20th century (the famous Black Square by Malevich and his other works).

The building which houses the gallery was also built under Tretyakov’s supervision. He commissioned the design of the facade from one of the most prominent artists of his time, Viktor Vasnetsov – a co-founder of folklorist and romantic modernist painting in Russia.

His ornate modernist imprint on the building transmits something of the spirit of the collection.

Sergei Shchukin (1854-1936)

Pavel Tretyakov (1832-1898)

Moscow's best art gallery The State Tretyakov Gallery has a collection of more than 17,000 works of art. The history of the gallery can be traced back to 1856, when Moscow merchant Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov bought works by Russian artists with the aim of creating a collection that could one day grow into a national art museum. In 1892, he gave his collection of about 2000 works to the Russian nation.

Guided tours for international visitors at the gallery, which is divided in several buildings, have been running since the 1950s and are offered in English, German and French. Despite the popularity of 20th-century Russian art, international visitors generally flock to see the gallery's early Russian art, which is held in the gallery's building on Lavrushinsky Lane. The collection includes icons by both unknown and famous icon painters from the 12th to 17th centuries. As well, the gallery has paintings by Russian masters including Kramskoy, Repin, Shishkin and Vrubel.

Address: 10, Lavrushinsky Lane, Getting there: The nearest metro stops are “Tretyakovskaya”, “Novokuznetskaya” and “Polyanka” Opening times: Thursdays, Fridays: 10am-9pm; Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays: 10am-6pm.

Mondays – closed. › tretyakovgallery.ru

world has ever seen. In Sotheby’s evaluation, his collection would be worth $US8.5 billion today. After the revolution, Shchukin emigrated to France and his collection was nationalised. Paintings collected by him are now on display in state museums.

rozov’s collection formed the basis of the Museum of New Western Art. Later the paintings were divided between the Hermitage and the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, where they can be seen still.

pieces with him. Ultimately the Greek government, having bought most of the paintings that he brought, set up a modern art museum in Thessaloniki to house his collection.

George Costakis (1913-1990)

Igor Savitsky (1915-1984)

Ivan Morozov (1871–1921)

An heir to a renowned merchant dynasty, as a child Morozov learnt to paint with Russia’s leading Impressionist, Konstantin Korovin. However, having graduated from a university in Switzerland, he gave up painting and began to run the family’s textile factories. But his friendships with artists in Moscow mean that he never lost interest in art.

If sold at an auction today, Ivan Morozov’s collection would fetch $US5 billion, less than Shchukin’s, and yet it would still be one of the most valuable private collections in history. Highlights of his collection include Picasso’s Girl on the ball, Van Gogh’s The night cafe and Renoir’s Portrait of Jeanne Samary.

Combined with Shchukin’s legacy, in the 1920s-40s Mo-

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Collecting was a family tradition with the Shchukins, an Old Believer merchant dynasty. Of the four brothers, the most successful collector was Sergei Shchukin, who decided to focus on French modernism.

A regular at Paris galleries, he set about buying Impressionists’ masterpieces long before they became appreciated by others. His brothers may have thought him eccentric, but it was Sergei’s collection that turned out to be the most valuable, with works by Monet, Matisse, Cezanne and Gauguin.

Sergei Shchukin may well be the greatest art buyer the

A popular place for visitors to Moscow is the city's Tretyakov Gallery, which houses one of the world's best art collections.

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Tretyakov is a key figure in the history of Russian art.The famous Moscow merchant conceived his collection as a foundation for a future gallery. The main provision of his will, which he made well in advance, was to preserve the collection as a whole, and it was that provision which saved the Tretyakov Gallery’s collection from being divided between different museums during the Soviet years.

The gallery’s art collection is one of the best known in the world. It traces the history of Russian art from icon masterpieces (including the original of Andrei Rublev’s

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Collectors' devotion to art leaves the nation a rich legacy

A Soviet-born ethnic Greek, as a young man Costakis worked as a chauffeur at the Greek embassy in Moscow.

He often accompanied diplomats on their visits to antique shops, where his love of art was born.

Costakis formed his outstanding collection in the 1930s-70s. He paid particular attention to avant-garde artists who were not considered noteworthy or valuable at the time.

The best example of his collection is Uprising by Kliment Red’ko, which depicts the Bolshevik Revolution pantheon styled as an icon.

Costakis was also collector of icons.

In the 1970s, he emigrated to Greece and had to leave a large part of his collection behind (it was transferred to the Tretyakov Gallery). He did manage to take some

Formally, Igor Savitsky cannot be considered a collector since he did not own any art.

However, he single-handedly created a unique museum collection, thus becoming – alongside Tretyakov – one of Russia’s major art dealers.

In the 1960s-70s, Savitsky was the director of a museum in the remote town of Nukus in Uzbekistan. Even though it had been a local history museum, Savitsky at his own initiative collected tens of thousands of works of Russian avant-garde art.

His collection features works by Robert Falk, Kliment Red’ko, Lyubov Popova and many others. The collection is prized by art historians but little known to the general public, not helped by the fact that it is still kept in Nukus, in an art museum named after the collector.

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Museums Peter the Great's unusual Kunstkamera collection is no less confronting today than it was to its first visitors

Still shocking after 300 years RBTH looks at the history of Russia's oldest and perhaps most notorious museum, the Kunstkamera in St Petersburg, which opened in 1714.

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Peter the Great originally set up the museum as an educational institute, to inform visitors on anatomy and natural sciences.

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The Kunstkamera museum is famous for its unusual collection, which includes human body parts and foetuses with deformities preserved in jars.

Although the museum opened in 1714, its history is considered to have begun with Peter the Great’s long trip abroad known as the Grand Embassy (1697-98), when he went to Europe to study shipbuilding.

In these travels, European life and culture made quite an impression on him. In particular, he was fascinated by the kunstkameras that were appearing on the continent and inspired by what he had seen, decided to create his own cabinet of curiosities.

Peter decreed that anything he found amazing was to be brought to the Russian Kunstkamera. The collection was supposed to show the diversity of the world and the mysteries of nature. In 1706 the French Journal de Trevoux wrote that the muses and science were moving north, “where the current Tsar Peter Alexeyevich is intent on enlightening his country”.

The foundation date of Russia’s first museum is usually considered to be 1714, when, according to Peter’s decree, all the articles he collected during his travels abroad were moved from Moscow to St Petersburg.

In the beginning, in order to attract visitors the Kunstkamera offered treats and gifts. But the museum quickly became famous and soon visitors had to buy tickets.

The main difference between the St Petersburg Kunstkamera and its European counterparts was the reason for its opening. The museum had been created not as a private collection but as an educational institute. It is written that Peter said: “I want people to look and learn!”

In the 18th century the mu-

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The museum is also known for its ethnographic artefacts.

Putin praises museum's hard work Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences on its 300th anniversary and described it as one of the most interesting museums in the

country. Putin said that thanks to the work of scientists and researchers, and the hard work of many generations of employees, unique ethnographic, archaeological, and anthropological collections had been assembled and preserved.

seum moved to a building on the eastern tip of Vasilievsky Island. According to legend, Peter had chosen the location himself after seeing an unusually formed pine tree.

The Petrine Baroque building that was constructed on the spot later is still considered one of the symbols of the city. The majestic structure on the banks of the Neva is crowned by a tower with an armillary sphere, symbolising the solar system.

In its first years, the Kunstkamera collection, along with its rare books, devices, instruments, weapons and natural rarities, contained “live” exhibits. These were children who had been born with physical abnormalities.

They lived in the Kunstkamera and earned high incomes.

As years passed the Kunstkamera transformed from being a collection of curiosities and oddities into a real scientific collection. When Peter founded the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1724, the Kunstkamera became its first institution.

Having become more academic, the museum subsequently concentrated on collecting ethnographic rarities: clothes and household items from various peoples. Ever since then the museum’s permanent exhibition has been dedicated to the native cultures of North America, Asia and Africa.

But it is the Kunstkamera’s collection of anatomical rarities and anomalies embalmed in alcohol that the museum is best known for.

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Peter bought most of these from a Dutch anatomy professor, Frederik Ruysch. He had collected them for several decades and agreed to sell the collection to the tsar in the hope that Peter would leave it for posterity.

The embalmed embryos shocked the 18th century public, and continue to do the same to today’s visitors.

The modern Kunstkamera is one of the biggest ethnographic museums in the world, and it actively carries out scientific research. The museum contains more than a million exhibits and is constantly enlarged, thanks to expeditions and new acquisitions.

Every year the Kunstkamera organises about 50 scientific expeditions to various regions of Russia, as well as to Asia and Africa. Each expedition enriches the museum with new exhibits.

Museum director Yury Chistov says that the Kunstkamera no longer “fits” in its historical building. The administration is in talks with the city authorities about the possibility of creating a separate storehouse for the collection.

The museum is widely known for its educational programs and themed guided tours on various subjects: from the history of costumes to anthropology. Currently, only general orientations are available in foreign languages, but the Kunstkamera management promises to add more programs for foreign tourists.

“Our collections are interesting for the foreign visitor because they were collected long before those that today are exhibited in Europe,” Chistov says.“All our ethnographic exhibits are unique because they were not influenced by European culture.”

During the media conference dedicated to the Kunstkamera’s 300th anniversary, the President of the Russian Museum Union, Mikhail Piotrovsky, paid tribute to the museum: “Along with the Kunstkamera’s anniversary we are celebrating 300 years of Russian museology.

“This is the first and the oldest museum in our country and it is also a very important landmark in the development of museums in Europe.”

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