What a difference 15 years make. When I visited the Russian Federation not long after the citizenry had begun to grow comfortable with its new freedoms, I was invited to visit technical institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Minsk and Novosibirsk. I embarked on a whirlwind tour of laboratories and head offices in the middle of a Russian winter, frantically taking notes and collecting "business plans" from scientists and technologists eager to partner with Western companies.
The plans I was given were written in broken English and usually stamped by the institute's head. The documents were a means for the county's technologists to discuss their feats freely--more or less.
It wasn't complete freedom, of course. The last president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, had introduced glasnost only a few years earlier. Under Gorbachev's stewardship, people enjoyed greater freedom of speech. At the same time, his economic reforms opened the door to private ownership of some businesses.
These were radical changes, considering the repressive nature of earlier regimes. Gorbachev was there at the right time to move the country forward, and its scientists and technologists were exposed to Western ways.
Since then, the spirit of entrepreneurship has taken hold in Russia, and the spigot has opened on investments. The statistics speak for themselves: Foreign investment in Russian communications services rose more than twofold, to $3.42 billion, in the first half compared with the first half of 2005, according to the Russian Information Technology and Communications Ministry.
Yet Russia still lags in its development of semiconductor technology, working largely at the 180-nanometer node while the West is working at 90 nm and making plans for 45.
"We know we can't compete globally, but we have the potential to grow at 20 percent a year," said Yuri Borisov, head of radioelectronics industry and control systems activities at the Russian Federal Agency of Industry. In a presentation at a semiconductor executive conference last week, Borisov predicted that by 2011, 85 percent of Russia's microelectronics will be imported. While elsewhere that might sound like an admission of failure, it is a victory for Russian technologists, who finally are talking about where they fit in the world of electronics.
If there is any lesson in the past 15 years of turmoil, it is this: Before you can move forward, it is important to be honest about where you are. With a clear understanding of where it stands and where it is heading, Russia is on the verge of something big.
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