Novosibirsk's rise to become the Silicon Valley of the Soviet Union and now Russia's own center of learning and academic excellence did not come easily. The town and the success of its eventual Academic Techno-Park took some pre-planning and thought from a lot of visionaries, a token handful of self-serving tsarist decrees, a smattering of human enslavement by autocratic rulers, and a good dose of plain old communist tyranny. The early seeds for development were planted in the late 1800's by the Russian Czar Alexander III. He has been referred to as the Peacemaker and Construction Czar. (An interesting note: As Czar's at this time were not universally liked, a plot to assassinate Alex III was uncovered and the leaders were captured and executed. The brother of a fellow whose name you might recognize, Vladimir Lenin, was one of those leaders.)
Alex III, though, stayed alive long enough to build railways all over Russia instead of getting Russia into wars that weren't really their business and usually wreaked havoc on an already unstable economy. Among the dreams of this vast country with a network of rail service that would criss-cross the steppes and mountains, the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostok is among them that came true. In a very strange twist of fate, poor Alex III met his death it is said following a train crash in the Ukraine in 1888. Heroically attempting to hold up the roof of the collapsed rail car that he and his children were in during the wreck, the injuries he suffered eventually led to his death six years later. His son, Nicholas II was the last czar of Russia.
Nicholas II also plays into our history of Novosibirsk. Once a location for the Trans-Siberian Railway to cross the Ob River in Siberia was decided upon, a small community of workers and their families grew to build the bridge for that crossing. That community became Novonikolayevsk...after Czar Nicholas and St. Nicholas.
The bridge was completed in 1897 and Novonikolayevsk became the most important transportation hub in the region. More railway construction that tied East to West and North to South reinforced the town's importance and by 1917, the population had reached 80,000 people. Novonikolayevsk was the largest industrial center of Siberia.
As we all know, 1917 was an important year for Russia with Soviet power being established. With a few major hiccups along the way, (The White Russian Army with Czech prisoners of war captured the town in 1918 and later the Red Army reclaimed it establishing Soviet control in 1919.) it wasn't until 1926 that the town was renamed to its current, Novosibirsk, which means A New City in Siberia. Stalin's industrialization and electrification plans gave some focus to Siberia's mission for industrial development and the city was "granted" large facilities for heavy industry, food processing, and power generation. Novosibirsk thereby earned its nickname, "Siberian Chicago".
By the mid to late 1950's, Stalinist terror in Siberia was eventually replaced with Nikita Khrushchev's desire to build a scientific powerhouse in the middle of nowhere. Novosibirsk certainly fit that description.
"Tucked away in a remote forest of birch and pine in the heart of Siberia, 3,000 km away from Moscow, at a place where winters are six months long with temperatures dropping to minus 40 degree Celsius and summers are swaddled with mosquitos, is a city built for scientists and researchers. This frozen wasteland is more suited for polar bears than scientific endeavors, but Nikita Khrushchev felt the distance from Moscow was necessary so that the country’s sharpest scientific minds could work together on fundamental research away from the prying eyes of bureaucracy. This is Akademgorodok, or “Academic Town”—the Soviet Union’s answer to America’s Silicon Valley."
--http://russiatrek.org/novosibirsk-city
It was here at the Academpark Technopark or Akademgorodok that Dima had visions of us making a big splash with our desire to bring an American business school from a known university to Siberia and cooperate with either NSU - Novosibirsk State University, or one of the other 35 research institutes within the complex. That complex, located about 20 miles from the center of Novosibirsk, is a complete town or academic compound in itself. It has, in addition to the institutions of higher learning and the Siberian Headquarters for the Russian Academy of Sciences; libraries, restaurants and cafes, hotels, stores, hospitals, residential facilities, cinemas and clubs, and whatever other luxury amenities that Russians can come up with to serve the elite residents of the Akademgorodok. There is even an artificial beach at the edge of the Ob Reservoir that was created by hundreds of truckloads of sand along the edge of the reservoir.
Focused on the hard sciences to support, among others, the Soviet military machine, the nuclear weapons program, Cold War pursuits, and the space program, Akademgorodok grew to house and support several hundred thousand people. With the level of Soviet support it was receiving, scientists and others that could contribute to the cause, were more than happy to escape from the totalitarian rule of Moscow to "hide" in the frozen steppes. It was a privilege to live there and the conditions were quite unlike the difficult housing situation and career stagnation in the Soviet capital. There was a level of freedom unlike anywhere in the Soviet Union and perhaps the whole Soviet Bloc. Freedom to talk about and discuss difficult subjects like economic reforms, Western literature and free press, while listening to poets and protest songs not officially sanctioned by the regime was all OK there. Even the sciences themselves were freer: genetics, cybernetics, and other new fields, banned throughout the Soviet empire, were welcome pursuits in Akademgorodok.
At the time of our visit, the TechnoPark had signed cooperation agreements with institutions all over the world in dozens of fields of study with the growing interest in "commercializing" research for business pursuits. As a reminder, it was this uncontrolled access to the raw sciences that the intelligence gathering groups of the West were most concerned about. The newly formed Russian Federation had very little influence on these untethered and unfocused "teams". The CIA and other intelligence agencies were making inroads to monitor and intercept the outflow of strategic materials - especially materials that should not be in the hands of terrorists. Embassy Joe had accepted my guise as a Scholar/Businessman to make contacts in the Akademgorodok. Dima wanted the prestige of bringing in an American academician and businessman.
As for me...I wanted to make my speeches, hand out my cards, and get back to Cindy at the Intourist since we weren't really sure when Anatoly and Georg were going to show up at the hotel.
Our first meeting was supposed to be with the Dean of the Economics Department at Novosibirsk State University and his invited guests. Stan, as he wanted to be called, rushed us into his enormous "conference room", (probably able to seat 300 people). It was next to an auditorium that I was told seated several thousand. We'd arrived late and I was surprised that no one was in the conference room waiting for us. Instead, after a few pleasantries and some mineral water, he shocked me by saying that the whole Academy of Science membership had been invited to this session and everyone showed up...all 2500 members. We were then launched into the grand hall where it was standing room only and every face looked anxious for a chance to cash in on the American Invasion to Akademgorodok. My heart jumped into my throat and Dima could see that I was sweating this one in a big way.
Stan was ahead of me and Dima was behind as we quickly walked to the podium and three chairs below the main speaker's lecturn. Before we arrived, I calmly turned to Dima and said, "This might be a disaster. Please help me if I am having problems."
Dima nodded and said something like, "No mentioning that you are happy about political and economic changes!" His next words were only "Blah blah blah..." and I didn't catch them.
(In a previous book, OJT, I described a speech given also at the Academy of Sciences. That was in Moscow in 1995 during my Russian-based period with RR Donnelley. That speech, not unlike this one in content, was to a far smaller crowd but an equally hungry audience to see what an American had to say about Russia and the possibilities of cooperation...in the world of high quality magazine printing. In that instance, I was prepped by my wife at the time and by a Polish woman whose husband was a Russian citizen teaching Russian language at the university in Krakow...and a KGB agent, of course.)
Cindy had translated into Russian and printed very legibly in English the phonetic pronunciation for the introduction of the speech I had planned. The rest of the speech, a description of how cooperation might be carried out (straight from the Krakow experience) and what an American university might have as it's list of desirables was in outline form. My planned conclusion was simply a promise to report to the colleges and universities that I knew might be interested and a follow up describing my progress through Dimitry Petrovic within one month. Extremely nervous, voice shaking during my first sentence,
"Good Afternoon, professors, administrators, and friends. My name is Bill Mays. It is my great pleasure and honor to be here in your beautiful country and to be invited to meet you in this legendary city of science and learning."
With that line in Russian, I was greeted with a blast of applause that lasted ten times longer than what it had taken me to say those words. I could hear some of the guys near the front row saying something like,
"The guy actually spoke some Russian. Not the usual American accent. Spy for sure! Ha! Ha!" that was followed with laughing, clapping, more joking.
The crowd quieted and I got into the rhythm in what I hoped was exactly how Cindy had written it for me. She even wrote, "PAUSE HERE FOR SECOND...SMILE AT AUDIENCE" in two places after particularly affectionate claims to love the Russian language and people. She was right. They were waiting for opportunities to show their appreciation for my speaking more than a handful of words in Russian and again gave me two more standing ovations before I even got to the meat of the speech. At the end of this Russian lovefest as my introduction, I apologized for having to escape into English. I took a long drink of water and then pulled out my notes in English.
With lukewarm stares from them as I described the Krakow-University of Detroit program and my involvement there, I remembered that Dima requested that I avoid suggesting that the cooperation be anything like the Polish model. Russians aren't particularly interested in following anyone else's model. I knew exactly what to say then at that moment when I curtailed describing the Polish model. I felt myself beginning to speak with a touch of a bad Russian accent:
"The much better Russian model of cooperation will therefore be our guide to a successful collaborative effort. What that Russian model will be, I am confident that the members of this most prestigious body in the world will quickly formulate and our program will be repeated everywhere."
It seemed a cop-out line but it was received with thunderous applause again. And then, feeling that I could bring the house down, memories from long ago drifted into my head as the clapping began to slow down. I had won a competition for extolling the virtues of communism in a History of Communism class at the University of Washington taught by Pedro Ramet, my mentor professor who was now Sabrina Ramet. In that winning speech, I had memorized all of the Albanian lines of propaganda that the leader, Enver Hoxha and his government used describing the great Marxist Leninist State of Albania and the lines that described the imperialists from the United States and other Western "stooges". I'd even practiced my delivery and cadence to match the rare footage of Enver Hoxha's speeches. For some reason, on that podium in Novosibirsk, I was overcome with the desire to recreate that atmosphere and started talking off the cuff to build up some patriotism to offset these scientists' feelings that post-Soviet Russia would not be a good atmosphere for science and learning. I cringe now as I remember that my bad Russian accent came along with the bullshit I now spewed. The last part of it went something like this:
"This incredible institution, the Russian Academy of Sciences, came into being and was forged to what it is now over decades. It is the foundation for a great nation...perhaps the greatest nation. It is that framework of greatness that will guarantee that our Russian-American MBA Program Model will carry itself as worthy of emulation by other countries that are seeking a grand model for success."
It was the final standing ovation but it was the longest. Dima was frantically shaking hands with nearby people in the front rows and with men and women who were coming down to talk to him. I had planned on saying more to close out our visit and thank Dima and Stan for their invitation but the audience had interpreted that patriotic line as my final statement. It all worked out well in the end because the RAS requested only a small cocktail session afterward and did not put any of us on the spot to speak. Everyone had been present and now just wanted to drink and get us drunk.
"Hello, Dr. Mays. Leo Meyerkov from the High Energy Physics lab here at Akademgorodok. Very nice speech today. I am interested in discussing sometime the American model for commercializing high tech innovation. Would you be interested in such a discussion?" Bingo! Embassy Joe's kind of guy! Good hit #1 I thought to myself as I told Leo that I am not a PhD but knew a little bit about the subject since my own father was involved in nuclear fuels fabrication in the United States in Washington State.
"Oh, probably your Hanford Nuclear Reservation where you make weapons grade fuel. I think your Japanese bomb material was done at Hanford, too." Leo added when I told him about my father.
"You are absolutely right! I guess we are surrounded here by many institutes and factories for similar fuel reprocessing and weapons grade fuel fabrication, isn't it true?" I asked Leo.
Leo seemed melancholy as he described to me, "At our highest production level, it was a busy time in the 60's and 70's. The economic crisis of the 80's and complete system collapse now in the 90's has us at a standstill. But you know that. I would one day like to visit University of California at Berkeley and maybe MIT sometime."
"I am sure you could get an invitation just by reaching out," I assured him. He smiled and we walked away. I wondered who else with access to nuclear material and potential bad stuff I could meet today. I then had an American style idea that didn't go over super well but it got some results.
I went over to Dima who was talking to Vassily Alexiev's twin brother(the famous Russian Olympic style weight lifter from the 60's and 70's). During a break in the conversation, I asked him to try to announce that we would be delighted to get business cards from all the guests present since there would not be enough time to talk to everyone. There was a very audible sound of disappointment but a lot of the people complied and we had quite large handful of cards by the time the evening began to draw to a close. One other discussion struck me as important as Dima seemed a little cornered by several men arguing about money. I couldn't tell what the context was, though.
"What was that all about, Dima? Seemed serious." I asked.
"Some of my closer contacts from administration of a specialty metals facility near here. They want to know if we are going to talk about Soyuz debris with you. They are disappointed that your contacts chose to go back to Chelyabinsk for the three wild debris sites so far north. They are thinking that it would be good to talk about other subjects while you are in Novosibirsk." said Dima with some amount of consternation.
"What other subjects would they have to talk about, do you think?" I asked him.
"Specialty metals I am sure but it might be on the edge of legal. That means probably illegal until we pay someone money to make the paperwork legal." Dima strangely answered.
"Make the paperwork legal or make the false paperwork look legal?" I asked.
"Maybe a little of both, my friend. But it is enough money for us in my opinion to take risk if there is buyer you can find." Dima slowly said as if he was thinking about every word before it let it come out of his mouth.
I almost wanted to say to Dima as if he was part of the terrorist team, "Sounds like bad stuff to me and we are in the business of bad stuff." Instead I raised my eyebrows and asked him to find out more. I also told him I was probably busy all day tomorrow doing work in the hotel. He said he'd deliver a message to the concierge if he'd been able to set up a meeting with his colleagues.
A quick glance and run through at the cards we'd gotten and the people I'd met, I estimated that seven or eight individuals were very interesting candidates for information on strategic materials and another 15 or twenty could have close ties to people that Joe was interested in. That alone seemed like a winning evening for me. Add Dima's disappointed "admin guys" and we weren't doing too badly I thought. Things were getting a little convoluted for me, though. I had 1) Cindy waiting for me to initiate our Anatoly and Georg plan, and worries of what that would turn into 2) Dima acting on the short list for MBA partners 3) The long list of MBA partners that were willing to pay money...and that I wanted nothing to do with but had to worry about since disappointment can be twisted into betrayal. 4) The NSU MBA proposal coming soon and who would the lucky US MBA program be? 5) I hadn't told Dima yet that he wouldn't be going to Chelyabinsk in a week 6) Fears of Yuri, Toshek and Vlad not showing up in Chelyabinsk 7) Katerina and Zhenia...would I be able to see them again. 8) And what about Dima's mad money men? Christ!
With that list of worries closing in on me, I hopped over to Dima and asked him if I could head back to the hotel alone. The cocktail was now a full-fledged party and I was able to sneak out without a problem. I am glad I did.
When I got back to the hotel, Vincent and Cindy were all over Anatoly and Georg's arrival of just a few minutes earlier. As tired as I was, I had to rush into action, grab my toolkit, and start gathering information.
Welcome to the world of following bad guys with bad stuff.
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