Tuesday, October 30, 2012

RUSSIAANDGREATER CHINA

Monthly supplement from Rossiyskaya Gazeta (Moscow, Russia) which takes sole responsibility for the contents A product by

SPECIAL REPORT

Beijing rebuilds military tiesPLA aims to acquire hi-tech weapons, such as the Su-35 fighter, from Moscow

Mathematical wonders

Space sector faces major shake-up

Geniuses make quantum leaps in their field

> PAGE 3

Federal agency must reform to fulfil goals for the next 30 years > PAGES 8-9

Entering into the right spiritDiscover the age-old secrets of vodka drinking > PAGE 15

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RUSSIA AND GREATER CHINA2 Tuesday, October 30, 2012

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS AND SECTIONS ABOUT RUSSIA ARE ALSO PUBLISHED BY RUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINES, A DIVISION OF ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA (RUSSIA), IN: THE WASHINGTON POST AND THE NEW YORK TIMES (UNITED STATES), THE DAILY TELEGRAPH (UNITED KINGDOM), LE FIGARO (FRANCE), SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG (GERMANY), EL PAÍS (SPAIN), LA REPUBBLICA (ITALY), LE SOIR (BELGIUM), DUMA (BULGARIA), GEOPOLITICA (SERBIA), EUROPEAN VOICE (EU), LA NATION (ARGENTINA), FOLHA DO SAO PAOLO (BRAZIL), EL OBSERVADOR (URUGUAY).

“WHY SPIES NOW RESEMBLE ACADEMICS”

“RUSSIAN PRIESTS ENTER THE RING”

“RUSSIA HOPES TO BREAK ITS WAY INTO GLOBAL RUGBY ELITE”

“GLONASS UPBEAT ABOUT INDIA”

ezhong.ru

In China Business News (China) In Mainichi Shimbun (Japan) in The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)In The Economic Times (India)

roshianow.jp rbth.ruindrus.in

RUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINES’ SUPPLEMENTS AND SECTIONS IN ASIA: GET THE BEST STORIES FROM RUSSIA EACH MONTH IN YOUR FAVOURITE NEWSPAPER

Moscow vows to free itself from dependence on oil

Happiness is found in Chechen capital Grozny

Nikita Dulnev

Dmitry Kahn

Fighting oil dependency is now a top priority for the cabinet.

The Russian government is taking con-crete steps to free the state budget from its dependence on oil and raw materi-als, seeing this as a vital step in guar-anteeing the country’s economic secu-rity, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at the Sochi Investment Forum.

From next year, for example, oil price forecasts would no longer be factored into the budget, he said.

“This was a tough decision to make,

A little more than 10 years ago, the Chechen capital of Grozny was lying in ruins from two brutal wars. Today, it is regarded as the best place to live in Rus-sia, according to a new survey.

Grozny took top place in an assess-ment of almost 27,000 people from Rus-sia’s largest cities in terms of happiness, financial status, environment, pace of development, overall standard of living and other factors. Moscow was ranked way down at number 52 on the happi-ness index.

Despite the devastation after the wars, the authorities were quick to redevelop the city, with massive cash injections from the federal budget that helped in its transformation.

No other city in Russia has been so dynamically changed in recent years, with 73 per cent of its people saying they were happy with the way Grozny had been rebuilt.

The survey was conducted by the NewsEffector monitoring agency and

Chief executive Igor Sechin has bolstered his position as a top dealmaker in Russia, thanks to Rosneft’s US$55 billion takeover of TNK-BP, making

the state-controlled oil company a glob-al energy giant with a potential output of 4.6 million barrels per day.

The deal cements the Kremlin’s alli-ance with British oil firm BP, which will take a stake in Rosneft of just under 20 per cent.

Sechin’s influence over Russian pol-icymaking stretches back to the late 1990s, when he worked with Vladimir Putin in the administration of former president Boris Yeltsin. A fluent Portu-guese and French speaker, Sechin, 62, started his career as a Soviet military translator in Mozambique in the 1980s.

Since 2004, he has built up Rosneft through the absorption of former Yukos assets and, as a deputy prime minister in charge of energy, later developed Rus-sia’s trade with strategic partners in Asia and Latin America.

Sechin favours state influence in the energy sector, while welcoming mod-ernisation and foreign investors’ par-ticipation in developing new fields. Re-cently, Sechin referred to Rosneft as his “teddy bear”.

but we took it and are already working within the new framework,” said Med-vedev, adding that all profits from high oil prices would go straight to the re-serve fund.

This year, oil and gas revenues made up just under half (47.3 per cent) of the Russian budget. When drafting the budget under the old system, the treas-ury would look closely at predictions of oil and gas prices for the year ahead.

It was not difficult to estimate reve-nues from gas, because they depended on contracts rather than fluctuations in the stock market.

The XI Sochi Investment Forum, held on the shores of the Black Sea, was first organised to increase investment in the Krasnodar Territory, which is in the western part of the Greater Caucasus and is one of the most attractive regions in the country.

However, neighbouring regions, es-pecially from the north Caucasus, also became involved and, what started out as a regional event, gradually turned into a national and then international forum on investment.

FORUM

SURVEY OF THE MONTH

LIFE

NUMBERS GAME

81,801 VOTERS

The number who supported the “non-system opposition” and who took part in a poll on the internet to elect a new leadership to fight for reform. More than 200 left-wing, liberal and nationalist can-didates competed for 45 seats on a “Co-ordinating Council” opposed to Presi-dent Vladimir Putin, who returned to office in a landslide victory in March after serving a term as prime minister. Nearly 170,000 people had registered to choose their representatives; only half of them voted. The organisers worked to create a voting system that was trans-parent and fraud-free.

the Russian Regions’ Regional Research Fund, which found that although many people still moved from regional areas to seek a better life in Moscow, those living away from the capital were gen-erally happier with their lot.

In response to the question, “are you happy in your city?”, the researchers dis-covered that, despite the conventional wisdom that money can’t buy you hap-piness, material well-being does indeed matter.

PICTURE OF THE MONTH

Moscow is cool and stylish

Models take centre stage at the Moscow Fashion Week Contrafashion event, which featured young designers and their avant-garde styles.

Sechin takes Rosneft global

DEALMAKER OF THE MONTH

Igor Sechin’s TNK-BP deal makes Rosneft a top global oil firm.

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RUSSIA AND GREATER CHINATuesday, October 30, 2012

SCIENCE

Mathematical wonders Prize-winning geniuses make quantum leaps in a ‘cool’ field, writes Dmitry Malyanov

Maxim Kontsevich is a world-renowned mathematician, and he has won several awards for his work.

Born 1964 in Khimki, Moscow re-gion; studied under the renowned mathematics teacher Vladimir Sapozhnikov at Moscow School No 91; graduated from the faculty of mathematics and mechanics of Mos-cow State University in 1985; ob-tained a PhD in 1992 from the Uni-versity of Bonn (Germany). Presently, permanent professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies (France) and a member of the French Academy. Fields Medal (1998), Poincaré Prize (1997) Crafoord Prize (2008)Milner Prize (2012) Shaw Prize (2012)

Six years ago, Grigori Perelman shocked the world of mathematics when he solved what was believed to be an unsolvable problem, and then by turning his back on the fame and fortune that went with it. He turned down US$1 million in prize money.

MAXIM KONTSEVICH

One can be forgiven for de-scribing theoretical math-ematics as “mind games”. Some mathematicians spend a lifetime wandering

in the corridors of their own imagina-tions, never to attain their objectives.

“Our science is rife with ‘accidents,’” says Maxim Kontsevich. “People invent a theory and work on it for years.

“And then it turns out that they’ve been digging in vain.

“It’s a tragedy, of course. But there are amusing stories: one mathemati-cian invented an entirely new series of spaces. He wrote a thesis on the won-ders of these spaces, describing their properties. And then he defended his dissertation by arguing that these spac-es do not, in fact, exist.”

Today, Kontsevich is recognised as a mathematics genius, the brains behind a series of conceptual breakthroughs in several areas at the intersection of theoretical physics, algebraic geome-try, combinatorics and topology. He is also one of the most cited academics in modern scientific literature.

A genuine wunderkind and a repre-sentative of the famous Soviet mathe-matical school, Kontsevich, 48, now lives in the suburbs of Paris and works at France’s Institute for Advanced Stud-ies. His already impressive list of awards was supplemented this autumn by the Shaw Prize, also known as the “Asian Nobel Prize”, and the new Milner Prize, now the biggest award in physics.

“I’m more interested in ‘mathemat-ical wonders’ – logical structures that exist independent of reality ... and hy-potheses yet to be proved,” Kontsevich says. “They are surrounded by an en-tire world of wondrous constructions that mathematicians try to anatomise.”

String theory – the branch of physics that deals with elementary particles – is the focus of Kontsevich’s mathemat-ical investigations, where that “won-drous construction” of which he speaks is in abundance.

String theory is based on the idea that the universe at the micro level – the foundation of foundations accessible only to the imagination – is full of in-visible threads, or strings. According to this idea, which seems to defy rational thought, all elementary particles – elec-trons, protons, quarks – are nothing more than the vibration of invisible strings. Each of these “quantum tones” corresponds to a certain particle, such as an electron or a quark. The “strings” themselves are energy in its purest form.

“You could say that I partake in the dialogue between physics and mathe-matics on the side of the latter,” Kont-sevich says. “String theory is in some respects the ‘swan song’ of theoretical physics ... in general, it’s all pretty ‘cool’ science that cannot be explained in words of one syllable. I can only say that string theory is now being applied to many puzzling phenomena in physics, such as gravity and quarks.”

Kontsevich is one of the leaders of the small but very active army of Sovi-et and Russian-born mathematicians who in the past 20 years have taken up top positions at the world’s major uni-versities and research centres.

Another is the reclusive genius, Gri-gori Perelman, who made a break-through in modern mathematics by proving the Poincaré conjecture.

However, he has consistently turned down all offers of regalia, medals and awards. Kontsevich is rather more prac-tical: he says that he used the prize money from his Fields Medal (the math-ematical “Nobel Prize”) to repair the heating system in his house.

These two extremes – one ignoring the Fields Medal entirely, and the other investing it in central heating – are in fact closer than they seem.

A great deal unites the biographies

of these two mathematicians: they are almost the same age (Perelman, born in 1966, is Kontsevich’s junior by two years), and both were prodigies of the Soviet mathematics school, which peaked in the 1980s, having supplied the world with mathematicians of the very highest calibre.

Both went abroad in the 1990s and acquired fame. Perelman returned to St Petersburg, while the Muscovite Kont-sevich became a permanent professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, the seat of mathematical learning, located in a quiet suburb of Paris.

They are passionate about music: Perelman is a long-time habitué of the St Petersburg Philharmonic, while Kont-sevich plays the lute and the viola da gamba to near professional standard. His wife, Katya, enjoys opera singing and restoring antiques.

They are products of the “mathemat-ical universalism” characteristic of the Russian mathematical school, which eschews all dogmatic approaches to the formulation and solving of problems.

It is most likely because of this con-ceptual background that Kontsevich prefers the romantic Parisian suburbs to United States campus life, while Perel-man was repelled by the career-orient-ed machinery of modern academia.

Kontsevich is recognised as a genius, the brains behind a series of breakthroughs

The Shaw Prize

Reclusive professor Grigori Perelman

This annual award, established in 2002, is made to scholars “regard-less of race, nationality, or religious belief, who have achieved a signifi-cant breakthrough in scientific and applied research, and whose work has resulted in a profound and posi-tive impact on humanity”. The prize bears the name of Run Run Shaw, a Hong Kong media mogul and philan-thropist. It is awarded in three cat-egories: astronomy, medicine, and mathematics. It’s also known as the “Asian Nobel Prize” and it is worth US$1 million. Nominations for the prize are accepted in September. Last year, 25 prizes were awarded to 43 individuals.

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RUSSIA AND GREATER CHINA4 Tuesday, October 30, 2012

November 27 A bill to ban smoking in public places causes an uproar among smokers

Censorship fearsNew legislation may lead to online clampdown, writes Anna Arutunyan

INTERNET

QUICK FACTS

Lawyers, legislators and internet experts are divided on how Rus-sia’s new internet law will be en-forced and whether it will lead to greater censorship.

A new law targeting websites with con-tent harmful to children goes into effect on November 1. The controversy is about whether or not the legislation will ex-pand or curtail existing powers to block content.

“This law has no objective to intro-duce censorship or any sort of influence on media,” Russian news agencies quot-ed Media and Communications Minis-ter Nikolai Nikoforov as saying.

Debates have raged since Russia’s par-liament passed in July what became known as the internet blacklist law, which would create a register for websites host-ing “illegal content” such as child por-nography or the promotion of suicide or drug use.

Under the law, once a site has been listed on the register, the site’s provider has 24 hours to demand the owner re-move the illegal content. If the content is not removed, the site can be blocked. The Russian State Agency for Commu-nication will operate the register.

Many fear the bill is part of legislative efforts to crack down on opposition voic-es after anti-Kremlin protests broke out in December last year. Following Presi-dent Vladimir Putin’s inauguration in May this year, parliament increased fines for unauthorised rallies and passed a bill forcing NGOs with foreign funding to register as foreign agents. Many see the internet blacklist as a third step to curb opposition.

The Presidential Human Rights Com-mission issued a statement calling the

bill an attempt to introduce censorship, which is unconstitutional in Russia. The Russian sector of Wikipedia shut down for a day in protest.

In the past month, the controversy has become more nuanced. Nikoforov has sought to dispel fears, explaining the law would bring transparency.

Though Nikiforov admitted that vari-ous internet sites are often arbitrarily blocked, “the law would allow this pro-cess to be regulated somehow”, ITAR-TASS quoted him as saying.

Artem Tolkachev, a lawyer at Tolkachev

“Right now, a site can be shut down if there’s a court ruling that finds it ex-tremist,” Tolkachev says. “There’s also a quasi-legal method ... at least this law introduces a series of specific rules.”

One problem, Tolkachev says, is that it is unclear how the new rules will be regulated. But industry leaders say the bill has many problems.

“This law does not limit the powers of various law-enforcement agencies to block sites,” says Anton Nosik, an exec-utive at Livejournal. “It just offers new procedures.” Compounding the prob-lem are unclear views on censorship. The constitution forbids censorship but a poll suggests many Russians support it. Some 63 per cent of respondents were in favour of censorship of harmful con-tent, with 19 per cent against, according to a survey by the independent Levada Center. Regarding blocking access to adolescents, the number in favour grew to 65 per cent. “People are afraid not just of the internet, [but of their] free-dom and the free [flow] of information,” Alexei Grazhdankin, Levada’s deputy di-rector, told Kommersant.

This law does not limit the powers of various law- enforcement agencies to block sites ... it just offers new proceduresANTON NOSIK, LIVEJOURNAL

This law is not intended to introduce censorship or any kind of influence on the mediaNIKOLAI NIKOFOROV,MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS MINISTER

Experts fear that the new law is a form of censorship. Muslims protest in Moscow against the film ‘Innocence of Muslims’.

Sites black out as scrutiny tightens

Web of trouble

June 2012 • Amendments to the Fed-eral Law protecting children from information harmful to their health and development is submitted to parliament by Duma parties.

July 2012 • Russian Wikipedia blacks out for 24 hours to protest against the readings of the internet law in the Russian Parliament.

July 2012 • The internet law is ap-proved by the State Duma.

July 2012 • President Vladimir Putin signs the law.

September 2012 • YouTube blacks out in Omsk for a few hours. The film was confirmed to be extremist in Grozny.

November 2012 • Provisions con-cerning the so-called internet black-list, with domain names and url ad-dresses, containing information forbidden to distribution will come into force.& Partners, says law-enforcement agen-

cies already have instruments to block extremist internet sites.

“I support this law, and find the mass hysteria that accompanied it isn’t com-pletely justified,” Tolkachev says. “There are risks that state organs will abuse their authority. But they already have all the powers to shut down sites.”

A case in point is the recent contro-versy over the Innocence of Muslims, an American trailer that sparked violent pro-tests in the Arab world. Russian lawmak-ers have asked law-enforcement author-ities to check the clip, but even with a court decision pending, reports surfaced that access to YouTube was blocked in Omsk and Volgograd, reports local in-ternet providers denied.

“You may laugh at it, but the whole of YouTube may be blocked in Russia over this video on November 3 to 5,” Nikiforov said in a Twitter post.

A local court in Chechnya has already ruled the video as extremist. Google, owner of YouTube, did not comment specifically, but cited a practice of block-ing similar videos in other countries.

Alexei Mitrofanov, the new head of a parliamentary committee on informa-tion policy and technology, assured jour-nalists that YouTube wasn’t going any-where, and any solution to the video controversy would be “creative”.

Still, Tolkachev cites the Omsk and Volgograd incident as one example of how access can be blocked without a court ruling. “If there is an order from the Prosecutor General’s office to block a site, then internet providers react with fear,” he says. Tolkachev believes the new bill will make regulations more trans-parent.

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RUSSIA AND GREATER CHINATuesday, October 30, 2012

China wants to buy the latest weapons systems from Russia, having already spent US$1.3 billion on military hardware from Moscow this year.

Beijing boosts arms purchaseDefence spending on the rise as PLA seeks hi-tech weapons systems from Moscow, writes Vasiliy Kashin

DEFENCE

China’s drive to acquire sophis-ticated weapons systems and cement its status a regional military power has once again led to closer ties between Be-

ijing and Moscow.The two nations have returned to their

1990s peak of defence co-operation, and Russia sold close to US$2 billion worth of military hardware and technical equipment to China last year.

Vyacheslav Dzirkaln, deputy direc-tor of Russia’s Federal Service for Mili-tary and Technical Co-operation, says China accounted for “approximately 15 per cent” of Russia’s total military ex-ports last year of US$13 billion, with India being the largest market.

This year, China has already bought US$1.3 billion worth of military hard-ware from Russia, including MI-171 hel-icopters and AL-31F engines.

Beijing has been mired in a number of territorial disputes, notably with Japan, and the PLA is continuing its drive to acquire the latest military tech-nology. The Russians and Chinese en-joyed healthy bilateral military ties in the 1990s, but the relationship faded in

However, despite China’s rapid pace of industrialisation, economic progress was unable to keep up with the coun-try’s military ambitions and require-ments, and the central government once again turned to Russia to fulfil its de-fence needs, albeit in different ways than in the past.

The two countries are now engaged in a number of deals that will result in China buying a host of military equip-ment from Russia, including aircraft and aircraft components, and air defence systems, among others.

China makes four relatively modern types of tactical combat aircraft: the J-11B, FC-1 and J-10 fighters and the JH-7A bomber.

The JH-7A is the only Chinese com-bat aircraft powered by a Chinese-made engine, but even the WS-9 Qingling en-gines are licensed copies of the British Rolls-Royce Spey Mk 202, which took the Chinese about 30 years to develop (the licence was taken back in the 1970s).

The J-11B and the J-10 use Russian-made AL-31F and Al-31FN engines re-spectively.

Their Chinese-produced equivalent,

the following decade as China emerged as an industrial power and ventured to develop their own weapons systems.

The bilateral commission for military and technical co-operation, which used to meet regularly, failed to convene at all in 2006 and 2007, and all signs point-ed to a China market that was closed to Russian hardware. Beijing even re-fused to continue licensed production of the Su-27SK fighters in Shenyang and later started producing its own version of the model, the J-11B, which breached the Russian licensing agreement.

the WS10, is not reliable enough and has a limited lifetime to be able to drive the Russian engines from the market. The FC-1 fighter is powered by the Rus-sian RD-93, which won’t be replaced any time soon.

The Russian-made D-30KP2 is in-stalled in the Chinese long-range bomb-er H-6K and the heavy cargo aircraft Y-20, which is being developed in Xian.

Meanwhile, China is yet to identify the types of engine for the two fifth-gen-eration fighters that are being designed.

Supplies of other components and systems that are less expensive and less conspicuous to the media, including in the electronics industry, are also grow-ing. Beijing is naturally making efforts to achieve self-sufficiency in the mili-tary and technical sector, but Russian developers often come up with some-thing new to offer.

Importantly, the import of compo-nents and materials from Russia does not undermine the status of China as a great military power.

The United States and the European Union develop their defence industries, relying on international co-operation. The Chinese defence industry has made significant progress in deploying new arms systems and it would only be nat-ural if reliable foreign suppliers were engaged in new projects.

At the same time, future supplies of Russian turnkey arms and weapons sys-tems to China cannot be ruled out. China is eagerly developing its military transport aviation and has already ac-quired three old Il-76 military cargo air-craft from the Russian Air Force.

Beijing is also interested in the Il-76MD-90A, also known as the Il-476, a new modification of the Il-76. Tests of the Il-476 have recently started in Uly-anovsk and mass production is expect-ed after 2014.

Russia and China are also in talks over supplies of Russian Su-35S fighters, the newest generation of combat aircraft, which could enhance the capability of the Chinese air force.

COMMENT

BUSINESS CALENDAR

UC RUSAL PRESIDENT’S FORUMNOVEMBER 2CITI LECTURE THEATRE, (LT-A), HKUST

UC RUSAL, the world’s largest alu-minium producer, invites visitors to the UC RUSAL President’s Forum, entitled “8.5 Billion Global Consum-ers by 2030: Opportunity or Looming Disaster?” This year’s keynote speak-er is Barry Cheung, independent non-executive director of UC RUSAL and the chairman of the Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange and the Urban Renewal Authority.ias.ust.hk/ucrusal

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC FORUMNOVEMBER 3-9SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

The International Economic Forum convenes representatives from busi-ness, the public, and political and scientific communities to analyse Russia and South Korea’s experience in innovative development. Partici-pants will also provide recommen-dations after discussions focused on economic and technical upgrades, energy and resource efficiency, in-tellectual property, and Russia and South Korea’s investment appeal.www.conf.rbc.ru/en

FIND MORE IN THE GLOBAL CALENDAR

at www.rbth.asia

Cautious approach Russian companies and the government have changed their original approach to military and technical co-operation with China since the 1990s. Back then, the Russian military-industrial complex only survived by exporting to two coun-tries – China and India. Its status as a key buyer gave China leverage. Since then, the Russian defence industry has been reformed. Russia’s Deputy PM Dmitry Rogozin said that military ex-ports accounted for only 22 per cent of the combined revenues of defence in-dustry companies, whereas domestic defence orders account for 45 per cent, and sales of civil products and services account for the remaining 33 per cent. Arms exports have been diversified: Moscow has several markets as big as China, specifically, India, Algeria, Viet-nam and Venezuela. Russian compa-nies are exercising more caution when discussing co-operation with China, cit-ing possible infringements of intellec-tual property rights.

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RUSSIA AND GREATER CHINA6 Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Ship laden with groceries and household supplies cuts through ice, writes Dmitry Litovkin

Express offers a lifeline

TRANSPORT

Transporting freight by the Northern Sea Route is a priority for Russia as part of its campaign to explore the Arctic.

Once every two days, an enor-mous diesel-electric ship owned by Norilsk Nickel leaves Murmansk for the mouth of the Yenisei, Sibe-

ria’s biggest river. Even in winter, when the ice can be

as thick as 1.5 metres, the ships make the trip to the port of Dudinka in five to seven days.

The ship typically carries 4,000 to 8,000 tonnes of groceries and household sup-plies, goods that make it possible for those living in the huge region to sur-vive. It is difficult to get to Norilsk and its surrounding region, with its large de-posits of nickel, copper and precious met-als. The city is isolated. There is no road connecting it to the Russian mainland, and the only way to get there is by plane, by sea or by sailing the River Yenisei.

At the same time, making shipping

Northern Sea Route Transport artery in the Arctic

The company

The Northern Sea Route (NSR) is the shortest passage between north-ern Europe and the Asia-Pacific. The entire route lies in Arctic waters and parts are free of ice for only two months per year. It is an established national unified transport artery. In the early 1930s it was actively used to connect the European and far east parts of the country. The route is a potential alternative to traditional international seaways in terms of freight costs, safety and quality. In recent years, the volume of Arctic freight traffic has surged. This year, a new law regulated commercial navigation through the NSR.

Norilsk Nickel is the world’s larg-est producer of nickel and palladium and a leading producer of platinum and copper. It also produces other products, such as cobalt, rhodium, silver, gold, iridium, ruthenium, se-lenium, tellurium and sulphur. The group is involved in prospecting, ex-ploration, extraction, refining, pro-duction and marketing of metals.

Norilsk Nickel has production facil-ities in three continents.

easier to Europe and Asia via the North-ern Sea Route is a priority for Russia as part of its campaign to explore the Arc-tic. Mikhail Khomenko, a deep-sea mas-ter who spent 13 years on the icebreak-er fleet, swells with pride as he shows off the machinery that runs the Talnakh, an Arctic-class diesel-electric ship.

“There were no ships of this kind in the Russian or any foreign fleet,” he says. “During one of our early voyages to Ham-burg, two customs shifts boarded the ship – the one that entered on duty and the one that handed over. The German customs officers confessed that they were excited to see the ship and asked for a tour.”

Khomenko has every reason to feel proud. The Norilsk Nickel series ships are the world’s first container ships built to Arc 7-class standards.

The ship is capable of breaking

propeller is mounted outside the hull and can rotate 360 degrees, increasing the manoeuvring capability of the ship in its course and speed.

When travelling through frozen or ice-congested waters, the Talnakh can turn stern front to break the ice.

Also, the Azipod system requires a smaller power compartment, increas-ing the ship’s cargo capacity.

Norilsk Nickel ordered its first Arctic class vessel from Aker Yards. Four more container ships and one Arctic tanker were built at the German shipyards.

The new ship completed all its Arctic trials, after which four more diesel-elec-tric ships, with a capacity of 14,500 tonnes, were ordered, followed by an Arctic tanker.

The Talnakh is capable of breaking through 1.5 metres of ice at a rate of one to two knots.

The ice in the Kara Straits and the mouth of the Yenisei is almost always very hard, but the ship can break a way through it.

Oleg Fedin, director of the Murmansk transport subsidiary of Norilsk Nickel, says the Arctic expresses run on a time-ly basis.

The cabin has state-of-the-art navi-gation equipment and automated safe-ty systems.

Khomenko says that when sailing in icebound waters, he receives real-time satellite images of the ice situation in the navigation area, and these are au-tomatically integrated into navigation-al charts.

“My objective is not to break the thick-est ice to prove that I operate the most powerful vessel in the Arctic, but to use navigation information to reach point B from point A via the shortest route, and using minimum fuel,” he says.

Norilsk Nickel’s vessels run between Dudinka, Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Rot-terdam, Hamburg and Shanghai. They have helped the company solve logis-tical issues without using icebreakers, and slash delivery costs by 30 per cent.

“Our fleet effectively addresses all lo-gistics challenges,” Fedin says. A fleet of six diesel-electric ships delivers ma-terial and technical resources, as well as civil cargo to the population of the Norilsk industrial area, all year round, and takes Norilsk Nickel commodities – nickel and copper – to domestic and foreign markets. While supplying the Monchegorsk smelter in the Kola Pen-insula with raw materials, the Norilsk Nickel fleet provides the population of the far north with the groceries and eve-ryday products they need.

The annual freight turnover of the company’s maritime fleet operating on the Northern Sea Route is estimated at about 1.3 million tonnes.

through 1.5-metre-thick ice without a special icebreaker supporting it. Further-more, it is Russia’s first ship equipped with an Azipod propulsion device. The

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RUSSIA AND GREATER CHINATuesday, October 30, 2012

Joint venture ‘to settle dispute’A deal between HK firm and Russkoye More-Dobycha may end controversy, writes Svetlana Mentyukova

A joint venture between Hong Kong’s Pacific Andes and Russkoye More-Dobycha could resolve issues surrounding allegations of illegal fishing.

FISHING

A joint venture with one of the world’s largest producers of frozen fish and fish products may help to settle a dispute and, at the same time, offer

investors the chance to tap into this vast and lucrative market.

Hong Kong seafood distributor Pa-cific Andes is expected to form a part-nership with Russkoye More-Dobycha, according to reports in the newspaper Kommersant.

The possible deal was approved dur-ing a meeting with Russian First Dep-uty Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov.

Two insiders told the newspaper the government is looking for a peaceful settlement to the conflict with Pacific Andes, which is suspected of illegal fish-

ing in Russian waters. One possible so-lution is the creation of a joint venture through a closed joint-stock company.

A representative of the Federal Anti-trust Service, which proposed the deal, says Russia would hold a controlling 51 per cent stake and Pacific Andes would have 49 per cent.

The joint venture would be expected to have “free access to the processing facilities of Pacific Andes”.

China accounts for about half of the company’s sales, while Europe and North America make up 40 per cent.

The company’s revenues increased 24.4 per cent year-on-year in 2011 to HK$14.2 billion.

The company netted HK$923 million in profit.

A controversy surrounding the com-pany’s fishing activities in Russian wa-ters broke in March, when Pacific Andes said in an investment memorandum

that it controlled 60 per cent of the Rus-sian Alaska Pollock, one of the most valuable fisheries in Russia.

Russian State Duma members later ordered the General Prosecutor’s Of-fice to begin an investigation to possbi-ble links between Russian fishing com-panies and Pacific Andes.

John Ng Teng, a company spokesper-son who was in Moscow in October, de-clined to comment.

Nevertheless, a source close to the negotiations said that Russkoye More-

Dobycha was the most likely partner for a joint venture.

Russkoye More-Dobycha has the same shareholders as Russian Sea Group – businessmen Gennady Tim-chenko and Maksim Vorobyov – but is not part of the group.

Many feel that a settlement, through a joint venture, may be the easiest way to resolve the controversy surrounding the allegations of illegal fishing. Pacific Andes is a public listed company in Hong Kong and Singapore.

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K. Khutsishvili Russkiy Reporter

The success of the reform will determine whether Roscosmos can fulfil goals for the next two decades

Industry faces major shake-upFederal agency calls for reform of sector and to be based on American model, writes Andrei Kislyakov

SPACE

The Russian government, its space agency and major en-terprises want to revive an in-dustry that is reeling after a spate of high-profile accidents

in the past two years.The latest incident was on August 6,

when communications satellite Express-MD2 and Indonesia’s Telkom 3 were lost after a booster rocket malfunc-tioned.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev met officials from the federal space agency, Roscosmos, and directors of major space enterprises early this month.

Roscosmos has proposed sweeping reforms, consolidating 15 existing in-dustry structures into seven to elimi-nate duplication and increase efficien-cy. Piloted flights and space research would be merged into the OAO Rus-sian Space Corporation. The OAO Rus-sian Rocket-and-Space Corporation would be responsible for launch vehi-cles, rocket engines and satellites. The new OAO Special Space Systems would incorporate companies specialising in space missile warning systems, surveil-lance and target-marking systems, and radio-electronic warfare.

OAO Corporation Information Sat-ellite Systems would be responsible for space telecommunications, navigation and electric rocket engines, and OAO Russian Space Systems would super-vise land-based and on-board radio-technical systems, land automated con-trol complexes and on-board and land-based optoelectronic systems.

The success of the reform will de-termine whether Roscosmos can fulfil its ambitious goals for the next two dec-ades. A document presented in April includes plans to send manned flights to the moon, deploy stations on Mars, and explore Venus and Jupiter. Ros-cosmos says it will close 15 pro-grammes and focus on the Arktika pro-

Competitive pricing gives Beijing an edge in cargo race

ject, which will launch satellites to monitor the Arctic.

One of the industry’s main problems is financing. Investment is less than a 10th of that of the United States and Europe, while labour productivity is only a half or even a quarter, says Roscos-mos head Vladimir Popovkin. As raw materials costs and electricity tariffs rise, Russian satellites may become uncom-petitive. Without change, traditional customers may stop working with the Russian satellite constellation because the same services – images and com-

munication channel leases – are avail-able from other suppliers at half the cost.

“More than 70 per cent of technol-ogies that meet production needs are worn out and outdated. More than half of the machine tools are past their ser-vice lifespan. The average age of em-ployees at defence-industry research institutes is almost 60,” says retired Major General Vladimir Dvorkin, who headed a Defence Ministry’s research institute. “What we should be doing is making an effort on the technological front and launching a modest probe towards the moon. On the political front, we should be developing private space exploration based on the Amer-ican model. But if we continue to in-flate managerial staff, lure space tour-ists and try to impress the world with mythical space programmes, then the Russian space industry will fall hope-lessly behind.”

Delivering cargo into near-earth orbit is lucrative business. Countries want hardware in orbit and are willing to pay.

Russia has long been the global lead-er in commercial space launches. It charges less for a launch than its com-petitors – US$10,000 to US$12,000 per kilogram of cargo compared to about US$20,000 in the United States or Eu-rope. Until recently, Russia was unri-valled in this sector. The workhorses, making US$700 to US$800 million a year, are the Proton and Soyuz carriers. These rockets are old but have proven relia-ble, until recently. The number of failed launches in the past two years has in-creased risks for customers as compet-itors become more active.

A decade ago, Russia competed only with the European Union and US for commercial space launches. The US did not actively pursue commercial launches.

The market has changed dramatical-ly. In the past five years, China has not only started delivering its own cargo, it is also launching satellites for other countries. China made its debut launch in 2007 and, in the first half of this year, became the leading nation in terms of the number of launches with 10 Long March carrier rockets sent into orbit. In the same year, Russia made nine launch-es and the US has made eight. China is now Russia’s main competitor as a re-sult of very competitive pricing.

The next 30 years

Revenue from commercial launches: US$

This competition became even fierc-er in May, when the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries announced the suc-cessful launch of a South Korean satel-lite. Russian launch services cost half as much, but the South Koreans chose Japan because it has suffered only one failure in 21 launches over 11 years.

Space programmes are also actively promoted in India and Brazil.

In late May and this month, Ameri-can company SpaceX sent its Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS). The Dragon was the first private ship to reach the ISS and return to earth.

Russia is in need of new bargaining

Among the plans Roscosmos has for the near future are the construc-tion of a new cosmodrome in eastern Russia and a base on the moon.

Roscosmos marked a mile-stone last year with the Glo-nass satellite navigation sys-tem — Russia’s answer to GPS.

Last year saw the loss of the Phobos-Grunt, a probe that was intended to explore the Martian moon Phobos.

chips, and the Angara space-launch ve-hicle, powered by an eco-friendly oxy-gen-kerosene engine, might be the one. The Angara, expected to replace the Proton, is under development by the Moscow-based Khrunichev Research and Production Centre.

Commercial launches account for 2 per cent of the space market. The three key space services are communications, research and remote sensing.

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RUSSIA AND GREATER CHINATuesday, October 30, 2012

Roscosmos changes direction on prototype

Life on Mars is likely to become the next frontier

Aleksandr Yemelyanenkov

Andrei Kislyakov

The dream of Sergei Korolev, Wernher von Braun and their predecessors to de-sign a powerful engine for long-term space flight missions may soon be re-alised. Roscosmos says the engineer-ing prototype of a megawatt-class nu-clear propulsion unit for outer space missions will be developed in 2017.

Bench tests of a reactor for a nucle-ar-powered spacecraft may start in Sos-novy Bor, near St Petersburg, as early as next year, says Roscosmos head Vladimir Popovkin. In June 2010, then-president Dmitry Medvedev backed the project for a space transport and power module based on a megawatt-class nu-clear power installation.

Medvedev promised 17 billion rou-bles (HK$4.21 billion) to implement the project from 2010–2018, 7.245 billion of which was earmarked for Rosatom to build the reactor. The M. V. Keldysh Research Centre will receive 3.955 bil-lion roubles to create a nuclear propul-sion unit, and the remaining 5.8 billion roubles will finance the design of the transport and power module by the Rocket and Space Corporation (RKK) Energia.

The United States and the Soviet Union started working on nuclear rock-et engines in the 1960s.

“The original task was to create rock-et engines that would heat hydrogen to about 3,000 degrees Celsius rather than burn fuel and oxidise materials,” says

The next step in mankind’s journey of discovery in space is likely to be Mars, says Vitaly Lopota, president of Russia’s Energia Rocket and Space Corporation.

“Over the next 50 years, Mars will be the focus of space research and explo-ration,” Lopota says. “This planet could be a relatively comfortable place to live — air pressure is just a hundredth of what it is on earth. When looking into the task of space colonisation, Mars is a good place to start. Moreover, Mars is the only planet with enough water to support humans.”

Russian scientists have already begun to explore this possibility. They have de-veloped selection criteria for a team to fly to Mars, based on experiences in the Mars-500 project, which confined six astronauts to a spaceship-sized facility for 520 days in 2010.

Specialists at the Institute for Biomed-ical Problems at the Russian Academy of Sciences believe the most pressing task is to create a self-sustaining system in space that will ensure a constant sup-ply of oxygen, water and food, while providing for the elimination of meta-bolic waste products.

American scientists believe that peo-ple who have spent prolonged periods of time in space suffer from a loss of bone density. Observations carried out

Russian Academy of Sciences member Anatoly Koroteyev, who is the general director of the Keldysh Centre and head of research of the transport and power module project.

“That direct method proved to be in-efficient. We occasionally got more trac-tion, but the jet stream the engine emits can be radioactive if the reactor fails.”

Koroteyev says there were two criti-cal parameters: extreme temperature and release of radiation. Neither Soviet nor American specialists were able to create reliable engines. They could not heat hydrogen in a nuclear reactor to 3,000 degrees Celsius.

“We suggest a different approach,” Koroteyev says. “It is different from the old approach in the same way a hybrid vehicle is different from a regular car. In the latter, the engine spins the wheels, whereas in a hybrid car, the engine gen-erates electricity, which sets the wheels in motion. In other words, there is an intermediary power plant.”

Russian researchers have proposed the reactor generates electricity rather than heats the jet stream from the en-gine. The hot gas from the reactor spins the turbine that spins the generator and compressor, which provides the closed circuit circulation of the propellant. The generator produces electricity for the plasma engine with a thrust 20 times higher than that in a chemical engine.

“The key advantage is that the jet stream coming from the new engine is not radioactive, because the working

Russia is researching technology for the colonisation of Mars.

Megawatt-class nuclear propulsion unit Nasa member calls for combined effort

COMMENT

Lunar bases will reveal ambition

IGOR MITROFANOV

The moon is our immediate objective in space. I believe its development will start this century. There will be lunar bases just as we have bases in Antarctica. The knowledge gained in Soviet times has not been lost. The unmanned Lu-na-Glob mission is expected to land on the moon in 2015. The orbit will be explored in 2016 and the heavier orbiter Luna-Resurs is scheduled to land on the moon in 2017.

The Moon Test Ground project - a robotically deployed base - is our plan for the future.

The first projects cost about 10 bil-lion roubles (HK$2.48 billion), small change when speaking about ambition. This money stays here as infrastructure, jobs and new materials.

Igor Mitrofanov is chief of the gamma ray spectroscopy lab at the Space Ex-ploration Institute, in Moscow.

on 13 astronauts, each of whom had spent six months at the International Space Station, revealed that their skel-etal mass fell 14 per cent. Prolonged space travel also causes immense psy-chological strain.

The effect of being so far from the earth, the monotony and isolation of space travel, cramped conditions, weightlessness, personal tensions, a substantial workload, the unpredicta-ble nature of the job, and huge risks are all stresses a cosmonaut has to contend with daily.

Edward Crawley, member of the Na-sa commission for manned flights, believes no country can send a manned mission to Mars on its own, and that Russia’s main contribution could be nuclear engines.

“Russia has extensive experience developing both rocket engines and nuclear technologies,” Crawley says. Russia could lend its expertise in adapting to new environments and maintaining the health of astronauts.

A Mars mission must bring togeth-er intellectual, technological and fi-nancial potential from the United States, Russia, European Union and possibly China.

The transport and power module based on a megawatt-class nucle-ar propulsion unit ensures an ener-gy supply that is up to 30 times the current level and uses only 10 per cent of the fuel required by the main rocket engine.

In 2011, con-struction be-gan on a new cosmodrome in the Amur region, allow-ing launches in Russia by 2015.

Roscosmos’ most ambitious near-term goal is the estab-lishment of a permanent base on the moon by 2030.

substances in the reactor and the closed circuit are different,” Koroteyev says. “This method spares us the need to heat hydrogen to extreme temperatures: the inert working substance in the reactor is heated to just 1,500 degrees [Celsius]. Yet, we managed to increase the spe-

cific thrust not twice, but 20 times com-pared to chemical engines.”

Koroteyev says the Americans are in-terested in the project. “China may re-double its efforts to catch up, so we have to work fast, and not just so we can be half a step ahead. We need to work fast

in order to have a say in international co-operation, which is developing now.”

Koroteyev hasn’t ruled out an inter-national programme soon to develop a nuclear-powered spacecraft similar to the controlled nuclear fusion pro-gramme.

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Putin’s search for answers When Russian President Vladimir Putin

turned 60 on October 7, he was one of the most influential politicians on the

planet. Idolised and demonised, Putin is turning into a global brand.

Two years ago, Forbes magazine put Putin in second place on its list of the most influential global politicians – after United States President Barack Obama, but ahead of President Hu Jin-tao. Judging by the statistics, China’s leader is certainly more influential, but Putin’s presence and personality are strong enough for him to be seen separately from the country he rules. He has become a symbol in the gloomy transitive state of the international system.

Putin came to power promising stability at a time when the world stood on the brink of eco-nomic meltdown. Feverish attempts in the West to prop up the global system led it to collapse. By contrast, Russia was undergoing a stabilisa-tion process led by Putin.

Many people see Putin as the “archetypal” enemy of progress, a symbol of outmoded ideas and old-fashioned approaches. He seems to exist in a state of permanent and barely dis-guised rage against the policies of the world powers.

His articles and public speeches are often based on the premise that the world is danger-ous and unpredictable, and that the world’s most powerful countries only exacerbate these threats.

Wars, invasions, interventions and reforms only come back to bite those who start them. The past 10 years yield numerous examples of this, from Iraq to Libya.

Putin is not alone in his refusal to accept this state of affairs, but he is in the vanguard. This is primarily because Russia, despite its decline

It always starts in September. Friends, acquaint-ances, former college classmates – they’re all on the phone, hoping that somehow I can find time, even if on the hoof, to talk to their chil-dren, or their friends’ children, who’ve reached college age. Of course, I agree willingly. The questions that 16-to-18-year-olds ask are for ba-rometers of the latest fashion trends.

But this year, a 20-year-old named Ilya hit me with radically different questions. The first was which public lectures in Moscow were worth getting to, now that the open-air lecture theatre at Gorky Park was closed? The second was what I thought of his new spectacle frames? Mean-ing, like, well, they’re kinda chunky, maybe a lit-tle nerdy – but that’s the fashion, right? And

after the collapse of the Soviet Union, remains a dynamic and ambitious country with huge nu-clear and natural resources, and a president who stands out for his honesty and bluntness.

Many political observers believe Putin is a wily strategist with a “big plan” of expansion and empire building. But he is unlikely to lay much store on strategy, not consciously.

Russia’s president likes to react. His favourite political tactic is to respond to stimulus, know-ing the source and character of the challenge. Putin has not been opposed to change, but has frequently come to the conclusion that new generally means worse.

The ever more turbulent situation outside Russia worries Putin because it resonates with internal manifestations of instability, turning them into louder and more insistent threats. Like many conservatives, Putin says the country needs time to ensure stable, sustainable, man-aged development, and that it is still too soon for liberal democracy.

Over the years, we have resurrected the car-cass of a state destroyed after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and now we need to strengthen it. We still need time for further construction, said

Putin at a pre-election meeting in February. His choice of words was interesting. He avoided using “perestroika” (rebuilding) the term coined by Mikhail Gorbachev. Instead he used “dostroi-ka”, (meaning careful completion of construc-tion), to give a sense of work in progress.

Putin understands that protests with which society met his return to power were based on more than just provocation from the West - al-though he also believes there was a strong ele-ment of this - and that they marked change. But he is still convinced the protesters are wrong, no matter how much they believe.

History has shown that conservatives never find the extra time they need. Something always happens, and their efforts, even if correct and

constructive, turn to dust under the insistent march of time and change.

Change is not always for the best, but is una-voidable. Having returned as head of state, Putin has not delivered any magic solutions, but he has a sense of what is dangerous. It is hard to accuse Putin of having no strategy – these days no-one seems to have one. The situation in Eu-rope shows that institutions that appear well-thought-out and stable can crumble. As a con-servative and a realist, Putin is soberly evaluating what has happened, but cannot find answers to the mounting problems we face.

OPINION

Fedor Lukyanov Ogonek Magazine

Muscovites embrace intellectual stimulationDmitry Gubin

then third ... no, let’s not rush into the third question in case it leaves you as startled as I was.

The easiest of the questions was about the specs – they’re cool, you’re in the groove. But I did have a question of my own here – Ilya’s new glasses had plain glass lenses, with no vision correction at all. So, why did he need them? The answer came straight back. “Well, glasses ... they make you look kinda brainy, right?” The first question – about the lectures – was also about being brainy. The deal here is that Gorky Park isn’t just a park, it’s a trend space. Need to know what clothes are in vogue, what subjects to talk about, and what games to play?

It comes down to another cool park idea – edification. The “Garage” project has moved here – not so much an art gallery, as a brainiac trendsetting art-loving fashionista space. At

Gorky Park in the dark they’ve got open air, spe-cially programmed movie screenings, while in the evenings there’s a lecture programme. Tick-ets go like hot cakes – for the films, and for the lectures.

No one can say that there hadn’t been public lectures before. The Soviet Union had them. It’s one thing to go to a lecture called “The Painting Academies of Fifteenth-Century Italy – Ferrara, Bologna and Venice” - where you sit next to three jolly old ladies. It’s a completely different deal to head to a lecture by the writer and poet Dmitry Bykov, talking about Bunin. It’s a given that the audience will be bright young guys and girls.

The lecture vogue has its own reasons for gaining momentum – politically and economi-cally – and people want intellectual stimula-tion. A historian friend in St Petersburg admits

to earning good money giving private lectures. They pay his airfare to Moscow, drive him out to a villa in the suburbs – and there he gives lec-tures all day on the topics of Tsar Peter III and Catherine the Great, to a few select millionaires and their families. Then it’s lunch, a Bentley to the airport, a six-figure fee. Another reason lec-tures are so popular is the libraries crisis. The era of e-readers and digitised texts might seem to have made them redundant ... except, per-haps, for the chance to meet writers. There’s an explanation on the technological level, too – in cloning Western technology in sales systems, Russian business has gone one further, and is now selling brains. The concept is clear, so it seems our Ilya has figured it all out perfectly.

Dmitry Gubin is a Russian journalist and televi-sion presenter

Fedor Lukyanov is editor-in-chief for Russia at Global Affairs magazine

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Countries in partnership bid

Zhiqun Shen, executive vice-president of China Venture Capital and Pri-vate Equity Association (right) with a Russian colleague at the forum.

Innokenty Dementiev (left), execu-tive director of STC

Moscow and Beijing to establish framework for expanding investment in innovation sector, writes Viktor Kuzmin

Russian and Chinese venture capitalists will work togeth-er in major projects to boost investment in innovation.

This month’s third Global Innovation Partnerships forum in Mos-cow provided the platform for investors from both countries to meet and agree on developing a framework for busi-nesses, and for investors to encourage enterprise in innovation.

“We believe that a strategic partner-ship agreement with the Russian Ven-ture Capital Association will contribute significantly to the self-regulation of the innovation sector,” said Shen Zhiqun, executive vice-president of China Ven-ture Capital and Private Equity Associ-ation.

Asian countries are global leaders in

venture capital investments, with China leading the way, while Russia has de-veloped dozens of innovative products in the past three years.

Last year, China set a record for the

PROJECTS

Firm wins top award for speech solutionTatyana Toropova

A Russian developer has made history by becoming the country’s first winner at the prestigious Speech Industry Awards, which are presented annually in the United States for achievements in the global market for speech solu-tions.

The St Petersburg-based Speech Technology Centre (STC) was honoured in the Star Performer category for its voice-recognition solution for law en-forcement, the SIS II forensic audio anal-ysis software, which is used by audio analysis experts in 36 countries.

The New York City awards were or-ganised by American Speech Technol-ogy magazine.

“We are confident that as law-enforce-ment agencies explore new modalities for their biometric identification pro-cesses, they will recognise the value that voice recognition can bring to helping solve cases including kidnapping, ex-tortion, organised crime, gang-related activities, terrorist threats, and domes-tic abuse, just to name a few,” says Alex-ey Khitrov, president of SpeechPro USA, a wholly owned subsidiary of STC.

Speech technologies have been used in law enforcement for many years across the globe, and the panel said the SIS II software was STC’s top achieve-ment in audio analysis, combining all of the solutions required for forensic

analysis. These include unique voice- and face-recognition solutions devel-oped by the Russian company.

STC has been the top Russian devel-oper of speech technologies for more than 20 years. The company was estab-lished in St Petersburg in 1990 by a team of enthusiasts from the Dalnyaya Svyaz scientific development and production centre, a leading producer of multichan-nel communication systems in the for-mer Soviet Union since the 1930s. Like many other companies in those days, it was started from scratch. The devel-

oper’s voice-identification system de-veloped for Latin America remains the largest voice biometrics solution to date.

Today, STC-developed systems are used by the Russian federal security ser-vice, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Presidential Executive Office, the lower and upper chambers of parliament and the Ministry of Defence.

They are also used by the Madrid po-lice department and throughout Mex-ico. STC is also working on a tailor-made system for Skolkovo Innovation City, the Russian equivalent of Silicon

Valley. STC has a Skolkovo registration and has already received a grant of 1.5 million euros (HK$15 million) to de-velop a multimodal biometric voice- and face-recognition system. VoiceKey is a voice-authentication solution de-veloped by STC that is used in call cen-tres of banks and telecoms companies to help police and companies clamp down on fraud.

The system works by identifying a caller’s voice and then providing the op-erator with comprehensive information about the client, all in the space of a minute. If the caller is on the bank’s “black list”, the system will warn the op-erator that the caller is compromised.

Face-recognition systems are used to enhance security in crowded areas; Multimodal systems offer voice-iden-tification and face-recognition options. The main customers for these services are law-enforcement agencies.

The SmartTracker system makes use of solutions that do not depend on the speaker’s language – they can be used around the world, irrespective of lan-guage, accent or dialect. The company decided to become a Skolkovo resident to help with further development and gain access to new foreign markets, says STC innovation executive director, In-nokenty Dementev. “We are engaged in research that is very popular and cru-cial in practical work, because public safety is at stake,” he says.

number of venture capital projects and the volume of investments. Russia is taking steps to encourage demand for domestically made innovative prod-ucts.

The country’s largest state corpora-tions – Gazprom, RZD, Rosneft, Rosatom and others – have also adopted pro-grammes to boost innovation.

Until recently, Europe was Russia’s main trading partner, but Asia has been rapidly catching up and is becoming increasingly important on Moscow’s foreign trade agenda.

“We plan to focus more on the Asia-Pacific region,” said Igor Agamirzyan, director of Russian Venture Company, a government fund aimed at develop-ing innovation as a genuine sector.

The Pacific-Rim delegation at the

Sequoia Capital China, China Venture Capital, the Private Equity Association and STIC Investments. The Chinese hold more than US$800 billion in po-tential investment capital.

No contracts were signed at the forum, but plans for future business were hatched.

Moscow forum this month included about 30 representatives from venture capital and direct investment funds that manage resources totalling US$60 bil-lion. China was represented by Citic Capital Holdings, SAIF Partners, CDH Investments, Northern Light Venture Capital, Shenzhen Capital Group Co,

The SmartTracker system makes use of solutions that do not depend on the language of the speaker

The Speech Technology Centre was honoured in New York City.

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Artists are true ‘geniuses’Director gets a surprise from his all-Chinese crew on second collaboration, writes Dina Goder

ANIMATION

Celebrated Russian director Dmitry Geller will soon re-lease his second animated film, which was made in China with an entirely Chi-

nese crew. His first Chinese film, I Saw Mice Bur-

ying a Cat, has been successfully doing the rounds at film festivals for more than a year, winning the Grand Prize in Hi-roshima in August.

Geller’s collaboration with Chinese filmmakers began several years ago, when he was invited to make a speech at the animation school of the Univer-sity of Changchun. The university in-vited him to work with its students. Gel-ler suggested making a film together.

He thought that in order for their film to become a full-scale training course, they had to make up a story with many characters and give one character to each student to “breathe life in it”.

The story had to be constructed in such a way that the inexperience of the animators didn’t show in the film.

The director chose a Russian folk story about a group of mice that joyfully bury a cat. The cat plays dead, peeping from time to time, ready to snatch one of the mice.

There is a similar story in Chi-nese folklore.

“I chose the 40 best students, meaning that 40 mice would be sailing in the same boat along with the dead cat,” Geller says.

“As we were filming, I came up with the idea that those stu-dents who were having trouble with the task would have their mouse thrown overboard; those who were doing a decent job would have their mice featured in the back-ground; and the most talented stu-dents would be working on the lead mouse and the cat.”

This method proved be chaotic: Geller was running from student to student, correcting their projects, while others queued to have their work checked.

He found the students had poor animation skills and had to teach them the basics. This shocked him, the more so because there are just four cinema schools in Russia that train animators and only a few graduates every year, whereas in Chang-chun, Geller worked in just one of sev-eral schools that had 10,000 students.

The number of animation schools has skyrocketed in China, meeting grow-

ing demand from the indus-try, but there are not enough teachers. Geller’s wife, Anna Karpova, drew the charac-ters for the film. She stayed

in Moscow during produc-tion, but Geller managed to find background artists in

China, and he loved them.“They are all geniuses. It is so

hard to choose.” he says. Geller was also impressed by the

desire and work ethic of the stu-dents who had only three months to make the film. He says: “These 20-something students worked 18 hours a day, asking for no breaks,

and no one said that they were tired

In I Saw Mice Burying a Cat, the cat plays dead until he

can get at the mice. The story has been received

with rave reviews and marked Russian director

Dmitry Geller’s (below right) first work in China.

or had a date. Some stayed and worked during university breaks, saying: ‘We’re staying until we get this done’, and you have to remember that these were the only breaks they got. I was greatly in-spired by their attitude.”

The result is a gentle and moving film with two parallel storylines.

The first is the ship sailing in the twi-light, with the dead cat and scurrying mice celebrating the demise of their foe. The second is of a dreamy mouse run-ning in a field, looking at fireflies and listening to the sounds of the festivities in the distance.

When the mouse finally reaches the illuminated boat, it doesn’t have time to learn the reason for the celebration and

becomes the first victim of the cat, which miraculously “comes to life”. The direc-tor maintains that the “innocent always suffer”. We see the innocent mouse rock-ing the sly cat’s cradle in heaven.

The film gained recognition imme-diately, winning the Golden Monkey Award in China as the Best Short Film of the year, and numerous other awards around the world, including Russia. Even before the film was showered with awards, producers from Changchun in-vited Geller to make another film.

This time, he decided not to turn the process into a training session, but wrote the names of his four most talented stu-dents - one is now a teacher of arts at the same university - whom he would like to work with.

He was shocked again. The students had graduated and left by the time he started making Small Pond at the Foot of the Great Wall.

But they all came back to Changchun to work with him for free.

Small Pond at the Foot of the Great Wall tells the sad story of an old artist forced to work on a construction site to the amusement of the peasant work-ers. The film is almost finished.

The motives of the film are clear. Gel-ler juxtaposes a quiet dreamer with a harsh world. This it is not a fairy tale, but a drama. As the credits roll, we see the portrait of an elderly man – a ded-ication to Chinese animation director Te Wei, who died two years ago. Then we see a list of his films, in the middle of which there is a 25-year gap.

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RUSSIA AND GREATER CHINATuesday, October 30, 2012

Anna Kournikova Anna Kournikova is a retired Rus-

sian tennis professional. Her beauty and celebrity status made her one of the best known stars worldwide, despite never winning a WTA singles title. Fans looking for images made her name one of the most common search strings on Google.

She is an ambassador for Popu-lation Services International’s (PSI) Five & Alive programme, which fo-cuses on health issues facing chil-dren younger than five. With the Boys & Girls Club of America, she promotes active lifestyles for young-sters and with PSI, focuses on im-proving the health of the poor and people in developing countries.

Glamour girl still hitting winners after premature exit from tennis, writes Inna Soboleva

Net gain for Kournikova

CELEBRITY

She was the glamour girl of world tennis who earned mil-lions from sponsors. Nine years after hanging up her rac-quet, Anna Kournikova re-

mains in the public eye.Her looks may not have changed but

everything else has.Kournikova has been accused of many

things. Critics say she missed the chance to become a tennis great and that she walked away from the game too early. She has also been blamed for falling for the temptations of show business.

Instead of making her fortune through hard work on the tennis court, she chose advertising, by using her natural gifts of long legs and stunning golden hair. The evidence - she never won a Wom-en’s Tennis Association singles title in nearly 12 years as a professional.

Since her retirement, Kournikova has proved that she’s no bimbo; just differ-ent - one of a kind. “Forgive me for being who I am,” she always tells her critics.

Today, Kournikova lives in Miami with her pop star boyfriend, Enrique Iglesias, whom she met in 2002 on the set of the video for his hit song Escape.

She says she is happy. “We have two dogs, but we haven’t thought about kids yet,” she told Spanish fashion maga-zine S Moda. “I would like to have kids, my own or adopted. But I’m only 31, there’s still time.”

Kournikova still attends celebrity par-ties and does photo shoots for glossy magazines, but says none of this is im-portant.

She has started actively promoting a healthy and active lifestyle, especially among younger Americans.

Together with the popular children’s channel Cartoon Network, she has launched a campaign to get youngsters off the sofa and involved in some kind of healthy activity, even if it isn’t sport.

She has also worked with charities, visiting Russian cities as part of an Aids awareness campaign with Population Services International delegations, and also took part in a malaria-fighting mis-sion in Haiti. She also tours US military

At the height of her career, Anna Kournikova was ranked No 1 in doubles.

bases as part of the United Service Or-ganizations’ programme to entertain troops.

Kournikova’s tennis career got off to an auspicious start. She picked up a rac-quet for the first time when she was five and liked the sport from the start, but for a long time only treated it as a hobby.

She was seven when she realised she had extraordinary talent, started train-ing more seriously and, a year later, won an open tournament in Moscow.

It was at this time that she also start-ed competing internationally.

At the age of 10, she was offered a scholarship at the Nick Bollettieri ten-nis academy in Florida.

In 1991, Kournikova moved to Amer-ica with her mother, where she left a lasting impression on Bollettieri, one of the game’s most prominent coaches.

“Anna is the most promising young talent around,” he once said. “We have seen [Andre] Agassi, [Jim] Courier, [Monica] Seles, but I’m absolutely de-lighted with the way Kournikova plays.”

Success came quickly. At 14, Kournik-ova became the youngest player to win a Federation Cup match and, at 15, she won the world junior championship.

At 16, she reached the Wimbledon semi-finals at her first attempt, some-thing only Chris Evert had managed before.

In 1998, Kournikova broke into the world’s top 20, at No 16. In Key Biscayne, Florida, where she was seeded 23rd, she beat four top 10 players in a four-day period, an achievement no other fe-male has accomplished.

She downed fifth seed Seles, No 9 Conchita Martinez, No 2 Lindsay Davenport, and No 8 Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, be-fore losing the final to No 11 Venus Williams.

Three months later, Kourniko-va beat Steffi Graf on grass at East-bourne in a Wimbledon warm-up tournament. Only three players man-aged to defeat the German on the sur-face throughout the 1990s.

In 1999, she won her first grand slam doubles title with Martina Hin-gis at the Australian Open and they finished the season ranked world No 1 in doubles.

In November 2000, she made it into the singles top 10, reach-ing No 8, for the first and only time.

She would make her last appearance in Hong Kong in 2001, reaching the final of an exhibition tournament be-fore losing to Jelena Dokic and would later win her second Australian Open women’s doubles title in 2002, again with Hingis, but the dreams of those who saw her as the next great champion never came true.

Instead of making her fortune through hard work on the tennis court, she chose advertising

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Salt, saints and sinnersThe streets of Moscow contain a rich blend of history, writes Phoebe Taplin

Moscow’s streets are full of stories.

In a single hour, one might uncover a house with a secret chapel in the

attic, or the convent where a princess and a murderess were imprisoned. Solyanka Street, near Kitai-Gorod metro station, is the first part of the Vladimirka, an an-cient eastwards trade route with sinister connotations - thousands of prisoners walked this way to exile in Siberia.

The name Solyanka comes from the old “Salt Court” (1), where salt was pro-cessed and sold until 1733. The gate of a former orphanage (2) is opposite the church, framed by sculptures of Char-ity and Education. Catherine the Great gave 100,000 roubles to the “Foundling Hospital” and the hospital’s Ballet School was the first in Russia. Several buildings on this road survive from the 19th century and there is a great view from the end of one of Stalin’s seven skyscrapers (3). Turning left uphill along Yauzsky Boulevard, a 1930s apartment block hides an 18th-century mansion

Stanislavsky sent his actors here as preparation for staging Gorky’s play, ‘The Lower Depths’

TOURISM

in the courtyard. From 1812, this house belonged to General Khitrovo, who gave his name to the whole area.

Around the corner on Podkolokolny Lane is the site of the Khitrovka Mar-ket (4), the most notorious slum area in 19th-century Moscow. Stanislavsky sent his actors here as preparation for staging Gorky’s play The Lower Depths. Tolstoy was horrified by the “mass of destitute degenerate humanity” and wrote his essay What Must We Do?

Turn right up Podkopaevsky Lane past the 17th-century church of St Nich-olas. The orange mansion at No 5 once belonged to Boyar Vasily Shuisky who was tsar in the 1600s. Turn left at the end onto Khokhlovsky Lane, named after the 17th-century Ukrainian fash-ion of leaving a long lock of hair or khok-hol on otherwise shaven heads.

The gabled church of “Vladimir in the Old Gardens” at the end of the road takes its name from the imperial or-chards that used to grow on this hill. The Ivanovsky Convent (5) opposite was founded in the 16th century by the wife

of Tsar Vasily III to celebrate the birth of her son, the future Ivan the Terrible. It became a prison for inconvenient no-blewomen, such as Princess Tarakano-va, (daughter of the Empress Elizabeth and her Cossack lover) or the infamous Darya Saltykova, who murdered 138 serfs for faults in their housework. The metro is on Zabelina Street.

Beyond the domes of Varvarka Street is the Kremlin (6). Moscow’s red brick citadel has its share of legends. The round tower on the southeast corner of the walls contains a well and a secret chamber, and is allegedly haunted by the ghost of Ivan Bersenev-Beklemishev,

whose house was next door. Among Moscow’s many fabled underground tunnels are the secret passages of Ivan the Terrible’s lost library. Historian, Ig-natius Stelletski, even persuaded au-thorities to allow him to excavate under the Kremlin in search of it.

Head underground back at Kitai-Gorod to look for the mysterious Metro-2. In Stalin’s time, this huge secret net-work was supposedly constructed underneath the public Moscow metro system and some sections of tunnel def-initely exist. Three stops on the “pink line” bring you to Barrikadnaya, near Moscow Zoo. The Stalin-era Kudrins-kaya skyscraper (7) opposite the metro was built by gulag prisoners. Legend has it that the foreman threw one work-er into the wet concrete. Across the gar-den ring is Chekhov’s house (8); the plaque on the front door still reads: “Doctor A.P. Chekhov”.

The first house on Malaya Nikitskaya Ulitsa is the Tunisian Embassy (9). This mansion used to belong to the infamous Lavrenty Beria, head of Stalin’s Secret

Service and the bodies of girls he mur-dered were discovered in the garden. More cheerful is the Gorky House (10) museum at the far end of the street. The incredible interior has three distinct pres-ences: the architect, who designed the underwater-scape ground floor and the sculpted staircase leading up to a jelly-fish lamp and pillar topped by writhing silver lizards; the merchant who com-missioned the house and had a secret chapel built in the attic; and the writer, Maxim Gorky, who lived (reluctantly) in the house during his final six years.

Turn left along Ulitsa Spiridonovka and follow it until you come to the goth-ic castle of the Morozov mansion with turrets and dragon gargoyles. Take the next right turn to reach the Patriarch’s Pond (11). In medieval times, before Pa-triarch Job drained the area to create fish-ponds, the area was said to be haunted. The opening scenes of Bulgakov’s Mas-ter and Margarita, where the devil ap-pears, take place here. Bulgakov’s house (12) is just around the corner on the way to the Mayakovskaya metro.

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RUSSIA AND GREATER CHINATuesday, October 30, 2012

Vegetables

HerringLard or ham

Meat jellySalad Olivier

Vegetables preserved in different ways: steeped, soured or salted. The most popular ones preserved in this manner are cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage with cranberries or blue-berries, and Antonovsky apples (a special sweet and sour variety of ap-

Herring is the most popular fish to eat with vodka. Pieces are thickly sprinkled with onions and chopped greens and flavoured with sunflower oil and vinegar.

The most delicious lard is from the bottom of the pork carcass.

Podcherevina, as it is called, is a thin piece that usually consists of three or four layers of meat. The lard

The jelly from a pig’s head, rich beef bones and rooster are especially popular, because the broth creates a rich amber colour and has a particu-lar taste.

ple found in Russia). The vegetables are especially tasty when they are steeped and salted in oak barrels. They are usually served chilled with vodka; sometimes before a feast, they are also chilled by being placed in the snow.

Herring is served with boiled po-tatoes and garnished with butter, chopped dill and rye bread. The com-bination of vodka, herring and pota-to is considered a Russian classic.

is especially tasty if the skin is tarred with straw and twisted into braids.

Podcherevina is typically served chilled alongside raw onion bulbs or garlic.

The Russian root horseradish is grated and traditionally served with various kinds of meat jelly. Mustard can also be used instead of horse-radish.

The most famous Russian salad is the Olivier. Another well-known, but less popular, is beetroot salad. The Olivier is a mixture of finely chopped boiled eggs, sausages and marinated

Entering into the right spirit

cucumbers, seasoned with mayon-naise. Beetroot salad is made with kraut, boiled beets and white beans. Salads are an essential part of any Russian meal before the new year.

Drinking vodka is an important cultural tradition with a centuries-old history to it, writes Sergei Roganov

Despite the seemingly simple business of drinking vodka, it is encumbered with rules developed over centuries.

For many visitors to Rus-sia, the main trial is the so-called “vodka test”, when your head is splitting the morning after moderate drinking.

Vodka is a serious drink with its own culture. To begin with, vodka should be chilled; a bottle can even be chilled in the snow, if need be.

Drink it all in one go. No matter how much someone has poured in your glass, you have to down it all at once. That’s because with vodka “you don’t leave any for later” and “only poor peo-ple look to see how much has been poured”. But, of course, it’s better to use short liquor glasses or shot glasses.

Don’t dilute it. Diluting vodka with Coca Cola or fruit juice is a sign of weak-ness and of the pernicious influence of the West. In some places, the fruit juice often costs more than the vodka.

Make up a threesome. Drinking on your own, even in a drinking establish-ment, is considered one of the first signs of alcoholism, but it doesn’t matter how much you drink in company.

These rules serve as an outline for the ritual actions to be performed when you’re drinking with people. Everyone drinks the same amount at the same time. And having a drink without any form of ceremony is a sign of bad man-ners. You have to propose a toast be-fore every drink. Contrary to popular belief, people in Russia don’t simply say “Za zdorovye!” [“To good health!”] as the equivalent of “Cheers!” or “Salut!”. Each person takes it in turn to propose a toast, and the toasts are always differ-ent. However, we could mention the most common ones, such as: “Here’s to everything!” “To our parents!” and “One for the road!”

There are also some additional rules, not always mandatory, such as: “After the first, you don’t eat anything with it!”, “There’s only a little pause between the first and the second!”, and “Having beer without vodka is throwing money away!”

And, of course, after every vodka one should have a snack, and here Russian culture really amazes with a variety and abundance of snacks “to go with vodka”.

The most popular are “borsch” or “schee” - rich, thick, meaty cabbage soups with boiled or roasted meat – beef or veal “pelmeny” - Siberian dumplings. But more often, vodka is drunk only with zakuska or cold snacks.

Make it a threesome. Drinking on your own is considered a sign of alcoholism

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Local war gamers relive horrors of Chechen ‘hell’

CITY

Memories of a bygone era Filmmaker Deimantas Narkevicius excavates disparate images from the past, writes Diana d’Arenberg

Flashes of a boot, a birch-tree forest, an imposing grey Sovi-et-era socialist realist statue dusted with snow, the echo-ing voice of a distant narrator.

The symbols are all there – voice, mov-ing pictures and drawings pieced to-gether as fragments of memory and carefully laid out on film to tell the story of a forgotten past.

The 2003 film is entitled The Role of a Lifetime and was shown recently at Hong Kong’s non-profit art space, Para/Site. The work is one of three by Lithu-anian artist Deimantas Narkevicius for his exhibition, Deimantas Narkevicius: About Films.

Narkevicius is well known for insert-ing different kinds of media into his work, often using random images from the past to underscore the realities of the present. He once said: “Although my works deal with contemporary themes, the underlying problems usu-ally go back a long time. I started my work as an artist in a period of dynam-ic change for my society. The stress and neurosis caused by the dynamism di-verted this society from both historical reflection and future concerns.”

The exhibition, his first in Asia, was curated by Romanian-born Cosmin Costinas, who has been introducing art-ists from Eastern Europe and the for-mer Soviet bloc to Hong Kong.

Born in Utena, Lithuania, Narkevicius gained international recognition when he represented Lithuania in 2001 at the 49th Venice Biennale. He has been called one of “the most representative artists of his generation”, and testament to that is a string of exhibitions and screenings from the New Museum in New York to the BFI Southbank Gal-lery, London.

An art student from the age of 14, Narkevicius graduated as a sculptor, but became interested in site-specific ob-jects after a visit to London in 1992. This interest evolved into interviews and film-ing – the perfect medium to express a

Deimantas Narkevicius uses cinematography to explore Soviet history.

narrative. He uses cinematography to explore Soviet and subjective history. His films, essentially documentaries, examine the relationship of memory to political histories.

Employing documentary footage, voice-overs, interviews and photographs

Shirley Lau

Russia’s wars in Chechnya, which still bring back painful memories for those involved in them, more than 10 years ago, are the inspiration for Hong Kong’s war gamers, eager to reconstruct battle scenes down to the smallest detail.

While few in Hong Kong know the history of the two Chechen wars, a gen-eral idea of the level of violence in both conflicts is enough to encourage an id-iosyncratic interest among Hong Kong’s war gamers in posing as Russian sol-diers and Chechen separatists strug-gling for supremacy in the North Cau-casus in the 1990s and 2000s.

Recently, Wing Wong, a 27-year-old advertising professional, headed to Sheung Shui with two war-game friends and a three-strong photography crew. On their arrival at an abandoned school, their imaginary world of military he-roes was brought vividly to life as they put on drab green military attire and helmets, filled their pouches with ar-my-issue water bottles, and armed themselves to the teeth with Russian-style fake guns.

The attention to detail was remark-able. One of them wrapped a grubby, red-painted bandage around his hand, as if he had sustained a minor injury from a skirmish.

To increase the drama, the team sprayed Russian graffiti on a wall, read-ing “welcome to hell” – the now-famous words heard by a Russian communica-tions officer on his headset during the Battle of Grozny in 1994.

All this fuss was meant for a photo shoot of the three young Hong Kong men’s portrayal of soldiers during the first Chechen war in the mid-1990s.

“In the war game scenes, many peo-ple like to play roles. A lot of times it is American soldiers who are imitated. But we want to try something different,” says Wong, who started playing war games about six years ago. “The Russian style is for us somewhere between raw and sophisticated. And this role playing ... makes you feel somewhat manly.”

When engaging in their usual war games in the New Territories, Wong and his mates are normally clad in casual street clothes with no dress code. But when it comes to posing for pictures,

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he creates a visual collage of historical events, retold through narrative story-telling. “Most of my generation in East-ern Europe saw the world through tel-evision in an era when the world started to become media-ised,” he says.

“The films we saw on our TV were from the Soviet Union and they were visually rich.”

Using visual archives, documentary and voice-overs, he creates a nostalgic mood. There is a “melancholy implied in the representation of memory”, says Costinas, such as in Disappearance of a Tribe (2005), in which Narkevicius uses old personal photographs to tell the story of his late father.

the team members make sure they leave no stone unturned. A large portion of their clothing and gear are sourced from Russia. Wong stresses that his team has done extensive research on the history of the Chechen wars and they have dis-covered some interesting facts.

“The Russian armoured vehicle used in the Chechen war in the 1990s, for example, was very different from the vehicles used in the West. Soldiers often stood on top of the vehicle, which could be very dangerous. But that was because it was a bit too low and small for them,” Wong explains.

The team is now planning on anoth-er photo shoot, this time portraying as soldiers in the second Chechen war.

But is it okay to take pleasure in two wars that cost some 150,000 lives?

“I’m aware of the level of violence. But I don’t take sides,” Wong says.

Most of my generation in Eastern Europe saw the world through television

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