NEWS IN BRIEF

Elvira Nabiullina, a former economic minister and aide to President Vladimir Putin, has been nominated to lead Russia’s Central Bank. If con-fi rmed, she will take charge of the bank at the end of June when current bank chairman Sergei Ignatiev retires. She would be the fi rst woman to head the Central Bank. A Putin loyalist, Nabiul-lina is likely to take the Kremlin line on mone-tary policy, which may include a lowering of in-terest rates in the near future.

Hundreds of Bolshoi Theater staff have signed an open letter in defense of dancer Pavel Dmitrichen-ko following his arrest as the mastermind of the acid attack on Bolshoi Artistic Director Sergei Filin. A source close to the theater said that those who signed the letter are not hostile to Filin, who is undergoing treatment in Germany, but want to prevent the investigation from making rash con-clusions and defaming Dmitrichenko. Shortly after the letter was released, Filin held a press confer-ence praising the work of the Moscow police and the speed at which they had concluded the inves-tigation. He did not comment on the statement by his colleagues.

Putin nominates new head of

Central Bank

Arrest of star dancer causes

further turmoil at the Bolshoi

Political scientist Nikolai Zlobin has founded a new think tank in Washington, D.C., called the Center for Global Interests. The center was launched with a forum and panel discussion at the Brookings Institution on March 12. Accord-ing to Zlobin, the center will focus on global pol-itics, particularly on the United States, Russia and their bilateral relations. The fi rst major proj-ect of the center will look at the G20 and Rus-sia’s presidency of the organization.

New research center to

probe U.S.-Russia relations

Entertainment A partnership between Hollywood and Moscow should thrill Russian families

Rosneft has taken a 30 percent stake in 20 deepwater explora-tion blocks in the Gulf of Mexi-co held by U.S. giant ExxonMo-bil. The Russian oil company’s C.E.O. Igor Sechin announced the deal to an international audience of investors on March 6 at the Cambridge Energy Research As-sociates (CERA) Week in Hous-ton, Tex.

Rosneft Touts Gulf of Mexico Deal, Arctic Exploration

Energy Russia’s oil major extends its reach both north and south

Sechin, an infl uential former deputy prime minister and close ally of President Vladimir Putin, emphasized Rosneft’s increased collaboration with foreign oil companies, such as Exxon, Italy’s Eni and Norway’s Statoil, to at-tract investment for the explora-tion of Russia’s offshore energy fi elds. Rosneft already has a stra-tegic partnership with the U.K.’s BP, which last year became a major shareholder in Rosneft as part of the buyout of joint-ven-ture TNK-BP. Rosneft is expect-ed to conclude the deal in the sec-ond quarter of 2013, said Sechin at the conference.

“After the acquisition closing, Rosneft will provide to its inves- CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

VIKTOR KUZMIN SPECIAL TO RBTH

Soon, Russian fans of such

popular franchises as “Shrek” and

“Madagascar” will be able to see

their favorite characters up close

and in person.

But even if DreamWorks has a corner on the market, there seems to be plenty of room for every-one. The Russian entertainment sector is growing at a rate of 10 percent per year.; the market grew 12 percent in 2011 alone. Accord-ing to assessments from Price-waterhouseCoopers, Russia is one of the top 10 fastest-growing en-tertainment markets in the world, and more than 60 percent of the demand comes from Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg — the three cities targeted for theme parks.

PwC predicts that by 2014, the entertainment market in Russia will be the largest in the Europe-Middle East-Africa region, out-stripping the current leader, Spain.

Pictured (L-R):

DreamWorks

C.E.O. Jeffrey

Katzenberg

and Regions

Group board

member Ami-

ran Mutsoev

celebrate a

deal that will

bring Dream-

Works branded

theme parks to

Russia.

Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. Negotiations on the Moscow site are still in progress.

Regions Group board member Amiran Mutsoev expects the proj-ect to turn a profi t after 10 years, assuming that the parks attract 11.7 million visitors per year. The three cities are home to a cumu-lative 20 million people. The tick-et price will be between $50–$80 and will include all rides.

The Russian parks are Dream-Works’ fi rst project of this kind, and so it is not yet known what types of attractions — or what popular characters — the parks will feature. There is no shortage of options, however: “Shrek,” “Madagascar,” “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Kung Fu Panda” are all popular DreamWorks fi lms.

Mutsoev is certain the parks will not be a hard sell. “Dream-Works’ characters are the most popular in Russia,” Mutsoev said. His assessment is backed up both by ticket receipts and Dream-Works management. Last year’s release “Madagascar 3” was the second-most successful animat-ed fi lm in the history of the Rus-sian box office; the picture took in more than $48 million in Rus-sian theaters, second only to 20th Century Fox’s “Ice Age 4.” And at the project launch, DreamWorks C.E.O. Jeffrey Katzenberg said: “DreamWorks’ characters are even more popular in Russia than Universal’s or Disney’s. Six of the 10 most successful cartoons and animated fi lms were produced by DreamWorks.”

DreamWorks to Build First Theme Parks in Russia

Rosneft is trading icy fields for warmer waters.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 2013

Special Report

Getting past the stereotype of the Slavic beautyP.03

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Russian abstraction on exhibit at MoMAP.07

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One year until the Olympics, where does Sochi stand?P.08

This special advertising feature is sponsored and was written by Rossiyskaya Gazeta (Russia) and did not involve the reporting or editing staff of The New York Times.

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IGOR ROZIN RUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINES

Rosneft acquires a 30 percent

stake in an ExxonMobil project in

the Gulf of Mexico, underlining

the Russian oil company’s plans

to become a bigger player in the

global energy market.

Russian commercial real estate fi rm Regions Group has partnered with DreamWorks Animation to build indoor theme parks in Mos-cow, St. Petersburg and the Urals city of Yekaterinburg. The proj-ect will cost $1 billion, with 30 percent funded by the company itself and the other 70 percent fi -nanced through bank loans. The theme parks will take up a total area of 10.7 million square feet, and construction sites havealready been selected for St.

tors an updated synergies fore-cast for the united company,” Sechin said.

Rosneft is in the process of buy-ing 100 percent of TNK-BP. As part of the deal, Rosneft will pay BP some $12 billion in cash, and the British company will get a 19.7 percent stock interest in the Russian fi rm. Rosneft plans to pay TNK-BP’s other shareholder, Rus-sian consortium AAR, $28 billion in cash for its stake.

“The consolidated balance of Rosneft will also include about $5 billion of cash accumulated on the accounts of TNK-BP,” Sechin said.

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SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS AND SECTIONS ABOUT RUSSIA ARE PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY RUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINES, A DIVISION OF ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA (RUSSIA), IN THE FOLLOWING NEWSPAPERS: THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, UNITED KINGDOM • THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, UNITED STATES • LE FIGARO, FRANCE • SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, GERMANY • EL PAÍS, SPAIN • LA REPUBBLICA, ITALY • LE SOIR, BELGIUM • DUMA, BULGARIA • GEOPOLITICA, SERBIA • ELEFTHEROS TYPOS, GREECE • THE ECONOMIC TIMES, THE NAVBHARAT TIMES, INDIA • MAINICHI SHIMBUN, JAPAN • GLOBAL TIMES, CHINA • SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, CHINA (HONG KONG) • LA NACION, ARGENTINA • FOLHA DE SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL • EL OBSERVADOR, URUGUAY • JOONGANG ILBO, SOUTH KOREA • THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, THE AGE, AUSTRALIA • GULF NEWS, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES • MORE DETAILS AT RBTH.RU/ABOUT.

Youth At one point, the Nashi youth group attracted tens of thousands to its rallies. Now the Kremlin says the movement has run its course

Pro-government forces have

announced intentions to create a

new youth-oriented political

movement on the remnants of a

former favorite project.

The pro-Kremlin Russian youth movement Nashi (Ours), which made a name for itself by orga-nizing outrageous political acts, is set for a complete overhaul. Russian news media report that it will be replaced by a new youth organization with a new name and different objectives. The pri-mary goal of the new movement will be helping young people bet-ter integrate into society. Russian daily Izvestia reported that the new organization will no longer take part in political actions and public rallies.

Nashi was founded in 2005 to support the political establish-ment and made its name through mass rallies. Vasily Yakemenko, one of the movement’s founders, stated that the Nashi movement viewed Russia “as the historical and geographical center of the world,” the freedom of which is threatened by the “unholy union of communists, fascists and lib-erals that is fueled by their com-mon hatred of our president, Vlad-imir Putin.”

Many of the Nashi movement’s actions have been deliberately scandalous in nature. In 2007, ac-tivists held protests in front of the British Embassy in Moscow, accusing then-Ambassador An-thony Brenton of fi nancing the Russian opposition.

By 2008, the movement had started to turn into a kind of con-

glomerate whose activities were directed at tackling issues that were only indirectly political. One of these projects was “Piggy Ver-sus,” which involved Nashi activ-ists periodically raiding super-markets in order to clear the shelves of items that had passed their sell-by date.

Another project, called “Stop ’em,” attempted to enforce driv-ing laws.

At a youth forum in 2010, Nashi activists set up an installation that featured the decapitated

heads of certain Russian opposi-tion leaders and Western politi-cians on sticks wearing caps cov-ered in Nazi symbols.

Time for a change Yakemenko believes the move-ment is ready for new direction.

“In 2005, 50,000 people came out to support the Nashi move-ment rally against the Orange threat in Russia. On Dec. 6, 2011, Nashi activists were the only ones who went to Mayakovsky Square in support of the election results.

No Longer Ours: Nashi to Be Reorganized

A member of the Nashi move-

ment participates in a rally

wearing a cloak featuring a

portrait of Vladimir Putin.

ALEXEI BAUSINRUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINES

In 2012, there were 20,000 activ-ists left on the squares, ready to fi ght. Now everything is just re-peating itself,” Yakemenko said in an interview with business daily Vedomosti.

“If we want something new and meaningful to take our place, then we need to change course politi-cally. And it has to be the right course,” he added. “I don’t think anybody needs that.”

Political analyst Alexei Makar-kin said that the movement has run its course. “The Nashi move-

Nashi Up Close and Personal

Sundance honoree “Putin’s Kiss,” tells the true story of teenage pro-Kremlin youth activist Masha Droko-va as she rises through the ranks of the Nashi movement and is eventu-ally disillusioned with it. In the film, Danish director Lise Birk Pederson

follows Drokova over a four-year period. Drokova’s ultimate fallout with the Nashi movement propels the film forward as she befriends opposition journalist Oleg Kashin, who became an international figure after his near fatal beating in 2010.

Dnevnik.ru was founded in 2009 as a free service to help schools. Traditionally, schools have coped with I.T. problems by buying or developing separate systems to manage different processes. Dnevnik, however, takes a more comprehensive view. The St. Pe-tersburg company’s cloud-based, modular platform aims to cover all the essential I.T. needs of schools, including management systems, learning processes (in-cluding online tests), social net-working and messaging.

Dnevnik also offers real time information and alerts about class

Education Startup aims to help students keep track of their classes and schools manage their workflow

Russian students write down their

homework in a book called a

“dnevnik.” Now an I.T. firm with

the same name wants to help

schools manage their challenges.

schedules, grades and homework assignments, as well as a large educational resource center.

In early 2012, the Russian start-up was honored as one of the of the best e-learning and educa-tional Web sites at the World Sum-mit Award, an annual contest for electronic media held under the auspices of the United Nations.

Dnevnik has a “freemium” ap-proach. The main functions are available for free, but some ad-ditional services are provided on a paid basis. For example, for $3 per month, parents can subscribe to SMS alerts that let them know when their child is entering or leaving school, or when home-work assignments are turned in.

Dnevnik was initially funded by its founder Gabriel Levi, who declined to disclose the amount of his initial investment, but in 2011, the startup attracted $1.7

A New Way to Keep Track of Assignments

M.S.U. is housed in an iconic buiding in Moscow’s Sparrow Hills.

ADRIEN HENNI SPECIAL TO RBTH

The primary goal of the new youth movement will be helping young people better integrate into Russian society. The new organization will no longer take part in political actions and public rallies.

foreign students attend Moscow State University out of an enroll-ment of about 50,000. The univer-sity has seven campuses outside of Russia, including one in Geneva

7,000IN FIGURES

million from Prostor Capital, a Russian fund concentrating on solutions for the public sector.

In September, Dnevnik secured $5 million from Runa Capital, a Moscow-based venture fund working in both the local and in-ternational markets.

Dnevnik is now trying to at-tract a new round of fi nancing to accelerate its development abroad. By the end of 2013, Dnevnik aims to serve 40,000 out of 53,000 Russian schools, plus 20,000 schools abroad, mainly in Ukraine. The company has just started collaborations with schools in Hungary, Poland and Israel. Its next targets are the U.S. and Chinese markets.

Dnevnik is preparing for the launch of new paid services and, in the long term, intends to de-velop solutions for kindergartens and universities.

Moscow State University is the only Russian university to make it into the top 100 of the Times Higher Education World Repu-tation Rankings, coming in at 50.

The fi rst fi ve places in the sur-vey were taken by Harvard Uni-versity, the Massachusetts Insti-tute of Technology, Cambridge University, Oxford University and the University of California, Berkeley. Appearing on the list at all was a victory for Moscow

Rankings Russia’s flagship institute of higher education hopes new rating will increase its attractiveness for foreign students

The latest version of the

respected Times Higher

Education World Reputation

Rankings includes just one

university from Russia.

out a doubt. It is important for foreign students, as it helps them choose which university they want to attend. But I wouldn’t put too much stock into the rush for rankings. I’d like to reiterate that the most important thing for a university is to consistently do a good job.”

Sadovnichy stressed that the university has always been well thought of in certain circles. “Mos-cow State University has always had a good reputation interna-tionally,” Sadovnichy said. “And we have our fair share of foreign students — around 7,000. But I’m confi dent that M.S.U. now being fi rmly among the top 100 univer-sities in the world will certainly help to increase the number of foreign students wanting to come and study with us.”

The Times Higher Education Ranking is compiled from poll-ing of leading scientists and ac-ademics. The poll that produced the most recent ranking was held in March–April 2012. More than 16,000 responses from 144 coun-tries were received.

Moscow State Back Among the World’s Top Universities

STEPAN IVANOVRUSSIA BEYND THE HEADLINES

What to Know

Name: Dnevik.ru (Russian for “day-book” or “diary”) Web site: www.dnevnik.ruConcept: A cloud-based, modu-lar platform to cover schools’ I.T. needs, including management sys-tems, learning processes, social networking and messaging, plus realtime information and alerts, in-cluding class schedules, grades and homework assignments.Unique selling point: A comprehen-sive one-stop-shop for schools’ I.T. solutions, based on a “freemium” approach.Start date: 2009Development plans: Expansion to 20,000 schools abroad by the end of 2013.

RUSSIAN STARTUPS

Find out about developments in the hottest Rus-sian startups in our special sec-tion!

Respondents were asked to name a maximum of 15 topeducational and research insti-tutions based on their personal experience. They were also asked specifi c questions, such as: “Which university would you send your best graduate to for postgradu-ate courses?”

According to Sadovnichy, it was a question like this that pre vented M.S.U. from making the top 100 last year: “Last year, we raised an objection against one of the questions,” Sadovnichy said. “The question initially was: ‘Would you send a postdoc to Moscow State University?’ We objected, arguing that postdoctoral positions are not very common in Russia, and there are almost none within the Moscow State University.

“We asked to alter thequestion to: ‘Would you be will-ing to accept a graduate of the Moscow State University as a postdoc in your lab?’ This word-ing makes a huge difference, since our graduates work successfully in countless labs around the world.”

State, which last year did not even make the rankings.

“It certainly has to do with rep-utation,” said university rector Victor Sadovnichy in an interview with Kommersant FM radio. “And it is a signal for employers, with-

ment had two goals: it wanted to control the ‘street,’ and it want-ed to make sure that today’s youth was cut off from the opposition,” Makarkin said, adding that the organization had failed on both accounts. According to Makar-kin, the authorities will continue to engage in youth politics, but efforts in this area will be more localized.

The article is a combined report based on material from

Izvestia and Vedomosti.

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Salaries Determine Dynamics in Russian Families rbth.ru/23431 Special Report

The international advertising agency DDB once worked on an campaign for a cream by RoC skincare to air in several mar-kets. The commercial the agency created, which showed a woman looking at herself in the mirror smiling at the results of her skincream, won acclaim in France, but was a failure in Russia, scoring low on believ-ability and likeability. When the DDB team introduced a man looking at the woman in admi-ration, the attitudes of Russians toward the spot changed dramat-ically. The scores of the new ad on likeability, persuasion andbelievability were sky high.

DDB’s experience is just one example of what beauty experts consider the key difference be-tween Russian and Western women. Ads directed at Europe-

Lifestyle Russian women work on standing out from the crowd. Can it be attributed to their historical and cultural background?

Always Put Your Best Look Forward

The beauty industry is

considered a growth area in

Russia, where women spend a

large percentage of their monthly

income on cosmetics.

IRINA FORD, NATALYA NEMCHINOVASPECIAL TO RBTH

A selection of

Russia’s most

powerful

women

A recent ranking of Russia’s 100 most-powerful women divided the group into six categories: politics, media, society, culture, sports and business. Many of these women are known widely only inside Russia, but a few, such as tennis pro Ma-ria Sharapova, have a more interna-tional profile. New Yorkers may also know Irina Prokhorova, the head of her brother MIkhail Prokorov’s char-itable fund, and pop culture watch-ers may know Xenia Sobchak, so-cialite-turned-opposition politician.

What Russian

women spend on

According to research compa-ny Nielsen, 69 percent of Rus-sian women said they would spend spare cash on makeup. Only 8 per-cent of the respondents said they would invest their extra money.

investment

8 %

vacation

73%

clothes

81%

Our art, our national costume and architecture build on the heritage of the Scythians, Mongols and Byzantines. Look at the Ortho-dox churches, their luscious painting and the shining domes. This is the cultural code thatidentifi es our taste and penetrates us from early childhood.”

Some women attribute the way Russian women dress and wear makeup to a Darwinian mental-ity that arose due to the shortage of men after World War II. Oth-ers say that Russian women are breaking out from the restrictions of the Soviet era, when any at-tempt to stand out was frowned upon and high-quality clothes and makeup were hard to come by.

“We are too bright for Euro-pean women. But we are not bet-ter or worse; we are from differ-ent cultures,” Tan said.

Studies show that Russian women spend generously oncosmetics. Euromonitor notes that Russian women spend a higher proportion of their income on cos-metics than European women. Citizens of Spain, Portugal or Greece spend about 100 euros ($128) on cosmetics a year; French women spend 200 euros ($256); Swiss women 180 euros ($230) and British women 150 euros ($198). A Russian woman is ready to spend about 70 euros ($89) on cosmetics a year. However, month-ly salaries in Russia are much lower, averaging $760 in 2012, compared to $2,715 in Spain and $2,521 in Greece).

The beauty industry in Russia is considered one of the mostpotentially profi table sectors of the economy today. The Europe-an market for beauty services is oversaturated, but in Russia it is still developing, with growth es-timated between 5 per cent and 10 percent annually. Analysts note that since Russia joined the W.T.O., the market for beauty services has become increasingly attrac-tive for global chains of beauty salons as well as global cosmet-ics manufacturers.

Seniors After leaving behind work and child-rearing responsibilities, older Russian women are taking advantage of new freedoms

A “babushka” used to spend

her time babysitting

and gardening, but today’s

retirees are getting online and

taking up new hobbies.

Olga Kuznetsova, 55, who graces the fl oor of a dance studio in an elegant dress and heels, can hard-ly be described as a “babushka,” the Russian word for grandmoth-er. Her recent retirement has given her the chance to do something she has long dreamed about: learn to dance the tango. And she is not deterred by being the oldest in her group. Kuznetsova’s new routine involves meeting friends after class, and she is planning a trip to Europe with them in April. “I raised a child, worked three jobs, and now just want to live for my-self,” she said.

While such activities may be common for retired women in other parts of the world, for Rus-sia this is a novelty. The tradition-al image of Russian grandmoth-ers is of old ladies sitting on benches outside apartment build-ings, watching their grandchildren play nearby as they discuss the latest news and gossip.

But exposure to other globetrot-ting retirees — both in person and through movies and magazines — has given Russian women some new ideas for what to do with themselves after they escape the daily grind. Today, retirement can mean taking up a new sport or hobby, chatting online and help-ing not just their families, but also society.

“My mother is 62 years old, and she is by no means a ‘babushka,’” said Yulia Bushueva, managing di-rector of Arbat Capital’s New

Kicking Up Their Heels in Retirement

NATALIA YAMNITSKAYASPECIAL TO RBTH

Making the most of that pension

According to the Federal StateStatistics Service (Rosstat), women outnumber men in Russia by 16.2 percent. The average life span of Russian women is 73, while for men

it is 60. Currently one in eight Rus-sian citizens — 12.8 percent — is aged 65 or older, and in this age group there are more than two women for every man.

They won’t be confused with the average girl group

The Buranovskiye Babushki (The Grandmothers from Buranovo), a folk collective with an average age of 75, showed the world that grow-ing older doesn’t have to mean slowing down when they represent-ed Russia in last year’s Eurovision song contest. The group, from the Republic of Udmurtia in the Volga region, dances in traditional birch-bark shoes and rehashes hits by Rus-sian and foreign performers into the Udmurt language. They took second place in the competition with their rousing song “Party for Everybody.”

Fitness classes are just one of many new activities older women are embracing.

Kremlin Fund. “She retired a cou-ple of years ago, started driving, and is now thinking about cours-es in photography and English.”

Others are using technology for a new take on old hobbies. “My grandmother downloads comput-erised embroidery patterns and uses them in a special sewing ma-chine,” said student Yulia Vedini-na. “If she doesn’t understand something, she takes a video tu-torial on Skype.”

Body-and-soul courses aimed at older people are suddenly pop-ping up everywhere in Moscow. A dance school for seniors recently opened at the All-Russia Exhibi-tion Center (VVTs) in northern Moscow. And the Mitino social ser-

vice center in the Moscow Region now hosts an amateur puppet the-atre. Under the Age of Happiness project, set up by Vladimir Yakov-lev, founder of the business daily Kommersant, seminars are held on how to live, eat and stay busy, regardless of age and social ste-reotypes.

And this more active type of re-tirement is not only on the rise in Moscow and St Petersburg. Ger-truda Pankrushina, a former an-aesthesiologist from Novosibirsk, enrolled in a computer course at the age of 70.

“It wasn’t easy, but I got through it,” she said. “I now Skype my grandchildren, write emails and get recipes online.”

an women emphasize that aproduct can make the user feel comfortable in her own skin; they often show women wear-ing comfortable clothes and light makeup that underlines natural beauty.

But Russian women prefer to see women in ads with the

kind of bright make-up, sky-high heels and designer clothes they see on the streets in Moscow. or St. Petersburg. Russians them-

selves attribute the look to their particular mindset — one that draws on historical experience.Natalya Tsel, a linguist from

St. Petersburg who completed a student exchange program in the United States, says that many Russian women fi nd it hard to comprehend the love of Ameri-cans for casual style. “How do American women dress and apply makeup? They’d use the words ‘comfortable’ and ‘practical’, but we’d say ‘careless’ and ‘dull’,” Tsel said.

Said stylist Natalya Tan: “The reason Russian women dress the way they do is because of their background. We shouldn’t forget that half of the country is in Asia.

The beauty industry in Russia is one of the most potentially profitable sectors of the economy.

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MOST READ04 RUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINESSECTION SPONSORED BY ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA, RUSSIA

WWW.RBTH.RU

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Mobile Banking Technologies Catching Onrbth.ru/23527Business

Who Wants to Be a Programmer?

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

Russia’s Deputy Minister ofCommunications, Mark Shmu-levich, spoke with Elena Shipi-lova of Russia Beyond the Head-lines about how I.T. can become Russia’s leading non resource sec-tor in terms of export volumes, and what the government should do in order to make the pro fession attractive among young people.

The Ministry of Communications

and Mass Media plans to increase

exports of the Russian I.T. sector so

that it rivals the defense industry.

How and when can this be done?

Software exports from Russia soared from $200–$300 million per year in the 2000s to $5 bil-lion in 2012, according to vari-ous estimates. The sector has been growing an average of 20 percent annually over the past few years. In 2012, Russia sold approximate-ly $15 billion worth of arms to foreign buyers. If the trend con-tinues, then we will soon be able to get even closer to the defense industry, despite the expected growth in foreign arms supplies. A major increase in I.T. exports is not an end in itself; it is rath-er an indicator of how well the I.T. sector is developing and how well Russia is integrated into the global economy.

During the last decade, Russian soft-

ware giants such as Kaspersky Lab

and ABBYY have accounted for the

Growth of Russian I.T. exports in billions

GLOBAL RUSSIA BUSINESS CALENDAR

MOSCOW CITY GOVERNMENT

ROAD SHOW

MARCH 20

NEW YORK

The Moscow City government in cooperation with K.P.M.G. and the U.S.-Russia Business Coun-cil, will present a seminar and luncheon on the development of Moscow as an international finan-cial center. › www.usrbc.org

2ND ANNUAL V.T.B. CAPITAL

INVESTMENT FORUM

APRIL 9–11

NEW YORK

During the three-day forum, leading Russian and international experts will discuss the Russian economy and the factors affect-ing investment opportunities in emerging markets, as well as the ease of doing business. › www.vtbcapital.com

AUTOMOTIVE AND

AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY

FORUM

APRIL 3

DETROIT, MICH

This event, hosted by the U.S.-Russia Business Council, will in-troduce investors to opportuni-ties in Russian automotives. › www.usrbc.org

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IN THE GLOBAL CALENDAR

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majority of this increase in export

supplies. Is there any demand for the

products of medium-sized compa-

nies or startups?

Export is also growing thanks to outsourcing to Russia, and that’s what medium-sized companies do. When it comes to software products, we have had some suc-cessful projects, too. Take Ecwid, for example [a system that cre-ates e-commerce platforms and has a strong working relation-ship with Facebook], or Prognoz [which produces analysis systems for companies] and Diasoft [which provides automation of banking and insurance systems]. There are many such examples,

all of which offer internationally competitive products. Many of them were startups, but they have now found their niche. The only question is whether they are in-terested in staying in Russia or shifting their business to a neigh-boring country, Europe or the U.S., where the business environment is often more favorable.

How can we encourage them to stay?

There are two blocks of institu-tional arrangements that are crit-ical to the development of the I.T. sector. These are the favorable tax regime and availability of skilled personnel. We have a preferential social tax – 14 percent instead of

30 percent – for companies where I.T. services and products account for 90 percent of business. The discount is valid through 2017. But it’s not enough for them to keep developing at their current pace, and we are working on hav-ing the preferences extended until 2020. It is important that the state pursue a consistent policy on I.T.; some countries have a moratori-um on sudden aggravations of the tax regime. To ensure sustainabil-ity, these companies need to un-derstand that the rules of the game won’t change overnight.

The reputation of Russian program-

mers in the global market is that they

can deliver where Chinese, Indian

and even American specialists have

failed.

They can learn from our ingenu-ity and resourcefulness. It is this competitive advantage that pro-motes the Russian outsourcing segment. Our graduates are ex-cellent engineers, but there is a signifi cant shortage of them. Cur-rently, less than 1 percent of the Russian workforce is employed in the I.T. sector, compared with more than 4 percent in the U.S. and 3 percent in Europe. The ministry has a considerable chal-lenge to address; namely, how to make this profession more pop-ular. We had a roundtable con-

ference on the personnel problem in I.T. at the 10th Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum in Siberia not so long ago. Representatives of the I.T. industry, from startups to Yandex and Microsoft, as well as large consumers of I.T. services like Sberbank, the World Bank and many more, were all in at-tendance. We are already putting in practice some of the provisions adopted at the conference. Once of these is placing an emphasis on programming competitions.

There is an American video on You-

Tube showing the founders of Micro-

soft, Facebook, Twitter and Drop-

box explaining why it is important

to learn programming. Will Russia

have anything of this kind?

We won’t directly copy the Amer-ican idea, but such things are ab-solutely required in Russia. Our task is to turn the I.T. specialist into the symbol of this genera-tion. To this end, we should have TV shows about the sector, talk to school students about career prospects, have meetings with successful I.T. personalities.

When you were working on the de-

velopment plan for the sector, were

you building on the experience of

those countries that have succeed-

ed in I.T.?

Unfortunately, you can’t just take someone else’s model and apply it to Russia without adjustment. But we are keeping an eye on de-velopments in other countries. India liberalized its regulations on currency options, so we are looking at how this could apply to Russia. Options are not yet an effective motivation tool in Rus-sia. We are studying special tax regimes and building on other countries’ experience in copyright protection. The fact that we are lagging behind gives us an ad-vantage in, say, patent wars. When it comes to infrastructure, we are exchanging experience in the cre-ation of technoparks with Sin-gapore and Israel. We still have a lot to do to improve this sector.

Prepared byElena Shipilova

The best-known name in Russian I.T. is that of internet giant Yandex, whose office is filled with the country’s top young specialists in the field.

Rosneft is actively raising fi nanc-ing to close the deal, and has al-ready reached agreement with traders Glencore and Vitol on an advance of $10 billion against oil supplies. It has also signed agree-ments with several international banks for a credit of $14.2 bil-lion.

The Arctic and VenezuelaAt the Houston conference, Ros-neft also expressed its interest in opening a new oil and gas fi eld in the Arctic, in the Kara Sea. The company expects to begin exploration at this fi eld by the end of 2014 with the assistance of foreign energy fi rms. Rosneft and ExxonMobil started geolog-ical work at three places in the Vostochno-Novozemelskiye sec-tion of the fi eld last year.

“2012 marked the beginning of large-scale operations at the Rus-sian Arctic shelf,” Sechin said. “We successfully performed an explo-ration program at our fi elds in the Kara Sea. As a result of that and together with our partner ExxonMobil, the core structure for drilling in the Kara Sea was selected. Drilling should begin in 2014. To drill this well, the West Alfa semi-submersible drilling platform has been contracted and we expect that, based on the drill-ing results, we should be able to open a new Arctic offshore oil and gas fi eld by the end of next year.

Rosneft Touts Deals in Gulf, Arctic

Rosneft C.E.O. Igor Sechin (left) during a working visit to Venezuela.

Russian Oil Deals in Venezuela Unclear

Upon hearing the news of Venezue-lan President Hugo Chávez’s death, Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov told Russian reporters that the possible shake-up in Caracas should not affect Rus-sia’s agreements and contracts with the country.Russian companies have long been welcome guests in Venezuela and deals have been made for products from flowers to fighter jets. Ven-ezuela is second only to India in its

procurement of Russian arms. However, the most progress has been made by the state corpora-tions Rosneft and Russian Technolo-gies (Rostechnologia). Rosneft has signed numerous agreements with Venezuelan companies and owns 40 percent of National Oil Consor-tium, which is due to develop the Junin-6 field.Over the past 11 years, Caracas has become a critical strategic part-ner of Moscow in Latin America.

The estimated resource base of this block alone is more than 35 billion barrels of oil equivalent and the total resources for the Kara Sea are more than 100 bil-lion barrels of oil equivalent.”

Rosneft is also seeking to ex-pand its collaboration with BP beyond the TNK-BP deal.

BP chief Robert Dudley dis-cussed his fi rm’s cooperation with Rosneft in an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV channel.

Dudley said joint projects with Rosneft could include the Arctic and offshore production.

“We are also discussing onshore projects, some of them outside Russia. The list is fairly long, but fi rst we have to wait for the take-over of TNK-BP by Rosneft to be completed,” Dudley said.

He said the projects might in-clude joint production by BP and Rosneft in Venezuela.

“We’ve always been linked to Venezuela one way or another,” Dudley said. “And now it has be-come clear that huge investment will be needed in that country in the decades to come, we do of course plan to return there. BP is a big oil company, so you can expect us in Venezuela. Of course Rosneft can play an enormous role there.”

Gulf of MexicoThe deal with ExxonMobil will give Rosneft 30 percent in off-shore blocks covering a total area of 175 square miles. Seventeen of

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Vladislav Zhukovsky, senior analyst at RIKOM-Trust, estimates Russia’s investment projects in Venezuela to be in the area of $22-25 billion, while other experts put the figure closer to $30 billion.According to Ivan Kibardin, an ana-lyst at Intercommerce Bank, Rus-sia’s oil and gas companies will try to freeze their investment agree-ments while the political situation in Venezuela is unstable. However, any such moves are likely to be tempo-rary as long-term cooperation be-tween Russian oil companies and Venezuela is not in any real danger.

these are located in the western Gulf of Mexico, and the other three are in the central Gulf. Depths vary from 2,100 feet to 6,800 feet.

At the moment, specialists are analyzing seismic reconnaissance data at all of these blocks and no oil is being produced there.

ExxonMobil will remain the project’s operator, while Rosneft will be represented in the proj-ect through its subsidiary, Neft-egas America Shelf.

Looking for foreign investmentsExxonMobil is also expected to participate in the exploration of Rosneft’s offshore fi elds in Rus-sia together with France’s Eni and Norway’s Statoil. Together, Ros-neft’s partners could invest up to

$14 billion into geological explo-ration.

Rosneft currently holds 41 off-shore exploration and production licenses in Russia, containing an estimated 275 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Rosneft’s explora-tion program includes drilling at 96 wells.

Rosneft is also focusing on talks with potential buyers of liquefi ed natural gas (L.N.G.).

“Natural gas can account for

half of the resource base in the Arctic,” Sechin said in Houston. “Commercialization of these vol-umes is only possible with the development of infrastructure for liquefi ed natural gas. We are al-ready in discussions with inter-ested customers for this L.N.G..”

Rosneft and ExxonMobil agreed in the middle of Febru-ary to explore the possibility of building an L.N.G. plant in the Far East.

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Experts Shed Light on Russia’s Capital Flight rbth.ru/23721 Money & Markets

Russia has lost $782.5 billion in illicit capital fl ight over the past 18 years, while $552.9 billion of illegal money has entered the country over the same period ac-cording to a recent study by Glob-al Financial Integrity (G.F.I.). However, as G.F.I. director Ray-mond Baker wrote in the report: “These fi gures could be a gross underestimation as they don’t in-clude estimates of money trans-ferred by criminal groups engaged in things like drug smuggling and prostitution.” Russia ranks sixth globally in the size of illegal out-flows behind India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Ni-geria.

The G.F.I. report, which used the World Bank’s methodology to calculate both declared and un-declared outfl ows, states: “Russia has a severe problem with illegal fl ows of money. Hundreds of bil-lions of dollars have been lost that could have been used to invest in Russian health care, education

Corruption Cash economy plays a major role in illicit transactions

The size of Russia’s shadow

economy undermines recent

efforts to improve the

business climate and track actual

capital flow.

and infrastructure. At the same time, more than a half-trillion dollars has illegally fl owed into the Russian underground econ-omy, fueling crime and corrup-tion.” It also said that some of the causes of the outfl ow were cor-ruption, fi nancial crime and in-efficient customs administration.

Of the total amount that left the country, 63.8 percent was made via unrecorded wire trans-fers. Transfer pricing — selling commodities to shell companies registered overseas at discounted prices — is another favorite way of sending money offshore. The Russian government has been concerned, particularly as the vis-ible capital outfl ow spiked fol-lowing the onset of the 2008 cri-sis. At the start of the last decade, capital fl ight had fallen to $18 billion a year, but ballooned to $133.7 billion by the end of 2008 as a result of the economic crisis. In the next two years, the amount of capital flight fell again, but alarmingly jumped back up to $80.5 billion in 2011, compared with $34.4 billion in 2010. The outlook for this year is better, with analysts and the government ex-pecting capital flight to fall to about $50 billion. But the report found that things are slowly im-

Russian Economy Still Affected by Illicit Capital Outflow

Finance Minister Anton Siluanov (center right) is trying to combat the problem of the shadow economy.

BEN ARISSPECIAL TO RBTH

$782.5 billionin illicit capital flight has left Russia over the last 18 years while $552.9 billion of illegal funds have entered the country over the same period.

$50 billionis the estimated capital flight for 2013. However, in more positive news, the size of the shadow economy has fallen from 46 percent for most of the last decade to 35 percent in 2011.

50,000corruption cases were investigated by Russian police in 2012 and resulted in convictions of more than 7,000 peo-ple on graft charges.

IN FIGURES

proving; the size of the shadow economy fell to 35 percent in 2011. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said part of the problem is that 25 percent of Russia’s money mass is cash, compared with the 7 to 10 percent average in O.E.C.D. countries, and suggested such changes as encouraging salaries to be paid by bank transfer, pro-moting the use of bank and cred-it cards, and setting a limit to the size of allowed cash transactions. Said Siluanov in an interview with business daily Vedomosti, “It is essential to reduce the level of cash payment in the economy, which currently comprises 25 per-cent of all turnover, over 100 per-cent more than in developed mar-kets, and even 50 percent more than in other developing markets.”

The size of Russia’s shadow economy is 3.5 times larger than

that of any other G8 country due to inefficiencies with public ad-ministration and tax evasion.

Taking on corruptionThe Kremlin has fi nally started to act by signifi cantly stepping up an anticorruption drive. Since last November, a number of high level public officials have been put in the spotlight. In the most recent case, State Duma Deputy Vladimir Pekhtin asked to be temporarily relieved of his duties as chairman of the Duma’s Cre-dentials and Ethics Commission after opposition blogger Alexei Navalny posted documents indi-cating that Pekhtin owns $2 mil-lion worth of U.S. property in Florida that he had failed to de-clare under transparency laws for members of parliament.

In 2012, Russian police inves-

tigated over 50,000 corruption cases and convicted more than 7,000 people on graft charges.

At the recent all-Russia anti-corruption conference, which took place in Kazan in mid-February, Federal Council Speaker Valen-tina Matviyenko spoke about the ways corruption damages the Russian state. “These fi gures show that despite all implemented mea-sures, corruption is one of the most burning issues. Moreover, it has penetrated all spheres of so-cial life in Russia: authorities, housing services and utilities, ed-ucation, health care, law enforce-ment. And attempts to equate‘official and corruptor’ are super-ficial and unfair,” Matviyenko said. “If we don’t truly overcome [corruption], the country won’t be able to successfully develop and move forward.”

Corruption, financial crime and inefficient customs administration are some causes of the outflow.

Business A survey shows that younger Russians believe that there is more potential for new businesses at home than abroad

Business experts are optimistic

about a poll indicating that the

next generation of entrepreneurs

is ready to create new companies

at home instead of going abroad.

A survey conducted jointly by Bi-znes Molodost and the Levada Center has revealed that the ma-jority of young Russian entrepre-neurs believes doing business in Russia has great potential.

Eighty-four percent of partic-ipants responded that in terms of business opportunity, Russia has a lot more to offer than the West. Although 56 percent of those who took the survey have no plans to settle permanently outside Russia, 73 percent ex-pressed an interested in studying abroad.

Part of the reason young Rus-

Entrepreneurs Go Big and Stay Home

ASYA PANOYANRBC DAILY

Inside the minds of entrepreneurs

sians are bullish on the country is the change in business strat-egy since the early 1990s. “The typical entrepreneur’s profi le has evolved to the next level,” said Biznes Molodost co-founder Pyotr Osipov. “Today’s business-

people are looking to have fun rather than just make money.”

Nevertheless, young entrepre-neurs do need support. Apart from tax cuts and a lower ad-ministrative burden, businesses need guidance from those who have learned the ropes in a re-al-life environment. According

But Anton Danilov-Danilyan of Delovaya Russia thinks that the country remains too reliant on raw materials — and rather than improving, the situation is actually getting worse. “We never said [Russia’s] current business activities were going in the right direction,” Danilov-Danilyan said. Unfortunately, the raw ma-terials industry remains the only area that has been developing. Before 2010, the share of raw materials and primary industries in exports was to the tune of 63–65 percent, whereas today it amounts to approximately 85 percent.”

According to Danilov-Danily-an’s forecasts, the country will have to focus on agriculture in the second half of the 21st cen-tury. “We have huge potential here, which can be tapped by lifting the existing barriers,” he said.

to the survey, 82 percent of as-piring business owners would like to work with a personal business mentor.

Yevgeny Yakubovsky, a mem-ber of the managing board at the small business association Opora, said: “There is no doubt that the business community in Russia has come along in leaps and bounds. Business activities in Russia during the first few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union boiled down to ei-ther privatizing state-owned property or siphoning off gov-ernment budget funds. Today, the situation is different.”

Yakubovsky believes that modern Russian entrepreneurs are getting closer to their West-ern counterparts. Moreover, starting a business has become trendy among young people, which he sees as a good sign.

Part of the reason young Russians are bullish on the country is the change in business strategy since the 1990s.

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Russian-American Relations Set for a Pause rbth.ru/23509Opinion

IN 2013, THE NAME OF THE GAME IS INFRASTRUCTURE

Mark

Rubinstein VEDOMOSTI.RU

Which sectors of the Russian economy will be the most benefi cial ones for investors

over the next six months and in the longer term? In my opinion, there are two main categories:sectors contributing to the growth of domestic consumption and those focusing on infrastructure development.

The former will grow faster than normal because of ex tensive bank lending, higher incomes, slower infl ation and a stronger ruble. The latter will be show-ing growth because outdated and underdeveloped infrastructure is one of the major obstacles standing between Russia and more rapid economic expansion.

ON SYRIA, NO EASY ANSWERS

Andrei

Ilyashenko SPECIAL TO RBTH

Nikolai

Surkov SPECIAL TO RBTH

March marks two years since the beginning of antigovernment protests in Syria. Though it is in-

creasingly clear that the West and Russia must work together to re-solve the crisis, they still seem to favor different approaches. Russia, on principle, is against external in-terference, while the U.S. is push-ing Moscow to support political transition in Damascus.

U.S. President Barack Obama has demonstrated a balanced ap-proach. In an interview with The New Republic magazine, he asked a rhetorical question: “Could it [a military intervention] trigger even worse violence or the use of chem-ical weapons? And how do I weigh tens of thousands who’ve been killed in Syria versus the tens of thousands who are currently being killed in the Congo?”

Later in an interview with CBS, Obama offered a reply to his own question: “Syria is a classic exam-ple of our involvement; we want to make sure that not only does it enhance U.S. security, but also that it is doing right by the peo-ple of Syria and neighbors like Is-rael that are going to be profound-ly affected by it.”

In other words, there will be no direct intervention.

Still, the situation in Syria is so bad not because the U.S. has avoided openly helping the armed opposition; the problem is rather that Russia openly supports Da-mascus — or, more precisely, Syr-ian President Bashar al-Assad.

U.S. Department of State spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Jan. 28: “There are a num-ber of steps that Russia can take. It can fi rmly and publicly cut off the [Assad] regime’s supply of Rus-sian weapons — especially attack helicopters. It can cut off Assad’s circle of access to Russian banks. It can actively support a political transition and work with us on who can come next, who can keep the country united and take it on a democratic path.”

This statement is only partially true. To speak of a civil war in Syria is wrong according to Boris Dolgov, senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Syr-ia’s government troops are not fi ghting armed citizens, but rath-er well-trained combat units fi -nanced and supplied from abroad.

It is hard to argue with Assad,

While Western actors push for the creation of an interim govern-ment in Syria, Russia

is pessimistic about the chances for improvement in the situation. Moscow sees no state willing to guarantee such a government by use of force. Furthermore, Mos-cow believes the Syrian opposi-tion is too splintered to come to the negotiating table as a unifi ed voice.

As the war in Syria claims more and more lives, the West insists that the only chance to avoid re-ligious strife and chaos is to pass a U.N. Security Council resolu-tion calling for the creation of an interim government that will be guaranteed by “a serious exter-nal force.” Russia, which has its own lucrative interest, seems to be an obstacle, however, since it has teamed up with Iran and China to protect its ally and cli-ent, Bashar al-Assad.

In reality, it is not that simple. For one thing, none of the inter-national or regional players are willing to accept responsibility

of their leadership, their people and their country. That’s what our position is all about, rather than about supporting any specifi c side in this tragedy.”

The essence of the disagree-ments between Moscow and Wash-ington is that Russia opposes re-gime change through external military, political or economic pressure as a matter of principle. The United States, meanwhile, is apparently inviting Moscow to agree on who is going to be Syr-ia’s next president — to “squeeze out” Assad together. This is cer-tainly a tempting proposal since the Kremlin is openly declaring its readiness for cooperation on an equal basis on a broad range of issues.

In a recent interview, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev confi rmed that Syria’s future is a subject of Russian-American di-alogue. “There are no irreconcil-able contradictions in our posi-tions,” said Medvedev. However, he repeated that the Syrian peo-ple are the ones who should de-cide Assad’s fate. “Not Russia, not the United States, not any other country,” Medvedev said.

Medvedev’s reply does not quite clash with what Henry Kissinger had to say when asked about Syria at Davos. Kissinger called on the United States and Russia to work together to resolve the crisis. If the outside world intervenes mil-itarily, he said, “it will be in the middle of a vast ethnic confl ict; and if it doesn’t intervene mili-tarily, it will be caught in a hu-manitarian tragedy.”

Andrei Ilyashenko is a columnist on Middle East issues for Voice of Russia.

FOR RUSSIA,A QUESTIONOF PRINCIPLE

NOT WILLING TO TAKE THE HARD ROAD

ly, ethnically, religiously — and the regional context is very, very complex,” Rasmussen said.

The West must also keep in mind that the Syrians themselves are not likely to welcome foreign troops on their territory. Even the opposition is not asking for an intervention. Under these circum-stances, in order to prevent fur-ther violence, blue helmets or a joint Arab force with a wide man-date are preferable. The United Nations and Arab League envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, men-tioned possible deployment of U.N. peacekeepers. The parties still have to agree on deployment, although peace enforcement as it was done in the former Yugo-slavia is unlikely.

The Taif Agreement of 1989, which ended the civil war in Leb-anon, showed that a peace settle-ment is possible, even after a de-cade-long confrontation. That agreement, however, was achieved due to the fact that external ac-tors supporting the main Leba-nese groups also wanted peace and were ready to cede some of their ambitions.

Brahimi suggests using agree-ments reached in Geneva in June 2012 as a framework for a settle-ment in Syria. Moscow shares this position. Furthermore, Russia is ready to support a U.N. resolu-tion based on these agreements, if the vote in the Security Coun-cil is preceded by an agreement between Assad and the opposi-tion.

In the meantime, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs ad-mitted that it does not see any perspective for improvement of the situation in Syria. According to Deputy Foreign Minister Gen-nady Gatilov, one of the reasons for this is that Western countries and their allies do not work prop-erly with the opposition.

As Foreign Minister SergeiLavrov put it, “there is no nego-tiating team on behalf of theopposition, and this coalitionincludes too many different groups to be able to agree on a unifi ed delegation.”

However, Russia is not giving up dialogue with Assad’s adver-saries; it is trying to fi gure out what they are worth and wheth-er they can keep their promises.

Meanwhile, Russia is provid-ing humanitarian assistance to refugees from the Syrian confl ict. During his meeting with Leba-nese President Michel Suleiman, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised aid for refugees living in Lebanon.

In the absence of an agreement between Assad and the opposi-tion, Russia also fears that a U.N. resolution could become an ex-cuse for a Libya-style military campaign, which would cause the collapse of the existing state but not give way to a new one.

Nikolai Surkov is an assistant professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Rela-tions (MGIMO).

Consumer lending in Russia increased 40 percent in 2012, reaching the precrisis record high of 2007. Yet the debt bur-den on Russian householdsremains insignifi cant, at about $1,800 per capita, compared to around $4,000 in Eastern Eu-rope and more than $30,000 in developed economies.

The penetration of mortgage lending — a key banking prod-uct — is still very low even though the economy is growing at the precrisis pace. The mort-gage-to-G.D.P. ratio in Russia is about 3 percent, compared to 5 percent in Turkey and Brazil and 21 percent in Poland and the Czech Republic.

If the Russian economy man-ages to grow overall at a rate of between 3 and 3.8 percent this year, the sectors focusing ondomestic consumption will gain

from 10 percent to 20 percent.The sectors with securities

having the highest potential yield in the next six to 12 months are fi nance, home construction, transport, automotive, media

services and telecoms. Some banks worth taking a look atinclude Sberbank, V.T.B. andVozrozhdenie Bank. Car manu-facturers Avtovaz and Sollers are also interesting buys, along with steel producer Severstal, Aeroflot, electronics chainM.Video, telephone provider

alone at 320 billion rubles ($10.5 billion) annually.

In the energy sector — the one probably facing the most infra-structure challenges — 62 per-cent of the facilities in the gen-erating segment alone are over 30 years old.

This segment requires almost 3 trillion rubles ($98.4 billion) in investment during the next six years: imagine how much ad-ditional installed capacity the new football arenas, airports,

who told the Lebanese newspa-per Al-Akhbar: “Shutting down Syrian borders for weapons and contraband would have solved the problem in a couple of weeks, be-cause there would have been no sources of money and arms.”

Nuland’s grievances against Russia have a political dimension too. Moscow has repeated, on more than one occasion, that it is not exactly fond of Assad. Rus-

sia’s Foreign Minister SergeiLavrov reiterated this much.

“We were never enamored with this regime and never supported it,” Lavrov said. “And all of the steps we took that were aimed at facilitating the implementation of the Geneva Agreement on the for-mation of a transition governing body confirm that we want the situation to be stabilized and con-ditions created for the Syrians themselves to determine the fate

for the situation in Syria after the presumed fall of the current re-gime — in other words, to be-come the “serious external force.”

The Gulf states lack military might. Turkey, which has the sec-ond largest army in NATO, is not eager to burden itself with in-volvement in a crisis that is like-ly to take years to settle and might provoke new violent confronta-tion with the Kurds. The U.S. and

Europe almost openly declare that they do not want to be dragged into a “new Iraq or Afghanistan.” NATO head Anders Fogh Ras-mussen believes that foreign mil-itary intervention might not lead to a solution to the confl ict, but it may even make things worse.

“It is my fi rm belief that any foreign military intervention would have unpredictable reper-cussions, because Syrian society is very complicated — political-

None of the international or regional players are willing to accept responsibility for the situation in Syria.

Consumer lending in Russia went up 40 percent in 2012, reaching the precrisis record high of 2007.

Russia is against external interference while the U.S. is pushing Moscow to support political transition.

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r a i lway stations and

hotels will re-quire. Interna-

tional giants such as General Electric, Siemens,

Caterpillar and Komatsu will probably account for a substan-tial share of the investments in this sector.

The best way to participate in this growth is via shares inMostotrest, NLKM, MMK, LSR Group, E.ON Russia and Glo-baltrans.

In brief, investment analysis consists of three basic things: analysis of opportunities, risks, and of the way the first twofactors correlate with the cur-rent cost of investment. Analy-sis of the companies noted above indicates a signifi cant potential for growth in the next six to 12 months.

Mark Rubinstein is the director of the analysis department at IFC Metropol.

Megafon and Internet giantYandex.

When it comes to infrastruc-ture, potential investors should keep in mind that largely out-dated or underdeveloped infra-structure not only affectspotential economic growth, but also prevents the country from meeting its international com-mitments, including holding the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Although it is still some years off, not a single arena of the 12 venues is yet complete and no highways or hotels in the 11 host cities meet the official require-ments. Organization of the 2018 World Cup will cost Russia an estimated 1.3 trillion rubles ($42.6 billion). The federalprogram for development of the transport infrastructure for 2010–2015 envisions investment in the railway infrastructure

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Seige of Leningrad: When Poetry Aided in Survival rbth.ru/23179 Culture

John

FreedmanTHE MOSCOW TIMES

Phoebe

TaplinSPECIAL TO RBTH

porary Russian culture — play-wr ight Ye lena Gremina , documentary filmmaker Maria Razbezhkina, theater director Oleg Rybkin, critic Pavel Rudnev and many more.

There are still plenty of ques-tions about what really happened.

Kaluzhsky said he “cannot be sure” the officials were actually there on official orders. “Only one of the officers showed documents,” he stated, and added that the Sakharov Center has submitted a series of protests and inquiries to the Federal Migration Service.

As for the Cossacks, there re-main questions about their au-thenticity and purpose as well.

Shakina, who performed the part of a judge in the reenacted

trial of Pussy Riot, told how one project participant showed some Cossacks what was transpiring on stage so that they could see for themselves that “no one was insulting anyone.” But, the jour-nalist said, it was comical to see how the Cossacks only pretend-ed to listen with deep interest. In fact, she concluded, “there was no passion” in their behavior.

According to Kaluzhsky’s real-time Facebook reports, the Cos-sacks, who mostly had been mill-ing around outside the building, began to disperse when the po-lice arrived around 4 p.m. But the police, too, found themselves in an awkward situation.

“I tried to explain to one po-liceman what documentary the-ater is,” Kaluzhsky said with a laugh. “Our discussion lasted 15 minutes and he sincerely tried to understand what was going on.”

Admitting that documentary theater makers still have much to achieve, Kaluzhsky suggested that one of its successes is that it provides an opportunity for “out-casts, those who can’t speak for themselves,” to be heard.

The chapter on “Gotland Dreams” is a particularly evoc-ative and fascinating portrait of an artist working with, and sometimes against, the wind-swept Baltic landscape he has chosen to represent timeless sim-plicity. She reveals his stubborn methods (like insisting that all the dandelions be removed from the grass), verging on the sub-lime as he allows the sun to shine straight into the camera for the closing shots after hours of over-cast skies.

For Alexander-Garrett, the chance to work with her hero is unexpected and she records it in a lively style; the reverence of the star-struck sometimes surfaces, but she can see Tarkovsky’s fail-ings, too: his impulsive moods and possessiveness, including his au-tocratic insistence that she remove her sunglasses and his preference that she drink iced tea rather than Coke.

Before he died, Tarkovsky pre-dicted that Alexander-Garrett would write about him. “Don’t describe me as some kind of im-possible, tyrannical dictator,” he said. “Write only what you your-self actually felt, what I meant to you … Don’t be neutral … don’t be afraid of the pronoun, I.” It is advice she has honored — and that he lived by. This human con-nection will delight fans and fas-cinate students, and it makes “Collector of Dreams” a valuable chronicle.

Journalist and theater di-rector Mikhail Kaluzhsky called it a “theatrical slam.” Olga Shakina, a journalist

from the Dozhd television chan-nel, said it was a moment when “one theatrical event replaced another.” What they were dis-cussing was a now-notorious performance of “Moscow Trials,” a documentary theater project that took place at the Sakharov Center on March 3. It was inter-rupted at fi rst by individuals at least claiming to be representa-tives of the Federal Migration Service, and then later by a group of Cossacks accompanied by a fi lm crew.

“Moscow Trials” was a three-day event organized by Kalu-zhsky to reconsider three noto-rious trials involving the arts in recent years. Directed by Swiss director Milo Rau, it involved journalists, actors and activists, such as Pussy Riot member Yekaterina Samutsevich, reen-acting the roles of defendants, witnesses, jury members and judges in actual historical court cases. On trial, so to speak, were the “Careful, Religion!” and “Banned Art” art exhibits in 2003 and 2007, respectively, and the 2012 case against the Pussy Riot activist group.

Shortly before 1 p.m. on March 3, Kaluzhsky sent out the fi rst of numerous brief reports on his Facebook page, inform-ing whoever was online that the performance had been stopped. From that fi rst salvo through the fi nal post shortly after 9 p.m., rumors, conjecture, heated opin-ion and heartfelt advice fl ew fast and heavy across Kaluzhsky’s page.

Judging by the peak number of “likes” and comments — that occurred at around 2 p.m., when Kaluzhsky posted information that the performance had re-sumed — a minimum of 100 people followed events on their computers and telephones. They included some of the most in-fl uential individuals in contem-

In the summer of 1985, the great Russian fi lmmaker Andrei Tar-kovsky shot “The Sacrifice,” which turned out to be his last

fi lm; he died the following year. Tarkovsky directed fi ve fi lms in the Soviet Union, including clas-sics such as “Stalker” and “Andrei Rublev,” then “Nostalghia” in Italy and “The Sacrifi ce” in Sweden.

Layla Alexander-Garrett worked as his interpreter dur-ing the shooting of “The Sacri-fi ce,” and her new book “Andrei Tarkovsky: Collector of Dreams” is based on the diaries she kept that year.

Tarkovsky’s cinematic trade-marks include an emphasis on spiritual themes (which brought him into confl ict with the athe-ist Soviet authorities); long, slow takes; and haunting music. His last movie’s strange story in-volves the “sacrifi ce” of an aging actor and critic, who leaves his family and burns down his own beautiful house in order to pre-vent nuclear catastrophe.

The Swedish director Ingmar Bergman praised Tarkovsky, calling him the greatest fi lm-maker, one “who invented a new language, true to the nature of fi lm, as it captures life as a re-fl ection, life as a dream.” Imag-es of dreams and reflections recur throughout Alexander-Garrett’s memoir. The two lon-gest sections describe the actu-al shooting, often frame by frame, of “The Sacrifi ce.”

THEATER PLUS

BIBLIOPHILE

“Moscow Trials” Put Art on Trial Over Trials in Art

Reflections on a Life Lived Behind the Camera

“Moscow Trials” was a three-day event organized to reconsider three notorious trials involving the arts.

TITLE: ANDREI TARKOVSKY: THE COLLECTOR OF DREAMSAUTHOR: LAYLA ALEXANDER-GARRETTPUBLISHER: GLAGOSLAV

On Jan. 2, 1911, Wassily Kandin-sky attended a concert of music by the Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg. The next day, Kan-dinsky worked on some quick sketches to articulate his vision of the concert — an abstract im-pression — with people and a piano barely visible. The Russian artist called the work “Impres-sion III.” This experience served as a catalyst for Kandinsky, and by the end of the year he exhib-ited a fully abstract work called “Composition V.”

“That moment — Dec. 11, 1911 — was when abstraction made its very fi rst strong public splash,” said Masha Chlenova, curatorial assistant at the Museum of Mod-ern Art (MoMA). “It was as far as anyone had been in creating an abstract picture.”

“Inventing Abstraction 1910–1925,” an exhibition at MoMA that runs through April 15, tells the story of how abstraction evolved among an international group of artists. The museum has brought the most signifi cant and majestic pieces of the movement

Art Russia’s contribution to abstraction recognized in new show

MoMA Celebrates 100 Years of Abstraction

Russian artists were at the center

of the Abstract movement — a

revolution in visual art currently

being revisited in a New York

exhibition.

ANNA ANDRIANOVASPECIAL TO RBTH

to New York, including the works of Russian artists Kandinsky, Ka-zimir Malevich and Vladimir Tat-lin, who were at the forefront of this revolution. Only one quarter of the works belong to MoMA; the rest are on loan from more than 100 private collections and institutions.

Abstraction resulted from the interaction among painters, mu-sicians and poets, and the show

underscores how the artists con-stantly influenced each other’s creative process.

“We wanted to do our best to give this idea that abstraction could spread like a wildfi re, the way it did,” said Chlenova.

In 1910, Pablo Picasso made a small series of paintings that did not look like anything before them — the images were similar to di-agrams with angles and a barely recognizable female fi gure. While Picasso was making his fi rst ef-forts at abstraction in painting, Kandinsky was working on his highly infl uential manuscript “On the Spiritual in Art,” which was

published in 1911, the same year he fi rst exhibited his “Composi-tion V,” which is now on display at MoMA. Kandinsky was sent images of Picasso’s paintings.

The 1911 exhibition had a pro-found effect on other signifi cant artists of the time, including Mar-cel Duchamp, Paul Klee and Rob-ert Delaunay. The curators of the MoMA exhibition dedicated dif-ferent rooms and spaces to the

abstractionists from different countries.

The Russian Wall is a tribute to the exhibition that took place in 1915 in Petrograd (now St. Pe-tersburg) — “0,10: The Last Fu-turist Exhibition of Painting” — where Malevich introduced his idea of the supremacy of paint-ing. MoMA’s curators brought to-gether the original works to rec-reate as closely as possible the original wall, with the exception of the three paintings that are still in Russia. Due to the current ban on art loans from Russia to the United States, these works did not make it to the exhibition.

1. “Monument to the Third Inter-

national” by Vladimir Tatlin.

2. “Painterly Masses in Motion”

by Kazimir Malevich.

3. “Impression III (Concert)” by

Wassily Kandinsky.

Tatlin was also a part of the “0,10” exhibition in Petrograd and became one of the most infl uen-tial artists of the Russian avant garde. An iconic model of the pro-posed tower, “Monument to the Third International,” is on display at MoMA. The monument has be-come emblematic of early Mod-ernism and the Constructivist movement.

MoMA has one of the most im-portant collections of Russian avant garde art thanks to the mu-seum’s founder Alfred Barr, said Chlenova. Barr laid a strong foun-dation by bringing pieces from Russia and all over Europe in the early 1930s for the famous exhi-bition “Cubism and Abstract Art” in 1936, which established Mo-MA’s reputation as a museum that promotes abstraction. Barr man-aged to collect art from Soviet painters at a time when abstrac-tion was already forbidden by the government. Malevich left some of his paintings in Germany and Barr brought them to MoMA. The painting “White on White” was one of the paintings Barr brought from Germany, and it is on dis-play at the current show.

“The ‘Cubism and Abstract Art’ exhibit is a very important ref-erence point for us in making this exhibition now,” said Chlenova, “and celebrating the centennial of abstraction.”

The Russian Wall is a tribute to the exhibition that took place in 1915 in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg).

MoMA has one of the most important collection of Russian avant garde thanks to its founder Alfred Barr.

1

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Performers Armenian-Jewish-American violinist takes pleasure in new and forgotten music

Violinist Anastasia Khitruk has carved out a niche for herself as a performer of forgotten works both old and new.

“I play so many pieces I have never heard before [because] then I am forced out of my comfort zone. It’s nice to have self-discipline, but it’s better to have discipline imposed upon you,”Khitruk said. “As a performer, you cannot do the same thing the same way; you have to keep sur-prising yourself.”

The Grammy-nominated art-ist’s first release consisted of Brahms’s violin sonatas. But she was discouraged by the fact that there were already so manyrecordings of Brahms. That pushed her to delve into new or forgotten music. Khitruk loves digging into old sheet music in music stores, and while doing so on one occasion came across music by Ivan Khandoshkin, a violinist and composer from the time of Russian Empress Cath-erine II (the Great). She has also recorded works by Léon de Saint-Lubin, a contemporary of Ger-man composer Felix Mendelssohn.

Seated in the living room of her Upper West Side apartment, Khitruk appears both frank and a little curious. “I think I was born old” she said. “I was never young, never knew what toys were for. I was always reading.”

Comfortable in concert and

chamber settings, performing

contemporary and 18th century

works, Anastasia Khitruk is most

at home with unknown pieces.

Born in the Soviet Union and of Armenian Jewish descent,Khitruk is now an Americancitizen and traverses national and ethnic identities with ease.

Her latest recording, released in November 2012, is a collabo-ration with composer MichaelColina and features “Baba Yaga,” a fantasia for violin with orches-tra. She brings richness, fecun-dity and a sense of potency to Colina’s Latin-infused music.

A daughter of pianists, Khitruk begged for a violin for a long time until her mother gave in and took the 5-year-old to a violin profes-sor at the Central Music School. The teacher looked at the child’s hands and said, “She can’t be-come a violinist; her pinky is not

A New Kind of String Theory

AYANO HODOUCHISPECIAL TO RBTH

Always an overachiever,Khitruk strove to please, butinstead of pursuing the image and sound in her own head, she was pursuing DeLay’s. “After a while, I was in Julliard with a scholar-ship and all, the famous student of the famous teacher, but I was crying all the time.” She practiced and cried from misery, until she couldn’t stand it any longer and went back to her fi rst teacher, who had moved to Boston.

“That was like going back to Russia for me. And we started out again from scratch to get the right sound. Americans like a very straight and even sound. For me this was profoundly inorganic. In Russia, the sound of a violin breathes, and it has a tear in it.”

Anastasia

Khitruk

CITIZENSHIP: AMERICAN

AGE: 38

STUDIED: VIOLIN

Born in the Soviet Union, Khitruk emigrated to the United States with her parents as a child. She made her orchestral debut at the age of 8. A Grammy nominee andlaureate of the Premio Paganini, she is in demand as a soloist with the world’s leading orchestras. Khitruk most recently appeared in New York in January at the WeillRecital Hall in Carnegie Hall.

HER STORY

long enough.” Her fi fth fi ngertip did not even reach the last joint of the fourth. “But look,” she said, pressing her hands together. “I grew it — I got it done!” The pinky on her left hand is considerably longer than the one on the right. “I really wanted to play the vio-lin. You do what you need to do!”

After moving with her parents to New York, Khitruk gave up the violin for a few years. But as luck would have it, when she was 13 her violin teacher from Moscow moved into the same building a Khitruk’s family, taking an apart-ment one fl oor beneath theirs: the young artist started playing again. Eventually she was noticed by famed violin pedagogue Dorothy DeLay.

READ RUSSIA

Read other reviews and the latest up-dates on Russian literature in our special section Read Russia.

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Kazan Universiade: Testing Ground for Sochi 2014 rbth.ru/23245Feature

SOCHI 2014

TORCH UNVEILED SYMBOL INCORPORATESRUSSIAN TRADITIONS

TICKETS ON SALE WANT TO GO TO THE GAMES?GET OUT YOUR VISA CARD

The Sochi 2014 torch designers were asked to convey the concept of the Olympic Games basedon the idea of the convergence of Russian traditions and contempo-rary trends. The resulting torchresembles a firebird feath-er, which is traditionally used in Russian fairytales to light the way. The torch is made of cast aluminum alloy, and the handle and central in-sert are moldedfrom high-strength polymer. The torch weighs 4 pounds and is 3 feet long. The torch is specially designed to

Tickets for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics went on sale to foreign-ers on Feb. 11.About 70 percent of tickets are expected to be sold to Russians and the remainder to overseas guests. The prices for Sochi tick-ets will be slightly lower than for the London Games, but more ex-pensive than for the last Winter Games, which were held in 2010 inVancouver.The average ticket price in Sochi will be 6,400 rubles ($213).

COUNTING DOWNOFFICIAL CLOCKS KEEP TRACK OF THE TIME UNTIL THE GAMES BEGIN

The clocks that will count down the hours until the start of the 2014 Olympic Games were started on Feb. 7, exactly a year before the opening ceremonies. There are countdown clocks in the adminis-trative centers of Russia’s eight federal districts — Moscow, St.Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Pyatigorsk and Khabarovsk — as well as in Sochi itself.The clocks were developed by the Omega company — the world partner of the International Olym-pic Committee (I.O.C.). They stand 20 feet 2 inches in height and

weigh 17,200 pounds. The clocks feature a design made up of a patchwork of official sym-bols of the games and 16 of Rus-sia’s most famous folk art designs, including Gzhel porcelain and Khokhloma lacquerware.

withstand high winds and frosts.The lighting ceremony will take place in Greece, home of the Olym-pics. The torch will then be trans-ported to Moscow in a special plane on Oct. 7, 2013.The Olympic relay will run through 2,900 residential areas, 83 Russian regions and all nine time zones of the country — from Vladivostok to Kaliningrad.

Torchbearers will cover around 40,400 miles in 123 days. There will be 14,000 torchbearers,

and around 130 mil-lion Russians will have the chance to see the torch with their own

eyes.

The cheapest tickets to the open-ing and closing ceremonies will be 4,500 rubles ($150), while tickets to some of the sporting events will cost as little as 500 rubles ($17). The most expensive will be for Russia’s favorite winter sports —ice hockey and figure skating.The only way to pay for tickets is via a Visa card. This restriction will be in place for the entire Olym-pic territory: only Visa cards will be accepted by A.T.M.s and in shops there.

Volunteers Young people from all over the country have applied to aid athletes and spectators during the Sochi Games

The Olympic volunteer team,

made up of 25,000 people from

all of Russia’s 83 regions as well

as abroad, began their training on

March 11.

The Winter Olympics in Sochi will begin in less than 12 months, and the Sochi 2014 volunteer move-ment has already recruited more than 25,000 people to help man-age the movement of athletes and spectators during the two weeks of the Games.

All those interested in volun-teering began their application journey at the Web site Vol.sochi2014.com. After logging on and fi lling in a detailed applica-tion form, every volunteer had to complete a battery of tests. The fi rst series of tests were designed to test the applicants’ ability to stick with a task and follow it through to the end, while the sec-ond test evaluated the applicants’ English-language profi ciency.

and a desire to help their coun-try hold its fi rst Winter Olympics is not enough to guarantee vol-unteers a place on the team. After selection, prospective volunteers still have to complete a training

course designed to familiarize them with the basics of the or-ganization of the Games and the Olympic facilities. Russian vol-unteers for the London Olympics are involved in this training.

All of the volunteers will not only have to attend workshops; volunteers must also attend test events in Sochi in order to expe-rience as much as possible what the real Olympic events will look

The Best Unpaid Job Imaginable

ANDREY RASKINSPECIAL TO RBTH

like. During the test events, they will meet Canadians, Americans and Norwegians who volunteered at the previous Winter Olympics in Vancouver; the group has been invited to give advice and train coordinators and volunteers for the Sochi Games.

Most of the volunteers are stu-dents, but other groups of people are also represented. Lyudmila Cherkasova, who currently works in janatorial services at the Rus-Ski Gorki complex, is a Sochi res-ident with decades of volunteer experience.

“I have been a Nordic combined skier since I was a teenager. I worked in the steering commit-tee of the Sixth Soviet Sparta-kiad, and I remember that all ser-vices had to be well coordinated. Thirty years later, I keep one of the most important and expen-sive Olympic facilities clean. I hope I will be able to watch the events and maybe have my pic-ture taken with a champion,” Cherkasova said.

In February 2014, when the world’s athletes descend on Sochi, the average temperature is like-ly to be a mild 45 degrees. One day earlier this month, the weath-er at Sochi’s Krasnaya Polyana ski center was the warmest in Eu-rope at nearly 70, according to the weather portal Gismeteo.ru.

Olympics With the opening ceremonies less than a year away, much remains to be done

With all its new infrastructure,

Sochi should end its Olympic

dream as a world-class resort

capable of attracting tourists

year-round.

Getting Ready to Take an Olympic-Sized Challenge

YULIA PONOMAREVA RBTH

Venues for the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games

But the organizers of the Sochi Games are prepared. In antici-pation of the difficulties present-ed by these temperatures, there are plans in place to make all the snow necessary to carry out the events. Preparations are in the works to create an estimated 3.5 million cubic feet of artificial snow — equivalent to a 150-square-foot ice cube.

Unlike some cities that have hosted the Winter Olympics in the past, the infrastructure in Sochi is basically being built from scratch. The city is getting a total of 14 new facilities, including sta-

diums, skating rinks, ice hockey arenas and alpine ski trails. Ad-ditionally, 30 new 4-star and 5-star hotels, and 54 3-star ho-tels are under construction.

According to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, the total spending thus far from federal and regional budgets is $13 bil-lion. Private investors have also ponied up $25 billion toward making the Games a success.

The work seems to be moving ahead more or less on schedule. Earlier this month, Jean-Claude Killy, chairman of the Interna-tional Olympic Committee’s Co-

ordination Committee for Sochi, praised President Vladimir Putin for the progress achieved so far.

“Indeed, it is hard to believe that the promises you made in Guatemala in 2007 have become a reality today,” Killy told Putin. “The work that has been done is truly outstanding.”

During his latest inspection of the Sochi Olympic facilities and sites, Putin made it very clear that he has zero tolerance for corrup-tion in Sochi, publicly criticizing the vice president of Russia’s Olympic Committee, Akhmed Bi-lalov, whose company was con-tracted to build a Sochi ski jump, now 20 months overdue. After Pu-tin’s criticism, Bilalov quit his job and later left the country.

Experts say that despite the price, the Olympics should suc-ceed in turning Sochi into a world-class vacation destination — one capable of attracting tour-ists year-round.

According to Grigory Birg, co-director of research at the ana-lytical fi rm Investcafe, “This new infrastructure simply gives Sochi, already hugely popular with Rus-sians, room to grow into an in-ternational resort.”

Ilya Sukharnikov, senior man-ager for real estate with Ernst & Young, agrees about Sochi’spotential: “Given the scale of change Sochi is seeing during the preparations for the Olympics, there are all the necessary pre-requisites for Sochi to become a resort that will be up to interna-tional standards.”

IN FIGURES

85 percent of the vol-unteers for the Sochi Games are

between the ages of 18 and 30. More women than men applied to take part in the program.

Applicants who made it past the testing stage were then invit-ed to a 30-minute interview to learn more about them as people, get details on their previous work experience and evaluate their spoken English. According to the organizers, the higher the level of English, the better chance an applicant had of being selected as a volunteer.

Although volunteers are ex-pected to pay their own way to Sochi, the Sochi 2014 organizing committee will provide all vol-unteers with accommodation and three meals per day. They will stay at a resort in Sochi’s Adler Dis-trict for the duration of the test events. During the Olympics, the volunteers will stay in special housing in the Olympic village that is currently being built. Each volunteer will be approved to work at a single Olympic facility. On their days off, volunteers will be given free tickets to attend events.

However, even perfect English

People from

101 countries

applied to be

volunteers at

the Sochi

Games. Seven-

ty percent of

the applicants

were women;

only 2 percent

were over the

age of 60.

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stand out from the crowd?

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