Specialists In Russia Research Articles

Public Diplomacy in EEU Region: Understanding the Phenomenon and its Development

Abstract: Public diplomacy has gained solid positions in the international discourse. Its resources are aimed at increase of the attractiveness of the country for the international society. Interest to the public diplomacy grows in EEU countries and its problematics is being studied by specialists in Russia and by its partners in integration project. Practice of the public diplomacy in EEU region is a result of different activities of national organizations in Russia, Belorussia, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kirgizia. Currently their activities is based on bilateral basis. In closer look of the goals and targets of work, in every country it has different particularities from the perspective of priority formats, scales of the projects and its participants. Public diplomacy as a distinguished direction of the international activity gained the most popularity in Russia and Kazakhstan. The most popular projects are Gorchakov Fund, Rossotrudnichestvo, contributions to the integration process. The joint priority are projects oriented at youth and educational development. Altogether, public diplomacy resources are bringing not only elites but also widen society strata together. Eurasian trend of the public diplomacy is only being establishing now. The experience shows that socialhumanitarian cooperation that is 1 target for public diplomacy is the most delicate type of cooperation. It is very sensitive to the changes and in political, economic context. Russia as the largest EEU participant is interested in enhancing of resources of the public diplomacy in Eurasian format. Such resources strengthen humanitarian cooperation, good-neighborly relations and security atmosphere in the nearest regions.

ICONE23-1955 EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF MAIN CIRCULATION PUMP BEARINGS IN REACTOR PLANTS USING HEAVY LIQUID-METAL COOLANTS

At the present time, specialists in Russia are engaged in designing the BREST-OD-300 fast neutron lead-coolant reactor plant. There is currently no experience in designing and operating axial pumps of lead-coolant reactor plants, including one of their major units-bearing unit. Selection and substantiation of operating and structural parameters of plain friction bearings used in main circulation pumps of reactor plants running on heavy liquid-metal coolants are important tasks that are solved at the NNSTU. Development of a feasible procedure for designing bearings and its components operating within the structure of the main circulation pump of a reactor plant running on a heavy liquid-metal coolant as well as guidelines for an optimized structural scheme of such bearings set a goal of performing a range of theoretically-calculated and experimental works. The report contains testing data of a hydrostatic bearing with reciprocal fricative choking tested on the NNSTU FT-4 bench running on a lead coolant within the range of 420-500 ℃. There have been presented a scheme of a bench for testing a contact friction bearing on a high-temperature coolant and the results of investigation tests of bearings of such type at T = 450 ÷ 500℃. Material of the bearing sleeve is steel 08X18H10T, and a possibility is provided with regard to installation of the bearing sleeves and shaft made of non-metal materials (ceramic materials, silicified graphite, etc.). The presented testing data of plain friction bearings operating in a high-temperature heavy liquid-metal coolant will serve as a ground for making an alternative choice of a plain friction bearing for the main circulation pump of a reactor plant running on a heavy liquid-metal coolant.

Bearing Pumps for Heavy Liquid Metals for Fast Reactors

At the present time, specialists in Russia are engaged in designing the BREST-OD-300 fast neutron lead-coolant reactor plant. There is currently no experience in designing and operating axial pumps of lead-coolant reactor plants, including one of their major units – bearing unit.

Beyond “Putin's Russia”: Society and Politics in a Changing Russia

Constructing Grievance: Ethnic Nationalism in Russia's Republics. By Elise Giuliano. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011. 234 pp., $45.00 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0-8014-4745-7). Popular Support for an Undemocratic Regime: The Changing Views of Russians. By Richard Rose, William Mishler, Neil Munro. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 206 pp., $30.99 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-521-22418-5). The Politics of Inequality in Russia. By Thomas F Remington. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 234 pp., $29.99 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-1-107-42224-7). Much discussion and research on Russian politics justifiably place central importance on Vladimir Putin, his societal and political impact, and his regime's role in a number of domestic and foreign policy developments. After all, he has been the leading figure of the Russian state for more than a decade and has left an indelible imprint on the changing contours of Russian politics and society. Similarly, the 1990s were replete with examinations of Boris Yeltsin building a new Russia from the embers of the collapsed Soviet state. The three books reviewed here examine important and fascinating questions that go beyond the elite intrigues of Russia's national executive and integrate an analysis of societal developments that provoke reflection on political and societal diversity in Russia and its regions. Building on a broad theoretical range of existing scholarship, these works take on important questions and shed valuable light on the factors shaping varying levels of nationalist mobilization, the dynamics of growing public support for a regime that has become less democratic, and the political determinants of income inequality. More than mere case studies of an important country, these books take a cross-sectional, regional, and/or longitudinal approach and are attentive to systematic data collection and analysis, which enhances their explanatory leverage. For some, additional comparative explorations of the applicability of arguments to other country contexts would lend even greater weight to the arguments and possibly would expand the book's readership beyond Russia's specialists and observers. Nonetheless, these books make for thought-provoking reading and provide rich material about important developments in post-Soviet Russian politics. In Constructing Grievance , Elise Giuliano explores the essential and yet often overlooked puzzle concerning the “dog that did not bark,” namely why nationalist mobilization had more mass appeal in some of Russia's ethnically defined republics and resonated less in others. …

Anemone, Anthony and Scotto, Peter (eds). ‘I am a Phenomenon Quite Out of the Ordinary: The Notebooks, Diaries and Letters of Daniil Kharms (review)

SEER, 92, 3, JULY 2014 528 afterword to the English edition, which will be of interest to Russia specialists of all stripes. The afterword would have served better as a foreword or preface, as in conjunction with the conclusion it makes a powerful and accessible empirical case for the relevance of the book’s topic to contemporary theology and ecumenism, contemporary philosophy, and the study of post-Soviet Russian society. Interestingly, it simultaneously attempts to make a normative case for the application of religious ideas, such as those espoused by key contributors to The Way, to contemporary social problems in Russia, Ukraine and the West. Throughout The Way, Arjakovsky does not hide his sympathies for certain Russian émigré intellectuals’ positions — for example, he clearly favours those who, like George Fedotov, promoted the replacement of the Slavonic liturgy with a Russian liturgy — but it is in the afterword that Arjakovsky plunges unabashedly into advocacy of normative positions. In the process, he demonstrates great concern for, and thorough knowledge of, post-Soviet Russia, where such issues as the permissibility of a vernacular liturgy have reemerged as controversies within the Russian Orthodox Church. Not every reader will welcome Arjakovsky’s support for the revival of political theology, even in a modernist mode, just as not every reader will agree with every aspect of his analysis of recent Russian history. For example, there is not a little wishful thinking in Arjakovsky’s notion that Russia’s slide into authoritarianism under President Vladimir Putin ‘could have been averted’ had Russian society been ready for serious engagement with the legacy of émigré Russian religious thought, a legacy that Putin invoked and continues to invoke, at the time of Putin’s accession to power (p. 580). Nevertheless, the relevance of the ‘mythological ’ thinking of the generation of The Way to our present time — whether we accept such thinking or reject it — cannot be denied. This interdisciplinary and international relevance makes Arjakovsky’s research all the more valuable. School of Public Policy, Russian Presidential Christopher A. Stroop Academy of National Economy and Public Administration Anemone, Anthony and Scotto, Peter (eds). ‘I am a Phenomenon Quite Out of the Ordinary’: The Notebooks, Diaries and Letters of Daniil Kharms. Cultural Revolutions: Russia in the Twentieth Century. Academic Studies Press, Boston, MA, 2013. 586 pp. Chronology. Selected bibliography. Commentary. Glossary. $69.00. ‘I am a Phenomenon Quite Out of the Ordinary’ is the first selection in English of the thirty-eight notebooks kept by Daniil Kharms between the mid REVIEWS 529 1920s and his final arrest in 1941. Little survives from the years 1936, 1938 and 1941. Six notebooks were confiscated by the Soviet security service never to be seen again. In their introduction, Anthony Anemone and Peter Scotto cite the opinion of Kharms’s close friend, Iakov Druskin, that Kharms is among those authors whose ‘outer’ work can only be truly understood if one comprehends their ‘inner’ life. Kharms’s notebooks, argue Anemone and Scotto, ‘represent our best chance to recover [his] inner life’ (p. 10). Kharms used his notebooks to record things of both passing and lasting interest: expressions of love and pain over his first wife, Ester; sexual fantasies; lists of clothes, likes and books; chess moves; letters (probably unsent); desperate ruminations on hunger and poverty; plans for (unrealized) literary projects; and works later published and now regarded as part of his literary heritage. To this mix the editors have added other biographical material: early letters from Kharms to his father; reviews of his performances; and transcripts from his arrests in 1931 and 1941. There is also the only surviving genuine diary, kept from 1932 to 1933 on his return to Leningrad after enforced exile in Kursk. Yet not everything could, nor should, be included: Kharms’s zaum´ (trans-sense) word lists and notes on Egyptology, for example, did not make the editors’ cut. In producing this volume Anemone and Scotto have faced not just a challenge of translation, but also one of organization and interpretation. They have extracted material from the notebooks and arranged it in chronological order. They have added a potted biography, notes on their approach to the selection and treatment of the notebook entries...

(A120) Implementation of Advanced Technologies in Emergency Medicine

Increase in the number of emergency situations (ES), technogenic accidents and disasters and terrorist threats defines the need for implementation of advanced medical technologies. One of these technologies is to deploy an airmobile hospital (AH) in emergency situation to provide skilled medical care in case of a large number of casualties. AH is equipped with inflatable modules, deployment of which takes no more than an hour. Each module is equipped with specialized departments. AH consists of triage department, OR, intensive care department, outpatient department, X-ray and diagnostic department and inpatient department as well. The station is equipped with modern intensive care unit including ALV apparatus, defibrillator-monitor with built-in pacemaker, as well as endovideosurgery complex, laboratory and telemedicine equipment, radiation control monitors, communication and global positioning units. One of the advanced technologies of emergency medicine is implementation of telemedicine equipment. EMERCOM of Russia on the basis of our institution has opened a telemedicine center that provides videoconferencing, any audio-visual information both text (extracts from case histories), and instrumental studies (radiographs, echograms, ECG, etc.). EMERCOM of Russia specialists use airmobile medicine technologies including specially equipped aviation facilities with airmobile medicine modules (aircraft, helicopter). In addition, we have developed a hardware system of individual monitoring the functional state of a rescuer. It is designed to transmit to the senior officer of the division the data about functional status of 10 rescuers (heart rate, respiratory rate, temperature), motor activity and the current coordinates to detect deterioration and freezing (immobilization) of the rescuer. The complex is equipped with an emergency radio-beacon to accelerate the search for a rescuer.

Russifying Estonia?: Iurii Lotman and the Politics of Language and Culture in Soviet Estonia

Russifying Estonia? Iurii Lotman and the Politics of Language and Culture in Soviet Estonia Maxim Waldstein Dept. of Sociology University of Pennsylvania 113 McNeil Building, 3718 Locust Walk Philadelphia, PA 19104-6299 USA maxim2@sas.upenn.edu Like pogrom, "Russification" (russifikatsiia) is one of the unfortunate Russian contributions to the lingua franca of the academics and journalists writing on empire and ethnicity all over the world. Owing to the efforts of Hugh Seton-Watson and Benedict Anderson, the peculiar late 19th-century politics of "Russifying" (obrusenie) the Russian empire's ethnic "aliens" (inorodtsy) currently often stands for any form of the "self-consciously Machiavellian" politics of assimilation by means of exercising the whole might of the state.1 Considering this generic usage, it is hardly surprising to learn that "Russification" is routinely used by journalists, essayists, and some academics to describe Soviet nationality policies and their effects, especially in the field of education. For instance, the Estonian philologist Ulle Pärli cites the inequality between the Russian and Estonian languages and literatures in the curriculum of the post-1945 Estonian secondary school as evidence of the Soviet state's consistent attempts to "implant an alien [ideological-cum-ethnic] worldview into the minds of Estonians."2 Although this "Russification idiom" continues to shape the commonsensical image of the Russian empire and the Soviet Union, over the last 20 years it has been subjected to devastating criticism by Russia specialists in both the [End Page 561] West and Eurasia. For instance, Aleksei Miller argues that this idiom is based on "simplistic clichés that portray an [imperial] interaction as a 'play for two actors,' in which the Russifying state opposes those resisting Russification (in the primitive version of national narrative) or the local population gratefully adopts enlightenment (in the primitive version of Russian historiography)."3 Thus, by classifying actors into two opposing camps, the Russification idiom presumes in advance what it purports to explain. As Robert Geraci, Andreas Kappeler, Theodore Weeks, and other authors demonstrate with respect to the Russian empire, this binary idiom does not allow us to see the striking inconsistencies within imperial policies toward non-Russian subjects, as well as the contradictory receptions of these policies across space and time.4 With respect to Soviet nationality policies, the binary Russification idiom prevents us from appreciating the full significance of "Soviet ethnophilia," the long-standing commitment of Soviet leaders to promoting ethnoterritorial identities and developing national cultures. This commitment was not merely a sign of weakness or negligence on the part of Soviet leaders, even if it often conflicted with their efforts to forge a common Soviet culture, and with the growing confusion between the universal "socialist content" and the Russian "national form." Consequently, although the policies of "Sovietization" were often perceived by national cultural elites as "Russifying" policies, they were rarely intended as such. Moreover, the Russification idiom was by no means the only, and not always the dominant, framework within which the "natives" of the Soviet national republics saw the Soviet regime and the Russian population.5 [End Page 562] In this article, I argue that these criticisms of the powerful binary vision of the imperial situation in the Soviet Union is applicable even to the case of the Baltic republics, where the strength of local national identities and resistance to Soviet rule made Russification a particularly popular and legitimate charge against the Soviets, especially in the heat of Gorbachev's perestroika and after independence. I develop this argument by analyzing the role of the Russians, especially Russian intellectuals, and Russian language, literature, and culture in Soviet-occupied Estonia.6 I argue that the actual meaning of the "Russian presence" in Estonia was more complex and ambiguous than the binary oppositions implicit in the Russification idiom suggest. The role of Russians and things Russian in Estonia was not wholly defined by the mere fact of Soviet domination. This is particularly true...

First orientation and mobility teacher preparation program in Russia

A university program preparing orientation and mobility specialists was established at Novosibirsk State University (West Siberia, Russia) in 2004. There had been no institution training such specialists in Russia before this project started. Since Russia was not producing any orientation and mobility instructors, this service was in critical shortage. Therefore, people with visual impairments had limited resources to learn mobility skills. The four students enrolled in the program were employees of various organizations serving people with visual impairments. It was expected that upon graduation they would return to their organizations to provide orientation and mobility services to people who are blind or have low vision.

Russian Electoral Politics After Transition: Regional and National Assessments

An American political scientist and a Russian geographer, both specialists in Russia's emerging electoral geography, assess the change in Russian electoral behavior before and after the 1996 electi...

A Russian Historian at Harvard

INow that Russian technological and scientific achievements have intensified Western interest in the Soviet Union, and the demand for competent teachers of Russian subjects is running, high, it seems almost incredible that only ten or fifteen yearsago there were few openings for specialists in Russia's history, literature, and social problems. Before the war, the demand was even smaller. Although the study of Russia's past was still in its infancy, in Europe as well as in America, in the 1920's and the 1930's very few of the Russian historians who found themselves abroad after 1917 were able to continue, at foreign universities, their work of research and teaching. To be sure, a few of them lectured at Russian emigre institutions of higher learning in Germany or Czechoslovakia; Miliukov and two or three others were able to give some courses at the Sorbonnebut these were all occasional, sporadic activities, affording them no opportunities to establish permanent, serious schools of historical studies or to devote all their time to scholarly pursuits. Things were somewhat better in this country, where foreign birth and even the lack of American citizenship did not bar scholars from taking part in academic life. Several Russian historians were able to continue their work in the United States