Russia Beyond the Headlines – A new horizon beckons to the east

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Feature
Thursday, 15 November, 2012
Trade In a change of emphasis away from Europe, Russia predicts foreign trade will balance in favour of Asia within five years
IN THIS ISSUE
A new horizon beckons to the east
AUSTRALIA
Canberra, Moscow:
After APEC, what's next?
While hosting the APEC summit
in Vladivostok, Russia
highlighted its expectations for
greater trade with the AsiaPacific region.
Australians in Russia
Loving the life, but ... where's
the seafood?
ARTEM ZAGORODNOV
PAGE 2
SPECIAL REPORT
What does it mean to be
'Made in Russia'?
© VITALY ANKOV_RIA NOVOSTI
Big foreign car maker finds a
way to avoid Russian import
taxes.
PAGE 5
VITALY RASKALOV
TRAVEL
The east's Golden Horn
tween Russia and Australia are
developing quite successfully.
Last year, our trade turnover exceeded $US1 billion and, in
2012, we have already recorded
a 30 per cent increase in supplies over last year.”
The APEC summit provided
a platform for discussion on the
risks and opportunities of free
trade, resulting in a number of
The Russky Island bridge in
Vladivostok,
the longest cable-stay bridge
in the world, is
just one of the
big recent infrastructure
upgrades in
the region.
significant investment deals for
Russia’s far east.
New investment projects included the launch inVladivostok
of the first Mazda assembly line
outside of Japan – the launch
was attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin immediately before the summit – a Hyundai engine plant and a deal with
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshi-
hiko Noda to build a liquefied
natural gas (LNG) plant outside
Vladivostok. A similar plant built
in conjunction with American
and Japanese firms opened on
nearby Sakhalin Island in 2009;
the project transformed Sakhalin from a debtor into one of Russia’s few regional donors to the
federal budget.
The key purpose of the sum-
Next year Russia will host the
Rugby Sevens World Cup, an
event organisers hope will
inspire a new generation of
players and fans.
LEO ZAITSEV
RUSSIA took part in the rugby
World Cup for the first time last
year, losing all its four matches
and finishing last in its group.
But it did leave its mark on the
world's premier rugby tournament.
Not only did the Russian Bears
set a new fashion for winter hats
with ear flaps, they also scored
three tries against Australia, despite being comprehensively beaten 68–22. No other team scored
that many points against the Wallabies during the tournament. In
all, the Russians scored eight tries,
REUTERS/VOSTOCK-PHOTO
SPECIAL TO RBTH
Russian Vasily Artemyev takes a high ball during the World Cup.
setting a record for tournament
newcomers.
The Russian team approached
the 2011 World Cup by embracing the Olympic creed: "The most
important thing in the Olympic
Games is not to win but to take
part ... " That the team made it
to the World Cup's final stage
was a huge achievement for a
country where rugby continues
to be viewed as an exotic sport.
growth rates in the far east.
Within 10 years, we want our
trade volume with APEC states
to be greater than with the EU
(European Union)." While the
EU accounts for around half of
Russia’s foreign trade at about
$US320 billion ($A310 billion),
APEC trade stands at less than
CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
Fashion Traditional felt footwear take on Uggs
Sport Russia hopes to break its way into the global rugby elite
Rugby enthusiasts count
on tournament to provide
a big leap forward
mit, however, was summed up
by Russian First Deputy Prime
Minister Igor Shuvalov at one
of the opening sessions: “All of
the infrastructure is in place
aroundVladivostok now – a new
airport, roads, railroads, educational and medical facilities.
Within five years, our foreign
trade should balance in favour
of Asia and guarantee high
But for the quirks and timing of world history, Russia’s
international debut may have
turned out far differently from
the one in which it suffered that
big defeat to Australia last year.
Why? Russia produced one of
the greatest rugby players the
world has ever seen. In 1916,
Prince Alexander Obolensky
was born in Petrograd, capital
of the Russian Empire. But, like
many of the Russian nobility
at the time of the Bolshevik
Revolution, Obolensky and his
parents fled Russia for England
when the boy was just three.
He went on to study at Oxford
University and earned two
rugby Blues playing on the
wing.
Obolensky quickly became
one of England’s best players;
in 1936, the 'Flying Prince', as
his fans called him, was granted British citizenship and was
selected for the country’s national team, scoring two tries
in an epic England victory over
New Zealand - the first time
England had beaten NZ.
Two years ago, a statue to the
great Obolensky was unveiled
in the English town of Ipswich,
CONTINUED ON PAGE 8
The glamorous renaissance of
Russia's 'San Francisco'
Day trips in Vladivostok
Nature, history and the world's
longest street await visitors
PAGE 7
ONLY AT RBTH.RU
NASA
Your grandmother may
give this trend the boot
Valenki, worn for centuries in
Russian villages, have come back
into fashion thanks to an unlikely
intruder – the trendy Australian
brand Ugg.
Russia's space agency sets its
sights on Mars
EKATERINA ZABROVSKAYA
A FEW years ago, Russian journalist Natasha Nemirova proudly posted in her internet blog
some pictures of her latest fashion find: a pair of valenki – traditional Russian felt boots – coloured white, with blue flowers
embroidered on them.
At the time, Nemirova’s decision to choose valenki for her
winter wear put her in the minority among fashion-conscious
Muscovites. Everywhere, people
were wearing Uggs.
“I didn’t want to buy Uggs for
two reasons,”Ms Nemirova said.
“First, it is not that easy to find
real Uggs. Our shoe stores are
filled with fake ones. Second,
everyone is wearing Uggs.”
Although Russians have been
RBTH.RU/18273
© ALEXEY DANICHEV_RIA NOVOSTI
RUSSIA is quickly shifting the
focus of its trade policies to Asia,
after centuries of concentrating
on Europe.
Fresh from hosting the AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) summit in its Pacific
coast city of Vladivostok in September, Russia is strengthening
its links with Asia-Pacific neighbours through new initiatives.
Vladivostok’s reconstruction
for the 24th APEC CEO summit
was achieved on time, without
a hitch. David Gray, managing
director of PricewaterhouseCoopers, said on the final day of
the summit:“Costs aside, the development they did here inVladivostok will allow Moscow-based
expats like me to convince our
bosses in London, New York or
wherever about the benefits of
long-term investment in Russia’s
regions. Now they’ve seen it with
their own eyes.”
He added: “A few months ago
people were saying the summit
would be a disaster. They said
we’d be living in tents; the bridge
wouldn’t be ready and we’d be
taking the ferry to Russky Island. Now that’s all been quickly forgotten.”
Moscow’s shift in focus to Asia
also comes at a time of improving trade links between Australia and Russia. Vadim Saltykovsky, deputy chairman of the
Committee for Economic Cooperation with Asia and Oceania
of the Chamber of Commerce
and Industry of Russia, said in
an interview with Russia Beyond
the Headlines: “Relations be-
ITAR-TASS
wearing valenki for centuries,
they lost much of their appeal
for Russia’s urbanites in the middle of the 20th century. Traditional valenki were made of dried
sheep’s wool and had no hard
soles. They were usually produced only in black, gray or
CONTINUED ON PAGE 3
Young Russians are fond
of the new, redesigned, traditional felt
boots called
valenki.
Does anyone really pay $1000
for dinner in Moscow?
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LETTER FROM CANBERRA
QUESTIONS&ANSWERS
Pursuing 'excellent prospects'
Why Russia and Australia
can forge a solid partnership
Vladimir Morozov
RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR
TO AUSTRALIA
BILATERAL relations between
Russia and Australia are hampered by a lack of information
about possibilities on both sides,
says Vadim Saltykovsky, deputy chairman of the Committee
for Economic Cooperation with
Asia and Oceania of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry
of Russia. He spoke to Ekaterina Zabrovskaya of RBTH about
ways to fill this vacuum, as well
as about prospects for simpler
visa formalities between the two
countries and better cooperation across a range of areas.
VIEW FROM ABROAD
Oh, for seafood
and roast lamb
Alexander
Higgs
JOURNALIST
Are there any big Australian companies working in Russia? And
is Australian business becoming
more interested in Russia?
Of the big Australian companies operating in Russia I should
mention Tiger, which is engaged
in coal mining in Chukotka, and
the pharmaceutical company
Solagran, which was founded
by a Russian emigrant. It works
in the Tomsk Region, producing medications from Altai
herbs. These are the two biggest
Australian projects in Russia.
We would certainly like to have
more partners of this kind.
What needs to be done to enhance the appeal of Russian projects for Australian business?
First, we need to improve the
business environment in the
country. Second, we should fill
the information vacuum between Russia and Australia. We
are unaware of what happens
there and they don’t know what
is going on here.
We should also promote town
twinning. For example, we
signed an agreement between
Perth and St Petersburg five
years ago, but very little has
been achieved since then.
The main thing is that there
is no framework investment
agreement between the governments to regulate investment
exchange between the two countries.
Nevertheless, the Australian
Embassy in Russia reports an
increasing number of Australian tourists visiting the country: the number has doubled
over the past two or three years.
Last year, about 60,000 Austral-
5
FACTS ABOUT SYDNEY
AND MOSCOW
How would you describe the status of bilateral trade relations between Russia and Australia? What
are the focus areas of these relations?
Relations between Russia and
Australia are developing quite
successfully. Last year, our trade
turnover exceeded $US1 billion
and, in 2012, we have already
recorded a 30 per cent increase
in supplies over last year. Naturally, exports and imports are
not balanced, but this is also
true for many other trade partners.
Flashback: Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Dmitry Medvedev, then-Russian President and now Prime Minister, at APEC in 2011.
ians received Russian visas,
which is a good result, given the
distance between the countries.
It seems to me that this area for
cooperation still has a potential
that needs exploiting.
There have been reports that the
Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service plans to hold another round of talks over possible
resumption of kangaroo meat
supplies to Russia. Could you
elaborate?
We did, indeed, halt kangaroo
meat deliveries. It wasn’t a political move. There were some ingredients in the meat that might
have caused problems for consumers. During the G20 summit,
Australian Prime Minister Julia
Gillard discussed this issue with
then-President Dmitry Medvedev, who said that we didn’t mind
opening up this market but that
the problem should be resolved.
What about Russian business in
Australia? Are there any big companies operating there? Is Russian
business showing more interest in
Australia?
I’d start with the Baltika brewery, which has bought into several Australian beer companies
and sells its beer in Australia –
it is the best-known Russian
brand in Australia.
Sydney is seven
hours ahead of Moscow. Vladivostok,
the largest Russian port
on the Pacific Ocean, is
located in the same time
zone as the east coast of
Australia.
1 How did you end up in Russia?
I majored in Russian studies but it
was like learning the piano by correspondence – you need the practical
experience. I’ve had a lifelong interest in Russia, so I became an English
teacher in order to come and work
here. That was a great way to meet
people and hear different points of
view. I hadn’t intended to stay so
long, but I married a local.
What has been challenging about
living in Russia?
There’s a perception that you either
speak Russian like a native or you
don’t speak it at all. I’ve lost count
of the number of times I’ve been
asked “So, you don’t understand
Russian at all?” and replied, “How
do you think we’ve been talking to
each other?”
Of course, there’s the usual bureaucracy, the lack of smiles in shops
and in the streets. Still, that’s just
stuff you get used to.
What do you miss about Australia?
I miss the beaches, having a garden
and outdoor living in general. Foodwise I miss the tender roast lambs,
the quality of the produce generally.
Campbell
Bethwaite
Merchandise trade between Australia and Russia (in $Am)
SOURCE: RUSSIAN TRADE MISSION IN AUSTRALIA
Second, Kaspersky Lab has
an office in Sydney and enjoys
a strong demand for its products in Australia. When it comes
to Norilsk Nickel and RusAl, as
I understand it, they have
bought several deposits in Australia but have not started developing them yet.
In your opinion, what is the future
of the bilateral relations between
Russia and Australia?
We need to create more opportunities for contacts in various
areas. For example, the Australian side has asked us to help
organise a tour of the Mariinsky Theatre to Australia after a
20-year gap.
I believe these areas – culture,
cooperation between universities and twin-city relations –
have excellent prospects.
In the trade sector, we need
to increase supply volumes. We
might also think about mutual
payments in national currencies
– we seem to have sufficient
trade volumes. The third thing
The distance between Sydney and Moscow is 14,492 kilometres. If there were
a direct flight between these cities, the
flying time would be about 16 hours. The nearest airport to Moscow is Sheremetyevo Airport
(SVO). To enter Russia as a tourist, Australians
require a visa. Tourist visas are good for no
longer than 30 days.
2 is establishing joint investment
alliances in third countries. We
might also negotiate exchanges
of specialists. Australia is short
of specialists in the mining industry. We know that many Australian mining companies would
like to invite Russian specialists – engineers and operators
– to work for four to six weeks
on a rotational basis. We would
also like to have our specialists
work there – it would be a good
chance to develop personal relations.
ENTREPRENEUR
How did you end up in Russia?
My boss at the investment bank in
America I was working at asked me
casually in a lift one day if I’d like
to work in Moscow, and I said yes.
So here I am, and I’ve been here
six years.
I like the pace of life here, and the
fact that when you wake up each
day, you have no idea what will
happen next.
What has been challenging about
living in Russia?
As a foreigner who came to Russia not knowing any Russian, it was
difficult to become fluent in the
language. It was a painful process.
Apart from the usual challenges –
the climate, the traffic, the corruption – it is sometimes difficult to
get things done here.
What do you miss about Australia?
I miss the outdoor lifestyle – here
in Moscow, for nine months a year
you mostly have to stay inside. It's
very different from back home in
Sydney.
I miss sports.
I also miss the fantastic fresh Aussie
fruit and vegetables, and particularly fresh seafood.
Russian-Australian boxer Kostya
Tszyu, who moved
to Sydney in 1991, won four
world light welterweight titles.
He has returned to Russia and is
training leading boxers, according to
latest reports.
3 HIS year marks the 70th
anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic
relations between Russia
and Australia. But while diplomatic relations were established
on October 10, 1942, our countries have a rich history of cooperation that dates back more
than 200 years. The first Russians to arrive in Australia were
Leonty Gagemeister and the
crew of the sloop Neva, which
sailed into Port Jackson (now
Sydney) in 1807 to stock up on
supplies en route to Russia’s colonies in North America. Russia
was then an ally of the UK
against Napoleon's troops, and
the governor of NSW, William
Bligh, held a ball in honour of
the Russian sailors.
T
It was in 1807 when
the first Russians to
arrive in Australia
sailed into Port
Jackson on the Neva.
During the 19th century, Australia was visited by many famous Russian explorers, including Fabian Gottleib von
Bellinsgausen, Mikhail Lazarev, Ivan Krusenstern and Ivan
Vasilev. Nikolai Miklukho-Maclay, a famous Russian anthropologist and ethnographer, settled in Australia and married
Margaret-Emma Clark, widowed daughter of Sir John Robertson, the premier of NSW. His
legacy includes the Marine Biological Station at Sydney's
Watsons Bay.
After the Crimean War (18531856) and the renewal of Russian-British trade relations, the
first Russian consulate was established in Australia and in
the early 20th century, Russia's
diplomatic network extended
to Sydney, Brisbane, Darwin,
Hobart, Newcastle and Perth.
However, following the Russian
Revolution of 1917, official relations between the two countries endured a long hiatus.
Full diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and
Australia were finally established at the height World War
II. On October 10, 1942, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR Vyacheslav
Molotov and Australia's External Affairs Minister, Herbert
Evatt, agreed to exchange diplomatic representatives. Nevertheless, until the early 1990s
relations were uneasy. After the
fall of the Soviet Union, the
mutual desire to grow political, economic and trade ties
prompted Moscow and Canberra to reconsider their approach to each other.
In recent years, Russian-Aus-
Vladimir Putin became the first Russian president to visit Australia when
he attended the APEC Leaders Week
in Sydney in 2007. President Putin signed an
agreement with Australia for the export of uranium for use in Russia's civil nuclear power
program. The fuel is for domestic civil use only,
under the nuclear safeguards agreement.
4 tralian relations have shown dynamic development. Political
contacts have expanded, including at the highest levels. The
countries' foreign ministries are
engaged in a strategic dialogue,
and hold regular ministerial consultations on key regional and
international issues. Our countries see eye to eye on a number
of key global issues, including
strategic stability and security,
the fight against international
terrorism, trade liberalisation
and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Russia looks forward to fruitful cooperation with Australia
under the UN Security Council,
and collaboration in key regional spheres — APEC, the ASEAN
Regional Forum on security, East
Asia Summits and the G20 — is
also continuing apace.
Contacts between the countries' business communities have
also seen growth. Of particular
interest are the fields of mining,
agriculture, energy, including nuclear energy, space, IT, telecommunications and biomedicine.
The opportunities are manifold.
Other highly promising partnership vectors include humanitarian relations, education and
sport. Student exchanges and direct contacts between universities and research centres are in
full swing. Also, this has been a
landmark year in terms of our
cultural relationship. Many people in Australia are well acquainted with Russia’s long history of cultural accomplishments,
so it was pleasing to see the reception given the Eifman Ballet
Theatre, the Imperial Ballet and
the Russian National Ballet this
year. Huge interest has also been
The past 70 years of
diplomatic relations
have laid a solid
foundation for true
friendship.
shown in the exhibition Alexander the Great, to be presented
by the State Hermitage. Scheduled for 2013 are tours by the
Bolshoi Theatre and the Hermitage's new exhibition, Catherine
the Great.
The binding role played by my
compatriots is important. As an
integral part of Australia's multicultural society, the Russian
community contributes enormously to our bilateral ties, enabling Australians to better understand Russia.
Overall, the past 70 years of
diplomatic relations have laid a
solid foundation for the development of true friendship, and
have clearly outlined that only
by working together can we improve bilateral cooperation, solve
the complex issues facing the
world economy, and respond to
the serious political challenges
ahead.
Sydney’s St Vladimir Cathedral was Australia’s first Russian Orthodox cathedral when it
opened in 1938 to mark the 950th anniversary of the baptism in Russia.
According to the 2011 census, 2.6
per cent of Australia's population
identify as Orthodox.
5 Our news, your language
WELCOME to the first Australian
edition of Russia Beyond the
Headlines, appearing with The
Sydney Morning Herald and The
Age. We hope you will find it enlightening and engaging.
The aim of Russia Beyond the
Headlines is to introduce you to
our country through compelling
stories, insightful opinions, and
analysis that encourages readers to discover more.
Russia is a diverse and complex country in a state of major
transformation, still coming to
terms with its long – sometimes
painful, sometimes curious – history. We believe this can only be
understood through in-depth
analysis. Even so, Russia punch-
es below its weight in global media.
We aim to address that with stories
that are topical, enjoyable and –
above all - objective. Many of these
stories are ones that currently fall
under the radar of major international news outlets.
Our authors are professional journalists who write for well-known
publications in Russia and internationally, while our expert columnists embrace a wide range of views
about Russia's future and its place
in the world.
Sitting in Moscow, it’s easy to forget that Russia is a part of the AsiaPacific region, so it is especially important for us to reach out to
people across this part of the world
to tell our story. We already publish
in China, Hong Kong, India and
Japan, and as Russia is this year
celebrating its first chairmanship of
the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and 70 years of diplomatic relations with Australia, the
timing for our first edition could not
be better.
However, despite this long-established relationship, Australia remains
a very distant place in the mind of
many Russians. As a result, there is
much room for development in Russia's political and economic relationship with Australia.
I recently made my first trip to
Australia and found it a fascinating
place — one that I want to learn
more about and visit again. We hope
that our publication will encourage
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We hope you enjoy our publication, and we look forward to hearing from you!
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RBTH PUBLISHER
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3
beautiful.
Most importantly, they have
soles.”
Today, valenki come in various colours and
are embroidered with designs ranging
from ones aimed at
children to elaborate modern
concepts. They can be decorated with print or made with fur
trim. They are not just keeping
Russian city goers' feet warm in
winter, they are glamorous, customised pieces of folk art.
“They are popular among
young and old, rich and poor.
There is a great variety of models – short and tall; for slim feet
or for stout ones; with narrow
or wide top. Some of them (have)
flowers or snowflakes to appeal
to a younger audience. Some valenki are more traditional, black
or white. The choice is indeed
tremendous,” Mr Larin said.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
How to make
Russian felt boots
The word "valenki" derives from
"valenok", which means "to felt".
Traditional valenki are made by
rubbing together raw wool fibers until they begin to felt. The
first piece of material is placed on
a boot mold and additional pieces of wool are felted and attached
to the original piece of wool with
a felting needle until the material
covers the mold. The boot is left
on the mold for at least 24 hours
until it hardens.
Once the boot is hard, it can be
embellished with embroidery or
decorations either by sewing patterns into the felt or pressing dyed,
felted material into the upper of
the boot.
Today, about 4.5 million pairs of
valenki are produced in Russia annually.
PHOTOGALLERY
Check out
the production
process
for valenki.
1. Valenki are featuring in
magazine fashion
spreads. 2. Embroidered
valenki 3. Valenki with
leather trim 4. Valenki in the
traditional style with attached
rubber overshoes.
Denis Detkovskii, head of the
sales department at the Russian
footwear producer Elche, claims
that his company was the first
to produce “the new valenki”,or
city valenki.
“Our company started producing them three years ago. There
was nothing like today’s valenki
4
ANTON MOISEENKO
SPECIAL TO RBTH
IN 2008, thanks to trade promotion organisation Wine Australia, I took my first trip to Australia’s wine regions – from
Margaret River and Mount Barker, to the Barossa and Clare Valley, to the Hunter in New South
Wales. At that time, Australian
wines were in the spotlight in
Russia, as were other New World
wines. In this era before the global economic crisis, the market
was booming – at least, in Russian terms, which meant a rising level of imports and consumption reaching 6 litres of
wine per capita a year. I came
back from my trip inspired about
the brilliant future of Australian wines in Russia – partially
because of the interest in New
World wines in general, but also
because Australian wines are
warm-climate wines, mostly reds,
aromatic, dense, full-bodied and
rich – perfectly suited for the
GETTY IMAGES/FOTOBANK
Drops from Down Under kept a secret
colder Russian conditions.
But much has changed since
2008. The Russian wine market
has suffered serious shrinkage
and a consolidation of players,
and as a result some smaller importers have disappeared. While
today there are still Australian
wines in the portfolios of major
wine importers, the number of
events aimed at promoting these
wines and the flow of information from official bodies whose
job it is to create awareness of
the attributes of wines from
around the world are miniscule.
Wine Australia also went through
a big management change and
today the focus of its United
Kingdom-based office is a long
way from Russia.
As Aaron Brasher, Wine Australia's regional director for Australia and emerging markets,
wrote in an email: “Wine Australia’s position in Russia is a
passive one. We work with Austrade to identify any opportunities and resource accordingly.
Russia currently is not a priority market and there are numerous barriers to entry. It is a market that we continually monitor
to assess the environment”.
Australian red wines – aromatic, dense, full-bodied and rich.
There are Australian
wines in the portfolios
of importers, but the
number of promotional
events is miniscule.
Fewer activities and less consumer education both mean
smaller market share. Although
Russian wine drinkers are open
to trying new things, the knowledge of a general Russian con-
sumer about Australian wines
is limited to shiraz and possibly
the Yellow Tail label, if they recall the name. Olga Olefir, head
of the corporate department of
the MBG wine importer, described some of the challenges
Australian imports face in Russia: “The Penfolds dinner with
Russian clients gave us some interesting insights on the performance of top Australian wines.
This flagship wine from Barossa
is virtually unknown even among
Clothes by a free
spirit, tied to history
The fashion team behind OMSK
Belgium are happy to explain
why trend-setters around the
world are suddenly wearing the
image of Leo Tolstoy.
MARIA AFONINA
SLAVA PETRAKINA
IN 2002, Valeria, a slender
25-year-old blonde with Russian
origins, graduated from La Cambre Art School of Brussels, where
she studied fashion. She went
on to present her graduation collection, called OMSK, in France.
At the Hyères International Festival of Fashion and Photography, the collection was awarded
the Henri Bendel prize and was
bought by the eponymous New
York store.
At the time Valeria had just
broken up with her boyfriend,
and she was able to channel some
of those painful feelings into her
collection. She worked through
that difficult time by imagining
herself surrounded by free-spirited girls who go travelling all
over the world and always come
back with something fresh and
exciting. Out of this idea came
the brand GIRLS FROM OMSK.
Valeria's ‘girls’ are fictional
Lolitas that have leapt from the
pages of Vladimir Nabokov’s
novel. They live in the Siberian
city of Omsk, and share a burning desire to jump on a motorbike and discover what the world
has to offer. By 2007, the first
collection was ready. It was in a
streetwear style: jeans, t-shirts
with bright prints and jackets.
Over the past five years, the girls
travelled to Los Angeles, New
York, London, Berlin, Rome and
Moscow, always bringing back
fresh fashion ideas.
In winter 2010, the girls visited Paris and came back with
a more feminine look. Streetwear
had become casual fashion. "We
started using higher quality fabrics, and began making elegant
clothing, but with a touch of humour and offering something
quirky and alternative. And we
changed our name from GIRLS
FROM OMSK to simply OMSK,
so that the guys wearing our
clothes would feel more comfortable,” said Valeria.
Valeria is the designer and the
driver behind the company, but
she’s not completely alone.
Designer Valeria's Russian ancestry inspires her brand, OMSK.
OMSK Icons shirts feature famous figures from Russian culture.
"We're trying to offer
something new, not
only visually but also
intellectually," said
Valeria of OMSK.
Philippe Koeune manages the
commercial side of the business
and designs the men's collection.
Irina Kikina, a textile designer
working in London for various
labels, also helps the BelgianRussian label with graphics.
"You can find our clothes in
multi-brand stores in many
countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Spain, Hong
Kong etc), but now we feel it’s
more profitable to develop online trading, rather than open
our own store," said Valeria.
According to Koeune, who
looks after the commercial side
of things, at the moment online
sales bring in 25 per cent of their
revenue, but the company hopes
to expand this sector.
Valeria, whose father was born
in Omsk, thus providing the Siberian connection, expresses her
Russian origins in another of the
label’s quirky offerings - OMSK
ICONS. This sub-label features
t-shirts and sweatshirts printed
with the images of certain famous figures from Russian culture and history, including writers Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy
and Vladimir Mayakovsky, and
musicians Viktor Tsoi and
Vladimir Vysotsky. "We try not
to bang on about our history.
Maybe some people aren’t interested in knowing who the guy
with the beard is on their t-shirt,
but we’re trying to offer something new, not only visually, but
also intellectually," said Valeria.
AT THE TABLE
Wine Russia's wine market has room for Australian vintages – if anyone knew about them.
Australian wines are particularly
suited to the Russian climate,
but Russian wine drinkers know
little about them because of
very few promotional events.
Designers OMSK features Russian icons with a European twist
PRESS SERVICE(3)
Valenki get a
makeover and make
a comeback
on the market back then. Three
years ago, our designers created
new models and developed new
looks. We started showing them
at various exhibitions, and people got truly interested,”Mr Detkosvkii said.
The city valenki were relatively inexpensive and very light, he
added.“They are coming to take
Uggs' place!”
The competition between
Uggs and valenki has been attracting plenty of popular attention in Russia.Various groups
on social networks and blogs are
consumed by the debate over
which brand is more hip. Mr
Larin, from the Uggi-Valenki internet store, even included a
counter on his website to show
the sales of Uggs compared with
those of valenki.
“The competition is very tight.
They are battling neck and neck,”
Mr Larin said.
Tatyana Efimova, who is from
a family who have been felting
valenki for 15 years, agreed with
Mr Larin. “I do feel that valenki are getting more popular
today. People are no longer afraid
of the word 'valenki'. They enjoy
wearing them,” she said.
Ms Efimova and her family
make valenki with no hard soles,
but even this long-time producer from the central Russian Republic of Chuvashia has succumbed to the new trend of
decorating the valenki with embroidery and buttons. Also, they
have been selling their valenki
with silicone see-through covers, which look much more attractive than their traditional,
black predecessors.
“One day, seamstresses started buying valenki from us. I first
watched them
doing their
job, then
came up
with my
own ideas
and started
embroidering them
myself.
Today, I employ several
seamstresses,” Ms Efimova said.
Valenki are
becoming popular
outside of Russia, too,
Ms Efimova said. "Last year,
we were contacted by an American wholesale company who
suggested that we should produce valenki for the American
market. But this was way out of
our league, and we refused.”
But others may jump at the
opportunity to compete with
Uggs globally. Mr Detkovskii, of
the Elche footwear company,
said his company“has plans”to
enter foreign markets.
high-end wine consumers, let
alone the ordinary public. Add
a huge gap between low-level
supermarket plonk and overpriced high-quality Australian
reds which is not filled by moderately priced fine wines from
stable producers and you will
see the picture.”
With importers and big producers having to educate consumers at their own expense,
Australian wines in Russia are
being driven towards low-quality wine sales and a complete
absence of high-end Australian
wines such as Henschke, Charles
Melton, Yalumba and Torbreck,
especially in on-trade. Now, Argentina, France, Italy and Spain
are capturing the minds of Russian consumers. Even Greece is
putting on a significant number
of events in Moscow.
Veronika Denisova, head of
wine education in leading Moscow wine school Enotria, said:
“Education is crucial for any
country willing to be on this
market. With a new emerging
flock of younger bloggers and
journalists, it’s easier to address
the wider public than it has ever
been."
Discover Russia's
real national drink
Jenniver
Eremeeva
SPECIAL TO RBTH
IF YOU think vodka is Russia’s
national drink, think again. A curiously satisfying, slightly alcoholic, mildly sparkling, goldenbrown beverage called kvass has
been slaking Russian thirsts since
ancient times and is enjoying a
lively, patriotic revival today.
Classic kvass has the texture and
tartness of a mildly alcoholic cider and is made from fermented
black or rye bread, spring water,
and herbs, though versions of
kvass are also made with berries,
other grains and beets.
Today, kvass is commercially
produced, but the best kvass
is made at home, from scratch.
Kvass is mild enough to give to
children and is certainly much
healthier than soft drinks or sugary juices. It’s also a great way to
use stale bread. Give kvass a try.
Feel free to play around with the
ingredients until you get a taste
you really enjoy. Ginger and lemon peel have given my kvass its
signature taste.
FOTOLIA_PHOTOXPRESS
ITAR-TASS; SHUTTERSTOCK/LEGION MEDIA; PHOTOXPRESS(2)
1
white, and to protect the valenki from mud, they had to be
worn with rubber overshoes –
not a particularly attractive
look. And so as more options
became available to fashionconscious consumers, valenki
were replaced in Russian cities
with lighter, more water-resistant boots.
Then, Uggs entered the Russian market. They quickly became known as “Australian valenki” because of their strong
resemblance to the traditional
Russian footwear, and suddenly
designer felt boots were making
their way into the pages of fashion magazines.
“This started three or four
years ago,”said Lev Larin, owner
of an internet store called UggiValenki.“Valenki today are on a
new wave of popularity. They
used to be shapeless, felt footwear; today they are real felt
boots. They are stylish, they are
03
What you need:
- Cheesecloth or a clean tea towel
- Glass bottles with resealable
plastic stoppers
- 4lt boiling water and
3 tbsp warm water
- 1 thumb of fresh ginger, peeled
and sliced into thin rounds
- 15g lemon zest, diced
- 50g raisins
- 125g sugar
- 750g of dried or stale rye, pumpernickel or black bread, cut or crumbled into small chunks
- 1 package (7g) of active dry yeast
What you do:
- Bring the water to a rolling boil in
a large soup pot with a tight lid.
- Arrange the bread chunks on a
baking sheet and bake at 180C until hard (about half an hour). When
the water comes to a boil, remove
it from the heat, add the bread and
stir briefly to combine. Cover tightly
and set aside for five hours.
- Line a colander with layers of
cheesecloth and set it over a clean
bowl or pot. Strain the bread and
water mixture through the cheesecloth, using the back of a wooden
spoon to press the remaining breadcrumbs to get their flavor. Discard
the breadcrumbs.
- Combine the yeast with the warm
water and set aside for 2 minutes.
- Add the yeast, sugar, lemon zest
and ginger to the liquid, cover with
a towel and set aside overnight (812 hours).
- Strain the liquid through a sieve,
discarding the ginger and lemon
zest, then decant into the glass bottles, taking care not to fill the bottles all the way (leave room for fermentation!).
- Add a handful of raisins to each
bottle, then seal the bottles.
- Chill for 2-3 days before serving.
04
WWW.RBTH.RU
Special Report
MOST READ Pragmatic partnerships
with a global
dimension
rbth.ru/18647
Transportation By expanding infrastructure and building new terminals and ports, Russia hopes the Trans-Siberian Railway can compete with the Suez Canal
VIEWPOINT
All roads lead east — and then west
Entering a
new theatre
Global trade forecasts show
trade within the Asian region will
grow faster than trade between
Asia and either the EU or the
Americas.
IRINA DROBYSHEVA
Russia hopes the Trans-Siberian Railway will become an alternative for moving goods between Europe and Asia.
70 2
free trade agreements
have been concluded
between Asian countries since the 1990s.
is the number of days
it takes to deliver cargo from north-eastern
China to Japan.
Mainline) and Russian seaports
on the Pacific coast require
modernisation. It is necessary
to develop new transport routes
both on the mainland and in
the seas washing Russia. If [Russia] does not come up with an
initiative, other economies will
turn up that will put the initiative forward."
Russian Railways vice president Alexander Saltanov has
said his company will need
multi-billion-dollar investments to promote direct traffic
of goods to Europe, including
construction of a railway from
South Korea through North
Korea, with a connection to the
Trans-Siberian Railway, and
construction of a Russian-gauge
railway extension to Vienna.
APEC countries would more
than double to $US206 billion
($A200 billion) by 2021. One of
the most promising sources for
this increase is also its greatest
impediment. The Trans-Siberian Railway is arguably the most
important component in President Putin’s strategy to turn
Russia into a major transportation corridor between Europe
and Asia (along with the Northern Sea Route). Already operating at full capacity, it will require billions of dollars to
upgrade the single rail line and
to build logistics facilities along
the way. Russian sea ports also
have a role to play in the country’s eastward expansion.
"The amount of trade between
Europe and Asia exceeds $US1
trillion, and every per cent of
the cargo that is transported via
Russian territory will bring our
economy no less than $1 billion," Ziyavudin Magomedov,
chairman of the board of
Summa Group, said at the summit. Currently less than 1 per
cent of this cargo is transported via Russia. A recently announced federal plan calls for
increasing the traffic cargo at
all of Russia’s ports from the
current rate of 540 million
tonnes annually to 900 million
tonnes by 2020. About half of
this increase is to come from
ports on the Pacific Ocean.Yet,
bureaucracy is another major
impediment to Putin’s transportation goals. Goods passing
through Russian ports can
30
containers are processed daily at the
Russia-China border
crossing at Kraskino.
The head of the transport development department of the
Far Eastern Marine Research,
Design and Technology Institute, Mikhail Kholosha, believes
there is potential for expanding existing Russian transportation infrastructure in the region.
“Speaking about the far east,
the best place to start is in the
south of the Primorye Territory (on the Pacific coast in Russia's far east). Japan, South
Korea and China periodically
test the possibilities of freight
carriage via the Trans-Siberian Railway and in regional directions, such as the multimodal transport corridors
Primorye-1 and Primorye-2.
These three corridors form a
mutually complementary transport space,” he said.
Advantages through improving transport in the region are
not limited to rail. The Greater
Tumen Initiative, acting under
the auspices of the United Nations Development Program,
conducted a survey of experts,
government officials and businessmen in north east Asia on
the possibilities of cargo flowing between the region and China’s Jilin Province, which borders Primorye Territory. An
estimate of the amount of
freight to pass through this region in 2030 is 90–100 million
tonnes, meaning the port of
Troitsa Harbour, in Primorye
Territory, would have to be developed. It could become the
biggest port in Russia, and in
all of north east Asia. This cargo
route could earn Russia billions
of dollars a year.
Last year, the first batch of
containers arrived at Troitsa
Harbour by truck from the Chinese city of Hunchun, near the
Russian border. From Troitsa
Harbour, they were dispatched
to Japan on a container ship.
Jilin Province had been working towards that possibility for
almost 10 years.
Today, it takes two days to
deliver cargo from north eastern China to Japan, and there
are plans to use the new transportation line not only as a transit carriage between China and
Japan, but also for freight from
those countries to Europe via
the Trans-Siberian Railway.
However, to optimise the project it has been necessary to increase the capacity of the border crossing at the Russian town
of Kraskino, which currently
processes 30 container vehicles
a day. But there is a demand
for 200 vehicles to be processed
each day, and this number is
likely to increase. Also, the
crossing's custom procedures
need to be simplified.
The strategy for improving
land and sea cargo shipments
between Russia, China and
Japan was recently backed by
members of a consultative meeting within the framework of the
Greater Tumen Initiative. But
Russia is still lagging; the pilot
projects are being implemented between China and South
Korea and between China and
Japan, despite the fact the partnership was initiated by China
in 2008 as part of a drive to improve cooperation between China’s north eastern provinces and
the Russian far east.
SPECIAL TO RBTH
HE 24th APEC (AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation) summit inVladivostok in early
September highlighted Russia’s
current strategic fixation on
the Asia-Pacific-Indian Ocean
Region (APIOR) as an area of
growing economic and political value. After a period of prolonged decline and self-absorption, Moscow has considerably
intensified its engagement with
central Asia and APIOR along
three lines – political, militarystrategic and economic.
The political vector is driven by the inclination to enhance
Russia’s regional influence by
reanimating old Soviet ties and
by establishing close links with
former political rivals.
The military-strategic vector is based on the heightened
threat perception of APIOR
when compared to other geopolitical areas of significance
for Russia. The vast Asia-Pacific theatre provides the nation with both a challenge and
an opportunity, because it allows Russia a platform to display its restored military power
to potential allies through outof-area deployments.
The economic vector of Russia’s re-engagement is based on
the realisation that the centre
of global business activity is
shifting into the Indo-Pacific,
and that Russia’s own economy, including the mighty energy sector, requires market diversification and expansion.
Russia is positioning itself as
a corridor between Pacific Asia
and western Europe, and as a
T
Scepticism remains
about Russia's overall
future role and place in
the Asia-Pacific-Indian
Ocean region.
This story is based on reporting from
Kommersant and Interfax.
THE FIGURES
$US13 billion
is being invested into a new
Russo-Japanese liquefied
natural gas plant and export
terminal to be constructed
near Vladivostok.
$US1 billion
was the cost of Vladivostok’s
new cable-stayed bridge, the
world’s longest, which connects Russky Island with the
city.
ALEXANDR KHITROV
half this figure (although it has
increased to 23 per cent from
15 per cent of the total since
2006, according to customs data
compiled by Bloomberg). While
Russia’s leaders have been careful to emphasise that this rebalancing act would not be at
the expense of relations with
the EU, a raft of free trade incentives with Asian countries
has been announced in recent
months, in order to facilitate
the rapid growth needed.
“Russia takes on more risks
by not integrating with Asia than
by doing so," Shuvalov said.
In a recent report, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) predicted that Russia’s exports to
THE NUMBERS
Transport routes in the Asia-Paciﬁc region
Russia shifts its
focus to the east
ITAR-TASS
RUSSIA wants to redirect about
10 per cent of trade traffic between APEC countries and the
European Union across its territory -- a plan that would offer
lower transport costs and an alternative to the Suez Canal. But
the country is under pressure to
achieve far-reaching upgrades
to its far east transport infrastructure before such a plan can
be implemented.
In a presentation to APEC
(Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) transport ministers in
August, Russian Transportation
Minister Maxim Sokolov used
a slide showing goods from Asia
flowing to Europe not via the
Suez Canal, but via Russia using
the Trans-Siberian Railway, the
Baikal-Amur Mainline and
Russia’s Pacific seaports.
“A diversification of traffic
flows can offer substantial economic benefits by reducing
transport and transaction costs,
which will mean lower product
costs for final consumers,” Mr
Sokolov said. Moscow would
like Russia to account for about
10 per cent of commodity flows
from Asia to Europe in the near
future, he added.
The South Korean Deputy
Minister of Land, Transport and
Maritime Affairs, Joo Sung-ho,
said development of alternative
routes via Russia was a priority for the entire region.
Global trade forecasts show
that trade within the Asian region will grow faster than trade
between Asia and either the EU
or the Americas due to intensive regional integration. Asia
is the world’s leader in simplifying inter-regional customs
procedures and cutting the costs
of doing business.
While Russia was working towards its recent accession to the
World Trade Organisation after
18 years of negotiations, many
APEC countries opted for regional free-trade agreements
and, since the mid-1990s, more
than 70 free-trade zone agreements were concluded in Asia.
One way in which Russia could
benefit from and augment the
free-trade agreements is to facilitate the transportation of
goods from Asia to Europe.
The deputy director of the
Russian APEC Study Centre,
Gleb Ivashentsov, said at a news
conference: "The Trans-Siberian Railway, BAM (Baikal-Amur
Alexey D.
Muraviev
A new cable-stayed bridge connects Russky Island to Vladivostok.
spend nearly 2 weeks in customs, while the corresponding
figure for Singapore is one day.
A step towards creating a
full-scale car manufacturing
cluster in the region was taken
during the summit when President Putin attended the launch
of the Mazda production line
at the Vladivostok car plant of
Russian car company Sollers.
"Initially, $350 million will be
invested in the Mazda joint venture," Sollers general director
Vadim Shvetsov said. The capacity of the plant will be
100,000 vehicles annually. Over
the past 20 years, a significant
portion of the region’s economy
has come from the re-sale of
secondhand Japanese cars. A
recently opened Hyundai engine plant in Vladivostok is a
sign that the localisation of car
production sought by Sollers is
becoming reality.
Some scepticism has existed
in the far east that the region
could ever manufacture exportable goods cheaper or of better
quality than those of neighbouring countries. However, Sergei
Kryukov, of the Russian Small
and Medium-sized Business Development Bank, said: “All of
the problems impeding competitive products from being manufactured in the far east are
solvable through proper policies.”
major supplier of energy resources to growing Asian economies. To achieve this goal, the
Russian government plans to
modernise considerably its existing land transportation infrastructure and to build new
marine infrastructure. Sea
transport accounts for 97 per
cent of transport services offered by the Russians to foreign customers in the Pacific.
The role of Russia’s far east
seaports will grow, especially
in the context of Russia’s economic growth and its expansionist energy strategy. Russia
ranks APIOR’s energy market
highly. The scheduled opening
in 2014 of the 4200 kilometrelong strategic Eastern SiberiaPacific Ocean pipeline network
to service customers in east,
north and south-east Asia, and
the US west coast, would initially allow Russia to supply
30 million tonnes of oil annually.
Despite Russia’s leading role
in driving the 2012 APEC agenda, scepticism remains about
the nation’s overall future role
and place in APIOR. Australian policy planners and decisionmakers are likely to continue
to view Russia as the weakest
link in the regional chain. In
part, these perceptions are driven by the fact that both nations
are engaged in moderate political and economic interaction.
But there is room for a future
intensification and broadening
of economic links, particularly
in agriculture, education, tourism and mining. Russia is the
region’s geopolitical wildcard–
in-residence, but in the long run,
the nation may become a key
player in the region.
A l e x e y D. M u r a v i e v i s
coordinator of international
relations and national security
programs at Curtin University.
WWW.RBTH.RU
05
Business
MOST READ Yandex ramps up
the competition
with Google
rbth.ru/19203
READ MORE BUSINESS NEWS FROM RUSSIA
Social networks Local players face a battle for every subscriber
Facebook is always in the
headlines, but Russian social
networks are quietly monetising
traffic to stay ahead of the
American giant.
ILAN GOREN
SPECIAL TO RBTH
IN 2006, as Russia was in the
throes of a decade-long economic boom, a young entrepreneur
named Albert Popkov had a paradoxical idea: to capitalise on
his countrymen’s nostalgic tendencies in order to build a 21st
century venture.
He founded Odnoklassniki
(Russian for“classmates”) a website which combined reuniting
old schoolmates and social networking.
Within a year, a million Russians flocked to the site where
they could reconnect with anyone from the kid they shared a
tent with at summer camp 30
years ago to their next door
neighbour.
The site won the country’s top
web prizes, and in 2008 Mr Popkov was named GQ magazine’s
“Businessman of the Year”.
Odnoklassniki flourished,
racking up almost 30 million visitors from Russian-speaking
countries by July 2008. Today the
site boasts the same number of
visitors – but each and every day.
It’s the second-most-popular social network in Russia, vying to
overtake the leader, Vkontakte,
which boasts 35 million visits a
day.
As for Mr Popkov, in early
2008 he was accused of pilfering crucial information from a
British company he had worked
for before founding Odnoklassniki. He denied the allegations
but was let go after selling his
pet project for an estimated 10
Vkontakte (meaning“in touch”)
in late 2006, he was accused of
brazenly cloning Facebook, ripping off even the colour scheme.
Yet the English philology student, who went to St Petersburg
State University, forged ahead
with his brainchild, offering
users free sharing of video and
audio files. Accusations of intellectual property theft were quick
to fly, but users loved the free
content. They still do.
Vkontakte’s playlists are a hit,
especially with teenagers and
The average visitor
20-something students. Not only
spent 490 minutes a
do songs and clips entice users
month on Vkontakte
to check in, they may keep them
and 340 minutes on
in.
According to data collected by
Odnoklassniki.
comscore.com, in 2011 the average visitor spent 490 minutes a
month on Vkontakte, compared
Paid services offered
with 340 minutes for Odnoklassby Odnoklassniki
niki and a mere 30 minutes for
include social gaming,
Facebook, which made its first
anonymous browsing
serious foray into the Russian
market two years ago.
and virtual gifts.
Facebook is now estimated to
offered by Mail.ru, its parent have 14 million registered users,
and is popular among business
company.
“Users’ accounts combine both owners who like to promote
the email address and the social themselves on other media – parprofile and you can cross link ticularly TV – as having a Facebetween them. This is a signifi- book account.
A decision by a Russian apcant incentive for advertisers.”
Mr Klimenko said. “Moreover, peal court earlier this year that
Odnoklassniki offers video ads free file sharing and downloadwhile competitors don’t. It’s a ing amounted to copyright infringement could have created
very strong selling point.”
In this market, it seems inte- problems for Vkontakte, but the
gration and cooperation are the company adapted. It drew on
YouTube’s experience, and alwatchwords.
lowed copyright owners to delete pirated content while offerFree songs, costly smileys
However, complete assimilation ing help promoting owners’
by external investors is a fate pages. It also paid a fine of
that Pavel Durov, the founder of 210,000 rubles (about $A6580).
Vkontakte, has been keen to The fine was a punitive drop in
an ocean of revenue, which
avoid.
When Mr Durov launched swelled last year to 3.29 billion
to 20 million euros to DST, a
holding company later renamed
Mail.ru Group. Mail.ru now owns
100 per cent of Odnoklassniki,
controls Russia’s most popular
mail service and has a 40 per
cent stake in Vkontakte.
German Klimenko, editor of
audience monitoring website
liveinternet.ru, says Odnoklassniki’s current success is fuelled
by the integration with services
GETTY IMAGES/FOTOBANK
Russia's brazen
challengers enter
a critical phase
'In touch': VKontakte founder Pavel Durov at the recent Digital-Life-Design conference in Moscow.
Social networks’ share of Size of Internet ad
Internet ad market (%)
market ($ millions)
SOURCE: ACAR
rubles (about $A100 million)
while net profit rose to 516 million rubles (about $A16.1 million), increases of 41.7 per cent
and 13.9 per cent respectively
from the year before.
The strong results can be partly explained by Russian marketers’ appreciation of the power of
free, though pirated, content. Ten
thousand advertisers are registered with the network, each
paying in advance an average of
20,000 rubles ($A626).
Analysts estimate Vkontakte
to be worth more than $A970
million and Mr Durov’s personal fortune at around $A252 million. Last May, he spent a weekend throwing a multitude of
paper airplanes from his St Petersburg office window. They
were made of folded 5000 ruble
notes.
Cars To avoid import tariffs, major Asian brands are now working with Russian car giant Sollers
$A2.42 each. Odnoklassniki now
wants to offer its clients the opportunity to borrow virtual
money.
According to J’son & Partners
Consulting, fee-based services in
Russia generated $A498 million
last year. Mail.ru Group reported that paid services helped it
generate almost $A124 million
last year.
Russian-language social media
may be entering its most competitive period, particularly since
Facebook has built a 20 per cent
market share – which Mr Klimenko describes as “an impressive foothold”. He predicts that
the two big local players will be
“pitched in a battle for every
subscriber in order to continue
thriving”.
Mr Popkov, the man who
brought Odnoklassniki to the
world, believes the Russian web
“might remain a very good place
for local players".
"Foreign projects rarely succeed here," he said. "It’s possible
that in a few years there will be
just one or two leaders and all
the others will shrink and virtually disappear."
Average daily number of
visits (millions)
SOURCE: BBDO AGENCY
Mr Durov’s company is not so
generous with all its services,
however.“Russian operators, and
particularly Odnoklassniki,
made clear to users from day one,
‘For some things, you have to pay’.
You want to play online with
your friends or share an emoticon? That game or that smiley
will cost you,” said Ariel Weiss,
a former executive with ICQ, an
instant messaging program
SOURCE: LIVEINTERNET.RU, SOCIALBANKERS.COM
owned by Mail.ru.“They understood they have to monetise and
they know how to adapt western models to their audience’s
needs.”
Paid services offered by Odnoklassniki include anything
from social gaming, through the
right to remain anonymous while
peeking at another user’s page,
to sending virtual gifts such as
songs, which can cost up to
Start-ups New products coming soon to a computer near you
Keep an eye out for
these newcomers
GIANTS such as Yandex have
proved that Russian IT companies have what it takes to go
global, but what comes next?
Moscow’s leading tech entrepreneurship centre Digital October
offers investors six little-known
companies to watch.
Once a shipyard,
now a car plant
RUSSIA BEHIND THE HEADLINES
AT THE peak of the economic
crisis in late 2008, Russia’s far
eastern city ofVladivostok erupted in protests after a decision in
Moscow to raise import duties on
cars. Residents took to the streets
to defend a major source of revenue for the whole of Russia's
far east region – driving Japanese second-hand cars to the
country’s western territories to
resell them for a hefty profit. As
thousands of riot police were
flown in from Moscow to restore
order, then Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin proposed a solution: assemble the cars in the
far east, thereby making the Japanese and Korean brands domestically manufactured and not
subject to the same duties. A year
later, the Sollers car plant was
launched in Vladivostok after
production was moved from Tatarstan.The plant currently manufactures five models of the
Sang-Yyong SUV.“It was a political decision,” said Vasily
Avchenko, Vladivostok correspondent for the daily Novaya
IN HIS OWN WORDS
Alexander
Korneychuk
Several foreign brands are assembled in Sollers' Vladivostok plant.
SOLLERS FAR EAST DIRECTOR
" People know and like them
(Japanese cars) so much
that they don't require any
advertising, a huge saving in costs.
The original phase of this project
was done to convince international
partners that it was possible to assemble cars here, and we did that.
Once Japanese cars are assembled
here, we're going to make a huge
dent in the market.
Sollers built the factory
nearly from scratch
in record time on the
territory of a defunct
ship repair station.
“When we get the gas hooked
up later this year, we’ll be able
to start painting and sweltering
the cars here on the spot. We’ll
have a full scale vehicle production by 2014,” Mr Korneychuk
said.
All components are imported
› onetwotrip.com
› lingualeo.ru
Ecwid
ResumUp
from South Korea. Each model
is assembled piece-by-piece
until, at the end of one of the
two types of assembly lines, a
process that workers call “the
wedding” attaches the frame to
the body of the car. The cars then
undergo safety testing before
being shipped by rail to western
Russia. Fewer than 5 per cent of
the cars produced at the Sollers
Vladivostok plant are purchased
in the far east.
The location has been ideal for
the operation Sollers is running.
“We take the assembly kits off
the docks right here and put
them on the railway ...” Mr Korneychuk said. "Everything is
within one kilometre. Our factory has no warehouse because
we don’t need one. If a shipment
is delayed, we are forced to stop
production.”Moving the assembly line to the Vladivostok plant
allowed Sollers to lower the price
of the Ssang Yyong models,
which currently range in price
from between $A23,250 to
$A38,750.
Critics point out the operation
has been profitable thanks to federal subsidies that give Sollers
a big discount on shipping the
cars by rail across Russia – subsidies that will eventually run
out. But Mr Korneychuk has set
his sights higher: “Over the last
two decades Japanese cars have
developed a certain reputation
throughout all of Siberia. People know and like them so much
that they don’t require any advertising, a huge saving in costs.”
During September's APEC
(Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in Vladivostok, a
Mazda production line was
launched at the Sollers' Valdivostok plant. Sollers is also negotiating with Toyota.“The original phase of this project was
done to convince major international partners that it was possible to assemble cars here, and
we did that,” said Mr Korneychuk. “Once Japanese cars are
assembled here in Vladivostok,
we’re going to make a huge dent
in the second-hand car market.”
Designed by a team from Russia’s industrial city of Perm, RealtimeBoard is a browser-based
whiteboard that utilises Massive
Multiplayer Online (MMO) technology (similar to online games)
to facilitate an easy exchange of
ideas.
It was created by Multivitamin, also responsible for the Art
Multitouch project with artist
Konstantin Khudyakov.
ResumUp compiles the resumes
and social network data of job
candidates into an individualised portfolio that guides them
through their professional career. The site can tell you what
you need to know to achieve your
career goals based on data from
social networks. The service has
attracted 7.2 million active Russian-speaking users.
Ecwid enables users to set up
an online store on their website
or a social network within minutes. It currently supports
185,000 accounts in 174 countries and 43 languages. The
founding team from Ulyanovsk
was a finalist of the 'Next Web
2010' contest in Amsterdam. Last
year, the project received about
$A1.45 million from Runa Capital.
› resumup.com
SpeakToIt
› ecwid.com
LinguaLeo
A digital assistant for your
Smartphone, comparable to Siri,
SpeakToIt was named among
the top 10 Android apps of the
year by The New York Times.
Since launching in May 2011, it
has been downloaded over 2.5
million times and is currently
available on iOS and Android.
LinguaLeo offers online English
instruction via popular TV series, books and dialogues. After
a rough start and a break of several months during which it was
inactive, the site now has 1.5 million registered users and enjoys
80,000 daily visits, comparable
with Western counterparts such
as LiveMocha and Busuu. In June
2012, LinguaLeo secured about
$A2.9 million from the Runa
Capital Venture Fund; it intends
to use the money to go international and cash in on demand
for English all over the world.
“Our first target will be Brazil,
then Germany and finally south-
› speaktoit.com
› realtimeboard.com
OneTwoTrip
Taking advantage of Russia’s online tourism market (which is reportedly growing at a rate of 70
per cent annually) and catering
to a booming middle class that
is increasingly connected to the
Internet, OneTwoTrip has managed to raise about $A8.8 million from Phenomen Ventures
only one year after launching its
convenient website for booking
cheap air tickets and comparing prices across carriers.
Total bookings are projected
to stand at about $A390 million
LORI/LEGION MEDIA
ARTEM ZAGORODNOV
Gazeta.“It was part of a broader carrot-and-stick strategy for
localising car production in Russia.”
Now, after more than two
years of work, the project is
being hailed as a success by the
Sollers management, which is
quick to deny any political intervention. “Sollers is a private
company with an independent
board of directors; the government doesn’t decide our development strategy,” said Alexander Korneychuk, Sollers far east
director, from his third-floor office in the factory, which overlooksVladivostok’s harbour.“We
were thinking of relocating production of the SsangYong models from our plant in Tatarstan
to the sea coast for some time."
The facility now employs 650
mostly young workers; the average age is 27, and nearly a third
of the workforce occupies either
management or training positions.
Sollers built the factory almost
from scratch in record time on
the site of a defunct ship repair
station. When the company
moved in, water was available
for just two hours a day. So far,
$US60 million has been spent
on infrastructure at the plant,
but a gas connection is still almost a kilometre away.
east Asia,” founder Aynur Abdulnasyrov told East-West Digital News.
RealtimeBoard
ITAR-TASS (4)
Built on a defunct ship repair
yard more than two years ago,
the Sollers car plant is now at
the centre of car manufacturing
in Russia's far east.
by the end of this year, of which
OneTwoTrip enjoys 6 to 7 per
cent.
Moscow's Digital October startup incubator provides a home
for many developing companies.
Anastasia Demina
Russia Beyond the Headlines
06
WWW.RBTH.RU
Read Russia
MOST READ Lydia Pasternak
steps out of
the shadow
rbth.ru/17581
DOWNLOAD FREE APP FOR BOOKWORMS
Horror The psychologically terrifying tales of a Russian woman are being compared to those from such masters of the genre as Stephen King and Philip K. Dick
rience proved calamitous, as
their own sense of reality was
eventually shattered.
Starobinets, however, is not
afraid of anything like this happening: “I think a comparison
with Strugatsky's 'zone' [from
Roadside Picnic] is appropriate
here," she says, "[Writing is] a
dangerous area filled with
strange, unpredictable and evil
magical items that you can, nevertheless, sometimes drag out
and put to some use (although
definitely not for their intended
purpose).
"Simply put, inside every person there exists such a zone and
some stalkers – people of art –
venture into it on expeditions,
some just a short way in, while
others go deeper and further. I
would not overestimate the danger of such trips.”
Starobinets joined other Russian writers in representing Rus-
Anna Starobinets: Creating a fear
that can devour the self
PRESS PHOTO
Anna Starobinets sees horror as a way of "packaging" thoughts and feelings.
The young writer didn't
consciously choose horror
fiction, but An Awkward Age is
bringing her critical acclaim.
ALEXANDRA GUZEVA
SPECIAL TO RBTH
THERE was once a little boy who
was so fat and so hideous that
he repulsed even his own mother when she looked at him. He
would stitch up candy in his pillow, which would then melt into
an abhorrent sticky mess. His
twin sister refused to live in the
same room with him. After some
time, his mother finds a diary in
the boy’s handwriting where a
queen ant living in his mind lays
bare her insidious plan: to capture the boy’s body and use it to
conquer all humanity. Will the
boy bend to his new nature like
Gregor Samsa in Franz Kafka’s
The Metamorphosis?
This is the
central
question
that compels readers
of An Awkward Age,
the story that
launched the
literary career of Anna
Starobinets.
Starobinets began writing as a child, starting with
fairy tales. She rarely mentions this fact, however,
since she does not see it as
the start of her creative writ-
i n g c a r e e r.
“Horror”came
into her life
when she
wrote An Awkward Age, her
selection of
stories that have
now been translated into English. It was also precisely her horror fiction that brought her critical acclaim.
Starobinets explains her
choice of genre: “I did not consciously choose horror fiction in
the sense that I never sat at my
desk musing, with my fist under
my chin à la Rodin’s Thinker,
on the point in defining writing
by genre. "Horror, mysticism, sur-
real thrillers, etc. just seem to
be a way of ‘packaging’ thoughts,
feelings, sensations, and possibly, even fears, that intuitively
works for me," Starobinet says.
After An Awkward Age was
published, Russian critics labelled Starobinets the Russian
Stephen King or Philip K. Dick.
Despite the flattering comparisons, Starobinets insists she is
different from her literary icons:
“I believe no serious writer can
ever [be] defined by the genre
he or she technically works in.
Or another writer, come to that.
In any event, I’m neither King
nor Philip Dick nor Gogol nor
any other writer I have been
compared to.”
Starobinets’s horror
takes various forms,
from fantasy (An Awkward Age) to mystery
(Asylum 3/9, which is
based partially on Slavic folklore), to a novel
suggested by the namesake Russian-Japanese
animation project (The
First Squad: The Truth,
2010) to a futuristic dystopian novel (The Living
One shortlisted for the
reputable National Bestseller
Award in literature in 2011).
Literary critic Lev Danilkin
wrote about The Living One:
“[It] is a ‘pure genre’ piece: a
classic anti-utopia, imbued
with Zamyatin’s seriousness
and George Orwell’s acrimony,
loaded with the author’s somber expectations regarding mankind’s future, masterfully conveying a sense of repulsion
towards worship of ‘the wisdom
of crowds'."
The imagination, the self
In some works, Starobinets
bores into irrational depths,
embracing the point at which
mental illness devours people.
In a section of An Awkward Age
called The Rules, a silent voice
is constantly setting tough rules
for the main character: how to
walk, how to arrange things on
a shelf, how to live. In this section, Starobinets poignantly reveals the gradual disintegration
of a personality, describing the
grip of schizophrenia from
within.
For both Edgar Allan Poe and
Dick, who also engaged in such
writing experiments, the expe-
sia at the New York Book Fair
in June. Asked whether she believed the Russian presence at
the fair would help boost interest in Russian literature, she replies:“No exhibition of ‘achievements of the national economy’
can, by itself, turn Russia into
a major producer of global bestsellers, or (as in the age of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky) leading
exporters of big idea novels. For
this purpose, we need to have
our own Joanne Rowlings, and
new Leo Tolstoys and Fyodor
Dostoevskys.”
Starobinets acknowledges,
however, the value of book fairs
in helping show Russian books
to their best advantage, at least
to foreign publishing houses and
literary agents, increasing the
chances for Russian writers to
have their works published
abroad and find readers in new
markets.
The horror! The horror! Meet
Russia's new queen of scream
Mental illness is a motif for Anna
Starobinets, but it alone does
not account for the way her
disturbing plot unfolds in An
Awkward Age.
NORA FITZGERALD
SPECIAL TO RBTH
MAXIM, the central character in
An Awkward Age, metamorphoses into something demented,
and even darker than Frank, the
child in Iain Banks’ controversial book, The Wasp Factory. Just
as mental illness explains Maxim’s evil deeds, the story veers
into visceral horror focusing on
molt and decay and hideous rebirth.
Still, Maxim’s wretchedness is
not utterly unsympathetic. Like
other Starobinets characters,
he is spawned in an oppressive
and unhappy atmosphere: his
parents appear to at least enable his metamorphosis. His
mother stands by haplessly as
he turns inward except to threaten others.
The story The Rules starts out
simply enough with a child who
has obsessive-compulsive tendencies and Starobinets shows
a deft understanding of the plodding, day-to-day strategies and
reasoning of the mentally ill.
Many kids have times when they
have to count or repeat words,
believing if they don’t something
awful will happen.
But something awful does happen to this little boy, and a voice
in his head tells him that “the
rules” are about to get much
more complicated. Mental disorders and illness are a motif for
Starobinets. At first this allows
the reader to explain some of
the misfortune, tragedy and evil
of these stories, but illness does
not explain the depths of the hideousness.
There is a theory that all of
the anxiety and helplessness and
anger of a family can stow away
and fester in one vulnerable family member, the one who gets
sick, or even becomes a monster.
Starobinets applies this theory
to society itself.
So is Starobinets more than
a horror writer? In Russia, she
has been compared to Stephen
King and even Franz Kafka. Her
stories communicate something
urgent, if elusive, through schizophrenic characters in anti-fairy
tales.
Writers Grigory Chkhartishvili wants to translate the frustrations of Russia's intellectual class into action
Dystopia Russian writers collectively envision a bleak future
Author cast as unlikely crusader
'Stifling stability'
spawns cruel chaos
SPECIAL TO RBTH
CORBIS/FOTO SA
IN 1970, a geography teacher in
a Moscow school was distributing countries among his students
for an assignment. The assignment was simple: the students
had to collect newspaper clippings about specific countries.
One of the students got Tunisia,
Ecuador and Japan. Soviet newspapers wrote virtually nothing
about Japan, until one day the
student came across the news
that a Japanese writer had attempted a coup. And that’s how
Grigory Chkhartishvili became
interested in Japan.
Since then, Chkhartishvili has
undergone several metamorphoses. He studied languages at
Moscow State University in the
Institute of Asian and African
Before last year, Chkhartishvili never saw himself in politics.
German roots, an intellectual
and an athlete who is infinitely
noble and honest. Chkhartishvili has written 14 books about
Fandorin, whose character develops throughout the series.
Since last year, Chkhartishvili has been writing a LiveJournal blog in which he focuses on
historical topics. Like most Rus-
sians, before December 2011,
Chkhartishvili did not see himself in politics. But then came
the parliamentary elections, followed by rallies. Chkhartishvili
turned from a writer and blogger into a public political figure.
The story of Chkhartishvili’s
involvement in the movement is
the stuff of legend. The writer is
in his house in St Malo, France,
writing a new book, and then he
jumps up, gets into his car, drives
500 kilometres to Paris, takes a
flight to Moscow and finds himself at the December 10 Bolotnaya Square rally, where more
than 50,000 were gathered for
the biggest anti-government rally
since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Similar rallies took place across
Russia, with demonstrators alleging that the country's December 4 elections had been rigged.
“I never thought I would be
speaking at a rally. It is hard to
imagine anything more alien to
my whole temperament,”
Chkhartishvili wrote on his blog
after the Bolotnaya appearance.
Chkhartishvili proposed establishing a coordinating council
for the opposition. He became a
member of the council, first temporarily, and then permanently.
He hopes this latest transformation can help translate the frustration of the Russian intellectual class into action.
Supernatural The Night Watch series's creator has become something of a literary celebrity
The popular author's portrayal of
good and evil in contemporary
Moscow is influenced by his
experience living through the fall
of the Soviet Union.
SPECIAL TO RBTH
LONG before Stephenie Meyer's Twilight and less than a year
after the first Harry Potter book,
Sergei Lukyanenko wrote the
tale of a uniquely Russian supernatural world. The eponymous first novel in Lukyanenko’s Night Watch series was
published in 1998 and became
a bestseller, a cult movie and a
magnet for magic fans. Witches,
warlocks and werewolves, sorceresses, succubi and yes, vampires, inhabit a gloomy Moscow.
TRAILER
Check out the Night
Watch trailer
KINOPOISK.RU
PHOEBE TAPLIN
Anton, the novel’s hero, is a
Light Mage in the Night Watch
who patrols the activities of Dark
Others (humans with special
powers). While riding the Moscow metro in search of vampires,
he notices a dark spinning vortex above the head of a young
woman and his journey begins.
Lukyanenko's tale has sold
millions of copies worldwide and
he has just delivered a fifth book
in the series, The New Watch, to
his Russian publishers.
The publication of Night
Watch was a breakthrough for
the writer, but it was the 2004
movie adaptation that really
made Lukyanenko the literary
celebrity he is today. In a 2005
interview with the BBC, director Timur Bekmambetov said:
KOMMERSANT
Sergei Lukyanenko: Reimagining
the battle between good and evil
Surgei Lukyanenko's (top) Night Watch was adapted to film in 2004.
“Night Watch is a very Russian
movie. It’s impossible to imagine this kind of movie somewhere
else: a movie with a depressing
ending, a lot of inexplicable storylines and strange characters.”
Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov is clearly an influence on
Lukyanenko, as is American scifi veteran Stephen King. But
Lukyanenko's most enduring influence might be living through
the collapse of the Soviet Union.
As he told Strange Horizons
magazine:“I don’t think that everyone in the States realises what
a tragedy the fall of the USSR
was for many ordinary people:
how crime, corruption and unemployment levels rose," he said.
"This feeling of ongoing catastrophe is, of course, present in
the book.”
Despite the bleakness of his
settings, Lukyanenko’s prognosis for the future is basically optimistic. As he wrote: “Humanity is getting better, century by
century. Perhaps, one day we will
even stop fighting one another."
In the first 12 years of the 21st
century, disillusioned Russian
authors have written a
bewildering number of futuristic
and post-apocalyptic novels.
PHOEBE TAPLIN
SPECIAL TO RBTH
MUTANT humans live in primitive huts eating mice; the secret
police rape and burn all day and
relax with drug-fuelled orgies;
people are continually
reincarnated and copulate or die
en masse at festivals; warring
factions survive in the tunnels
of the disused subway. These are
just a few of the dystopian scenarios that Russian writers have
conjured in the past decade.
Readers, writers, critics and
bloggers have numerous theories about this outbreak of dystopia. What excesses of the new
capitalism prompted the master
of postmodern sci-fi,Victor Pelevin, to create an underground
night club where naked women
held in drug-induced states are
used as live decorations? How
has literary bad-boy Vladimir
Sorokin, infamous for a gay sex
scene between clones of Nikita
Kruschchev and Joseph Stalin,
become a mainstream figure?
And what is the message behind
his satire, Day of the Oprichnik,
which resurrects Ivan the Terrible’s murderous guards and
sends them lusting and looting
across Russia in 2028?
Dmitry Bykov — a multiaward-winning author, journalist and flamboyant media personality — has written one of
the most outstanding recent examples of the genre, translated
into English as Living Souls.
This crowded and ambitious
novel imagines a never-ending
civil war in Russia between nationalists and liberals.
Bykov attributes the new flood
of dystopian fiction to the stifling stability ofVladimir Putin’s
presidency: “They promised us
terror — none came; liberalisation — none came; war — things
ITAR-TASS
KONSTANTIN MILCHIN
Countries and worked as a translator from Japanese and English. His most famous translations were of the work of Yukio
Mishima, whose coup attempt
had such an impact on him.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Russia saw a boom of Japanomania,
largely thanks to Chkhartishvili and other Japanese studies experts. But he realised later that
he didn't want to continue to
work as a translator. "I wanted
to find an occupation that better corresponded to my inner
self," he told Russky Reporter
magazine. And in 1998, the famous translator became an astonishingly popular fiction writer after he began writing
historical novels under the pen
name B.Akunin. His fans later
christened him 'Boris'.
Chkhartishvili's novels feature
a charismatic protagonist, a serial narrative and a literary game
with the reader. The protagonist
is Erast Petrovich Fandorin, a
Russian Sherlock Holmes with
Dmitry Bykov is critical of President Vladimir Putin.
AFP/EASTNEWS
Former teacher and translator
Grigory Chkhartishvili won
acclaim creating Russia's answer
to Sherlock Holmes but has now
turned his hand to politics.
Vladimir Sorokin satirises authoritarianism.
They promised us
terror — none came;
liberalisation — none
came; war —things have
stalled.
have stalled; and everyone’s
caught, unable to arrive at any
decision."
At the other end of the spectrum, Sorokin is committed to
satirising the authoritarian
tendencies of the Russian government. In an interview with
Spiegel magazine, Sorokin de-
scribed Day of the Oprichnik,
as searching for “an answer to
the question of what distinguishes Russia from true democracies”.
Julia Sukhanova, a keen reader of contemporary Russian fiction, ascribes the prevailing
pessimism to the background of
many writers: “Contemporary
Russian writers have been raised
by their well-educated parents
in the atmosphere of liberal
discussions, and they all saw
their parents hit hard by the last
20 years. Is it any wonder that
these people are critical of the
state, its morals and its future?”
WWW.RBTH.RU
07
Travel
MOST READ Vladivostok: From
military enclave to
economic centre
rbth.ru/18509
Travel The gradual transformation of Vladivostok has reshaped the now vibrant city by the bay as the 'Soviet San Francisco'.
Travel
Tips
The Golden Horn of the east
at RBTH.ru/
travel
ITAR-TASS
Located in Russia's far east,
Vladivostok is one of the
country's most diverse cities in
terms of population, cuisine and
architecture.
DARIA GONZALES
THE dark blue waves in Golden Horn Bay turn red as the light
slowly creeps along the shoreline, gradually illuminating the
houses, the little cars of the funicular railway and the gently
sloping tops of the hills that surround Vladivostok. This Pacific
port city is one of the first in
Russia to greet the dawn.
When Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev visited Vladivostok
in 1959 after a trip to the United States, he declared that the
then-closed city would be 'our
Soviet San Francisco'.The phrase
stuck, even though the transformation from dreary Soviet port
into a gleaming city-by-the-bay
took far longer than Khrushchev
envisioned. In some ways, it has
just been completed; as part of
the preparations for September's
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, the city finally got
a bridge worthy of comparison
with San Francisco's Golden
Gate.
Vladivostok, located on the
north-west corner of the Sea of
Japan, was founded in 1860 as
a military post, and the city's importance as the home of the Pacific Fleet meant that the port
was closed to commercial traffic for most of the 20th century.
Now, however, it is a big source
of business for this city of nearly 600,000.
The population has been
steadily declining, however, and
not just because of Russia's demographic crisis. Living in —
and even visiting — Vladivostok
has its challenges. Summer lasts
just three months — June, July
and August — and even these
can be spoiled by monsoon rains
and temperatures averaging
above 30 degrees. In winter, the
temperature varies from minus
10 to minus 30, and it’s extremely difficult even for a native to
walk through the icy wind.
The city makes up for these
inconveniences with amazing
views over the varied landscape,
available from almost every rooftop. The most popular place to
see the city, however, is the viewing platform by the funicular
railway on Orlinaya Hill. The
Vladivostok funicular was created at the initiative of Khrushchev himself, in 1962. It is 183
metres long, a distance that the
tramcars cover in about two minutes. Alongside the funicular
runs a stairway of almost 400
steps.
Other symbols of the Soviet
era are also preserved in the city
— from the names of the local
districts (Leninsky, for Vladimir
Lenin; Frunzensky, for Mikhail
Frunze, a hero of the Russian
Revolution; and Pervomaysky,
for May 1, International Workers' Day) to old warships and
numerous monuments to Lenin
and other leaders of the proletariat.
These Soviet place names combined with a number of remaining pre-revolutionary buildings,
the 21st century bridges, and
right-hand-drive vehicles mixed
into the left-hand-drive traffic
create an unusual colour that it’s
impossible to find in any other
Russian city.
Residents of the European part
of Russia consider Vladivostok
the end of the country, but natives of Vladivostok see the city
as the beginning — after all, the
sun rises in the east. When construction began on the Trans-Siberian Railway, the foundation
was laid inVladivostok. According to a plaque at the city's railway station, the distance from
Moscow to Vladivostok via the
Trans-Siberian Railway is 9288
kilometres. Paradoxically, the
equivalent plaque at the Yaroslavsky station in Moscow has
a different figure – 9298 kilometres. Somewhere along the line,
10 kilometres were lost.
3
Off the beaten path in Vladivostok
Moscow
Vladivostok
Trans-Siberian Railway
Occum fuga. Nam quam qui
Razdolnoye
is a village near Vladivostok. The residents of
Razdolnoye claim that they
have the longest street on
the planet — it stretches
for 14 kilometres.
-
Kovrizhka
is a tiny uninhabited island in the Amur Bay. At
the end of the 19th century,
convicts were sent to live
on Kovrizhka, and evidence
of an ancient settlement
has also been found there.
Shamora
is a popular beach on the
outskirts of Vladivostok on
the shore of the Ussuriysk
Bay. It is officially called
Lazurnaya Bay, but locals
prefer Shamora, which by
some accounts, is translated as “sandy desert".
Egersheld
is the popular name for the
Shkot peninsula in southwestern Vladivostok. It is
home to a small cape with a
famous lighthouse and the
Maritime University.
Vladivostok natives
see their city as the
beginning of Russia —
since after all, the sun
rises in the east.
the very centre of the city. The
buildings themselves feature
arches, balconies and complex
latticework while the streets of
the district form a confusing labyrinth that calls visitors to explore. Various explanations are
offered for the origins of the
name Millionka. According to
one, the Millionka was first
named after a building at 3/8
Semyonovskaya Street that
Russky Island
separated from Vladivostok by the Eastern Bosphorus Strait, is the home
of the Far Eastern Federal
University.
Mt Pidan (Mt Livadiyskaya)
a 1333-metre mountain in
the taiga, is supposedly the
home of the Flying Man — a
spirit whose job it is to protect the hill from evil.
served as a dormitory for several thousand Chinese workers.
According to another, the residents of these run-down houses
were called “millionaires” because of their poverty.
At the beginning of the 20th
century, the district was known
for its brothels, gambling houses and opium dens and was
mainly populated by smugglers,
counterfeiters and other members of the underworld. In the
mid-1930s, the area was cleaned
out in a special operation of the
secret police and today it is popular with artists.
Since the mid-1980s, one of
Vladivostok's busiest districts is
Zelyony Ugol, the country’s biggest market for used Japanese
cars. The cars, which are imported from Japan, are the reason
right-hand drive cars are so common on the streets ofVladivostok.
Zelyony Ugol is situated to the
north of Golden Horn Bay, which
is located more or less in the centre of the city. This crescent-
shaped body of water was named
in honour of the bay of the same
name in Istanbul, because of its
visual similarity. The channel
that separates Vladivostok from
Russky Island, just off the mainland, is known as the Eastern
Bosphorus.
The call of the sea
In Vladivostok everything that
is not directly connected with
the sea is still influenced by its
presence. Some of the city's most
popular sites include the oceanarium, the marine conservation
area, the S-56 submarine museum on the Korabelnaya embankment and the Krasny Vympel memorial ship.
The Vladivostok Fortress is
also an important tourist site.
Begun in 1889 as a base for Russia's Pacific Fleet and to defend
the Russian Empire's new lands
in the Far East, the Vladivostok
Fortress is considered one of the
world's last major
sea fortresses to be
constructed. The main
site was supplemented
by small batteries and
forts throughout the city.
The fortress was upgraded during the Russo-Japanese War and again during
the Russian Revolution. In
the Soviet era, a system of
bunkers and underground
tunnels were built between
the fortress and the city centre so that the Pacific Fleet
command and senior officials
could be evacuated by sea. In
1996, a museum of the Vladivostok Fortress was opened
at the Bezymyannaya Battery
in the city centre.
But in Vladivostok, even
the military installations
call back the sea. Since 1970,
a ship's cannon
m o u n t e d o n Ti grovaya Hill, fires a
single shot every day at
noon.
How to get there
Korean Air and Air
China fly from Sydney
or Melbourne to Vladivostok, with stopovers.
Flights average $A1600.
Where to stay
Versal (10 Svetlanskaya Ulitsa, versailles.vl.ru) is located in a historic building
on Vladivostok's main street.
Prices start at 5000 rubles
($A158) a night for a single.
The slightly more modern
Hyundai Hotel (29 Semyovovskaya Ulitsa, hotelhyundai.
ru) has 155 rooms, with prices starting at 7000 rubles
($A220) a night.
Where to eat
For traditional Russian food, try the elegant Nostalgia restaurant (6/25 1st
Morskaya Ulitsa, nostalgy.ru)
VLADIVOSTOK was the temporary home of Pyotr Nesterov, pilot, aircraft designer
and pioneer of aerobatics. Nesterov was the first pilot to fly a plane
in a loop. He also created the aerial warfare technique of ramming.
Nesterov was a native of Nizhny
Novgorod in central Russia but decided to take a posting in the east
because of love. At the time, junior officers in central and western
Russia were not allowed to marry
without providing a substantial financial guarantee. This rule did
not apply, however, in Siberia and
the far east.
1 T
A jumble of eras
Walking through Vladivostok is
like being trapped in a film about
time-travel. The city centre, full
of steel-and-glass office buildings, has long since yielded to
the new millennium, while the
outskirts of the city are full of
the apartment towers common
in the 1990s. In the lowlying areas between the hills are
districts made up of shorter, more
elegant buildings from the early
20th century.
One of Vladivostok's most
iconic districts is called Millionka. It is a collection of quaint,
run-down red-brick houses in
INTERESTING
PEOPLE FROM
VLADIVOSTOK
VLADIVOSTOK native Anna Shchetinina became the
first woman in the world
to command an ocean-going ship.
She did it in 1935 at the age of 27.
During World War II, she served in
the Baltic Sea, evacuating people
and transporting supplies. She also
captained a Liberty ship carrying
lend-lease supplies. Cape Shchetinina, on the shore of the Amur
Bay of the Sea of Japan, was
named in her honour in 2006.
2 3 IGOR Sokolov, a motorcycle traveller better known
as Sinus, was also born in
Vladivostok, and most of his journeys have begun there. in January 2005, Sokolov travelled from
Vladivostok to Australia and spent
90 days exploring the country on
a Honda Supemagna V45.
What to eat
Seafood: The most popular sea
fish among locals are plaice and
smelt. They are caught just offshore and are best eaten grilled
or dried. Bird’s Milk candy: One of
the most popular candies in Russia, these candies that taste something like marshmallows dipped
in chocolate were invented by An-
na Chulkova at the Primorye Confectioner factory in Vladivostok.
Ferns: A popular edible wild plant
that grows in the taiga from the
suburbs of Vladivostok onwards.
Antlers in honey (in cognac): A local alcoholic drink made in part
from the antlers of Altai deer that
have not yet properly hardened.
CALENDAR
When to go
Spring – the “Far East Spring”
festival of classical music and the
“Equinox” festival of amateur
music.
May – the “Elektrosvalka” festival
of amateur music.
June – the “Stars of Primorye”
international sport dance festival.
End of the summer – the Pacific
Meridian international film festival for countries in the Asia-Pacific
region.
September – the “Young Captains
of the World’s Oceans” international festival of maritime universities. The Far Eastern food festival.
November – the Vladivostok International Jazz Festival.
LORI/LEGION MEDIA (3)
The Vladivostok fortress, begun in 1889, is considered one of the world's last major sea fotresses to be constructed.
One end of the Trans-Siberian railroad.
The funicular is one of the best ways to see Vladivostok.
08
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Sport
MOST READ NHL lockout returns
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hometown fans
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Tennis After a disappointing year, Russia's men hope the Australian Open will mark a new beginning
PICTURES & BRIEFS
Sharapova to the fore as Russian
women seek success
Russian tennis will be hoping for
plenty of improvement next
year, starting in Melbourne, as it
reflects on a 2012 of very mixed
fortunes.
NICOLA SELLITTI
SPECIAL TO RBTH
RUSSIAN tennis fans will soon
be focussing on Australia, home
to the first grand slam tournament of 2013, in the hope of seeing resurgent Russian performances after a disappointing
2012.
The Russian Tennis Federation
has endured a difficult year, one
with significantly more downfalls than triumphs. Russian
women players produced acceptable performances, but their
male counterparts struggled and
will have much to prove when
the Australian Open begins on
January 14.
The Russian men's team,
which is suffering its biggest crisis in 20 years, is hoping the tournament will mark its comeback.
The Russian men recorded their
latest loss at the hands of Brazil in the Davis Cup. Following
the 5-0 defeat, they were relegated to the zone group. Captain
Shamil Tarpishchev's team comprised Alex Bogomolov Jr., Igor
Andreev, Teimuraz Gabashvili
and Stanislav Vovk - all good
players but none appearing destined to be stars of the game.
The Russian team has only
four players among the top 100
in world rankings, and only two
in the top 50. Russia's best hopes
in Melbourne are Nikolai Davydenko, a player nearing the end
of his career, and Mikhail Youzhny, viewed as being one of Russia's purest tennis talents who
has never become a champion.
Davydenko, once the third-best
player in the world, won the Tennis Masters twice and collected
21 ATP titles. But he now lacks
the power and consistency to
keep up with the likes of Roger
Federer and Rafael Nadal. The
same goes forYouzhny, whose recent victory at the Zagreb Indoor tournament and a semi-final appearance at the St
Petersburg Open will have little
relevance in the heat of Melbourne.
Aside from Davydenko and
Youzhny, Russian men’s tennis
has no other real prospects. The
ATP seeding system suggests Bogomolov, Dmitry Tursunov, an-
Russian men's tennis,
suffering its biggest
crisis in 20 years, hopes
to stage its comeback
Down Under.
other unrealised talent, and Andrei Kuznetsov may be players
of the future, but they will have
to prove their seedings on the
court.
One of the reasons for the critical state of the Russian men's
team is its lack of funding. The
federation has insufficient resources to invest in young players and, as a result, many go
abroad. For example, Russians
Andrei Golubev, Mikhail Kukushkin and Yury Schukin have
played for Kazakhstan in recent
years and, while they are not giants of the game, they have produced consistently good performances.
“It can cost up to $US2000
finals this year, winning at Roland Garros, and she reached the
semi-finals of the US Open.Winning the Australian Open could
be the beginning of a new chapter in the story of Sharapova’s
tennis career, a victory that
would underline her maturity as a player.
Another player to
watch is Maria Kirilenko. Although better
known as the girlfriend
of Russian ice-hockey
superstar Alexander
Ovechkin, Kirilenko
enjoyed a fine season
this year. She narrowly missed out on a
bronze medal at the
London Olympics;
she lost to Sharapova in straight sets in
the semi-final, and
then to Belorussian
Viktoria Azarenka in the
bronze-medal match. Nadia
Petrova is another Russian hopeful at the Australian Open. She
is ranked inside the top 20, but
($A1940) per year for an under16 player. Tennis is the only sport
in which players have to pay out
of their own pockets to play,”
Shamil Tarpishchev, Russia's
Davis and Federation Cup captain, said.
Here come the
women
It will be up to the
Russian women to
uphold the country's
honour in Australia.
Wi t h 1 0 p l aye r s
ranked inside the top
100, and about 40
inside the top 500,
Russian women
have a major presence in the WTA
rankings. But
numbers do not
always reflect
quality. With the
exception of
Maria Sharapova, Russian
w o m e n p e rformed disappointingly at the
grand slam
tournaments
t h i s y e a r.
Sharapova remains Russia's
brightest hope
at The Open,
although there
is always the
chance she
will come
up against
her long-time rival Serena
Williams, who defeated her
at Wimbledon and at the London Olympic Games. At 25,
Sharapova is in her tennis prime.
She played in two grand slam
if past performance is an indication, she is unlikely to reach
the final stages of the tournament. While two other wellknown players, Vera Zvonareva
and Svetlana Kuznetsova, are
suffering from injuries, there is
depth in the women's contingent.
This may be the year for Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. At 21, she
is talented and powerful, was
ranked 13 in 2011, but fell to 35
after a disappointing 2012.
Meanwhile, the Australian
Open has given itself a boost to
make it as attractive a destination as the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open by increasing its prize money by 15
per cent to a record $A30 million, making it the richest tennis tournament in the world. The
$A4 million increase in prize
money is the biggest single increase in the history of the event.
Every player will receive more
money, including those who exit
in the first few rounds. The decision to increase prize money
was taken to discourage players
unhappy about their share of
revenues from boycotting the
tournament.
The tournament organisers
have also introduced new practice facilities for players, including eight new clay courts, and
they have expanded the use of
the cutting-edge Hawk-Eye technology, used to check line calls,
to show courts two and three.
Maria serves up Sugarpova
Maria Sharapova has taken off
in the business ... of sweets. The
Russian tennis player launched
her Sugarpova brand of sweets
in New York on August 20. The
sweets are available in 10 different flavours and come with various playful names and shapes,
including those that look like tennis balls. "It’s the most exciting
project I have ever been involved
in," Sharapova said at the launch,
"because it’s my business, my in-
vestment, my money.” The tennis
star’s partner in this initiative is industry expert Jeff Rubin, founder
of the international distributor It's
Sugar. Her sweet business also has
a charitable aim: part of the proceeds from the sweets, to be sold
for $US5 ($A4.85) per pack on the
Internet and in boutiques of luxury hotels all over the world, will
go towards the Maria Sharapova
Foundation, which works with the
victims of the Chernobyl disaster.
Soccer Russia aims to be ahead of schedule for 2018 World Cup
Building towards soccer's
greatest showpiece event
World Cup matches will be
spread among 11 Russian cities
and regions, providing as many
fans as possible with access to
the action.
Left: a Russian fan; Right: Russia's Vladimir Ostroushko fends off Italy's Matteo Pratichetti
Eleven cities will host Cup matches
JULIA KOTOVA
VEDOMOSTI
Russian rugby fans hope
for that big leap forward
where he is buried – he was killed
in an RAF training accident in
1940. Russian billionaire and
Chelsea Football Club owner
Roman Abramovich donated
part of the funds for the monument.
Referring to next year's Sevens tournament in Russia, Dmitry Shmakov, Russian Rugby's director of development, said: "The
fans are our first priority. As you
know, Moscow is overflowing
with all kinds of entertainment
and it will be very hard to fill
the stands. We are currently
working on this and we have a
number of activities in the works,
including entertainment events
and a music festival. The tournament is expecting somewhere
in the region of 10,000–15,000
foreign fans. We are hoping that
Russian fans will show up, too.”
Russian rugby is paradoxical
in that as much as people love
it, hardly anyone comes out to
watch the matches. Russian
rugby fans cheer the Wallabies
and the All Blacks, but only a
few know the match schedule
for the national team.
Alexei Sokolov, chairman of
the board of Zenit Bank and a
rugby fan, said: “Russian state
corporations are pouring huge
amounts of money into football
(soccer) and hockey. At the same
time, far less money is required
to advance rugby in our coun-
Russian rugby fans
cheer the Wallabies and
All Blacks, but only a
few know the national
team's schedule.
try, especially among children.
We need government support to
do this. Look at Italy – (former
prime minister) Silvio Berlusconi has turned rugby into an elite
sport in just 10 or 15 years.”
Mr Sokolov has been the chief
patron of Russian rugby in recent years. His bank finances the
Share your
opinion
Organisers have announced the slogan for the 2014 Winter Olympics in
Sochi, Russia: "Hot. Cool. Yours."
"Hot" is meant to symbolise the intensity of the competition, "cool" refers to how Russia is perceived, while "yours" expresses how the crowd
can empathise with the athletes, the organisers said.
ITAR-TASS
ITAR-TASS
AFP/EASTNEWS
ITAR-TASS
WINTER OLYMPICS IN
SOCHI WILL BE
"HOT. COOL. YOURS."
THE 11 Russian cities to host
matches during the 2018 World
Cup have been named by FIFA,
soccer's international governing
body. The World Cup cities are:
Moscow, St Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan,
Samara, Saransk, Volgograd,
national team and in 2008 he Rostov-on-Don, Sochi andYekafounded the National Charita- terinburg. Over the summer,
ble Foundation for the Develop- FIFA inspectors visited all of
ment of Children’s Rugby. Ian them before making the final deHill, NZ’s ambassador to Rus- cision on the host cities. Matchsia, is one of the fund’s sponsors. es in some of the cities will take
“When we tell the government place at existing stadiums while
about rugby, we try to get across others are to get new ones. And
the fact that rugby can tackle a in Moscow, in addition to the new
lot of social challenges, such as stadium currently under conproviding youngsters in regions struction for the Spartak team,
with something to do. Rugby is matches will be hosted at the
a great sport for just this pur- Luzhniki sports complex.
Construction of many of the
pose. It tempers you, while also
being a sport for everyone. And new stadiums is underway. Kait is practically free to play when zan's new stadium is nearing
you compare it with other sports,” completion, and Saransk's is due
to be finished in 2015. In Samara,
Mr Sokolov said.
His bank became the chief authorities are looking to begin
sponsor for the Rugby Sevens construction of a new stadium
World Cup, donating €500,000 in January 2014, to be complet(about $A625,000). But the real ed by the end of 2016. Matches
dream for Russian rugby fans is in St Petersburg are scheduled
for their country to be the World to take place at the Zenit soccer
Cup holders, and doing so will team's new stadium, on the site
require much more investment, of the Kirov stadium on Krestofirst and foremost, from the gov- vsky Island. Construction of the
ernment. There is hope Russia's stadium began in 2007 and is
2018 soccer World Cup may help still ongoing because of cost and
deadline complications.
to bring about this change.
In total, 13 cities in 13 regions
were in competition for the right
to host matches, and in the end
FIFA dropped Krasnodar and
Yaroslavl.
President Vladimir Putin said
that cities not selected to host
World Cup games will be the
venues for team training and recreational facilities, so that local
residents will get a chance to see
the players. "If need be, we are
ready to subsidise transport between cities so that people can
get to the games cheaply; that
applies to rail and road," President Putin said. He added that
if necessary, authorities would
subsidise other modes of transport, including aircraft.
According to Russia's Minis-
Find news from Russia in your inbox!
try of Sports, the construction
of basic infrastructure and stadiums alone for the World Cup
will cost a minimum 662 billion
rubles ($A21 billion) and the
total costs could rise as high as
1.4 trillion rubles ($A44 billion).
More than half the cost will be
met by the regions and private
investors. However, if the 2014
Winter Olympics are any indication, the bill could go higher.
Costs for the 2014 games were
initially projected at 314 billion
rubles ($A10 billion); Sochi’s tab
is now hovering at the 1.4 trillion-ruble mark. The Government has already allocated the
first 5 billion rubles ($A160 million) for the construction of new
stadiums.
Russia beyond the
headlines Asia
© DENIS GORDIYKO_RIA NOVOSTI
Five mascots to
symbolise Games
Volunteers to be
housed and fed
The Sochi Games will have
five official mascots - a hare,
a polar bear, a leopard, a ray
of light and a snowflake. The
mascots were selected from
more than 24,000 entries submitted to the organising committee in a public competition.
More than 29,000 volunteers
are expected to help run the
Games. They will be provided
with free housing, meals, transportation, and a uniform comprising a jacket, thermal pants,
a hat, gloves, thermal underwear and t-shirts.
VIEWPOINT
Del Piero in Sydney: A
comfortable swan song?
Leo
Zaitsev
SPECIAL TO RBTH
HE Italian soccer legend Alessandro Del
Piero recently signed a
two-year contract with
Australian side Sydney FC, immediately raising the profile of
Australian football. With all
due respect to the local stars,
Australia has never seen such
talent play on its fields. If you
don’t count international
games, that is.
After his contract with Juventus expired, the 37-year-old
forward had a few tempting
offers from European clubs. He
was approached by Liverpool,
but rejected the idea out of respect for the victims of the Heysel disaster, when 39 Juventus
fans died in riots staged by Liverpool supporters during the
1985 European Cup final at the
Heysel Stadium in Brussels.
Del Piero eventually found
himself in Australia, a move
which caused nothing short of
a sensation among pundits and
fans alike. It is common knowledge that football stars seek
happy retirements in the United States, Russia or Qatar.Thirty-seven-year-old David Beckham, for example, is quite
happy to spend his sunset years
in the US as part of LA Galaxy. And Russian captain Andrei Arshavin was invited to
move to Qatar by Arab sheikhs
as soon as he lost his place in
Arsenal’s starting lineup, although eventually the 31-yearold halfback decided that he
was too young for such a journey.
Now it seems as if the Australian A-League is following
the lead of American Major
League Soccer, which is ready
to pay big money and offers
excellent infrastructure, but
T
cannot elevate its game to the
level of the leading football
leagues. Older players go the US
for lucrative contracts that will
tide them over in retirement
when they feel they are not good
enough to play in Europe.
Buying ageing football stars
is an effective treatment for the
developmental disease of many
national championships – Turkey and Russia have been heavily involved in it in recent years.
When Nigerian defender Taribo
West accepted the invitation
from Russia’s Saturn in 2002, a
leading national sports newspaper wrote: “We have never had
such a player before.” But while
West was a fine player, he would
have been no match for the current stars of the Russian Premier
League. What’s more important,
Cameroonian Samuel Eto'o and
Brazilian Hulk came to Russia
in their prime as leaders of their
national teams.
Russian experts and fans often
debate whether it is wise to pay
loads of money for foreign soccer and hockey stars. Even President Vladimir Putin had something to say on the subject
recently: “I’d like to emphasise
the fact that they are paid by
companies rather than the state.
Sports fans also want to see stars
play for our clubs, not retired
players, but rising stars as well."
Russia still beats Australia's
A-League when it comes to players’ salaries. But Russians have
contributed to the Del Piero sensation. The Italian will be paid
a record $A2 million a year to
play for Sydney FC, owned by
Russian businessman David
Traktovenko, the former chairman of the board at Zenit St Petersburg.
Who knows, maybe Andrei Arshavin will replace the retired
Alessandro Del Piero in Sydney
after a couple of years, when salaries in Australia grow.
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Russia Beyond the Headlines – A new horizon beckons to the east

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