Report on Visit to Tula November 11 – 18, 2012
Gerald R. Shaye
At the invitation of Prof. Yuriy Chadaev, the head of the Innovative Business Incubator at TSU, I traveled to Tula arriving on November 12, 2012. Prof. Chadaev personally picked me up at the Domodedevo Airport after a long series of flights from Albany to Moscow and we arrived at the residence of Tula State University, which was quite comfortable and where I stayed as their guest for the six days I was in our sister city.
Yuriy Chadaev and his colleagues arranged a series of meetings with precisely the people I had wanted to meet, in addition to giving me the opportunity to lecture every day for 90 minutes to different TSU students, whose command of English and positive receptivity to the topics we discussed were exceptional. At TSU I met with VP Alexander Chebotarev, Yuriy’s father, Denis Ivanovsky, and several other faculty members.
On Wednesday Nov. 14, I was asked to sit at the presidium during a conference on Innovative Business Incubation, which was inaugurated by Rector Mikhail Gryazev, who greeted me and sent his regards to all his friends in Albany. The conference was highlighted by presentations made by members of the Russian Academy of Sciences and other guests from Moscow. I spoke about our long period of cooperation with TSU and our pleasure and having been present at the creation of their Innovative Business Incubator.
I had a productive meeting with the Deputy Head of the City Administration, Alexander Yadkin, and his assistant for economic development, Ilya Bespalov, which was arranged and facilitated by Galina Prokhorova. The city administration is, as usual, focused on attracting investment and asked our help. Both Galina and Ilya Bespalov decided to attend a lecture on economic development which I was invited to present to some students and faculty at TSU. Mr. Bespalov indicated that they are eager to pursue yet-to-be-defined initiatives that would help the city of Tula become a more attractive destination for businesses and tourists.
Later that day, I met with Tula Regional Corporation for the Development of Public-Private Partnership, represented by an American Director, Tom Brotski. Mr. Brotski is employed by the Oblast to promote investment.
My afternoon at Tolstoy State Pedagogical University included a very cordial lunch with new Rector Vladimir Panin, who was effusive in his praise of the visit we hosted earlier this year when he was not yet named Rector. We invited him to return to Albany in May 2013 and is eager to continue our collaboration in many areas.
Later Zhanna, Vladimir Andreev, Irina and I discussed the essay contest, which was enthusiastically endorsed as a project for the first half of 2013. The proposed date of the awarding of the prizes at TSPU is the week of April 21, 2013.
Fortuitously, I met a young lady from New York State, Sara Probber, who is a Fulbright Fellow spending this academic year teaching English at TSU. She is also living in the TSU residence, where I met her, and is eager to help us with the Olympiad. Sara is a 2012 graduate of Barnard College and she is highly intelligent, very cordial and respects our relationship with TSU. She works well with both Sergey and Katya.
I visited two exceptional schools in Tula. The first visit was to Lyceum #4, which came to my attention as the result of Dmitriy Shmigirilov’s visit during the Open World program to Albany in October. Dmitry is the Deputy Director of Lyceum #4 and the school is modern, clean and beautifully equipped. The very enthusiastic assistant Director, Elena Davydova speaks fluent English – and their Director, Vera Sochnieva, – are extremely interested in working with a partner school here.
At Lyceum #4 I was introduced to three students from the eleventh form (seniors). They explained to me in perfect English what they are considering for their future after graduation and frankly any college in our region would be happy to have students like these. I also visited School #3 on a Saturday morning and met with Tatiana Vinokurova, the Deputy Director who is fluent in English and Tamara Yurischeva, their Principal. I came away very positively impressed with the people and the education imparted at School #3, which is also eager to develop cooperation with a school or schools here.
At the invitation of Anastasiya (Nastya) Astapova, the Director of International Sales of Tulskaya Garmonj, I was able to have a tour of their musical instrument factory and a long conversation with their General Manager. They liked the report prepared by Union Graduate College students.
I made a chilly visit to Yasnaya Polanya, hosted by Roman Rostislavov, who now is working in a financial position with Avgol, an Israeli company located in the Tula Oblast providing non-woven fibers used to manufacture diapers to Procter & Gamble and SCA. Roman is happy in his new job and sends his regards to all of his friends in the Capital Region.
It was also a joy to be able to find Svetlana Petrovicheva, my last SABIT intern, who is now the controller of the 200-employee SCA factory in the Tula, Oblast that produces diapers. We had a wonderful dinner and Sveta also sends her greetings to all of the people she met here and points to her SABIT experience as a turning point in her career. She is the essence of a successful young Russian businessperson, with a bright present and future.
Through the auspices of the Eurasian American Chamber of Commerce’s representative in Moscow, Dmitriy Grigorenko, I had a meeting on my last evening in Tula with with Igor Shepotev and Mikhail Glushov, a Russian small business development organization with chapters in each Oblast and Milena Gubenko of The Tula Foundation for Entrepreneurship Support, a fund which provides grants and loans to emerging businesses. We agreed to continue our exchange of ideas by email.
An invitation was extended for me to return to Tula in the spring to work with them to participate in seminars on small and medium size business development. My response was positive if we could bring all of the Tula business development players together to develop a common action plan. If we could help the city and regional government, the universities and these two business promotion groups working together, we would see real progress.
One of the best meetings I enjoyed while in Tula was with Galina Prokhorova and Victor Sinkovsky, the Director of the Yasnaya Polanya Orchestra at the new Arms Museum. The new museum boasts a striking architectural design and is only now being filled with pieces. It is funded by the Tula Arms works and promises to be a significant tourist attraction.
Victor Sinkovsky would be happy to come to Albany the week of May 13, the same time as we had discussed with Vladimir Panin at TSPU to visit. We mentioned to Victor that we could accommodate a total of five musicians including a vocalist and he agreed.
I spent three days in Moscow as the guest of RANEPA, the Russian Presidential Academy of the National Economy and Public Administration and had a very productive meeting at the Embassy with the Senior Commercial Officer, John McCaslin, his colleague, Ken Walsh who handles the education sector and Steven Mackey the Cultural Officer who was invited by Mr. McCaslin. It is useful to visit the Embassy every couple of years to brief them about our activities and I thank my friends at the U.S. Department of Commerce in Westchester for arranging these meetings.
My meetings at RANEPA, MIRBIS, an excellent private school of business which educates both undergraduate and graduate students and MGIMO, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Relations Professional Academy were all positive and I will be trying to arrange partnerships with some of these institutions with local colleges and universities here. The Sage Colleges seem to have synergies with TSPU and MIRBIS.
In summary, the cordiality provided by our friends in Tula, especially Yuriy Chadaev, who could not have been a better host, was extraordinary and the relationships we have developed over the past 20-plus years have never been stronger. We need to continue to visit each other and to explore new areas of cooperation to complement those in which we are now working.