Export, import and invest into Russia

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A new biowaste processing plant opened in the Voronezh region

A new pig farm with a capacity of 16,000 tons was launched in the Voronezh region

The timber industry needs 35 billion rubles to process round timber

Online clothing store Farfetch's revenue grows 46%

The first MC-21-300 wing console made of domestically produced composites was delivered to the Irkut plant

Shopping centers asked for support to separate them into a separate industry

Garbage is running out of time

The expert assessed the threat of black tea shortage

"Magnit" will buy out the retail chain "Dixy" for 92 billion rubles

"Syassky PPM". The plant that was the first to donate toilet paper to the Soviet Union

Electronic Timber Control System Increases Tax Revenues

The head of Roskachestvo spoke about the effect of school uniforms and "green" products

The secret of the eco, bio and natural labeling was revealed to the Russians

RCSC - Russian Council of Shopping Centers (RCSC).

Use our team in Russia to improve your business.

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Russian business news headlines in English so that you can decide what to translate.

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Industrialists began to get rid of old leaders

A new biowaste processing plant opened in the Voronezh region

A new pig farm with a capacity of 16,000 tons was launched in the Voronezh region

The timber industry needs 35 billion rubles to process round timber

Online clothing store Farfetch's revenue grows 46%

The first MC-21-300 wing console made of domestically produced composites was delivered to the Irkut plant

Shopping centers asked for support to separate them into a separate industry

Garbage is running out of time

The expert assessed the threat of black tea shortage

"Magnit" will buy out the retail chain "Dixy" for 92 billion rubles

"Syassky PPM". The plant that was the first to donate toilet paper to the Soviet Union

Electronic Timber Control System Increases Tax Revenues

The head of Roskachestvo spoke about the effect of school uniforms and "green" products

The secret of the eco, bio and natural labeling was revealed to the Russians

RCSC - Russian Council of Shopping Centers (RCSC).

Use our team in Russia to improve your business.

END

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In the early spring of 2021, the NFT acronym that stands for non-fungible token became viral across the internet landscape. According to Google statistics, the popularity of search queries for the term surged from almost zero in January-February to the highest score of 100 in mid-March. Even though the hype seems to have subsided, the United States, Canada and China continue to show a steady interest in the new tokens, which means there is significant potential for their continued popularity. What unexpected facets can this Ethereum platform product show? Perhaps we are witnessing a completely new page turning in the history of the blockchain technology.

Even Snowden

Non-fungible tokens are a new type of cryptoassets which, unlike cryptocurrency, cannot be replaced by another equivalent cryptoasset. NFT is one and only. Perhaps that is why the first high-profile use of NFTs occurred in the digital art industry which is already responsible for a few records.

In early March, Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, sold his digital painting, Everydays: The First 5,000 Days, for $69.3 mio at a Christie’s auction. His work of art is a collage of images he created every day for 14 years. Before that, in late February, the viral NyanCat GIF, created in April 2011, was sold as an NFT asset for $760K. Another high-profile auction involved the first tweet posted on March 21 by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. The tweet that reads “just setting up my twttr” was converted into an NFT asset and sold for $2.9 mio.

Even notorious whistleblower Edward Snowden fell for the trend and sold his personal NFT asset on April 16 for $5.4 mio. The asset titled StayFree is a collage of pages containing rulings by a court of appeal in the whistleblower’s case, signed by Snowden himself. The pages of the legal document are laid out to create an image of Snowden’s portrait behind prison bars.

A portal created in 2018, NonFungible.com, shows real-time transactions on the NFT market. The most expensive item is CryptoPanks, a collection of 10,000 unique algorithm-generated pixel art images. In the past month alone, the sales of the images exceeded $80 mio. The runner-up is a series of digital works of art from SupeRare, sold for a total of $27 mio so far. Collectible digital cards of fantasy football players offered by Sorare are listed third with $12 mio. Notably, during Q1 2021, CryptoPanks accounted for 48% of all NFT transactions and SuperRare digital art sales accounted for 43%. This market concentration may be temporary because overall, the market was far more diversified in 2020, with CryptoPanks and SuperRare responsible for 11% and 24% of NFT transactions, respectively.

NFT market trends

There are three development trends on the NFT market: 1) the number and value of transactions are growing as well as the circle of participants; 2) new types of assets are emerging; 3) companies specializing in NFT asset generation are developing and becoming investment projects themselves, attracting an increasing amount of funding. It should be noted that these trends are typical both for the primary and for the rapidly growing secondary market of NFTs.

NonFungible.com reports that between 2018 and 2021, the total number of unique cryptowallets connected to the NFT market doubled, from 111K to 222K, the biggest growth happening in 2020. The increase in the number of buyers exceeded the growth in the number of sellers, which indirectly confirms that transactions with the previously issued tokens are getting increasingly popular on the secondary market. The volume of transactions has also been growing rapidly: from $150 mio in 2018 to $251 mio in 2021. As of the end of 2020, the market total capitalization reached $338 mio, 700% up from $41 mio in 2018.

Rapid growth continued in the first three months of 2021: as compared to the fourth quarter of 2020, the number of unique wallets increased by 26% and the transactions volume by 13,000% reaching over $2 bln.

New kinds of digital activity are getting increasingly more involved in the forming of NFT tokens: these are video games that use NFT standards that entail certain customizing and unique roles, characters and cards; metaverses, or collective virtual shared universes; sports projects where the roles of famous athletes can be played in simulated situations; domain names and various forms of giving access to online resources for online users that offer them certain rights. In 2020, the volume of transactions in the latter category exceeded $2 mio, which is 4% of the total volume of transactions on the NFT asset market. At the same time, the total number of transactions was comparable with the number of transactions with objects of digital art. It can be explained by the fact that prices for unique virtual services and are is significantly lower than those of collectibles or digital art. However, the market segment is worth looking at in the future.

The website nonfungiblealliance.com, which claims to be the organizer of a non-fungible space, accumulates information on various online resources that use relevant NFT standards, for instance, those that offer marketing services (Hashmark), licensing and digital art rights protection (Ecomi), financial services (AAVE) and others.

The growing market boosts the forming and growth of the capitalization of companies that specialize in technologies to create NFT assets. First of all, these are the Ethereum platform, which the basis for most of the currently offered NFTs. This is probably that is why the Ethereum price grew by 1,200% between January 2020 and the end of the first quarter of 2021: from $132 to $1,809. For reference, the price of Bitcoin grew by less than 700% in the same period.

It is more important to note the changes in the cryptocurrencies’ energy consumption index. According to digiconomist.net, in the above-mentioned period, Bitcoin’s energy consumption increased by 25% and Ethereum’s by 290%. In early 2020, Ethereum’s power consumption was only some 11% of that of Bitcoin. By the end of the first quarter of 2021, it reached 34%.

According to NonFungible.com, companies that develop NFT projects attracted some $70 mio in investment in 2020, and over $580 mio in the first three months of 2021.

Developing digital identity

The growing market of NFT assets is seen as one of prospective and soaring investment markets. Amid the ongoing soft monetary policy implemented by authorities across the world, investors are seeking new high-yielding assets. But this is only one side of the process we are observing.

One thing about development of NFT assets is a clear stake on enhancing uniqueness and particular identity of digital objects. In today’s networked world, a man becomes part of the branched virtual network, where it is easy to lose one’s identity. Posts and comments in social media are immediately seen by the network of contacts, and identifying the initial source of a popular narrative becomes difficult. Personification of a piece of work or any other created online object such as thought, photo, saying, story or image is highly problematic, given that a considerable amount of social media users choose to use pseudonyms and false avatars. A real person can quickly lose his/her identity before becoming a new digital individual, with no-one able to associate results of one’s online activity with an actual person.

Here is a simple question: how do we picture Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Nicolaus Copernicus and other renowned figures of past eras? Normally, we see images of their creations, discoveries, formulas and other results of their activities. A person expresses his or her identity through actions and activities, which is, according to renowned French philosopher Michel Foucault, is the “technologies of the self,” or the technologies of self-identification.

In his 1982 lecture series, Foucault defined care of the self in terms of intentional actions. Historically, Foucault said, one of the first methods of self-care is “taking notes on oneself to be reread, writing treatises and letters to friends to help them, and keeping notebooks.” He argued that taking care of oneself became linked to a constant writing activity. Foucault obviously foresaw the development of the modern networked world, where each of us, in some form or other, expresses themselves through writing in the internet, as well as through visual objects we create that capture our everyday actions and thoughts.

But how can online activity be linked to the urge to seek, or at least to keep, one’s self? This is where an issue of uniquelization of internet objects arises. Foucault identified four technologies of the self, including those “which permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality.”

Today, these words that were said some 40 years ago receive new meaning and are complemented by advanced technologies that allow transformation of a unique physical person with its individuality into a digital identity that preserves individuality and develops it.

Some may see these thoughts as too philosophical; yet, it is quite possible that the process of individualization of the results of digital activity is one of initial and essential steps on the twisting road to digital identity.

By Vladimir Milovidov, Deputy Director of IMEMO RAS, Department Head at MGIMO University

by Rina

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Russian business news headlines in English so that you can decide what to translate.

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A working group is being created to attract investments in the forestry industry

Sugar makers are not promised a sweet life

The government approved the state program for the effective involvement of agricultural land in the turnover and the development of the reclamation complex

There is no sugar. Ministry of Agriculture plans new market regulation measures

Russia approves a roadmap for financing investments

Roskachestvo reveals the secret of eco, bio and natural labeling

The Ministry of Industry and Trade will limit the export of sawn timber

The number of monolithic houses in Russia has tripled

In Russia, there was a shortage of wood for building a house

Industrialists began to get rid of old leaders

A new biowaste processing plant opened in the Voronezh region

A new pig farm with a capacity of 16,000 tons was launched in the Voronezh region

The timber industry needs 35 billion rubles to process round timber

Online clothing store Farfetch's revenue grows 46%

The first MC-21-300 wing console made of domestically produced composites was delivered to the Irkut plant

Use our team in Russia to improve your business.

END

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Although the United States continues to be the most favorable market for getting a new tech company up and running, the country’s leadership on the global innovation map is no longer uncontested. Both investors and founders of tech startups are increasingly looking to Singapore, Hong Kong and Switzerland as attractive destinations for their projects, according to The Draper Innovation Index (DII), an integrated research project conducted by the Draper Hero Institute. The think tank’s founder Tim Draper is a pioneer in the US venture capital business and co-founder of Draper Associates, a venture capital firm.

According to the study, the top ten favorable markets for startups also include the UK, Sweden, Poland, Germany, Iceland and Canada. Israel ranked 27^th on the list, and China did better at 13.

The research team studied the markets in 228 countries, from the US and China to the Republic of Chad and Ethiopia. A wide range of metrics and indicators was assessed for each of them, including national regulation features, the transparency of public administration, the level of economic development, the investment climate, and even the attitude towards cryptocurrencies. A comprehensive analysis generated some important conclusions about each of the markets’ environment for developing tech startups.

The Draper Innovation Index is an open interactive database with details on each of the ranked markets. The DII is a good source of advice for choosing where a tech startup will most likely thrive, including the most favorable region for a specific industry.

The index is based on several market evaluation scenarios: in addition to the general, or balanced, ranking, the project evaluates the markets based on public administration transparency and trust in local government. Growth and development potential is another aspect under review. Countries may rank very differently for each of these criteria.

For example, China’s development potential has the second highest ranking after the United States. However, its governance quality ranking is as low as the 51^st on the list. The United States is at the top of the world across all the three criteria.

The DII also looks at the conditions existing for launching an innovative business at the state level. Washington, Florida and Texas boast the best startup climates. According to the index, all of them managed to surpass the Silicon Valley in California in terms of the conditions for the launch and development of innovative tech projects.

The Draper Innovation Index puts the Russian market in the 155^th place. According to the index’s authors, it is due to the insufficient level of the development of the innovative environment (3.7 points out of 100), as well as the low potential of the venture capital market (0.3 points out of 100). At the same time, the market shows a high level of economic and social development (66.6 and 77.5 points, respectively). The level of “friendliness” towards cryptocurrencies is also relatively high (40.5 points).

As for the former Soviet republics, Tajikistan is the lowest ranked country and takes the 191^st place, while Lithuania is on top and ranks 23^rd. Estonia ranks 30^th, the Republic of Belarus ranks 37^th, Latvia ranks 41^st, and Kazakhstan ranks 53^rd on the list. Uzbekistan is five points ahead of Russia.

According to DII, Venezuela, Eritrea, the Republic of Chad and the Republic of Burundi are the least suited countries for innovative development.

By Olga Blinova

by Rina

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The Ministry of Economic Development will support Russian animation studios and film companies in promoting on the Japanese market

The Ministry of Economic Development of Russia and the Central Bank are discussing measures to stimulate sustainable development

Andrey Belousov: The government is creating a data exchange system on startups for "seamless support"

Oksana Tarasenko on non-financial support for high-tech companies - leaders

Vladimir Ilyichev: Russia is ready to share information security technologies with other countries

Rosaccreditation will connect Russians to the international system of goods verification

Park of the Conquerors of Space. Yuri Gagarin opened in the Saratov region

What part of wood is cut by poachers

Online conference will open a business mission for timber companies to the People's Republic of China

An experiment on digitalization of the forestry industry started in Transbaikalia

How to bring a product to a highly competitive market? The experience of a sugar-free dessert manufacturer

More than half of entrepreneurs “newbies” in public procurement win tenders in the first year - research

A state-owned company to export timber will be created in Russia by the end of the year

Briefing of the Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov

A working group is being created to attract investments in the forestry industry

Use our team in Russia to improve your business.

END

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Developers from the Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects and the Institute of Thermophysics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences are working on a project called Cyclocar, a small-sized innovative flying car powered by cyclic propellers.

The first full-size prototype flying car is scheduled to fly in less than a year. The developers promise that Cyclocar will be able to carry around six passengers or lift more than 600 kg of cargo.

The Cyclocar will be larger than a car, but more compact than a helicopter. Unlike helicopters, it will be able to land on both horizontal and inclined surfaces.

The developers believe piloting the flying car will be even easier than driving a conventional one with an automatic transmission. The Cyclocar will come with an option of piloting via a mobile device. The wonder machine’s claimed top speed is up to 250 km per hour, with an impressive flight range of up to 500 km.

by Rina

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Sales of running goods jumped in Russia

Moscow will collect and recycle electronic waste

Russia targets world leadership in gold production

IT companies with an audience of more than 500 thousand people will be obliged to open representative offices in Russia - State Duma

Russia will introduce state standards for artificial intelligence

World Bank recognizes money transfers from Russia as the most profitable

The joint digital project of the EAEU countries "Work without Borders" starts on July 1

The Ministry of Economic Development will support Russian animation studios and film companies in promoting on the Japanese market

The Ministry of Economic Development of Russia and the Central Bank discuss measures to stimulate sustainable development

Andrey Belousov: The government is creating a data exchange system on startups for "seamless support"

Oksana Tarasenko on non-financial support for high-tech companies - leaders

Vladimir Ilyichev: Russia is ready to share information security technologies with other countries

Rosaccreditation will connect Russians to the international system of goods verification

Park of the Conquerors of Space. Yuri Gagarin opened in the Saratov region

Impact of illegal logging on forestry

Use our team in Russia to improve your business.

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Russian business news headlines in English so that you can decide what to translate.

Click on the headline to see the original story in Russian. When you find an opportunity contact us to follow it through!

email: NewsCentre@volgatrader.com

Sales of running goods jumped in Russia

Moscow will collect and recycle electronic waste

Russia targets world leadership in gold production

IT companies with an audience of more than 500 thousand people will be obliged to open representative offices in Russia - State Duma

Russia will introduce state standards for artificial intelligence

World Bank recognizes money transfers from Russia as the most profitable

The joint digital project of the EAEU countries "Work without Borders" starts on July 1

The Ministry of Economic Development will support Russian animation studios and film companies in promoting on the Japanese market

The Ministry of Economic Development of Russia and the Central Bank discuss measures to stimulate sustainable development

Andrey Belousov: The government is creating a data exchange system on startups for "seamless support"

Oksana Tarasenko on non-financial support for high-tech companies - leaders

Vladimir Ilyichev: Russia is ready to share information security technologies with other countries

Rosaccreditation will connect Russians to the international system of goods verification

Park of the Conquerors of Space. Yuri Gagarin opened in the Saratov region

What part of the wood is cut by poachers

Use our team in Russia to improve your business.

END

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Russian buyers are transitioning online. In 2020 alone, the national e-commerce market grew by 58%, to RUR 2.7 tln ($36.5 bln), according to DataInsight.

Shoppers increasingly tend to make purchases on the advice of bloggers who are becoming an important channel for businesses to reach out to their customers. Last year alone, companies spent more than RUR 11 bln ($148.5 mio) on advertising on YouTube and Instagram.

“We have witnessed this vying between various marketing tools for several decades now. This is quite understandable: the conventional old ways of reaching the target audience are gradually losing their effectiveness,” CEO of Epicstars Denis Volkov noted.

Cooperating with bloggers remains an effective marketing tool, especially when it comes to B2C sales, agrees Yevgeny Titarenko, creator of the bargain-hunting app BenefittY – but microblogging is the niche that promises the greatest effect. It is particularly efficient for businesses due to the attractive price – working with influencers can be dramatically cheaper than cooperating with top bloggers.

“Microblogging might not be the ‘golden bullet’ when it comes to ‘business hunting,’ but it is still a powerful and targeted tool for a company to hunt for an audience. This is undoubtedly a long-term trend. But using this tool requires skill and resources, such as specialized IT solutions. Some of the AI-enabled solutions developed in Russia are capable of producing an accurate portrait of a microblogger’s audience. This can help choose the best target platforms,” Volkov notes.

by Rina

In July 2020, the Russian government announced the expansion of the current state programs for the provision of land plots in the regions of the Far Eastern federal district and in the Arctic zone of the country. But since part of the subjects of the Far East is also located in the Arctic (Chukotka, Yakutia), then the innovation will actually affect only a number of municipalities in the Republics of Karelia and Komi, Krasnoyarsk Territory and Arkhangelsk region, as well as the entire territory of the Nenets and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous districts.

This is not the first example in history of state incentives for the development of the territory by the citizens of the country. It is enough to recall the Land Endowment Act (US Homestead Act 1862). But, unlike the Russian realities of the XXI century, the US law of the XIX century, actually, legislatively fixed the procedure for the already ongoing transfer to private ownership of land plots of up to 160 acres (almost 65 ha) in areas with much more fertile soils than most of the Russian territories. In addition, agroclimatic resources in The United States are more favorable: the northernmost settlement in the United States outside Alaska is located on the latitude of Tula.

The effectiveness of implementing a similar program in Russia should be considered with several items, including: construction cost, assessment of natural and climatic soil and land resources in terms of entrepreneurship development, level of infrastructure development and legal framework for eventual obtaining certain land plots.

Prospects for construction in the Arctic are even more vague than in the Far East: transport and logistics difficulties with the delivery of construction materials to hard-to-reach areas where the share of transport costs reaches 70% of the final construction cost, very short terms of operation of transport routes: winter autoroutes are available for less than 50 days, along the Northern Sea Route — up to 2 months, along rivers — from 20 days to 4 months. As a result, the cost of construction in the Arctic zone significantly exceeds construction costs even in the territory belonging to the Far North and similar districts: on average in Yakutia, the cost of building a square meter of housing is about 70 thousand rubles, and in the Arctic regions it can exceed 160 thousand rubles. Besides, already existing engineering infrastructure is characterized by a high degree of wear, dilapidation, and accidents.

The most prosperous project prospects look in the Murmansk region and Republic of Karelia. But here there will be another problem: the legal status of land plots. So, 12.5% of the area of ​ ​ the Murmansk region are 72 specially protected natural areas, which cannot be included in the program under existing legislation. Another part of the territory cannot be provided for use as sections of the subsoil of federal significance (this applies to a significant part of the Yamal-Nenets and Nenets Autonomous Districts, Arctic territories of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, etc.).

In addition, a significant part of the Arctic zone are areas inhabited by indigenous minorities’ peoples of the North with special legal status of territories of traditional environmental management, which can be provided to persons belonging to small peoples and communities of small peoples. Regional Law on Reindeer Breeding in Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Region regulates the special legal status of deer pastures, and this is almost half the area of ​ ​ the region. Economic development of the lands of the forest fund remains also in great doubt: they can only be engaged in certain types of activities related mainly to wood treatment, which will require production permissions and licenses.

There will be a question with the territories subordinate to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. Some of them are included in the list of areas where the program will be implemented. In addition, there is always a risk of returning to the idea of ​ ​ implementing some state projects, for example: in case of another return to the idea of ​ ​ building the Evenki hydroelectric station the rural settlement “Tura settlement” (included in the program implementation territory) will be under threat of flooding.

You can evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the project during the implementation of the program in Arctic regions of the Far East: almost 50 thousand residents of the Chukotka Autonomous District during the three years of the program, 683 land plots were transferred (that is, approximately 1.5 per cent of the region’s population took advantage of the program). Mainly hectares were used for personal subsidiary economy, and most of the owners appeal for additional measures of state support, even in the Republic of Yakutia (the second region in the number of plots received with almost 15 thousand applications, which is approximately the same 1.5% of the population of the region). At the same time, the regional authorities provided part of the infrastructure for land areas taken under the Far Eastern Hectare program (including construction of access roads and electricity supply).

It should be noted that the applications for hectares in the republic affected the territory of the south of the region. To assess the prospects, it is enough to give a figure of the implementation of the program in Primorsky Territory, where more than 22 thousand plots were transferred to ownership (leader among 11 regions in the Far East), which actually means only 1.2% of the population of the region participate in the project.

According to the Deputy Prime Minister — Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Far Eastern federal district Yuri Trutnev, “Far Eastern hectare” should stimulate the creation of more than 100 new settlements. But who will create the infrastructure for these settlements, what additional measures of state support will be used as the program will be related to the creation and development of pivot zones in the Arctic — the question is open. Of course, the effectiveness of the implementation of the proposed program is connected only with a set of measures by the state aimed at the development of this territory.

Does it make sense to use new tools if the old ones are still not working in full force? Perhaps it is worth increasing the effectiveness of existing ones?

By Tatyana Kreidenko, Candidate of Geographical Sciences, Associate Professor of Regional Economics and Geography, RUD

by Rina

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Product makers disagree about their greediness

Experts: the unified communications market has entered a phase of rapid growth

More than 2.5 thousand IT companies appeared after the announcement of support measures

FCS of Russia data on export-import of Russia for January-March 2021

Mishustin announced an increase in the share of domestic products in the industry

The waste management industry has requested 1 billion rubles of state support

Farmers can be allowed to build on farmland

Bill of lading: the nuances of filling

Use our team in Russia to improve your business.

END

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Over the past three decades, the Russian IT market has repeatedly changed the paradigm of its development under influence of new technologies and requests from various industries. 2020 became another turning year, both business and the state faced the need to solve problems in the field of digital, but now — at increased speeds.

One of the trends of the last two years is the desire of large companies to create digital ecosystems. Through ecosystems, they diversify services and enter adjacent areas, building partnerships.

Own ecosystems are a chance for companies to transform into super-players, to provide influence on the whole market, dictating own game rules. This explains why superapps began to appear at such speed: mobile applications that combine within one ecosystem both financial, mobile, media services and the sale of goods and services. Such superapps are created by Yandex, Sber, MTS, Tinkoff and many others.

When superplayer is on the market, new niches are created lightning fast. So it was, for example, with delivery of products to the door last year or with the release of the application “Tinkoff.Investments,” which opened up access to the brokerage sector to microinvestors, in fact, radically changing the game rules in the investment market.

It can be said that last couple of years was equal to ten previous years of digitalization of economics. Everyone is forced to respond to the new game rules and challenges. But now companies are looking for answers not in ready-made vendor solutions, but within their own IT departments — or they choose custom software development.

Large retail goes online and launches delivery services and darkstores, banks turn in full-fledged IT companies, telecom operators experiment with big data and 5G, industry tries using neural networks and Internet of Things (IoT) systems.

The state has long been one of the largest domestic customers in the field of IT, implementing federal projects. For example, one of them is the transformation of the Federal Tax Service into digital platform that already combines a variety of services and continues to develop.

If earlier large companies considered automation more of an image problem and solved it mainly by buying software from international vendors, now you just have no time at deploying systems that need to be customized sometimes during several years. The business in new reality faces a lot of specific tasks for the digital transformation of processes, and they need to be solved “here and now.”

New services, applications, mobile apps – industry leaders have to be very quick responding to the technological demands of their users. Vendor solutions for this are often not suitable. Business has to change its approach: now it chooses customized products, individual solutions. The product launch cycle is as short as possible: testing hypotheses takes a minimum of time, after which companies go to the MVP and check it under real conditions. If the solution works — right there start it and scale it.

All these trends lead to an increase in demand for custom development — today we see that the market is on the rise, we can say, a new renaissance is coming. Digitalization has become necessary for competitiveness in all industries, even those that were once considered the most conservative. Their leaders are also ready to allocate serious budgets for the implementation of IT. But not every company feels convenient to maintain its own professional team. It is with the help of custom software that business and the state can get access to customized IT systems, optimal solutions for individual tasks, and match the trend for universal automation and mobility.

Sergey Yaskevich, CEO of the company IT_One

by Rina

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Procurement News • Re: The Ministry of Finance proposes to transfer the work of the Register of Unscrupulous Suppliers to electronic form and automate it

It is difficult for Russian founders to open an account in Europe. We tell you what solution to this problem is

A land plot was allocated in Moscow for the development of the Kolomenskoye meat processing plant

Medicines exporters are compensated for up to 80% of certification costs

Overview of the development of infrastructure of Russian airports

The largest transaction in the history of the warehouse market took place in St. Petersburg

"Caravan" is now in the center of Penza

Use our team in Russia to improve your business.

END

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One of the most interesting private money experiments in recent years is the Liberty Dollar, a private mint that operated with considerable success in the United States untilthe U.S. Government shut it down.

The Liberty Dollar was designed by Bernard von NotHaus, the founder of the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve and the Internal Revenue Code, and launched in October 1998. His objective was to “be to the Federal Reserve System what Federal Express was to the Post Office” by providing a “private voluntary barter currency” as an alternative to Federal Reserve currency. The new Liberty Dollar was based primarily on gold and silver coinage (the coins however were always referred to as ‘medallions’, because the term ‘coin’ is legally privileged) and its precious metal basis was to provide protection against the inflation to which the inconvertible greenback is prone, thanks to the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policies. It also issued paper certificates redeemable on demand in specie stored in a warehouse in Idaho.

The Liberty Dollar was highly successful and became the second most popular currency in the U.S. Over 1998–2007, Liberty Dollar issues totalled perhaps $85m in value. Over this same period, it was distributed to perhaps 250,000 customers.

Since the Liberty Dollar was periodically rebased to keep in sync with the precious metals, its value rose substantially over time against the depreciating greenback. For example, someone who bought a $10 Liberty in 1998 would have had an investment that more than kept up with inflation, whereas someone who held onto a $10 greenback would have seen their investment lose about half its value.

The attitude of the government towards the Liberty Dollar was initially one of tolerance, but then hardened: in 2006 the U.S. Mint issued a press release stating that use of the Liberty Dollar was a federal crime.

In March 2007, von NotHaus filed suit against the Mint seeking a declaratory judgment that these allegations were untrue. The government responded with a raid by the FBI and the Secret Service in which they seized everything they could, including coins, paper certificates and computers.

A federal indictment was then brought against von NotHaus. He was arrested and charged with counterfeiting, conspiracy against the United States, fraud and sundry other offenses.

The first charge is risible: counterfeit 101 is that a counterfeiter makes some attempt to make the ‘fake’ currency look like the ‘real’ one: yet the Liberty Dollar currency was very different in appearance from official currency. The coins differed in obvious ways: they had an image of Ron Paul, an 0800 phone number and even a URL. They also differed from official U.S. coinage in being made from precious metals instead of base ones. To quote his subsequent motion for acquittal:

He stands convicted of … counterfeiting. The irony of this is that if anything is clear from the evidence, it is that the last thing he wanted was for Liberty Dollars to be confused with coins issued by the government. That would have defeated the whole purpose.

He has always operated out in the open. The verdict conflates a program created to function as an alternative to the Federal Reserve system with one designed to deceive people into believing it was the very thing he was protesting in the first place.

A second reason is that any charge of counterfeit implies fraud and intent to deceive, and yet there was never any evidence of fraud or misrepresentation.

If the Liberty Dollar is sufficiently similar to official currency to constitute a federal offense, then the government should by rights go after anyone who issues anything that could be construed as similar to the official currency. After all, there are many other private organizations that issue alternative dollar currencies even within the U.S. These include: issuers of travellers’ checks, such as American Express; Parker Brothers, who make the board game ‘Monopoly’; and Disney Corporation, whose Disney Dollars are obvious counterfeits signed off by Scrooge McDuck.

His defense was that he did not steal, defraud, misrepresent or force anyone to hold Liberty Dollars or do anything else illegal, and that his customers were satisfied because the value of the Liberty Dollar had risen considerably over time.

However, von NotHaus was convicted of most charges in March 2011. He faced a potential sentence of up to 22 years in federal prison.

The suspicion that von NotHaus was singled out because he was seen as subversive would seem borne out by a gloating victory statement issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office on the day he was wrongly convicted, March 18^th 2011:

“Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism” and “represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country.”

These must surely go down as some of the dumbest claims ever made by a prosecutor in the history of American jurisprudence.

Unlike any other terrorist ever, Bernard used no violence at all. He just offered people choice of currency and they liked it. As Bernard himself observed, liking him to a terrorist was absurd:

“This is the United States government,” he told the New York Times. “It has nuclear weapons, and it’s worried about some ex-surfer guy making his own money? Give me a break.”

And since when is competing against an inefficient governmental organization such as the Federal Reserve an act of terrorism? By the same logic, Federal Express must be guilty of terrorism because it competes with the U.S. Post Office. This puts FedEx on the same level as Al-Qaeda.

So Riddle Me This, Uncle Sam: if undermining the legitimate currency of the United States is a crime, then why isn’t the Fed in jail: since the Fed was founded in 1914, the U.S. dollar has lost over 96% of its value thanks to Federal Reserve monetary policy.

The guilty verdict was greeted with widespread disbelief. One blogger commented that it must be “a funny kind of counterfeiting operation” when a one-ounce silver coin marked $20 was now worth $38.50 on silver content alone. Another remarked, “If we are not free to voluntarily exchange goods and services for gold and silver, then indeed US currency is backed by bullets.”

Leaving aside the absence of any sense, the U.S. Attorney’s comments betray an elementary misunderstanding of the competitive process: in the provision of currency as with anything else, having a single monopoly provider leads to poor quality, and you only get good quality if you open the field up to competition.

And it was exactly this public service that the Liberty Dollar was providing when it started to compete against the currency provided by the Federal Reserve, which by any reasonable standard is of low quality, because it is depreciating all the time.

The root fallacy here is the old idea that ‘money’ is something best provided by an inefficient government monopoly that needs to be protected from competition — and by brute force if necessary.

In the Land of the Free you are still just about free to do a lot of things, but you are not free to mint your own coins, however good they might be.

And what about Bernard? He was lucky: the judge was lenient and gave him 6 months’ house arrest and 3 years’ probation. But I hear that he might be up tohis old tricks again.

“In my book Private Money: History and Modern Times (2000), I refer to cases indicating that, precisely when the US regulatory and law enforcement system bulldozed right through Liberty Dollar and its creator, dozens if not hundreds of private currencies existed in the United States based on local exchange trading systems (LETS) with no issues whatsoever. Now, the question is: why was it Liberty Dollar that was subjected to such rigorous public flogging? Could it be because its creator relentlessly criticized the Federal Reserve System’s decisions concerning the issuance of fiat money?” comes a rhetorical question from professor Artem Genkin, expert in monetary economics whose doctoral thesis focused on private monetary systems.

By Kevin Dowd

by Rina

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Russia will develop a smart bracelet for diabetics

Photo report on the construction of the world's most powerful research reactor MBIR in Dimitrovgrad

Why Russians began to drink more domestic wine

When drilling wells on the Sakhalin shelf, TMK's domestic pipes began to be used

Annual inflation slowed down in Russia

The Government of the Russian Federation is thinking about the "market" regulation of food prices

Procurement news • Re: The Government of the Russian Federation plans to adjust the procurement rules for small and medium-sized businesses from 01.10.2021.

Procurement News • Re: The Ministry of Finance proposes to transfer the work of the Register of Unscrupulous Suppliers to electronic form and automate it

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About 15 thousand specialists in the field of radio communication will appear this year

Ekovata Omsk Engineering has installed equipment for processing waste paper into Ekovata insulation

The Bank of Russia has cut payments to its management in 2020

The first power unit of BelNPP is connected to the grid

FCS of Russia: on the transfer of funds to the federal budget

Sales of "AvtoVAZ" in Russia returned to "dock-like" indicators

Car loans in Russia have broken all records

Export of hydrogen will help Russia to make money on Europe

Dairy products from the EAEU countries will be allowed into Russia under new rules

For the week, inflation in Russia amounted to 0.2%

Procurement news • The Government of the Russian Federation plans to adjust the procurement rules from small and medium-sized businesses from 01.10.2021.

In the Moscow region, the electronic registration of the unemployed was extended

The Russians took a record number of microloans in March

Clarified the provisions of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation on the use of an invention, utility model or industrial design in the interests of national security

The Federal Tax Service of Russia told how to appeal the decision to suspend the state registration of a legal entity

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The Ministry of Industry and Trade proposed to revive the food markets

The project of the St. Petersburg tram network "Slavyanka" became a nominee for the UN prize

"UMK" doubles milk yield. The company will build a complex for 8 thousand head of cattle

A new low-cost airline may appear in Russia

Against the grain. Why woolen sheep breeding is not developing in Russia

Russian police will be able to recognize video with face swap by 2022

Rosstandart has changed the codification of robotics

Cities with the highest growth in prices for luxury housing are named

Analysts expect mortgage rates to rise to 9-10% and a reversal in housing prices

Closed borders and closed bars increased the demand for imported beer

New service GARANT-LegalTech - Reference Classifier

Volodin instructed to prepare an expert assessment on the situation with palm oil "Union of Independent Networks of Russia

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A special procedure for determining VAT will be extended to household appliances

Fishermen will be able to use forest areas for fishing

Import substitution. April 2021

Russia proposes to introduce a luxury tax

In 2021, residents of Russia will eat the maximum amount of ice cream in the last 10 years

More than $ 250 million: IT-company Acronis attracted new investments

For 2020 Rosresstr transferred 40.5 billion rubles to the budgets

The government will allocate preferential loans to strategic enterprises for 3.9 billion rubles

On digital transformation of the national accreditation system at a seminar on product conformity assessment in Russia and the EAEU

National project helped milk producers to earn twice as much money

The Novgorod enterprise has produced the first 5-axle timber trailer in Russia

Foreign filmmakers will be able to compensate for the costs of filming in the Russian Federation

About 60 billion rubles will be invested in the development of resorts in the North Caucasus

The richest man in Russia named

Get into the top five: analysts predicted inflation at the end of the year

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Kings of the illegal market

New sports facilities were opened in the regions part 10 (2021)

The Ministry of Agriculture recognized the prices for products in Russia as stable

Putin instructed the Government of the Russian Federation to submit proposals for additional business support

More than 5 million Russian tourists will visit St. Petersburg in 2021

Tax Code of Russia | FTS | The Federal Tax Service of Russia

List of instructions for the implementation of the President's Address to the Federal Assembly • President of Russia

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The country may become a major exporter of oxygen by 2050 in case it boosts its forestry sector.

Trees to be grownin Russia will absorb up to 2 bln tons of greenhouse gases, LUKOIL Vice President for Strategic Development Leonid Fedun said.

According to Fedun, Russia will actually become an ‘oxygen donor’ as well as the largest ‘depositor’ of carbon dioxide, with trees to absorb carbon dioxide emissions from other countries, the Neftegazovaya Vertikal magazine reported. Today, woodlands cover nearly 80% of Russia’s total area which provides for climate benefits, while in Europe only 19% of land is covered by forests.  

Invest Foresight previously reported that researchers discovered the first animal that doesn’t need oxygen to live, a parasite distantly related to jellyfish.

by Rina

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Net profit of "Magnit" reached almost 11 billion rubles for the quarter

Foreign filmmakers will be paid to shoot in Russia

How during the crisis "Nizhnekamskneftekhim" created new production facilities and unique brands of products

Russians spend less on goods and services

JSC "Marka" will become part of the Russian Post

Ruselectronics has developed equipment for a long-range radio network of the Loravan standard

The countries of the Eurasian Union will introduce milk labeling separately

Rosreestr corrected errors about 43 thousand forest areas

The head of the Rosselkhoznadzor assessed the "shuttle" import of sanctioned products into the Russian Federation

Alternative food market in Russia: key players and trends

There is an acute shortage of trucks in Russia

Ministry of Industry and Trade will return small trade to city streets

The common pharmaceutical market of the EAEU has entered the stage of confident development

Revenue of Yandex services in the first quarter grew by 143% compared to the previous year

Demand for land plots in Russia increased 1.4 times

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The Edvais non-invasive glucose meter by the Brain Beat (Russia) has completed clinical trials.

The device was tested in the general therapy department of Mariinskaya City Hospital in St Petersburg. Volunteers with both types of diabetes as well as non-diabetic patients took part.

Edward Kryzhanovsky (PhD in Engineering), Brain Beat founder and co-creator of this innovative technology, member of the Academy of Medical Sciences and Technology, offered the following statistics:

“By most conservative estimates, 422 million people in the world had diabetes in 2019 and, unfortunately, this number continues to grow. All of them have to pierce their fingers to measure blood sugar at least once a day. These people include at least 34 million patients with type 1 diabetes who are recommended to repeat this procedure, despite pain, up to ten times a day. Our device can measure glucose without a single drop of blood and without taking any biological fluid whatsoever. The technology is based on measuring reflected (diffused) light in the optical area of glucose’s absorption spectrum. One only needs to press their finger against the sensor and wait 30–40 seconds for the measurement result. In Russia alone, over 5 million people need this technology.”

“MedTech has always been a rapidly developing investment sector and a very sensitive area where each decision requires digging deep into the details and going through elaborate preparations. Over the past few years, Brain Beat has come a long way both in creating and protecting their intangible assets at a global level, as well as in understanding the needs of patients. We will continue this active in-depth work with the project team,” said Artem Genkin, Doctor of Economy, Professor, Chairman of the Board of Brain Beat.

Brain Beat, the developer of the non-invasive glucose monitor Edvais, is a resident company at the Skolkovo Innovation Center. In 2018, the company won the AstraZeneca Skolkovo Startup Challenge in the category Technologies for Diagnostics, and took second place at the prestigious Asian Entrepreneurship Award AEA in Japan. In 2019, Brain Beat took first place in the Digital Solutions for Healthcare track at the Skolkovo Startup Village conference.

by Rina

The coronavirus pandemic has boosted digital transformation in many economic sectors; however, the share of online insurance sales on the Russian insurance market has not increased considerably.

Pavel Samiyev, chairman of the Opora Russia committee for financial markets and general director of the BusinessDrom analytical center, said that at a press breakfast hosted by Absolut Insurance.

According to Pavel Samiyev, in 2019, the share of online sales was some 68%; in 2020, it reached 72%, but it is still lower than in 2018, when it was almost 75%.

A weak growth in online sales is due to the pandemic-triggered low activity of the insured as well as a slump in their incomes, he said.

As regards expected changes in the insurance market, commercial banks are today’s main channels for selling insurance products, with 38% of last year’s sales conducted through them; within the next few years, we may see ecosystems and marketplaces become major sales channels, Samiyev noted.

This will most likely lead to a change in regulatory rules as marketplaces are formally not participants in the insurance market today, he added.

by Rina

Last year, a new sectoral public organization appeared in Russia, covering huge segment not only of economic but also cultural life of the country — Federation of creative industries (FCI). Among the founders of FCI there are Russian Music Union, Moscow Art Theater named after Gorky, Association of Film and Television Producers, Russian Association of Animated Cinema, Association of Galleries, Union of Creative Clusters, All-Russian Society of Inventors and innovators, Russian Association of Electronic Communications, Association of Communication Agencies of Russia (ACAR), Association of Managers, Institute for Development of Fashion Industry Beinopen, international consulting company Squire Patton Boggs, Foundation of Creative Industries Support “Creative Practices”, Association of Rights Holders for Art Copyright Protection and Management (UPRAVIS) and IPChain Association. The famous economist Alexander Ausan, the dean of economics department of MSU is elected the president of federation.

Why this association arose and what are the development prospects of these industries, as well as how to launch a “creative economy,” we discuss with Director General of the Association Igor Namakonov. Igor Namakonov also acts as Executive Director of the RSPP Committee on Intellectual Property and Creative Industries.

Union of Creative Unions

— Igor, what, in fact, is the Federation of Creative Industries? How did it arise?

— The Federation is a union of unions. Its appearance is the natural result of market activities in 2020. The federation was established by organizations that represent the interests of different directions of creative industries.

But we do not deal with local problems of certain areas: architecture, theater or fashion. We are interested in cross-industrial tasks related to the development of market infrastructure, adjusting legislation, developing services and products that will be useful for the whole sector.

An example of such a project is the “Alarm Button” for the creative industries. At its core, this is a consultation centre to be used by any creative entrepreneur, faced with intellectual property protection problems. The project is being developed now by the GR and Law Committee. In total, we have seven areas of work, each of them being represented by a separate committee in the structure of the federation, and one of its members oversees it. The goal of this year is to launch one significant project within each committee.

— Besides “Alarm button,” what other important projects and initiatives is the federation developing?

— We continue the project 100 Most Creative Russians (100MCR.com) – top 100 creative leaders of Russia. A very important project for us to consolidate and popularize the sector. This year we went to the regions. The first region we explored is the Republic of Tatarstan. The results will be on the project website, you can subscribe to the newsletter – Tatarstan.100mcr.com. Negotiations with partners in Siberia, the Urals, Yakutia, the Far East and the Caucasus are underway.

The Federation, as a large industry association, occupies a strong negotiating position in dialogue with the state. We participate in government and expert discussions, directly making proposals to the plans for the implementation of strategic documents, we are seeking adjustments to the legislative framework. And also together with the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University and Roskult we are preparing several comprehensive studies of the Russian creative market industries, as well as general criteria for assessing the effectiveness of the sector. Finally, active negotiations on the formation of a banking product for creative industries’ entrepreneurs are underway.

— Well, in general, how do you see the most important tasks of the federation?

— Now we work within the framework of committees, actively listen to the market, formulate approaches, building an action plan. Within a year, each committee will present the results of its work. A wide front of work for us is interaction with existing events and partners. On IPQuorum 2021: Tech for Content, we have a separate thematic block. W we are working with SPIEF right now, we will definitely participate in the Russian Creative Week. On EXPO 2020 in Dubai leitmotif of Russian pavilion were creative industries, and now we help The Ministry of Industry and Trade in the formation of a business program.

The theme of creative industries is popular in our country, there are a lot of incoming requests and proposals. The year of the creative economy is in full swing; we, on the one hand, hope to fix key directions for ourself and deal with them, but, on the other hand, 30% of time is devoted to unpredictable offers and requests. The whole market now is like one big startup. You need to stay flexible and attentive.

Creative part of GDP

— Now we are talking about creative industries as something obvious. But what definition could you give them? How would you define creative industries and their place in the Russian and world economy?

— There are different views on the meaning of the term. We finalized the following wording: creative industries are areas of activity in which companies, organizations, associations, individual entrepreneurs and self-employed citizens in the process of literary, artistic, scientific, technical and other types of creativity, cultural activity by means of capitalization, commercialization of intellectual property rights are producing products, goods and services of economic value.

We pay special attention to the topic of intellectual property in the federation. And this distinguishes us from other industry associations. We receive expertise on the topic from representatives of the IPChain Association, the Federation of Intellectual Property and UPRAVIS, which are also co-founders.

Regarding the place of creative industries in the world economy. The UN named 2021 Year of creative economy, Russia officially actively participates in the agenda. So you can safely say that the importance of human capital development is greater than ever, and the question is only in the creation of an institutional environment. As the chairman of the board of FCI Alexander Ausan says:

“The creative industries can become the subject of national pride.”

Of course, we are talking about the impact that it can have on the restart of the national economics.

— Shouldn’t you stop evaluating creative industries by their contribution to GDP?

— Market share in GDP is standard indicator. Another thing is how to count the percentage. Due to different approaches and often lack of reliable data today there are disagreements. Some give estimation of 2%, others – 4%, others – 6%. But you are right that you need to count not only contribution of creative industries in GDP: other – non-obvious – indicators of sector efficiency are needed. We are also actively working on this now.

The link between creativity and economics

— What is the Convention for the Development of the Creative Sector in Russia, which was mentioned at a recent meeting of your board?

— What we want to do nationwide requires the union of different forces. These forces are mainly agencies that have economic instruments and manage existing sectors. All creative industries are scattered in different departments. The Ministry of Industry and Trade is engaged in industrial design, the Ministry of Culture deals with cinema and animation, Minstroy is responsible of architecture, etc. Everybody needs a strategic layout that will allow participants of the process to unite around a common goal. Of course, no one plans to create a new ministry, it’s not needed.

But you need an operator who can coordinate efforts of different players. In the convention, all these interactions should be resolved nationwide. Adjustment will be possible, including through a single methodology of assessing and forecasting the effectiveness of creative industries. It should be a concise document that will allow everyone to come to a common understanding of what exactly can be done together and with what benefits, what contribution it will make to GDP and human capital development.

— What needs to be corrected in Russian economic policy to support creative industries?

— Today it is clear that the link between creativity and economy is intellectual property. That’s why it is necessary to proceed, adapting the Russian economic policy to the realities of post-industrial society. For example, our taxation system is focused on material production, where there are many employees performing standard operations by producing a unified product. In such a model, everything is easily calculated, expressed in specific numbers.

However, when we apply such approach to creative, intelligent production, for example, when we tax License agreements with the same value added tax as cigarettes supply contracts, we rather demotivate authors, we kill the initiative.

It is necessary to provide creative entrepreneurs and everyone who creates intangible assets, a kind of tax vacation. The state should give creative industries the opportunity live for a while in slightly lighter regulatory conditions. During this time, infrastructure will develop, new players will enter the arena, demand will form. Last issue is especially important.

Talking about the support of creators, we often forget about the second side: the consumer of creative products. He also needs to be supported: give him the opportunity to make a choice in favor of Russian design, Russian fashion, Russian architecture. We now have a huge share of imports, which puts domestic business in difficult conditions. For Russian creative entrepreneurs it is now often more profitable for to immediately enter foreign markets. Many technology solutions are immediately “customized” for China, America or the Middle East.

Rising living standards and increasing the purchasing power of the population need to be linked to popularization of Russian creative products in the mass market segment. Do you remember, in the 90s there was a “Buy Russian” campaign? After the USSR, people did not believe in domestic production and were so fond of made in USA labels that they had to be specifically reminded: our country also produces a lot of wonderful things. Today a negligible proportion of the population knows about the products of the same Russian designers, among them primarily regulars of creative spaces. The situation needs to be changed, this is a complex task. Not only those are important who comes up and produces, but also those who will buy all this.

Interviewed by Konstantin Frumkin

by Rina