躲避地缘政治，俄罗斯的Skolkovo Tech Center演变了

John Tefft，美国大使前往俄罗斯，这些天没有提供许多热烈的仪式演讲。他确实有机会上个月在莫斯科外面的Skolkovo Innovation Centre开幕式开幕式村庄的丝带技巧，也被称为将是俄罗斯硅谷。“我今天在这里证实了美国在这个项目中的持续利益，”Tefft说。“Skolkovo在鼓励企业中发挥了非常积极的作用，进一步发展。”

Skolkovo是另一个时间的Brainchild - 当时的德米特里·梅德韦杰夫的短期时代的“现代化”和总统巴拉克·奥巴马的“重置”的美国 - 俄罗斯关系 - 五年后在非常不同的条件下努力保持相关。2010年在邻近莫斯科环路的空置农田上突破地面，该中心本身意味着象征着俄罗斯从商品依赖的3月份，并充当世界技术精英的磁铁，大多数美国。马萨诸塞州理工学院签署了代号，以代号为毕业生称为Skoltech，这将在6月份发出其第一篇文凭。Microsoft Corp.，IBM，Cisco Systems，Intel Corp.和Johnson＆Johnson举办了一份有希望将Skolkovo转变为研发的全球集线器的公司名单。

MIT, which is receiving a reported $300 million for its intellectual input, remains enthusiastic about Skoltech. “MIT is excited about this collaboration, which is off to a good start and attracting excellent students and faculty,” says Bruce Tidor, MIT professor of biological engineering and computer science and the faculty lead for the collaborative project.

公司合作伙伴提供了类似的温暖词汇。“我们对未来的机会非常乐观，”在去年11月在Skolkovo会议之后，Microsoft总部的高级总监Alexey Palladin，高级总监Alexey Palladin，如去世俄罗斯对西方的对抗正在加热over the annexation of Crimea and alleged fomenting of armed rebellion in eastern Ukraine. “Skolkovo has now created critical mass to support a new entrepreneurial spirit.”

承诺大额投资have so far failed to materialize, however. Microsoft agreed in 2012 to put an R&D center on the ground by 2015 employing at least 100 researchers. The complex remains on paper, although it would not violate any of the Ukraine-related sanctions imposed against Russia by the U.S. and European Union. Cisco similarly committed to a $1 billion investment in Russia, with Skolkovo as its centerpiece; its most visible, real outlay has been sponsoring a 5.25 million ruble ($91,000) innovation prize.

The Russians nearly killed off Skolkovo themselves in 2013, after Vladimir Putin resumed the presidency and Medvedev was demoted to prime minister. Heavily armed police raided the center’s offices to arrest two senior managers for corruption, scooping up a visiting Intel executive in the process. Budgetary funds were withheld while the federal Audit Chamber combed through the innovation center’s finances. The graft charges were later reduced, and friends of Skolkovo describe the incident as “a personal vendetta of the kind common for Russian law enforcement.”

但是，Skolkovo在俄罗斯政府资助的新鲜承诺中重新组合了1360亿卢布，以便在这十年的剩余时间内花费。由于初创村庆祝活动表明，该项目也将自己作为俄罗斯大量国内技术发酵的支持者重新安排。“Skolkovo从未声称是Silicon Valley，”中心的生物技术集群主任Kirill Kaem说，与跨国公司的非正式联络。“我们正努力建立俄罗斯基础科学成就的基础上的创业精神。”

By that metric, he reports considerable progress. Skolkovo is already funding more than 1,000 start-ups, which employ a total of 15,000 people. The project’s physical infrastructure is materializing after the 2013 delays. Most of the central Technopark will be completed this year, while private oligarchs, including oil magnate andChelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich，金融巨大的住房综合体在邻近Skolkovo预期的智力精英。

Skolkovo owes much of its vitality to another ex-Soviet billionaire, Viktor Vekselberg, a doctorate-level mathematician turned oil and metals tycoon who has headed the Skolkovo Foundation, the project’s administrative and funding center, since its inception. “Vekselberg is trying very hard, recruiting competent young managers with MBAs from Harvard and who-knows-where,” says Dieter Bimberg, a professor of physics at Technical University of Berlin who sits on Skolkovo’s Scientific Advisory Council. (The co-chair is Roger Kornberg, a Nobel Prize–winning chemist at Stanford University’s medical school.)

Kaem himself fits this mold. Trained as a medical doctor in the late-Soviet period, he earned an MBA at Taylor University, an evangelical Christian institution in Indiana, then ran two health care–related start-ups in Moscow before joining Skolkovo after the troubles of 2013. “I came because I’m a believer, and I can be more creative here than in a corporate environment,” he says.

俄罗斯官僚机构的现实确实侵入了Skolkovo对嗡嗡声的国家风险投资基金的愿景。“申请表格如此复杂地填写了许多公司放弃，”最近辞职为Skolkovo的信息技术集群副主任，以启动慈善捐赠的在线平台。她坚持认为，选择过程是透明的，并且基于优点，并且来自Microsoft和IBM喜欢的顾问，即使他们的组织正在推迟砂浆​​投资，也可以作为“潜在客户和导师”。

Bimberg applauds Skolkovo’s shift away from “Potemkin village dreams” of a Kremlin-devised Silicon Valley. A more realistic but quite worthy model, he says, is Adlershof, a technology center German authorities nurtured in postreunification East Berlin that is now home to some 1,000 companies partnering with nearby Humboldt University.

Skolkovo不是俄罗斯国内唯一试图维持现代化的合作范式的唯一岛屿，以防止对抗和民族主义复兴的背景。国有投资公司Rusnano，于2009年推出reformist politician and state manager Anatoly Chubais， 和development institute Russian Venture Co., run for the past six years by Microsoft veteran Igor Agamirzian, are tilling similar treacherous ground, Kaem says.

The outside world is not betting on their success but for now wishes them well. “I am quite open about disagreeing with Russian policy on Crimea and Ukraine,” Bimberg says. “But building Skolkovo is better than Russia building missiles.”

Although it has curtailed some of its grander ambitions, Skolkovo remains an island of hope for a future Russia that could nurture its intellectual gifts in a soil of international amity.

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