Sound and Fury, Signifying … ?

Today, A went to the Expo part of Open Innovtion Forum/Expo here in Moscow. It was about an hour away on a combination of tram and metro. He didn't go to the first two days; probably a good thing, since the first day Medvedev (Prime Minister) came, and nobody could get in with all the security, and the forum part was all in Russian (although some parts were translated for international attendees). Day 3 however, was free and open to the public, so he decided to go and see.

When Russians put on a show, they go all out:

This is the booth for RusNano, nominally a mostly state-owned enterprise originally intended (as you might guess from the name) to invest in nanotechnology. It's now a more general middle to late stage investment vehicle, but you can see that at least a nice chunk of their money goes towards fancy booths at expos they do around the country.


Not sure what SmartCity is, but they've got money for a fancy exhibit…


Skolkovo, of course, had a major presence…

And even some people from our old stomping grounds in Novosibirsk showed up. A ran into a guy he knows from there, who he last saw in Riverside, CA, of all places.


There were even exhibits for school kids…


And there were a fair number of people ther, in spite of the "important" stuff having finished the day before.

The question, of course, is what happens after? The speeches are over, the booths taken down, etc., but entrepreneurs in Russia still face the same problems as before: red tape, favoritism, bureaucracy, etc. and as with RusNano, above, they seem to be more interested in putting on a good show than in making real progress on the ground. We'll see how things shape up, but that's what things look like at these big events.

P.S. This was held in the same location as the Miss Universe pageant will be next week, and there were already some official vehicles there. No word on whether he met any of the contestants…