Moskovsky Komsomolets
UFO sighting near Moscow
Although 50 years have passed since the first manned space flight, space remains just as remote as ever. But could intergalactic travel become as commonplace as a trip to Moscow within next 50 years? Perhaps, but that would require some sort of spaceship, like a flying saucer for example.
The unusual flying saucer-shaped craft housed at the Ivanovskoye village museum in the Moscow Region’s Noginsk District was once top secret. Now this mysterious Soviet invention, known as EKIP (ecology and progress), is on public display.
In the early 1980s, Leo Shchukin, a designer from Korolyov outside Moscow, decided that flying saucers have a future. The EKIP is basically a plane with extremely short wings and a very broad fuselage. To be more precise, it is an aircraft in which the engines, crew and payload are all located inside the fuselage. The EKIP can fly at altitudes of between three meters and 10 kilometers and at speeds of 120-700 kilometers per hour.
Designers say they can carry payloads in excess of 100 metric tons over several thousand kilometers at altitudes of 8 to 13 km, cruising along at 500-700 kph. They also use an air cushion to travel over land and water at 160 kph, while in “ground effect vehicle” mode they can reach speeds of up to 400 kph over land and water. The EKIP has an extremely short take-off run, and resembles the mysterious aircraft from Georgy Danelia’s popular sci-fi movie Kin-Dza-Dza. They only require small landing sites, rather than long runways. Due to their enhanced aerodynamics, it is said that they could carry more than a thousand passengers.
In 1993, the Russian government decided to finance the EKIP project. At that time, two full-size EKIP aircraft were already near completion. The government supported plans for their mass production. Although the EKIP project was included in the 1999 federal budget, it received no funding. Shchukin was extremely concerned about the project’s future and died of a heart attack in 2001.
The government soon lost all interest in the project, but top managers at the cash-strapped Saratov Aircraft Plant, part of the EKIP Concern, successfully found foreign investors in 2000. Alexander Yermishin, the plant’s CEO, headed to Maryland for talks over further tests to be held there in 2003. Then, several years ago, he and the plant’s general designer were invited to build a plant in the United States, where the EKIP market is estimated at $2-3 billion. But the sides failed to agree terms after the U.S. side refused to finance parallel production in Russia.
This flying saucer could have vied with Boeing and Airbus airliners. In 2007, President Vladimir Putin signed a federal law establishing the Russian Technologies State Corporation, due to facilitate the designing, production and global marketing of military and dual-purpose products, including the EKIP.
The Saratov plant was closed. There is no funding for the project. And this home-grown “UFO” is now on display at the Combat Fraternity Museum near Moscow.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Finance minister picks on weak points in president’s plans
On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin reported back to the State Duma on the state of the Russian economy. The minister painted a radiant picture but expressed cautious criticism of the president’s initiative to cut social insurance payments.
During a meeting in Magnitogorsk last week, President Dmitry Medvedev instructed the government to return social insurance payments, which had been increased to 26% this year, to their previous lower levels. Kudrin informed the MPs that the government was already acting on the president’s directive and doing the calculations. However, in his final remarks, the finance minister produced devastating arguments against the president’s initiative.
When the contributions were raised, Kudrin said, the idea was to boost pensions. Now, by carrying out Medvedev’s directive, the government will have to raise other taxes in the future. The demographic situation does not offer hope that in twenty or so years the working population will be able to support pensioners. Kudrin urged deputies to consider not only the benefits the measure would have for businesses, but also the negative impact on low income groups.
Kudrin also reported back on the government’s progress in the economy. He described positive growth in industrial production, compared with the development of mineral resources, which had not made much headway. Real incomes across the country, Kudrin said, were up 1.8% and there was every hope that year-end inflation would not surpass 7% unless non-financial factors like a drought intervene. The rest of the picture was optimistic as well: the banking sector was very much alive and so was the financial market, which leads among the BRIC countries.
The minister also spotted some positive signs in capital outflow. He said it was portfolio investments that were going, while direct investment was in positive territory.
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
Worker and Soldier: Vocational schools to postpone conscription?
The State Duma Committee on Youth has drafted a bill that could enable vocational schools to defer the conscription of their students. Its author, Pavel Tarakanov, the Youth Committee’s chairman, believes that future graduates of vocational schools, who would go on to become junior or mid-level technical staff, have been put at a deliberate disadvantage compared with university students. Students enrolled in universities or colleges are exempt from conscription until they graduate.
Eager not to infringe upon these young professionals’ interests, Duma deputies have even extended the spring draft to July 15. It is practically impossible for a university graduate to be sent off to the barracks before they have received their diploma.
The situation with students at vocational and technical schools is somewhat different – by law they are given the right to defer on educational grounds up to the age of 20, but this does not apply to everybody.
The gist of the new legislation concerns the framework for the draft. The project proposes to offer all full-time students in accredited vocational schools the right to defer military service until the age of 21. If this bill is passed, students in vocational and technical schools and colleges will have time to graduate before being conscripted into the military.
The bill’s supporters believe that this decision will not affect the number of soldiers drafted, and that the military will benefit, receiving hundreds of educated men.
Many students in secondary vocational education decide to continue in vocational education and training after finishing school. They enroll at the age of 17 but may be drafted within a year before they have graduated.
“This disrupts the continuity of the learning process and reduces graduates’ level of professional competence,” Tarakanov said.
Tarakanov cites statistics indicating that one-third of the students in secondary vocational education who are plucked from school by the draft do not return to technical schools and colleges after completing their military service. Consequently, Russia loses hundreds of graduates and potential junior and mid-level management and technical professionals.
Another possibility raised at a meeting between President Dmitry Medvedev and students at technical colleges would be granting vocational school graduates the option of immediately enrolling in universities. This would also require significant changes in legislation.
Nevertheless, the Committee on Education will consider these proposals together with other interested committees and factions in the Duma.
“It's worth it. The more young people in the country studying, the better,” said Duma deputy Valery Ryazansky. “We should consider each school carefully on a case-by-case basis. On the one hand, we should not disrupt the mixed conscription and contract service system. And on the other, we need to give kids the opportunity to learn a profession. The more so because our industry is now in very short supply of qualified personnel. If we say that Russia is a technical power, that status must be maintained and developed.”
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