- Dmitry Medvedev
- http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/medvedev-calls-for-return-of-officials-to-state-company-boards/493418.html Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Monday that government officials should be appointed to the boards of state-owned companies, in an apparent reversal of a signature reform he carried out during his presidency. In 2011 then-President Dmitry Medvedev launched a campaign to rid state-company boards of senior officials, in order to staff them with professional and independent directors to improve corporate governance.
- Yury Mikhailovich Luzhkov (Russian: Ю́рий Миха́йлович Лужко́в, IPA: [ˈjʉrʲɪj mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪt͡ɕ lʊˈʂkof]; 21 September 1936 – 10 December 2019) was a Russian politician who served as mayor of Moscow from 1992 to 2010. He was the vice-chairman and one of the founders of the ruling United Russia party.During Luzhkov's time, Moscow's economy expanded and he presided over large construction projects in the city, including the building of a new financial district. At the same time, he was accused of corruption, bulldozing historic buildings, and poor handling of traffic, as well as the city's smog crisis during the 2010 Russian wildfires. On 28 September 2010, Luzhkov was fired from his post by a decree issued by President Dmitry Medvedev. However, since Luzhkov’s ousting, no legal cases have been initiated or proof of corruption made public.
- wife being Yelena Nikolayevna Baturina (a Russian billionaire businesswoman and philanthropist). She founded (1991) and for two decades served as president of Inteco, an investment and construction company.[3] Her assets are now invested in Baturina's Investment Group. The Group's commercial activities cover a hotel chain[2] (in Ireland, the Czech Republic and Russia), a membrane construction and engineering enterprise (Germany), a renewable energy project (Greece, Cyprus and Italy), a development project (Cyprus) and investments in a number of real estate investment funds focused on residential and commercial construction and development in Europe and the US.
- [economist 4jan2020] russian bistro in moskva city - serve kvas and stuffed pirozhki, cabbage and potatoes. The logo was luzhkov's choice - a cossack of the sort who had smashed napoleon; kept bees at historic estate at veedern
Diplomat
- Artemiy Vyvodtsev
- Artemi/Artemy de Wywodzef (Artemii M. Vyvodtsev), who had been the Russian Consul in Singapore from 1890 to 1912. De Wywodzeff served as Russian Consul in Nagasaki from February 1912 to June 1915, although during his absence in 1914, Vitalii A. Skorodumov stepped in as Acting Consul. During a portion of this absence, de Wywodzeff had been detained in Germany as World War
One broke out. De Wywodzeff was appointed to be Consul General in San Francisco in June 1915. He remained in that position until December 1917, when he resigned after refusing to accept instructions from the new Bolshevik government in Russia. De Wywdozeff remained in San Francisco until his death there in January 1946 at the age of ninety-two.http://www.nfs.nias.ac.jp/page027.html - https://www.rbth.com/arts/history/2017/09/02/the-unknown-165-year-history-of-russias-san-francisco-consulate_832632 After the Revolution of 1917, Vyvodtsev went off to Russia and took part in the Civil War, but returned to the U.S. when the Red Army was victorious. Although his tenure as Russian Consul was over, the ousted diplomat made the surprising decision to continue consular responsibilities despite having no state to represent.Vyvodtsev circulated a personal message inviting his compatriots to ask for help in legal matters and promised to pull strings with former colleagues and friends in the consular services of other countries.“Come to me as children come to their father, in all cases of doubt and bewilderment. I will give all my experience acquired during 45 years of consular service in almost all countries of the world as a representative of the true Russia,” wrote Vyvodtsev, who resided in California until his death in 1946.
Oligarchs/Rich People
- https://www.rbth.com/business/332076-russian-billionaires-cities note that david yang of abbyy is listed as one of them
- rotenbergs
- The Rotenberg family lost its leading position in a new ranking of Russia's 10 richest dynasties to the Gutseriyevs as their family's fortune nearly halved in the course of a year because of sanctions, Forbes Russia reported Thursday. According to Forbes, the wealth of the Rotenberg business clan, composed of brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, as well as Arkady's son Igor Rotenberg, decreased from $5.55 billion to $2.95 billion over the last year, as members of the family were targeted by Western sanctions over Ukraine for their connection with President Vladimir Putin. The Rotenberg brothers are childhood friends of Putin, with whom they were sparring partners at the same martial arts club in St. Petersburg. Arkady Rotenberg owns SGM Group, a major construction services supplier to Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/rotenbergs-cede-title-of-russias-richest-family-to-gutseriyevs/528350.html?utm_source=email_tmt-editorial&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=55-issue-2015-08-21&utm_content=title_7
- http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/38d6dd90-e5ec-11e5-a09b-1f8b0d268c39.html A childhood friend and judo sparring partner of Russian president Vladimir Putin is looking to buy half of the state’s controlling stake in airline monopoly Aeroflot, according to three people familiar with the issue. Mr Putin is sympathetic to Arkady Rotenberg’s attempts to obtain a 25 per cent stake in Aeroflot, which currently has a total market value of Rbs69bn ($970m), two of the people said. Another person close to Aeroflot said management was aware of Mr Rotenberg’s ambitions.
- Gutseriyev
- http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/rotenbergs-cede-title-of-russias-richest-family-to-gutseriyevs/528350.html?utm_source=email_tmt-editorial&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=55-issue-2015-08-21&utm_content=title_7 The new leader of the list of Russia's richest clans was the Gutseriyev family, which last year was ranked second. The business dynasty, which owns BIN Group, is made up of billionaire tycoon Mikhail Gutseriyev, his brothers Said-Salam Gutseriyev and Khamzat Gutseriyev, and his nephew Mikhail Shishkhanov.
- ALISHER USMANOV, founder of USM Holdings, a diversified international company whose assets include Metalloinvest, a leading global manufacturer and supplier of metals and mining products and hot briquetted iron; MegaFon, one of the largest mobile operators and a top 4G/LTE services provider in Russia; Mail.Ru Group, the Russian-language internet market leader; as well as UTH Russia, which comprises Disney Russia, MUZ-TV and U television channels.
- http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/12/19/russia-crisis-usmanov-idUKL6N0U31U820141219 Russia's richest man Alisher Usmanov has transferred his holdings in mobile operator Megafon and iron ore producer Metalloinvest to Russian entities after President Vladimir Putin urged businessmen to bring their assets home. Putin redoubled his efforts to encourage businessmen to "de-offshore" their assets on Thursday in his annual end-of-year news conference, as the country's economy heads for recession, dragged down by a slump in oil prices and Western sanctions. http://www.hkcd.com.hk/pdf/201412/1222/HZ20C22CGBA.pdf
- In May 2009, Digital Sky Technologies (which later changed its name to "Mail.ru Group"),[38] a company in which he owns a 17.9-percent stake,[39] paid $200 million for a 1.96-percent stake in social networking website Facebook.[40]Mail.ru made notable investments in other international technology companies, includingTwitter, Groupon, Zynga, AirBnB, ZocDoc, Alibaba and 360buy.[41] The Alibaba investment was said by Usmanov to be up 500% in late 2014. The Facebook investment Usmanov implied he had sold, saying "I admire Facebook, but I said 'arrivederci' Facebook". At the same time, he said he had made an investment in "Chinese low-cost smartphone maker Xiaomi", saying it is a "future technology giant", and that he is looking to invest in India, particularly the online trade sector.
- http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/world/europe/mikhail-khodorkovsky-ex-oil-tycoon-plans-to-lead-political-movement.html?_r=0
- http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-21/billionaire-mikhelson-becomes-russia-s-second-richest-man.html
- http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d34d3ae8-89bf-11e4-8daa-00144feabdc0.html The 46-year-old Mr Vardanian knows that better than most. The former chief executive of Troika Dialog, one of Russia’s leading investment banks for the past two decades, has had a front-row seat for each of the country’s economic crises. To some extent, Mr Vardanian can afford to be laid back. Troika was sold in 2011 to state-owned Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender; he later stepped down from day-to-day work at the company, although he remains an adviser to Sberbank’s chief executive. Some of his former colleagues and competitors may envy his timing: analysts expect a sharp decline in investment banks’ revenues in Russia in 2014 as equity and bond issuance has all but ground to a halt amid western sanctions and a tumble in valuations. Many western banks are relocating staff out of Moscow.
- Mikhail Fridman: The Alpha oligarch http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b47de3d4-c325-11e4-ac3d-00144feab7de.html, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e291cdc6-c325-11e4-ac3d-00144feab7de.html
- http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31688877 German energy company RWE has closed the sale of 12 North Sea oil and gas fields to a Russian oligarch. The deal went through despite objections from the UK government. On Saturday the Department of Energy said it opposed the deal "in its current form" and expressed concern about "possible future sanctions" on Mr Fridman and his LetterOne fund. There are fears that the deal could run counter to sanctions imposed over the crisis in Ukraine. "We are delighted to have completed the acquisition of Dea," said Mikhail Fridman, chairman of LetterOne. "We are convinced that the current macroeconomic environment and the low oil price, give us an opportunity to achieve our ambition." A report in the Financial Times said Mr Fridman had threatened legal action against the UK government if it attempted to block the acquisition.
- http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/34395a46-ccad-11e4-b5a5-00144feab7de.html Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman is preparing to sell a dozen North Sea gasfields at the heart of a fierce row over ownership, in a move that would avert a high-profile legal battle with the UK government. Two weeks after an acrimonious spat with Britain’s energy secretary, Mr Fridman’s $29bn LetterOne Group is close to hiring advisers, thought to be Morgan Stanley, to sound out buyers for the fields, according to people familiar with the plans.
- http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f4a94382-ccbb-11e4-b5a5-00144feab7de.html Mikhail Fridman, the Russian oligarch, has made a $2.8bn bid for a controlling stake in Turkcell, in the latest twist in a prolonged battle over Turkey’s biggest mobile group. The move follows his failure to wrest a controlling stake in the mobile group from Mehmet Emin Karamehmet, one of Turkey’s best-known businessmen, via a prolonged court battle.
- Feature article 28aug12 scmp rgc supplement
- igor nekludov
- http://observer.com/2015/06/russian-tycoons-grandson-pays-people-to-drink-his-urine-flash-their-breasts/ Igor Nekludov, whose total assets, according to unofficial estimates, are about 150 billion rubles ($2.8 billion), is the founder of about ten large companies in the city of Khabarovsk, which is on Russia’s Far East and is as close to Tokyo or Beijing as to the nearest big city in Russia itself. Among Mr. Nekludov’s holdings include the largest office buildings in the city, a local television station, a network of movie theaters, the largest tourist complex in the region and some lesser trifles like chains of fitness-clubs and saunas. The 68-year-old billionaire most likely wants the world to forget how he built his empire in the bloody 1990s. Close friendship with former all-powerful Regional Representative of the Russian President and at the same time former Governor of Khabarovsk Region Victor Ishaev helped him receive the best and biggest chunks of property in the center of Khabarovsk for his development company. Back then and now, his main rule – “always stay in the shadows” – helped him avoid conflicts with the law-enforcement agencies fighting organized crime. Today, the members of his clan are helping him to run the empire. His daughter, Larissa Mamourina, owns the development company Dalreo and the Khabarovsk chain of ‘World Class’ fitness-clubs. Her husband, Konstantin Mamourin, former karate fighter, works under his father-in-law and owns a construction company in Moscow. Mr. Neklyudov Sr. has had good reasons to stay in the shadows – in 2010, his 18-year-old granddaughter Anna-Maria Mamourina was kidnapped and, according to the rumors, returned to the relatives only after 50 million rubles ($1.5 million) ransom was paid to the kidnappers. Upon her release from captivity, she was immediately sent to London never to return.
- Spoilt teenage son of Russian oligarch 'persuades women to strip to their underwear to clean his car in exchange for cash'http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3513818/Spoilt-teenage-son-Russian-oligarch-persuades-women-strip-underwear-clean-car-exchange-cash.html
- lapin family
- famous “five-pointed tower house” appeared in 1913, first owned by the Lapin family of traders, and then inherited by wealthy commission agent Schneer Joffe, who used it to sell antique furniture.https://www.rbth.com/travel/332191-most-beautiful-buildings-petersburg
- The antique mansion near St. Isaac’s Cathedral used to belong to the extremely wealthy Demidov family. The dynasty takes its roots in Peter the Great’s time. The house stood out with its extravagant luxury, unheard of at the time. The mansion is famous for its atlantes and caryatids, which adorn its main entrance. After a lengthy period of abandonment, the house is once again open to visitors.https://www.rbth.com/travel/332191-most-beautiful-buildings-petersburg
- note that there is a town called demidov in smolensk oblast
- http://rbth.com/politics_and_society/society/2016/05/06/russias-most-eligible-bachelors-7-unmarried-millionaires-under-40_590937
putin family
- http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/china_world/20151220/00180_008.html英國媒體調查報道發現迎娶普京幼女葉卡捷琳娜的「乘龍快婿」沙馬洛夫（Kirill Shamalov），自加入普京的家庭後身家暴漲。Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reported son-in-law is among Russia’s wealthiest families, the Forbes Russia magazine revealed on Thursday. The family of Kirill Shamalov, the man rumored to have married Putin’s youngest daughter, entered Russia's top 10 wealthiest clans for the first time this year, with an estimated net value of $2.4 billion. Shamalov, Russia's youngest billionaire, made headlines last year when he was named as the husband of Katerina Tikhonova, an academic widely rumored to be Putin's daughter. The young businessman's fortunes began to skyrocket after being given a $1.3 billion loan from Gazprombank – a company at which his brother Yuri is a deputy chairman – to purchase a 17 percent stake in petrochemical company “Sibur.” Shamalov emerged as the second-largest shareholder in the company soon after the purchase, acquiring a 21 percent stake.https://themoscowtimes.com/news/putins-son-in-law-among-russias-wealthiest-families-55112
- http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/china_world/20160205/00180_021.html 俄羅斯總統普京的私生活，一直是民眾茶餘飯後的話題。當地一本雜誌日前刊登聲稱是普京長女瑪麗亞（Maria）的照片，更大爆她鮮為人知的事。該雜誌指，這次是普京自二○○○年就任總統以來，瑪麗亞照片首次曝光。俄羅斯雜誌《New Times》刊登的照片，包括一張瑪麗亞於二○○八年，在荷蘭穿起十九世紀的歐洲服飾，出席化裝舞會。照片中的瑪麗亞，樣貌與普京及其前妻柳德米拉有幾分相似。雜誌又大爆瑪麗亞的「秘密」，指她擁有博士學位，曾於莫斯科大學讀醫，論文主題是侏儒症，最愛讀《藝伎回憶錄》；而她現時與從商的三十六歲荷蘭裔丈夫法森（Jorrit Faassen）育有一女，住在莫斯科一個守衞森嚴的豪宅，俯瞰美國駐俄大使館。克里姆林宮拒絕評論，惟也沒有否認報道。
- anton bakov ?
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/30/russian-businessman-seeks-restore-tsarist-empire-overthrown/ ARussian monarchist is seeking to buy three uninhabited islands in the remote Pacific nation of Kiribati to restore the Romanov empire and create an “alternative Russia”. Anton Bakov, a businessman and former Russian MP, is visiting the tiny nation this week after he was invited there to discuss his plan to purchase or lease three southern islands.
He has proposed creating the capital of the new Russian nation on Malden Island, an empty coral atoll in the south Pacific, where he says he plans to invest £280 million on resorts.
Soviet union
- Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (15 April 1894 – 11 September 1971) was a Sovietstatesman who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev was responsible for the de-Stalinizationof the Soviet Union, for backing the progress of the early Soviet space program, and for several relatively liberal reforms in areas of domestic policy. Khrushchev's party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier.
- Khrushchev was born on 15 April 1894, in Kalinovka, a village in what is now Russia's Kursk Oblast, near the present Ukrainian border. His parents, Sergei Khrushchev and Ksenia Khrushcheva, were poor peasants of Russian origin, and had a daughter two years Nikita's junior, Irina. Sergei Khrushchev was employed in a number of positions in the Donbasarea of far eastern Ukraine, working as a railwayman, as a miner, and labouring in a brick factory.
- very detailed vietnamese wiki version
- https://www.quora.com/What-happened-to-Marshall-Zhukov-after-WWII
- Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (/ˈbrɛʒnɛf/; Russian: Леони́д Ильи́ч Бре́жнев, IPA: [lʲɪɐˈnʲid ɪˈlʲjitɕ ˈbrʲɛʐnʲɪf] (
listen); Ukrainian: Леоні́д Іллі́ч Бре́жнєв, 19 December 1906 (O.S. 6 December) – 10 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who led the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982 as the General Secretary of the Central Committee (CC) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), presiding over the country until his death and funeral in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in duration. During Brezhnev's rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet military during this time. His tenure as leader was also marked by the beginning of an era of economic and social stagnation in the Soviet Union. Brezhnev was born in Kamenskoye, Russian Empire (now Kamianske, Ukraine), into a Russian worker's family in 1906. After graduating from the Kamenskoye Metallurgical Technicum, he became a metallurgical engineer in the iron and steel industry, in Ukraine. He joined the Komsomol in 1923 and became an active member of the CPSU by 1929. With the onset of World War II, he was drafted into immediate military service and left the army in 1946 with the rank of major general. In 1952, Brezhnev was promoted to the Central Committee and, in 1957 to full member of the Politburo. In 1964, he succeeded Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. As the leader of the Soviet Union, Brezhnev's conservatism and carefulness to reach decisions by consensus within the Politburo resulted in sustained political stability within the party and the country. However, his hostility towards reform and tolerance of corruption ushered in a period of socioeconomic decline that came to be known as the Brezhnev Stagnation. On the world stage, Brezhnev pushed hard for the adoption of détente to relax tensions and foster economic cooperation between the two Cold War superpowers. Despite such diplomatic gestures, Brezhnev's regime presided over an aggressive foreign policy characterized by widespread military interventionism and a massive arms buildup that ultimately grew to comprise 12.5% of the nation's GNP. Upon successfully sidelining his political rivals, Brezhnev actively fostered a cult of personality among the party membership (albeit not to the same extent as Stalin's totalitarian rule). After years of declining health, Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982 and was quickly succeeded in his post as General Secretary by Yuri Andropov. Upon coming to power in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev denounced his regime's pervasive inefficiency and inflexibility before overseeing steps to liberalize the Soviet Union.- Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov[a] (1 December [O.S. 19 November] 1896 – 18 June 1974) was a Soviet Red Army officer who became Chief of General Staff, Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Minister of Defence and a member of the Politburo. During World War II he participated in multiple battles, ultimately commanding the 1st Belorussian Front in the Battle of Berlin, which resulted in the defeat of Nazi Germany, and the end of the War in Europe.
- Anatoly Ivanovich Lukyanov (Russian: Анатолий Иванович Лукьянов) (7 May 1930 – 9 January 2019) was a Russian Communist politician who was the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR between 15 March 1990 and 22 August 1991. One of the founders of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) in 1993, he was described by its leader Gennady Zyuganov as having been the Deng Xiaoping of the party.[1] He published books of poetry under his own name and under the pseudonyms Osenev (Осенев) and Dneprov (Днепров). Lukyanov was an early political ally of Mikhail Gorbachev, supporting his efforts in issues such as the fight against corruption and the start of reforms in the economy. However, beginning in 1987-88, he increasingly sympathized with the party establishment, correctly foreseeing that Gorbachev's policies would lead to the Soviet collapse.
- From 1956 to 1961 Lukyanov worked as a legal adviser at the Legal Commission of the Soviet Council of Ministers.[7] He later was an adviser on legislation-drafting at the Supreme Soviet and worked on constitutional law issues at the Central Committee.[4] He also served as a constitutional adviser to the governments of the People's Republic of Poland and the Hungarian People's Republic.[8] Allthe while he benefited from being constantly based in Moscow, at the center of government.
- 據蘇聯史專家王國傑教授著作《「八·一九事件」透視與剖析》介紹，1991年8月19日-21日，蘇聯發生了一次政變，中央政府的一些高官為了挽救蘇聯，軟禁蘇聯總統戈巴契夫，企圖廢除其職位。政變領導人國防部長亞佐夫元帥，克格勃領導人克留奇科夫等蘇共強硬保守派組成了國家緊急狀態委員會，盧基揚諾夫本人雖然沒參加緊急委員會，但是他在回憶錄中寫到，他認為引入緊急狀態是絕對正當（абсолютно оправданным）。
yevgeny Primakov
- http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/28/yevgeny-primakov Yevgeny Primakov, who has died aged 85, was an outstanding foreign minister and prime minister of the Russian Federation in the 1990s. He was a bold critic of the oligarchs and their neoliberal capitalism, a staunch defender of Russian national interests after the pro-western foreign policy of the early post-Soviet years, and a man whom many Russians considered the best president their country never had. His popularity peaked towards the end of Boris Yeltsin’s presidency, when he supported inquiries into allegations of corrupt practice by Yeltsin and his entourage. They responded by unleashing a torrent of smears against him on state television and selecting Vladimir Putin, then head of the Federal Security Bureau, the KGB’s successor, to take over from Yeltsin.
- http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21677992-trusty-defence-minister-only-person-serve-every-government-fall Since Mr Shoigu took over the defence ministry in late 2012, his partnership with Mr Putin has flourished off the ice, too. The Russian armed forces have emerged as the primary instrument of Mr Putin’s foreign policy. In Crimea and eastern Ukraine, along the edges of NATO airspace and now in Syria, Russia has projected power with newfound effectiveness. Under Mr Shoigu, Russia’s armed forces have “demonstrated a capability and organisation and logistics skill-set that we have not seen before,” says Evelyn Farkas, who was until recently the Pentagon’s top official on Russian affairs. But Mr Shoigu is much more than Russia’s latest defence minister. At 60, three years younger than Mr Putin, he is the longest-serving member of the Russian government; his tenure stretches back to 1990, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Mr Putin was still toiling in obscurity in the St Petersburg mayor’s office. He made his name at the Ministry of Emergency Situations (MChS), a semi-militarised rescue service with a wide remit that he built himself and led for nearly 22 years. By skilfully navigating Russia’s Byzantine bureaucracy, he has accrued power and popularity without making any notable enemies. “There’s no one else like him in the ruling class,” says Evgeny Minchenko, an analyst who studies the Russian elite. “It’s an absolutely unprecedented story.”
- The Bank of Russia’s crackdown on lenders in the Rossiyskiy Kredit group may trigger a record payout of 57 billion rubles ($972 million) to depositors.OAO Rossiyskiy Kredit Bank, the country’s 45th-largest by assets, followed highly risky lending practices and its reporting was unreliable, the central bank said on its website Friday, explaining the decision to pull its license. The regulator also closed two affiliates and put a third under external administration.Russia’s central bank has been shuttering lenders it deems mismanaged or under-capitalized and fought to clamp down on dubious capital transactions as the economy tipped into contraction. The number of operating banks dropped to 741 at the end of June from 894 two years earlier, as Governor Elvira Nabiullina took the reins, according to central bank data.The combined payout may be the biggest yet by the Deposit Insurance Agency, according to Maxim Osadchy, an analyst at Bank BKF Ltd. in Moscow. In May, Andrey Melnikov, the deputy head of the agency, said 40 billion rubles would be paid to savers with Transportny Bank, according to Interfax. Rossiyskiy Kredit officials didn’t respond to requests for comment. Its board is headed by Anatoly Motylev, whose Globex Bank was rescued and taken over by Russia’s state development bank in 2009. Motylev is also on the board of AMB Bank. His reception declined to put calls through to him.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-24/record-insurance-payout-looms-as-bank-of-russia-culls-licenses
- Ft 7sep15 article
Oleg Tinkov (Олег Тиньков, also Oleg Tinkoff, b. 25 December 1967) is a Russianbusinessman, who came to prominence by brewing upscale beers for young professionals in Russia.[1] In 2005, he sold the brewery business for €167 million toInBev of Belgium, emerging as one of Russia's "biggest success stories".[2]
- http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/3e6727e6-a966-11e5-9700-2b669a5aeb83.html
Mikhail Lesin
- http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/international/art/20151108/19364495 俄羅斯總統普京心腹、俄國前「媒體沙皇」列辛（Mikhail Lesin圖），被人發現伏屍美國華盛頓豪華酒店。俄媒指他死於心臟病發。列辛上周四被發現伏屍華盛頓Dupont Circle Hotel，美官員知會俄羅斯駐美國大使館。俄新社引述列辛家人稱他死於心臟病發。塔斯社指美警已展開調查，但排除謀殺可能。克里姆林宮發聲明指，普京讚揚列辛為創造俄羅斯現代傳媒貢獻良多。終年57歲的列辛以打壓俄羅斯新聞自由聞名於世，1999年至2004年間出任俄羅斯媒體部長，創立官辦英語國際新聞頻道「今日俄羅斯」，挑戰美國有線電視新聞網絡及英國廣播公司的主導地位，卸任後轉任總統的傳媒顧問，前年轉任俄氣傳媒集團行政總裁，翌年以家庭理由辭職，有指他任官時在歐美暗藏大量資產。
communist youth league
- Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko (/tʃɜːrˈnɛŋkoʊ/; Russian: Константи́н Усти́нович Черне́нко; IPA: [kənstɐnˈtʲin usˈtʲinɐvʲɪtɕ tɕɨrˈnʲenkə], 24 September 1911 – 10 March 1985) was a Soviet politician and the fifth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He led the Soviet Union from 13 February 1984 until his death thirteen months later, on 10 March 1985. Chernenko was also Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 11 April 1984 until his death. Chernenko was born to a poor family in the village of Bolshaya Tes (now in Novosyolovsky District, Krasnoyarsk Krai) on 24 September 1911.[2] His father, Ustin Demidovich (of Ukrainian origin), worked in copper and gold mines while his mother (of Jewish origin)[citation needed] took care of the farm work. Chernenko joined the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) in 1929, and became a full member of the Communist Party in 1931. From 1930 to 1933, he served in the Soviet frontier guards on the Soviet-Chinese border.
literature
- Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (/nəˈbɔːkəf, ˈnæbəˌkɔːf, -ˌkɒf/; Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Набо́ков, pronounced [vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr nɐˈbokəf] (
listen), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin; 22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1899c – 2 July 1977) was a Russian-American novelist and entomologist. His first nine novels were in Russian, and he achieved international prominence after he began writing English prose. Nabokov's Lolita (1955), his most noted novel in English- Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (Russian: Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в or Пе́шков;[1] 28 March [O.S. 16 March] 1868 – 18 June 1936), primarily known as Maxim (Maksim) Gorky (/ˈɡɔːrki/; Russian: Макси́м Го́рький), was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and a political activist. He was also a five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Around fifteen years before success as a writer, he frequently changed jobs and roamed across the Russian Empire; these experiences would later influence his writing. Gorky's most famous works were The Lower Depths (1902), Twenty-six Men and a Girl, The Song of the Stormy Petrel, The Mother, Summerfolk and Children of the Sun. He had an association with fellow Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov; Gorky would later mention them in his memoirs. Gorky was active with the emerging Marxist social-democratic movement. He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime, and for a time closely associated himself with Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov's Bolshevik wing of the party. For a significant part of his life, he was exiled from Russia and later the Soviet Union. In 1932, he returned to Russia on Joseph Stalin's personal invitation and died there in June 1936.
- note tales of Italy, russia stories
- http://tsrus.cn/wenhua/wenyi/2018/04/08/661167
- The space between Tverskaya and Chekhovskaya stations is decorated with a huge monument to Maxim Gorky, the leading Soviet proletarian writer. Why not Chekhov, you might ask? Because Tverskaya station (and Tverskaya Street) in central Moscow were both named in Gorky’s honor until Perestroika when the names were changed.https://www.rbth.com/travel/331502-sculptures-moscow-metro
- 2017 hk arts festival has a programme featuring his works
- Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov (Russian: Ю́рий Петро́вич Люби́мов; 30 September [O.S. 17 September] 1917 – 5 October 2014) was a Soviet and Russian stage actor and director associated with the internationally renowned Taganka Theatre,[1] which he founded in 1964.[2][3] He was one of the leading names in the Russian theatre world.
Women
- http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/auto-parts-store-existru-becomes-russias-biggest-online-retailer/540496.html?utm_source=email_tmt-editorial&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=55-issue-2015-10-28&utm_content=title_6 A Russian online store specializing in auto parts sales, Exist.ru, has become the nation's largest Internet shopping site in terms of revenue, the Vedomosti business daily reported Tuesday, citing a recently published study. With an estimated turnover of 35.4 billion rubles ($545 million) in the first half of 2015, Exist.ru was ranked by Internet research agency Data Insight as Russia's largest Internet retailer in a ranking based on data provided by the retailers themselves, and the agency's own research. Founded in 1999, Exist.ru is one of Russia's oldest online retailers. Today, the company claims to process 50,000 orders for auto parts daily, according to data on Exist.ru's website. Analysts polled by Vedomosti attribute Exist.ru's growing revenue to the devaluation of the ruble, which lost nearly half its value against the U.S. dollar last year, driving up the costs of parts for foreign-made automobiles. This has motivated car owners to save money by looking for third-party alternatives to original manufacturer spare parts sold by unauthorized retailers, according to Alexei Leshchenko, chairman of the board of directors of Modus, an official dealer for BMW, Renault and other foreign-made cars, Vedomosti reported.
- Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai (Russian: Алекса́ндра Миха́йловна Коллонта́й — née Domontovich, Домонто́вич; March 31 [O.S. March 19] 1872 – 9 March 1952) was a Russian Communist revolutionary, first as a member of the Mensheviks, then from 1914 on as aBolshevik. In 1923, Kollontai was appointed Soviet Ambassador to Norway, one of the first women to hold such a post (Diana Abgar was earlier).Alexandra Mikhailovna Domontovich was born on March 31 [O.S. March 19] 1872 in St. Petersburg. Her father, General Mikhail Alekseevich Domontovich, descended from a Ukrainian Cossack family that traced its ancestry back to the 13th century.[1] He served as a cavalry officer in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 and as an advisor to the Russian administration in Bulgaria after the war until 1879. He entertained liberal political views, favoring aconstitutional monarchy like that of the United Kingdom, and in the 1880s had written a study of the Bulgarian war of independence which was confiscated by the Tsaristcensors, presumably for showing insufficient Russiannationalist zeal.[2] Alexandra's mother, Alexandra Androvna Masalina-Mravinskaya,[a] the daughter of aFinnish peasant who had made a fortune selling wood, obtained a divorce from an unhappy arranged first marriage so that she could marry Domontovich, with whom she had fallen in love.[2] Russia opera singer Yevgeniya Mravina(née Mravinskaya) is Alexandra Kollontai's stepsister via the mother.
koreans
- The iconic frontman of 80s rock group Kino, Viktor Tsoi looms large in the firmament of Russian rock music, in spite of his untimely death almost a quarter of a century ago. Tsoi, who defined the rebellious spirit of perestroika, has become the archetypal image of the Russian rock star and lives on in his songs, which remain eternally popular.Viktor Tsoi was born in Leningrad in 1962. While his mother was Russian, his father was a “Russified” Korean. As a child, Tsoi exhibited a talent for drawing. To make money, he painted portraits of Western rock stars such as Robert Plant with ink and sold them on the black market. Tsoi taught himself how to play guitar and started writing his own songs at a young age. Later, he formed a band called Kino: a quartet that sounded similar to Joy Division, The Cure, and Tsoi's favorite – The Smiths.https://www.rbth.com/arts/2014/06/20/viktor_tsoi_the_last_hero_of_russian_rock_37605.html
jews
- Mikhail Markovich Borodin (Russian: Михаи́л Mápкoвич Бороди́н; July 9, 1884 – May 29, 1951) was the alias of Mikhail Gruzenberg, a prominent Comintern agent.Borodin was born in a Jewish family in Yanovich, located in modern Vitebsk Region, Belarus. He joined the Bolshevik party in 1903 and became an associate of Vladimir Lenin’s in their underground work. In 1905, he chose to go into exile in the United States. While there, he attended classes at Valparaiso University in Indiana, and taught English to immigrant children in Jane Addams' Chicago Hull House. After the October Revolution of 1917, he returned to his motherland, working in the foreign relations department. From 1919 to 1922, he worked in Mexico, the United States and the United Kingdom as a Comintern agent. He was jailed for six months on 29 August 1922 in Glasgow, ostensibly for breaking immigration regulations, but his political mission was known too, and discussed in court.When Sun Yat-sen requested the help of the Comintern, Borodin led a contingent of Soviet advisors to Guangzhou, where Sun had established a local government. English was the common language between the two. He negotiated the First United Front between the Chinese Nationalist Party of Sun Yat Sen and the Chinese Communist Party. Under his tutelage, both parties reorganized on the Leninist principles of democratic centralism and organized training institutes for mass organizations, such as the Peasant Training Institute, where the young Mao Zedong served, and the Whampoa Military Academy, which under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek trained officers for a party controlled army. He arranged shipments of Soviet arms and shrewdly kept a balance between the middle class elements of the Nationalists and the more radical Communists. After Sun Yat-sen's death in 1925, Borodin remained an influential advisor to the Nationalists until 1927, when he sided with the left wing Nationalist government in Wuhan led by Wang Jingwei and Eugene Chen. Stalin, under criticism from Leon Trotsky for compromising with the Chinese bourgeoisie, instructed Borodin to enforce leftist land revolution policies on the Nationalists and to mobilize an army of peasants and workers in order to seize control of the party. Chiang Kai-shek, head of the right wing of the party, purged communists in the bloody Shanghai Massacre of 1927 but allowed Borodin to "escape" by car to the Soviet Union along with Sun Yat-sen's wife and Eugene Chen's sons. "The revolution extends to the Yangzi River," Borodin told a reporter as they began their journey, and "if a diver were sent down to the bottom of this yellow stream he would rise again with an armful of shattered hopes.
- armenian jew
- Mikhail Vladimirovich Mishustin (Russian: Михаил Владимирович Мишустин, [mʲiˈxaɪ̯l vɫɐˈdʲɪmʲirəvʲit͡ɕ mʲiˈʂʊsʲtʲin]; born 3 March 1966) is a Russian economist and politician serving as Prime Minister of Russia since 2020. He previously served as Director of the Federal Tax Service from 2010 to 2020.Mikhail Mishustin was born on 3 March 1966 in Lobnya,[citation needed] a town close to Moscow. His heritage is a subject of debate, with various reputed sources positing his father to be of Russian-Jewish descent[3] and his mother of Armenian descent.[4] In 1989, he graduated from the STANKIN, majoring in system engineering, and then in 1992, he completed postgraduate studies at the same Institute.After graduating from graduate school, he began working as a Director of a test laboratory, and later headed the Board of the International Computer Club (ICC), a public non-profit organization.In 1998, he joined the state service as an assistant for information systems for accounting and control over the receipt of tax payments to the head of the State tax service of the Russian Federation.[citation needed] Then he worked at the rank of Deputy Minister of the Russian Federation for taxes and duties, head of the Federal Agency for Real Estate Cadastre within the Russian Ministry of Economic Development, and head of the Federal Agency for Managing Special Economic Zones.[citation needed]In 2008, he left the civil service on his own and returned to business — this time in the field of investment.[citation needed]In February 2009, he joined the personnel reserve of the President of Russia.
boris
- Boris Vyacheslavovich Gryzlov (also spelled Grizlov; Russian: Борис Вячеславович Грызлов, Russian pronunciation: [bɐˈrʲiz ɡrɨˈzɫof]; born December 15, 1950), is a Russian politician. He was Interior Minister from 2001 to 2003 and Speaker of the State Duma (the lower house of parliament) from 2003 to 2011. He is one of the leaders of the largest Russian political party, United Russia. Boris Gryzlov is a close ally of President Vladimir Putin.Gryzlov was born in Vladivostok but was raised in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). He graduated from the Leningrad Electrical Institute of Communications in 1973 and worked as a radio engineer. From 1977 to 1996 he worked his way up from being an engineer to division director in the Elektronpribor plant.[2] He was not a public figure before 1999. In October 1999 he became head of the St Petersburg regional branch of Sergey Shoygu's Unity party and in December 1999 he was elected to the State Duma running on the Unity party ticket. In January 2000 he was elected chairman of the Unity fraction in the Duma.
- met xijinping in nov19 china daily 26nov19
muslims
- sunni
- Makhmut Akhmetovich Gareyev (Russian: Махмут Ахметович Гареев Tatar: Мәхмүт Әхмәт улы Гәрәев) (b. June 23, 1923) is a Russian General of the Army, a historian, and a military scientist. Former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR. Currently the president of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences. He holds the Doctor of Science degree in History and Military Science. A decorated veteran of the Second World War, he had a lifelong career in the Soviet military starting from the Third Lieutenant in the beginning of the war (having graduated from TVOKU in Tashkent in 1941) and reaching a rank of the General in the 1970s. His positions also included serving as the military adviser to the President of Egypt in the 1970s and to President Najibullah of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1989-1991. Gareev has been involved in work on military history since the 1950s. He authored many books including by himself or as an editor-in-chief of the collective works. Some of his books and articles have been translated and published into English. His religion is Sunni Islam.
- http://paper.takungpao.com/resfile/PDF/20171203/PDF/a19_screen.pdf「一九三七年 『盧溝橋事變』爆發，日 軍發動全面侵華戰爭，中國人民進行英勇頑 強抵抗，做出了重要貢獻。其間，蘇聯給予 大力支持與幫助。我要強調的是，抗戰初期 ，蘇聯就向中國派出一千二百四十架戰鬥機 ，兩千餘名飛行員。其中，十分之一的飛行 員犧牲在中國土地上。因此，蘇聯對中國抗 戰支持，可以說是巨大的。」
ethnic minority
- http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/introduction.shtml red book of peoples of russian empire
- The Ingush (Ingush: ГIалгIай, Ghalghai, pronounced [ˈʁalʁaɪ]) are a Caucasian native ethnic group of the North Caucasus, mostly inhabiting the Russian republic of Ingushetia. The Ingush are predominantly Sunni Muslims and speak the Ingush language. Despite popular misconceptions, Ingush is not mutually intelligible[dubious ] with Chechen, though they are closely related.[4] The Ingush and Chechen peoples are collectively known as the Vainakh.[5]
- In the mid-19th century, when the Chinese and later the Russians appeared in present-day Primorsky Territory, these lands were inhabited by among others, the Nanai, Udege and Oroch peoples. An outcome of this interaction is the Tazy people, a group that resulted from mixed marriages between the Chinese and native peoples of the area. Today just 276 people identify with this group.
Back then native peoples were called “inorodtsy” (meaning non-Russian), whereas now they are usually identified as the indigenous peoples of the Far East. However, in Russian they are also sometimes referred to as the small peoples of the Amur Region (malye narody), although this refers to the number of representatives of the group and not their physical size or importance. http://travel.rbth.com/travel/2015/05/02/the_nanai_people_native_inhabitants_of_russias_far_east
- The Nanai people (self-designation нани Nani means 'natives, locals, people of the land/earth'; self-designation Hezhen means 'people of the Orient'; Russian: нанайцы, nanaitsy; Chinese: 赫哲族, Hèzhézú; formerly also known as Golds, Goldes, Goldi and Samagir) are a Tungusic people of the Far East, who have traditionally lived along Heilongjiang (Amur), Songhuajiang (Sunggari) and Ussuri rivers on the Middle Amur Basin. The ancestors of the Nanais were the Jurchens of northernmost Manchuria. The Nanai/Hezhe language belongs to the Manchu-Tungusic languages. 赫哲族 是中国与俄罗斯共和国境内的少数民族之一，在俄罗斯称为那乃人（俄语：нанайцы）哲族的先民自古在居住在黑龙江、松花江和乌苏里江三江流域。历史上曾有“兀者野人”、“黑斤”、“黑真”、“赫真”（意为：“东方的人”）、“奇楞”（意为“住在江边的人”），兀狄哈、“赫哲”、“戈尔德”等不同名称，赫哲人自称“用日贝”、“那尼卧”、“那乃”，即本地人的意思。明朝时为野人女真的一支。“赫哲”一词最早见于《清实录》。一般认为赫哲族是以古老的黑水部为核心，吸收了鄂伦春族、鄂温克族、满族、汉族、蒙古族及其他土著等民族成分，在清初形成较稳定的族体。于清末进入阶级社会。原居住在库页岛的赫哲族人在清朝被俄国人赶到大陆。他們服魚皮，也服狍子皮，因此有時被命名為魚皮韃子。俄国人以前叫他们高尔德人。在黑龙江下游的与乌尔奇人有关。俄人说赫哲人分七氏族，所以叫七姓野人。其实他们分为二十二个氏族:苛楞、撒马吉尔、涂墨拉勒、烏第堪、畢日達奇、加克素鹿、尤喀敏喀、珠格、綽格樂、阿勒楚喀、多秦、鄂寧喀、嘎即喇、阿克坦喀、畢爾緬勒、烏札拉、舒木魯、盧日勒、傅特哈、葛以克日、赫哲[來源請求]。其中有七个最古老氏族（特尔吉尔、貝尔特吉尔、巴亚吉尔、撒馬吉、卡尔他吉尔、巴力卡吉尔、庫奇吉尔[來源請求]）。中华人民共和国成立后，统一族名为赫哲，意为居住在“东方”及江“下游”的人们。
- 赫哲族过去曾信仰萨满教，相信神的存在，也有熊与虎的图腾信仰。
- 聚居於黑龍江及烏蘇里江沿岸的「魚皮部 落」——赫哲族。時光荏苒，如今僅餘 5,000多人口的赫哲族被列入全國五 小民族之一，其獨特的國家級非物質文化遺產項目——魚皮製作技藝，亦 隨着族人融入現代社會、老人相繼離世瀕臨消亡。http://pdf.wenweipo.com/2017/04/11/a13-0411.pdf note the 赫哲魚皮手工縫製火 圖騰
- http://rbth.com/politics_and_society/2016/08/24/the-chukchi-who-are-the-people-of-russias-freezing-northeast_623729 Just across the Bering Strait from Alaska, the region of Chukotka has the most severe natural conditions in Russia but still supports small communities – including settlements where the descendants of primitive reindeer herders and sea hunters still eke out a living.
- examples of mansi people yeltsin
Hong Kong related
- Barbara Kukhno introduced SUN Studio Hong Kong at a governmental business seminar in Moscow http://skygroup.pro/en/company_news/2012-08-30_en.htm, also head of Russian Business Club in HK http://www.rusbc.com.hk/#!organizers/c85w
- Ashley Galina - http://www.startbase.hk/people/ashley-galina-dudarenok, contributed articles to China Daily http://www.chinadailyasia.com/opinion/2015-03/19/content_15241049.html "InvestHK and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council hold annual conferences and receptions in Russia to strengthen business exchanges and develop potential cooperation opportunities. Conferences were held in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Omsk and Kazan during 2014."
- http://muradosmann.com/
- https://www.facebook.com/murad.osmanov
Don't just wait for Russia to look East
Peter Gordon considers the potential, and challenges, of vast Siberia
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 05 September, 2012, 12:00am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 04 September, 2012, 11:51pm
Russia's head lies in Europe while its feet paddle in the Pacific. It is the only European country that is also a Pacific nation, an attribute reflected in its former imperial, and now resurrected, emblem. "The Russian eagle has two heads, looking in two directions at once," the late Arkady Volsky, leading Soviet and post-Soviet industrialist, told me in the late 1990s. "It is just as important for Russia to look East to Asia, as West to Europe and the United States."
If Asian Russia - Siberia - were a country, it would be the continent's largest, one-third larger than China. Siberia has the abundant surplus energy, metals and other natural resources, from timber to fish, necessary for its neighbours' continued growth.
Yet Russia has seemed curiously detached from the rest of Asia. "Asia stops at the Amur River," a Hong Kong investment banker once informed me.
While trade and investment figures show progress, Russia is nonetheless far less integrated with its Asian neighbours than Canada or even Mexico is with the United States. The eagle, it seems, has generally been content just to look at Asia rather than build much of a nest here.
It was not always thus. A branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway originally took a shortcut via Harbin, Heilongjiang. Less happily, imperial Russia ruled what is now Dalian, in Liaoning. Anton Chekhov, the great Russian writer, visited Hong Kong in 1890 on his way back from Sakhalin (he was most impressed, writing: "A wonderful bay, such movement on the sea as I have never seen even in pictures...").
The Hongkong & Shanghai Bank, with exquisite timing, opened a branch in Vladivostok in 1917. It closed a few years later, but the Tsarist-era building - considerably more modest than the one on the Shanghai Bund - is still there, or at least was when I was asked to scope it out soon after Vladivostok opened up. Yul Brynner was born in Vladivostok.
The turmoil of the 20th century - the Russian revolution, the brief interregnum in which the region was the nominally independent Far Eastern Republic, the second world war and border skirmishes with China, brought an end to this. Vladivostok became home to the Soviet Union's Pacific fleet and was closed to foreigners.
The legacy of this period is still being unwound; the Russian far east is suffering from a significant decline in population, and - overall good relations with China notwithstanding - concerns are still expressed about Chinese immigration, including comments just last month by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
Perhaps these worries are not entirely specious. A thinly populated and dormant Siberia tucked up hard against not just a populous and dynamic China but also Korea and Japan seems untenable in the long run. Healthy Russo-Asian relationships need a healthy Russian Asia, and Siberia has been distinctly unhealthy.
Russia is not Germany or Britain: surely the first signs of Russia's renewed engagement with Asia would be a reinvigorated Russian Asia. New shoots have been visible from time to time, but it is taking a disconcertingly long time.
Some of this is understandable, of course. The example of Shenzhen notwithstanding, economies don't get turned on by the flip of a switch; Shenzhen, after all, had Hong Kong a stone's throw away while Siberian cities had, at best, Manchurian versions of pre-special-economic-zone Shenzhen. Several of the latter have boomed; their Russian counterparts, in general, less so.
Are Vladivostok's hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit and the city's refurbishment signs of the Russian eagle's belated nest-building? If the past two decades are any indication, it's still too soon to tell.
That being said, Hong Kong probably shouldn't wait to find out for certain. Economic integration seems inevitable even if the timing remains uncertain. Siberia and Russia's far east, being part of our region, may well be of more direct importance to Hong Kong than the capital, Moscow. Any Asia of which Hong Kong aspires to be a hub will ultimately include Russia's Asian territories.
Peter Gordon, editor of the Asian Review of Books, was active in Hong Kong-Russian relations in the 1980s and 1990s
http://www.chinadailyasia.com/opinion/2014-02/24/content_15120128.htmlMonday, February 24, 2014, 08:40
HK’s relation with Russia offers huge future potentialBy Peter Gordon
Such thoughts came to mind as I listened to a rather sparsely attended investment seminar given here recently by the government of St. Petersburg. Hong Kong and St. Petersburg have, superficially, much in common: Both were founded in places most considered unsuitable for human habitation, one labeled a “barren rock” and the other a pestilential swamp; both were founded specifically to bring Asia and Europe together; both were and are major ports; the populations of both suffered terrible deprivation during World War II and both showed great fortitude in adversity.But if Hong Kong businesspeople wish to sink money into car parks and industrial estates — for such were the sort of projects being presented — in a country which isn’t as yet, and all progress notwithstanding, renowned globally for its commitment to transparency and rule of law, there is such a place closer to home and with which Hong Kong shares a language.
Nevertheless, as I have noted on several occasions before, Russia is—and has been since 1997—no longer a large but obscure place on the far side of China, but rather Hong Kong’s largest neighbor: If Hong Kong wishes to be China’s New York, it can’t ignore China’s Canada. It is an imperfect analogy, of course, but the Russian and Chinese economies are to a considerable extent synergistic: Russia has resources, China has people, manufacturing and markets — much as it was, in fact, when the Russian fur trade underpinned Russian expansion through Siberia and across the Pacific.
The synergies between Hong Kong and St. Petersburg are unlikely to be seen in the sorts of infrastructure projects normally touted. These probably lie elsewhere: St. Petersburg has, for example, a surfeit of cultural resources. The Hermitage Museum has a branch in Amsterdam which is currently showing an exhibit of Silk Road artifacts. Amsterdam is, as far as the Silk Road is concerned, something of a detour. A branch of the Hermitage here — perhaps in the big currently empty space in the West Kowloon Cultural District — would cement ties between the two cities located at their respective edges of Eurasia. Russia, of which St. Petersburg has reasonable claims to be the cultural capital, has large supplies of musicians, opera singers, painters and other “cultural experts and professionals”. China is still a relatively virgin market for Western cultural goods and services with much less competition than in the West from other established practitioners. Indeed, a small but welcome colony of Russian artists has established itself in Hong Kong and Macao.
Similarly, Russia has a surfeit of intellectual and, in particular, technological human capital. Some of this, as far as China is concerned, is involved in trade which in a more perfect world we might prefer didn’t exist — jet fighters and the like. But if Hong Kong wanted to leapfrog up the innovation ladder — a combination of the mainland markets, Hong Kong finance, business expertise and intellectual property protection with Russian human and intellectual capital — would seem a configuration worth exploring further.
It’s also often forgotten that most of Russia lies closer to home, in Asia. Siberia and, especially, the Russian Far East have been rather neglected by Russia over the decades. This leaves intrepid entrepreneurs with opportunities in addition to challenges. Chinese mainland businessmen have been active there for more than two decades. Russians are in general well aware of the benefits of what Hong Kong offers as a place to domicile mainland business. However, Russia is perhaps the one country in the world where mainland businessmen and traders beat Hong Kong to the punch. When Hong Kong businessmen arrived, they found mainland traders already in operation with more direct experience in Russia than perhaps any other foreign country.
Russia deserves more attention than it usually receives here in Hong Kong, but wishful thinking and good intentions will only get one so far. What is needed is more focus on the actual synergies between the two places — and some creative thinking, especially when it comes to the creative industries Hong Kong says it wishes to promote.
The author is a Hong Kong-based entrepreneur who was active in promoting Hong Kong-Russian trade and investment from the final days of the USSR through 2000. He helped found a Russian chamber of commerce in Hong Kong in 1994. He now works mostly in IT and publishing.
******https://www.quora.com/What-last-name-is-considered-more-prestigious-in-Russia
No comments:
Post a Comment