The Russian Consul ComethA centenary of the Consul-ate General in Kolkata

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Vladislav Surkov:“We should learn to earn money with our brains”P.03

Nicholas Roerich’s exhibitionAn Eternal Quest at the Na-tional Gallery of Modern Art

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Distributed with

BANGALORE • MUMBAI • NEW DELHI • WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 2010

A Business Report from The Economic Times. In association with Rossiyskaya Gazeta

...Marching towards a common future

“IT project managers have, for many years, migrated to work abroad for large organisations or outsourcing companies. But, be-cause of the crisis, which led to layoffs and salary reductions, many are considering moving

Not only did he promise Rus-sia’s unstinted support for the budding civil nuclear industry in India – it could mean Mos-cow building 16 atomic reac-tors for New Delhi over the

Trend High-tech specialists are returning to Russia from the US and Europe

Brain-gain in demandPutin strengthens India-Russia ties

A day in the life of a heart surgeon

A “brain-gain” has begun in the

IT and high-tech spheres. IT

specialists, who left Russia to

work abroad, are coming back.

Amid an official drive for

“modernisation” and a desire

to diversify the economy away

from hydrocarbons, specialists

with Western experience in the

high tech sphere are in high

demand.

It was a day-long visit, but in

those twenty-two hours he

spent in New Delhi March 12

Russian Prime Minister

Vladimir Putin, the architect

and prime driver of the

contemporary India-Russia

strategic partnership, took

bilateral ties into a new orbit.

Dr. Leo Bokeria performs

four to five operations a day.

He has to his credit some two

thousand open-heart

surgeries. He is also one of the

world’s leading experts on the

surgical treatment of

arrhythmia. RIR invites

readers to witness a day of the

Russian surgeon, who recently

celebrated his 70th birthday.

EKATERINA STAROVEROVA

TRUD NEWSPAPER

MANISH CHAND

SENIOR EDITOR WITH IANS

GRIGORY TARASEVICH,

ANASTASIA TSIBULEVSKAYA

RUSSKIY REPORTER

back to their homeland,” says Denis Roshchin, partner at Tri-olit, a management recruiting company.He notes a recent signifi cant in-crease in the number of applica-tions coming from job seekers with foreign experience who are now searching for a job in Rus-sia. Job seekers from Europe and the United States write that they are ready to lead and develop projects in their home country.“Workers lost the stability level, which they enjoyed before the crisis,” explains Roshchin.Russian companies are willing to offer similar rewards: an IT project manager could receive a monthly salary of $5,000-10,000, which is similar to their salary abroad.

Moreover, Russian companies are able to offer their staff to de-velop some large-scale and in-teresting projects, which seldom happened before. Many experts return when their company opens a branch in Russia.According to Marina Lukyant-seva of Morgan Hunt, a staffing and recruiting company, an em-ployer benefi ts greatly from hav-ing such an employee on their team, provided this is an inter-national business.“Companies that have operated on the international level have always employed people with Western experience, education, as well as expatriates,” she noted.Experts believe, young brilliant high-tech talents are badly need-

ed for modernisation of the country and stopping the brain drain is crucial for the its fu-ture. The modernisation is a central component of the political agen-da in today’s Russia, and a number of decisions have been recently taken to follow this route. One of them is the launch a large scientifi c centre that will pioneer the country's research and innovation, a Russia’s an-swer to Silicon Valley.The high-tech town for young and creative scientists and busi-nesspeople will be built from scratch near Moscow. It will lead research in areas considered crit-ical for Russia's modernisation.

next few years – he also im-parted a long-overdue eco-nomic momentum to trusted time-tested ties. In a major public diplomacy outreach, the first of its kind by a visiting leader, Putin interacted with a wide swathe of Indian busi-nessmen and civil society in New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Bangalore through a live web conference, and declared that India had been Russia's strategic partner “for decades” by virtue of a “near complete concurrence of our geopoliti-cal interests.”

SPECIAL REPORT

The Bakulev Cardiovascular Center headed by Bokeria is the largest center of its kind in the world. It performs more opera-tions on children with congeni-tal heart disease than anywhere else on the planet: 3,700 a year as compared with 1,000 at the largest US clinic, in Boston. Picture this... The director’s of-fi ce. By the door: the Hippocrat-ic Oath. Massive furniture and a lot of souvenirs everywhere.

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Konstantin Severinov feels science shouldn't be ressurected, but returned back to Russia. In 2005, with an established global reputation, he returned to his native Russia from a professorship at an American university to head the Laboratories at the Institue of Molecular Ge-netics in Moscow. Severinov (centre) is pictured with his young team.

RussiaIndia

REPORT

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

BOOKMARKS

02 RUSSIA INDIA REPORTIN ASSOCIATION WITH ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA, RUSSIA THE ECONOMIC TIMES WEDNESDAY_MARCH 31_2010News

www.rbcnews.com English-language business newsen.rian.ru/business RIA Novosti newswireen.fondsk.ru Strategic culture foundation magazinert.com Russia Today TV channel

Time matters: two time zones out

The Russian “Silicon Valley” will be constructed on 370 hectares near the Skolkovo business school near Moscow

Brain-gain in demand

President Dmitry Medvedev has appointed Viktor Vek-selberg, chairman of the board of directors of the Renova Group, as the manager of Skolkovo, a high-tech research and production hub project.The business tycoon will coor-dinate the creation of “the Rus-sian Silicon Valley” in Skolkovo, near Moscow. Medvedev wants the private sector to actively de-velop the research center, which will focus on energy, informa-tion technology, communica-tion, biomedical research and nuclear technology.The president announced the project in February as part of his policy of the country’s mod-

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 ernisation. The legal status of the Skolkovo project will be de-fined shortly. It is expected to attract prominent Russian and foreign scientists and business-men.Vekselberg, who is estimated to be Russia’s 23rd richest man, believes that this ambitious project will be successful if in-ternational companies partici-pate in it. The task to create a self-sufficient hi-tech research and production center “will take us 5-7 years,” he stressed.The Renova head will be the main coordinator of the Rus-sian part of the project, Vedo-mosti daily said. One of the main tasks for Vekselberg as the chief of the Russian version of the Silicon Valley will be choos-

ing a foreign co-chairman. It should be a man who “shares the ideas of creating the valley, a like-minded person,” the paper quoted Vekselberg as say-ing.He personally wants the foreign candidate to be “a successful businessman.” In any case, the fi nal decision will be taken by the government and the presi-dential administration.The Russian “Silicon Valley” will be constructed on 370 hec-tares near the Skolkovo busi-ness school. It is expected that the volume of the state’s fi nanc-ing of the project will be an-nounced in April at a meeting of the presidential commission on modernisation.As the state allocates money,

On 28 March, Russia will shed two of its eleven time zones as the Samara and Udmurtia re-gions in European Russia switch to Moscow time, while Chukotka and Kamchatka in the northern Far East will join the adjacent Magadan zone. The optimisation recently pro-posed by the Russian Presi-dent Dmitry Medvedev will leave Russia with nine time zones. A hundred years ago, Russia had no uniform time system and each city lived according to its own local solar time. In 1919, Russia’s huge territory was divided into 11 time zones (see the map) that have been used ever since, with some re-visions of their borders. The current system, however, has its inconsistencies. The time difference between European Russia and the neighbouring region across the Urals is two hours instead of one: when it is noon in Moscow, it is 2 pm in Yekaterinburg and Chelyab-

private companies should step in, and not only Russian ones. According to Dmitry Abzalov, analyst of the Center for Politi-cal Conjuncture, Vekselberg will be responsible for fi nding such companies.Then the chief of the Skolkovo project will have to build an ef-fective mechanism for selecting and working with innovation projects and link the research with the production, the analyst told the paper.“If Vekselberg manages to solve these tasks effectively, Skolko-vo may start working as an au-tonomous body without the participation of the state,” Ab-zalov said. “We will see the fi rst results of his work by the sum-mer or autumn 2010.”

insk. At the same point in time, it is 5 pm in Irkutsk, but only 4 pm in the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, which is located on the same longitude. The time zones generally fol-low the administrative bound-aries, sometimes creating cu-

rious situations. For instance, in one corner of the Samara region, you can actually go back one hour by travelling east. President Medvedev believes that “the example of other countries, such as the United

States and China, show that it is possible to make do with a lesser time difference", though it is clearly impossible to adopt a single time zone as was done in China, given the enormous distance between Kaliningrad and Kamchatka. RIR

LEGISLATIONPUBLIC OFFERED A SAY IN POLICE REFORMS

Interior Minister Rashid Nur-galiyev called on the public to help draft legislation to re-place a 1991 law on the po-lice, which he blamed in part for the corruption surround-ing his agency. Nurgaliyev said that the new legislation would "carry a new spirit" and "its

main principle will be to pro-tect the rights and freedoms of our citizens." President Dmit-ry Medvedev has ordered Nur-galiyev to reform the country's police force, whose reputation has been ravaged by a series of scandals involving corruption and violence. RIR

ANNIVERSARYRUSSIAN DEMOCRACY TURNS 20

This March Russian democracy celebrated its 20th birthday. Changes proposed by Gener-al Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR Mikhail Gor-bachev to Article 6 of the So-viet Constitution on March 14, 1990, opened the door to polit-ical pluralism in Russia.

The fight for a multi-party politi-cal system, however, began even earlier – back in May 1989 at the Congress of People's Deputies. The idea quickly gained wide-spread national support – with 200,000 people taking to the streets of Moscow to call for changes to the constitution. RIR

IN BRIEF

A Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman has won the Millennium Prize for solving the Poincare conjecture, one of the seven unresolved prob-lems in mathematics. The Clay Mathematics Institute of Cam-bridge designated a $7 mn prize fund for the solution to these problems, with $1 mn allocated to each. James Carl-son, President of CMI, said: "The resolution of the Poin-caré conjecture by Perelman

SCIENCE MATHEMATICIAN WINS MILLENNIUM PRIZE

brings to a close the century-long quest for the solution. It is a major advance in the his-tory of mathematics that will long be remembered." Yet, it is not known whether Perel-man has accepted the prize. In 2006, he was awarded a Fields Medal for his work on the Poincare conjecture but he did not accept the prize. Perelman stubbornly refuses to meet the press and make public appear-ances. RIR

ASSOCIATED PRESS

ANDREY STENIN_RIA NOVOSTI

Mikhail Gorbachev during a meeting with citizens of the city of Tolyatti in 1985.

03BOOKMARKS RUSSIA INDIA REPORT

IN ASSOCIATION WITH ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA, RUSSIA THE ECONOMIC TIMES WEDNESDAY_MARCH 31_2010 Politics

www.kremlin.ru President of Russia websitewww.skolkovo.ru Moscow school of management Skolkovowww.mnweekly.ru The Moscow News weekly

Russia should move on to the next stage of technological development, says Vladislav Surkov, the first deputy head of President Administration. In his interview, Surkov elaborates on Russia’s modernisation plans and its intellectual potential, as well as shares details of the construction of the innovation center near Moscow.

The launch of a new big project, called Silicon Valley, has been announced. Why is it being done now? First of all, the project is not called Silicon Valley. This is a kind of symbol that makes things more clear. The Russian project, of which the Russian president spoke and which is now being implemented by his decision, covers five priority areas, which the president indi-cated as “Priority directions of modernisation of our economy”. Naturally, they include energy and IT, because today these branches are in the vanguard of world economic development.

It is also biomedical technolo-gies which we urgently need for social security reasons because Russia should take care of its citizens and their health. This is also nuclear technologies in which Russia has traditionally been strong, and we should pre-serve and increase our advan-tage in it. Telecommunications is another important area. We do not have to explain that this industry is a strategic vector of development for the entire world civilisation, the entire modern technological world. So, these are the fi ve big macro industries which are going to develop under the new project.Our economy should, above all, be based on our intellectual ad-vantages, our knowledge and ability to invent new technolo-gies. This is a matter of political infl uence, because no weapons in the contemporary world, no powerful army can replace es-sential products, in the broad sense of this word, which peo-ple use in everyday life. This is, above all, a social task, because I am absolutely sure

that a raw-material economy is unable to elementarily feed this country in a long-term perspec-tive. It has exhausted its abili-ties to improve the well-being of our citizens. We are a very big country with a large popula-tion. We have stretched wide; we have a very big and costly in-frastructure. Besides, we should also bear in mind that we are a northern country. Our expenses are too high. We should learn to earn money with our brains. In my view, what we have in our heads is far more expensive and profi table than what we have in our soil.

But why did you decide to build this town in an open field? Why did you decide to start everything from scratch?We have excellent scientific centers, which were created in Soviet days in Siberia, near Moscow and in many other re-gions. But our task is to enter a new stage of civilisation. Our task is not to carry out a Euro-pean-style makeover in our So-viet home, but to build a new

Russia with a new economy, and in order to do that, it is sometimes very useful to find yourself in an open field. And sometimes, you have to start things from scratch so that what impedes us, stops being a hindrance. We can try to create on a certain stretch of land and in a certain area a certain space to where we will take the best of what we have in our life and will leave behind the worst, which is a hindrance in our eve-ryday life. The best conditions will be created for these best people. They will know that they are in the best place in Russia and in one of the best places in the world.And who are they? They are en-gineers, inventors and scien-tists. I, in fact, think that these are number one professions for Russia. We have enough lawyers and we have many economists. We are rich in representatives of many professions. But it is the engineer who will bring his country forward in the first place. We also want to create a unique and creative atmosphere. This is really a new town and it is vi-tally important that it becomes international in the very begin-ning. It should be of a level and quality that will attract the best experts from all over the world. I think that if two, three or four Nobel Prize winners do not live and work in this town in the long run, it will mean that we have not solved our task. The headquarters of the world lead-ing and most prestigious and modern companies should sit in this town. It seems to me that even architecture matters. A young man, a young scientist should look around and say: yes, this is the best place of all.

This is a large-scale project. When can this large-scale project be implemented? What are the deadlines?This is, indeed, a fairly big project. But I wouldn’t call it extremely large scale. We have a big country that can develop only with the help of big

projects. On the contrary, I think that it’s not so large scale. In re-cent times, we’ve developed an awkwardness of thought. We are afraid of any new ventures. We call each big project adven-turous and say that it will never be a success.This abjection of thought is the main problem for this country, from my point of view. I think that we should have several such projects. Look at other countries. They are not afraid of being ambi-tious. India is building several universities at a time. Enor-mous corporate towns with a population of 500,000 people are emerging in China. We are talking about 10,000 or 20,000, but these cities in China have 500,000 people. I am sure that this is absolutely realistic and the scale of this project is pro-portionate to the size of this country.

How will this project be carried out in organisational terms? Can we talk about any duration guide-lines if we speak about the crea-tion of this town?First of all, a working group has been set up on order from the president to coordinate all this work. The president gave me the honour to head this working group and its work. A special body will be set up to supervise this work. The line-up of its founders will expand as nego-tiations will develop, including with foreign partners whose presence in this project is abso-lutely essential because it’s their experience that will help us to avoid mistakes.

On the other hand, we need partners who will provide a di-rect link with the global econo-my, with top-class world scien-tifi c and technological commu-nities, and with world compa-nies advanced in all high-tech sectors. The construction itself may take from three to seven years, dependending on how things will go. Of course, it’s very diffi-cult to say in advance when a miracle is going to happen, a sa-cred spark that could fl are up in this kind of community that will draw together entrepre-neurs and scientists and that will simultaneously host a uni-versity center, laboratories and research departments of major basic material companies and non-basic material companies and also high-tech companies; where venture capital, which at the moment is practically non-existent in Russia, will be present, and where small enter-prises are going to emerge and operate in comfortable condi-tions. In my view, this environment can be formed in 10 or 15 years. I think that after that time, a chain reaction that will be dif-fi cult to stop may start. It will last for quite a long period of time, and will result in a wave of Russian inventions. I person-ally believe in this. I think that we are going to succeed.

Five priority directions of modernisation of the Russian economy

NUCLEAR POWER

ENERGY EFFICIENCY

INFORMATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

MEDICAL EQUIPMENT AND PHARMACEUTICALS

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Vladislav Surkov, the Presidential Executive Office’s First Deputy Chief of Staff.

This interview was conducted by a Russian TV channel.

Full version at WWW.RBTH.RU

in@rbth.ruin.rbth.ru/letters

The BRIC Economies: Managing through the crisis

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A town for innovators THE ECONOMY SHOULD BE BASED ON OUR INTELLECTUAL

ADVANTAGES, SAYS VLADISLAV SURKOV

INTERVIEW

bookmarks04 Russia india RepoRt

in association with rossiyskaya gazeta, russia the economic times wednesday_march 31_2010Cooperation

www.glonass-ianc.rsa.ru Russian Space Agency's English language GLONASS site www.ecp.ru/en Find more information about the Zele-nogorsk Electrochemical Plant

Putin strengthens india-russia tiesThe brief visit of Putin, his first to India since he moved to his new position as the prime min-ister of Russia two years ago, was marked by several break-throughs and win-win deals, taking bilateral ties to a new high, a fitting finale to the “Putin Decade” in bilateral ties. It was, after all, Putin, who visited India within months of assuming pres-idency in October 2000 and signed the historic Declaration on Strategic Partnership, with

an old friend. The timely and far-sighted diplomacy reversed the drift of the post-Cold war 1990s and established a template for refashioning India-Russia ties in tune with the changing realities of the 21st century. Ten years later, although he came to India this time as the head of the government, the Putin legacy was bearing fruit in myriad ways. During his brief but signif-icant visit, the two sides vowed to end years of stagnation in eco-nomic ties by inking a clutch of pacts on oil exploration, trade in diamonds and import of fertiliz-ers. These pacts have the poten-tial to add more heft to current bilateral trade of $7.5 bn. Putin also vowed to boost banking co-operation with India through joint ventures and offered state financial aid for Indian telecoms unit of Russian conglomerate Sistema. "There is political will on both sides, but we need sup-port from the captains of indus-try," Putin said. "We should think about the future."The defence ties, the bedrock of the India-Russia relationship for decades, saw a renewed surge as the two sides inked a military aviation agreement and sealed deals worth at least $4 bn that in-cluded Russia supplying 29 MiG-29K fighter jets, a Multi-Role Transport Aircraft and the joint development of fifth generation aircraft that promises to provide a new ballast to the Indian air force. The freezing of the renego-tiated prize for retrofitted air-craft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, renamed by India as INS Vikra-maditya, at $2.3 bn removed a re-cent irritant in bilateral ties, and reinforced Russia’s position as India’s top supplier of military hardware despite competition from the US, France and China. Russia also agreed to provide India exclusive access to military signals from GLONASS global positioning system (GPS) that will enable the precise targeting of guided missiles.Responding to India’s surging economy and its energy needs,

Putin, who had batted vigorous-ly for ending nuclear embargo for India in the Nuclear Suppli-ers Group, announced his coun-try’s full support for India in all areas of civil nuclear coopera-tion, including the disposal of nuclear waste. This commitment was reflected in the signing of an intergovernmental cooperation on peaceful uses of nuclear en-ergy, initialled during Indian Prime Minister Manmo-han Singh's trip to Mos-cow in December last year, and another one laying out a roadmap for serial construction of Russian-design reac-tors. A separate com-mercial contract be-tween India's public sector nuclear monopo-ly NPCIL and Russia's Atomstroy Export was also inked for building two more civil nuclear reactors of 1,000 Mw each at Kudankulam in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu where Moscow is al-ready building two reactors. If this upward trend continues, Russia could end up building upto 16 nuclear reactors in India, giving it the first mover advan-tage over other competitors like the US and France in India's multi-billion dollar nuclear pie. "This is one of our major, far-reaching, promising areas of in-teraction," Putin said. On the strategic front, the talks turned out to be a meeting of minds. Putin shared India’s dis-taste for the potential relapse of Afghanistan into Taliban barba-rism and vowed to step up coop-eration in combating terrorism and on issues relating to the sta-bility of the Afghanistan-Paki-stan region. Taking note of New Delhi’s anx-ieties about the threat to the re-gion posed by terror groups op-erating from Pakistan, Putin as-serted that Moscow will not enter into any defence deal with Islamabad “because of our Indi-an friends' concerns.”

Vickram Bahl: Putin is a people person

Vickram bahlEditOR iN ChiEF,

itMN tV

After all these years of hosting interesting people on television shows, the questions that I am often asked are ‘Who has been your most interesting guest?’ and ‘How was he (or she) in per-son?’. The first one is easy to an-swer since all my guests have something out of the ordinary to offer. I tell them to wait for my book. The second question is usually about a specific inter-view and what people are really curious about is to know about the person beyond what is pre-sented on their screens.In this area, Vladimir Putin is a

winner by far. He has generated more questions for me than any other. People from varied social and economic groups want to know more about the man and what were my impressions about him. That seems strange because Putin is an open man and loves to interact with peo-ple. My interaction with him has been on two occasions – in 2007, I interviewed him while he was President, for my TV pro-gramme, Insight with Vickram Bahl and during his March 2010 visit to India where I moderated his live Internet interaction with people from three centres across India asking him wide ranging questions.

India could provide Russia a third site for the construction of new nuclear power plants. "There is Haripur, there is Kudankulam, and there will be another," said Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia's state-controlled nuclear power corporation Rosatom. A total of 12 nuclear power units are to be built at the first two sites.

Vladimir Putin:Regardless of my office, when I come to India I always feel that India has

been our strategic partner for many decades. Although this reflects the mutual sympathies of Russian and Indian nations,

it primarily highlights our vir-tually coinciding geopolitical interests... When I come to India, I have only one objective: to facilitate expanded inter-state relations and direct contacts between our nations.

the Quote

tRuStEd ANd RELiABLE StRAtEGiC PARtNERShiP wAS CONFiRMEd duRiNG thE ViSit

diPlomaCy

Continued from Page 1

"

Moved by his unwavering com-mitment to rebuilding closer strategic ties with India, Man-mohan Singh, was generous in his praise. Describing Putin as “a great friend of India,” Man-mohan Singh said at a joint press conference: “Prime Minis-ter Putin has been the architect of the strategic partnership be-tween India and Russia, and we owe a deep sense of gratitude to him for bringing our countries so close to each other.” In a trib-ute to what is clearly the ‘Putin Decade’ in bilateral ties, Man-mohan Singh underlined that the relations with Russia “are a key pillar of India’s foreign pol-icy,” adding: “We regard Russia as a trusted and reliable strate-gic partner.” Putin smiled, bask-ing in the glow of restoring vi-tality in a critical relationship that has withstood the vagaries of changing geopolitics and continues to remain central to core interests of both countries in an emerging multi-polar world. Continued on Page 5

41. nuClear deal

Under the new agreement, Russia will build upto 16 nucle-ar reactors in India. "The agree-ment sees construction of upto 16 nuclear reactors in three lo-cations," Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said.

2. fighter jet ContraCtRussia and India have

signed a $1.5 bn contract on the supplies of 29 more MiG-29K Fulcrum-D carrier-based fighter jets. The start of the supplies is scheduled for 2012.

3. glonass ProjeCtA joint venture will be es-

tablished to produce naviga-tion equipment for GPS and its Russian equivalent GLO-NASS, including the use of the GLONASS system for defense needs.

4. gorshkoV dealThe two countries have

signed a deal on upgrad-ing the Admiral Gorshkov air-craft carrier, following an ear-lier statement from the Indian government's security com-mittee, it would allocate $2.3 bn to refit the ship.

hiGhLiGhtS OF thE ViSit

FROM PERSONAL ARChiVES

RiA

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kONStANtiN ZAVRAZhiN_RG

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As someone who has been ob-serving the dynamics of our bi-lateral relations for more than a decade, I did not find the con-tracts signed in Delhi striking, the more so since their details had been under discussion for more than a year. “Non-classi-cal” (nuclear) energy is already

commonplace, since Russia, for example, is planning to build a nu-clear power plant at the opposite end of the world, in Morocco. And so we could not wait to learn the fate of the “contract of the centu-ry”, to supply India with 126 multi-role fighters, which Putin was lob-bying strongly for in Delhi three years ago, when he was still pres-ident of Russia. A “ray

of hope” appeared when it was reported that India is to par-ticipate, to the tune of $600 mn, in the development of a fifth-generation fighter, since this high-tech aircraft prom-ises to be better than its Amer-ican equivalent, the Raptor. But at $7.5 bn, the volume of bilateral economic links in 2009 is frankly rather depress-ing: it is considerably more modest than Russia’s trade turnover with the relatively small country of Turkey.Nevertheless, these views of a sceptic would seem to be refut-ed by the “undercurrent” of Putin’s visit, which is the re-turn of our two countries to the arena of real twenty-first-cen-tury geopolitics, which jour-nalist and author Fareed Za-karia has aptly dubbed “the post-American world”.For a long time, Russia and India, each country in its own way, amused themselves with the illusion of a comfortable “unipolarity”, i.e. a unipolar world in the “American” style.

opinion Mutual understanding and “rediscovery” are crucial

Putin in India:Geopolitical resultsThe Russian premier’s visit has been well received in India. What was not a sensation is that Vladimir Putin is regarded by the main social and political forces in India as the “saviour” of Russia’s prestige.

andreI VolodInSpECIally FoR RIR

The elites of both countries were willing to play world pol-itics according to rules laid down by Washington. Howev-er, the global crisis that struck so “unexpectedly” showed just how shaky the political econ-omy of a unipolar world was and forced many, including Moscow and Delhi, to take more of the initiative and to act more boldly.For India, the China factor also plays a role in this, since many “at the top” and “on the street” believe China is trying to sur-round the Indians in the area of their vital interests, i.e. in South Asia. And here Russia too has remembered that peace in Central Asia, which is a key region for us, begins in Paki-stan, and that we have effec-tively the same interests as India in Afghanistan. Putin did not shy away from talking about this in Delhi. The lead-ers also apparently discussed the way America’s geopolitical influence is waning and Chi-na’s is rising in both South and Central Asia.All this obviously not only pro-vided abundant food for thought but also prompted Delhi and Moscow to change, as it were, the geopolitical par-adigm and to return, albeit in new circumstances and with new content, to the tried and tested relations which in the recent past did not prevent India or the Soviet Union from strengthening their strategic position in the southern part of Central Eurasia. The conditions are now even more favourable for a new Russian–Indian “entente”, if only because we do not need to have an argument with Amer-ica or with China, but simply need to defend our strategic interests, relying on clear po-litical will and a newly ac-quired knowledge of the world.It is in this new Russian–Indi-an mutual understanding and mutual rediscovery that I see the true meaning of Vladimir Putin’s brief visit to Delhi.

Both lasted over an hour and Putin came across as relaxed, frank and friendly. In fact, not much has changed in these three years; I noticed that he wore the same style of shoes and the same black dial watch that looks very much like a regular watch pilots wear, on his right wrist.The questions from people were at times very narrow and point-ed. “Why were customs authori-ties confiscating tea samples?” Others hit upon larger issues that affect people to people contacts, such as the difficulties in getting long-term short stay visas. Putin not only replied these questions with words but also with enthu-siasm in his body language. That is something my camera teams have learnt to deal with. Putin al-ways moves a great deal in his chair. This keeps the camera teams re-framing the shots and gives life and variety to a simple talk show. In fact, his energetic mannerism is infectious.

My questions were more to-wards world affairs, terrorism, Afghanistan, Pakistan and even a personal one – his preference in tea. Some questions, like on trade and investment, require figures but Putin never refers to notes for his answers. He some-times scrawled bullet points when questions were being asked. Presumably, his personal staff discreetly pocketed the writing pad soon after the inter-view, lest someone take it as a souvenir. But what was a first for me in my career was the way we ended the programme. As the usual prac-tice is, I thanked Putin and pro-ceeded to thank my location hosts, the audience and close the programme. Suddenly, I had Putin hold my arm and excuse the interruption in order to thank everyone and me and give a final message. His warmth in actions and words touched the hearts of many and for me this was evidence that he enjoyed being with the people of India.

India could provide Russia a third site for the construction of new nuclear power plants. "There is Haripur, there is Kudankulam, and there will be another," said Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia's state-controlled nuclear power corporation Rosatom. A total of 12 nuclear power units are to be built at the first two sites.

Joint projects involving the peaceful use of nu-clear energy are one of the

most important and promising areas of cooperation between our countries... We have a large national programme for devel-oping nuclear power genera-tion. During the Soviet period, we built some 30 large nuclear

reactors. Our immediate plans call for 28 new reactors, which is almost as many as were built during the entire Soviet period. Safety is our primary concern... According to the latest assess-ments by the IAEA, Russian nu-clear reactors are considered the safest in the world. Professionals know that.

We need to think about the future and increase high-tech cooperation.

This is fully in line with our plans for Russia's economic develop-ment. One of our key goals is to diversify the economy and

emphasise innovation as it develops.... The political will is there in both Russia and India. But we certainly need the sup-port of leading industrial and investment companies on both sides.

Under the revised contract air-craft carrier INS Vikramaditya (Admiral Gorshkov) will be delivered at the end of 2012.

The deal on the GLONASS system includes the use of the GLONASS signal for defense needs

" "

ConTInUed from PaGe 4

Dr Andrei Volodin is professor of history with the Institute of World Economy and Interna-tional Relations in Moscow.

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06 RUSSIA INDIA REPORTIN ASSOCIATION WITH ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA, RUSSIA THE ECONOMIC TIMES WEDNESDAY_MARCH 31_2010Culture

www.roerichtrust.org The International Roerich Me-morial Trust iwww.roerich.org Nicholas Roerich museum in New York

them stood silent witnesses to their dreams. Almost 70 years later, the two countries are witnessing the flowering of those prophetic yearnings. Much has changed since then, but there is a grow-ing realisation that India and Russia are like two pillars on which the peace of the whole world rests. Swami Vivekanan-da, an Indian philosopher-mys-tic, has captured the essence of the Indian belief in spirituality and the interconnectedness of the human spirit. “Political greatness or military power is never the mision of our race, it never was and mark my words, it never will be. But there has been other mission given to us, which is to conserve, to pre-serve, to accumulate all the spir-itual energy of human race...” Clearly, the strength of India and Russia lies in its people who aspire towards illumination of spirit and the highest knowl-edge.Nicholas Roerich, too, was root-ed in such knowledge. His mind anchored in the heritage of the past and his hands, heart and mind creating a radiant future. In the name of Beauty, he was mapping out the ascent of mind

and soul for posterity. Roerich’s genius amalgamated the past, present and future in one grand synthesis of life. And it is be-cause of it, Roerich will always be relevant. This gift for synthesis was re-flected in everything Roerich did. Synthesis was his method as well as style. This ability to view the world in its unity and interconnectedness, when eve-rything from the tiniest ant upto huge stars has its unique place in the majestic Cosmic Design, allowed Roerich to sense, understand and commu-nicate with the very foundation of Life. He was spiritually at-tuned to its essence, radiance, thus pulsating fabric that re-sembled the canvases of the great Master… It is this psychic affinity of Roerich with the universal truth that strikes a chord with every seeker of truth, cutting across national or religious bounda-ries. It invites everybody to per-ceive the underlying harmony and beauty of the creation and teaches one to attune oneself with it. Beauty does not require an interpreter. Consciousness of beauty is an inborn capacity in each one of us and Roerich was convinced that it should be cul-tivated and manifested on all levels. It is the common ground for all people in their hard evo-lutionary search and paves the way for the attainment of the higher levels of consciousness. “The beautiful leads us

through all the bridges.The beautiful opens

the gravest locks.The beautiful weaves

the wings of light and unitesthe human souls in their

aspirationfor the Common Light.”

(N. Roerich) Roerich’s deep love for world culture was reflected in the

This March, India has a brush with the genius of Russian artist Nicholas Roerich, the sage-philosopher who made the mighty Himalayas the home of his spirit for much of his later life, when a unique exhibition showcasing 75 of his best paintings were put up for display at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi.

ALENA ADAMKOVA

SPECIALLY FOR RIR

Exhibition The artist's outlook of the world was unique

India gets a taste of Roerich’s Himalayan quest

“ Art is the heart of the people. Knowledge is the brain of the people. Only with heart and wisdom humanity can unite and understand each other.”

N.Roerich

Krishna. From “Kulu” series. 1929.

RIR Dossier

Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947) was an extraordinary personality, a unique individual, having an im-mense thirst for knowledge and a deep appreciation of beauty in all forms. A trained painter and lawyer, also ethnographer, geog-rapher, poet, philosopher, travel-ler, fighter for peace, defender of cultural values of all nations, Roerich throughout his life, de-voted himself to the ideal of the common good of mankind. Ear-ly in his career, Roerich distin-guished himself as his genera-tion's best painter of scenes from ancient Russian history. Roerich was associated with several Sym-bolist literary-artistic journals, di-rected the School of the Imperial

Blessed soul (Bhagavan Shri Ramakrishna). 1932. Red Horses. 1925.

Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. After the October Revolution, Roerich and his fam-ily left Russia. As emigres, they lived in Finland, England, and the United States, finally settling in northern India. In 1928, Nicholas Roerich and his wife Elena found-ed the Institute of the Himalayan Studies "Urusvati". Roerich remained a prolific paint-er, but he was engaged in other activities too. He spearheaded an international campaign for the adoption of a treaty — the 'Ban-ner of Peace' Pact — to protect art and architecture in times of war. The Roerich family was deeply rooted in the philosophic teach-ing called Agni Yoga, or the Liv-ing Ethics.

The sheer magic of Roerich’s paintings had the viewers spell-bound. Small wonder, he was revered by his admirers across continents. His contemporaries described him variously as Apostle of Beauty, Messenger of Culture, Mighty Warrior of the Spirit and Master of Himala-yas.Looking deeper, one can’t but recollect the year 1942… the Second World War was still raging, India was struggling for its independence, but the two visionaries – Pandit Jawa-harlal Nehru and Nicholas Roerich -- were discussing the future of friendship between India and Russia. Only the mighty Himalayas around

signing of the Roerich Interna-tional Banner of Peace in 1935 in Washington by 21 countries in presence of US President F.D. Roosevelt. The treaty aimed at protecting the lofty monuments of artistic and sci-entifi c institutions and collec-tions of the creative spirit of human genius from the havoc of war and acts of barbarity. “We need the Pact for culture memorials protection not only as an official body, but also as an educational law, which will ... bring up younger generation with the noble ideas of pre-serving cultural values of the universe,” Roerich wrote. One can hope that more Indi-ans, especially children, can see the exhibition in Delhi to get the feel of Roerich’s works, which may inspire them to widen their consciousness. The Himalayan paintings of Nicholas Roerich merit a clos-er look. They were all created by the painter during the time he spent in Naggar – either in Kullu valley, or in neighboring Lahoul, Spiti or Chamba mountainous regions. Like no other painter, Roerich was able to grasp and depict the subtlest shades, hues and tones of the mountains, their ethereal transparency – be it at sun rise, blazing daytime, in the mysti-cal dusk quietness or on starry and translucent nights…No wonder he was proclaimed the ‘Master of the Mountains’. He could sense the spirit and harmony of the mountains, and saw in them the symbol of the highest aspiration towards the Beauty and Knowledge. ‘Treas-ure-house of the Spirit’ – this is how Roerich used to call his be-loved Himalayas. They nour-ished Roerich’s heart and soul for over twenty years and he was able to share their gift with other people through his can-vases. “The Himalayas, which for

centuries have inspired Hindu and Buddhist thought and art, embrace in their snows some of the most famed sanctuaries of India, worshipped for thou-sands of years. In the strange and beautiful Kullu valley alone are structures, groves and nooks sacred to 360 gods. Kullu collected all sublime names of the humanity - Manu, Buddha, Arjuna, Pandava he-roes, Vyasa, Gessar Khan. And

all masters and heroes, who ei-ther by sword or in spirit won great battles,” wrote Roerich. The Himalayan paintings bring out Roerich’s belief that spiritual heritage is the most potent binding and uniting force between diverse cul-tures.

Portrait of Nicholas Roerich painted by his son Svyatoslav.

Dr.Alena Adamkova is the Ex-ecutive Director of the Interna-tional Roerich Memorial Trust

Roerich abode gets highest patronage

The International Roerich Memo-rial Trust (IRMT) in the Himalayan Kullu Valley in Himachal Pradesh will now function under the pa-tronage of the Co-Chairmen of the Russian-Indian Inter-Govern-mental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Techno-logical and Cultural Cooperation (IGC). This decision was taken at the working session of the Co-Chairs of the IGC - Russia's Vice-Premier Mr. Sergei Sobyanin and the Indian External Affairs Minis-ter, Mr. S.M.Krishna, which took

place in February. The Memorial Complex of the Roerichs in the township of Naggar in the serene Kullu Valley comprises the Es-tate where the illustrious Russian family of the elder Roerichs lived from 1929 to 1947, an Art Gallery and the 'Urusvati' Himalayan Re-search Institute. Until his death in 1993, it was the abode of Sve-toslav Roerich and his legendary film star wife, Devika Rani. The Estate is justly considered one of the unique treasure-houses of world culture.

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www.kolkata.mid.ru Consulate General of the Russain Federation in Kolkatawww.russiancentre.org.in/eng Russian Centre of Cul-ture and Science in New Delhi

It took the Russian Foreign Min-istry more than 40 years to over-come Britain’s resistance and open a mission in what Britain called “the jewel in its crown”. This issue fi rst came up in the late 1850s. Howev-er, the the smoke of the Crimean War (1853–1856) and the anti-British uprising in India (1857–1858) still hung in the air. Britain, preoccupied with consoli-dating its power in India, was frosty towards Russia’s diplo-matic initiative.Since diplomacy is invariably based on etiquette and parity, the price of reciprocity became clear after lengthy delays: in 1875, Britain opened its consu-late in Tifl is (now Tbilisi). How-ever, Russia’s stubborn adver-sary throughout the latter half of the 19th century did not rush to fulfi ll its part of the deal. “The Great Game” had already begun. The two empires con-fronted each other in Central Asia. However, the ruling Con-servatives in Britain did not consider it their duty to honour the previous Labour govern-ment’s promise. In a dispatch to the Foreign Office on June 2, 1879 Viceroy of India Lord Lyt-ton objected to the appointment of a Russian consul to Bombay (now Mumbai ) . At that time, Mumbai “was a venue for annual meetings of protesters, conspirators and plotters” and the viceroy anticipated “exag-gerated reports about the dis-content of our subjects”. Lord Lytton also wrote that the For-eign Office must demand Tashkent or Samarkand in ex-change for Mumbai.On his part, War Minister Gen-eral Vannovsky wrote to Foreign Minister Nikolai Girs on June 27, 1885: “At present, the War Ministry has only one agent in Asia, at our mission in Peking; the headquarters of the Cauca-sian District receives some in-formation from our instructors in Tehran but we have no way of following what is happening in India.” The shadow of England’s new rival, Germany, appeared on the horizon and fi nally on August

As the Russian consulate general in Calcutta (now Kolkata) celebrates its 100th anniversary, Irinia Glushkova looks back at power politics, high-wire diplomacy and machinations of the mid-19th century ‘Great Game’ that led the mighty Britain to let Moscow open its first mission in the ‘Jewel in the British Crown’.

Russia's first Indian mission: The untold story

History One hundred years of the Consulate General in Kolkata

11, 1899, Lord Salisbury, the then head of the Foreign Office, responded positively to Russian envoy in London Pavel Lessar. Lord Curzon, a notorious Rus-sophobe, became the viceroy of India in the same year. In a tel-egram to Secretary of State for India Lord Hamilton, he wrote that the Russian consul was well-known in Central Asia and was sent to Mumbai not for commercial purposes alone.Before long, Vasily (Wilhelm) von Klemm arrived here. An outstanding professional, he fi t-ted the job perfectly. First, he was engaged in Oriental Stud-ies at the Lazarev Institute of Oriental languages and at the Oriental languages section of the Foreign Ministry’s Asian Department, where he was later employed. Second, he had ex-cellent diplomatic training: serving fi rst with the Political Agency in Bukhara and later on as a Foreign Ministry official representing the border rela-tions department of the gover-

nor of the Trans-Caspian Re-gion.Alexander Vygornitsky arrived soon here after Klemm. He mas-tered Hindustani (a mixture of Urdu and Hindi) at the officer corps in Bukhara and then pol-ished it during his practical training in India.Foreign Minister Count Vladimir Lamsdorf gave clear-cut in-structions to Klemm: “India is primarily important for us be-cause it is the British Empire’s most vulnerable spot, a sensitive nerve, which, if touched, may compel the Queen’s government to change its policy of hostility towards us and display the com-pliance desired on all issues where our interests clash.”A brilliant analyst, Vasily Klemm sent detailed reports to the Foreign Ministry about the traditions of India, its economy, political and military events. Written racily, his dispatches read like a detective story. He was quick to realise the impor-tance of promoting trade. He

sent cinchona seeds to the Su-khum experimental station and found capable teachers for fa-miliarising Russians with Indi-an languages. He worked un-stintingly to create a positive image of Russia, befriending upper class Indians and intel-lectuals and, last but not the least, was a talented intelligence officer. He did not miss a single move in the redeployment of Anglo-Indian troops and the activities of English diplomats in Afghanistan and Tibet. The British-Indian administra-tion always kept an eye on Klemm and barred him from moving around the country. His servants, both in the office and at home, reported to the police about his every step and even his mail was torn open. Klemm worked in Mumbai until 1906. Subsequently, he served as the consul general in Meshed, Iran, headed the For-eign Ministry’s Third (Central Asian) Political Department until 1917 and was a diplomat-ic envoy of the White anti-Bol-shevik movement of Admiral Kolchak in Vladivostok. Even-tually, he moved to China and disappeared. The date of his death is unknown.In 1908, the Russian Foreign Ministry in St Petersburg re-quested their British counter-parts to allow them to move the consulate from to Kolkata, clos-er to the Anglo-Indian govern-ment. Finally, the Brits acceded to the request in 1910, several months before the the Indian capital moved from Kolkata to Delhi.

The Russian consulate in Kolkata has been keeping records of its activities from the very start that include amassing an impressive collection of photographs.

Set up in 1958 as the Cultural Department of the Embassy of the USSR at the Travancore House, Curzon Road, it started functioning in 1965 as Soviet Cultural Centre at 24, Feroze-shah Road, New Delhi. The new building came into being in January 1982 and was called House of Soviet Science, Culture and Art. The centre as-sumed the new nomenclature of the Russian Centre of Sci-ence and Culture in 1992, func-tioning as a branch of the Rus-sian Centre of International Scientifi c and Cultural Coop-eration (Roszarubezhcentre). In the end of 2008, it became the Indian Representative Of-fi ce of the Federal Agency for CIS Affairs, Russian Compa-triots Abroad and Internation-al Humanitarian Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo), an au-tonomous body functioning under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federa-tion in 68 countries of the world. India is the only country where Rossotrudnichestvo has fi ve Russian Centres of Science and Culture.The RCSC is carrying out var-ious cultural activities in close cooperation with Indian social organisations, associations and clubs, organises regular events in the field of art and culture, science and technolo-gy, etc., in the form of photo and painting exhibitions, music and dance programmes, film shows, ballet and piano con-certs, seminars, symposia, press conferences, round-table

The nerve centre and hub of activities promoting Russian-Indian relations in different spheres, the Russian Centre of Science and Culture (RCSC) in New Delhi marks its 45th anniversary in March, 2010.

FYODOR ROZOVSKIY

THE DIRECTOR OF THERCSC IN NEW DELHI

The New Delhi connection

discussions, literary evenings, literary olympiads, painting competitions, chess tourna-ments, etc. It follows the tradi-tion of celebrating important national days of both, India and Russia.It is the rare privilege of the RCSC to record the gracious visits of distinguished digni-taries and world leaders such as Mrs. Indira Gandhi, Mr. M . S . G o r b a c h e v , M r . A.K.Gujral, Mr. A.B.Vajpayee, Mrs. L.A. Putina and others.The 80th Anniversary of Ros-zarubezhcentre, the 60th An-niversary of the Establishment of Indo-Soviet Diplomatic Re-lations, the 60th Anniversary of the Victory of Great Patriot-ic War, the inauguration of Roerich’s Art Club and Muse-um by Mr. Somnath Chatterjee, Speaker of Lok Sabha, visit of His Eminence Kirill, Russian Orthodox Church Leader and others are landmark events in the history of RCSC, assuming new dimensions to its clearly perceptible activities.The successful accomplish-ment of the “Year of Russia in India” in 2008 and the “Year of India in Russia” in 2009 with momentous events showcasing each other’s history and cul-ture are important milestones in the long annals of Russian-Indian relations.The Year 2010 will become as bright and saturated as the previous two. The main event of the anniversary year - a unique art exhibition «Rus-sian Winter» from the collec-tion of the State Russian Mu-seum was recently opened at RCSC. Thirty-three rare paintings, all classical 19th and 20th century Russian win-ter landscapes by leading art-ists, have stepped out of the world famous museum at St.Petersburg for the fi rst time in the archive's 115-year-old history for a show in the Indi-an capital.

'Pink snow' by Rudolf Frentz (1925) is one of the paintings on dis-play at the "Russian Winter" exhibition at the RCSC.

Excerpts from a piece by Irina Glushkova, the author of sev-eral books on Indian culture

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08 RUSSIA INDIA REPORTIN ASSOCIATION WITH ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA, RUSSIA THE ECONOMIC TIMES WEDNESDAY_MARCH 31_2010Special report

www.bakulev.ru/en Bakoulev Center for Cardiovascu-lar Surgery eng.mma.ru I.M. Sechenov Moscow Medical Academywww.rian.ru RIA Novosti newswire

Medicine The world famous heart surgeon Leo Bokeria recently celebrated his 70th birthday

A day in the life of a heart surgeonOn the fl oor, a huge stuffed lion that is practically life-size. The association is clear: the name of the office’s occupant is Leo.Bokeria has already changed into scrubs for the operating room — he is wearing a sur-geon’s pale green smock. “I have an operation in 15 min-utes. Let’s talk until then.”“We would like to begin with the subject of how time…”“My personal time is determined primarily by sleep. I sleep rough-ly six hours a night. No matter where I am, I try to go to bed at the same time: at midnight or a little after. I get up at about 6:30. I have a simple schedule: I arrive at the center, talk to two or three people in the space of 15 minutes and leave for the operating room. After the operations, I usually have many meetings with col-leagues and guests, telephone conversations and mail.”Bokeria is famous for allowing journalists into the holy of ho-lies, the operating theater. So we set off for the operating block. We don smock, hat, mask, etc. Only our hands and eyes remain uncovered.The operating theater is cold and brightly lit. A team is gath-ered round the operating table: Bokeria, a nurse and two young assistant surgeons.Bokeria is almost unrecognisa-ble: his face is covered by a mask and thick glasses with addition-al lenses. A heart operation is a delicate business, on top of which many of the patients here are children.The tiny patient is almost invis-ible. From under the sheet, one can see only the crown of its al-most bald head: the child is four months old.“Every year in Russia, some 25,000 children are born with congenital heart defects,” says Bokeria. “If an operation is not performed quickly, 70 pc of those children will die before they are a year old. It’s all very sad. But on the other hand, if the operation is performed prompt-ly, 97 pc of those children will grow into healthy adults.”

The baby’s heart has been stopped for an hour now. An ar-tifi cial circulation machine has been working in its place. The baby’s blood is pumped through the tubes into a transparent container that looks like a gal-lon jug. It impregnates the blood with oxygen and returns it to the body. Suddenly the command: “Warm it!” It sounds like the cry “Land!” after many months at sea. Dur-ing the operation, the body is cooled. We watched, somewhat horrifi ed, as the nurse periodi-cally sprinkled chipped ice around the baby’s body. Now that the operation is over, the body can be returned to its normal temperature. The green line on the monitor jumps up once. Then again and again. The baby’s heart is working on its own. We walk out of the operating room into the hall where Boke-ria explains what the last two and a half hours involved.“It was a complicated opera-tion. A normal heart should have a pulmonary artery and an aorta coming out of it. In this case, the heart had only the aorta coming out of it and the pulmonary ar-tery coming out of the aorta. The blood impregnated with oxygen from the lungs could not get to the organs. Moreover, the valve on the aorta was not working properly. No prosthesis exists; they don’t make little valves for infants. The valve has to be re-constructed. I did that and it all seems to have worked.”“Do you operate on many chil-dren?”“I try to do 50 pc children and 50 pc adults. Sometimes, it works out to three children and two adults. All in all, 17-18 opera-tions a week.”Back in the operating room. A different one. Again the si-lence, the stopped heart, the tubes, the clock on the wall and lots of equipment. And again a small heart. Apparent-ly weak. On top of the heart defect, this baby has Down Syndrome. The two diseases often go together. Bokeria makes a tiny incision with his

surgeon’s scissors… Finally we hear: “Warm it!” The body begins to return to life.“Will the two children you op-erated on today be all right?”“They should be. These children will need serious care. But the operations were successful.”“Is it true that many patients do not survive surgical interven-tion?"“The probability of a lethal out-come on the operating table is small. Statistically, for the most complicated cases, 5-7 pc can-not be saved. In countries where heart surgery is popular, people live to at least 80,” says Bokeria.At a small anteroom outside the OR, Bokeria washes his hands. First with one special solution, then another. Then dries his hands. A nurse holds out his

rubber gloves. Now, he’s ready to go to the operating table. This time, the heart is large and strong. The woman is 40.We can see Bokeria cutting out a small piece of tissue and hand-ing it to the nurse with tweezers. In exchange, she gives him what looks like a small metal castor. “Do you want to see? This is what an artificial valve looks like. And this one was made in Russia. Homemade, so to speak,” Bokeria allows himself to smile, then returns to his work with concentration.Using a syringe, they fill the heart with air. It swells till it looks like a small sack. You can see the blood vessels. You can also see the accretions of fatty tissue — white stripes.Again: “Warm it!” But some-

thing’s not right. The heart doesn’t want to start. The ma-chine records its beats with sound signals. It squeaks, then falls silent. The doctors are puz-zled; they keep looking at the monitors. Then, everything re-turns to normal. “You have many titles, many po-sitions, good relations with the powers that be. Does anything get in the way of your work?”“There are many questions. For example, with heart transplants. The public has the impression that people will be killed in order to do a heart transplant. They suspect that doctors will take the heart of a living person and give it to someone else. In fact, this procedure has been de-vised down to the smallest re-fi nements. Eight hours before a

heart is taken from a donor, a test is conducted with medical examiners and other specialists present — a number of people who see that the brain is dead. Eight hours later, the test is re-peated. This is an international practice. Thousands of hearts have been transplanted to date.”Most recently, the Bakulev Cent-er has been developing endovas-cular operations. Older people with weak organisms are often considered unfi t for open-heart surgery. Instead, a small incision is made in the femoral artery, into which a catheter is intro-duced with a folded artificial valve. The instrument travels along blood vessels to its goal, while the doctors follow the process on a monitor where the heart is seen in 3D. The opera-tion leaves only a tiny scar of three millimeters. An operation like that is on the schedule for tomorrow.But for now, in the OR, the pa-tient’s heart does not want to start beating. The machine mon-itoring the patient’s condition is making a continuous, high-pitched squeaking sound.Bokeria picks up what looks like two large metal spoons with wooden handles. The male nurse tightens a knob on one of the machines. Bokeria drops the spoons right into the thorax. And gives the command: “Dis-charge!” The body twitches. The continu-ous squeak from the monitor be-comes intermittent. With the first jolt from the current, the heart started to beat. The opera-tion is over.Again, we’re in Bokeria’s office. He looks hale and is ready to an-swer any questions.“We’d like to return to our ques-tion about time. In your view, do you use your time right?”“Of course not! I’m an acade-mician, the director of a medi-cal center, a laureate of many prizes, I should just go to all sort of coasts and stare at the beautiful women. But, I go on and on! Of course, it’s not right. But that’s how my life has turned out.”

RIR Dossier

He is the Director of the Bakulev Research Center for Cardiovascular Surgery, a chief heart surgeon of the Russia’s Health and Social Development Ministry, the president of the Health of the Nation League and member of the Public Chamber where he chairs the Healthy Life commission. Born in Ochamchira, Abkhazia, Leo Bokeria was educated at Mos-cow's First Medical Institute and holds a Doctor's degree in Medicine. Since 1968, he has worked at the Cardiovascular Surgery Institute.Bokeria has to his credit at least ten operations that he was the first to perform in Russia. But the details are hid-den behind a string of terms that only specialists under-stand: “trans-myocardial revas-cularization”, “implantation of cardio-defibrillators”, “dynam-ic cardio-myoplasty”, etc.It was Bokeria who invented the method of hyperbaric ox-ygenation, which allows sur-geons to operate on virtually inoperable children by placing them in an altitude chamber.

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ph. +7 (495) 755 3114

Catch the vibes of Moscowin.rbth.ru/blogs

“A little growth would go a long way to earning Russia little more love...”

“It’s about the atmophere of an oasis of recreation with delicious drinks, snacks, comfortable seats, wi-fi...”

“My strategy has been to find the funnier side of life in Russia, and it works for me.”

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