Decline of Russian Science

[Ken Hanly <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is from Johnson's Russia List. No one seems to have made
much mention of the positive achievements in science under
planning. Indeed increased emphasis in the West on science and
funding for basic research during the Cold War owed a lot to fear
of the former USSR. Market economies are particularly bad for
funding basic research since this does not pay off in immediately
profitable applications.


Cheers, Ken Hanly

> The Guardian (UK)
> 24 July 2000
> [for personal use only]
> Town where a Soviet dream turned sour
> Its scientists were the envy of the world. Now some of the top
> brains are
> manual workers. Our three-part series on the decline and
> rebirth of
> Russian
> science begins in Siberia
> Amelia Gentleman in Akademgorodok
>
> Beneath the streets of Akademgorodok a maze of tunnels links
> key
> buildings so
> that academics in Russia's science town never need emerge into
> the harsh
> Siberian temperatures outside.
>
> In winter, workers at the institute of nuclear physics make
> their way
> along
> curving dimly lit walkways. The rationale of the underground
> system, one
> scientist explained, was to prevent research time being wasted
> in the
> rigmarole of wrapping up against the cold.
>
> When Akademgorodok was created from nothing in 1957, its
> founders spent
> considerable time assessing how to make life easier for the
> thousands of
> scientists who were to abandon their comfortable lives in
> Moscow to
> labour
> for the good of Russian science in bleak Siberia.
>
> On a site 30 miles south of the polluted industrial city of
> Novosibirsk,
> trees were planted, flats were built and spacious,
> well-equipped
> laboratories
> were set up. Academics were given a concert hall and a club -
> the House
> of
> Scientists - where they were to spend sober evenings together
> discussing
> research developments.
>
> Hundreds of tonnes of sand were imported at great expense and
> scattered
> on
> the stony shores of the nearby Ob sea to create the illusion of
> a beach
> on
> which the scientists could relax at weekends.
>
> For the first 30 years the town - with its 37 institutes and
> thousands of
> researchers working together to push back the boundaries of
> knowledge -
> was a
> symbol of the grandiose intellectual ambition of the Soviet
> regime.
>
> Scientists were treated with deference in the USSR. Lenin began
> to
> promote
> their interests immediately after the revolution, aware of
> their
> importance
> in the creation of a powerful new society. In the lean years
> they
> received
> extra rations.
>
> Later, under Stalin, a sense of national insecurity boosted the
> state's
> devotion to science. Most scientists escaped the repressions
> because they
> were needed to develop the country's ability to make weapons.
> Even those
> who
> were imprisoned continued to work in specially developed
> research camps.
>
> "We were slaves to the totalitarian state, but we didn't mind
> because we
> were
> doing interesting work and we felt that the state needed and
> respected
> us,"
> said Vitaly Ginzburg, a physics professor, who worked during
> the 1940s to
> develop the Soviet atom bomb.
>
> Science was not a mere adjunct of Soviet life - it was at its
> core, the
> key
> to transforming Russia from a backward agricultural country
> into an
> industrialised mighty world power, equipped to defend itself
> against the
> capitalist enemy.
>
> The government poured large measures of the budget into
> cultivating this
> scientific base, squeezing ideological pride from
> internationally
> acclaimed -
> and feared - advances: pioneering aeroplanes, and later rocket
> technology;
> the first man in space; the first atomic power station; the
> hydrogen
> superbomb.
>
> For most of the 20th century the Soviet Union raced on,
> matching the
> achievements of America.
>
> Akademgorodok - meaning small town of academics - was part of
> that
> tradition.
> Sophisticated space technology was developed in one institute,
> while down
> the
> road mathematicians pioneered computer technology and
> biologists wrestled
> to
> make Russia's crops sturdier, using new genetic engineering
> techniques.
>
> But in the past 10 years it has come to symbolise the
> disastrous decline
> of
> Russia's academic tradition.
>
> It is generally accepted that there are two reasons why
> Russians move to
> Siberia - either they are romantics or they come as prisoners.
> The
> scientists
> who founded Akademgorodok in 1957 were romantics. Many who
> remain see
> themselves as the prisoners of their own shattered project.
>
> No one has forgotten the early optimism. Towards the end of the
> 50s it
> had
> become obvious that Siberia had massive natural resources:
> petroleum,
> gas,
> coal, timber, diamonds and minerals. But with the country's
> brainpower
> concentrated in Moscow and Leningrad - now St Petersburg -
> there was
> nobody
> to exploit its potential, so President Nikita Khrushchev backed
> a scheme
> to
> move leading scientists and research students from western
> Russia to the
> Siberian wilderness.
>
> Just 12 years after the ravages of the second world war, the
> state
> somehow
> found enough money to establish the science oasis. The scale of
> the
> project
> was phenomenal. The main street, Lavrentiev Prospect, named
> after the
> town's
> founder Mikhail Lavrentiev, was once listed in the Guinness
> Book of World
> Records as "the most scientific street in the world", because
> of its high
> concentration of institutes.
>
> As well as undertaking research aimed at developing Russia's
> conventional
> and
> nuclear military potential, scientists were encouraged to focus
> on pure
> science, to find answers to the big questions, simply for the
> sake of
> academic advancement.
>
> Today the institutes - physics, chemistry, genetics,
> biochemistry,
> mathematics, electronics and more - all remain. A few, run by
> energetic
> directors, have transformed themselves into profitable
> enterprises by
> winning
> lucrative research contracts from western companies.
>
> But they are a minority. As their funding dwindles, the rest
> have had to
> abandon research projects and survive on a fraction of their
> former
> income.
> Many are dusty shells, virtually abandoned by their scientists,
> some of
> whom
> have been forced to turn to manual labour to supplement their
> miserly or
> non-existent income. Meanwhile the most talented of the younger
> generation
> have slipped abroad and students, disheartened by poor job and
> salary
> prospects, stay away.
>
> With a shortage of money for laboratory equipment, there is no
> question
> of
> even attempting to keep up with developments in Europe and
> America. And
> with
> the influx of rich communiting businessmen, many young
> scientists can no
> longer afford the rents.
>
> The privations suffered by scientists in this town echo the
> hardships of
> colleagues throughout the country since the collapse of the
> Soviet Union.
> In
> real terms Russian science now receives a seventh of the
> government
> funding
> it did in 1990, leaving hundreds of institutions struggling to
> survive.
>
> Genady Kulipanov, vice-chairman of Akademgorodok's governing
> body and a
> professor of nuclear physics, said: "In the late 1980s I found
> it hard to
> explain to friends in the west what the process of perestroika
> [rebuilding]
> really meant. Now I tell them perestroika - it was destroyka.
> We didn't
> really rebuild anything, we just destroyed a great deal.
>
> "The government stopped funding pro jects. There were no new
> institutes.
> A
> lot of the more energetic and best-qualified people left and
> went abroad
> or
> went into business. The spirit of the town changed."
>
> Scientists here remember the lean years from 1991 to 1996 with
> horror,
> proferring graphs with drooping curves -testimony to the
> funding collapse
> and
> - charts with soaring curves to demonstrate the flow of
> scientists
> abroad.
>
> Desperate to approach the future with optimism, many of
> Akademgorodok's
> workers are hopeful that Vladimir Putin is the man to restore
> the
> prestige of
> Russian science. They interpret the new president's commitment
> to
> restoring a
> powerful Russian state as an indirect pledge to boost their
> funding.
>
> Mr Putin's advisers are making all the right noises - stressing
> the
> urgency
> of developing Russia's scientific, technological base to
> revitalise the
> economy. But the president does not have long to contemplate
> the disarray
> he
> has inherited. Academics agree that an increase in funding must
> begin
> immediately, before the crumbling structures of Russia's
> scientific base
> disintegrate.
>
> "It is impossible to go on like this. If the process of the
> last 10 years
> continues for another 10 years then there will be total
> collapse," said
> Professor Vladimir Likholobov, deputy director of one of
> Akademgorodok's
> more
> succesful institutes, the Institute of Catalysis.
>
> But for men such as the founder of the town's medical
> institute,
> Professor
> Vlail Kaznacheev, 75, who devoted their lives to developing the
> Soviet
> scientific dream, the changes have come too late. Sitting in
> the bare
> lobby
> of the House of Scientists Mr Kaznacheev is despairing about
> the events
> of
> the last 15 years.
>
> "Our salaries have dropped radically, but we've lost everything
> else too.
> We
> used to get money for animals, laboratories, materials,
> equipment,
> expeditions and flats," he said.
>
> "Without expeditions and new equipment, we can't continue the
> research.
> The
> process has been devastating."
>
> *******
>
>
>