Russia accepts the reality of climate change by Russia Beyond

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Thursday, November 19, 2015

Literature special

POW's new life

Guides to the works of Nobel winners Ivan Bunin and Svetlana Alexievich

How a kamikaze pilot ended up in Kalmykia

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This supplement is sponsored by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, which takes sole responsibility for its contents and is wholly independent of Fairfax Media. The supplement did not involve Fairfax Media editorial staff in its production.

Distributed with The Age. Other distribution partners include: The International New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, Le Figaro, El Pais, Mainichi Shimbun. See the full list at page 6.

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Russia accepts the reality of climate change PARIS SUMMIT LIKELY TO SHAPE MOSCOW'S POLICIES FOR YEARS TO COME

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The increase in the number of floods in Russia each year is one sign of climate change. ÂŠ ALEXEY MALGAVKO / RIA NOVOSTI

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ISLAMIC STATE (IS)

Student faces terrorism trial

Fifteen visual highlights of the heritage city of St Petersburg – Russia's stunning northern capital. RBTH.COM/518183 BARCROFTMEDIA / TASS

A Russian student from Moscow State University, Varvara Karaulova, was charged on November 10 with terrorism, for allegedly attempting to join the Islamic State (IS), the group formerly known as ISIS. Karaulova, 19, is now facing up to 15 years in prison. She was originally detained at the Turkish-Syrian border in June, when she was found allegedly attempting to cross into IS-occupied territory, together with 13 other Russians and four Azerbaijanis. Karaulova’s father told news agency RIA Novosti in July that his daughter had decided to join IS after falling in love online with a man who was believed to be an IS recruiter. The case has come under scrutiny in the Russian media, which has focused on the fact that Karaulova is an intellectual and a straight-A student who can speak five languages.

Varvara Karaulova covering her face at Istanbul airport, after she was detained for questioning.

Interior Ministry in January, “unofficial, expert estimates” indicated that more than 800 Russian citizens were fighting alongside IS. In February, the head of the FSB, Aleksandr Bortnik-

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said in a media release that it had received numerous reports from citizens claiming that IS had tried to recruit their relatives. According to the Russian

AIR DISASTER

ov, told the media that as many as 1700 Russian nationals could be fighting alongside IS. Read full version at rbth.com/539497

CIVIL SOCIETY

Kremlin orders ban on flights to Egypt

Egypt, one of the most popular holiday destinations for Russian tourists, is now out of bounds following a flight ban imposed by the Russian government in response to the plane crash on the Sinai Peninsula on October 31. There has been public speculation, particularly from US officials, that a terror attack brought down the Airbus A321-200, which crashed not long after it took off from Sharm el-Sheikh en route to St Petersburg, killing all 224 passengers, most of whom were Russian nationals. However, the Kremlin announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order

RUSLAN SUKHUSHIN

Russian tourists leaving Egypt.

to stop all flights is a safety precaution, which will remain in place until the security of Egyptian airspace can be assured. The 80,000-odd Russians who are still in Egypt are being brought home separately from their luggage, which is being transported by Russian Emergencies Ministry aircraft. As a result of the ban, it is estimated that the Egyptian tourist industry may lose more than $US50 million. According to Rosturism (Russia’s federal tourism agency), Egypt is the most popular foreign travel destination for Russian tourists. In 2014, it accounted for some 30 per cent of all trips abroad, representing about 3 million people, according to the vicepresident of the Russian association of tour operators (ATOR), Dmitry Gorin.

Russians becoming more apathetic Russian society is increasingly politically apathetic when it comes to civic protests, according to a recent poll. News agency Interfax reported the results of a recent poll by the Levada Centre, which indicated that Russians were more apathetic than a year ago, when the same poll was conducted. This year’s poll found that only 11 per cent of respondents would be willing to take part in a protest, while 83 per cent said they would never take part in one. Eighty-one per cent thought such protests were unlikely anyway.

PALEONTOLOGY

It's hard to believe, but Moscow still has 500 wooden houses. RBTH looks at 10 of the most interesting. RBTH.COM/539311

RUSSIAN CULTURAL EVENTS IN AUSTRALIA QLD RUSSIAN/ SLAVIC BUSINESS EXPO

accompanied by her five-piece band the emigres.

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Mammoth brain similar to an elephant's ences, Albert Protopopov, told Interfax. “The world has never made such a comparison before. South Africa offered us three African elephant brains for comparison. “We ran a tomography scan on our test subjects and realised they were identical. This proves that brain evolution is rather conservative [subject to minor change].” The young female mammoth, who was named Yuka

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The brains of mammoths which lived in Russia 39,000 years ago are similar to the brains of today’s African elephant, Russian scientists say. “The brain of Yuka [a mumified mammoth Russian researchers have been studying] was well preserved, and we could compare it to the brain of an African elephant,” the head of the mammoth fauna studies department of theYakutian Academy of Sci-

by researchers, was found not far from the Laptev Sea shore in the Ust-Yansky district of Yakutia in 2012. She died at about six to eight years of age. The body was discovered in permafrost and as a result was well preserved. The mammoth’s tissue had not rotted and its fur had retained its distinct red colour. Its brain had been slightly damaged, however.

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Climate

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Global warming The UN climate conference in Paris later this month may determine Russia's policies for years to come

The heat is on to meet the climate challenge

IN NUMBERS

7/10 Seven out of the 10 warmest years in Russia since 1936 occurred in the 21st century. The warmest year was in 2007, when the temperature was 2.07 degrees Celsius higher than the average. From 1985 to 2014 the average temperature in Russia increased by 0.66C.

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According to the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring, the average number of dangerous meteorological phenomena in the Russian Federation over the past 15 years has increased by about two to three times: from 150 in 1997 to 369 to 2012. This is thought to be a direct result of the increase in ocean temperatures.

Russian scientists say that due to global warming, Russia is losing large tracts of land in the Arctic. Plans for adapting to climate change are urgently required.

Moscow recognises the enormous problem that climate change poses to humanity, but it is not yet prepared for the serious threats it is bringing. GLEB FEDOROV RBTH

The largest flood in the history of Russia’s Black Sea coast killed 171 people in 2012. In just two days five months’ worth of rainfall hit the mountainous regions of the Krasnodarsky Territory, where rivers overflowed and mixed with mud flows to seriously damage settlements. In Krymsk, the most affected city, the water levels reached seven metres above normal. The flooding started in the early morning and took everyone by surprise. After the floods, the authorities were criticised because the city’s alarm system had failed in the disaster and the local storm sewer system and Adagum riverbed were not prepared for such volumes. Three years later Russian and German researchers proved that there was another culprit: climate change. In an article published in the July 2015 issue of Nature Geoscience, scientists linked

the flood in Krymsk to the two-degree Celsius increase in temperatures of the Black Sea since 1984. This is an example of the scientific data showing the need for cities to prepare for the impact of climate change. But most Russian cities are not prepared. St Petersburg is the only city to date to have a plan for adapting to climate change.

St Petersburg is the only city to date to have a plan for adapting to climate change St Petersburg’s strategy, adopted this year, took four years to develop and was based on plans from Finland, Denmark, the UK and India. The strategy includes measures for mitigating risks and adapting to serious threats, especially floods. By 2100, sea levels in the Gulf of Finland may have risen by a metre and the city’s flood-protection systems may not work. Moscow, which suffered severe heat waves in 2010; the Far East, which in 2013 was

struck by the heaviest flood in centuries; and the Arctic, which scientists say is losing territory at an alarming rate due to global warming and erosion, are all without plans for adapting to climate change. According to Greenpeace Russia’s energy expert Vladimir Chuprov, the federal plan for adapting to climate change which was adopted in 2011 exists only on paper. Its implementation was handed to the Ministry of Regional Development, which was later disbanded. Now the plan’s implementation is de facto in the hands of the regions themselves. The main difference between the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, which will most likely be signed at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference which starts on November 30 in Paris, is that the emphasis at the conference will not be on limiting emissions but on ways of adapting to the changing climate. The conference will be particularly relevant for Russia because its adaptation plans are only in the early stages. Alexei Kokorin, head of WWF Russia’s energy pro-

POLLS

Climate change? What's that? Awareness and understanding of the impending problem of climate change is lower than you might expect in Russia. According to the results of a public survey carried out in 2013, at the initiative of a work-

ing group in the presidential administration, just 54 per cent of the Russian population are aware of climate change. Of those, only a third believe it is being caused by the activities of humankind.

gram, thinks the conference’s focus will be on how the world’s leading economies will give more vulnerable countries resources for adapting to climate change, and the time frame for that to happen. Experts believe that the sum of the resources required will be about $US100 billion by 2020. In other words, Kokorin thinks that Paris“is a 10 to 15-year pause in the real reduction of emissions, compensated by massive aid to weak countries”. Developed countries will try to lay the burden for adaptation on its private corporations, while the countries that are the most vulnerable to climate change will be given more resources.

Since Russia is part of an intermediate group of countries (that is, developing countries that do not need financial aid but are not strong enough to be major donors themselves), the conference’s agenda will bypass Russia. Meanwhile, Russia will try to figure out how it can become part of the low-carbon global trend without damaging its economy, which is very dependent on traditional energy sources. The obligations that Moscow is ready to assume seem impressive: Russia is promising to cut emissions by 25-30 per cent by 2030 from levels in 1990. But Russia’s emissions are already less than in 1990, so this commitment sounds more significant

than it actually is. Russia may cut its emissions more substantially, but at this stage, it is not making dramatic commitments. Ecologists predict that Russia is likely to return to business as usual, although it may work harder at adaptation strategies and developing green-energy industries, which right now only produce one per cent of Russia’s power. Still, it is important to note that the Russian government has begun recognising the reality of climate change. During a recent speech at the UN General Assembly, PresidentVladimir Putin said that climate change is one of the most important problems facing humanity. According to the director of the ecology department at the Ministry of Economic Development,Vladimir Maximov, after Putin signed the decree On The Reduction Of Greenhouses Gases Russia began to address its climate issues. The results of the Paris Convention and the signing (or not) of the Paris Agreement will determine how far Russia will go in developing its adaptation plans.

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Literature

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Classics A look at the five best works of Russia’s first winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

The emigre writer Ivan Bunin was the first Russian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. RBTH looks back over his five best-known works. ALEXANDRA GUZEVA RBTH

The Gentleman from San Francisco (1915) A nameless wealthy gentleman is travelling to Italy on a ship called Atlantis. When he arrives on Capri, he dies suddenly, and his body becomes a burden for everyone, including his family, who don’t know what to do with it. The solution to the problem would definitely not have impressed the wealthy gentleman himself. Critic Abram Derman, a contemporary of Bunin, wrote:“It has been more than 10 years since the end of [Anton] Chekhov’s creativity, and in this period, if we were to exclude everything that was published after Leo N. Tolstoy’s death, there has not been an artistic work in the Russian language that is equal in power and meaning to The Gentleman from San Francisco.”

Mitya’s Love (1924) This erotic story follows Mitya,

a student, and the girl he is in love with, Katya, who is studying to become an actress. Katya is maturing and laughs at his boyishness. Mitya is tormented by passion and jealousy and leaves Moscow for the countryside in order to understand himself better. However, all does not turn out well there. The philosopher Fyodor Stepun, Bunin’s friend, wrote that the author “reveals the tragedy behind every human love” in this story.

Cursed Days (1925-26) Bunin, who did not accept Bolshevism and supported the Whites in the Civil War, emigrated from Russia to France in 1920. His diaries Cursed Days, which reflect this complicated and turbulent period in Russia’s history, were partially published in a Russian emigre newspaper in Paris. The work was not published in the USSR until perestroika, because it was filled with hatred of the Bolsheviks and disillusionment with the revolution. “But surely many people knew that a revolution is only a bloody game of swapping

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Emigre who revealed tragedy behind love

The anti-Communist Ivan Bunin, who emigrated from Russia to France in 1920, was a revered figure among White emigres. European critics of the time, and many of his contemporary writers, viewed him as the true heir to the tradition of Russian realism.

places that always ends up with ordinary people, even if they do manage to sit, revel and rage on the governing throne for some time, ultimately ending up in a worse situation than before?”Bunin wrote in Cursed Days.

which he develops the traditions of classical Russian prose.”The novel depicts the childhood and adolescence of Alexei Arseniev and his love for Lika – a love that her father is against. Lika runs away from Arseniev and the story follows him trying to track her down. Like Mitya’s Love, this isn’t a love story that ends happily ever after. The novel contains many autobiographical elements and it is said that the rela-

The Life of Arseniev (1927-1933) In Bunin’s opinion, it was this novel, published in Paris in 1930, that led him to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, for the“humble mastery with

tionship described was not unlike his relationship with a woman called Varvara.

Dark Avenues (1938-1946) One of the most famous stories from the Dark Avenues collection is Easter Monday, about a mysterious love affair and silent nocturnal encounters between two young rich people. On the first day of Lent, the main female character tells the protagonist that

Book covers from top: Cursed Days, The Life of Arseniev and the Dark Avenues.

their affair is over, and she leaves him. Two years later he finds out that she has become a nun and is living in an abbey in Moscow. Bunin himself considered Dark Avenues to be one of his best works. These stories have been adapted to the screen and stage many times, and are part of the curriculum in Russian schools. The first story from the collection was published in New York in 1938.

Non-fiction Pioneering investigative journalist first to receive a Nobel Prize

Writer finds truth in people's voices Enchanted with Death (1993)

Nobel Prize for Literature winner Svetlana Alexievich is the first writer writing in Russian to receive the prize in 28 years.

At the centre of this journalistic investigation are those who chose to take their own lives as a result of the collapse of the USSR. This book was first released in Belarusian, but Alexievich soon realised that this issue concerned not only her native country but the entire union that had just dissolved.

MIKHAIL VIESEL

Online reading of Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ to be open to all rbth.com/50015

Svetlana Alexievich is a Ukraininan-born Belarussian non-fiction prose writer. She is the first investigative journalist to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.

War's Unwomanly Face (1985) Alexievich’s debut book is made up of monologues of women speaking about their experiences in World War II. What stands out in these stories is the level of candour that she must have established with her interlocutors,

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Voices from Chernobyl (1997) who pour out to her incredible stories of their experiences in graphic and disturbing detail.

Zinky Boys (1989) Alexievich spent four years gathering material about the

Soviet Union’s last war and even travelled to Afghanistan as part of her research for this book. In it she highlights the palpable fear which lurked in all Soviet families that had maturing sons at the time.

What interested Alexievich about the 1986 Chernobyl disaster was the indelible trace it left on people’s souls. In her research, she interviewed more than 500 eyewitnesses, including firefighters, politicians, physicians, physicists and residents.

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Pen names A ‘Meathead’ poet turned to purity and wisdom, and other stories

How great writers made their names A number of celebrated Russian writers were much better known by their pen names than their given names. GEORGY MANAEV

Many fans of Russian liternature may not be aware that some of the most famous Russian writers wrote under pen names. The reasons for this were diverse, and ranged from trying to improve their image to distancing themselves from their families. The great Russian symbolist poet and writer Andrey Bely was born 135 years ago, but for the first two decades of his life he had an altogether less resonant name. When the 19-year-old Boris Bugayev decided to dedicate himself fully to literature, he took a look at his cumbersome birth name, which is derived from the Russian for “meathead”, and decided it didn’t fit with his symbolist poetry and romantic image. He turned for inspiration to his friend Mikhail Solovyev, younger brother of philosopher Vladimir Solovyev. Solovyev gave him his first name, Andrey, according to legend the first of the 12 apostles to visit Russia, and the surname Bely, which means white, to symbolise purity and wisdom. And so he became the great writer we know as Andrey Bely. As it happens, in the same era, another Russian writer chose the pen name of Chorny (black). You might assume Alexander Glickberg (18801932) took the name Sasha Chorny as an ironic nod to his satirical style, but the name actually dated from his childhood. He had a brother also called Alexander – which is commonly shortened to Sasha in Russian – who was blond. Sasha Chorny’s own dark hair was a neat way of differentiating the two, and the nickname stuck. Pseudonyms based on an abstract or moral quality a person possesses are called phrenonyms. The young writer Alexey Peshkov (18681936) didn’t want to use his real name, which comes from the Russian word for“pawn”, so he chose Maxim Gorky (“bitter”) instead. The name was a fitting description of Gorky himself and the subjects he wrote about. Orphaned at a young age, he spent years in poverty. He lived as a tramp and worked in menial jobs, and his novels often focused on the hardships faced by the poor. As an aside, Gorky’s father, Maxim senior, was also known by the nickname Gorky, thanks to his acerbic attitude.

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Names to faces (left to right): Anna Akhmatova, Maxim Gorky, Korney Chukovsky, Andrey Bely, Anton Chekhov, Daniil Kharms and Sasha Chorny.

Daniil Yuvachev (19051942) eventually settled on the pen name Daniil Kharms, after testing out dozens of others. Derived from the English word“charm”,it was both catchy to a Russian ear and meaningful to Kharms, who believed that poems could be seen as magic spells – words in a particular order which deliberately evoked certain feelings in people. One reason why Kharms decided to use a pseudonym was because his father, Ivan Yuvachev, was a respected old revolutionary turned theologian, and Kharms wanted to retain some anonymity. Anna Akhmatova (18891966) also gave up her birth name, Anna Gorenko, because of her father, who apparent-

Chekhov’s censored early work finally published

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About 40 of [Anton] Chekhov's pen names have been discovered, but it's possible that more stories by him, written under strange names, may turn up yet

Google brings Chekhov to life for 24 hours

‘Russia is mine!’: the turbulent life of Sergei Yesenin

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ly told her not to disgrace his name when he discovered her poetry. “I don’t want your name either,” she apparently told him. In a neat twist, Lidya Chukovskaya, a writer and Akhmatova’s friend, who wrote about this exchange in her memoirs, had taken her father’s pen name as her actual surname. The illegitimate Nikolay Korneychukov (1882-1969) was originally given his moth-

er’s family name, but he modified it to Korney Chukovsky, before he went on to become Russia’s most famous children’s author. He acquired a passport in this name after the 1917 October Revolution and passed the surname Chukovsky on to his children. Anton Chekhov (18601904) is remembered by his real name, although he used many others during his lifetime. About 40 of Chekhov’s pen names have been discov-

ered, but it’s possible that more stories by him, written under strange names, may turn up yet. Chekhov chose witty and bizarre pseudonyms such as My Brother’s Brother, Doctor Without Patients, Nut #6, The Prosaic Poet and Don Antonio Chekhonte. Chekhov’s most common pen name was Man Without a Spleen (a nod to his medical training), which he used for 119 short stories and five articles. Perhaps the reason that none of these fantastical pseudonyms stuck, however, was the fact that Alexey Suvorin, Chekhov’s publisher, insisted that he only use them for satirical articles, publishing any serious work under his real name.

Censorship After 133 years, short stories published at last

Revealed: Chekhov's banned early work The Prank is a collection of stories that Anton Chekhov hoped would kick-start his career as a writer, but which ended up being censored. PHOEBE TAPLIN SPECIAL TO RBTH

In 1882, Anton Chekhov’s collection of stories The Prank was censored and was not published until July this year, 133 years later. The English edition is titled The Best of Young Chekhov. In the 1880s Chekhov was in his 20s and training to be a doctor. To pay the tuition fees of his Moscow medical school and support his family, he wrote a series of comic short stories under pseudonyms such as Antosha Chek-

honte, which were published in humorous magazines. The revised stories, illustrated by his brother Nikolai, were to be published as Chekhov’s first book. But the imperial censor rejected the manuscript and the collection languished in a dusty office until a Soviet scholar rediscovered it in the 1970s. These playful tales shed new light on the young writer, a confident foretaste of recurring themes: misogyny, pretension and lack of compassion. Chekhov appears as a chameleonic jester: here in the guise of a Spanish translator and there as a scientific journalist; a malapropistic, elderly landowner, writing to his

educated neighbour, or a cantankerous mother complaining about marriage. By the end of the book, his romantic pastiche swallows its own tail in an ecstasy of metafictional, pre-modernist surrealism. Translator Maria Bloshteyn, who has cleverly replicated the freshness of Chekhov’s prose and the deliberate awkwardness of his parodies, explains in her excellent introduction how subversive these stories were. At first glance these flippant fables, some little more than extended jokes, seem inoffensive, like his overblown imitation of Victor Hugo’s tempestuous style and a light mockery of Jules Verne. But looking more closely, the scenarios described expose the hypocrisy and corruption in the culture Chekhov was moving in, and brutally satirise Moscow’s narcissistic bohemians.

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Opinion

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YOUNG LEADERS TRY TO COMBAT URBAN MYTHS Moty Cristal ACADEMIC

ost of the executive positions in the private sector and many of the top posts in the government and government-owned companies in Russia are held by young Russians between the ages of 25 and 45. This is a generation that grew up with economic prosperity, in a market that offered many opportunities. I find the new generation of young Russian entrepreneurs curious and open. They are, to some extent, nationalistic and proud to be Russian. They want to do business in Russia or develop their country’s private sector. At the same time, they have the international cultural awareness required to compete in the global marketplace. While there are quite a few inaccurate perceptions of Russian businesspeople, they can be broadly classified into three urban myths.

ALYONA REPKINA

DON'T BE MISLED BY STEREOTYPES PEKKA A. VILJAKAINEN BUSINESSMAN

f you are working in international business, you have most likely taken part in some kind of diversity or cultural training sessions. You know the kind: those meetings where you learn that Germans are punctual, Italians are emotional and Finns don’t talk — at least not without alcohol. For me, the past 1000 days of working in Russia have been a deep dive into the landscape, business culture and mentality of Russia. I have gained an understanding that would have been impossible to get from training, which tends to be focused on stereotypes, which in Russia’s case may be outdated. During this amazing journey, I have visited 59 Russian cities, embraced numerous governors and seen all 11 time zones of this enormous country. And it is worth saying that all my preconceived notions about Russia were wrong. Before deciding to come to work in Russia, I had very little knowledge of it, even though my own country – Finland – shares a long border

with this great country. I had been a tourist in Moscow and St Petersburg, but as the Finnish and Russian languages share probably only three common words, my ability to communicate and get to know people was very limited. So what are my observations so far? I’m a nerd, so I was thrilled to see the level and quality of telecommunications across

To my surprise, urban infrastructure in the Russian cities I have visited has, more or less, met European and American standards. Yes, some of the roads are pretty bad. But I found that airports, hotels, restaurants and other services are of a comparable standard. Starbucks is everywhere, and I use my credit card for almost everything. I pay my

Some may be surprised, but Russia doesn't have a 'Great Firewall' like we see in China

For domestic travel I mostly use Aeroflot, which has a very modern fleet of Airbus planes

the country – in complete contrast to my wildest expectations. Russians love and use all the latest gadgets. The post-Soviet “PlayStation Generation” is particularly well connected and social media is widely used. Some may be surprised, but Russia doesn’t have a“Great Firewall”like we see in China, so it is annoying to see informed people lump Russia and China in the same category when discussing online freedom.

bills using the online services of Russian banks, and money transfers from my home bank can be arranged overnight. For domestic travel I mostly use Aeroflot, which has a very modern fleet of Airbus planes. I am not a specialist in air travel, but in the past 1000 days, I have only had my flights delayed twice, and then it was not for more than 15 minutes. Of course the state of the Russian economy right now

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isn’t good, but this turbulence is good for my business: promoting the culture of startups and innovation in Russia. If oil prices were high, for example, it would be practically impossible to convince local businesses to make difficult restructuring decisions. Naturally, I don’t wish hard times on anyone, but when I see the creation of new businesses and the modernisation of big companies, I can’t help but think there are some benefits to the current situation. Also, from the standpoint of an investor, the devalued currency has created many opportunities – after all, our potential to make money occurs in the “buying” stage of an investment. Business aside, I need to mention the most beautiful part of life in Russia, the food. When I first arrived, the only Russian dish I knew was borscht. But in the first few days, I realised that Russians will spend a lot of money on two things: high-quality food and high-heeled shoes. In every city I have visited, I have logged on to TripAdvisor and found an amazing variety of restaurants and cuisines, from sushi to Caucasian. So, friends in the global business community, I recommend you let go of tired old stereotypes and open your eyes to a new Russia. The writer is a Finnish businessman and investor. He also advises the Russian government on the modernisation of the country's postal service.

Russians are KGB agents This seems to be a bit of a Cold War hangover that Russians in the international business world can’t entirely shake off. While you might be suspicious if a Russian doing business doesn’t have solid business experience or doesn’t even seem to understand business, this doesn’t mean they are intelligence agents. Russian intelligence agencies tend to avoid involvement in the business sector. Some Russians may benefit from creating an impression that they have links to intelligence agencies, as this may give them an aura of power in negotiations.

They're tough Russians are actually not that tough if you know how to deal with them. The facade of toughness is usually a communication style which has proven to be successful when Russians are dealing with each other.

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But when Russians are dealing with non-Russians, they know that their “vlast” or “sila”, which means their authority and force, may work against them and not be beneficial in negotiations. The famous Russian word for no, “nyet”, has slowly developed into “well, basically no, but let’s see what we can do”. I think this is a significant improvement in the way Russians negotiate. Young Russian executives are much more open to not saying no right at the beginning and then trying to seek common ground in their negotiations.

'Nyet' has slowly developed into 'well, basically no, but let's see what we can do' If we are talking about the global marketplace, I would say that the Chinese are much tougher negotiators than Russians.

Russians are emotionless I once stood next to the vicepresident of a big industrial company and asked him: “Dmitry, are you happy finally?” He smiled and said:“Moty, I’m Russian. I can’t be happy. But I’m satisfied.” When I tell this anecdote, Russian audiences always laugh because it reflects the Russian habit of hiding their emotions behind a poker face or cold and stony expression. Obviously, like everyone else, Russians have their share of emotions. And the way to connect with their emotional side is to build trust with them through personal and informal gatherings and meetings. Moty Cristal is Professor of Professional Practice in Negotiation Dynamics at the Skolkovo Moscow School of Management.

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THIS ISSUE WAS SENT INTO PRINT ON NOVEMBER 13, 2015

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People Village's 'Uncle Sasha' is a Japanese former POW who has lived in Russia for nearly 70 years

Kamikaze pilot made a new life An adventurous former kamikaze pilot who was imprisoned by the Red Army in Sakhalin in World War II chose to stay in the Soviet Union after the war ended. RUSLAN MELNIKOV ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA

TAGIR RADZHAVOV

Russian citizen Yusitero Nakagawa is known in his village for his fighting and fishing skills.

40,000 Koreans spice up Far East's Sakhalin Island The oil and gas-rich island of Sakhalin in Russia's Far East has a sizeable ethnic Korean minority. When the last ships carrying fleeing Japanese citizens left the shores of southern Sakhalin in the late 1940s, this community, who belonged neither to Japan nor to the Soviet Union, were stranded in the southern part of the island (which had been under Japanese rule from 1905 to 1945). The ethnic Koreans who lived here had originally been brought as slave labour to southern Sakhalin (or Karafuto as the Japanese called their part of the island). The retreating Japanese refused to accept the Koreans as their own citizens and the volatility in the Korean peninsula left this community in limbo. Today 40,000 ethnic Koreans live on the island of Sakhalin, and the majority of them have Russian citizenship. Korean dishes have spiced up the cui-

InYuzhnoye , a village tucked away on the Kalmyk steppes in south-western Russia, everybody knows 88-year-old Uncle Sasha, although few of his fellow villagers know how to pronounce his real name, Yusitero Nakagawa. We met Nakagawa, a former kamikaze pilot, for an interview in his well-tended kitchen garden, where he was dressed in a khaki-quilted jacket, a much-worn cap and galoshes. When explaining how he came to be called “Sasha”, Nakagawa said that an ethnic Korean interpreter had confused his name and had called him Sadao, which had then been shortened to Sasha – the Russian diminutive of Alexander. Unlikely though it might seem, Nakagawa had fond memories of his time in prisoner-of-war camps in Russia’s Far East, where he worked in forestry and building roads. “Prisoners were treated with respect,” he said with a smile. “I was even helped to learn Russian.” As the war came to an end, Nakagawa was hesitant about returning to Japan, fearing he might experience stigma there for having continued to live in captivity. Fate also helped him make up his mind: when Japanese prisoners in the USSR were freed in 1949, he fell ill with a complication from an old wound. He said he became so ill, he nearly died. But he was saved by a Soviet doctor who nursed him back to health.“My dear doctor,” Nakagawa said, and he described the woman who saved his life and who he fell in love with. After he recovered, to show her his gratitude he gave her his only valuable possession: gold dental crowns. By that time, there was no question

In front of her home in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is Pak Den Dya, an ethnic Korean from Russia's Sakhalin Island in the Far East. sine of the island, which is also well known for great seafood. Most shops here sell spicy kim chi and other Korean salads alongside traditional Russian favourites. The administrative centre of the island, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, has its fair share of Korean restaurants, although diehards from

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Seoul swear that the food isn’t even close to being authentic. Young ethnic Koreans here are native Russian speakers, while some of them know a smattering of Korean. For most, English is now their second language of choice. Read the full version at rbth.com/46073

of him leaving the USSR. The former Japanese Army officer had become a citizen in the country he had been fighting against. Fascinated by the vastness of his new land, Nakagawa began to explore. “I travelled a lot, I worked a lot. I went to the Far East, Siberia, Uzbekistan, Dagestan and the Stavropol region,” he said, listing the places on his fingers, laughing as he lost count. The doctor who had nursed him couldn’t deal with his wandering spirit, and they separated. Nakagawa soon met another woman and married her, and they had a son and daughter. But his new family also didn’t want to follow him on in his travels. It was only after many years of travel that Nakagawa finally settled in Kalmykia, in southwestern Russia. “I could drive a tractor and a bulldozer well, so I was offered a job building the Chograyskoye reservoir here,” he said.“The first thing I asked when I arrived was whether

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this was a good place for fishing. I’m fond of fishing.” When the construction of the reservoir was finished, Nakagawa married again and found a job servicing the dam. One year, he was the first to spot a dangerous leak and saved the dam from a breach and the nearby villages from flooding. Another time, a group of drunken men wandered into the dam facility. Three of them climbed over the barrier and tried to get into the control room. Nakagawa, who was already 67 at the time, tried to reason with the uninvited visitors. In response, they attacked him, not knowing that they were dealing with a former kamikaze. “I hit one of them and threw another over my shoulder,”Nakagawa recalled. “Then they fled. In Japan, boys were taught how to fight from the fifth grade.” When we asked Nakagawa how he managed to live so long, and whether he had incorporated any samurai practices into his fitness routine, he said he had. “In my garden I sow, water, weed and harvest my crops,” he added with a laugh. “And I enjoy it no less than fishing.” In his village, Nakagawa has the reputation of being the luckiest fisherman in town and it is considered a privilege to learn how to fish from him. “A person must have something in their life that they love doing,” he continued. “This is what keeps us alive. People who don’t do anything and who don’t work die young. They have nothing to live for.” Nakagawa did eventually return to Japan. And the arrival of the kamikaze fighter who had been presumed dead created a stir and suspicion. It was only with a DNA test that the Japanese authorities were convinced that he was actually Yusetiro Nakagawa. “When I went to Japan, I met my relatives and senior officials, I drank sake with a Japanese minister, I even visited my own grave,” he said. Nakagawa decided not to move back to Japan, even though he had been invited to:“Japan is different now. It’s like a foreign country to me. “There is nothing remaining there that I know or remember. There are other things on my mind now… before I die, I want to find my son and daughter with whom I’ve lost touch.”

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Spacecraft Similarities between the designs of a new US spacecraft and the Soviet Zarya have not gone unnoticed

Space rivals have a lot in common The Russian media has been speculating that the design of Dragon, a new American spacecraft, borrows heavily from Soviet spacecraft Zarya. ARAM TER-GHAZARYAN SPECIAL TO RBTH

After the failed US launch of a Falcon 9 vehicle carrying a Dragon cargo spacecraft as part of a mission to the International Space Station, a popular theory emerged in the Russian media. Some Russian engineers claimed that Dragon, developed by the US company SpaceX, had several features similar to a craft called Zarya, a Soviet cargo vessel designed in the late 1980s. This is not the first time similarities between Russian and American spacecraft have been noticed. To name just one example, the Soviet shuttle Buran bears heavy resemblance to the NASA Space Shuttle. B u t a re t h e s e re a l ly borrowed technologies, or just coincidences?

Similarities between the two spacecraft Dragon and Zarya do have a lot in common. Both space-

craft are designed to be equipped with landingrocket engines and with carrying capacities of more than 3000 kilograms. As well, the crew capacities of Zarya and Dragon are similar. Dragon can hold up to seven crew members while Zarya can hold eight. Both also have conical re-entry capsules and are reusable. Led by the Soviet engineer Konstantin Feoktistov of the NPO Energia design bureau, the development of the Zarya spacecraft began in the 1980s, but the project was eventually shelved. Feoktistov himself believed the spacecraft’s design was not refined enough to guarantee the landing precision required. Russian engineers have also pointed out that Dragon has a parachute braking system in addition to the engines – just like Soyuz, another spacecraft designed in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, some Russian experts say that since spacecraft are designed for similar purposes, parallels in the design are bound to arise. “They were created with the same tasks in mind, and

WAYS THAT DRAGON IS LIKE ZARYA

The spacecraft Dragon and Zarya have the same design and equipment, including landing-rocket engines. Both of them also have the same carrying capacities of more than 3000 kilograms. The crew capacities of Dragon and Zarya are similar – seven and eight people respectively. Both vehicles are also reusable and they both have conical reentry capsules. Besides having a resemblance to Zarya, Dragon also has some similarities with Soyuz, another Soviet-designed spacecraft – both utilise a parachute braking system.

The development of the Zarya spacecraft began in the 1980s, but the project got shelved

the only difference is the shape of the capsule,” said Ivan Moiseev, scientific supervisor of Russia’s Space Policy Institute, noting that the Soviet design “sticks to the traditional form, while the Americans prefer cones”. Moiseev added:“As for the rest of it, the resemblance is not unusual, especially considering that both spacecraft were supposed to land using engines, which is pretty risky from a technical point of view. Normally, other solutions are preferable.” Perhaps because of the incredible complexity of spacecraft, no country has managed to successfully execute a complete copy of even a space-rocket engine. A recent illustration of this involved the US buying a licence to manufacture Russian RD-181 rocket engines. According to an agreement between the two countries, the Russian side was supposed to assist their American partners with everything f ro m c o n s t r u c t i n g t h e manufacturing plants to installing the engines on the launch vehicles. The endeavour, however, proved a waste of time and

money because the entire technological chain of engine production was optimised for Russian industry and it proved unsuitable for the US. In the end, the Americans chose instead to buy RD-181 engines from Russia. “We received an offer to purchase the engines after [the Americans] unsuccessfully tried to produce them,” said Vladimir Solntsev, president of rocket manufacturer RSC Energia, in an interview with RBTH. “The current contract includes restrictions on the use of RD-181 engines for military purposes, and we will supply 60 engines worth a total of $US1 billion.” The Americans rejected the idea of producing the engines themselves, since they would have had to completely rebuild their industry to do so. “For instance, some components made of carbon fibre in the US are made of metal here, while some of the alloys used in its production are also different,” Moiseev said. “Even if some intelligence agency manages to steal the blueprints of a whole rocket, all it can really do is help en-

gineers to come up with a couple of new ideas. “But even that is highly doubtful – all the catalysts for any number of new ideas are freely available in textbooks on rocket science.”

Copies of the V-2 According to Russian scientists, some spacecraft designs have indeed been successfully replicated by foreign countries. The most famous is the V-2, the world’s first long-range ballistic missile, developed by the German aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun during World War II. Both the US and the USSR copied the V-2’s design in the late 1940s. Experts say the V-2 was the model for the first round of space rockets. The V-2 missiles – both those captured in Germany after the war and the modified versions – started the American Hermes missile program, as well as the counterpart Soviet projects, including those in the field of space exploration. As well, the Donfeng-1, the first Chinese ballistic missile, was a licensed copy of the Soviet R-2 missile, which was in turn based on the V-2.

Technology Telemedicine course includes real-time 'surgeon's eyes' streaming for students to observe operations

Russian university shares online medical expertise In the middle of this year, a Russian university established a school of medical information and telemedicine. GLEB FEDOROV RBTH

There are few doctors who know how to organise telemedicine centres, and not just in Russia either. That is why the People's Friendship University of Rus-

sia (RUDN) wants its students to share their expertise on this subject. This is what the school covers in its telemedicine curriculum. 1. The telemedicine course is conducted as part of senior courses in two departments: medical and dental. Usually the course lasts 36 or 72 hours. 2. Obligatory international interactive telebridges on current medical problems are

part of the course program. The telebridges are carried out in an interactive format, in dozens of cities in Russia and across the world. Such transmissions do not have geographical borders: before Germany and France there were Brazil, India, China – more than 30 clinics around the world. 3. Among the equipment that is used to teach students is a unique device that helps them

observe an operation in real time with“surgeon's eyes”.The system consists of a surgeon’s helmet with two miniature telecameras transmitting stereoscopic images of the “operation field”onto a special monitor. The image not only creates the effect of being present during an operation but also helps convey details and nuances of the surgeon’s work that a typical operation transmission cannot convey. 4. The final exam consists of an activity game.The students are separated into groups of five to seven people, are given roles (patient, parents, doctors, lawyers) and act out a

telediagnostic situation. The students choose the illness themselves, work out the subject matter in detail and prepare the necessary material:

Telemedicine technology can be used for remote hospitals across the globe analyses, X-rays and ultrasound study results. They also prepare the given patient’s epicrisis. Then in real time they remotely conduct a consultation session. 5. Telemedicine technologies

can be used for remote hospitals across the globe but also, theoretically, in the Earth’s orbit and even in space. 6. According to RUDN University, the course’s aim is to teach students highly applicable skills. The students learn how to set up a telemedicine centre in any region and in any country, how to train personnel, what equipment to select, what colour to paint the walls, how to establish communication channels and how to prepare teleconsultations. Read the full version rbth.com/539615