Izvestia
Russia appoints deputy prime minister to run national image-building project
First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov has been appointed to represent the government on the board of the All-Russian Exhibition Center.
Shuvalov, who is expected to restore the Soviet Exhibition of Economic Achievements to its former glory, is likely to be made chairman of the board, a source close to the project told Izvestia. After renovation of the 590-acre public park and exhibition center in northern Moscow is complete, it will tout Russia’s achievements once more.
“The Soviet Union used this venue to demonstrate its achievements. Now it can be used to boost competition in specific sectors and promote innovation,” said Dmitry Abzalov, an analyst at the Center for Current Politics.
Shuvalov is the first top-ranking government official to focus on the national exhibition. Its current board is headed by Yury Medvedev, deputy head of the state property management agency. Therefore, Shuvalov’s appointment is a political decision. Until recently, Russia’s commitment to change its oil-based economic model for an innovation-based economy was only manifest in the rhetoric of government officials. Now this commitment will be visualized.
In this sense, the exhibition center may be viewed as the “half-brother” of the Skolkovo innovation hub: Skolkovo will focus on commercializing domestic R&D projects, while the exhibition center will promote them.
“Many Russians retain special feelings for this exhibition center,” Shuvalov said after signing agreements with Belarus and Kazakhstan on discounted pavilions for use at the center. “In the past, it displayed all the most remarkable achievements the country had produced.”
Now, the exhibition center hosts pet shows and commercial venues that sell goods ranging from food to wedding gowns. A ferret show took place there on January 15. There is one private mansion and several dozen other buildings whose ownership has not been properly formalized. In fact, some of the owners are “hard to find,” according to a source in management.
Shuvalov will have to deal with this difficult inheritance. He is to approve the final reconstruction plan and then raise private funding to make up for shortfalls in government financing of the project.
The Soviet Union broke ground for its biggest exhibition in 1939. Factories, collective farms, and research companies had to prove that they had worthy achievements in order to participate with their own displays. The exhibition was designed by the best Russian architects. It was incorporated in 1992 under Boris Yeltsin, with the federal government holding 69.79% of its stock and Moscow 30.21%.
Analysts differ on the best way to develop the exhibition. Alexei Mogila from Penny Lane Realty believes it should be rebuilt as an entertainment park of the Disneyland scale. Soviet history must attract tourists, he said.
Alexander Batushansky from Decision consultancy said it should be developed as a venue for international trade shows. “If well managed, it could be profitable. But land development is a commercial project. I don’t know why the government is even involved in it,” he said.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
The MIG-35 will not fly to Bangalore
Russia is losing the battle for the Indian arms market
The 8th international Aero India 2011 aerospace show will be held on February 9 at the Indian Air Force's Yelahanka Air Force Station, located an hour's drive from Bangalore, the capital city of Karnataka. It will run until February 13, and 338 companies from 23 countries are participating, including 35 leading Russian aviation concerns.
Russian aircraft are well known in India after decades of military-technical cooperation. India accounts for over $40 billion of Russia's military exports, or about one third of the total, and Russia not only supplies Delhi with weapons and military equipment – it generously licenses its production technology, unlike any of India’s other military-technical partners.
Aero India 2011 will not, however, feature the MiG-35, one of Russia’s most advanced fighters, even though the MiG-35 is listed in a tender to supply Delhi with 126 medium multi-role fighters under the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) program.
Six fighters are involved in the tender, which promises more than $11 billion and work for aviation defense contractors for years to come. These fighters are the American F/A18E/F Super Hornet (Boeing) and F-16IN Super Viper (Lockheed Martin), the French Rafale (Dassault), the European Eurofighter EF-2000 Typhoon (EADS), the Swedish Gripen NG (Saab), and the Russian MiG-35. At Aero India 2009, the show's organizers were not afraid to embarrass competitors by calling the MiG-35 the “absolute best” of the bunch over the PA system of the airbase.
However, there is another side to the story, recently detailed in the Indian magazine Strategic Affairs. An Indian Defense Ministry official spent several weeks in the U.S. and reportedly assured Boeing that its F/A18E/F Super Hornet aircraft will win the MMRCA tender. In addition, confidential tender documents were lost and then suddenly found, and a “short list” of finalists excluding the MiG-35 appeared and then disappeared. Some observers even associate these events with the conspicuous absence of the Russian aircraft at Aero India 2011. Russian design bureaus and defense companies should be on guard. Competition for the Indian arms market is intensifying with every passing day, and U.S. firms are now particularly active players.
After the U.S. Senate repealed restrictions on cooperation with India, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and others have set up shop in Delhi, gaining access to influential officials and trying to promote their products – all the more so since India wants to diversify its military supplies, rightly believing in not “putting all its eggs in one basket.” The U.S. is even exhibiting its fifth-generation F-22 in Bangalore, which they have not done previously at any foreign airshow. The Farnborough International Airshow in the U.K. included an air demonstration of the F-22, but this will be the first on-the-ground exhibition of the aircraft. The U.S. is making an exception for India, and for Russian aviation companies, the MiG-35's absence from Bangalore is a bad sign.
Kommersant
Party of Popular Freedom beginning to spread across Russia
The Party of Popular Freedom has launched a campaign of regional growth, establishing its first branch in Moscow last weekend. By late March, it plans to have affiliations in 57 regions, and on April 16, it will hold a massive rally in Moscow to demand official registration with the Ministry of Justice.
All four co-founders of the party, called PARNAS, an acronym of its Russian name, spoke at the founding meeting in Moscow. “More and more people are realizing that there is a need for change. We declare that an alternative to the present government is possible, and the people should be able to feel it,” said co-founder Mikhail Kasyanov, leader of the People’s Democratic Union (NDS). Vladimir Milov, leader of the Democratic Choice movement, described the new party as “the only political force capable of standing up to the corrupt party in power today.” “The overwhelming crime of the present-day administration is that it has destroyed our state. There are no elections, no federalism, no regional life, no self-government, no security. Our common objective is to rid the country of the person who has done all this,” said Boris Nemtsov, one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement. Vladimir Ryzhkov, chairman of the Republican Party, which was stripped of its official registration, was the last to speak. “Our party faces four priority challenges: corruption, control of the government machinery and security agencies, free elections, and comfortable conditions for business and civil society,” he said.
Under the Law on Political Parties, any new association must have a membership of at least 45,000 people and regional branches in more than half of the Russian regions to be registered. By April, when the party plans to submit its documents to the Ministry of Justice, it expects to have 50,000 to 60,000 members. In Moscow, 1,000 have already joined (the meeting was attended by over 300 party members). Kasyanov told Kommersant that he was sure the regions already had 200 members each. “I look with optimism towards gaining the numbers required by the law,” he said. He added that founding meetings would be held by the end of March in 57 regions.
At the Moscow meeting, the party also discussed its basic goals. Participants were given a list of 12 key legislative initiatives the party will introduce if elected to the State Duma. They concern changes in the electoral system, the courts, taxation, and anti-graft measures. Boris Nemtsov focused on reinstating a constitutional clause limiting the presidency to four years in office and two back-to-back terms. “How long are we going to guess which of these great Dolce & Gabbanas will be our candidates in the 2012 elections: Dolce or Gabbana? Two terms is enough to say goodbye,” he said.
At the suggestion of PARNAS leaders, it was decided to elect four co-chairmen for the Moscow branch, one from each founding organization. These were: Ilya Yashin (Solidarity), Sergei Grigorov (NDS), Yevgeny Kharichev (Republican Party), and Gennady Pushko (Democratic Choice). One of the immediate objectives of the Moscow branch will be to prepare the thousands-strong rally that PARNAS plans to hold on April 16 to demand the party’s registration.
RIA Novosti is not responsible for the content of outside sources.
