November 28, 1999    
This Date's Issues: 3648 •   • 

Johnson's Russia List
#3648
28 November 1999
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. The Russia Journal editorial: Russia's place in the world.
2. Reuters: Russia besieges Chechen capital, seeks surrender.
3. Financial Times (UK): Andrew Jack, RUSSIA: Low key approach to Y2K.
4. New book: Lethal Arrogance: Human Fallibility and Dangerous 
Technologies by Lloyd Dumas.
5. T. S. White: Entrepreneur 8: Perception and outlook.
6. New York Times: Michael Gordon, Russia Copies NATO in War to Win Minds.
7. Moscow Times: Bryon MacWilliams, The Brain Drain.]
*******


#1
The Russia Journal
November 29-December 5, 1999
Editorial
Russia's place in the world


The flurry of international summits and conferences gives the impression that 
world leaders do actually care about the war in Chechnya, about the future of 
Russia as a partner in a peaceful Europe, and that the only impediment to the 
nation's advance are the leaders of Russia's government and their drunken, 
corrupt ways.


Heads of the free, and not-so-free, world got together in Istanbul, where the 
main point on the agenda was Chechnya. They signed an agreement without 
reaching any, while the U.S. president headed off to Greece, civilization's 
first democracy, only to be labeled a fascist and a killer. His prime 
occupation these days is likely to be little else besides his wife's 
political ambitions. As the First Lady becomes candidate Clinton, the U.S. 
media will worry more about who will fulfill her duties in the White House 
than about the work of the president.


Russia's leader put up a fine performance. Then, as the steroids drained 
away, he abruptly left for home. Ridiculous and meaningless heckling aside, 
the entire Western world refused to listen to Russia's case and failed to 
make any point about anything. The British premier stayed away, his wife 
having announced an unplanned pregnancy at the age of 45, and the entire 
British media went into a hysteria not seen since the last royal pregnancy. 
But another British politician upstaged her when it was revealed he dined 
with a prostitute some 13 years ago and had asked a friend to give him an 
alibi for the evening. British newspapers ran up to six full pages on the 
issue for five days running, taking pressure off the Conservative Party 
leader to come up with either decisive leadership - or at least a baby.


On the U.S. front, the son of former president George Bush and Republican 
front-runner praised the "stability" brought by a military coup d'etat in 
Pakistan, failing to name the leader of India, the world's largest democracy. 
His well-informed Democratic adversary-to-be, Vice President Al Gore, has 
decided to distance himself from the White House, whatever that means. Not to 
be left behind, the other Democratic candidate will play basketball to raise 
campaign money. All of them agree that Russia is lost and no one knows how to 
rescue it.


Closer to home, the German leader contributed to Russian relations by 
refusing to have a sauna with Yeltsin. He's patronizing Yeltsin foe Yevgeny 
Primakov, while British foreign policy has put all its eggs in Yury Luzhkov's 
basket since he cooed some sweet nothings about New Labour. Those eggs are 
looking increasingly unproductive for Moscow's mayor. 


At home, things are getting more colorful than ever. The prime minister has 
earned himself record ratings for waging a war similar to that which took 
those of the president down to two percent three years ago. Russian wrestlers 
and crime fighters lead party lists for the Duma elections and have won 
support from the prime minister himself. Billionaire vodka barons head the 
Socialist Party, and the Communists have hired a third-rate economist to 
rethink Marx, determined to defy gravity. With vulgar displays of sycophancy, 
Liberal politicians vie with each other for the favors of rising star Putin.


All in all, Russia is looking as sane, or perhaps as insane, as the rest of 
the world's political scene. For there seems to be no single leader anywhere 
in the Western world capable of dealing with the problems of the present. No 
one seems to have vision enough to lead the people into prosperity in the 
coming century. It doesn't just happen in Russia.


*******


#2
Russia besieges Chechen capital, seeks surrender
By Brian Killen

MOSCOW, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Russian troops laid siege to the capital of the 
breakaway Chechnya region on Sunday in a bid to force Islamic militants, 
blamed by Moscow for terrorist attacks against Russian cities, to surrender. 


Heavy artillery has been pounding Grozny for days from outlying areas and 
striking it from above with warplanes, but rebels appeared determined to hold 
the city and sounded eager to engage in the kind of close combat that won 
them a 1994-96 war. 


The Defence Ministry in Moscow, quoted by Itar-Tass news agency, said federal 
forces were preparing for fighting in urban and mountain areas. But the 
strategy so far has been to avoid close encounters with battle-hardened 
Chechen fighters. 


As the nine-week-old Russian offensive appeared to be running into its first 
serious resistance in major rebel strongholds, international pressure mounted 
on Moscow to seek a political solution and prevent further civilian 
casualties. 


The International Monetary Fund warned that negative world reaction to the 
war could put Russia's IMF loans at risk. 


``We cannot go forward with the financing if the rest of the world doesn't 
want to,'' IMF head Michel Camdessus told reporters in Madrid, referring to a 
delayed $640 million tranche. 


Russia has rejected Western criticism of its military campaign as unwelcome 
interference in its internal affairs, while its generals have made clear they 
don't want their guns to be silenced by politicians. 


RUSSIANS SAY SURRENDER OR ELSE 


Islamic fighters, who have denied involvement in a series of bomb blasts that 
killed about 300 people in Russian cities in September, showed much bravado 
in Reuters Television footage shot on Friday in Grozny, spitting defiance at 
their foes. 


``Vanya, we're waiting for you,'' said one camouflaged Chechen fighter, using 
the familiar form of the common Russian name Ivan. ``It's been boring here 
not seeing one Russian soldier.'' 


``Freedom or death. Hello from Grozny,'' said another. 


It was impossible to tell how many civilians had stayed behind in the 
bomb-ravaged city, but the streets, patrolled by bearded fighters, appeared 
largely deserted. 


Russian commanders say Grozny will be fully surrounded by mid-December, but 
they have so far given no indication of plans to take it by storm and are 
evidently counting on crushing rebel defences from afar before risking 
hand-to-hand fighting. 


Russian troops are also planning to pursue rebels in other parts of Chechnya 
into densely populated southern mountains. 


The tactics employed so far, which have kept Russian casualties low compared 
to the 1994-96 campaign, have mostly consisted of long-range strikes and 
threats of massive force against towns and villages who fail to lay down 
their arms. 


Near the town of Novogroznensky, about 60 km (40 miles) east of Grozny, a 
senior Russian commander echoed this approach in remarks before a group of 
marines shown on NTV television. 


``Those who give up their weapons today and return to a peaceful life, if 
they do not have blood on their hands...can return home with confidence,'' he 
said. 


*******


#3
Financial Times (UK)
26 November 1999
[for personal use only]
RUSSIA: Low key approach to Y2K 
By Andrew Jack


While his compatriots are gathering to celebrate new year on Red Square or in 
each others' apartments, Andrei Barkin will be one of very few Russians stuck 
at his desk in Moscow as midnight approaches. As head of the Y2K Resource 
Centre, he and a colleague will be gearing up to respond to urgent telephone 
calls from people suffering from the "millennium bug" hangover.


If that seems a relatively modest response to the Year 2000 panic which is 
gripping much of the rest of the world, it is symptomatic of Russia's low-key 
attitude to the problem. And it is an approach that is at least partly 
justified, for reasons that are specific to the former Soviet empire.


There is a sharp difference between the perceptions of foreign experts and 
those who are based within Russia about what will happen. The Central 
Intelligence Agency, the Gartner consulting group and other specialist 
observers have warned of serious potential hitches in essential 
infrastructure services in the country affecting heating, electricity, gas 
and water, as well as telecommunications and medical facilities.


In response, the US is encouraging visitors to stay away from Russia over the 
new year period, and even paying to send home non-essential staff from its 
Moscow embassy - as well as those in Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. It is also 
helping set up a community network in case of communications failures for 
those who stay, and advising people to stockpile essential goods.


Other diplomatic missions, as well as some multinationals based in Russia, 
are more or less discreetly encouraging their expatriate employees or those 
under their charge to take their foreign holidays during the period. While 
some of the consultancies involved in Year 2000 issues, such as PwC, will not 
even comment on their own internal policies, Arthur Andersen is shutting up 
shop until January 10.


Yet the official Russian approach has been both tardy and financially modest. 
It was only at the end of October this year that Vladimir Putin, the prime 
minister, set up a special commission to deal with Year 2000. And the upper 
house of parliament finally passed an amendment to the 1999 budget earlier 
this month to provide extra funding to cope with the consequences. It will 
not even be enacted until early next year.


While a number of leading Russian companies, such as the gas supplier 
Gazprom, the phone company Rostelcom, the electricity generator UES and the 
national airline Aeroflot have all unveiled Year 2000 budgets and plans, the 
money they are spending is a fraction of the commitments made by western 
counterparts.


Europe and the US have provided considerable support in helping the Russians 
deal with nuclear and military installations. A group of senior Russian 
officers will even be based in Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado on 
December 31 to verify manually any glitches in early warning systems and help 
prevent an unintended Armageddon.


Overall, Russian government initiatives have tended to focus around 
administrative measures rather than providing much financial assistance. 
Information on the degree of testing and preparation for Year 2000 has often 
been kept confidential, and officials have frequently responded to questions 
by simply and confidently dismissing any worries about what will happen on 
December 31.


To some degree, they may be right. One factor playing to Russia's advantage 
is the low level of computerisation. Many systems are so old that they remain 
mechanical or analogue-based rather than electronic and digital. Others, such 
as in parts of the telecommunications sector, have been acquired so recently 
that Year 2000 compliance has already been assured.


"In many ways, the Soviet technical civilisation is damaging to us, but when 
it comes to Y2K it is actually a strong point," says Mr Barkin, whose 
organisation is funded by USAID, a US government agency.


Ironically, he suggests that some of the greatest problems will come in 
Russian hospitals, which received considerable donations of expensive life 
support and scanning equipment in the 1980s and 1990s. Much is not Year 2000 
compliant, and the medical sector does not have the resources to check and 
up-date. "It is like giving a cellular phone to a child who doesn't have the 
money to pay the bills," Barkin says.


He argues that most of Russia's large infrastructure organisations are now 
taking Year 2000 seriously - often with considerable international support. 
More of a concern is government departments, small and medium-sized 
businesses, charities and other organisations, many of which seem unconcerned 
or unaware of the problem, or simply do not have the resources to cope.


Widespread software piracy has also caused a problem, since licensed users 
received up-grades to deal with the millennium bug.


If some western consultants have stoked Year 2000 hysteria to boost their 
business, some Russian organisations may equally be exaggerating their 
problems in order to receive unnecessary state and foreign financial support.


Mr Barkin suggests that financial and accounting systems will be the greatest 
victims, with wages going unpaid and some companies going bust.


But he argues that such events will just add to a series of almost daily 
crises and pressures to which long-suffering Russian citizens and managers 
alike have become accustomed.


*******


#4
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1999 
From: Janine Wedel <jwedel@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu>
Subject: Important new book: Lethal Arrogance, by Lloyd J. Dumas


I'm forwarding the description of a brand new book that I think will
interest readers of JRL. Could you put the description
below on JRL? The book treats an extremely important topic -- and 
one that should also be of interest to your colleagues at CDI. Lloyd J.
Dumas is a highly respected scholar -- engineer, political-economist,
social analyst. "Lethal Arrogance" is a ground-breaking book. 


"Lethal Arrogance: Human Fallibility and Dangerous Technologies"
by Lloyd J. Dumas (St. Martin's Press, 1999)


The common belief that we imperfect humans can indefinitely 
control the technologies we create --- no matter how powerful, no 
matter how dangerous --- is a lethal form of arrogance. Whe we move 
from the neat simplifications of theory to the complexities of 
practice, from the carefully monitored environment of the laboratory to 
the confusion and unpredictability of the real world, the idea of 
complete control of any technological system becomes an illusion. 
Nowhere is this better illustrated today than in Russia, where economic 
deterioraiton, corruption and criminality swirl around more than two 
dozen nuclear power plants, large stores of toxic chemicals and 
radioactive materials, and vast arsenals of weapons of mass destruction.


Everything in Russia today seems to be up for sale. Police in 
Western Europe have recorded hundreds of arrests in schemes to sell 
nuclear materials on the black market that have apparently been stolen 
from facilities in the former Soviet union. General Alexander Lebed, 
former security advisor to Boris Yeltsin, claimed in 1997 that more 
than 100 "suitcase" nuclear bombs were missing from the Russian 
arsenal. The U.S. administration is so concerned that the expertise of 
poorly paid designers of weapons of mass destruction may also be up for 
grabs that it allocated millions of dollars to programs intended to bid 
them away from potential employment by rogue nations or terrorist 
groups.


More than once, frustrated managers of electric power plants 
have cut off power to military bases in some cases compromising the 
safety and control of nuclear weapons. Nuclear power plants themselves 
have also been seized, as in December 1996, when unpaid workers took 
over the control room of the largest nuclear power plant supplying St. 
Petersburg. There is much more.


"Lethal Arrogance: Human Fallibility and Dangerous 
Technologies" argues that, in a world of imperfect human beings, 
control over dangerous technologies is necessarily incomplete and 
transient, even in the best of circumstances. When circumstances are 
far from the best, as in Russia today, the combination of error-prone 
people and powerful technology is a recipe for disaster.


Lloyd J. Dumas can be reached at: ljdumas@utdallas.edu


********


#5
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1999 
From: "T. S. White" <tswrace@attglobal.net>
Subject: Entrepreneur 8: Perception and outlook


In my preceding essays I have presented some of my personal
experiences as a Western entrepreneur in Russia. Many of you have
been interested enough in these essays to respond, publicly and
privately, with support and contentions regarding my
presentations. For the support and the disagreements I thank you
all. 


Some of you have wondered about my personal perception of business
in Russia and my outlook for it. I will attempt to delineate
these for you in this essay. As you read this essay keep in mind
that I am a small businessman; and as such my experiences have
been intensely personal. My perception of the Russian business
system is therefore entirely subjective. I expect the many of you
will find reasons to disagree with my ideas. I consider this
disagreement a healthy way to stimulate productive discussion of
the subject.


Many readers of the media reporting of the events of Russian
business have seen the analogy that business in Russia is
comparable to the American "Wild West". I consider this analogy
to be erroneous. In the American Wild West there were men,
sometimes of dubious backgrounds, who would step forward and lay
down their lives to enforce the law. The presence of these lawmen
in the American Wild West brought dramatic change to the legal,
economic, and cultural systems thereof. This will not happen in
Russia.


The analogy I would make is more akin to that of a high
performance engine. The limiting factor for a high performance
engine, no matter how good the internal parts may be, is the fuel
delivery system. In the case of Russian business the analogy I
would draw is that of a twelve cylinder, quad overhead camshaft,
Ferrari engine with a fuel delivery system consisting of a one
barrel Volkswagen carburetor. As experienced and educated, in
business, as any entrepreneur may be the external business
environment, in Russia, is not equipped to support the conduct of
business as we know it in the west. This becomes a tremendous
burden in the time and resources for those who would devote theirs
to establishing a business in Russia. That said Russia also
presents a highly stimulating challenge to those people that would
become businessmen there. Anyone who is successful at
establishing a business in Russia has, in my opinion, struck the
coup de grace of his or her career. 


In my previous essays I have outlined some of the governmental
mechanisms and cultural pitfalls an entrepreneur faces in Russia. 
Each of these mechanisms and pitfalls presents a hurdle that the
businessman must adapt to rather that vault over. The challenge
in Russia for an entrepreneur is to conform to the system and
develop methods of working within it. I think the best statement
I have heard that underscores this concept is one made by the
former CIA commander of Laotian forces during the Vietnam
Conflict. His statement was "When you are given a task to
accomplish in a foreign country it is senseless to bemoan the
quality of the available resources. The fact is those resources
are all you have available." I whole heartily agree with this
statement. If an entrepreneur desires to establish a business in
Russia he must be completely prepared to adapt to the Russian
system and the available resources. This will present an
extraordinary test of the entrepreneur's abilities and resources. 
It is the successful passing of this test that will bring the real
reward to those that accept the challenge of doing business in
Russia.


For those readers that have focussed on the instances of graft and
corruption, presented in my essays, do not be too dismayed. These
areas are present in most foreign business environments. 
Certainly in the Russian environment they are culturally imbedded
and have been raised to a high art form. They are not, however,
insurmountable. The successful entrepreneur will adapt and find
ways to deal with them. The pivotal principal that these
entrepreneurs will employ is flexibility. When the principals of
western business begin to fail them these entrepreneurs need to
compromise and adjust their strategies to accommodate the
characteristics of Russian business. If they are capable of this
kind of flexibility, and they have the time and resources to
support the necessary changes, there is a good chance they will
succeed.


It has been repeatedly observed in the media that the Russian
system needs to change to make the business environment more
hospitable to westerners. I personally believe that it will be
two generations before the west sees this kind of change in occur
in Russia. Very inadvisably the Russian government adopted a
policy of wholesale change in the mechanisms of the Russian
market. However correct or incorrect the theoreticians, that
developed the model for the new Russian market, might have been it
has proven to be a tremendous folly. I personally do not believe
that any highly controlled market system can survive an
indiscriminant change to a free market. It is a fundamental
mistake to convert a Communist economy to a free market without
first firmly establishing the legal, governmental, and cultural
mechanisms that support it. Any attempt to do this in the
conversion of the Russian economy was impotent. Thus, today
businessmen find a free market that is replete with the burdens of
bureaucracy and graft that it inherited from the former system. 
Unfortunately there is no return to the inception of the change to
correct the foundations thereof. It is because of the lack of
effective free market economic systems that entrepreneurs find the
Russian business environment problematic; and they must comprehend
that these problems are simply part of the system they have chosen
to do business in. 


The change that needs to occur in Russia is not going to happen in
the lifetime of the generation that now governs that country. One
of the underlying problems, of the conversion to a free market in
Russia, is that the ruling body had no theoretical or
philosophical foundation in free market economics. Thus when the
ruling body, of Russia, develops solutions to the problems
presented by the conversion to a free market the solutions are
inherently flawed. It is no surprise to the population at large
that the solutions formulated by their government do not
precipitate the desired results. The Russian population is
accustomed to a system in which regulations were erroneous or
impotent and they have a life long history of either ignoring the
regulations or circumventing them. Thus when new regulations are
propagated by the government many of the native population find
the regulations to be simply humorous. The native population has
done things in the old way for all of their lives. They resist
change to any new practices out of a deep-rooted distrust of their
government and it's history of presenting ineffectual changes.


The changes necessary to create a healthy atmosphere for free
market economics in Russia are going to occur as the leadership of
the country is inherited by the generation born into the free
market. I think it is a fallacious proposition to think that
anyone can instill the necessary philosophical and theoretical
principals, necessary to support a free market, into a government
that has it's foundation in Communism without changing the
membership of the government body. The members of the current
government of Russia all grew up under the Communist system. 
Their approach to problem resolution is structured by their
experiences in the Communist system. It is naive to think that
presenting the government with a new set of economic principals
would change the way they develop solutions to economic problems. 
Hence, the economic system in Russia is now one of a free market
being governed by a Communist system; and the two systems conflict
with each other. The one thing that will change the way the free
market is governed in Russia is the entrance of individuals that
grew up in the free market into that government. I do not expect
this change to occur until the third generation, of the existing
Russian population, inherits the government of that country. I do
expect that when the third generation achieves control of the
Russian government that they will have the philosophical,
cultural, and theoretical foundations to present effective
solutions to economic problems within their economy. Furthermore,
I think that when this happens the Russian system has an excellent
chance of constructing an economic model, of a free market
economy, that will be superior, in it's social obligations, to
those that currently exist worldwide.


Personally I have found my experience in Russia to be the most
challenging, rewarding, and invigorating of my career. Certainly
the Russian system has challenged the sum of my business education
and lifetime experience and led me to new understandings of my own
philosophies. My experience in Russia has left my grateful and
indebted to Russia and it's people. For any entrepreneur that
seeks the challenge of his or her career Russia is waiting to
provide them with a test par excellence.


*******


#6
New York Times
November 28, 1999
[for personal use only]
Russia Copies NATO in War to Win Minds
By MICHAEL R. GORDON


MOSCOW -- Mikhail Margelov has had his share of challenging assignments: 
assisting the KGB, working for the government news agency Tass, and then, in 
1996, helping to produce the ads for President Boris Yeltsin's 
come-from-behind campaign. His new job tops them all: selling Russia's war in 
Chechnya to the public. 


Taking a leaf out of NATO's book during its bombing of Yugoslavia, which was 
highly unpopular in Russia, and a lesson from the Chechen rebels during 
Chechnya's last war in 1994-96, the Russian government has established a 
center to organize news coverage of the Chechen conflict. As director of this 
operation, Margelov, 34, is trying to bring Western public relations 
techniques to a military that once scorned public opinion. 


Working with military, intelligence and press ministry officials, he presides 
over twice-daily briefings, while his staff organizes guided press trips to 
view the Russian troops in Chechnya. His center, the Russian Informational 
Center, or Rosinformcenter, has even set up a Web site (www.infocentre.ru.), 
that coaches Russian officials and journalists on the politically acceptable 
way to report the war. Reports on Russian casualties, his center advises, 
should always be described as "minimal," "inconsiderable" or "unavoidable." 
Russia's adversaries should never be portrayed as Chechen fighters or field 
commanders, but "bandits" or "international terrorists." 


"It is a step toward political correctness," Margelov said in an interview. 
"We don't punish the journalists if they don't use these terms, but we are 
trying to explain how we see the problem." 


Government attempts to influence the press in wartime are nothing new. The 
Pentagon controlled the media's access to American troops during the Persian 
Gulf war of 1991. And it was NATO spokesmen who described the accidental 
killing of civilians in the bombing over Yugoslavia last spring as 
"collateral damage." 


But the Western-style press operation offered by Rosinformcenter is something 
of a novelty here. Even as Russia deplored NATO's war with Yugoslavia, it 
seems to have copied some of its public relations techniques. 


"Sometimes it seems like they are trying to outdo Jamie Shea," said Aleksandr 
Goltz, a military reporter for Itogi, a news magazine, referring to NATO's 
spokesman during the Kosovo conflict. "It looks like the Russian military has 
learned a few lessons from the press services of the Western armed forces." 


The center has its share of critics among the Russian media who say that it 
is simply a giant fog machine trying to shroud an increasingly bloody 
conflict and this week's bombardment of Grozny -- the heaviest of the 
two-month war -- in a cloud of self-serving briefings, carefully supervised 
tours of Chechnya, a meager flow of photographs from the front and outright 
propaganda. 


"In my view, Rosinformcenter has been turned into some sort of propaganda 
department and mouthpiece for the power center," said Valery Yakov, a 
military correspondent with Novoye Izvestiya. 


Margelov, however, said the aim is simply to apply the lessons from the last 
Chechen war, when Russia lost the battle for public opinion to the 
beleaguered Chechen rebels, who also tended to be more friendly to the media 
than Russian forces molded by decades of Soviet censorship and secrecy. 
Russia's losses were huge, and widely reported in Russian media, turning 
public opinion against the war. 


"Russia has learned several lessons from the previous conflict in Chechnya," 
Margelov said. "The previous conflict was not supported by the public. One of 
the major reasons was that the Russian mass media covered that conflict in a 
very negative manner." 


Rosinformcenter was established in early October on the order of Prime 
Minister Vladimir Putin, who like Margelov has a background in the 
intelligence services. Putin has staked his presidential hopes on the success 
of Russia's military campaign in the Caucasus and has seen his poll ratings 
rise as Russian troops have continued their thrust into Chechnya. 


In many ways, the public relations job is easier this time. It is not clear 
who bombed apartment buildings in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia in 
September, killing almost 300 people, but the Russian public broadly accepts 
that it was the work of Islamic militants in Chechnya. 


And Russian military casualties -- 305 Russian soldiers and Interior Ministry 
troops have died in the war, according to Rosinformcenter -- are just a 
fraction of the thousands who perished last time. 


The Chechens have also lost some of their sympathizers in the media. 
Kidnappings were so pervasive in Chechnya before the war that very few 
Russian or foreign reporters have recently ventured there. Even now, 
reporters are wary of entering Chechen-controlled territory to hear the 
Chechen side of the story. 


The Russian bombardment and near-encirclement of the Chechen capital, Grozny, 
have also made access extremely difficult, and dangerous. Still, Russia has 
been assailed in the West for using blunderbuss tactics that unnecessarily 
risk the lives of civilians. In recent weeks, some Russian journalists have 
become more critical, too. And the Chechens have their own Web site 
(www.kavkaz.org.) that dispenses their version of the war, laced with a heavy 
dose of politics. On Friday, for example, the Web site reported that Yeltsin 
had died. 


Margelov is fluent in English, lived for eight years in the Middle East and 
taught Arabic at the KGB's academy. He briefly worked for Tass, the 
government news agency, and for several Western management consulting firms. 
He was then a top executive at Video International, one of Russia's most 
profitable advertising agencies, which prepared the ads for Yeltsin's 
election campaign. 


Margelov works closely with Aleksandr Mikhailov, a former spokesman for the 
KGB and Interior Ministry, who left military service with the rank of 
lieutenant general. Mikhailov said that his job is to take the mixture of 
conflicting data from Russia's military, Interior Ministry, border troops and 
intelligence services and fashion it into a single message that Margelov and 
other briefers can present to the world. 


The center's work has not always gone smoothly. When Russian rockets rained 
down on a marketplace in Grozny last month, Margelov was with Putin, who was 
meeting European officials in Helsinki, Finland. Bereft of information from 
the battlefield, Putin and other Russian officials initially denied any 
Russian involvement. The Russian military only belatedly acknowledged that it 
was responsible for the attack. The episode was a powerful blow to the 
Russian government's credibility. 


"It is a good example of why we need cooperation in the sphere of 
information," Mikhailov said. "We did not get any answers to our questions. I 
think it was the initiative of local commanders who did not think about the 
political consequences." 


Nor does Rosinformcenter provide as many specifics as journalists would like. 
It has not, for instance, revealed the number of Russian forces in Chechnya 
or listed the units involved. 


It is also still setting up a system to accredit journalists and supervise 
their battlefield visits. More than 70 Russian journalists have been 
accredited; they do not live with the troops, but visit Russian forces in 
Chechnya escorted by Russian officials. Some correspondents chafe at the 
supervision, asserting that their access is limited and that the escorts 
discourage the soldiers from speaking honestly. 


"There is no formal censorship, but there is kind of a code of political 
correctness," Margelov replied, noting that reporters are encouraged to 
withhold details about the number and location of Russian units. 


Rosinformcenter has also arranged two brief trips for the foreign press to 
Chechnya. During a one-day trip to Chechnya last week, the correspondents 
were free to wander off unattended and talk directly to Russian soldiers and 
to Chechen civilians, who were eager to criticize their new Russian masters. 


There is no doubt that the center's overall mission, however, is to shape the 
way the media presents the conflict. Its press guidelines caution against 
using the term "humanitarian catastrophe" to describe the plight of civilians 
in Chechnya. It warned that refugees should be called "temporarily displaced" 
persons. And it cautioned that it is improper to speak of Chechen field 
commanders since "terrorists do not have brigadier generals." 


There is still one bit of public relations that the Russian military lacks: a 
patriotic name for its military operation like Desert Storm, the Pentagon 
name for the Gulf war, or Just Cause, the name of the American invasion of 
Panama. 


"That's unfortunate," said Margelov. "I would love to have one."


*******


#7
Moscow Times
November 27, 1999 
The Brain Drain 
By Bryon MacWilliams 


On the first day of the fall semester, President Boris Yeltsin welcomed a 
group of prize-winning young students to the Kremlin. "In the first century 
of the new millennium, you will represent Russia, a great world power," the 
ailing leader intoned. "We are all patriots, we all love Russia, and I am 
sure none of you will ever leave your country." 


The remarks, aired on state television across Russia's 11 time zones, struck 
at the hastening brain drain throughout the sciences; the president could not 
truthfully assert that the potential domestically rivaled that in the West, 
so he branded the emigration of the so-called young Russian elite as a form 
of treason. 


He did not mention that the reward for such allegiance during the past decade 
has meant poverty, outdated equipment, a fall in prestige and the steady 
degradation of a proud scientific legacy. He might have been better served by 
the truth, however, as world-class research is nevertheless being conducted - 
with international funding, and through contracts with overseas industry - 
that makes a case for staying at home. 


"The decline is uneven. While some sciences are dying, others are growing. I 
don't think there are only dark spots. There are light spots, as well," Boris 
Kagarlitsky, a researcher at the Institute of Comparative Politics of the 
Russian Academy of Sciences, said in Moscow. 


More than half of the nation's estimated 500,000 scientists toil in Moscow, 
where the high cost of living and multi-faceted economy are enticements to 
leave teaching and research; it is perhaps a rule that, in making one's 
acquaintance, questions about profession are answered first with who a person 
is by education - then by what he does for a living. 


Siberian Proving Ground 


It is not in the capital, researchers say, but in the remote Akademgorodok, 
or Academic Town, where the future of science will likely take shape. This 
so-called Golden Valley in Western Siberia - which was selected in 1957 by 
General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev as the site for the Siberian Division of 
the Soviet Academy of Sciences - is a proving ground for the new model under 
liberal reforms. 


While Moscow is almost certain to net the fattest contracts, the grass roots 
underpinning of day-to-day research - the commitment to modest, yet important 
work - could pace a renaissance from military to consumer purposes that would 
restore pride and guarantee a stable living wage. 


The town's 35 research institutes, academies of agriculture and medicine and 
campus of the Novosibirsk State University, or NGU, fan out among the birch 
and pine forests on the shores of the Ob Sea, a mammoth man-made reservoir 
about 30 kilometers south of Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia. 


"The scientific potential here has already begun shrinking, but the research 
continues and is of a high level," said Alexander Osadchuk, assistant to the 
director of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics. "The spirit of science is 
alive here. ... We're persevering. If we were better financed, we could keep 
up easily with other research scientific centers in the world." 


That is positive talk for an institute averaging 15 defections per year. 


Then again, the number of departing scientists has decreased from 30 to 40 
only a few years ago, director Vladimir Shumny said. 


The local Institute of Catalysis once reportedly pasted a wall with dozens of 
photos of such scientists under the banner Kapitalisticheskiye Udarniki, or 
Capitalist Pace-setting Workers - a play on a similar Soviet-era display of 
Sotsialisticheskiye Udarniki, or Socialist Pace-setting Workers. 


Not All Stay Away 


Dr. Nikolai Rubtsov was among the ĪmigrĪs, at least for awhile. The head of 
the institute's Laboratory of Morphology and Functions of Cell Structures 
ultimately shelved better conditions in Germany to contribute to goals that 
might not be realized in his lifetime. 


"I am from Novosibirsk. I am from Russia. I would like science in Russia to 
be good," he said. "I have a lot of [Russian] friends who work abroad. But if 
we are all abroad there will be no one to teach students for the future." 


Rubtsov works an average of 13 hours per day in the winter and earns a 
monthly salary of the ruble equivalent of $70. His parents, both of whom are 
retired and on pensions, help out financially. He has two sons who help tend 
a plot of land in the summer that yields vegetables and fruits that he 
preserves for the long, sub-freezing winter. 


"Sometimes I think that it was my mistake to return to Russia because it's 
really very hard to work here, to live here," he said. "Maybe one day I'll 
say, 'I give up. I'm ready to run away.'" 


Administrators say scientists like Rubtsov benefit institutions by increasing 
profiles abroad and cementing ties with researchers with whom to pursue joint 
projects. Such people tend to bring back better equipment, too, albeit 
through donations or second-hand purchases. 


But brain drain means more in Russia than losing the best scientists: One 
researcher brings with him the results of decades of collective work that 
often has yet to be patented and, thus, the potential for untold earnings - 
all for the cost of one yearly salary at Western standards. 


"Some [foreigners] help us and then help themselves by recruiting our best 
scientists," Shumny said. "But we are preserving science." 


Such statements are easy for administrators, according to a researcher at the 
Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, because they are the best paid and often 
glean portions of most grants for themselves. 


"Their salary is a secret. They live very well," said the woman, who asked 
that her name be withheld. "But our miserly money is impossible to live on. 
For people my age, it is very difficult to change careers, therefore we have 
nothing else to do but remain here. That is what they mean when they say, 'We 
are preserving science!'" 


The vaunted Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics says it has curbed staff 
losses to about 15 percent by turning to its socialist roots: All the money 
that flows into the institute - from state funding to foreign grants to 
commercial business - is spread more or less equally among the staff of 
3,000, which includes about 500 scientists. 


"There is an older generation who will study science to the very end," said 
deputy director Eduard Kruglyakov. "Then, there is a younger generation who 
cannot subsist and is leaving to pursue commercial interests." 


So when noted scientists were each awarded 120,000 rubles through the 
Presidential Stipend, the money was channeled into 250 to 300 smaller 
stipends for students - who normally receive only two times the nation's 
minimum salary of 83.50 rubles ($3.23). 


The institute, which built one of the first electron-beam colliders to study 
fundamental properties of matter, has deals with countries in Asia, North 
America and Western Europe. "We try to merge our scientific interests with 
those of business so as to persevere in our scientific research. We don't do 
business for the sake of business," Kruglyakov said. 


Some people have begun to label Akademgorodok the Silicon Taiga in light of 
its flourishing field of computer programming; some 40 software companies 
have reportedly opened over the past several years. 


Kirill Pavsky, 29, a researcher in mechanical mathematics at the Institute of 
Semi-Conductor Physics, said many programmers have gone abroad as most 
post-graduates must take work at ad agencies or department stores to 
supplement monthly stipends of about 200 rubles ($7.75). "I wouldn't refuse 
an overseas invitation," he said. 


As recently as the early 1980s, more than two thirds of Russian students 
pursued engineering, medicine and agriculture and the overweening male dream 
was to become a cosmonaut. But numbers began to decline even before 
perestroika, scientists say, as the Soviet nomenclature - of which higher 
education was a major part - began to dissolve. 


Enrollment began to fall even more swiftly, along with prestige, after the 
end of the Cold War, when it became clear that the extreme militarization 
(there are still yashchiki, or mailboxes, about which only the addresses are 
known) of the pure sciences - and the ideological base of social sciences and 
humanities - left the institutions incapable of adjusting to a market economy 
without deep suffering. 


The Mir space station, one of the country's greatest achievements, has been 
mothballed and will soon burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. The space 
pavilion at the All-Russia Exhibition Center in Moscow - where spacecraft and 
bronze sculptures of cosmonauts have been piled into a corner, initials 
notched into their veneers - has given way to Indian shuttle traders. 


Some view such consequences as far from tragic. 


"Everybody in this country thinks we had great science. But what was this 
science used for? For making atomic bombs, for making tanks, for making 
weapons and nothing else," said Dmitry Safonov, 27,a psychology student at 
NGU whose father is a noted mathematician. "I'm a civilian. What would I like 
to have? A good TV, tape recorder, telephone, car and, above all, a 
well-equipped bathroom. I don't have these things from Soviet science. 


"After our great science started to disintegrate, I got better cars, TV sets, 
VCRs and telephones in my country. So now I feel much better than earlier 
when I had great science that did not serve the needs of people, not my 
needs, but the needs of the state - and a system that oppressed people." 


Will the Flow Stop? 


Speculation exists that the technological base will erode so substantially 
within the next two generations that Russia will survive as a periphery 
nation rich only in minerals. "If Russia wants to guarantee its statehood, 
and not disintegrate into a colony or 'Balkanize,' then it has to develop 
high technologies," said Konstantin Zuyev, a doctor of science formerly of 
the RAS' Institute of Philosophy in Moscow. 


Zuyev's career is testament to the wholesale restructuring of the sciences. 


The former physics graduate of Moscow State University was a doctor of 
science at the RAS Institute of Philosophy in Moscow but now works as a 
professor of cultural theory at the Financial Academy of the Government of 
the Russian Federation, plus teaches political science at the Moscow State 
Linguistics University and Moscow Financial Economics Institute. For this, 
Zuyev - who also speaks five languages - earns $105 per month. 


The questions, it follows, are which areas to support and how? 


For instance, Zuyev said, it is improbable that the Russian automotive sector 
will compete with Japan, Germany and the United States. But Russia is one of 
only three countries in the world capable of designing and building an 
aircraft from start to finish. Yet the industry is dying because the military 
cannot afford new prototypes, the factories cannot afford to pay workers and 
aerospace cannot, therefore, lure young talent. 


Moscow's formerly top-secret Institute of Biomedical Problems has come up 
with a novel way to market its space achievements to the consumer: a yogurt 
made with bacterial cultures scraped from intestines of orbiting cosmonauts, 
which purportedly bolsters the immune system in order to better stave off 
illness and infection. 


But one of the most salient examples of international collaboration is the 
development of a so-called biochip that could reportedly revolutionize DNA 
study by allowing human genes to be read 1,000 times faster than current 
methods allow. Andrei Mirzabekov, director of the Engelhardt Institute of 
Molecular Biology in Moscow, created the concept in the late 1980s - but the 
licensing outside of Russia is held exclusively by Motorola Inc. and the 
Packard BioScience Co. 


The two companies inked a deal in 1998 with the U.S. Argonne National 
Laboratory that would result in the investment of nearly $30 million in 
private and government funds by 2003 to develop the key to a potential 
multibillion-dollar industry. Of these amounts, Engelhardt will see about 
$400,000 annually to keep the institute alive, as well as better equipment 
and opportunities to work in the United States. 


"The United States is the only country which offers the opportunity to 
develop science and its application in a very fast way. I am first a 
scientist, and as a scientist I have to think about what can get done in 
science," Mirzabekov said at the time. 


He pledged, however, never to abandon the research in Russia: "I wouldn't 
want to be like a captain who leave his sinking ship." 


Foreign grants and investment are not the lone answer. "The argument is they 
fund what they want to keep, and let die what they don't, and set the 
priorities for Russia in doing so," Kagarlitsky added. 


Shumny, director of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics, said the staff is 
currently working under 20 grants from the International Science Foundation 
of American billionaire George Soros, as well as about 70 smaller grants from 
the Russian Fund for Basic Research - which is modeled on the U.S. National 
Science Foundation. 


In 1992 Soros effectively introduced to Russia the notion of "peer review," 
whereby research proposals and academic papers are submitted to an anonymous 
panel of experts prior to awarding funds. But while the process is lauded as 
a savior by many scientists, it is maligned by others - particularly those 
who are older, do not speak English, are not savvy at lobbying or view as 
detrimental anything that detracts from research. 


West Worries About the Drain 


Demoralized Russian scientists are a source of worry to the United States, 
which has been spending millions of dollars to support research that will 
supposedly dissuade cooperation with nations such as Iran, Iraq, Libya and 
North Korea. 


Earlier this year, the Russian administration confirmed that The Scientific 
Research and Design Institute of Power Technology (NIKIET), a nuclear reactor 
design center, had held talks with Iran on the proposed sale of a nuclear 
research reactor after the United States imposed sanctions against three 
Russian institutes for allegedly helping the country develop missile and 
nuclear capabilities. 


In June 1998, scientists joined miners and teachers in protesting wage 
arrears of 255 million rubles (then $41.3 million). Vladimir Strakhov, 
director of the Institute of Earth Physics in Moscow, went on hunger strikes 
twice in 1996. And Vladimir Khlebodarov, union president of RAS workers, said 
the RAS has seen more than 70,000 scientists leave for the more lucrative 
private sector. 


The 2000 draft budget allocates barely enough to ensure continued cutbacks 
and the accompanying pain. 


Yet one needs only look at the academy's history to venture that the truth - 
in a country not unfamiliar with upheaval - likely lies somewhere between 
full recovery and final death: 


Peter the Great recruited 17 academics from abroad in 1724 to found the 
Academy of Sciences, saying, "The Academy should bring us trust and honor in 
Europe, and prove that people are working here for science and that it is 
time to stop considering us barbarians who disregard science." 


This year, the academy celebrated its 275th anniversary. 


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