Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Sergei Sutyrin. I am Professor and Head of World Economy department at Saint Petersburg State University. It's my pleasure and privilege to welcome you to the online course, Doing Business in Russia. The course has been elaborated and will be presented to you by the team of lecturers most of whom in the very beginning of this century has launched [inaudible] University, International Summer School of the same name. During passing years, more than 250 persons from various parts of the globe have successfully participated in the program. Now we think that it is a proper time to summarize accumulated experience in the form of online course and do hope you will find it both interesting and useful. Before we move to the content per se, I would like to make a couple of preliminary requirements. First one relates to the name of the course. The point is that hypothetically, it could be slightly changed and at the first glance would look quite similar or in, or with. What is the difference? Does it matter? Of course, you might either agree or disagree. Meanwhile, I would argue that since they target our lectures mainly to the foreign audience in case of in in countries to if. The focus is on more direct and comprehensive interaction with Russian economic agents and that inevitably requires not only better understanding of economic interaction as such be it trade, investments, labor, mobility other possible forms of cooperation. One also needs deeper penetration into the logic of extremely controversial and multidimensional internal process of economic development. This is what we are going to provide you with. My second preliminary comment is the following. Regardless of whatever external factors, the ultimate decision to start commercial operations in Russia similarly to any other country, has to be made by a foreign businessperson. This decision in Eastern has to be based upon certain considerations. To put it in a different way, at least two questions have to be properly answered. It goes without saying that complete or absolute rational decision-making does not exist in real life. We all are human beings. We vow intrinsic imperfections of various types. That is why we put on the slide avert reasonable. Nevertheless while considering there were all efforts associated with entering a foreign market really worth it. One evidently has to assess initially. A, what is your potential partner in economic sense? In other words, overall size of the economy under review typically measured by gross domestic product or gross national income GDP or GNI. A level of economic development in terms of GDP or GNI per capita, diversity of industrial structure, inflation and unemployment rates. A level of inequality in distribution of income and wealth and many other similar things are extremely relevant but this is not enough. The second question of crucial significance appears to be what are mindset modus vivendi or modus operandi of your potential partner? Indeed, in most of the instances the way in which available resources for all kinds material, financial, labor would be allocated and utilized is substantially influenced by what is frequently called National peculiarities. Within this very contexts Russian case looks twice as appropriate widely discussed notion of mysterious Russian soul immediately comes to mind. Together with the famous aphorism of Winston Churchill who claim that Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. It goes without saying who at one especially taking on a consideration equalizing effect of globalization should not treat Russian national peculiarities as the only thing that matters. Nevertheless, they are still very pertinent. They're saying that let me finish my introduction. So we can now move to the first full-scale module of our course. The name module 1 Russian economic landscape intending to give here some kind of a framework or if you wish the general background against which next modules could further elaborate on more specific aspects of doing business in our country. In other words the main goal at the moment is to provide a brief overview of how the National economy has performed after the Soviet Union disintegrated at the very end of 1991. As a result, an extremely complicated a controversial process of really radical transformation sometimes also called reforms or transition was launched. In particular, in economic domain all major pillars typical for the Soviet economy have been replaced by a certain version of the alternative market mechanism. The module is structured in the following way. Our discussion will start with some very basic facts that should be taken under consideration while assessing Russian economic landscape. Regarding past three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union one is inevitably tempted to divide these years into some periods with their own peculiar trends and features. Such a division hopefully would help to understand better internal logic of the process under review. Then the focus moves on the current period. The later similar to the whole post-Soviet era can be painted just either black or white. Substantial achievements alternated the serious problems both of them are addressed in due course. At last as a concluding part of the module some future prospects of Russian economic development are discussed.
