Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 2
6/9/11 6:15:06 PM
Instead of Introduction Russia is a unique country. It’s situated both in Europe and in Asia. That is why our country has a special mission to serve as a bridge between the two continents, two cultures, two civilizations. But if we take a moment to consider it, in terms of its geography Russia is an Asian country. Three of the largest and most industrially developed regions in the country: the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East make up 80% of Russia’s territory. And they are located in Asia. They have a lion’s share of the country’s natural resources and thus it is these regions where Russia draws its strength from. We are neighbors who have a lot in common. But how much do we know about each other? We, RUSAL, became the first Russian company to list its shares on the Hong Kong stock exchange, and in doing so became the first official representatives of Russia in Hong Kong. That is why we felt we had to tell you more about our country. After all, friendship – whether between people, companies, or countries – begins with an introduction. We are proud to introduce you to Russia, its great history, extraordinary people, rich traditions, and ancient culture of this enormous and remarkable land. The book that you’re holding in your hands is no ordinary book. It is not a guide, it is not an encyclopedia. We did not try to sum up all the facts and list all the achievements. But believe us: no other book has been written with such love for a country. We are honored to share part of our love with you. Oleg Deripaska CEO, United Company RUSAL
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 1
6/9/11 8:43:20 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 2
6/9/11 8:43:20 PM
From Russia with Love
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 3
6/9/11 8:43:20 PM
Contents
Chapter 1
Geography Unique Moscow Imperial Petersburg Miracles of the Russian North White Sun of the South Tales of the Urals The Snows of Siberia, the Peaks of Altai The Mysterious Far East
7 10 44 72 92 108 120 158
Chapter 2
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 4
History and Traditions
181
Medieval Russia The Unification of Russia and Creation of the Muscovy State The Beginning of the Romanov Dynasty The Rise of the Russian Empire Russia in the 19th Century An Era of Convulsions The Soviet Union The New Russia
182 188 192 198 206 216 222 230
6/9/11 8:43:20 PM
Chapter 5
Chapter 3
Great Names
237
Gaze Toward the Future
425
In Poetry and Prose In Painting and Sculpture In Stone In Theater and Cinema In Music In Song and Dance In Science and Technology In Sport
238 246 260 268 280 290 304 316
A Course Toward Modernization Technological Breakthrough Major Events
426 436 444
Instead of Conclusion
453
Credits
454
Chapter 4
Growth Potential
331
Oil and Gas Energy Metallurgy Aerospace and Airplane Construction Machinery The Service Sector
332 354 362 376 392 404
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 5
6/9/11 8:43:20 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 6
6/9/11 8:43:20 PM
Chapter 1
Geography
“Russia’s geography is its history.” These words of the great Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdiaiev, paradoxical as they may be, give an exhaustive explanation of the phenomenon of this country. To the east – Mongolia and China. To the west – Norway, Lithuania, Poland. The mountains of the Caucasus and the white wordlessness of the Arctic. The geysers of the Kurill Islands and the impassable taiga of Siberia. Thirteen seas and three oceans. That’s Russia. Amur tigers and the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The tsar bell and tsar cannon. Siberia and the Volga, Ural gems and Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, the Aldan river gold, Kamchatka, Baikal. That’s Russia. A country whose area exceeds two Australias, a country occupying more than a third of the territory of Eurasia. A world
inhabited by more than a hundred and eighty ethnic groups. Empress Catherine the Great, who ruled Russia in the 18th century, once wrote: “Russia is not a state! Russia is a Universe! So many are her climates, peoples, languages, customs, and beliefs!” Russia has six climate zones. On the coast of the Arctic Ocean, darkness reigns for ten months of the year, while snow is a rarity for the resort towns along the Black Sea. Only moss and lichen peek through the ancient frosts of the tundra, while Primorye abounds with diverse flora and fauna. Russia has nine time zones. When people are going to bed at one end, the work day is just beginning at the other. The sun never sets on our country. A year is not enough to say everything about it. You must see Russia with your own eyes. 7
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 7
6/9/11 8:43:20 PM
Contemporary Russia
Murmansk
Kaliningrad Saint Petersburg Veliky Novgorod Petrozavodsk Pskov
Tver
Smolensk Bryansk
Arkhangelsk
Moscow
Kaluga Orel Tula Kursk
Vladimir
Vologda Yaroslavl Kostroma Ivanovo
Vorkuta Syktyvkar
Ryazan Nizhniy Novgorod Lipetsk Kirov Saransk Yoshkar-Ola Tambov Voronezh Cheboksary Izhevsk Penza Perm Ulyanovsk Kazan Saratov Rostov-on-Don Krasnodar Volgograd Samara Yekaterinburg Maikop Ufa Stavropol Tyumen Elista Cherkessk Chelyabinsk Nalchik Orenburg Nazran Kurgan Astrakhan Vladikavkaz
Norilsk
Salekhard
Belgorod
Novy Urengoy
T Surgut
Grozny
Tomsk Omsk
Makhachkala
Novosibirsk Kemerovo
Barnaul
Gorno-Altaysk
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 8
Krasnoyarsk
Abakan
Kyzyl
6/9/11 8:43:20 PM
Anadyr
Magadan
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
Yakutsk
Tura
Mirny Lensk
k Khabarovsk Blagoveshchensk Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Irkutsk
Ulan-Ude
Chita
Birobidjan
Vladivostok
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 9
6/9/11 8:43:20 PM
Unique Moscow
…Golden domes, white stone walls, bread and salt on the table… And that’s all in Moscow. A remarkable city, the very soul of Russia, hidden in the quiet old sidestreets and the grand squares, the peal of church bells and the noise of animated avenues. Here eclectic becomes organic – and modernity easily coexists with medieval history. The pulse of the Russian capital sweeps you away, its rhythm captivates you, its atmosphere is dizzying. Here, in Moscow, is where the country begins. A country that is difficult to get to know. But once you know it, it is impossible not to love it. 10
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 10
6/9/11 8:43:21 PM
11
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 11
6/9/11 8:11:27 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 2
6/9/11 6:15:06 PM
Tourist Route
Majestic Moscow
1. Smolenskaya Ploshchad
2. The Old Arbat
3. Alexandrovsky Sad
4. Red Square
5. The Bolshoi Theater
Smolenskaya Ploshchad, situated on the Garden Ring is named after the16th century Smolensk Gates, which stood on an earthen rampart. Today this historical neighborhood effortlessly mixes 19th century architecture with modern edifices, the most important of which is the high-rise building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It also intersects with Moscow’s old Arbat street.
The Old Arbat ascends from Smolenskaya Ploshchad to the very center of Moscow. Its old architectural complex is unique, which is why the Arbat is pedestrianised. The Arbat is a popular tourist destination with a multitude of restaurants, shops, extraordinary souvenirs and street entertainment. The Arbat takes you to Vozdvizhenka ulitsa, which leads to Alexandrovsky Sad.
Alexandrovsky Sad is a park in the center of Moscow, located beneath the Kremlin’s walls. The garden was planted in the 1820s, in the bed of the Neglinka River after it had been re-directed underground. Today the garden has an area of about 10ha. Many historical sites can be found here, including the Kremlin’s Kutafya Tower, the Italian Grotto and an obelisk commemorating the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. The main gates of the garden open onto Red Square.
Red Square is Moscow’s historical center. It is the site of the famous Pokrovsky Cathedral (St. Basil’s), Lenin’s tomb, the Historical Museum, and the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower, which houses the country’s most important clock. It is considered to be the heart of Russia and hosts numerous celebrations from national holidays and military parades to popular festivities.
The Bolshoi Theater is situated in the center of Moscow, on Theater Square, connected to Red Square by Okhotny Ryad. It is one of Russia’s major theaters and one of the most important centers of opera and ballet worldwide. The famous sculpture of Apollo’s chariot over the entrance is a symbol of great Russian culture. The Bolshoi Theater was founded in 1776 and in September 2011 it will open its 236th season.
12
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 12
6/9/11 8:11:31 PM
@QM`^MXZMeM
! :U W[ X_W Me M a X
9
9
.[ eM^ _W MeM aX
.UNXU[`QWM UY 8QZUZM
B[fPbUfTQZWM aX
:[bee -^NM` aX
9
9
Q^ fTQW \ Qb B^M _ ` ?Ub
^ \Q Zee fT ZQ 0Q
X M` a -^N
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 13
3MSM^UZ _WUe \Q ^
7^[\[`WUZ_WMeM
9 9
FZM YQ ZWM aX
ZW M a X
?Y[XQZ_WMeM
-^NM`_WMeM .[^[bU`_WMeM 3[S[XQb_WUe NaX
9
9
9
9[W T[bM eM a X
@^aNZUW[b_ WUe \Q ^
9
[ XWT B[
9 9
6/14/11 2:30:34 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 14
6/9/11 8:43:24 PM
St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 15
6/9/11 8:43:30 PM
Red Square
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 16
6/9/11 8:43:34 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 17
6/9/11 8:43:39 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 18
6/9/11 8:43:43 PM
The Kremlin and the Armory Vladimir Mayakovsky, the wonderful Russian poet of the early 20th century, wrote a poem for children. It’s called “Read this and roll to Paris and China.” One of the first lines goes like this: “The Earth begins, as we know, at the Kremlin.” For the residents of our country the Kremlin truly is the starting point. And for guests of the capital it is usually the first stop on a tour. Begin your stroll around Moscow here. After all, the Kremlin is not only the country’s most important architectural monument and the official residence of the president of the Russian Federation. It is the most ancient part of Moscow. It’s where Muscovy Rus began. All the tsars and emperors were crowned in the Uspensky (Dormition) Cathedral. You can see the symbols of the tsars’ power with your own eyes: Monomakh’s cap, the orb, and the scepter are kept in the Kremlin’s Armory. Go there and you’ll see before you the everyday life of the tsar’s court in the tiniest detail. This unique treasure house of works of art has preserved objects of everyday life as well, such as the garb of royalty, weapons, and carriages. 19
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 19
6/9/11 8:43:47 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 20
6/9/11 8:43:49 PM
A girl feeding pigeons on the square in front of the Church of Christ the Savior
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 21
6/9/11 8:43:55 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 22
6/9/11 8:43:56 PM
The Church of Christ the Savior – Prechistenka – Ostozhenka From the Kremlin you could see the golden domes of the Church of Christ the Savior, the most important cathedral in Moscow. It only takes a few minutes by foot, past the Museum of Fine Arts, and you’re at official residence: The Church of Christ the Savior is the urban home of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. The fate of this cathedral is tragic and grandiose at the same time. Built in 1839 “to preserve eternal memory of the faith and love in the Fatherland,” it was demolished in December 1931 by order of the Soviet government. The Church was rebuilt sixtyeight years later. And now that you’ve seen the cathedral, walk up one of the most picturesque streets of Moscow: Prechistenka. Time seems to have stopped here. The white stone chambers,
the timeworn aristocratic estates, the sumptuous 19th-century apartment buildings… And nearby is Prechistenka’s “sister,” Ostozhenka. An unhurried walk down it brings you to Gogolevsky Bulvar. Stop for a moment by the famous house of Pertsov. At one time the basement was home to The Bat, a famous cabaret where Stanislavsky performed magic tricks and NemirovichDanchenko conducted an orchestra. In 1923 Trotsky lived in one of the apartments.
23
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 23
6/9/11 8:43:59 PM
Central House of Artists and the Park of Old Monuments And while we’re speaking of monuments, take a look at the Park of Fine Arts on Krymskaya Naberezhnaya. It is home to the country’s only open-air sculpture museum. You might object that such parks are found everywhere. Yes, of course, but only the one in Moscow collects works of artists from different generations and styles, presenting the entire period of the development of Russian sculpture of the 20th and early 21st century. And the historic section of the Park contains decommissioned monuments. Here the country’s recent past seems to come alive: stone Lenins, Stalins, and Dzerzhinskys live side by side, along with sculptural compositions dedicated to the memory of victims of repression. Next to the park is the Central House of Artists, one of the centers of contemporary art. In 2010, the main entrance and the alley looked entirely different. Large-scale compositions of traditional Chinese lanterns were erected here: “Two Dragons Play with a Pearl,” “Voice of Harmony,” “Red Phoenix at Sunrise,” and “Great Chinese Gates.” The Central House of Artists hosted a festival of Chinese culture that resounded throughout Moscow. 24
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 24
6/9/11 8:44:01 PM
25
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 25
6/9/11 8:11:33 PM
Good to Know
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 26
6/9/11 8:11:37 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 25
6/9/11 8:11:33 PM
Good to Know
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 26
6/9/11 8:11:37 PM
A scene from a production of Guo Guang’s King Monkey and Goblin Mouse at the Mossoviet Theater, performed as part of the Chekhov International Theater Festival in 2009
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 27
6/9/11 8:44:04 PM
Moscow City If you’re in the capital on business, it’s quite possible that one destination on your trip will be Moscow City. This enormous business center is a site of the future, the personification of new Russia. It’s not only the concentration of business activity of the capital, but also one of the most rewarding tourist routes, the ideal place to get a panoramic view of Moscow and its surroundings. You only have to go up the Federation Tower – the tallest building in Europe, a 506-meter glass spire – and you’ll be on a viewing platform equipped with powerful telescopes. From here opens a view for almost 100 kilometers. 28
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 28
6/9/11 8:44:08 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 29
6/9/11 8:44:13 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 30
6/9/11 8:44:15 PM
Moscow City business center
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 31
6/9/11 8:44:19 PM
Ostankino and All-Russia Expo Center (VVTs) Of course, Moscow has other viewing platforms as well. One of them is in the Ostankino television tower. It has a height of 540 meters. It’s the world’s fourth-tallest freestanding structure after the Burj Khalifa Skyscraper in Dubai, the Guangzhou TV Tower, and the CN Tower in Toronto. Not far from Ostankino is the All-Russia Expo Center (VVTs). The main expo center of the country, it is home to a unique symbol of the Soviet Union, the famous sculpture Worker and Collective Farmer. The pavilions of the expo center, built in the 1940s, now host lively trade. Muscovites come here for honey and other delicacies. They say that the only place to get real tofu is in the Chinese pavilion.
32
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 32
6/9/11 8:44:20 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 33
6/9/11 8:44:24 PM
The main symbol of VVTs (All-Russia Expo Center): the Friendship of Peoples fountain
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 34
6/9/11 8:44:26 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 35
6/9/11 8:44:32 PM
Young people playing football at VVTs (All-Russia Expo Center)
36
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 36
6/9/11 8:44:35 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 37
6/9/11 8:44:39 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 38
6/9/11 8:44:41 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 39
Gardens in the City: Hermitage and Aquarium
Kuskovo and Kolomenskoye
But even in the center of the capital there are small, cozy parks. Only a few steps away from the noisy thoroughfare of the Garden Ring you’ll be in Aquarium Park. A decorative arc, four fountains, shaded alleys and gazebos for relaxations, and next to it, its famous neighbor, the Mossoviet Theater. In 1898 Chekhov wrote in a letter: “But in the Aquarium it’s not bad.” The Hermitage Park, located on Karetny Ryad, appeared four years earlier. Therefore it is considered Moscow’s first recreational park. To this day it has retained all the attributes: gazebos, flowerbeds, a theater, a concert stage, coffeehouses and pavilions. Chaliapin sang on the stage of the Hermitage, Rakhmaninov conducted an orchestra, Sara Bernhard performed. Today, in the Hermitage Park, you can find Moscow’s first Club of Tea Culture. And what can be better for relaxation than a tea ceremony?
If you’re tired of the frenzied pace of the city, that means it’s time to go for a stroll in the estates. There are several specimens of old estate culture in the capital. The most popular among Muscovites is Kolomenskoye, once an estate of the tsars, now a museum and park. The most elegant is Kuskovo. This estate, commissioned by the Sheremetyev counts, was intended for sumptuous receptions, theatrical presentations and holidays. It has Russia’s only museum of ceramics.
6/9/11 8:44:45 PM
People relaxing in Alexandrovsky Sad
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 40
6/9/11 8:44:49 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 41
6/9/11 8:44:53 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 42
6/9/11 8:44:56 PM
The palace of the Sheremetyev counts at Kuskovo Estate
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 43
6/9/11 8:45:02 PM
Imperial Petersburg
Even if you’re only in Moscow for one day, you’ll find someone who will explain that in fact the most important city in Russia is actually Saint Petersburg. The spirit of this competition is indestructible. From the moment it was founded in 1703 until 1918 the capital of the country was Petersburg. And if Moscow is inextricably linked to the patriarchal traditions of Russian statehood, then Saint Petersburg, once called a “window to Europe,” remains a symbol of the great empire created, truly after European examples, by Tsar Peter the Great. 44
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 44
6/9/11 8:45:05 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 45
6/9/11 8:11:41 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 2
6/9/11 6:15:06 PM
Tourist Route
The Treasures of Saint Petersburg
1. Fortress of Peter and Paul
2. The Tip of Vasilyevsky Island
Fortress of Peter and Paul, the historical nucleus of Saint Petersburg, is situated on Zayachy Island. The fortress’ first stone was laid in 1705 and it was built to the specifications of Peter the Great. Since 1924 this unique historical and architectural monument has functioned as a museum. One of the most fascinating traditions of Saint Petersburg, the daily midday cannon fire from Naryshkinsky Bastion is connected to the fortress.
The tip of Vasilyevsky Island is located directly opposite the fortress of Peter and Paul. It offers one of the most enchanting architectural ensembles in the city, exemplifying the harmony of the city’s architecture with the contours of the Neva’s banks. Here stand the famous Rostral columns, which symbolizes the glory of Russia as a great naval power. The bridge across the Neva takes you from the Vasilyevsky Island to Palace Square.
3. Palace Square Palace Square is the main square of Saint Petersburg, an architectural ensemble that took shape in the late 18th century. Historical and cultural monuments are dotted around the square, for example the Winter Palace, the Guard Corps Headquarters, the General Staff Building with the Triumphal Arch and the Alexander Column. The square is included in the list of World Heritage sites. It marks the beginning of Nevsky Prospekt, which leads to the bank of the Fontanka River.
4. The Fontanka Embankment The Fontanka embankment is often described as Saint Petersburg’s most valuable necklace, a string of spectacular architectural monuments. These include the homes of the nobility, for example the Anichkov and Yusupov palaces, the Mikhailov castle and the Pashkov House, as well as many other grand buildings. 15 gorgeous bridges surround the river. The famous Summer Garden can be found where the Fontanka empties into the Neva.
5. The Summer Garden The Summer Garden is a park in the center of Saint Petersburg which dates back to the gardening arts of the early 18th century. The park was designed by Peter the Great, who gave the order for its construction in 1704, and followed the styles of Dutch Baroque. Today the garden remains an exceptionally fine example of park design. It is home to the Summer Palace, the residence of Peter the Great, which survives to this day in its original form.
46
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 46
6/9/11 8:11:44 PM
W_WUe <^[_\QW` ZbQ^ 7^[ 7^ [Z bQ ^W _W Me M
` \QW ^[_ e < _WU ^[b [_` ZZ[ YQ 7M
<^[ _\Q W` 0 [N^ [Xea N[bM
MN Z
MN M Z WMe _ b ^[ <Q`
@^[U`_WUe Y[_`
[bM `af 7a N ZM aX /TMeW[b_W[S[
?ab[^[b_WMeM \X
ZMN 9MWM^ [bM
!
0b[^`_[bee Y[_`
\X 0QWMN^U_`[b
0b[^`_[bMeM \X
:Qb_WUe <^[_\ QW`
5_MMWUQb_WMeM \X
_M XU` M a Me [b WT ^[ 3[
X M a Me W _ [^ X X 9 M M a 9 Me W ^_ 9[
`QXeM aX <Q_
9MZQfTZMeM \X \X 5_Wa__`b
9
7MfMZ_WMeM \X
:Qb_WUe <^[_\QW` 9
9
3[_`UZee 0b[^
aX 8 [Y [Z [_ [b M
QP UN[ 3^ Z WM
aX
eM bM [ P
\X ;_`^[b_W[S[ aX >a NUZ_T `QeZM
N ZM eM M `_W U`Q Q^_ b U AZ
.[X 7[ Zea_TQ ZZMeM a X
MN M Z Me b `_[ [^ 0b
9M^_[b[ <[XQ
_M XU` a M e ZM U[Z UXX 9
[b M
WU Z`MZ QWU 2[ ZMN ^
.U^fTQbMeM \X
?MP[bMeM aX
.U^fTQb[e Y[_`
?M
U
47
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 47
6/14/11 2:33:37 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 48
6/9/11 8:45:10 PM
A sculptural composition at the apex of the General Staff Buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s arch
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 49
6/9/11 8:45:14 PM
50
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 50
6/9/11 8:45:18 PM
Nevsky Prospekt â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is nothing better than Nevsky Prospekt, at least in Petersburg; here it is everything.â&#x20AC;? These words of Gogol could very well serve as a starting point for the traveler. Begin your tour with Nevsky Prospekt. At one time it connected the two main residences of the imperial family: the Winter Palace and the Anichkov Palace. Russian emperors loved to stroll down Nevsky, and behind them followed all the upper crust of Petersburg. The gleaming palaces stand side by side with churches, museums with luxurious hotels and stores. Here on Nevsky, life bubbles â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but a bit differently than it does in Moscow. In the capital, even children and tourists rush, but here one gets the impression that any citizen hurrying to work is ready to stop at any moment and admire the beauty of the city. Such as here, at the glorious Kazan Cathedral.
51
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 51
6/9/11 8:45:21 PM
Kazan and St. Isaac’s Cathedrals You will stop here, too, to gaze at this grand specimen of architecture, striking in its monumentality and beauty. Its history is closely intertwined with that of Russia. The competition for the design of the Kazan cathedral was announced in 1799. The conditions were tough: the structure was to become the main church of the empire. It was to be the site of the icon of the Virgin of Kazan – the patron saint of the imperial house of the Romanovs. Furthermore, by order of Emperor Paul I, it was to resemble St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. However, although the chosen design met all the requirements, the Kazan Cathedral did not become a “copy” of the Roman one. This masterpiece has its own face.
So does its “little brother” St. Isaac’s Cathedral, a symbol of Saint Petersburg created by the great architect Monferrand. Take a stroll from Kazan Cathedral along the Moika River. Just a few blocks and you’ve reached your goal. St. Isaac’s was built over forty years. At the time, Petersburg residents often joked that a fortune-teller told Monferrand he would live as long as the church was under construction – and that’s why the architect was in no hurry. But the joke turned out to be prophetic. Auguste de Monferrand died a month after construction on the church was completed.
52
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 52
6/9/11 8:45:22 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 53
6/9/11 8:45:26 PM
A roller near St. Isaacâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cathedral
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 54
6/9/11 8:45:28 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 55
6/9/11 8:45:33 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 56
6/9/11 8:45:37 PM
Senatskaya Ploshchad (Senate Square) From St. Isaac’s Cathedral walk toward the Neva. You’ll come to Senatskaya Ploshchad, the very one that witnessed the Decembrist uprising, when the highest ranks of army officers stood against the tsar. In 1825, these aristocrats conspired to demand a constitution. The uprising was quashed, its leaders exiled, five of them were executed. Here, on Senatskaya Ploshchad, in the very center, was a symbol of the triumph of the imperial spirit: a monument to Peter the Great, the founder of Saint Petersburg. Thanks to Pushkin, it’s popularly known as the Bronze Horseman. It’s called the “genius loci,” the spirit of the Northern Capital.
57
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 57
6/9/11 8:45:40 PM
Anichkov Palace. Yusupov Palace In Saint Petersburg you encounter symbols of empire at every turn. Anichkov and Yusupov palaces are landmarks in the history of Russian favoritism. They are not so far from one another. Go from Anichkov Palace on Nevsky Prospekt to Yusupov Palace on the Fontanka embankment. The first was a witness to a mild farce: Empress Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, gave the palace to her dismissed favorite Razumovsky, to soften the bitterness of separation. The second became the stage for a bloody drama. On the night of December 30, 1916, the Yusupov Palace saw the murder of the last favorite in the history of tsarist Russia, the Siberian peasant Grigory Rasputin, friend to the family of Emperor Nicholas II, a “holy old man” to some, the “monster that tore apart the country” to others. Rasputin’s murderers, who included Felix Yusupov, the palace’s master, threw his corpse into the river.
58
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 58
6/9/11 8:45:42 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 59
6/9/11 8:11:46 PM
Good to Know
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 26
6/9/11 8:11:37 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 59
6/9/11 8:11:46 PM
Good to Know
Regatta on the Neva River
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 60
6/9/11 8:11:51 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 61
6/9/11 8:45:45 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 62
6/9/11 8:45:49 PM
Bridges of Petersburg The Fontanka, the Moika, the canals, the rivers, the streams… You only have to leave your hotel to remember another name for Saint Petersburg: the city of water, the Venice of the North. It’s not surprising: within city limits you can find more than 90 rivers, channels, and canals with a total length of about 300 kilometers. The city can also be called something of a museum of bridges. The city on the Neva has 342 bridges, including 22 drawbridges. If time allows, stay in Petersburg for one more night, just to watch how the “wings” open on the Dvortsovy, Blagoveshchensky, and Troitsky bridges.
You’ll be shown this little bridge if you take a river cruise. Absolutely all tourist vessels make a stop here. It’s Potseluev bridge, opposite Glinka Street across the Moika river. If there are lovers on the boat, they have to kiss. The tradition of “bridge kisses” is over two hundred years old.
63
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 63
6/9/11 8:45:53 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 64
6/9/11 8:45:55 PM
The Bank Bridge across Griboedov Canal
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 65
6/9/11 8:46:02 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 66
6/9/11 8:46:07 PM
The Russian Museum You’ve heard, of course, of the Hermitage, and perhaps you’ve even been there. But take a look at the Russian Museum, too. It has an extensive collection of Russian art: traditional icons, canvases by great painters, engravings, sculpture, and a numismatic collection. One path to understanding a country is through its art. It’s not the shortest, but it’s probably one of the most fascinating.
67
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 67
6/9/11 8:46:11 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 68
6/9/11 8:46:13 PM
Peterhof and Tsarskoe Selo What trait unites the emperors of Europe and Asia? The answer, of course, is a love for country homes. The region around Petersburg is rich in them. The most famous are Peterhof and Tsarskoe Selo. On the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, the rather modest palace of Peter the Great was rebuilt under Elizabeth to resemble Versailles. Luxurious reception halls, ceiling murals, encrusted parquette and gilded walls are the unchanging attributes of kingly havens. But even greater admiration is aroused by the gardens, which were planted according to the sketches by Peter himself. And, of course, the fountains.
even to Peterhof when it comes to luxury and comfort. But Tsarskoe Selo is famous not only for the buildings of its palaces. In 1810, by the order of Alexander I, a lyceum was established here. It was a privileged learning institution for the children of the court, including the emperor’s younger brothers, Nicholas and Michael. The program of study was developed by Mikhail Speranksy, a leading politician and scholar of the time. It was here that Alexander Pushkin studied. Of his lyceum, the great poet said: “Our Fatherland is Tsarskoe Selo.”
Tsarskoe Selo is also associated with Elizabeth’s name. The summer residence of the empress perhaps does not yield 69
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 69
6/9/11 8:46:16 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 70
6/9/11 8:46:18 PM
Taking a stroll in the rain near the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 71
6/9/11 8:46:21 PM
Miracles of the Russian North You have heard many times of the “mysterious Russian soul,” and you’d like to understand national character. Then start at the source. Go to the north, where the history of the Russian land begins, where severe nature cultivated a free and strong man, where storytellers located the magic island of Buyan. The Russian north embodies the main ideas of the Russian character: generosity, willfulness, a lack of concern for earthly comforts. This land was and remains Russia’s own sanctuary.
72
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 72
6/9/11 8:46:23 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 73
6/9/11 8:11:55 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 2
6/9/11 6:15:06 PM
Kizhi An open-air museum of wooden architecture: That’s Kizhi. Some fifty years ago, many old structures – chapels, houses, and farm buildings – were brought to an island in Lake Onega. So you can not only admire a miracle of architecture, but also take a walk through a unique preservation that gives an impression of the life of peasants of the Russian North in the 19th century. Here, in Kizhi, you can find the worldfamous architectural ensemble consisting of two churches and a belltower. The pearl of the ensemble is the Church of the
Transfiguration from 1714. It is a genuine masterpiece of wooden architecture, built in the finest traditions of ancient Russian carpentry – without a single nail. According to legend, the master cut the timber for the entire church with a single axe, which, after finishing the work, he threw in the lake.
74
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 74
6/9/11 8:11:58 PM
75
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 75
6/9/11 8:12:02 PM
Good to Know
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 26
6/9/11 8:11:37 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 75
6/9/11 8:12:02 PM
Good to Know
The museum of peasant life in Kizhi
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 76
6/9/11 8:12:07 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 77
6/9/11 8:46:26 PM
Valaam Take the time to visit Valaam as well, an archipelago in Ladoga Lake. Valaam was called the Athos of the North, because the Savior Transfiguration Monastery, famous to this day, was founded by monks and miracle workers. More than once the haven was subject to desolation and ruin; on several occasions the churches caught fire. But Valaam overcame these blows and arose anew. The remarkable combination of natural beauty, severe northern landscape, Russian architecture, and orthodox monastic culture is seemingly meant to celebrate the harmony of life.
78
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 78
6/9/11 8:46:29 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 79
6/9/11 8:46:32 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 80
6/9/11 8:46:33 PM
The Transfiguration of the Savior monastery in Valaam
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 81
6/9/11 8:46:39 PM
Solovki This historic and cultural complex, included in UNESCOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s list of World Heritage Sites, witnessed one of the darkest pages of Russian history of the 12th century. In 1923, the Solovki monastery became one of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first political prisons, the Solovetsky Camp. To this day, there are still fearsome traces of prison life, and there is a museum as well. The last father of the monastery was burnt alive. Only in 1990 were the Solovki islands returned to the Russian Orthodox Church.
82
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 82
6/9/11 8:46:43 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 83
6/9/11 8:46:46 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 84
6/9/11 8:46:48 PM
Solovki Islands. The Harbor of Good Fortune and the Solovki Monastery
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 85
6/9/11 8:46:54 PM
Veliky Novgorod Sir Veliky Novgorod. That was what this city was called in the Middle Ages. It’s not surprising. After all, this was the birthplace of Russian statehood. The lords of Rus were summoned here to crown Rurik, the founding father of the first ruling dynasty. The Novgorod veche, an assembly where all the city’s residents would work out common solutions to important issues, was the first attempt at Russian democracy. Several national heroes are associated with Veliky Novgorod: Prince Alexander Nevsky, Patriarch Nikon, and
Silvester, author of the famous book Domostroi. Novgorod started the traditions of medieval Russian chronicles, architecture, and painting. In 1570, Novgorod’s “free reign” was literally drowned in blood by Tsar Ivan the Terrible, who ordered the murder of almost the entire population of the city, from elderly men to infants.
86
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 86
6/9/11 8:46:58 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 87
6/9/11 8:47:02 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 88
6/9/11 8:47:04 PM
Yaroslavâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Court, a historical architectural complex
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 89
6/9/11 8:47:06 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 90
6/9/11 8:47:07 PM
The Annunciation Cathedral
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 91
6/9/11 8:47:11 PM
White Sun of the South
Business issues have been resolved, the sights of the capital have been seen, and you want to relax. But you associate relaxation with seaside resorts and sunny, southern climes. Not to worry: You can find this in Russia. After the neutral tones and calm of central Russia, the hues of the Caucasus and Krasnodar Territory are especially striking. The tall mountains, the rolling rivers, the warm Black Sea â&#x20AC;&#x201C; this is all our beautiful South.
92
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 92
6/9/11 8:47:13 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 93
6/9/11 8:12:10 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 2
6/9/11 6:15:06 PM
Riviera Park in Sochi
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 94
6/9/11 8:12:14 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 95
6/9/11 8:12:20 PM
Good to Know
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 26
6/9/11 8:11:37 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 95
6/9/11 8:12:20 PM
Good to Know
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 96
6/9/11 8:12:24 PM
Sochi The host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics is a place for those who value sporty, varied recreation. The fact is that this unique natural region is both a sea and ski resort. Where else can you slalom down a steep mountain slope an hour after bathing in the warm sea? Incidentally, Sochi is the longest city in Europe. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stretched 105 kilometers long (or 145 kilometers of roads). Vacationers are attracted by the warm climate, expansive beaches, and mineral springs. 97
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 97
6/9/11 8:47:16 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 98
6/9/11 8:47:20 PM
A bamboo grove in Sochi
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 99
6/9/11 8:47:26 PM
The Caucasus Mountains outside Sochi
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 100
6/9/11 8:47:30 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 101
6/9/11 8:47:36 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 102
6/9/11 8:47:40 PM
Sevastopol If you want to discover something new on your travels, visit Sevastopol. This city is unique in its historical value. The ancient Khersones was founded by the Greeks in the 5th century B.C. You can literally touch the youth of mankind in the archaeological preserve in downtown Sevastopol. In the 15th century the Genoans built the Cembalo fortress not far from the city, but it was seized by Turks soon after. Three hundred years later Crimea became a part of Russia, and Sevastopol became a Russian city. In the 19th century Sevastopol was a battlefield of the difficult Crimean war. During the first defense of the city, everything that might be considered a “trophy” was taken out of Sevastopol, including the thirteen bells of Sevastopol’s churches. In 1913 one of them was discovered hanging in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. But with the help of the French consul in Sevastopol, the “prisoner-of-war” bell was returned. The Black Sea fleet of the Russian Federation is based in Sevastopol. The city is given special status in the Constitution of Ukraine.
103
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 103
6/9/11 8:47:43 PM
Preparing to celebrate Navy Day
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 104
6/9/11 8:47:45 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 105
6/9/11 8:47:51 PM
106
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 106
6/9/11 8:47:54 PM
Wooden yacht for tourist trips on the Black Sea at Sevastopol
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 107
107
6/9/11 8:47:57 PM
Tales of the Urals The stony belt of Russia is the Ural Mountains. The mountain range separates the country into eastern and western halves, and if you have ever wanted to see the border of Europe and Asia with your own eyes, there’s no better place for it than the Urals. For Russia, the Ural Mountains first and foremost mean a wealth of minerals: Here you can find iron and copper ores, chrome and nickel, cobalt and zinc, coal and oil, gold and precious stones. But the Urals are more than the country’s mining and metallurgic base. It stands for stunning natural beauty and extraordinary people. It’s also a whole world of famous Ural tales, where gems come to life, and the masters of the mountains and forests come to man’s aid. 108
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 108
6/9/11 8:47:59 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 109
6/9/11 8:12:27 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 2
6/9/11 6:15:06 PM
The Ural River
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 110
6/9/11 8:12:31 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 111
6/9/11 8:12:37 PM
Good to Know
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 26
6/9/11 8:11:37 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 111
6/9/11 8:12:37 PM
Tourist Route
Yekaterinburg: Capital of the Urals
Good to Know 1. Square of 1905
2. Dam on the City Pond
Square of 1905 (until 1919: Torgovaya) is the main square of Yekaterinburg and is located in the city’s center. Traditionally it hosts the city’s most important events, including political rallies, public festivities, and the Ural garrison regiment parades. During the winter, the city’s New Year Tree shines brightly over the miniature town built from snow. From here you can walk down Lenin Prospect to the dam on the City Pond.
The Dam on the City Pond, on the Iset River was built in 1723 and provided the mechanical energy that set in motion the mechanisms of the newly founded Yekaterinburg factory, which started the city’s construction. Today the remaining few buildings of the former factory are home to a museum celebrating Ural’s architectural and industrial history. Further down Lenin Prospect you will find the Theater of Opera and Ballet.
3. Theater of Opera and Ballet The Theater of Opera and Ballet was founded in 1912. During the Soviet era the theater was known as the “laboratory of Soviet opera.” Today the theater continues to have a remarkable professional troupe, with a variety of members, including laureates of Russian and international competitions. It is a short distance from Klary Tsetkin ulitsa, the Church on Blood.
4. Church on Blood The Church on Blood (Church on Blood in Honor of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land) is one of the largest orthodox churches in Russia. It was built between 2000 and 2003 and is where the last Russian emperor, Nicholas II, and his family were executed by firing squad in 1918. The church has become an international site of pilgrimage for the faithful.
5. The RastorguevKharitonov estate The RastorguevKharitonov estate, located in the city center on Voznesenskaya Hill, is one of the oldest, most beautiful and well preserved estates in Yekaterinburg and is an example of 19th century architecture. The estate’s picturesque garden has an artificial lake complete with a rotunda. The larches and poplars in the lower part of the park are over 200 years old and are among the oldest trees in the city.
112
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 112
6/9/11 8:12:42 PM
TQZW[ aX ?TQbO
!
aX / TQ Xea _W UZ` _Q b
aX % EM Zb M^ eM
aX <Q^b[YMe_WMeM
UZM <^[_\QW` 8QZ
9
aX 9MXe_TQbM aX $ 9M^`M
aX 7T[WT^eMW[bM
aX ?MWW[ U BMZ`_Q``U
<X % ! S[PM
aX 7M^XM 8UNWZQWT`M
9
aX 9MW_UYM 3[^ÀW[S[
aX > Q\UZ M
bM aX 9MXe_TQ
[S[ aX 8aZMOTM^_W
M <^[_\QW` 8QZUZ
9[_W[b_WMeM aX
X @ M`U_ TOT QbM
^_W[S[ aX 8aZMOTM
9
0UZMY[
M aX >MPU_TOTQb
é%
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 113
6/14/11 2:35:43 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 114
6/9/11 8:48:03 PM
Yekaterinburg If you’re looking at possible investments in Russian industry, then Yekaterinburg is doubtlessly a candidate for your attention. In 2009 this city took first place in a ration of the country’s most business-friendly cities. If you take a look at Yekaterinburg’s history, it’s not surprising. In spring of 1723, an order of Peter the Great began the construction of Russia’s largest metalworking factory. The day when a trial run of war hammers was launched in the workshops is considered the date of the city’s birth. The factory fortress was named Yekaterinburg, in honor of Peter the Great’s wife, Empress Catherine. When it was built, the Yekaterinburg factory surpassed the technological resources of all the other metalworking plants of the world.
115
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 115
6/9/11 8:48:06 PM
The bells of the Urals are truly the pride of the local bell foundries
116
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 116
6/9/11 8:48:08 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 117
6/9/11 8:48:12 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 118
6/9/11 8:48:14 PM
A parade of brides in Yekaterinburg
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 119
6/9/11 8:48:18 PM
The Snows of Siberia, the Peaks of Altai The late 15th century. The Golden Horde collapses. On the endless vastness of northern Mongolia, the Siberian khanate takes shape. Almost a hundred years later, a regiment of Cossacks led by Yermak begins a conquest of this harsh land. The first fortress cities appear in the taiga and snow-covered deserts. In 1670 the Amsterdam bookseller Etienne Roger, after visiting Siberia, wrote: “Siberia is an enormous unexplored space stretching to the Great Wall of China. Travelers to Siberia spend six years on this journey, being forced to stop at certain places in the winter and others in the summer. The furs, the likes of which you won’t find in any other place, are the main object of trade among the residents here. Instead of bread, which does not exist here, they eat cured fish. For six or seven weeks at a time, breaking up into groups, they take sleds to hunt, dressed in three or four layers of pelts.” Today Siberia is not just the impassable taiga of legend. It has cities with populations over a million, major industrial plants and scientific research centers. It is a remarkable conglomerate of traditional craftsmanship and contemporary production. 120
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 120
6/9/11 8:48:20 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 121
6/9/11 8:12:43 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 2
6/9/11 6:15:06 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 122
6/9/11 8:12:47 PM
The Khakas steppe
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 123
6/9/11 8:48:24 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 124
6/9/11 8:48:29 PM
Novosibirsk This city is rightfully considered the scientific center of Siberia. Novosibirskâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Akademgorodok is the heart of the Siberian division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and it is known throughout the world. Here you will find dozens of research institutes and Novosibirsk State University. There are 32 institutions of higher education in Novosibirsk in total, and fourteen branches of universities of other Russian cities (including Moscow and Saint Petersburg). They bring together leading specialists in all basic sciences, technical fields, and the humanities: mathematics and informatics, physics and
chemistry, geology and biology, economics and sociology, medicine and ecology, philosophy and philology. Akademgorodok has always been and remains a center of gravity for scholars of advanced nations, major political figures, and the artistic elite. It is a phenomenon of a new academic community, a self-expression of the Russian intelligentsia and its social life. Private investments in the economy of Akademgorodok exceed US$150 million a year.
125
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 125
6/9/11 8:48:32 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 126
6/9/11 8:48:34 PM
A Novosibirsk scientist in the nuclear physics institute
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 127
6/9/11 8:48:38 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 128
6/9/11 8:48:39 PM
Children playing in Novosibirsk's central park
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 129
6/9/11 8:48:42 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 130
6/9/11 8:48:43 PM
Khakassia The industry of Siberia is constantly developing. One of the largest factories launched in recent years is the Khakassia aluminum factory, built by RUSAL. Put into operation in 2006, the factory is capable of yielding up to 300 thousand tons of metal a year. Khakassia also plays an important role in the economy. The realization of the project involved an overall volume of capital investment in the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s infrastructure of more than US$21 million. Completing the project required the construction of apartment buildings. Putting the factory into use created more than a thousand new jobs in the republic and significantly increased the amount of tax revenue for the local budget. Special attention is given to environmentally friendly production: the latest technologies prevent 99.5% of fluoride emissions and electric dust from entering the atmosphere.
131
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 131
6/9/11 8:48:50 PM
A Khakas woman in the Siberian mountains
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 132
6/9/11 8:48:54 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 133
6/9/11 8:49:00 PM
Irkutsk A major Siberian city, a cultural, political, and economic center of the region that since its founding has been an important backbone of trade routes to China. All the trade caravans between Russia and China passed through the city. In 2011 Irkutsk will mark its 350th anniversary. Whatever brought you here, find a chance to see the pearl of Russia, Lake Baikal.
134
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 134
6/9/11 8:49:04 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 135
6/9/11 8:49:08 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 136
6/9/11 8:49:11 PM
A park in Irkutsk
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 137
6/9/11 8:49:21 PM
A martial arts club in Novosibirsk
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 138
6/9/11 8:49:25 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 139
6/9/11 8:12:52 PM
Good to Know
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 26
6/9/11 8:11:37 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 139
6/9/11 8:12:52 PM
Good to Know
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 140
6/9/11 8:12:56 PM
Fountains in front of the Irkutsk City Theater
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 141
6/9/11 8:49:27 PM
Lake Baikal
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 142
6/9/11 8:49:31 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 143
6/9/11 8:49:37 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 144
6/9/11 8:49:41 PM
Baikal The deepest lake on the planet, a major reservoir of fresh water, whose name harks back to the Chinese Bei Hai, or “Northern Sea.” In Russia, too, Baikal is considered a sea. With its unique flora and fauna and mysterious islands, Baikal is a persistent point of gravity and worship. The world-famous Ivolginsky datsan, the spiritual center of Buddhism in Russia, is located on Lake Baikal. It was built in 1945 by local craftsmen. Every year a multitude of pilgrims visit Ivolginsky datsan in order to pay respects to the sarcophagus with the body of hambo lama Itigilov. Studies of the tissue of the body of the lama, who began meditating in 1927 and was buried in a cliff, have shown that they are no different from the tissue of living people. The datsan’s facilities include Russia’s largest library of Buddhist texts, stupas, and an orchard with a holy Boddha tree.
145
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 145
6/9/11 8:49:46 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 146
6/9/11 8:49:48 PM
Ivolginsky Datsan in Buryatia
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 147
6/9/11 8:49:54 PM
Krasnoyarsk The Yenisei is one of the greatest rivers of Russia and the world, a border between Western and Eastern Siberia. From Sayan to the Arctic Ocean it passes through all of Siberia’s climate zones: camels live in its upper reaches, polar bears in its lower reaches. Krasnoyarsk, one of the oldest cities in Siberia, spans both banks of the Yenisei. It was incorporated in 1690. Now it is a major economic and cultural center of Central and Eastern Siberia. The automobile and pedestrian bridge across the Yenisei was Asia’s longest bridge when it was built. The Krasnoyarsk aluminum factory, built in 1964, is the world’s second largest
aluminum factory. It produces 27% of Russia’s aluminum, and 3% of the world’s aluminum. The factory, which belongs to RUSAL, the world’s largest aluminum company, works in partnership with the enormous Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station, and consumes about 70% of the electricity it produces.
148
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 148
6/9/11 8:50:01 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 149
6/9/11 8:50:05 PM
Tourist Route
Siberian Hospitality in Krasnoyarsk
1. The Central Park The Central Park is located in the historical center of Krasnoyarsk, on the left bank of the Yenisei. The park was founded in 1828 and was part of a virgin pine forest. Today it is one of Krasnoyarsk’s most popular recreational parks and is packed with modern amusements as well as Russia’s first children’s railroad, built in 1936.
2. The Theater of Opera and Ballet The Theater of Opera and Ballet was founded in 1976. Its first production was Borodin’s famous opera, Prince Igor. Over the last thirty-five years the theater has staged many wonderful productions, including works by the greatest Russian and international composers and has toured a number of countries, including China. Not far from the theater is the Communal Bridge, which spans the Yenisei.
3. The Communal Bridge The Communal Bridge in Krasnoyarsk has allowed pedestrians and automobiles to cross the Yenisei, the great river of Siberia, since 1961. It consists of two bridges, 910m and 410m long, separated by a levee across Otdykh Island. The bridge is 23.4m wide and 26m high. The total length of the bridge is 2,100m. Ulitsa Veinbauma leads from the bridge to Paraskeva Pyatnitsa chapel.
4. The Paraskeva Pyatnitsa Chapel The Paraskeva Pyatnitsa chapel built in 1805 on Karaulnaya Hill is a symbol of the city of Krasnoyarsk and its picture can be found on the face side of Russia’s ten-ruble note. Karaulnaya Hill offers one of the best scenic views of Krasnoyarsk and at its peak provides a panoramic view of the city.
150
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 150
6/9/11 8:50:08 PM
ZM TM Q^O 9M aX
UZM aX Ea^UeM 3MSM^
MfUZM aX ?`Q\MZM >
ZUeM [bM QbZ ^ [ ? aX
aX .^ eMZ _WM eM
aX BQUZNMaYM
[ aX 3[^ÀW[S
M aX >[NQ_\ÀQ^
aX 8QZUZM
M aX 7M^XM 9M^W_
aX ?a^UW[bM
aX >Q_\aNXUWU
aX 0aN^[bUZ_W[S[
[bM [X[W [ 9
ee _MPZ [ <[
[ ;`PeWTM
151
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 151
6/14/11 2:36:37 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 152
6/9/11 8:50:10 PM
The dam of the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power plant
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 153
6/9/11 8:50:13 PM
The Communal Bridge across the Yenisei
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 154
6/9/11 8:50:15 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 155
6/9/11 8:50:20 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 156
6/9/11 8:50:24 PM
Yacht regatta in Krasnoyarsk sea
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 157
6/9/11 8:50:32 PM
The Mysterious Far East
Nowhere is the Asian soul of Russia as palpable as in the Far East. And that’s no accident, for here Russia borders her ancient Asian neighbors, China and Mongolia. The border with China, which passes along the rivers Amur and Ussuri, stretches more than 4200 kilometers – Russia’s longest border after the one with Kazakhstan. The Far East boasts astounding natural beauty. It has everything: volcanoes, a sea with sandy beaches and magical underwater landscapes, taiga thickets that have largely preserved their original shape, and the famous valley of geysers, mountain streams, waterfalls, caves, and mighty, vine-covered trees on steep inclines. 158
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 158
6/9/11 8:50:38 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 159
6/9/11 8:13:00 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 2
6/9/11 6:15:06 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 160
6/9/11 8:13:04 PM
The coast of the Sea of Japan
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 161
6/9/11 8:50:41 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 162
6/9/11 8:50:47 PM
Chukotka Chukotka is the easternmost place in Eurasia, a wealthy and beautiful region of Russia. Its relatively small territory is home to almost sixty ethnic groups, including sixteen native peoples of the north â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Chukchas, Eskimos, Evens, Nenets, Koryaks, and others.
163
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 163
6/9/11 8:50:50 PM
A Chukotka mother with her child
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 164
6/9/11 8:50:53 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 165
6/9/11 8:50:55 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 166
6/9/11 8:50:57 PM
A reindeer herdersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; camp in tundra
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 167
6/9/11 8:51:00 PM
Kamchatka For a long time, the mysterious peninsula was a closed region of the Soviet Union. Until 1990, not a single foreigner could step on the earth of Kamchatka, and even Russians needed a special pass. Fortunately, the time of prohibitions has passed. And today you have a rare chance to see the unity of nature. The flame of volcanoes and the ice on their peaks, the firmament of earth and the waters of the sea: thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Kamchatka. Winter and summer never seem to leave the peninsula completely. In the harshest frosts, the hot springs have green grass and insects crawling over them, but in the hottest days of summer snow lies on the mountains.
Many living treasures are to be found in the Sea of Okhotsk. Its main bounty is the Kamchatka crab, which shocks diners with its immensity. You should come here in the spring, when mobs of the armored giants gather together, and at depths of fifteen meters the floor of the sea resembles a prickly road paved with their shells.
168
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 168
6/9/11 8:51:03 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 169
6/9/11 8:51:09 PM
The razorbill auk is a species of water fowl from the auk family inhabiting Kamchatka
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 170
6/9/11 8:51:13 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 171
6/9/11 8:13:10 PM
Good to Know
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 26
6/9/11 8:11:37 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 171
6/9/11 8:13:10 PM
Good to Know
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 172
6/9/11 8:13:16 PM
Kamchatka crab
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 173
6/9/11 8:51:19 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 174
6/9/11 8:51:24 PM
Yakutia Yakutia is a land of records. The biggest region of Russia. The largest administrative unit on earth. If Yakutia was an independent state, it would be the eighth biggest in the world. Yet for all of that, Yakutiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s population is a bit less than a million, which is also a record. Four geographic zones â&#x20AC;&#x201C; taiga, tundra, forest tundra, and arctic desert â&#x20AC;&#x201C; make up all of Yakutia. The appropriation of its natural resources began in the 1920s. A decade later, the sea port Tiksi was built at the mouth of the Lena river, and the North Sea trade route was put into operation. And in the 1950s, the famous diamond mines of Yakutia were opened, creating a mighty infrastructure for the diamond industry.
175
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 175
6/9/11 8:51:27 PM
The Lena Pillars, a geological formation on the banks of the Lena River in Yakutia
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 176
6/9/11 8:51:29 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 177
6/9/11 8:51:36 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 178
6/9/11 8:51:41 PM
A cedar pine in the taiga
Russia-China200x200_ch_1.indd 179
6/9/11 8:51:45 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 180
6/8/11 11:22:33 PM
Chapter 2
History and Traditions The great princes and their brave militias, humble and hardworking peasants and highly educated aristocrats, empresses and consorts, colonels and scholars – the pages of Russian history have millions of heroes. Sviatoslav’s campaigns and the Baptism of Russia, land assemblies and palace coups, victorious wars and economic breakthroughs – the chronicle of Russia have thousands of significant events. Some left the inertia of uplift in their wake or predetermined a flourishing future. Others decreased the level of social morals or held destructive potential. But perhaps there hasn’t been not a single epoch in the history of our country, not a single period, that we could be proud of.
The 15th century had the oprichnina, but also the reforms of the Elected Rada. The 17th was not just the rebellion of Stenka Razin, but also the land assemblies. The 19th century brought revolutionaries of all stripes, but also Pushkin’s Golden Age, the first railroad and the birth of Russian philosophy. The 20th century was a time of national triumphs and human tragedies. It demonstrated to the whole world the remarkable strength of the Russian spirit, its exceptional resilience and endurance. We remember our roots. Like the heroic giants of folklore, who drew their strength from their native soil, Russia seeks the sources of her power first of all in her own great history.
181
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 181
6/8/11 11:22:33 PM
Medieval Russia
The few remaining records from the time detail the following origins of the Slavs: “After the flood the three sons of Noah split the earth: the east went to Sim, the south land to Ham. The north and west to Afet; the tribe of Afet begat the Slavic people.” Polyane, drevlyane, krivichi, vyatichi, dregovichi – the great number of Slavic tribes settled in an enormous territory. The Scandinavians call Russia ‘Gardarika’ – the land of a thousand towns. Glittering examples of these were towns such as Novgorod, Polotsk, Arkona, Beloozero and Izborsk. 182
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 182
6/8/11 11:22:33 PM
Viktor Vasnetsov, Baptism of Saint Prince Vladimir, 1890
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 183
6/8/11 11:22:35 PM
Medieval Russia
Novgorod's birchbarks
It is widely believed that the Russian state was founded in 862 when the Rurik dynasty took control of the country. Historical documents from the time are quoted as saying, “and Prince Rurik and his brothers came, and by them the land was called Russian.” The descendants of Rurik, Russian princes,
strengthened and united their land. Prince Oleg the Wise moved his capital to Kiev. The first Christian in Russia, Princess Olga, continued the affair of uniting the Russian land. She initiated the first taxation system, which helped centralize power. Olga’s son, Prince Sviatoslav the Brave, was the greatest warrior
of his time. Sviatoslav’s numerous victories and conquests made Russia the most powerful European state. History has preserved the words he spoke before his last battle: “The dead have no shame.”
184
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 184
6/8/11 11:22:37 PM
Russia’s Baptism
Good to Know Shrovetide
Grand Prince of Kiev Vladimir Svyatoslavich
Ask any Russian how Russia was baptized and you’ll be told a funny old legend. In 988 the Kievan Prince Vladimir received “ambassadors of faith” – representatives of the three monotheistic religions, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The prince rejected Islam on account of its prohibition of wine. “The merriment of Russia is drinking, without drinking Russia cannot be,” was his response to the Muslim’s attempts at persuasion.
He did not accept Judaism because the Jews lacked their own state and were scattered across the earth. Nor did he accept the proposal made by the emissaries of the Pope of Rome, because his grandmother, Princess Olga, had rejected Catholicism. Only the sermon from the representative of the Orthodox Byzantine Church made a favorable impression on him. However, not one to be rushed into making a decision, Vladimir sent his ambassadors to different countries and upon returning, they named the Greek faith the best, and the Greek cathedrals and liturgy the most beautiful. Obviously, this legend obscures the real facts that led to Russia’s choice of Orthodox Christianity. Foremost among these are the strong cultural and economic ties with Byzantium and the presence of an influential Orthodox community that formed long before Vladimir’s coronation. However, the baptism of Russia remains one of the fundamental events of Russian history.
Pagan traditions were still preserved, in a unique blend with Christianity. For instance, the holiday of the Sun, heralding the onset of spring, coincided with Orthodox Shrovetide. The tradition of baking blini on Shrovetide continues to this day, but today’s bakers are unlikely to think of the Yarila, the pagan sun god who is symbolized by the round blin. If your trip to Russia falls on the beginning of spring, you must try Russian blini. With butter, sour cream, fish, or caviar – during Shrovetide this is the main dish at virtually every restaurant or small street cafe.
185
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 185
6/8/11 11:22:38 PM
Russians Fight Tartar Invaders at the Town of Kozelsk in 1238. A miniature from a chronicle made during the reign of Ivan IV the Terrible, mid-16th century
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 186
6/8/11 11:22:39 PM
The Mongol-Tatar Invasion
Good to Know Folk Games
It’s remarkable how some of the darkest pages of Russian history in one way or another echo the chronicles of China. In the 13th century, after conquering almost all of Asia, Genghis Khan’s grandson Batu Khan brought his enormous horde (12 tumens) to the Russian border. Due to their internal divisions, the Russian princes were unable to repel the attack. In bloody battles, the Mongols took the Russian towns of Ryazan, Kolomna, Moscow (then a small fortress), and Vladimir, but the defeats did not break the proud spirit of the Russian people and the warlord Evpaty Kolovrat, with his small band of fighters heroically beat back the conquering Mongol hordes. Russians also remember the small fortress city of Kozelsk, which held back the entire Mongol-Tatar horde for seven weeks. In the end, the
little town was taken and raised to the ground by the Mongols who called it an “evil city.” In the same century, Genghis Khan’s other grandson, Khubilai (or as he came to be called in the West thanks to Marco Polo, Kublai Khan) seized China, overthrowing the Song dynasty and founding his own.
Since the birth of the Russian state, the military have held games and festivities in many towns and villages across Russia on specific holidays. People gather to show their skill, group fist fights, besiege snow fortresses, play “king of the mountain,” tug of rope, climb a smooth pillar and battle with pillows on a log raised above the earth. All these games were born in our distant and glorious past and can still be witnessed during Christmas and Easter in Moscow or Petersburg.
187
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 187
6/8/11 11:22:40 PM
The Unification of Russia and Creation of the Muscovy State Only united can we conquer. The drive to centralize and overcome division recurs throughout Russiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history. In medieval Russia, the centers of unifying activity were Kiev, Novgorod, and Vladimir. But only Moscow was able to unite all the East Slavic principalities in a single, powerful state.
188
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 188
6/8/11 11:22:43 PM
Boris Krylov, At the Kulikovo Field, 1975
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 189
6/8/11 11:22:45 PM
Overthrowing the Tatar-Mongol Yoke
Have you ever heard the phrase: “Scratch a Russian, find a Tatar”? The origins of this phrase have never been established but it fully corresponds to historical reality.
A fresco with the portrait of duke Dmitry Donskoi. A fragment of the paintings on the southern wall of the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin
For almost 250 years the medieval Russian principalities were under the power of the Tatar Mongols. Russians continued to fight for their freedom while, at the same time, fraternizing with the Mongol khans. They killed them, while giving up their sisters and daughters as wives. However, the hope of liberating the country from the weight of the oppression never faded and a path to freedom was forged with the Battle of Kulikovo. The Russian forces were led by Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoi who called all Russian princes to gather at Kolomna with their armies and commanders. According to historical records, this call drew a response from 23 princes. The blessing of the venerable Sergius of Radonezh – hegumen of the Troitsa-Sergiev Monastery, and the most influential ecclesiastical figure – gave enormous moral support to the fighting spirit of
the Russian armies. In 1380, at the meeting of the Don and the Nepryadva Rivers, the 150,000 strong Russian army did battle against the 180,000 strong Tatar army. After losing two thirds of his army, the Tatar leader, Mamai, fled. The conflict at Kulikovo Field is considered one of the bloodiest battles in Russian history but the significance of the victory was enormous. In the words of prominent Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky, “The Muscovy state was born on Kulikovo Field.”
190
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 190
6/8/11 11:22:47 PM
The Unification of Russia
The Russian coat of arms of the 14th century
The late 15th century was the period when Russia took shape and the country definitively freed itself from the Mongol oppression while forming the political foundations of the centralised state. Ivan III was a towering political figure, a far-sighted man, calculating and persistent, careful and clever. For a long time, he was called Ivan the Great, for transforming the face of the state, turning it from a strong principality to a powerful
centralised state. During his reign, Ivan Vasilievich unified the various regions of Great Russia with great success. He mobilized major military forces, but had no need to fight bloody battles, since the population did not put up any serious resistance. In most cases, the boyars willingly recognized the authority of the great prince and either became sworn princes or fled to neighboring Lithuania. Ivan introduced a new state seal, the two-headed eagle, which you have seen many times on our flags, documents, and buildings. The eagle “flew” to Russia from the Byzantine Empire, to symbolize that Russia remained the only Orthodox realm independent from the Turkish sultan after the fall of Constantinople. The two crowned heads of the eagle signified the unity of spiritual and secular power, the power of the patriarch and the tsar over the Russian land. One head is directed at the West, and the other to the East, signifying Russia’s position in the middle and itself as a great Eurasian power.
Good to Know The White-Stone Kremlin
The Moscow Kremlin was originally made of wood and served as a fortification of a village of the Kriviches, a Slavic tribe. In the 8th century it became the residence of Muscovite princes. In 1367, under Great Prince Dmitry Donskoi, the wooden logs were replaced with walls and towers of white stone. From this time forward the chronicles contain mention of the “white stone Kremlin” and “white stone Moscow,” which had become symbols of hope for the unification of Russia. In the late 15th century, the Moscow Kremlin was fundamentally reconstructed with the help of Italian stonemasons, and acquired what largely remains its current appearance.
191
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 191
6/8/11 11:22:47 PM
The Beginning of the Romanov Dynasty In 2008, Science magazine published an interesting article. Scholars connected the succession of ruling dynasties in China with the periods of monsoons. Harsh droughts coincided in time with the fall of the Tang, Yuan, and Ming dynasties. In our country, there was only one dynasty change. The last of the Rurikovich dynasty – Fyodor Ioannovich, son of Ivan the Terrible – did not leave an heir. It set off the Time of Troubles. However, the troubles were overcome and the new dynasty that ascended the Russian throne turned a relatively small state on Europe’s edge into an enormous Eurasian power.
192
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 192
6/8/11 11:22:48 PM
Reproduction of the drawing depicting Great Prince Ivan IV from the book Portraits, Coat of Arms and Seals of the Great State Book, 1672
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 193
6/8/11 11:22:50 PM
The Reforms of Ivan the Terrible
Aleksei Kivshenko, Prince Ivan IV Vasilyevich the Terrible conquering Kazan, 1880
On 16th January 1547, Great Prince Ivan IV was ceremoniously crowned tsar, and began to radically reform how the Muscovy state was organised. He created a permanent army, began printing books, and created a system of general education schools. In 1552, Ivan IV’s army, 150,000 men strong, besieged and stormed Kazan, and as a result Muscovy annexed the Volga region, and took the Astrakhan khanate a few years later. Chuvashia and a
large part of Bashkiria voluntarily joined the Russian state. Contacts with the North Caucasus and Central Asia expanded and became more durable. The Muscovy state doubled its land mass, tripled its population and established 155 cities and fortresses. However, the second half of Ivan’s reign involved quite different changes. The tsar was haunted by thoughts of betrayal and treachery so began a campaign of capital punishment.
He declared his mistrust of the reigning aristocracy, the boyars, many of whom were subjected to torture, or even murder. The tsar acquired a new inner circle: the oprichniki. The emblem of the oprichnina was a broom and a dog’s head, tied to a saddle. This meant that the oprichniki “swept away betrayal” and “chewed up traitors.” Tsar Ivan Vasilievich was named the Terrible. A major event of the oprichnina was the sack of Novgorod in 1570. The tsar, who suspected Novgorod of treason, led the campaign himself. All the cities on the road from Moscow were pillaged. It is believed that the number of victims in Novgorod, which then had a population of no more than 30,000 people, reached up to 15,000.
194
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 194
6/8/11 11:22:52 PM
The Time of Troubles
Boris Godunov (the picture on top) and False Dmitry I (the picture below)
Perhaps you have seen postcards or book illustrations or, if you’re lucky, the original of the painting Ivan the Terrible Murders his Son. For a long time, it was considered an indisputable fact that Ioann Ioannovich was the victim of his father, Tsar Ivan the Terrible. However, scholars have disproven that version. The son and heir to Ivan the Terrible did not, indeed, die of natural causes. He was poisoned with corrosive sublimate, a poison containing mercury. We can only guess who committed this crime, after his death his throne was occupied by his son Fyodor, a man of an extraordinarily pure and moral life. Fyodor’s right hand man was his brother-in-law, Boris Godunov, who after the death of the childless tsar became the heir to the throne. Godunov’s name is tied to the Time of the Troubles, a period of famine, Polish-Swedish intervention, and serious crisis. Three years of bad harvests, from 1601 to 1603, mass famine and dissatisfaction. Ivan the Terrible’s other son, Dmitry, had died in strange circumstances years earlier but rumors persisted that he was alive, thereby making Godunov’s reign unlawful. Further
confusion was caused with the appearance of an impostor, Grigory Otrepiev, a fugitive monk who passed himself for Prince Dmitry in Poland. The Polish king accepted the ‘False Dmitry’s’ claim to the Russian throne and the false prince promised to give Smolensk to Poland in return. In 1604 the impostor’s troops crossed the Russian border. Many cities conceded to his power and the Moscow army was broken. Eight years of disaster followed: boyar conspiracies, the death of the impostor and the appearance of a second false prince, a brief period of boyar power and the most serious foreign political takeover in the country’s history. In 1612 Kuzma Minin, an elder from Nizhni Novgorod, gathered a people’s militia. It was headed by Prince Dmitry Pozharsky. In August of 1612 the militia dealt a defeat to the Polish armies and Moscow was liberated. Today a monument to Minin and Pozharsky stands on Red Square.
195
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 195
6/8/11 11:22:52 PM
Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, first Russian tsar of the house of Romanov
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 196
6/8/11 11:22:52 PM
The New Dynasty
Good to Know Tea-drinking Traditions The election of 16-year-old Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov to the throne in 1613 represented the start of the Romanov dynasty, which would define the fate of Russia for the next three centuries. Tsar Michael continued the conquest of Siberia. Russian settlements were founded on the Amur River, the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk, and Chukotka. The reign of his heir, Tsar Alexy, was marked by stability. Called the Tranquil, Alexy was a peace-loving and educated man. Under his rule, Ukraine was joined to Russia and the ruble was introduced. The Russian currency still bears this name to this day.
The Romanov dynasty is linked to Russia’s history of tea, and the rise of its teadrinking traditions. In 1638, Vasily Starkov, the son of a boyar, was sent to the khan of Altyn with gifts, and in response the khan presented Muscovites with tea. At first this bewildered Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich: How could the khan have exchanged simple “grass” for sable? But he tried the beverage, liked it, and began to consume it regularly. During the reign of Alexy Mikhailovich, the Russian ambassador Perfiliev once again brought tea from China, and the court doctor successfully used a tea infusion to cure the tsar of a stomach illness. In 1679, the first contract to deliver tea from China was signed. Thus began an active barter trade, advantageous for both Chinese and Russian merchants. By the mid-19th century, tea had become the most popular beverage in Russia. Numerous tea shops
appeared in large cities, tea privileges were established in the army, tea was drunk in every home, and a phrase was coined that’s still in use today: “to give for tea,” which means “to tip.” Russia formed its own special traditions of tea time. A clean white tablecloth with patterns, a plump, gleamingly clean and boiling hot samovar on a bronze tray; hard ring rolls, custard tarts, sweet buns, pies, candies, jam, honey in small vases; a decorated porcelain teapot, covered with a clean towel or a specially sewn case shaped like a hen or a doll; snow-white porcelain cups on saucers. Tea was drunk from a saucer with lumps of sugar. People warmed themselves with tea on cold nights. People discussed the news at tea. The tradition of drinking tea with friends is strong in Russia to this day. But be ready for the question “More tea?” to be followed by at least another hour of warm discussion.
197
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 197
6/8/11 11:22:53 PM
The Rise of the Russian Empire The estate monarchy defined Russia in the 17th century. Absolute monarchy came to Russia half a century later. The absolutist regime was first recorded in a Military Regulation: “His Majesty is an autocratic monarch, to whom no one in the world in his affairs should give an answer.” The author of these transformations was Tsar Peter the Great. In 1721 he declared himself emperor, and Russia an empire. In the western tradition, only a mighty power of a continental scale could be considered an empire. Thus the new title of Russian tsars meant a sharp increase in Russia’s weight in external politics for the West. His famous Petrine reforms defined the face of the state for centuries to come. 198
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 198
6/8/11 11:22:55 PM
Jean-Marc Nattier, Portrait of Peter I the Great, 1710
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 199
6/8/11 11:22:57 PM
Peter the Great and His Reforms
A monumental canvas by contemporary Chinese artists Dai Dudu, Li Teji and Chang Anzun, with a flowery title that might be literary translated as “The Spiritual Epic of a Discussion with Dante”, depicts a hundred historical figures who, in the opinion of the painting’s creators, influenced the progress of world history. Among the Russian representatives of the “great hundred” is Peter the First.
St. Petersburg, view of the banks of the Neva river between the Admiralty and the buildings of the Academy of Sciences. 18th century
Wide-ranging changes in military, government, and socioeconomic life of Russia are linked closely with the extraordinary personality of the first Russian emperor. Peter understood the state as the “good of all,” which should encourage the increase of the country’s wealth, an increase in the prosperity of its subjects and the construction of a highly effective army. The military victories of Russian weaponry under Peter palpably expanded the borders of the state. From 1701 to 1704, the coasts of the Gulf of Finland were
200
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 200
6/9/11 1:48:05 PM
conquered, and the city Saint Petersburg was founded (in 1712 it became the new capital of Russia). In 1709 the Russian and Swedish armies met near the Ukrainian city Poltava in the decisive battle. The Swedish army was totally routed, its remnants surrendered to the mercy of victors. The Ukrainian hetman Mazeppa, who had gone to the side of the Swedes, hastened the loss of Ukrainian autonomy and Russia got a port on the Baltic Sea. Peter inherited a Russia obsolete of industry from the Muscovites . The boyars who ran the country had never thought of mining mineral deposits and the country had been importing iron from Sweden. In return, Russia sent flax, lumber, and pelts to the West. The geological exploratory expeditions initiated by Peter yielded exciting results with reservoirs of iron ore being discovered in the Urals. In 1719 mining laws were established: concealing ore or attempting to
sabotage operations could be punished by death. New factories (“manufactures”) were created primarily for the production of cannons, gunpowder, sails, ships, and footwear. The weapons factories in Tula and Sestroretsk soon made it possible for Russia to stop importing arms. The rapid development of the country and industry required educational reforms. New schools began training Russians in medicine, shipbuilding, navigation, engineering, mining, and craftsmanship. The publishing business developed quickly. A number of new print shops put out books and textbooks. The first public library opened. The Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg combined research with pedagogy: it included both a university and a gymnasium. Peter the Great became the founder of one of the main Russian traditions that continue to this day. In the pre-Petrine era Russia celebrated the New Year in September. Celebrations
took place in the Kremlin with the participation of the Patriarch, and had almost no relationship to the ordinary life of the people. Peter made 1st January the beginning of the year by special degree in 1699. The new year 1700 was celebrated in Moscow for seven days by royal order. Homeowners were supposed to put evergreen branches in front of their houses and gates. Each night fireworks were set off, shots were fired from two hundred cannon around the Kremlin, and from smaller weapons in private courts. New Year’s festivities, minstrels, jesters, and mummers survived from the times of Slavic paganism. Orthodox traditions added New Year’s carols to the holiday. In the Russian Empire, balls were organised for New Year’s Eve, which in Soviet times were replaced with the famous New Year’s Eve concerts. This remarkable fusion of customs and traditions has made New Year’s Eve into one of the most beloved holidays of our people. 201
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 201
6/8/11 11:22:59 PM
Palace Coups
As often occurs in history, the era of Petrine reforms was followed by 37 years of political instability. Historians call this time the Era of Palace Coups. State politics from 1725 to 1762 was essentially determined by separate groups of the court elite. They interfered in issues of succession, arranging conspiracies and making assassination attempts. Significantly, the reason for this interference was a Charter concerning succession published by Peter the Great on 5th February 1722. The document confirmed a new order for the transfer of power: “a personal appointment, at the discretion of the reigning sovereign.” Peter himself did not use this charter, and died on 28th January 1725, without naming an heir. Immediately after his death the representatives of the ruling elite began a struggle for power.
The decisive force in the palace coups was the royal guard, a privileged part of the regular army that Peter created (the famous Semenov and Preobrazhensky regiments, and in the 1730s they were joined by two new ones, Izmailov and Konnogvardeisky). Its involvement decided the outcome of any dispute. Whoever had the support of the guard won. The guard represented an entire estate: the aristocrats. After a series of palace coups (which were resolved in favor of Peter’s widow Catherine; Peter’s niece Anna Ioannovna, and Peter’s daughter Elizabeth), the throne was taken by Elizabeth’s heir, her nephew and grandson of Peter the Great, Peter Ulrich, count of Holstein.
dissatisfaction among the guard. Peter III refused all conquests of the victorious Seven Year’s War with Prussia, which had been waged by Elizabeth. A new conspiracy ripened within the guard. As a result of the final palace coup of the 18th century, the wife of Peter III, Empress Catherine II, ascended to the throne.
He ascended the throne under the name Peter III. However, one of the first steps of the new sovereign provoked sharp
202
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 202
6/8/11 11:22:59 PM
Teamsters of the Semenov, Preobrazhensky and Izmailov Regiments of the Royal Guards were decisive force in the palace coups
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 203
6/8/11 11:23:00 PM
Stefano Torelli, Portrait of Empress Catherine the Great, 1762â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1766
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 204
6/8/11 11:23:02 PM
Enlightened Absolutism
In her memoirs Catherine described the state of Russia at the beginning of her reign: “The finances were exhausted. The army had not received pay in three months. Trade was in decline. Justice was sold… the laws were followed only in cases when they favored the strong person.” The empress formulated the fundamental tasks of power as follows: enlightenment, observation of the law, good policing and abundance. A policy of gradual development was realised through reforms: legal, administrative, and gubernatorial. The territory of the Russian state had grown considerably through the addition of fertile southern lands: Crimea, the Black Sea coast, the eastern part of what then was Poland. The population
grew from 23.2 million (in 1763) to 37.4 million (in 1796). Catherine the Great formed 29 new provinces and built about 144 cities. By the late 18th century the country had 1,200 major enterprises, whereas in 1767 there had been 663. A credit bank was established and paper money was put into circulation. Catherine went down in history as Catherine the Great. The empress considered herself a “philosopher on the throne.” She conducted an active correspondence with Voltaire and Diderot, and patronized various forms of art: architecture, music and painting. Under her, the Hermitage and the Public Library appeared in St. Petersburg.
205
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 205
6/8/11 11:23:04 PM
Russia in the 19th Century
The 19th century occupies a special place in the history of Russia. The empire’s territory took definitive shape through the annex of the North Caucasus, the Transcaucasia, and Central Asia. In a hundred years the population grew threefold. The social sphere of Russian society seriously changed. Russia’s political life is traditionally split into epochs of reform and period of reaction, linked to one personality or another. In reality everything was, of course, much more complicated. The activity of Russian emperors was defined by a complex interaction of very diverse interest groups: nobles, clerks, major landowners. By the beginning of the century, Russia was still a primarily agricultural century. Peasants accounted for 98% of the population. The so-called “industrial revolution” began in Russia only at the end of the century. Its rapid economic growth would become unprecedented in world history. 206
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 206
6/8/11 11:23:07 PM
Emperor Alexander I
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 207
6/8/11 11:23:09 PM
Alexander I and the War of 1812
“If civilization were more developed, I would end serfdom, even if it cost me my head,” the emperor said. Serfdom was a form of the peasant’s feudal dependence on his master, and it truly was not only a serious problem for the country, but also a matter of shame for the liberal sovereign: serf farmers were “tied” to the land, and the landowner could buy, sell, or exchange land along with people. The total subjugation that turned 80% of the country’s population into slaves did not please Alexander. The liberal Mikhail Speransky became one of the tsar’s closest advisors, and compiled numerous Battle of Borodino
reformation projects, but alas their goals far exceeded what was possible at the
Catherine the Great’s grandson
considered him an “inventive Byzantine,”
time. Russia was not ready for freedom
ascended the throne after the brief
an actor capable of playing any role.
and Alexander considered himself a
reign of his father, Paul. Historians call
In his court the emperor was called a
“happy accident” on the throne of tsars.
Alexander I one of the most important
“mysterious sphinx.” Young, emotional,
figures in Russian history. His policies
impressionable, simultaneously generous
were clear and well thought out. An
and selfish, Alexander decided from the
aristocrat and liberal, he seemed to
very beginning to play a grand role on the
his contemporaries like a mystery that
international stage and set about realising
was impossible to fully solve. Napoleon
his political ideals with youthful passion.
At the beginning of the century Russia entered the succession of Napoleonic wars: Europe fought with the “monster from Corsica,” as European monarchs called Napoleon, and Russia could not remain on the sidelines. However, the
208
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 208
6/8/11 11:23:11 PM
Good to Know Cossacks in Paris
foreign campaigns brought no victories;
symbol of stalwartness and heroism in
interestingly, at the battle of Austerlitz
defense of the homeland. The evaluation
Alexander I himself tried to stop fleeing
has not changed in two hundred years.
soldiers with the words: “Stop! I’m with you! Your tsar is with you!”
On September 2, the French entered Moscow. Napoleon expected the
On June 12, 1812, having gathered an
Muscovites to bring him the keys to the
army 600,000 strong, Napoleon crossed
city. But the empty capital of Russia met
Russia’s borders. In the first few months
Napoleon with a blaze of fires. Russian
the Russian forces retreated, and soon
citizens realized the idea of Mikhail
the French were near Moscow. On August
Kutuzov: “To save Russia, Moscow must
20, the post of commander was taken by
be burned.”
Mikhail Kutuzov, one of the best pupils of the Russian general Alexander Suvorov.
A month later French forces moved to the south. The Russian army, which by
The Russian forces would give a general
that time had gathered fresh forces,
battle to the French near the village of
transitioned to an attack. Guerrilla
Borodino. “Of all my battles, the worst
units played a huge role in the struggle.
was what I gave near Moscow,” Napoleon
Napoleon retreated along the Smolensk
wrote years later. At the price of enormous
road, the same one that led him to
losses the French pushed back the
Moscow.
Russian forces, but did not win a decisive victory. Realizing that the time to transition to a counterattack had still not come, Kutuzov ordered his forces to retreat. In the Russian military and folk traditions, the battle of Borodino has become a
On December 23, 1812, Alexander published a Manifesto about the end of the Patriotic War.
On 31st March 1814, the forces of the allies, having definitively broken Napoleon’s resistance, entered Paris. Emperor Alexander I rode into the city with a leib guard convoy from the Cossack regiment, at the head of a host of thousands of generals and officers of various armies. After a four-hour parade, the Cossacks camped on the Champs-Elysees and for two months became a major attraction. The appearance of these “barbarians” both frightened and enchanted the residents of Europe’s most cosmopolitan city. As one eyewitness wrote: “Where the Parisian dandy once would hand his belle a handful of freshly cut flowers and quiver in exaltation, trying to read a reaction in her tender gazes, now a Cossack stands by a smoky campfire, in an enormous greasy fur hat with dangling earflaps, and roasts his steak on the tip of an arrow.” 209
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 209
6/15/11 2:39:48 PM
The Decembrist Uprising
Emperor Alexander died November 19, 1825, in the city of Taganrog. The tsar’s sudden death spawned a legend that his place in the coffin was occupied by an unknown soldier, and the emperor himself hid from people and spent the next several years in Siberia as a monk, the elder Fyodor Kuzmich. Meanwhile, a complex dynastic situation took shape in Russia. Alexander had two brothers: Constantine and the younger Nicholas. In his will Alexander named an heir: Nikolai Pavlovich. But Nikolai refused to accept Alexander’s will, and on November 27 the population was sworn to Constantine. But Constantine did not take the throne, nor did he renounce it. An ambiguous and extremely tense interregnum ensued, which lasted 25 days, until December 14. Nikolai decided, at last, to declare himself emperor, without waiting for a formal act of abdication from his brother.
On the evening of December 12 a Manifesto about Nikolai’s ascendance to the throne was composed. On December 14 a second oath of fealty was expected, this time to Nicholas I. But a group of officers, members of a secret society, had scheduled an uprising for that very day. They had decided to blockade the Senate, send a delegation there and demand that they depose the tsarist government and publish a revolutionary manifest to the Russian people. The attempt at a state revolution is known as the Decembrist uprising. Participants of the conspiracy, who were officers of the guard, proposed establishing constitutional law in Russia. Interestingly, none of the conspirators personally pretended to power. The uprising was quashed, its participants were exiled to Siberia, and the five leaders executed. The ideas of the Decembrists were shared by many. Suffice it to say that in the diaries of the great Russian poet
Alexander Pushkin scholars found a drawing of the gallows with five hanged men and a caption: “and I, as a jester, could have hung.” The most complete comment on Emperor Nicholas came from Alexandra Tyutcheva, daughter of the poet. “He was the Don Quixote of autocracy, a fearsome and dangerous Don Quixote… That man, who combined a generous soul and knightly character of rare nobility and honesty and an exalted and enlightened mind, could have been a tyrant and a despot for Russia.” But the tyrant created the foundation for the most important reform of the century: the emancipation of the peasants. According to the laws adopted by the emperor’s initiative, the peasants were not property of landowners, but first and foremost subjects of the state, which defended their rights.
210
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 210
6/8/11 11:23:11 PM
Karl Collmann, The Uprising of 14 December 1825 on Senate Square, 1830s
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 211
6/9/11 4:00:30 PM
Aleksei Kivshenko, Emperor Alexander II Reading a Manifesto in St. Petersburg, 1861
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 212
6/8/11 11:23:16 PM
Peasants and Emancipation Russian peasants (the Russian word krest’ianin comes from the word “Christian”) accounted for the majority of the empire’s population. Peasants were attached to the land in late Muscovite Rus. The phenomenon was called serfdom, and in essence would mean the peasant’s dependency on his masters as a slave. In 1726 peasants lost the right to freely work as craftsmen, and in 1731 to buyouts and contracts, and the 1746 ban on land ownership by anyone besides aristocrats fully reinforced the subjugated position of peasants. In 1760 landowners won the right to exile their peasants to Siberia, and in 1792 the sale of peasants at auction was renewed. Another attack on the interests of the peasant estate was the mass redistribution of state peasants to aristocrats’ estates. Catherine the Great distributed some 800,000 people to members of her inner circle. Such mass distributions ended only in 1805. The situation did not change until the mid-19th century. At first the tsar banned the retail sale of peasants, and two years later, in 1843, the purchase of peasants without land was prohibited. In 1847 peasants received the right to buy their freedom along with their family if a landowner’s estate was sold to pay off debt. In 1861, the son of Nicholas I,
Alexander II, signed a Manifesto to end law of serfdom. But the document was composed in such a way that the long-awaited emancipation did not bring the peasantry anything besides disappointment and new burdens. The purchase of land according to the conditions of the 1861 reform for the vast majority of peasants lasted 45 years and put them in real bondage, since they could not pay such sums. Only in 1906, after peasants burnt down about 15% of landowners’ estates in the country over the course of 1905, freedom payments and outstanding arrears were cancelled. Only then did the peasants finally receive the freedom that had been promised to them 45 years earlier. Contemporary historians see that form of “emancipation” as the origin of revolution in Russia. In 1861 alone 1176 peasant uprisings were recorded, while in the six years from 1855 to 1860 there were only 474. The reform began a process of rapid impoverishment. The peasant estate – or more precisely, its way of life – gave Russia a highly useful tradition that is still practiced today. Of course, it’s the bathhouse. Even in Rus the most important events were associated with the bathhouse: births, weddings, recovery after a heavy illness. There was a tradition
of an obligatory visit to the bathhouse before a wedding and the day after it. A description of the bathhouse is found in one of the oldest written documents in Russia – the Primary Chronicle – and foreign sources. Russian bathhouses are small wooden constructions, little houses with a single window beneath the ceiling. The spaces between the logs are usually caulked with pitch and moss. In the corner stands a large stone stove, in which fires are lit to warm the bathhouse itself and the warming stones placed on top of the stove. A barrel or a vat of water stands nearby. When the stones become hot, the fire is extinguished, and the hot stones are doused with water. The doors and window are shut tightly and the people inside bask in the steam, sitting or reclining on benches. The temperature in the bathhouse can exceed 100 degrees. As a rule, bathhouses are built near waterways. In the winter after a bath people run outside naked and dive into an icy stream or rub themselves with snow, like they would with a sponge. In the summer they just pour cold water on themselves or jump into the water. Foreign travelers, accustomed to warm baths, considered steam baths to be a kind of voluntary torture.
213
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 213
6/8/11 11:23:18 PM
The First Revolutions of the Empire
another group appeared: The People’s Will. The main method of struggling against power was terror. The organization sentenced Tsar Alexander II to death, and after several failed assassination attempts they finally succeeded. The emperor was murdered March 13, 1881. He died from a bomb thrown at his feet by Ignaty Grinevitsky, near the Ekaterininsky Canal in Petersburg. German Lopatin and Sophie Perovskaya, members of the People’s Will Party
Alexander II was called the Emancipator, though the result of his actions was the exact opposite of what the people had expected. In the late 19th century, a mood of protest began to take shape in society. Underground revolutionary groups appeared in the country. In 1861 an underground organization
called Land and Will began to act, the main goal of which was to prepare a peasant uprising. Among the first members were the famous Russian philosopher Alexander Herzen and the writer Nikolai Chernyshevsky. The organization never achieved its goal, but underground activity had begun. In the 1870s,
The death of the Emancipator, murdered in the name of the emancipated, was a symbolic finale to his reign. Many years later the sculptor Trubetskoi, creator of a monument to Alexander III, would express public opinion in stone: he depicted the heir to the emancipator tsar saddling a horse symbolizing Russia stopped at the edge of a cliff – where the policies of Alexander II had brought it.
214
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 214
6/8/11 11:23:20 PM
Industrial Growth and the Chinese Eastern Railway
The last decades of the 19th century were marked by rapid industrial growth, the main engine of which was active rail construction. The late 19th century brought intensive development to the Russian transportation system, particularly railways. It was when the Trans-Siberian Railroad was built. Its eastern link was the
Chinese Eastern Railway, which connected Siberia and the Far East of Russia with China. The prehistory of the construction of the CER is as follows. A crisis of the Qing dynasty in China led to intensified foreign expansion: England took hold of Hong Kong, France in Indochina. In the condition of the Treaty of Shimonoseki with Japan, China
renounced its claims to Korea, ceded Formosa (Taiwan) and the Pescador islands, agreed to “rent” the Liaodong peninsula with the cities of Dairen and Port Arthur. However, in 1895 Russia forced Japan to renounce its main trophy – the Liaodong peninsula – by presenting an allied ultimatum, with England and France. Soon after that Russia gave China a loan of 400 million francs and organized a Russo-Chinese bank. In 1896 a military alliance was signed with China, and a contract to build the CER.
215
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 215
6/8/11 11:23:21 PM
An Era of Convulsions
The beginning of popular celebrations on the occasion of the coronation of Emperor Nicholas II was scheduled for ten in the morning on May 30, but on the evening of May 29, people who had heard rumors about gifts and a handout of valuable coins began to travel from all over Moscow and the outlying regions to Khodynskoye Field, the traditional place for celebratory events and fairs. At five in the morning, no fewer than 500 thousand people were on the field. When the crowd heard rumors that the attendants were distributing gifts among their own and there would therefore not be enough gifts for everyone, the people rushed toward the temporary wooden structures. A special regiment of 1,800 policemen who were sent to maintain order during the festivities could not hold back the rush of the crowd. Reinforcements came only the next morning. The attendants, realizing that the people could destroy their stands and booths, started to throw bags of food directly into the crowd, which only intensified the jostling. In the end, 1,360 people died, several hundred were crippled. The emperor was informed of what had happened. The site of the catastrophe was cleansed of all traces of the drama, the program of celebrations continued. On Khodynskoye Field, an orchestra led by the conductor Safronov gave a concert. Nicholas II arrived at two oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;clock, greeted by a thunderous hurrah. None of the emperorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s advisors had any doubt that the tragedy on the day of the coronation was a fearsome omen, for Nicholas and all of Russia. 216
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 216
6/8/11 11:23:21 PM
Emperor Nicholas II, center, goes out of his carriage in front of the Boyar Romanov house in Varvarka Street, with the family coat-of-arms above the entrance
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 217
6/8/11 11:23:24 PM
Economic Policy
Good to Know Ilia Muromets
Silver ruble coined in 1896
The reign of Nicholas II was a period of economic growth. From 1885 to 1913, industrial manufacturing grew at a rate of 4.5% to 5% per year. According to data from the first-ever census of 1897, the population of the Russian Empire was 125 million, 84 million of whom spoke Russian as a native language. The literacy rate was 21%, and 34% among those aged 10 to 19. In January of the same year a monetary reform was implemented, which established the gold standard for the ruble. The transition to the golden ruble was successful, without disruptions. A law was passed to limit the working
day: no more than 11.5 hours during the week, and 10 hours on Saturday and days before holidays. Factories with more than 100 workers implemented free medical aid. In 1906 the first workers’ unions appeared in the country. These measures were expected to relieve at least partially the social tension. But that did not happen.
The largest airplane not only in Russia but in the world was named in honour of a legendary hero who possessed unprecedented strength. Muromets, constructed in 1913 by the great engineer I. Sikorsky, became the world’s first passenger plane. It was equipped with a comfortable salon that was separate from the cabin, sleeping rooms and even a bathroom with a toilet. It had heating and electric lighting. The plane’s design set several records in weight capacity, number of passengers, duration, and altitude. During WWI, Ilia Muromets was successfully used as a bomber. The model, extraordinarily advanced for its time, was produced at Russian factories until 1918.
218
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 218
6/8/11 11:23:26 PM
The Russo-Japanese War
Fire near Zolotaya Gora during the defense of Port Arthur Fortress, Russo-Japanese War
In 1903 relations with Japan took a sharp turn for the worse. The reason was the Russian presence in Manchuria and the timber concessions in Korea. The emperor believed that the situation was of principal importance to Russia: it was an issue of a port on seas that never froze, of Russian dominance over a huge territory, of the almost unsettled expanses of Manchuria. At the end of December 1903 the General Headquarters of the military in a report to Nicholas II generalized the intelligence information that had accumulated. It followed that Japan had fully completed preparation for war and was just waiting for the right signal to attack. Besides the real proof of the inevitability of war the Russian military intelligence was able to estimate the almost exact date of its beginning. However, Nicholas II and his advisors did not take any emergency measures. Suddenly, without an official declaration of war, the Japanese fleet attacked a Russian squadron in a raid at Port Arthur on the night of February 9, 1904. It put several of the strongest ships in the Russian squadron out of order. A few months later, in the Battle of Tsushima, the final blow was dealt to the Russian squadron.
219
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 219
6/8/11 11:23:28 PM
Militia unit being driven along the street in 1917
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 220
6/8/11 11:23:29 PM
Three Russian Revolutions
The lost war was another trump in the hands of revolutionary parties and organizations. Agitation intensified among workers: underground activists persistently urged them to achieve their goals with a strike movement. In January 1905 a mass strike of workers in Moscow and Petersburg began, with the participation of about 150,000 people. The idea arose to give the tsar a petition about the people’s needs. The main demand of the petition was an immediate convocation of a constitutive meeting. The document ended with a direct appeal to tsar: “Here, sovereign, are our main needs, with which we have come to you. We have nowhere else to go and no reason to. We have only two paths: either to freedom and happiness, or to the grave.” Workers themselves were to deliver the petition to the emperor. On the morning of January 22, columns of thousands of workers began moving to Palace Square in Saint Petersburg, with a portrait of
the tsar and a large cross held upward. Police regiments greeted the protestors – with gunfire. The artist Valentin Serov described the events as followed: “What I saw from the windows of the Academy of Fine Arts I will never forget: a reserved, grand, unarmed crowd, moving toward cavalry attacks and rifle fire.” As a result of the protest’s suppression, 130 people were killed and 300 were wounded. The event went down in history as “Bloody Sunday” and set off the first Russian revolution. Unrest seized workers, the army, and the fleet. In October of 1905 more than 2 million people went on strike. Uprisings flared one after the other. The result was a Manifesto that gave civil freedoms based on habeas corpus and freedoms of speech, assembly, and religion. A parliament was established, consisting of a State Soviet and a State Duma. Reaction followed the revolution. In June 1907 the rules of elections to the Duma were changed in order to increase the number of deputies loyal to the monarchy. Seven years later Russia
entered World War I on the side of England and France against Germany. The four-year conflict drained the blood of Europe. And in Russia they were the last years of empire. In February 1917 a second revolution took place. The fourth assembly of the State Duma accused the government of treason. A general strike began in Petersburg, totally paralyzing the city’s economy. The army regiments in the capital took the side of the revolution. In March 1917 Emperor Nicholas abdicated the throne. Power went to the Temporary Government. Several months later, in October of 1917, as a result of the third revolution, power was seized by the Bolshevik party. Members of the temporary government were arrested. In 1918, by order of the Bolshevik government, the tsar’s family was executed in Yekaterinburg: Nicholas, his wife Alexandra and their children – Alexei, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia – were shot. 221
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 221
6/8/11 11:23:32 PM
The Soviet Union
The Russian text of the Internationale has the words: “The whole world of violence we will destroy to its foundations, then we will build our own new world…” The revolution of 1917 truly did fundamentally destroy the old world – the world of Russian empire. The estimation of the October Revolution in Russian historiography has changed from unconditional admiration to equally unconditional rejection. Perhaps the time for objective judgments will come later. Nevertheless the Russian revolution was in essence, an uprising of the working mass or a rebellion of an angry mob. The result was, as is often the case in Russia, inexplicable in terms of logic and unpredictable for its nearest neighbours. Within a few decades a new superpower was born, a new unit in world politics was made, a new country on the world map was formed – the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 222
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 222
6/8/11 11:23:34 PM
The engineer of the turning shop factory at work
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 223
6/8/11 11:23:38 PM
From Civil War to Industrialization A few months after revolution, adherents to the old regime began an armed resistance that lasted for four years, from 1918 to 1921. In the end the communists won, and the white movement (mostly monarchists) was destroyed. A significant number of the whites emigrated. One of the centers of Russian emigration was the Chinese city Harbin. In 1922 a new state was formed: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In the beginning it had four republics, but with time their number grew to fifteen. The Soviet Union was the largest country in the world: it occupied a territory of 22 million square kilometers, or almost one-sixth of all the land on earth. In the late 1920s and the 1930s, Russia’s economy radically transformed. These years were a time of industrialization, the rapid development of heavy industry. As part of this process, a number of electric power plants were built. Electricity output increased 24 times over, and nine thousand new enterprises were built. By the mid-1930s, the USSR was
second to the United States in overall industrial output. The new republic created new traditions. Perhaps the most famous of them survive to the present day: demonstrations and Saturdays. Each year the Soviet Union held “communist Saturdays”: citizens dedicated one of their days off to improving the appearance of their courtyard, village, or city. The organizer and monitor of the event was the Communist party. Today people have Saturdays without orders from above and party slogans – just to neaten the area, to plant flowers and trees. Time has altered another Soviet tradition: demonstrations. On May 1, the USSR would celebrate the day of worker solidarity. Workers, students, and schoolchildren went to the Mayday demonstration. Communist ideology has receded in the past, but maydays are still here. Every spring, Russians go with their families and friends to the countryside on the first warm days of the year.
The first coat-of-arms of the Soviet Union
224
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 224
6/9/11 12:19:04 AM
Stalinism and the Great Patriotic War
Soviet soldiers lower Nazi banners at the foot of Lenin’s Mausoleum
The country was led by Joseph Stalin. Many years later the form of his leadership was called a “cult of personality.” Soviet propaganda crowned Stalin with the halo of a flawless “great leader and teacher.” Cities, factories, collective farms, and military technologies were named after Stalin. By the early 1930s, the totalitarian regime was a reality. The internal politics of the party from the late 1920s to the early 1950s can be characterized by one word: repressions. But the most fearsome test fell on our people in 1941. On June 22, without declaring war, Fascist Germany attacked the Soviet Union. By that time Hitler’s armies controlled almost all of Europe. The war lasted four years. At the price of huge losses – more than 20 million people – victory was held. In May 1945, Germany surrendered. The heroism of the victors is honored in Russia to this day. The Soviet Union liberated European countries from fascism. Then Soviet forces entered the war with Japan, and in just two weeks they dealt the Japanese a crushing defeat in Manchuria. On September 2, 1945, when Japan signed its surrender, World War II ended. 225
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 225
6/8/11 11:23:41 PM
Concrete worker on the construction site of the Bratsk hydropower plant
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 226
6/8/11 11:23:42 PM
From Thaw to Stagnation
Good to Know Yuri Gagarin
After the end of the war, the Soviet Union experienced a heavy economic depression. But the reconstruction of the country took only ten years – an unbelievably short period in terms of the laws of economics. The Soviet Union was able to not only take back its former positions, but also become a world leader in many categories in a short time. In the 1960s the active exploration of Siberia continued. New, wealthy deposits of oil, gas, and minerals were discovered. The rivers of Siberia became an inexhaustible source of electricity: several major power plants were built along them, like the Bratsk and Krasnoyarsk hydropower plants. Major successes were achieved in the exploration of outer space, medicine, and high-tech production. The average growth rates of productivity was between
3.4% and 6.8%, remaining higher than in most developed capitalist nations. Almost every period of Russian history has an unofficial but exact appellation. The few decades after Stalin’s death in 1953 were called the “Thaw,” and the fifteen years after that: “Stagnation.” But regardless of the external and internal politics, and sometimes despite the dispositions of the system, Russian scientists worked. The second half of the 20th century was truly a triumphant time for Soviet science. Its main triumph was the launch of the ship Vostok on April 12, 1961, with the world’s first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin.
In a blink of an eye, this young smiling pilot became the most famous man in the world. There was not a single newspaper that did not run headlines like “Gagarin – the Columbus of Space,” “The World in Awe,” “We Believed,” “A Great Accomplishment.” Soon after his flight Yuri Gagarin visited many countries, where he was welcomed by millions of thrilled Earthlings. Gagarin was awarded with medals and honors by dozens of states, and became an honorary citizen of dozens of cities of the world. At the time he was a representative of the Soviet Union, but in essence he was what we would now call an “emissary of peace.”
227
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 227
6/8/11 11:23:45 PM
Perestroika By 1980 the collapse of the Soviet system was only a matter of time. The selection of Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in March 1985 spawned hopes for the chances of real changes in the life of society. The energetic speeches of the new secretary demonstrated his decisive approach to renewing the country.
But after the summer of 1989 the country’s leadership encountered a crisis of bad faith. It was caused by empty store shelves, a growth in crime, and political instability. Political forces were polarized. There was group of adherents of the reforms initiated by Gorbachev and a group of conservative minded leaders of the party elite who did not want any changes in society.
At the core of economic transformations stood the idea of accelerating the socio-economic development of the country based on the use of the latest achievements of scientific and technological progress. The Party announced a policy of glasnost, an open discussion of acute problems of economics and politics on the pages of the newspapers. The result was a reawakening of the social consciousness of a significant part of the country’s population. Almost the entire country followed the speeches of delegates at the 29th Congress of the Communist Party, which took place in the summer of 1988 and was broadcast over radio and television. The congress formed the first professionally operating parliament in the country’s history, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the chairman of which would be Mikhail Gorbachev.
The signing of a new Union accord, scheduled for August 20, 1991, pushed the conservatives to decisive action. On the night of August 19, 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who was on vacation in Crimea, was forcibly removed from power. A group of high-ranking officials formed the State Committee for the State of Emergency, known as the Gang of Eight. Orders from the Gang of Eight implemented a state of emergency in several regions of the Soviet Union, primarily in Russia, prohibiting protests, demonstrations, and strikes. The activity of democratic parties, organizations, and newspapers was stopped; control over the media was established.
strongly changed. Freedom had become the greatest value for people. The majority of the population refused to support unconstitutional methods of overcoming the crisis. By evening on August 19, tens of thousands of young people rushed to the House of Soviets of Russia (the “White House”), where members of the Supreme Soviet of Russia, headed by Boris Yeltsin, were located. They went to defend and support the Russian leadership, which refused to accept the Gang of Eight. The coup failed. The events of August 19-21, 1991, changed the country forever. Perestroika went into the past as a “top-down revolution” within the framework of the old system with its orientation toward a socialist choice made once and for all. The results of the August events of 1991 heralded the collapse of the USSR. On December 8, 1991, near Minsk, the presidents of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia signed the Belovezhskoe Accord to form the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The signing of this agreement ended the existence of the Soviet Union as a single state. President Gorbachev was forced to give up his power.
But the Gang of Eight made a serious miscalculation: in the years of perestroika, Soviet society
228
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 228
6/8/11 11:23:47 PM
The protest meeting near the White House during events of August 1991
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 229
6/8/11 11:23:53 PM
The New Russia
A poem by the great Russian poet Sergei Esenin has the lines: “face to face we cannot see each other, more is visible at a distance.” What is the new Russia like? How will it appear to posterity? These questions can only be objectively answered in the years to come. Today one thing is obvious: after a period of instability and a wave of crises, our country is returning to stability. A new thrust of modernization is the main challenge facing our state. As the country’s entire history irrefutably demonstrates that for Russia and her citizens no tasks are impossible!
230
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 230
6/8/11 11:23:55 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 231
6/8/11 11:23:55 PM
New Faces of Big Politics
to reinforce Russia’s position in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, to restore the country’s authority in the world.
Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, and Dmitry Medvedev are the three presidents of Russia, three eras in the development of an ancient and yet young country. Just twenty years ago, on April 24, 1991, the Russian Federation established the post of the president of the republic, the highest political official and the head of executive power. In Russia the name Boris Yeltsin is associated with brilliant victories, and defeats, and misfortunes. There was the August putsch of 1991, the
violent dismissal of parliament in 1993, the economic crisis of 1998. But at the same time a new, democratic Constitution was adopted, the quality of life gradually increased, the people forgot the empty shelves of stores and the word “shortage.” Yeltsin’s heir was Vladimir Putin. Putin’s presidency was not easy. In the opinion of analysts, in the 1990s Russia was reborn, and in the 2000s it was strengthened as a state. The system of power was completed, its vertical took shape. The second president was able
A few months after the inauguration of president Dmitry Medvedev an intense armed conflict erupted in the Caucasus. Georgian armies invaded the territory of South Ossetia. The unmotivated aggression had to be extinguished with the help of Russian peacekeepers. It was followed by the international economic crisis, the consequences of which are felt even now. But today estimates are optimistic: the country was able to survive difficult times. Furthermore, a decision was made to update the economy.
232
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 232
6/8/11 11:23:58 PM
Shanghai Cooperation Organization
The beginning of Putinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s term as president of the Russian Federation was heralded by the appearance of a new international association: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It includes China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Its main tasks are to maintain
stability and security in the vast expanses of Eurasia, to develop economic relations, energy partnerships, and collaboration in science and culture.
233
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 233
6/8/11 11:23:59 PM
Chinese Cultural Festival in Moscow
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 234
6/9/11 4:00:54 PM
Cooperation with China
Good to Know Made in China
Russian-Chinese relations continued to successfully develop in the 2000s. More and more, Chinese companies have entered the Russian market in this decade, more and more joint projects have been successfully realized, especially in regions geographically close to China, Siberia and the Far East. But the cooperation of the two neighboring countries is not limited to the economy alone. In 2005 the first Russian-Chinese joint military drills, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Peaceful Mission 2005,â&#x20AC;? were held on the Shandong peninsula and the adjacent sea zone, as well as in Vladivostok. The primary goals of the drills were to expand cooperation of Russia and China in the spheres of defense and security, to develop joint actions in the struggle with terrorism and extremism.
Since Soviet times, products manufactured in China (especially products of light industry) were valued by Russians for their quality and reliability. In the early 1990s, the quantity of imported goods on the Russian market significantly increased. Its spectrum expanded and changed. Today, Chinese imports are not just clothing, but household appliances, electronics, automobiles, high-tech products and much more. Products from China continue to find buyers, just as before.
235
Russia-China200x200_ch_2.indd 235
6/8/11 11:24:03 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 236
6/9/11 12:29:17 AM
Chapter 3
Great Names
Places of remarkable beauty, great history, a wealth of mineral deposits, flora and fauna. Our country has all of that. Much of it you’ve already seen and appreciated. But Russia’s most important treasure is its people. In this chapter we’ll tell you about Russian geniuses, whose names are known and remembered by every citizen of our country. Who are applauded by the world. Whose discoveries determined the development of science for many years to come. Each name holds the “mystery of the Russian soul,” unsolved to this day. Each of their lives in one way or another expresses the fate of Russia. The name Mikhail Lomonosov has become a symbol of Russian genius. To study at the academy, the talented autodidact walked from Kholmogor to Moscow. Twelve hundred kilometers in twenty-two days. This extraordinary personality can only be understood if you know something about
the people who raised him. Dwellers of the Russian North – the pomors – were free, bold self-starters. They had highly developed handicrafts, they were master navigators and traveled on their vessels to the Arctic Ocean. They had no schools, but the pomors taught each other grammar, rewrote and carefully kept handwritten books. Their talent, entrepreneurial skill and bravery found their perfect embodiment in Mikhail Lomonosov. This pioneering genius proved an important thing with his life: that true talent does not need special conditions. He breakbroke down barriers to make his own path through life. And if needed, he would walk thousands of kilometers to achieve his dream. These words can be applied to any of those whose portraits you see on the pages of this book. And to Russia itself. 237
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 237
6/9/11 12:29:17 AM
In Poetry and Prose
Perhaps the best way to feel the character of a people is to come into contact with its soul. And where is the soul expressed more fully than it is in the words? Russia is a country of songs and tales, novels and plays, epics and fables known throughout the world. The difficulties of translation yield before the geniuses of the pen. And the great works become part of your interior world, regardless of language. This is fully natural â&#x20AC;&#x201C; after all, for us The Quiet Pool and The Dream of the Red Chamber are not just monuments of literary art, but also eternal treasures of the heart.
238
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 238
6/9/11 12:29:17 AM
Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837)
It was of him that the critic Apollon Grigoriev once said: “Pushkin is our everything.” And he was indisputably correct. The shining genius of the 19th century, Alexander Pushkin was virtually a one-man Renaissance for Russia, an entire epoch that has still not been studied to the end. This poet and prose writer is, without exaggeration, unique. His works contain the DNA fundamentals of all subsequent culture and philosophy, not only Russian, but European as well. His ideas would be developed by Sartre and Camus. His images became a source of inspiration for Kafka and Brodsky. In the history of Russian literature Pushkin had another role, as the creator of the modern Russian language. The nation’s relationship to Pushkin was best expressed by his contemporary, the poet Fyodor Tyutchev: “Like a first love, you will not be forgotten by Russia’s heart.” 239
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 239
6/9/11 12:29:17 AM
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881)
A contemporary of Lev Tolstoy whose influence is perhaps no less than that of the author of War and Peace. However, Dostoevsky’s path as a writer was entirely different. His manner of writing would later be called “fantastic realism.” The depths of the human psyche, tragic fates and within those fates – breaking points, moments of decision making – this is the essence of Dostoevsky. It was he who defined one of the characteristic features of Russian man as an inclination for emotional outbursts. He made his countrymen face the cursed questions of life, death and conscience. His line that man needs no world system that can cause a single child to shed a tear remains a categorical imperative of the Russian intelligentsia to this day. Furthermore, Dostoevsky can with complete justification be called the first Russian blogger.
His Diary of a Writer sparked fierce debates in society, and the writer received hundreds of letters and responded to them, right on the pages of his Diary. In the 20th century Dostoevsky was called a clairvoyant, because in his novel The Possessed he managed to depict the Russian revolution and Russian revolutionaries long before they actually appeared.
240
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 240
6/9/11 12:29:18 AM
Lev Tolstoy (1828–1910) Good to Know One Hundred Volumes in the Collected Works The archives of Lev Tolstoy include an enormous number of drafts, sketches, diaries, notebooks, letters and memoirs. The diversity of his creative legacy has no equal. Now a complete academic publication is being prepared in Russia, and it will have one hundred volumes.
As the renowned author of the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, his funeral was an event of nationwide importance. With more than four thousand people coming to his estate at Yasnaya Polyana. His religious and ethical teachings, shaped largely under the influence of the works of the great Confucius, came to be called “tolstovstvo.” The writer himself practised what he preached to the very end. An aristocrat and wealthy landowner, Tolstoy rejected nearly all the privileges available to him. He dressed like a peasant, he ate the simplest food, he
worked the land. The basic idea of Tolstoy – to reject opposing evil with violence – was by no means original. But as it was reconceived in his writings it became a way of existence for the youth of the early 20th century. The famous Russian priest Alexander Men said this of the writer: “Tolstoy to this day is a master of conscience. A living reproach to people who are confident that they live in accordance with moral principles.”
241
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 241
6/9/11 12:29:19 AM
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904)
Ordinary life. Ordinary people. Insignificant events that unfold over weeks, months, years. The elusive longing for ephemeral moments, the unrealized desire for beauty and truth. Chekhov the artist did not know vivid colors. His stories and plays are drawn in half-tones and shadows. They express the eternal idea that in this world it is shameful to be happy. Performing Chekhov is difficult. But if a director is able to convey the writer’s idea, then the success of the production is overwhelming. A performance of Chekhov’s Seagull began the history of the Moscow Art Theater.
242
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 242
6/9/11 12:29:20 AM
Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966)
Critics call the turn of the century in Russia the “silver age of Russian poetry.” Thanks to the like of Alexander Blok, Nikolai Gumilev, Sergei Esenin, Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandelstam, Maximilian Voloshin. And, of course, Anna Akhmatova. She became the personification of true poetry’s female face. Her early poems resemble a maiden’s whisper, vague and hazy half-confessions. No one could imagine that Akhmatova would be the only one who could convey the horror and tragedy of the most difficult years of Russian history. Her husband, the poet Nikolai Gumilev, was executed for his participation in an anti-Soviet conspiracy. Her son, the famous historian Lev Gumilev, spent many years in Stalin’s camps. Lines from her poem “Requiem” will always remain the civic credo of the Russian genius: “I was with my people then – there, where my people, to their unhappiness, were.” 243
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 243
6/9/11 12:29:21 AM
Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2008) Good to Know Streets Named for the Writer After the death of Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, several Russian cities named streets in his honour. In Moscow, a Solzhenitsyn street appeared in 2008, and in the same year Rostov-on-Don named the central thoroughfare in a new district after him. In November 2009, the name of the Russian writer, activist, and thinker was given to one of the alleys in Romeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest park, Villa Ada.
Many writers have strived to change the world, but very few can say that they actually did. Alexander Solzhenitsyn is among those few. His novels First Circle, Cancer Ward, and especially the three-tome study The Gulag Archipelago had colossal influence on the minds of
Soviet people and, to a significant degree, defined the political changes that began in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. In 1970 Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
244
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 244
6/9/11 12:29:22 AM
Lyudmila Ulitskaya (b. 1943)
The traditions of classical Russian literature are continued by our contemporaries. The works of Lyudmila Ulitskaya are called the prose of nuances. The subtlest manifestations of the human psyche, like minor details of everyday life, are described with remarkable care. Ulitskaya herself says: “I belong to those writers who start with life.” Without strain or exaggeration, you can say she’s a contemporary classic. Ulitskaya’s prose is known and loved not only in Russia, but abroad. For thirty years her books have won the most prestigious prizes at literary competitions in Europe and Russia.
245
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 245
6/9/11 12:29:23 AM
In Painting and Sculpture No trip to Russia is complete without a visit to the Tretyakov Gallery, the Hermitage, and the Russian Museum. The masterpieces of Russian painting and sculpture capture the imagination. As in the rest of the world, Russian art developed within clearly defined guidelines for a long time: at first painting was primarily ecclesiastical, then courtly. Only in the late 19th century were the borders shifted by a powerful creative burst â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the visual genius of the Wanderers. The history of Russian sculpture counts several masterpieces. Both the 18th and 19th centuries are justly considered the flowering of Russian sculpture. Another contribution to the collection of masterpieces has been made in our days by such famous masters as Ernst Neizvestny and Mikhail Shemiakin. 246
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 246
6/9/11 12:29:24 AM
Andrei Rublev (c. 1360 – c. 1430)
For seven hundred years – from the late 10th century to the late 17th century – icon painting was the core of Russian visual culture. Both the artist’s mastery and his spiritual development manifested themselves in Biblical themes. But the early 15th century was a period when true mastery in icon painting flourished. Two geniuses worked simultaneously in the Moscow principality: Feofan Grek and Andrei Rublev. The work of Rublev accumulated the internal history of Russia: the overthrow of the Tatar-Mongol yoke and the slow and stubborn steps to freedom.
Andrei Rublev, Trinity, 1411 or 1425–1427
247
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 247
6/9/11 12:29:24 AM
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 248
6/9/11 12:29:25 AM
Karl Briullov (1799–1852)
Art historians have created a broad classification of movements and a card catalog full of terms. But there are artists whose excellence makes them stand out and hard to categorize. One such artist was Karl Briullov. Indeed, with true sincerity and persuasive power, he depicted Italy and Russia, his own times and ancient history. In portraiture Briullov created a new movement. It was called the “romantic portrait.” The monumental canvas The Last Day of Pompeii was greeted with rapture and reverence by viewers and artists in Rome, Paris, and Venice. Today Briullov’s masterpiece hangs in the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg.
Karl Briullov, The Last Day of Pompeii, 1830–1833 249
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 249
6/9/11 12:29:27 AM
Viktor Vasnetsov (1848â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1926)
Viktor Vasnetsov, The Magic Carpet, 1880
This remarkable painter possessed a rare gift: he seemed able to distinguish the past through the darkness of the ages. Could it be because he was born and raised in a small town in Vyatka province, a place where time seems to have stopped? His father, a priest, dreamed that his son would follow in his footsteps.
But he gave up on these dreams as his son would never put down his pencil. Viktor Vasnetsov graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Petersburg. And his first exhibited work, Drinking Tea, brought him fame. His heroes from fables and fairy tales strike the viewer with authenticity. It seems as though the painter saw
with his own eyes Alenushka in reverie, the giant warriors of legend, and Ivan Tsarevich, the hero of so many stories.
250
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 250
6/9/11 12:29:28 AM
Vasily Vereshchagin (1842–1904) Good to Know Artist and Warrior In 1904, right after the start of the RussoJapanese war, Vasily Vereshchagin set off for the front. He was always in the frontline of military actions. He took part in the famous, dramatic defence of Port Arthur and it was here that, as a true soldier, he died along with the commander of the Pacific fleet, Admiral Makarov, when the Battleship Petropavlovsk was destroyed.
Vasily Vereshchagin, Before the Attack. The Battle of Plevna, 1881
In his eulogy for Vereshchagin, Ilya Repin – another genius of painting at the turn of the century – called him a “superman.” Vasily Vereshchagin fully deserved this title. The artist seemed to live against everything that seemed inevitable and established. A restless spirit, impulsive and extraordinarily active, Vereshchagin spent
his whole life on the road. He lived in Saint Petersburg, Tashkent, Munich, and Paris. He traveled to the Caucasus and to Turkestan, to India and Palestine, to the Philippines and Cuba, to America and Japan. As a Russian officer he took part in all military campaigns that the army conducted – in Central Asia, in the Balkans, in Japan.
And his most famous canvases are based on what the genius saw in his travels and at war. Incidentally, Vasily’s brother Alexander was famous as a writer. Russian history is obliged to him for the remarkable book In China, which reflects the traditions, customs, and beliefs of Russia’s great neighbor. 251
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 251
6/9/11 12:29:29 AM
Mikhail Vrubel (1856–1910)
A universal master who made his name in all forms of visual art, Mikhail Vrubel was known as a creator of painted canvases, decorative panels, and book illustrations. Vrubel’s work, and his entire life, were most intricately linked to his era. The artist was born in the year of the coronation of Alexander II, the Emancipator. He painted his final masterpieces during the first Russian revolution of 1905, when he was a permanent resident of an insane asylum. His art is considered “a significant and mysterious phenomenon of Russian art.” He lived in his own world – and recreated it in unusual images. But these images became one of the symbols of Russian culture and Russian history of the fin de sie cle. His individual style of mosaic brushstrokes was deemed by critics as a herald of Cubism. Mikhail Vrubel, The Demon Seated, 1890 252
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 252
6/9/11 12:45:51 AM
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 253
6/9/11 12:29:36 AM
Isaak Levitan (1860–1900)
Isaak Levitan, March, 1895
This artist is called a great painter of landscapes. And perhaps no other definition could fit his work. Here is what the famous Russian memoirist, Kornei Chukovsky,
painting March. Besides melting snow, the wet boards of a wooden building and the blue sky, there doesn’t seem to be room for anything else in the painting. But no. Listen to it. It’s a true hymn of life, a rapture of existence. Or his grand Evening, which in its time provoked an unprecedented storm of praise. What was this praise for? Could it be for these peaceful bell towers, the simple stream, these tranquil trees? Oh, but of course not! The soulful calm, so unperturbed, simple, and clear, the inviolable silence of life, quiet relaxation, a quiet, sad joy – that is what everyone welcomes in this spontaneous landscape.”
wrote of him: “He masterfully subjugated all nature to himself and forced its silence to speak to us about all the sorrows and anxieties of a great artist. Take his
254
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 254
6/9/11 12:29:39 AM
Mikhail Kozlovsky (1753–1802)
Mikhail Kozlovsky, Samson, the central fountain at the Peterhof palace and park, c. 1801
One of the greatest Russian sculptors, an admirer of Michelangelo, Mikhail Kozlovsky is known as a shining representative of classicism. The large marble statue of Catherine the Great as the goddess Minerva belongs to his hand. The monument to Suvorov, which gives a generalized image of the national hero, is considered – like Etienne Falconet's Bronze Horseman – one of the most perfect creations of classicism. But Kozlovsky's most famous work is probably Samson and the Lion, at the foot of the Grand Cascade in Petergof. Recalling ancient statues of Hercules, the powerful figure of Samson personified the awesome strength of Russian weaponry. The lion, whose paw Samson tears open, symbolizes Sweden (the figure of the lion is part of that country's national coat of arms). And so, with the tools of sculptural allegory, Kozlovsky praised the victories of his nation's armies. 255
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 255
6/9/11 12:29:41 AM
Vera Mukhina, Worker and Collective Farmer, 1937
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 256
6/9/11 12:29:42 AM
Vera Mukhina (1889â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1953)
Vera Mukhina created many beautiful sculptures, including the monument to the composer Piotr Tchaikovsky installed in front of the Moscow Conservatory. But she won world renown for her composition in stainless steel, Worker and Collective Farmer, which provoked a furor at the World Expo in Paris in 1937. Two years later the monument was installed in Moscow at the Exhibition of Achievements of the Peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Economy (now the All-Russia Exhibition Center, or VVTs), and a few years later it became the emblem of Mosfilm studios.
257
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 257
6/9/11 12:29:46 AM
Ernst Neizvestny (b. 1925) Good to Know A Tribute of Respect Ernst Neizvestny was among those artists who in the early 1960s were harshly criticized by the Communist Party. Nikita Khrushchev himself called the sculptor’s works “degenerate art,” and denied art like his the right to exist. Interestingly, after Khrushchev’s death it was Ernst Neizvestny who gave the final tribute of respect to the Soviet leader by sculpting his gravestone.
Ernst Neizvestny, the TEFI statuette (Russia’s analogue of the American EMMY Award), 1994 258
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 258
6/9/11 12:29:48 AM
Mikhail Shemiakin (b. 1943)
The avant-garde traditions of the early 20th century are developed by contemporary artists. One of the most famous is Mikhail Shemiakin, who makes work not only as a painter, but also as a sculptor. His sculptural compositions decorate the streets of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Since 1998 he has been experimenting widely and, based on the school of Zen painting, he invented and is perfecting his technique with Chinese ink, and creating cycles: Landscapes, Phantoms of Abandoned Warehouses, King Lear, The Mark and the Sharp Blow, Gallant Officers. Shemiakin draws inspiration from Chinese masters, from the etchings of Rembrandt and Goya.
Mikhail Shemiakin, monument to Peter the Great, 1991 259
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 259
6/9/11 12:29:57 AM
In Stone
If your destination in Russia is Moscow or Saint Petersburg, non-stop sight-seeing awaits. In the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s two major cities, almost every building is a fine specimen of architecture. This art form developed, like painting, in close relations with history. There was ecclesiastical architecture in medieval Russia, then palace architecture in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were replaced by urban, industrial architecture. But within the boundaries of each of these styles, Russian architects created masterpieces.
260
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 260
6/9/11 12:29:58 AM
Postnik Yakovlev (16th century)
We have no exact information about this stonemason. His name is mentioned in the chronicles just a few times. However, the works of Postnik Yakovlev have survived to this day. And they speak for themselves. He built the Annunciation Cathedral in Kazan and St. Basil’s Cathedral, the symbol of Moscow. The scope and grandeur of Postnik Yakovlev’s work stands comparison to the masters of the European Renaissance.
Postnik Yakovlev, St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square, 1555–1560 261
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 261
6/9/11 12:29:58 AM
Bartolomeo Rastrelli (1700–1771)
Bartolomeo Rastrelli, Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, 1752–1756
You might object: Is Rastrelli really a Russian architect? After all, the master came from a family of Italian architects. But for Russia Bartolomeo Rastrelli became a great national master whose name is inextricably linked not only with the modern face of Saint Petersburg but also the symbol of Kiev, St. Andrew’s Cathedral, and the church in New Jerusalem, near Moscow. And Varfolomei, as his name is written in Russian transcription, cherished his second homeland in the very depths of his heart. That is why the symphony of colours characteristic of Old Russian art resounds in the architect’s masterworks, which intertwine medieval Russia with postPetrine Russia.
262
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 262
6/9/11 12:29:59 AM
Matvei Kazakov (1738–1812)
Matvei Kazakov, Great Tsaritsyno Palace, 1796
Matvei Kazakov had little in common with Rastrelli. He was born in the family of a minor Russian clerk, not an Italian architect. Rastrelli worked in the baroque style; Kazakov was a classicist. Rastrelli worked primarily in Saint Petersburg, Kazakov mostly in Moscow. But they had one thing in common – talent. Just as Rastrelli’s structures shape the image of the northern capital that we know and love, so Kazakov created the most beautiful buildings in Moscow, ones that transformed the urban landscape: the palaces of the Tsaritsyno estate, Petrovsky Palace, the residence of the generalgovernor of Moscow (now the office of the Moscow mayor), the old building of Moscow University. Kazakov didn’t build only in Moscow, he also worked in Perm and Tver. But Moscow always remained his main love. He died after he received news that Napoleon’s armies had burned the city down. 263
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 263
6/9/11 12:30:01 AM
Roman Klein, Muir and Mirrielees’ Store, now TsUM, 1906–1908
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 264
6/9/11 12:30:02 AM
Roman Klein (1858–1924) Good to Know TsUM Yesterday and Today
This architect meant so much for Moscow that today it is impossible to imagine the capital without his masterpieces. The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts on Volkhonka is perhaps one of the most famous buildings designed by the master. Klein himself acknowledged that the creation of the museum was the project of his life. In 1906 construction began on a building unique for those times, the Muir and Mirrielees department store. A Europeantype building with a façade in an English-Gothic style on the corner of Petrovka and Theater Square, it graces Moscow to this day. Of course, it now has a different name: Central Universal Store, TsUM.
Built in 1908 to the designs of architect Klein, Muir and Mirrielees was the first, and largest, department store in Russia. Here people bought clothing, footwear, jewelry, perfume, and toys. “In the eyes of Muscovites,” a contemporary wrote, “Muir and Mirrielees is an exhibition of everything that the capital sells to the taste of the wealthy, high-society circles and middle layers of the population alike.” Today the Central Department Store is one of the trendiest places in Moscow and the largest high-fashion department store in Eastern Europe, representing more than a thousand brands of apparel, perfume, and jewelry, and offering shoppers delicatessens, restaurants, cafes and bars.
265
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 265
6/9/11 12:30:07 AM
Karl Gippius (1864â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1941)
This Moscow architect was considered a master of eclecticism and Art Nouveau. He won fame for his tea shop on Myasnitskaya. This Chinesestyle store of colonial goods is, without exaggeration, quite an unusual structure. The history of the building to this day continues to be a legend of old Moscow. They say that in 1896 an important Chinese merchant was supposed to visit Moscow. The owners of Moscow tea-selling firms were all in a hurry to meet him. One of them, Perlov, decided to trim his home on Myasnitskaya in the Chinese style before inviting the celebrated guest. The tea house became famous throughout Moscow for its whimsical trim, so uncommon for the capital. In Soviet times Karl Gippius became the chief architect of the Moscow Zoo.
266
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 266
6/9/11 12:30:09 AM
Karl Gippius, tea shop on Myasnitskaya, 1890â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1893
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 267
6/9/11 12:30:14 AM
In Theater and Cinema
The history of Russian theater is quite unique. Until the 17th century there was only folk theater developed. Unlike in Europe, no other forms of theater existed in Russia. The first representatives of professional theater were skomorokhi, who might today be called â&#x20AC;&#x153;freestyle performers,â&#x20AC;? a sort of Russian troubadours. These minstrels took part in rural festivals and city fairs, they lived in the palatial homes of boyars and tsars and served as jesters. Tsar Ivan the Terrible liked to dress as a jester at feasts himself and dance with the skomorokhi. Several centuries later, the art of the minstrel would be seriously studied by one of the most famous reformers of theater, Vsevolod Meyerhold. The first tsarist theater would appear in Russia in 1672. The amusement spread quickly through the inner circles of power, which was how the peasant theaters appeared. 268
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 268
6/9/11 12:30:17 AM
Wealthy lords would build stages at their estates where talented serfs could perform for them. In the 19th century the first private professional enterprises appeared – and with them, daring solutions in direction. In the first decades of the 20th century, Russian theater gained worldwide fame. Thanks to two geniuses of theater – Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vsevolod Meyerhold. To this day, people trained in psychological theater are done so based on Stanislavsky’s method, while avant-garde theatrical experiments are based on Meyerhold’s discoveries. Russian cinematography was always driven by actors. After all, the country’s film never forgot about its roots in theater. That didn’t prevent the rise of a strong school of directors. The Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein to this day is considered the founding father of modern world cinema. 269
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 269
6/9/11 12:30:17 AM
Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863–1938) Good to Know “I don’t believe it!” The famous phrase of Konstantin Stanislavsky has become one of the mottoes of the director’s profession. He pronounced it more than once at rehearsals of his theatrical productions to express what he thought about his actors’ performances, demanding their absolute immersion in the role.
On June 19, 1897, at about two o’clock in the afternoon, two men met in the Moscow restaurant Slavic Bazaar. Their lunch flowed into dinner, and dinner into breakfast. They only parted the next day at eight in the morning. Their conversation lasted eighteen hours. They were the director and actor Stanislavsky and the playwright Nemirovich-Danchenko. At this meeting they decided to create the Moscow Art Theater (MKhAT). MKhAT became famous primarily for its acting school. The system
that Stanislavsky developed as a director is oriented toward achieving complete psychological credibility of an actor’s performance. Actors who have studied the Stanislavsky method convey the subtlest nuances of mood; they reproduce the entire complexity of a psychological portrait.
270
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 270
6/9/11 12:30:17 AM
Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874–1940)
Stanislavsky’s pupil Vsevolod Meyerhold created an experimental theater that strayed far from the principles of his teacher. In Meyerhold’s productions classical plays were transformed into a combination of acrobatic etudes, circus acts, and street performance; the actors were to be putty in the director’s hands. Meyerhold’s aesthetics was to develop stage movement. Sincere and abrupt, he immediately adopted revolutionary innovations, sought out new forms, as he shattered the framework of the academy. Meyerhold’s contemporaries found some of his solutions excessively radical, but his experiments were the foundation of avant-garde theater in the 20th century.
Alexander Ostrovsky’s play The Forest staged by Vsevolod Meyerhold, 1924
271
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 271
6/9/11 12:30:18 AM
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 272
6/9/11 12:30:19 AM
Yuri Liubimov (b. 1917) Good to Know Autographs on the Walls
This remarkably innovative director continues to work today. That means that you can see with your own eyes a miracle of theater, the embodiment on the contemporary stage of the traditions of Meyerhold. In 1964 Yuri Liubimov created the Theater of Drama and Comedy on Taganka, which for almost 50 years defined the theatrical face of Moscow. His theater was based on artifice, exaggeration, and grotesque. Liubimov’s productions played with great success on the world’s biggest stages and received the highest theatrical awards in Europe and the United States. Liubimov is 94 but he continues to experiment. A recent festival in Saint Petersburg featured his production of Honey. During
the performance, Yuri Liubimov, seated on a folding chair in the fifth row, got out a big light and started shining it at the stage. Sometimes, in total darkness, he would illuminate an actor who was pronouncing a monologue. Sometimes he would fire up his flashlight when the theater was lit normally. The audience could not hide its excitement.
A unique collection of signatures makes the office of director Yuri Liubimov in the Taganka Theater very special. From the very beginning of the theater’s existence, the director asked his friends to leave their signatures, desires and drawings on the walls. Now it has hundreds of autographs of actors, directors, poets, artists and other celebrities from all over the world.
273
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 273
6/9/11 12:30:21 AM
Sergei Eisenstein (1898â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1948)
A still from the film Battleship Potemkin, dir. Sergei Eisenstein, 1925
Today absolutely all the films of Sergei Eisenstein are considered classics. But nonetheless Battleship Potemkin stands alone among them. More than once, the masterpiece was named the best Russian film of all time by surveys of directors,
critics, and viewers. To this day, cinematographers still marvel at the perfection of its mass scenes, its slow shots, wide shots, and its montage. Dozens of films cite the legendary sequence where the baby carriage rolls down the Potemkin stairs in Odessa.
274
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 274
6/9/11 12:30:23 AM
Sergei Bondarchuk (1920–1994)
Sergei Bondarchuk won fame as a master of spectacular battle scenes, especially the ones in his screen adaptation of Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace, which in 1968 was awarded an Oscar. Incidentally, this film was one of the most expensive in cinema history – translated to current values, it cost about $500 million to make.
A still from the film War and Peace, dir. Sergei Bondarchuk, 1967
275
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 275
6/9/11 12:30:25 AM
Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986)
The epitaph on Tarkovsky’s tombstone reads: “To a man who saw an angel.” An intense religious-philosophical quest – and complex imagery. Internal dynamics and stylized slowness. Andrei Tarkovsky’s manner of directing is always recognizable, but you can’t call his films monotonous. Stalker and Solaris are philosophical fables, Mirror is a poetic recollection of childhood, Andrei Rublev is a painstaking reconstruction of Russian history and simultaneously a timeless film about the fate of the artist in society. It’s no surprise that Tarkovsky’s films remain contemporary in any era, and are dear to every nation. In 2004 a festival of Tarkovsky’s films was held in Hong Kong.
276
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 276
6/9/11 12:30:26 AM
A still from the film Andrei Rublev, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 277
6/9/11 12:30:30 AM
A still from the animated film Hedgehog in the Fog, dir. Yuri Norshtein, 1975
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 278
6/9/11 12:30:33 AM
Yuri Norshtein (b. 1941) Good to Know Russian Animation In 1909, the innovative director, Vladislav Starevich directed the first animated film with puppets. In the hundred years since then, Russian animation has come a long way, creating more than its share of masterpieces. We can dare to say that Russia has developed a unique national tradition in this remarkable art form. In 2000, director Alexander Petrov received an Oscar for his film The Old Man and the Sea, which used an original technique of painting oils on glass.
279
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 279
6/9/11 12:30:40 AM
In Music
The heartiness of folk song and the melodies of classical masterpieces. The traditional art of the dance in the round, where the dancers seem to hover above the earth, and world-famous Russian ballet. Russia’s schools of music and dance have evolved through a constant exchange between collective and individual, folk and classical, established and innovative. We recognize echoes of folk music in Prokofiev’s cantatas. In Borodin’s opera Prince Igor we wait for Polovtsian dances. An exhaustive description of Russian music was recently given by Wei Jun, a professor of voice at the Sinhai Conservatory: “Each work is remarkable because of a feeling of soulful drama, which sets Russian music apart from other musical cultures.” As for Russia’s school of performance, it was the nation that reigned on the international scene for almost all of the 20th century. Probably no other country has known such a constellation of excellent violinists, pianists, cellists, and conductors. 280
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 280
6/9/11 12:30:45 AM
Piotr Tchaikovsky (1840â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1893) Good to Know A Christmas Tale In 1892 Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote The Nutcracker, a magical, beautiful, and gentle-hearted fairy-tale ballet for children and adults. The melodies from this great work have become the most famous and most often performed musical symbols of Christmas and New Year festivities.
281
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 281
6/9/11 12:30:45 AM
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975)
“What devil can conquer a nation capable of creating music like this,” an American music critic wrote about Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony in the summer of 1942. Anna Akhmatova called it the “Leningrad” Symphony – the work was dedicated to the siege of the composer’s native city. On July 2, 1942, Lieutenant Litvinov, a twenty-year-old pilot, broke through the fiery ring of German anti-aircraft forces and brought a delivery to besieged Leningrad: medicine and four voluminous notebooks with the score of the Seventh Symphony. The people at the aerodrome had been waiting for them, and carried them away as though they were the greatest treasure. The next day, Leningrad Pravda published a brief announcement: “The score of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony has been delivered by plane to Leningrad. A public performance
of it will take place in the Great Hall of the Philharmonic.” The first winter of the siege had killed almost half the members of only orchestra remaining in Leningrad. That wintry morning, the orchestra’s artistic director Yakov Babushkin dictated a report on the state of the orchestra to a typist: “The concertmaster is dying, the percussionist died on the way to work, the French hornist is at death’s door.” But the horribly emaciated musicians who remained alive burned with the idea of performing the Seventh in Leningrad, no matter what. Over the radio a call was announced to all musicians in the city. And several days later posters appeared in the city. They announced that on August 9, 1942, the Seventh Symphony of Shostakovich would be premiered in the Great Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic.
282
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 282
6/9/11 12:30:46 AM
Sviatoslav Rikhter (1915â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1997)
The Russian piano school gave the world quite a few outstanding performers. But even amid their company, Sviatoslav Rikhter stands alone. Not having had any systematic musical education in his youth, he came to audition for the Moscow Conservatory at an age when other pianists are already performing professionally. And he won recognition. Rikhter was not only a great musician. He was a remarkable man. During World War II he performed in Moscow almost every day as Germans bombed the city. Even after he was 70, the world-famous pianist drove out of Moscow in his own car, and spent six months giving concerts in small provincial towns and remote villages of Siberia.
283
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 283
6/9/11 12:30:47 AM
Mstislav Rostropovich (1927â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2007) Good to Know A Unique Collection Mstislav Rostropovich was not only a great figure in culture, but a passionate collector as well. He and his wife Galina Vishnevskaya spent more than 30 years assembling their collection of Russian painting and decorative art. This unique collection includes furniture of the 18th and 19th centuries, silver, porcelain, and artistic glass of imperial and private factories, paintings by Valentin Serov, Karl Briullov, Nikolai Roerich, Boris Grigoriev, and other famous masters. Put up for auction at Sothebyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in 2008, the collection was soon returned to Russia, where it became available to the public.
284
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 284
6/9/11 12:30:48 AM
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 285
6/9/11 12:30:52 AM
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 286
6/9/11 12:30:54 AM
Alfred Schnittke (1934–1998)
One of the leaders of the musical avant-garde of the late 20th century, Alfred Schnittke created his own, incomparable style. In his works, classical music and fragments of church hymns are combined with jazz compositions and snippets of pop music. Religious in spirit and always grandiose in its concept, the music of Schnittke speaks
of man and the universe, of the eternal battle of good and evil. Some music critics have called Schnittke’s music “diabolical.” Perhaps it was because he dared to gaze deeper into the world of the human unconscious than any other composer had before him.
287
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 287
6/9/11 12:30:57 AM
Vladimir Spivakov (b. 1944)
Russiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s violin school is no less honored than its piano school. One of its greatest representatives today is Vladimir Spivakov, who has performed as a soloist with major orchestras of the world, with the most outstanding conductors. However, he has achieved even greater fame as conductor of the chamber orchestra Moscow Virtuosi, which he founded in 1979, and is today one of the best collectives of performers of classical music, one that fully justifies its title.
288
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 288
6/9/11 4:03:05 PM
Valery Gergiev (b. 1953)
On December 25, 2007, a theater complex opened in Beijing. It was the most spectacular cultural project undertaken by the Chinese government in recent years. And on opening night, the new Chinese theater presented the Russian historical opera Prince Igor, performed by the Mariinsky Theater under the direction of Valery Gergiev. Jan Jemin, the initiator of the grandiose construction project, a lover of opera and music who enjoys playing the flute, was shaken by the maestro’s first appearance in China. The competition for the opening of the Beijing theater ended with an easy answer: Gergiev. Today Valery Gergiev is one of the world’s most popular conductors. London and Rotterdam battle for the right to invite him. Among his awards are the order of the Legion d’Honneur and a prize for services to the Republic of Italy. Gergiev’s conducting art is about vivid emotion and an individual reading of the score. 289
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 289
6/9/11 12:30:59 AM
In Song and Dance
Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. Or the Mariinsky in Saint Petersburg. Wherever you see it, Russian ballet is incomparable. The glory of the Russian ballet school began in the 20th century. The Russian Seasons in Paris â&#x20AC;&#x201C; produced by Sergei Diaghilev, with sets by the outstanding artists of the day, Bakst and Benois, starring Vatslav Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova â&#x20AC;&#x201C; turned France upside down. Diaghilev brought the great opera singer Feodor Chaliapin to Europe as well. His mighty voice enchanted listeners. The success of Russian ballet and opera was exceptional. The Russian school in both singing and dance is highly appreciated even today, as evidenced in the triumphs of ballerina Ulyana Lopatkina and soprano Anna Netrebko.
290
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 290
6/9/11 12:31:00 AM
Anna Pavlova (1881–1931) Good to Know Light as Pavlova In the 1920s, when Anna Pavlova was on a world tour, the name of the famous dancer appeared on the labels of a variety of products: chocolates, clothing, and perfume. During her Australian tour in 1926, the great Russian ballerina made such an impression on the public that a popular pastry was named after her, and it later became a national symbol of Australia. According to legend, the chef who invented the new dessert, exclaimed: “It is as light as Pavlova!”
In her autobiography, Anna Pavlova recalled: “We were very, very poor. But mama always managed to do something nice for me on major holidays. Once, when I was eight years old, she announced that we were going to the Mariinsky Theater. ‘Now you’ll see sorceresses.’ They were doing Sleeping Beauty…” Remaining wholly within the boundaries of the classical school, Anna Pavlova knew how to be strikingly original, and turned each of her dances into a masterpiece. In honor of the “Russian Swan,” as journalists called her, the Dutch, celebrated for their flowers, bred a special variety of snow-white tulips and called them “Anna Pavlova.” To this day you can admire their elegant beauty at floral exhibitions. 291
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 291
6/9/11 12:31:00 AM
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 292
6/9/11 12:31:01 AM
Galina Ulanova (1909â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1998)
Galina Ulanova is called one of the greatest ballerinas in the entire history of ballet. She began at the Mariinsky Theater, but in 1944 she became a soloist of the Bolshoi. In the 1940s and 1950s, Ulanova was the unrivaled prima of the international ballet stage. The roles of Juliet and Cinderella made her famous, but the summit of her career was the role of Giselle. Galina Ulanova was the only ballerina to whom monuments were erected in her lifetime â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in Saint Petersburg and Stockholm.
293
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 293
6/9/11 12:31:04 AM
Maya Plisetskaya (b. 1925)
For her ease of movement and strong temperament, critics called her â&#x20AC;&#x153;a force of nature.â&#x20AC;? Her leaps and dizzying supports seemed to be beyond the bounds of the possible. Besides her remarkable gift, Plisetskaya was remarkable for her extremely long career. Until recently she not only continued to perform, but learned new roles.
294
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 294
6/9/11 12:31:06 AM
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 295
6/9/11 12:31:10 AM
Rudolf Nuriev (1938–1993)
He was called the Genghis Khan of ballet. His motto was: “I dance for my own pleasure.” Nuriev danced in America, Australia, and Europe; his roles included the prince in Sleeping Beauty. He undertook both classical and avant-garde stagings, working with the famed choreographers Roland Peti and Maurice Bejar. It was Nuriev who made the role of the partner more significant. Before him, the partner was perceived as a secondary participant of dance – the man who supports the ballerina. Nuriev’s dancing was remarkably powerful. He was the first among Soviet dancers to take the stage in only tights. Before him male dancers wore baggy shorts. Rudolf Nuriev demonstrated not only the dramaturgy of dance, but the beauty and power of the human body in movement.
296
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 296
6/9/11 12:31:13 AM
Ulyana Lopatkina (b. 1973)
A widely recognized prima and prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Theater, she won the Divine Prize, which was established by the theatrical agency Ardani and the New York gallery Russian World, and is awarded according to the results of a questionnaire posed to 50 ballet critics. In the United States she was called the “Catherine Deneuve of classical ballet,” for the nobility of the minimalist style that she “seemingly condensed from the excesses and beauties of ballet.” And this is what Russia’s theater critics have to say about her: “She is flawlessly classical and flawlessly feminine. She is majestic, reserved, and impeccable from the start. Her tempos are not accelerated according to the spirit of the time, but royally expansive.”
297
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 297
6/9/11 12:31:14 AM
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 298
6/9/11 12:31:16 AM
Feodor Chaliapin (1873–1938)
He is considered the personification of the Russian peasant on stage. Feodor Chaliapin became the founder of a whole new art form: Russian “singing actors.” Tall, statuesque, with sharply defined features and a piercing gaze, Chaliapin made an indelible impression. His roles included Boris Godunov, Mephistopheles, and Don Quixote. Chaliapin stunned viewers with his stormy temperament. His voice was thunderous, overwhelming. Chaliapin sang through each note, finding very precise and sincere intonations for each word of the song. He was absolutely organic and believable on stage. But Russia remembers him not only as a singer. Chaliapin generously gave to those in need. During World War I he opened two infirmaries for Russian soldiers with his own money. The lawyer M.F. Volkenstein, who ran
the singer’s financial affairs for many years, recalled: “If you only know how much of Chaliapin’s money passed through my hands to those who needed it!”
Good to Know Awards and Titles of Feodor Chaliapin 1902 — Bukharian Order of the Gold Star, 3rd Degree 1907 — Golden cross of the Prussian eagle 1910 — Soloist of His Majesty the Emperor of Russia 1912 — Soloist of His Majesty the King of Italy 1913 — Soloist of His Majesty the King of England 1914 — British order for special achievements in the arts 1914 — Russian Imperial Order of Stanislav, 3rd Degree 1918 — People’s Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic 1934 — Commodore of the Legion of Honor (France)
299
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 299
6/9/11 12:31:20 AM
Boris Shtokolov (1930–2005)
He was called a “great bass who possessed flawless technique.” Boris Shtokolov is on an impressively long list of great Russian singers. A continuer of the great traditions of the Russian operatic school, Shtokolov was at the same time a great chamber singer. The foundation of his repertoire was made up of Russian folk songs and romances, performed with great insight and
expressivity. “I noted,” Shtokolov admitted, “that my feelings and internal vision, that which I imagine and see in my mind, is communicated to the audience. That intensifies a feeling of creative, artistic, and human responsibility: all the people listening to me in the audience cannot be deceived.”
300
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 300
6/9/11 12:50:16 AM
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 301
6/9/11 12:31:28 AM
Dmitry Khvorostovsky (b. 1962)
The great contemporary baritone Dmitry Khvorostovsky was born in Siberia. For several years he performed in the Krasnoyarsk Theater of the Opera and Ballet. Since 1990 the best theaters in the world have struggled for the right to invite him to sing. The singerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s repertoire is constantly expanding, but his crowning numbers remain arias from operas of Tchaikovsky and Verdi.
302
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 302
6/9/11 12:31:31 AM
Anna Netrebko (b. 1971)
Anna Netrebko’s ancestors include gypsies and Cossacks, and the singer insists that she owes her remarkable soprano voice to them. As a child she dreamed of becoming an athlete, and claimed quite a few victories at acrobatics competitions and track meets. But her fate took Netrebko down another path. The press calls the soloist “a star of a new generation,” a “star in jeans.” But the secret of Netrebko’s success is not in her image, but in her voice, which allows her to perform arias by Mozart, Rossini, and Russian composers with equal ease.
303
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 303
6/9/11 12:31:32 AM
In Science and Technology
Science is usually defined as the fruit of collective labor. It’s hard to dispute this definition – but in Russia, alas, it does not hold. The history of Russian science, to a significant degree, was made by self-taught men. Another unique feature of our science is in the encyclopedic knowledge of Russian geniuses. You probably can’t find a dozen scientists in the country who devoted their whole life to solving a single question without getting distracted by other problems. The natural continuation of science is technology. Indeed, isn’t the ultimate goal of most scientific discoveries in their practical implementation? Even delineating theory from practice is not always easy, for a true inventor is usually a great scientist as well.
304
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 304
6/9/11 12:31:33 AM
Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–1765)
For the universal nature of his gift, Mikhail Lomonosov was called the “Russian Leonardo da Vinci.” He was a man of exclusively diverse talents: a poet, a physicist, a chemist, an astronomer, and an artist. The first Russian natural scientist of international importance, Lomonosov, gave a definition to physical chemistry, anticipated modern
concepts of the composition of matter, discovered the existence of an atmosphere on Venus, and designed a programme of study for the University of Moscow, which now bears his name. Characteristically, Lomonosov always tried to put all his scientific discoveries into practice. And so, while working on the manufacture of multi-colored glass, he and his pupils created the enormous mosaic The Battle of Poltava, which depicted Peter the Great during his famous battle with the Swedes. This work has survived and is kept in Saint Petersburg. To realize his cherished dream of public education, Lomonosov created a project for Russia’s first university. In 1755 the University of Moscow was opened based on his plans. The first professors there had been pupils and followers of Lomonosov.
The scholar demanded that the gymnasium and university accept not only children of aristocrats, but all capable youths. That should come as no surprise, since Lomonosov himself came from commoners. Born to a coastal peasant near Arkhangelsk in Russia’s north, he taught himself the basics of grammar and arithmetic, and at age nineteen he traveled to Moscow on foot to continue his education. The name of Lomonosov – a man of lowly origins who brought glory to Russian science – has become a symbol of the giftedness of the Russian people.
305
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 305
6/9/11 12:31:33 AM
Ivan Kulibin (1735–1818)
The name of this man has become a common noun in our country. The phrase “Russia is rich in kulibins” is known and understood by any Russian. A man absorbed with his work to the point of fanaticism, free-thinking and uncompromising, Ivan Kulibin defined his era for centuries to come. Contemporaries liked his windup toys, his outlandish slot machines and fireworks, but they did not fully appreciate his “water walker” (a river vessel able to move against the current), or his push-cycle cart (a cart set in motion by a person who presses on the pedals), or his salt-mining machine. Kulibin’s free spirit provoked derision in aristocratic circles on more than one occasion. He categorically refused to wear the Western-style clothing fashionable at the time, preferring long-hemmed caftans
and tall boots, which earned him a reputation as an eccentric. When the empress told Kulibin that she would only give him a noble title if he shaved off his voluminous beard, he refused the title. The “mechanic of the Saint Petersburg academy” died in poverty. He had put all his money in his last project: a search for a perpetual motion machine.
306
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 306
6/9/11 12:31:35 AM
Nikolai Pirogov (1810–1881)
The name of the brilliant Russian surgeon and anatomist Nikolai Pirogov – the founding father of scientific surgery and a pioneer in battlefield surgery – is known by doctors and non-doctors alike. He was an honorary member of many Russian and foreign scientific societies. The luminaries of the day deemed him great. Streets, societies, museums, hospitals, academic conferences and literary publications are called “Pirogovsky” in his honour. In the history of surgery, Pirogov occupies the place that Mendeleev does in chemistry, Sechenov and Pavlov in physiology, or Lobachevsky in mathematics. From the beginning of the Crimean War, Pirogov headed a group of doctors and nurses who went to work among the army in Sevastopol, where they selflessly performed
services in hospitals around the clock. His popularity grew quickly, especially among soldiers. He taught doctors to not only operate, but administrate, and they caught the infectious enthusiasm of the great surgeon. During the defense of Sevastopol, he conducted immensely important research on methods of organizing aid for the wounded.
307
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 307
6/9/11 12:31:35 AM
Dmitry Mendeleev (1834â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1907)
A scholar of encyclopedic knowledge, an outstanding physicist, geologist, and economist, Dmitry Mendeleev won fame primarily as the author of the periodic system of chemical elements, the classification of elements by the charge of the atomic nucleus. As the scientist himself recalled, for a long time he could not imagine his ideas about the periodic system as a rigid and visible system. Somehow after three days of intense work Mendeleev lay down to rest, lost himself in sleep â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and he dreamed of a table where all the elements were arranged in the proper order.
308
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 308
6/9/11 12:31:36 AM
Alexander Popov (1859–1906) Good to Know Popov or Marconi?
Alexander Popov went down in the history of science, technology and world culture as the inventor of the radio telegraph. However, the interests of the inventor were much wider. Not a single phenomenon of nature, not a single discovery passed Popov by. Before the solar eclipse of 1887, he and his comrades at the university made a passionate study of everything that was then known about the Sun. He took an active role in organizing an expedition to observe the eclipse and went to Krasnoyarsk for that purpose. Several years later, as soon as Russia learned about the discovery of X-rays, Popov made an X-ray tube by hand and used it to conduct several experiments and obtain Russia’s first X-ray photographs, which by his initiative were used for diagnostic purposes at the Kronshtadt hospital.
Italians say that the inventor of radio was Marconi. Germany thinks it was Herz, while in the United States and several Balkan countries they believe it was Nikola Tesla. But the Russian engineer Popov demonstrated his radio receiver at a conference of the physics department of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society on May 7, 1895, while Marconi filed a patent application on June 2, 1896. Starting in 1897—when the first reports of Marconi’s experiments began appearing in newspapers—Popov began actively defending his primacy with the support of his family and colleagues.
Popov’s closest assistant recalled that when Popov’s works on the application of radio communication attracted the attention of foreign businessmen, the scientist received several tempting offers. But Popov rejected them decisively. He said: “I am a Russian man, and all of my knowledge, all my labor, all my achievements I can give only to my homeland. I am proud to have been born a Russian.” 309
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 309
6/9/11 12:31:37 AM
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 310
6/9/11 12:31:38 AM
Andrei Tupolev (1888–1972) Good to Know Beauty Means It Will Fly
Under the direction of the great aviation engineer Andrei Tupolev, more than a hundred types of airplanes were designed, both military and civilian. These planes have set about eighty world records, and virtually all the famous achievements of Soviet aviation are linked to Tupolev’s name. The first nonstop flight from Moscow to the United States, the first landing on the North Pole – these happened thanks to Tupolev’s airplanes.
Airplane construction is not just a technology. It’s also an art. A creative nature and a nose for aesthetics are very important qualities for a designer who wants to create a new airplane. That was what Andrei Tupolev had in mind when repeating his famous phrase: “Ugly planes don’t fly!”
311
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 311
6/9/11 12:31:42 AM
Igor Kurchatov (1902–1960)
Physicist Igor Kurchatov is called the “father of the Soviet atomic bomb.” For many years he led the Soviet nuclear programme. It was under his direction that Soviet scientists were able to create atomic and hydrogen bombs, as well as a thermonuclear bomb, called the “tsar bomb” for
the power of its charge. However, Kurchatov always advocated peaceful use of nuclear energy. In 1954 the world’s first nuclear power station was launched in Obninsk. It was also designed under the direction of Kurchatov.
312
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 312
6/9/11 12:31:44 AM
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 313
6/9/11 12:31:47 AM
Sergei Korolev (1906–1966) Good to Know The Secret Scientist It’s surprising, but the name of Sergei Korolev, the founder of the Soviet Union’s great achievements in space exploration, was hardly known either in the Soviet Union or abroad until his death. He belonged to the large cohort of so-called “secret scientists” who worked primarily in defence, whose last names were never made public even in connection with their world-famous successes.
314
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 314
6/9/11 12:31:48 AM
Zhores Alferov (b. 1930)
he has studied low-dimensional nanostructures. In 2010 Alferov was appointed the scientific director of the innovation center at Skolkovo. He is also renowned for his remarkable sense of humour, which while a university student saw him make a table of alcoholic elements, where Zubrowka neighboured absinthe.
Do you have a mobile phone? Of course you do â&#x20AC;&#x201C; today itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard to imagine life without the convenience of wireless communication. But this advance wouldn't be possible without the great scientific discovery in the field of high-speed optoelectronics. The man behind this breakthrough is the Russian
scientist Zhores Alferov. In 2000 he won the Nobel Prize in physics. By that time he had already authored 500 scientific works that were widely recognized. But the ultimate acclaim served as yet another stimulus for the Nobel laureate to create and master new fields in science. Since the early 1990s 315
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 315
6/9/11 12:31:50 AM
In Sport
Have you ever gone for a ride on the Moscow Metro? Then youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve probably noticed that the majority of men on the train are reading Soviet Sport newspaper. In 1949 this newspaper published a verse by the 16-year-old poet Evgeny Evtushenko about how capitalists compete at sports for money, while Soviet people do it because they love it. And while the young manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s maximalism jumps out at the reader, his affirmation of the specificity of the Russian approach to sport fully corresponded to the realities of the time. The interest in this sphere of life in our country has always been great. And the story of the development of Soviet sport and sporting achievements is closely linked with the history of the country. In the 1920s the first sports teams appeared in the Republic of Soviets. In the 1930s and 1940s, 316
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 316
6/9/11 12:31:51 AM
propaganda for the physical culture movement grew, and accomplished athletes were given the pin “Ready for labor and defense of the USSR.” After World War II, sport helped let off steam. Stadiums filled to the brim and sporting events became a true celebration of life. The second half of the 20th century was a truly Soviet era in sports worldwide. Hockey, figure skating, gymnastics – the Soviet Union had something of a “natural resource monopoly” on the victory pedestal for these sports. At the 1980 Olympics in Moscow the Soviet Union took first place among nations with 80 gold medals. Germany, the next after the USSR, won 47. Today our country is preparing for the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi. And once again we remember our heroes, whose names are forever kept in the Olympic chronicles. 317
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 317
6/9/11 12:31:51 AM
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 318
6/9/11 12:31:51 AM
Lev Yashin (1929–1990) Good to Know Olympic Achievements
The legendary Soviet goalkeeper of the 1950s and 1960s, Lev Yashin is best remembered for the saying that a goalie is more than half the team. In 1956 he led the Soviet team to victory at the Olympics, and four years later to a European championship. What’s more, Yashin started out as a hockey goalie and was even a candidate for the national team, but decided to concentrate on football. One of the greatest goalies in the history of world football, Yashin remained a modest man to the end of his days without the slightest signs of “star disease.”
Over the course of modern Olympic history, the Russian team (until 1912 and since 1994), the Soviet team, and the Unified Team of the former Soviet republics (in 1992) has won 1,754 medals, including 671 gold, 550 silver, and 533 bronze. In the unofficial medal count, those teams took first place 15 times.
319
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 319
6/9/11 12:31:55 AM
Larisa Latynina (b. 1934)
The gymnast Larisa Latynina has the biggest collection of Olympic medals in the history of the games. Her â&#x20AC;&#x153;piggy bankâ&#x20AC;? contains nine golds, five silvers, and four bronzes. A contender in three Olympics, Latynina only failed to reach the podium once, with a fourth place finish, in 1956 Games in Melbourne. All her other appearances on the floor made her a prizewinner. At the 1957 European championship Latynina won every single gold medal.
320
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 320
6/9/11 12:31:57 AM
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 321
6/9/11 12:32:01 AM
Irina Rodnina (b. 1949) and Alexander Zaitsev (b. 1952)
Skating as a pair first with Alexander Ulanov and then, starting in 1972, with Alexander Zaitsev, Irina Rodnina competed for 12 years, from 1969 to 1980, without losing a single competition, garnering more titles than any other woman in the history of pairs skating. She won three victories at the Olympics, ten at world championships, and 11 at European competition â&#x20AC;&#x201C; numbers that boggle the mind. The Rodnina-Zaitsev pair included new elements in every new programme, many of which could not be executed by anyone else in the world.
322
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 322
6/9/11 12:32:03 AM
Raisa Smetanina (b. 1952)
The sporting career of the famed Soviet skier Raisa Smetanina is full of unique achievements. She competed at five consecutive Winter Olympics and won awards at all of them â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the only such case in sporting history. She became the owner of ten Olympic medals, a result that no other female skier ever achieved. Smetanina received her last prize in Albertville right before she turned 40 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a record for skiers. She brought home another 16 medals, including five golds, from world championships.
323
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 323
6/9/11 12:32:04 AM
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 324
6/9/11 12:32:06 AM
Vladislav Tretyak (b. 1952) Good to Know USSR vs Canada
Vladislav Tretyak, over the course of 15 years, was a symbol of Soviet hockey. He protected the goal of the Soviet team from 1969 to 1984, playing 117 matches during which he earned the title of the threetime Olympic champion. He also won 19 gold medals at European and world championships. He was the first European inducted in the NHLâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hockey Hall of Fame. And the international hockey federation named him the greatest hockey player of the 20th century. Tretyakâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s game was pure magic. Often, the miracles that he performed would make his rivals want to give up.
One of the most exciting sporting events of the 20th century was the 1972 hockey superseries of matches between Canada and the Soviet Union. The whole world revelled in the tense struggle between two teams with different hockey-playing styles. The first four games were held in Canada, the rest in Moscow. Playing at high speeds and demonstrating a combined style, the Soviet Team took victory in three of the eight matches, proving that Soviet hockey was, and still is, one of the best in the world.
325
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 325
6/9/11 12:32:09 AM
Konstantin Tszyu (b. 1969)
Konstantin Tszyu started boxing when he was nine years old. In 1989 and 1991 he became European champion. After winning the world championship in 1991, he decided to end his amateur career, during which he won 270 victories out of 282 matches. As a professional, Tszyu fought 34 more bouts in 14 years, winning 31 of them. He was a world champion several times over. Today Tszyu actively conducts charity work to develop sport among children and youth.
326
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 326
6/9/11 12:32:11 AM
Marat Safin (b. 1980)
The 1990s and 2000s were a golden age for Russian tennis. In 1999, Evgeny Kafelnikov was the top-rated player in the world, before Marat Safin took that estimeed position in 2000. In that season Marat won his first Grand Slam, the US Open, and five years later he won the Australian Open. In 2009 Maratâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s younger sister Dinara became the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s top-ranked tennis player among women. The Safins are the only brother and sister in the history of tennis who have both been at the top of the sport.
327
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 327
6/9/11 12:32:12 AM
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 328
6/9/11 12:32:13 AM
Elena Isinbaeva (b. 1982)
For eight years Elena Isinbaeva has dominated the pole vault without rivals, except perhaps for herself. In that time she has set 27 world records, won two Olympic championships, and has twice been named the best woman athlete of the year. In 2005 Isinbaeva became the first woman in the world to exceed a height of five meters.
329
Russia-China200x200_ch_3.indd 329
6/9/11 12:32:16 AM
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 330
6/9/11 1:27:56 PM
Chapter 4
Growth Potential No doubt you’ve seen a wobbling toy before. In Russia it’s called a nevaliashka or vankavstanka. As soon as “Vanka” seems to have fallen on his side, he’s suddenly standing back up again. The Russian economy’s tenacity and remarkable capacity to recover makes it comparable to a nevaliashka. Russia has been through intense phases of restructuring twice in the last two centuries. In 1917, the capitalist relations that had barely had time to set in were washed away by the wave of revolution. The planned economy allowed Soviet leaders to quickly restore the economy after World War II, and the priority development of the defence industry in subsequent years made the Soviet Union a superpower. However, by 1990 it was obvious that the rigid model, which allowed for no deviations, had outlived itself. The inevitability of this result can be substantiated by any economist
from China, a country that knows first-hand about “five-year plans.” The last ten years have been a period of serious rebuilding which have defined the new leaders of the Russian economy. However, while the economy’s foundation continues to lie in natural resources, the role of new technologies is increasing. The assets of our economy are enormous and growing thanks to increased production brought about by the use of new technologies. Leading Russian economists have highlighted China as being a country we could learn a lot from. One such economist, A. Smirnov, has said China “has surpassed us in the realisation that when it comes to development, all means are good.”
331
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 331
6/9/11 1:27:56 PM
Oil and Gas
Russiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s natural resources are the foundation of its economy. About 13% of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s known oil deposits and 34% of natural gas are concentrated in Russia. Each year, primary energy resources produced in Russia account for 12% of the world total.
332
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 332
6/9/11 1:27:56 PM
333
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 333
6/9/11 1:28:00 PM
334
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 334
6/9/11 1:28:02 PM
Eastern Siberia is a promising region of oil production
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 335
335
6/9/11 1:28:07 PM
336
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 336
6/9/11 1:28:09 PM
Oil Production The newspaper Vedomosti announced the first discovery of oil in Russia in 1703. However, only the invention of the kerosene lamp in the mid-19th century made the industrial production of oil economically viable. In that period, the center of oil production in our country was the Caucasus. Russia is today the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2nd largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia, producing nine to ten million barrels per day, extracted from two thousand deposits. The most important of these deposits are those in Western Siberia and the TimanoPechora region. They were discovered relatively recently, and are currently at the peak of their development. Meanwhile, we are just beginning to explore the deposits of Eastern Siberia and the Far East, as well as the shelves of Russian seas.
337
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 337
6/9/11 1:28:13 PM
338
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 338
Drill tower in Siberia
6/9/11 1:28:16 PM
339
Russia-China200x200_ch_4-KLAPANS.indd 339
6/10/11 9:13:05 PM
Good to Know
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 26
6/9/11 8:11:37 PM
339
Russia-China200x200_ch_4-KLAPANS.indd 339
6/10/11 9:13:05 PM
Good to Know
340
Russia-China200x200_ch_4-KLAPANS.indd 340
6/9/11 7:01:26 PM
Offshore upstream
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 341
341
6/9/11 1:28:20 PM
342
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 342
6/9/11 4:26:56 PM
Petrochemicals and Oil Refinery Russia has 30 major oil refineries with a combined production capacity of 261.6 million tons. As domestic demand for oil continues to increase, so does investment in Russian oil refineries. Over the last few years, new large-scale refineries have been designed, built and launched in Tatarstan, in southern Russia, and the Far East. Some refineries are building complexes for deep conversion plants. By 2012, Russiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest refinery will be completed at the end point of the pipeline between Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean. The depth of oil conversion there will be 93%.
343
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 343
6/9/11 4:27:01 PM
344
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 344
6/9/11 1:28:31 PM
A worker at the refinery
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 345
345
6/9/11 1:28:36 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 346
6/9/11 1:28:40 PM
A refinery
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 347
6/9/11 1:28:44 PM
Gas Production and Transportation Oil is far from the only “natural resource link” between Russia and China. Our country is a world leader in natural gas production as well. Russian territory has a third of all of the world’s resources of natural gas, producing 650 billion cubic meters in 2010. The largest gas deposit in Russia, Urengoi, is located in Western Siberia, south of the northern Polar Circle. The gas resources in Urengoi exceed 10 trillion cubic meters. Today Russian gas is transported to Europe along the Urengoi – Pomary – Uzhgorod pipeline. Built in 1983, it is the world’s longest major pipeline. A few years ago, the Yamal – Europe pipeline was launched to “assist” it. Soon gas will flow from Russia to Europe along two underwater gas pipelines: the Northern Stream and the Southern Stream.
The Blue Stream, laid across the bottom of the Black Sea in 2003, exports gas from Russia to Turkey. But the most ambitious project in gas transportation is the Altai pipeline which will transport deposits from Western Siberia to the Xinjiang-Uighur autonomous region of China. There Altai will link with the Chinese East-West pipeline, which will bring the gas to Shanghai. The planned length of the pipeline is about 6,700 kilometers, which is one and a half times longer than the Urengoi – Pomary – Uzhgorod pipeline.
348
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 348
6/9/11 1:28:48 PM
349
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 349
6/9/11 1:28:51 PM
350
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 350
6/9/11 1:28:53 PM
Gas pipeline
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 351
351
6/9/11 1:28:55 PM
352
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 352
6/9/11 1:28:57 PM
Storage tanks for liquefied gas
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 353
353
6/9/11 1:29:02 PM
Energy
Energy production is critically important to any country’s economy as it forms a foundation for growth in key sectors of industry. Today’s increased use of hydro resources gives Russia a significant competitive advantage over other energy producing nations. Textbooks of Russia’s 20th century history make several mentions of the abbreviation GOELRO: the State Commission for the Electrification of Russia. The plan to restructure the people’s economy based on GOELRO in the 1920s and 1930s was the first step in the Soviet Union’s energy development which saw largescale construction of power plants and hydroelectric stations. In the 1950s, progress in the field of energy was connected with scientific developments in atomic physics and the construction of nuclear power plants. Exploration of the hydropower potential of Siberia proceeded in parallel and today the overall power of all these power stations is 215 gigawatts. 354
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 354
6/9/11 1:29:06 PM
355
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 355
6/9/11 1:29:15 PM
356
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 356
6/9/11 1:29:22 PM
Hydroelectric Power Stations Hydropower stands at the forefront of Russiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s energy sector. Russia has about 120 hydroelectric stations, 15 of which have a capacity of more than one gigawatt. The most powerful hydropower plants in Russia are located along the mighty Siberia rivers, Yenisei and Angara. The largest of these plants is SayanoShushenskaya hydropower plant. It is the source of energy for major industrial plants, such as the Sayan and Khakassia aluminum factories and its significance to the Russian economy should therefore not be underestimated. The Krasnoyarsk and Bratsk hydropower plants, which provide electricity to the aluminum factories of Krasnoyarsk and Bratsk respectively, are also hugely important to the Russian economy. The Boguchanskaya hydropower plant on the Angara is currently being prepared for launch and will be the fifth most powerful power plant in Russia.
When hydropower plants are built and used, special attention is given to the environmental well-being of the surrounding area. Studies have been conducted to establish the impact of the reservoir on the adjacent eco-systems and long-term sustainability of animal populations such as the sable and snow leopard. Another good example of the proactive steps taken to protect the environment can be seen in the 4,000 sq km SayanoShushensky nature reserve which was established shortly after the launch of the SayanoShushenskaya hydropower plant. A detailed program of complex eco-monitoring is currently being carried out during construction of the Boguchanskaya hydropower plant and has already discovered several historical artifacts from the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods in areas allocated for flooding. 357
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 357
6/9/11 1:29:26 PM
358
Turbine hall of a hydroelectric power station
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 358
6/9/11 1:29:30 PM
359
Russia-China200x200_ch_4-KLAPANS.indd 359
6/10/11 9:13:23 PM
Good to Know
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 26
6/9/11 8:11:37 PM
359
Russia-China200x200_ch_4-KLAPANS.indd 359
6/10/11 9:13:23 PM
Good to Know
360
Russia-China200x200_ch_4-KLAPANS.indd 360
6/9/11 7:01:41 PM
Remote control of a hydroelectric power station 361
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 361
6/9/11 1:29:35 PM
Metallurgy
Industry is the main consumer of electricity in Russia (36%) with metallurgy being one of the main processes for which this energy is used. Anyone who has studied economics knows what this sector means for the country. The degree of economic and military might of a state has always been defined by the level of its development in metallurgy. It continues to serve as the foundation of machine building, the defence and construction industries. Investment is now returning to Russiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s metallurgy sector with new plants being built and upgraded.
362
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 362
6/9/11 1:29:39 PM
363
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 363
6/9/11 1:29:42 PM
364
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 364
6/9/11 1:29:44 PM
Melting of the wire at a metallurgical plant
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 365
365
6/9/11 1:29:52 PM
366
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 366
6/9/11 1:29:59 PM
Nonferrous Metallurgy The main fields of the industry are copper, nickel, and zinc smelting but the outright leader is the aluminum industry. Its history goes back to 1832, when the Volkhov Factory first produced aluminum, which the writer Chernyshevsky then called the “metal of the future.” Today, the Russian company RUSAL is the world’s largest producer of aluminium. It owns 16 aluminum factories, including the world’s two largest, in Bratsk and Krasnoyarsk and annual production at its factories exceeds 4 million tons (about 10% of world production). RUSAL factories employ 72,000 people and export to Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, Japan and Korea. The main consumers are the transport, construction, and packaging sectors. Aluminum was first used in construction more than one
hundred years ago, and today it is rare for a building to be erected without the use of this metal. It is used for suspension walls and ceilings, window frames, blinds, doors, staircases, siding and roofs, all sorts of wall panels and partitions, heating and ventilation equipment; it is used to make buildings and shopping centers, stadiums and bridges. Construction accounts for one fifth of the volume of aluminum produced worldwide and, in some countries, the ratio is even greater. However, the main sector, which is almost unimaginable without aluminum, is the aviation sector.
367
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 367
6/9/11 1:30:07 PM
368
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 368
6/9/11 1:30:12 PM
The Krasnoyarsk aluminum smelter
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 369
369
6/9/11 1:30:15 PM
370
Bratsk aluminum smelter
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 370
6/9/11 1:30:16 PM
371
Russia-China200x200_ch_4-KLAPANS.indd 371
6/10/11 9:13:50 PM
Good to Know
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 26
6/9/11 8:11:37 PM
371
Russia-China200x200_ch_4-KLAPANS.indd 371
6/10/11 9:13:50 PM
Good to Know
372
Russia-China200x200_ch_4-KLAPANS.indd 372
6/9/11 7:01:53 PM
The electrolysis pot of the Khakas aluminum 373 smelter
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 373
6/9/11 1:30:21 PM
374
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 374
6/9/11 1:30:25 PM
Aluminum foil
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 375
375
6/9/11 1:30:30 PM
Aerospace and Airplane Construction In April 2011, the world remembered the name of the first man to conquer space, a Russian called Yuri Gagarin. Throughout the 20th century our country occupied a leading position in aeronautical achievement and, despite the economic decline of the 1990s, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve managed to remain at the forefront of this sector.
376
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 376
6/9/11 1:30:35 PM
377
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 377
6/9/11 1:30:38 PM
378
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 378
6/9/11 1:30:39 PM
Rocket engines of a space ship
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 379
379
6/9/11 1:30:47 PM
The Aerospace Sector Many associate Russia’s victories in space with events from half a century ago. But the country remains a cosmic superpower and “holds” about 11% of the world market for service into outer space. In 1998, Russia launched the first element of the international space station, the functional cargo unit Zarya, and two years later the service module Zvezda.
380
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 380
6/9/11 1:30:53 PM
381
Russia-China200x200_ch_4-KLAPANS.indd 381
6/10/11 9:14:13 PM
Good to Know
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 26
6/9/11 8:11:37 PM
381
Russia-China200x200_ch_4-KLAPANS.indd 381
6/10/11 9:14:13 PM
Good to Know
382
Russia-China200x200_ch_4-KLAPANS.indd 382
6/9/11 7:02:06 PM
The launch of missile carrier Soyuz-U from Plesetsk cosmodrome
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 383
383
6/9/11 4:27:24 PM
384
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 384
Mir space station
6/9/11 3:57:05 PM
385
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 385
6/9/11 3:57:08 PM
386
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 386
6/9/11 3:57:30 PM
Sukhoi Superjet The Sukhoi Superjet (SSJ 100) is a Russian short-haul passenger plane, developed by Sukhoi Civilian Airplanes. Thanks to new engineering solutions and the application of new highly wearresistant materials, the airplane has a resource of 70,000 flight hours, whereas the international average is 30,000. The airplane has successfully passed all tests and is now ready for commercial use. Many of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s airlines have already announced their desire to acquire a SSJ 100.
387
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 387
6/9/11 3:57:35 PM
388
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 388
6/9/11 8:17:04 PM
Engineer working on the adjustment of the jet engine
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 389
389
6/9/11 8:17:05 PM
390
Presentation of the Sukhoi Superjet 100
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 390
6/9/11 1:31:13 PM
391
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 391
6/9/11 1:31:17 PM
Machinery
Russia has long-maintained a leading role in the machinebuilding with 6% of the global market share. In the Soviet Union machine production was for many years tightly connected to the defence industry. A large part of the industry continues to work in that field today but in recent years the sector has seen growth in other, more peaceful, areas.
392
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 392
6/9/11 1:31:19 PM
393
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 393
6/9/11 1:31:23 PM
394
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 394
6/9/11 1:31:25 PM
Automotive Construction Russia was never an international leader of the world auto industry, and although its Zhigulis and UAZ could be found in other countries, they never thrilled their owners. Today the situation seems to be changing. According to predictions of experts, in the next four years Russia’s auto industry will be one of the most dynamic in Europe, and by 2020 it will be one of the world’s top six auto producers, surpassing countries like Germany, France, and Italy. This dynamic development is in large part due to the arrival of foreign manufacturers into Russia, who’ve localised their production and brought parts suppliers with them. GAZ, the leading Russian auto factory, which over the course of its 80 year history released the legendary one-and-a-half ton truck, the Chaika, the Pobeda, and the Volga, now is a leader in
the manufacture of commercial automobiles, holding an approximately 50% share of the Russian market. Trucks, vans, GAZel microbuses and more than 200 kinds of specialized equipment are widely used in various sectors of the country’s economy. In 2010 GAZ renewed its model line, but kept a serious price advantage relative to its foreign competitors. To master the leading technologies of the international auto industry, it signed a contract to work with several major international auto producers, including Daimler. And so Russian and foreign companies are working together to shape the Russian automotive industry of the future.
395
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 395
6/9/11 1:31:29 PM
396
Production of passenger cars Siber on GAZ Group car factory
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 396
6/9/11 1:31:30 PM
397
Russia-China200x200_ch_4-KLAPANS.indd 397
6/10/11 9:14:37 PM
Good to Know
Russia-China200x200_ch_1-KLAPANS.indd 26
6/9/11 8:11:37 PM
397
Russia-China200x200_ch_4-KLAPANS.indd 397
6/10/11 9:14:37 PM
Good to Know
398
Russia-China200x200_ch_4-KLAPANS.indd 398
Workers in the Gazel car assembly shop of the GAZ Group car factory
6/9/11 7:02:22 PM
399
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 399
6/9/11 1:31:33 PM
Robotics Soviet scientists were some of the first to begin to develop robots for work in outer space. One of them took a lunar soil sample, another delivered soil from the surface of Venus to Earth. Studies in this field continue with success today. In the near future, Russian space robots will learn to bring useful cargo into orbit and work in open space. Russian-made robots can also be found on earth successfully representing Russia in the first world chess tournament for robots.
400
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 400
6/9/11 1:31:37 PM
401
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 401
6/9/11 1:31:40 PM
402
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 402
6/9/11 1:31:43 PM
The robot controls the milling machine through 403 the control panel
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 403
6/9/11 1:31:48 PM
The Service Sector
The service sector is one of the youngest sectors of the Russian economy. This sector has undergone a more radical transformation than any other during the transition from a planned economy to a market one. However, according to business research, the sector has been fortunate with its leaders. As a rule, industrial companies are headed by dynamic, enterprising specialists with broad international contacts. The ones who easily pick up everything new, who understand their companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to compete on domestic and international markets. The results are clearly evident with Russia, today one of 30 large countries who take part in the international exchange of services. Of greatest interest to foreign investors are mediation and consulting services, while catering, retail, and hotel industries are amongst the most appealing of consumer services. 404
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 404
6/9/11 1:31:51 PM
405
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 405
6/9/11 1:31:54 PM
406
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 406
6/9/11 1:31:57 PM
Office of the Russian stock market trading system
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 407
407
6/9/11 1:32:02 PM
408
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 408
6/9/11 3:57:58 PM
The Banking System The last two decades, Russia has built a thriving banking system from virtually nothing. In recent years, Russian banks have demonstrated a push toward maximum transparency. They are actively implementing advanced business models, new banking technologies (client bank, money transfer systems, debit and credit cards, etc.). The current structure of the credit system in the Russian Federation is comparable to the model used in other industrially developed countries. Year to year, credit plays an ever larger role in the financial life of the country, of businesses, of private citizens. The number of mortgages given to consumers by banks is constantly increasing, and consumer and education loans are becoming more common as well. Bank loans help the development of many small companies and a special discount loan system has been developed for small business.
409
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 409
6/9/11 3:58:05 PM
410
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 410
6/9/11 1:32:11 PM
Operations with bank cards
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 411
411
6/9/11 1:32:16 PM
Telecommunications Today, in any Russian city – just like in China, Europe, or America – it’s hard to find a person without a cell phone. There are 20% more mobile phones than there are people and the telecoms market is one of the fastest growing sectors of the Russian economy. Mobile communications are developing at a rapid pace that has seen coverage extend to the remotest corners of the country. Each year, high-speed internet providers double their number of clients. According to results from spring 2010, Russia has 43.3 million internet users (those who went online at least once in the last month), a weekly audience of 39.2 million, and a daily audience of 29.4 million. The growth rate of the Russian internet audience from 2000 to 2010 was 1826%. According to a report from Morgan Stanley, at
the end of 2010 Russia was one of the world’s top five internet markets. Data shows that the Russian internet audience has 60 million users, or 42% of the population, which is 31% higher than the previous year – the fastest growth rate among these top five markets. There is also an increasing trend towards mobile internet devices with the coverage of high-speed 3G services growing 81% in a year, and reaching 5% of all internet users.
412
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 412
6/9/11 1:32:19 PM
413
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 413
6/9/11 1:32:22 PM
414
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 414
6/9/11 1:32:24 PM
A girl in an Internet cafe
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 415
415
6/9/11 1:32:30 PM
416
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 416
Satellite dish
6/9/11 1:32:34 PM
417
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 417
6/9/11 1:32:39 PM
418
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 418
Data center workers
6/9/11 8:16:43 PM
419
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 419
6/9/11 8:16:44 PM
420
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 420
6/9/11 1:32:46 PM
Test of a new digital telephone equipment
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 421
421
6/9/11 1:32:50 PM
422
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 422
6/9/11 1:32:54 PM
Nowadays mobile communication is accessible 423 to everyone
Russia-China200x200_ch_4.indd 423
6/9/11 1:32:59 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 424
6/8/11 10:45:40 PM
Chapter 5
Gaze Toward the Future The Russia of yesterday was a socialist superpower. The thought of it conjures associations with the first flight to outer space and the first industrial reactor. Three million students at 567 institutions of higher learning. Tens of thousands of oil derricks. Ten nuclear power stations. The most plentiful resources of natural gas. The first country in the world to officially acknowledge computer games as a sport. One of the first major powers to implement fines for pollution. That’s Russia today. What will be our country’s tomorrow? No one can answer that question with absolute precision. Planning a “readyto-use” future is a task that few will take up, perhaps only developers of computing strategies. But it is possible to delineate a trajectory, to set down nodes and beacons that will serve as guidelines on the proper
course. That is what our country is doing today as it plans its future. The main components of our tomorrow are Major Projects, Progressive Technologies, and Big Events. The creators of our future are ordinary people. The citizens of our country. Absent-minded geniuses and disciplined executors. The nation that gave the world Pushkin and Tolstoy, Tsiolkovsky and Mendeleev can never run out of talents. And Russia has experience with innovative breakthroughs: just think of Peter the Great’s Academy and Navy, the Transsiberian railroad, atomic and cosmic projects. Then there’s the main treasure of our nation: the Russian character. And one of the most valuable qualities of a people is knowing how to dream. Because the future begins with a dream. 425
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 425
6/8/11 10:45:40 PM
A Course Toward Modernization Today no one in our country needs proof of the need to modernise. The rapid rate of the movement toward civilization, and the new technologies that come with it, obligate Russia to accept the challenges of the 21st century with dignity. Perhaps the motivation of the state and business can be expressed with a single aphorism: He who doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t move forward moves backward; thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no room to stand still. We are absolutely confident that this approach is the right one: because modernization for Russia is not updating or upgrading the old, but a course for longterm growth, developing principally new mechanisms for working, both in manufacturing and in adjacent industries.
426
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 426
6/8/11 10:45:40 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 427
6/8/11 10:45:43 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 428
6/8/11 10:45:45 PM
Oil, Gas, and Renewable Energy Sources Good to Know Energy of the Wind
The basis of any economy is natural resources. That is why the fundamental staterun modernisation projects in Russia are linked with exploration, extraction, and transport of the country’s major natural resources. One of the most promising directions for replenishing fossil fuels is the Arctic Ocean shelf. “Without exploring the arctic shelf it will be impossible to achieve the goals of Russia’s energy strategy by 2019,” said Valery Kaminsky, director of the Oceanology Research Institute. Today, the biggest Russian deposits on the shelf are Shtokman, Rusanov, and Leningrad in the western Arctic. Explorations continue. The oil deposits of Western and Eastern Siberia, the oil port in the Gulf of Nakhodka, and an oil refinery will be connected by the Eastern Siberia – Pacific Ocean
pipeline system. This pipeline will help Russia enter the markets of the United States and other countries of the Asia Pacific region. The planned total length of the pipeline is 4,188 km. On December 28, 2009, the first line of the project (VSTO-1) was launched: a pipeline from Taishet to Skovorodino 2,694 km long. The power of the first line of VSTO carries 30 million tons per year. Half of the pumped oil will be sent by rail to the Primorsky Region. Another 15 million tons per year will be sent to China. Russia is a major consumer of primary energy resources, and still has not experienced a shortage of them. But pollution, increasing fuel costs and other problems of traditional energy sources have affected us, too. The first serious alternative trend was launched in 2009. According to an order from the government, production of renewable energy
Russia has the potential to generate 260 billion kWh per year from wind energy, which is about 30% of the electricity produced by all of the power stations in the country. The wind energy zones are located primarily on the coast and islands of the Arctic Sea from Kolsky peninsula to Kamchatka, on the Upper and Middle Volga and along the Don, and on the coasts of the Capsian, Okhotsk, Barents, Baltic, Black, and Azov seas. The maximum average wind speed in these regions falls in the autumn and winter, which happens to be the time of the greatest demand for electricity and warmth. The largest wind power station in Russia is located in Kaliningrad Region and has a capacity to produce 5.1MWt.
must grow from less than 1% to 4.5% by 2020. Experts estimate that the real economically affordable potential of renewable energy sources will reach 30% share in the balance of energy. At the same time, studies show a huge potential for modernising Russian energy even without a sharp decrease in the share of fossil fuel. 429
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 429
6/8/11 10:45:47 PM
Nuclear Energy
Thanks to the development of nuclear research in our country, a powerful industry complex has taken shape, including industrial plants and institutes of experimental and applied science. It ensures Russia’s position as a world leader in the atomic sphere. Today’s projects are based on innovative technologies of fast reactors and heat reactors. In 2012, Russia will start work on a contemporary nuclear power plant with a water-cooled heating reactor, adapted not just for the Russian market, but for Europe and America as well. “A New Technology Platform: A Closed Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Fast Reactors” – by 2030 this initiative will produce a fundamentally new technological base for nuclear energy.
430
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 430
6/8/11 10:51:26 PM
431
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 431
6/8/11 10:51:27 PM
Cosmic Modernization Good to Know Expedition to Mars By 2015, Russia plans to conduct an unmanned flight to Phobos, one of the moons of Mars and by 2050 the goal will be Mars itself. As part of the national space programme, a simulation of the flight, named Mars-500, will be held on Earth. The third stage of this simulated flight began in 2010 and includes a 520-day isolation of the crew in conditions approximating those they’re likely to experience on the journey.
Russia is getting a new cosmodrome: Vostochny, not far from the Uglegorsk village. The first unmanned launches are expected to take place in 2015. Construction should be fully complete in 2016. The cosmodrome will be completely operational in 2020. The top priority for the new complex is to decrease the load of the Baikonur cosmodrome, without replacing it entirely. Equally important as this goal
is the construction of a new space travel complex in the Far East federal district, which will solve the region’s demographic problem: Vostochny is seen as the cornerstone of a federal programme for internal migration. The construction of Vostochny will cost, by some estimates, up to 400 billion rubles. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that during the first stage of the cosmodrome’s construction
(which will take three years) Russia will allot 24.7 billion rubles. These funds will be used to build a launch complex, a runway for takeoffs and landings, a nitrox factory, a hydrogen factory. There are plans to use it to launch the new rockets Rus and Angara. According to Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, starting in 2018 all of Russia’s manned space flights will be launched from Vostochny.
432
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 432
6/8/11 10:45:53 PM
Metalworking PA-300 electrolyzers. This is a progressive development from the Engineering Technological Center of RUSAL. This technology of manufacturing aluminum excludes emissions of harmful substances. The BEMO project is an example According to expert data, one of a successful public-private of the most appealing fields for partnership. Its completion will capital investment in our country’s be a key element of the complex economy is metalworking. The and plan to develop Nizhneye theoretical contributions of science Priangarye, which also includes are confirmed brilliantly in practice. the construction of a celluloid and paper factory, a gas condensing and In May 2006, RUSAL and iron-ore deposits development, the RusGidro signed an agreement on construction of a railroad branch collaboration and joint realization of and a network of roadways. a project to create the Boguchansky energy and metalworking union The construction of a factory near (BEMO). The BEMO project includes the city of Taishet in Irkutsk region the completion of the construction is one of the biggest of RUSAL’s of the Boguchanskaya hydropower projects. This new plant has a plant, with a capacity of 3,000 production capacity of 750,000 megawatts on the river Angara and tons per year which will allow the the erection of an aluminum factory company to increase the volume capable of producing 600,000 of aluminum production by 18%. tons per year. In 2007, investors The factory will operate using contributed 11.35 billion rubles to PA-400 electrolysis technology, the project. In 2008, investors in the which provides excellent results in BEMO project increased the volume terms of environmental safety and of financing to 22.45 billion rubles. efficiency, and is one of the world’s top five technologies. The first launch complex, called BoAZ, has a planned start date The site for the factory’s of 2013 and will be equipped with construction was chosen having
considered the availability of transportation infrastructure, free sources of energy in the Irkutskenergo and qualified labor resources, including workers specializing in construction. The aluminum factory includes four electrolysis buildings, which house 672 electrolyzers; an alum intake unit and gas-cleaning structures, which ensure minimal emissions; a foundry, a baked anode production center, and energy management facilities. Such large-scale construction requires serious resources: company investments account for about US$3 bn, and construction of the factory will engage the labor of more than 6,000 people. The Taishet Aluminum Factory is designed with contemporary achievements of science and technology. It will become one of the most ecologically and technologically perfect aluminum enterprises in the world. The construction of the factory stipulates the development of new residential neighbourhoods. In Taishet’s Myasnikovo district, four high-rise apartment buildings with all amenities are being built for the company’s personnel. 433
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 433
6/8/11 10:45:53 PM
Environmental Projects
One of the most relevant fields that has a major place in plans for Russia’s modernisation is ecology. You probably can’t find a single country on the map today that hasn’t had to deal with environmental problems. By 2020, Russia plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25%. Another expansive environmental programme is the restoration of the ecology of the Baltic Sea which will cost 145 billion rubles.
434
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 434
6/8/11 10:45:53 PM
Financial System
An alternative to international, single-emittent and state-run payment systems will be a national domestic payment-card system (NSPK). The system will provide Russian citizens with cards for banking and social services (today, 80% of payment cards in Russia are salaried). There are plans to model the system after the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Chinese optionâ&#x20AC;? to block the transfer of data to the United States. The main goals of the national payment system is to provide large-scale financial functions independent from the influence of international cardpayment systems. To realize the social function, NSPK cards will be used to provide various state services electronically. And finally, thanks to its broad coverage of the population, the system will help the transition from using cards to fully functional credit transactions for goods, services, and deals. 435
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 435
6/8/11 10:45:54 PM
Technological Breakthrough There can only be one firm foundation for modernising manufacturing: advanced technologies. Moreover, these technologies must be based on new scientific knowledge and discoveries. For the only correct and firm foundation for the building of the future is science. That is why the first thing that comes to mind in relation with Russiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strategic plans is Skolkovo.
436
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 436
6/8/11 10:45:54 PM
437
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 437
6/8/11 10:45:57 PM
438
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 438
6/8/11 10:46:01 PM
Skolkovo
Good to Know Skolkovo
It's very likely that you've heard and read about this Russian project. Near Moscow, next to the village of Skolkovo, there are places to a Russian Silicon Valley. This will be an ultra-contemporary scientific and technological complex for developing and commercializing new technologies. This territory will receive special economic and legal status. 40,000 people will live and work in an area of 280 hectares. Skolkovo will conduct academic research and train graduate students; there will be innovative companies and high-tech production facilities. The priority areas of research are energy, IT, telecoms, biomedical technologies, and nuclear technologies. The scientific director of the innovative center of Skolkovo is Nobel laureate, physicist Zhores Alferov; major international companies have already expressed their desire to collaborate.
The first building on the campus of the Skolkovo innovation center will be a Green house, created using energy-efficient technologies. The building has been designed by Russian companies and will feature a unique eco-friendly structure that uses daily and seasonal temperature variations, solar energy, and natural ventilation. Most importantly, it will emit no greenhouse gases.
439
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 439
6/8/11 10:46:03 PM
Nanotechnologies
Good to Know Nano-olympiad
A locomotive sector, likely to help Russian industry make a strategic breakthrough thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what experts say about nanotechnologies. Each year Russia hosts Rusnanotech, an international forum on nanotechnologies. More and more frequently, diverse applications of nanotechnologies can be found at progressive manufacturing facilities in the energy, machine, and metalworking sectors. One reason for the significant role that has been given to nanotechnologies is that its application in devices and products makes it possible to not only save money but also protect the environment.
Each year Russia hosts a national internet Olympiad, called â&#x20AC;&#x153;Nanotechnology: Leap to the Future!â&#x20AC;? This intellectual competition for high school students, graduates and young scientists not only looks at the sciences, but also their impact on society. The winners of the competition get the opportunity to gain a place at the best universities in Russia without taking entrance exams.
440
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 440
6/8/11 10:46:05 PM
441
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 441
6/8/11 10:46:07 PM
Electric Automobiles
Perhaps you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t find anything more traumatic for the atmosphere than car exhaust fumes. A way out has been found: electric cars are already pushing the usual gas cars off European roads. Our country is
heading down this path as well. The first Russian electric car will be launched in 2012. Novosibirsk is building a facility to produce lithium-ion batteries used by electric cars. A platform has been constructed in Tolyatti for
manufacturing electric vehicles at the Volga Automobile Factory. Investments in the project exceed 100 million euros.
442
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 442
6/8/11 10:46:08 PM
Inert Anodes
totally eliminate the emission of 40 million tons of CO and CO2 annually.
Cutting energy spending and concern for the environment: today these are becoming the definitive concerns in the development of technology. One of the most exciting examples is a RUSAL project to develop aluminum manufacturing technologies based on inert anodes. However, the production of one ton of aluminum requires
the burning of more than half a ton of carbon anodes. RUSAL is therefore developing inert anode technology to make it possible to avoid the emission of greenhouse gases and aromatic hydrocarbons entirely. Instead, the process of aluminum production will emit oxygen. On a worldwide scale, aluminum production using the new technology will
Furthermore, the new technology will help reduce energy expenditures in the production of aluminum by 14.3%. RUSAL is developing this new technology in collaboration with 15 research institutes and universities. A laboratory has been established in collaboration with Moscow State University which has already launched a trial batch of inert anodes for an industrial electrolyzer which have already gone through industrial trials. There isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a company in the world today that has the technology to manufacture aluminum with inert anodes. RUSAL will be the first to use an industrial electolyzer when it comes on-line in 2015.
443
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 443
6/8/11 10:46:09 PM
Major Events
The future is difficult to imagine in the form of a clear picture. Instead, it resembles an Impressionist painting: A few bold strokes and the rainbow-colored smoke of hopes. Major events are those very strokes, what we know as a certainty, what we plan for in advance. Think of how China planned for the 2008 Olympics. The results were stunning: the grandiose event was a celebration for everyone who was able to be present for it. Russia has its own plan for major events. For many the future has already begun in a literal sense, because preparations in Sochi, Vladivostok, and 13 other cities of the country are already in full swing.
444
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 444
6/8/11 10:46:09 PM
445
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 445
6/8/11 10:46:11 PM
446
Newly built airport in Sochi
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 446
6/9/11 4:05:31 PM
2014 Winter Olympics
Good to Know Russian International Olympic University For sports lovers, the choice of Sochi as the host of the 2014 Winter Olympics is obvious. The resort city is famed for its ski trails and the main ones are concentrated in Krasnaya Polyana. Besides a few dozen sports arenas, the city is building several hotels, power stations and electricity lines, new roads and telecommunications facilities. The Winter Olympics is the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s biggest sports festival, and Russia will, of course, try not to disappoint its guests.
The creation of a scholarly institution to open in time for the 2014 Olympics is unique. The university, which has world-class academic, business and athletic facilities is bound to become an educational, research and consulting platform for the whole Olympic family. It offers students individually designed educational programmes, progressive scientific research and business models. Scholarships will be offered to students representing all of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 205 National Olympic Committees.
447
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 447
6/9/11 4:05:35 PM
World Football Championship 2018
Good to Know Luzhniki Stadium
If you’re an avid sports fan and don’t miss a single sporting event, but you have other plans for 2014, an excellent solution to the problem is the World Football Championship. In 2018, 32 of the world’s best football teams will come to Russia. They will be welcomed in 13 cities, from Krasnodar to Kazan, from Kaliningrad to Yekaterinburg. For the first time the championship will happen in two continents simultaneously: Europe and Asia. 11 new stadiums will be built especially for the World Championships, each with a capacity for about 50,000 people.
The finale of the World Football Championship in 2018 will be held at Luzhniki, Russia’s most important stadium and one of the largest in the world. It holds 90,000 fans and the pitch has a fifth-generation artificial synthetic covering. In 2008 UEFA gave Luzhniki the status of an “elite” stadium.
And if you come to Russia in 2019 or 2020, don’t be surprised at the number of children and teenagers of all sizes, kicking balls in apartment-building courtyards and school stadiums. That’s the result that Russia is expecting from the World Football Championship. 448
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 448
6/8/11 10:46:12 PM
449
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 449
6/8/11 10:46:14 PM
The APEC Summit in Vladivostok
Major festivals involve serious financial expenses. Only a country that is confident in its economy’s stable growth can afford them. And the most important component of an economy is international trade. Developing trade relations between states will be one of the central issues at the 24th annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in September 2012. For the first time, the summit will be held in a Russian city – Vladivostok. Take a look at the grand construction underway in the city in anticipation of the summit. The dozens of projects include two bridges to Russky Island, the Far East Federal University, an opera theater, and an oceanarium. Not planning to visit Vladivostok in the near future? There’s no need. In order to observe the progress of construction, you only need to open your laptop. Thanks to the installation of web cams, you can watch the preparations for the summit at any time from any place in the world. 450
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 450
6/8/11 10:46:16 PM
Formula 1
Forumla 1, the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most famous motor racing series, will be held in Russia. The Krasnodar Region has signed a contract with the organizers of Formula 1 to hold the Russian Grand Prix in Sochi. The region obtained the right to host the races from 2014 to 2020, with the option to extend the contract for another five years. The most prestigious series in motor racing will provide the perfect platform to show off Russiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s automotive industry. After all, Formula 1 represents the pinnacle of automotive construction and technology.
451
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 451
6/8/11 10:46:16 PM
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 452
6/8/11 11:35:47 PM
Instead of Conclusion
Our virtual trip around Russia has come to an end. We’ve showed you the treasures of the Russian land, the vast expanses that from time immemorial have stunned and awed travelers. We’ve remembered the great history of Russia and people whose achievements we take pride in. We’ve introduced you to the economic system of today and shared our plans for the future. We truly hope that now you know a little more about Russia than you did before. And perhaps as a result of your encounter with this book you’ll have your own Russia – Russia as you saw it, understood it and felt it. “It’s better to see once than hear a hundred times,” says an old Russian proverb. And we invite you to discover the truth of these words for yourself. We invite you to visit Russia. A country with a great past, a fascinating present and – we are confident – a worthy future.
Yours sincerely, UC RUSAL
453
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 453
6/8/11 10:46:17 PM
Credits
Getty Images/Fotobank
Cover
Shutterstock
56
Shutterstock
106
Shutterstock
160
11
Aleksandr Petrosyan/FotoSoyuz
58
Kirill Chaplinsky/FotoSoyuz
110
Ksenia Nikolskaya/GeoPhoto
162
Andrey Petrosyan/GeoPhoto
12
Shutterstock
59
Shutterstock
111
Alexander Liskin/RIA Novosti
164
Shutterstock
12
Alexey Danichev/RIA Novosti
59
V. Kholostykh/RIA Novosti
111
Ksenia Nikolskaya/GeoPhoto
166
Kokoshkin Konstantin/GeoPhoto
12
Yury Belinskiy/ITAR-TASS
59
Alexey Bushkin/RIA Novosti
111
Alexander Ladygin/GeoPhoto
169
Ruslan Krivobok/RIA Novosti
12
Aleksandr Petrosyan
60
Shutterstock
112
Shutterstock
170
Shutterstock
12
Aleksandr Petrosyan/FotoSoyuz
62
Shutterstock
112
Yuriy Somov/RIA Novosti
171
Shutterstock
14
Aleksandr Petrosyan/FotoSoyuz
64
Shutterstock
112
V. Zhyvotchenko/RIA Novosti
171
Shutterstock
16
Vladimir Vyatkin/RIA Novosti
66
Shutterstock
112
Vladimir Vyatkin/RIA Novosti
171
Shutterstock
18
Shutterstock
68
Shutterstock
112
Shutterstock
172
Igor Stomakhin/FotoSoyuz
20
Aleksandr Petrosyan/Kommersant
71
Konstantin Kokoshkin/FotoSoyuz
114
Ksenia Nikolskaya/GeoPhoto
174
Konstantin Kokoshkin/FotoSoyuz
22
V. Chistiakov/RIA Novosti
73
Igor Stomakhin/GeoPhoto
117
Konstantin Mikhailov/GeoPhoto
176
Valeriy Lukianov/Rosfoto
24
Anton Denisov/RIA Novosti
74
Pavel Lisitsyn/RIA Novosti
118
Dmitriy Bartosh/FotoSoyuz
178
Shutterstock
25
Shutterstock
75
Kirill Chaplinsky/FotoSoyuz
121
Aleksandr Ovchinnikov/ITAR-TASS
184
Shutterstock
25
Vadim Zhernov/RIA Novosti
75
presented by UC RUSAL
122
Russia Look
185
Dmitry Korobeinikov/RIA Novosti
25
Shutterstock
75
Shutterstock
124
Alexander Vikulov/RIA Novosti
185
Vladimir Vyatkin/RIA Novosti
26
Aleksandr Demin/FotoSoyuz
76
Vladimir Dubrovskiy/FotoSoyuz
126
Rudolf Kucherov/RIA Novosti
186
Yury Martyanov/Kommersant
28
Valeriy Nasedkin/FotoSoyuz
79
Vladimir Dubrovskiy/FotoSoyuz
128
Konstantin Chalabov/RIA Novosti
187
Dmitry Dukhanin/Kommersant
29
Oleg Glebov/GeoPhoto
80
presented by UC RUSAL
130
V. Khomenko/RIA Novosti
189
Aleksandr Xherbak/Kommersant
30
Anna Volodina/FotoSoyuz
83
presented by UC RUSAL
132
ITAR-TASS
191
Iliya Pitalev/RIA Novosti
33
Andrey Baskakov/FotoSoyuz
84
RIA Novosti
135
Igor Mikhalev/RIA Novosti
191
Ivan Vdovin/Corbis/Fotosa
34
Igor Stomakhin/GeoPhoto
87
RIA Novosti
135
RIA Novosti
193
Valery Sharifulin/ITAR-TASS
37
Andrey Andreev/FotoSoyuz
88
Kokoshkin Konstantin/GeoPhoto
135
Boris Kaufman/RIA Novosti
195
Igor Stomakhin/FotoSoyuz
38
Dmitriy Bartosh/FotoSoyuz
90
Shutterstock
136
RIA Novosti
195
Sergey Potapov/FotoSoyuz
40
Shutterstock
93
Irina Terentieva/Lori
140
Russia Look
196
Shutterstock
42
Shutterstock
94
Kokoshkin Konstantin/GeoPhoto
144
East News
199
Aleksandr Petrosyan/FotoSoyuz
45
Vladimir Neimorovets/GeoPhoto
95
Shutterstock
144
Alamy/Photas
200
Shutterstock
46
Vadim Gippenreiter/GeoPhoto
95
Oleg Kulesh/GeoPhoto
146
V. Kiselev/RIA Novosti
203
Shutterstock
46
Shutterstock
95
Kokoshkin Konstantin/GeoPhoto
149
Pavel Balabanov/RIA Novosti
204
Shutterstock
46
Kokoshkin Konstantin/GeoPhoto
150
RIA Novosti
205
Shutterstock
46
Andrey Golovanov and Sergey Kivrin/ Fotobank
96
Kokoshkin Konstantin/GeoPhoto
150
Alamy/Photas
207
Shutterstock
46
Shutterstock
97
Vitaliy Bezrukih/RIA Novosti
150
RIA Novosti
208
Aleksandr Petrosyan/FotoSoyuz
48
Shutterstock
98
Shutterstock
150
Dmitry Korobeinikov/RIA Novosti
209
Aleksandr Petrosyan
50
Shutterstock
100
Shutterstock
154
RIA Novosti
211
Shutterstock
53
Shutterstock
102
Vladimir Chin-Mo-Tsay/FotoSoyuz
156
RIA Novosti
214
Aleksandr Petrosyan/FotoSoyuz
54
Alexey Kudenko/RIA Novosti
104
Vadim Gippenreiter/GeoPhoto
159
RIA Novosti
214
N. Rakhmanov/RIA Novosti
454
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 454
6/9/11 4:06:21 PM
Getty Images/Fotobank
215
RIA Novosti
271
Vyacheslav Un Da-sin/ITAR-TASS
324
Oleg Zoloto/RIA Novosti
396
RIA Novosti
217
ITAR-TASS
272
Doug Benc/Getty Images/Fotobank
326
RIA Novosti
397
Galina Kiseleva/RIA Novosti
218
© Mosfilm Cinema Concern
274
ITAR-TASS
327
Shutterstock
401
Galina Kiseleva/RIA Novosti
218
RIA Novosti
275
EPA/ITAR-TASS
328
Shutterstock
402
RIA Novosti
219
© Mosfilm Cinema Concern
277
Shutterstock
333
Shutterstock
405
RIA Novosti
220
Igor Stomakhin/GeoPhoto
334
Grigoriy Sisoev/RIA Novosti
406
L. Dorenskiy
223
© FSUE “Incorporated state film collection”
278
ITAR-TASS
336
Valery Sharifulin/ITAR-TASS
408
Yevgeny Khaldei/ITAR-TASS
225
V. Khomenko/RIA Novosti
281
V. Nemirovskiy/RIA Novosti
338
Shutterstock
410
Max Alpert/RIA Novosti
226
Aleksander Saakov/ITAR-TASS
283
Valery Matytsin/ITAR-TASS
340
Shutterstock
412
RIA Novosti
227
Vsevolod Tarasevich/ITAR-TASS
282
Kokoshkin Konstantin/GeoPhoto
342
Shutterstock
414
Vladimir Filonov/FotoSoyuz
229
Mikhail Ozerskiy/RIA Novosti
285
Shutterstock
344
Shutterstock
416
Valeriy Melnikov/RIA Novosti
231
Igor Vinogradov/RIA Novosti
286
Shutterstock
346
Getty Images/Fotobank
418
Andrey Rudakov/RIA Novosti
231
Vladimir Vyatkin/RIA Novosti
288
Shutterstock
349
Sergey Pyatakov/RIA Novosti
420
Mikhail Mokrushin/RIA Novosti
231
Dmitry Lekay/Kommersant
289
Igor Zarembo/RIA Novosti
350
Rosfoto
422
Ruslan Shamukov/ITAR-TASS
231
G. Shierbakov/RIA Novosti
291
Shutterstock
352
Shutterstock
427
Anton Tushin/ITAR-TASS
231
G. Petrusov/ITAR-TASS
292
Shutterstock
355
Shutterstock
428
Valery Melnikov/Kommersant
231
Alexander Konkov/ITAR-TASS
295
presented by UC RUSAL
356
Shutterstock
431
Dmitry Astakhov/ITAR-TASS
232
Corbis/Fotosa
296
Shutterstock
359
presented by UC RUSAL
433
Alexey Panov/RIA Novosti
233
Dmitry Lekay/Kommersant
297
Sergey Pyatakov/RIA Novosti
360
Alexsey Druginyn/RIA Novosti
432
Diego Azubel/EPA/ITAR-TASS
235
Maksim Dmitriev
298
Shutterstock
363
Shutterstock
434
RIA Novosti
239
RIA Novosti
301
Shutterstock
364
Shutterstock
435
RIA Novosti
240
Natalia Loginova/Kommersant
302
presented by UC RUSAL
366
Vladimir Astapkovich/ITAR-TASS
437
RIA Novosti
241
Yuri Belinsky/ITAR-TASS
303
presented by UC RUSAL
368
Vladimir Astapkovich/ITAR-TASS
438
RIA Novosti
242
ITAR-TASS
305
presented by UC RUSAL
370
Maxim Shemetov/ITAR-TASS
441
RIA Novosti
243
RIA Novosti
306
presented by UC RUSAL
372
presented by UC RUSAL
443
Getty Images/Fotobank
244
RIA Novosti
307
presented by UC RUSAL
374
Press Service of Yo-mobile company
442
Anton Lukanin/ITAR-TASS
245
wikipedia.org
308
Albert Pushkarev/FotoSoyuz
377
Nikolay Ryutin/ITAR-TASS
255
RIA Novosti
309
Shutterstock
378
Press Service of Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee
445
Kokoshkin Konstantin/GeoPhoto
256
Ye. Kassin/RIA Novosti
310
Albert Pushkarev/FotoSoyuz
381
Alexander Starovoytov/ITAR-TASS
446
Konstantin Kokoshkin/FotoSoyuz
259
RIA Novosti
313
Andrei Morgunov/ITAR-TASS
382
iCube studio
449
Shutterstock
261
RIA Novosti
314
Yuriy Baturin/FotoSoyuz
384
Vitaliy Ankov/RIA Novosti
450
Sergey Kompanichenko/RIA Novosti
262
Yuri Belinski/ITAR-TASS
315
Marina Lystseva/ITAR-TASS
386
Shutterstock
451
Boris Kavashkin/ITAR-TASS
263
Igor Utkin/ITAR-TASS
318
Monty Rakusen/Getty Images/Fotobank 388
E. Riabov/RIA Novosti
264
Dmitryi Donskoy/RIA Novosti
321
Andrei Kholmov/ITAR-TASS
Yuri Borisov/FotoSoyuz
267
ITAR-TASS
322
Maxim Shemetov/ITAR-TASS
393
B. Brilliantov/RIA Novosti
270
ITAR-TASS
323
Maksim Bogodvid/RIA Novosti
394
390
455
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 455
6/9/11 4:06:21 PM
From Russia with Love. Moscow: The RUSAL Library, 2011. 456 pp., il. ISBN 978-5-91432-040-6
Russia-China200x200_ch_5.indd 456
6/8/11 10:46:17 PM