Eye-witness to Russia in transition 

 

Visited for the first time Moscow in 1969 as a member of the Helsinki University Student Council's delegation, where a seminar was run of educational reforms in the USSR and Finland.  Youth and student movement swore in the name of socialistic aspirations in Moscow that time.

During my ICT business employment 1970 - 1981and East-West trade development consulting years 1981 - 1995, the USSR had until late 1980s a strong image of relying in scientific management of society and role of the science and technology cooperation in international relations between nations.

The early years of transition already during the Soviet regime in late 1980s was probably the best period of time in social, economic and entrepreneurial development with Youth Creativeness Centres and cooperative movement reselting in the adopted new Laws on Cooperatives.  Suddently, this internally driven social development collapsed before it was able to widespread all over the country.

In 1991 began period of transiton with externally driven social and economic development programmes. In many terms, this transition period and the years before it in Russia has been again a "Time of Troubles", which has conflicts of interests in introducing the old Russian values and business practices and the externally driven values and practices in donor programmes.

Creativity amongst Russian population has not decreased over the last decades.  Vast country and its natural resources, strong traditions in mathematics and natural sciences learning  with contemporary application of ICT in business, may facilitate an economic growth in the country attracting other nations. Also, the Russians have often been able to ruin their business potential materialisation due to introducing domestic administrative burdens or taking imprudent measures in international relations by the standards of potential investors and business partners.   

 

Espoo  March 15, 2008                      Heikki K. Auvinen 

 

 

St Petersburg Stock Exchange is nowadays one of the symbols the new economic setting in Russia