The Leaning Tower of Nevyansk

Autumn is a nice time to travel through the Ural mountains. Everything is full of colours.

 Knowing that a harsh winter is soon going to come, squirrels are busily completing their supplies.

Small village streets lie peacefully in the afternoon sun.

 

An old truck is enjoying his retirement...

...while in a garden across the street, laundry and the dishes are put outside to dry. 

 

 If you come to the little town of Nevyansk, the houses smile at you.

At the central square, a monument reminds one of times past.

The memorial for the soldiers killed in WW II is also just a few steps away.

 Nevyansk is famous for its clocktower.

Because it is leaning to the side.

 

 

Alapayevsk

Last week, we went to visit a factory in Alapayevsk. Alapayevsk is a Russian town 140 north of Yekaterinburg, where I'm currently working as visiting lecturer at Ural State University.

Along the road, people were selling large quantities of mushrooms.

From time to time, one could see golden cupolas blinking through the colourful trees...

...while every now and then, a heavy lorry came out of the forest.

In Alapayevsk, we were supposed to meet one of the directors of the company "Stroidormash", a manufacturer of specialized trucks.

My friends were hoping to sell some special equipment to the firm, while I wanted to make an interview with the director.

 

So in we went. 

The meeting lasted for 5 hours and was very interesting. It was the first time I assisted to a Russian business negotiation. 

During my interview, I asked the director about the main problems the company was facing. By far the biggest problem, he said, is to find qualified engineers. He deplored that the quality of technical students who finish university, even in a center of higher education such as Yekaterinburg, is very low. Sometimes, they are forced to hire pensioneers who have long stopped working to keep their factory running.

When I asked him about the problem of corporate raiding (i.e. companies being stolen from their legitimate owners by criminal groups, a subject I've been studying for the last 2 years), he did not want to go into details. But he said that his firm had suffered substantially during the last 10 years ("they simply didn't let us work"). However, since a new law about raiding had been passed by president Medvedev in 2010, the situation had become much better.

When the meeting was over, it was already getting dark, so that the heavy lorries on the road back to Yekaterinburg had already switched on their lights.

Russian Politics: The Paradox of a Weak State

During the last couple of years, I had the chance to read quite a few books on Russian politics. This one by the political scientist Marie Mendras (French version published in 2008, this updated English version in 2012) is one of the best I've come upon so far.

Mendras is a strong-headed French researcher (in 2010, she briefly was Director of the Policy Planning Staff in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but soon had to leave due to a series of quarrels and differences of opinion with staff and colleagues).

In the book, she focuses on the relation between state and society in Russia. Instead of using a chronological order (as many similar books do), Mendras presents a series of topical chapters that look at the Tsarist and Communist legacy, Russia's relationship with the West, the role of political institutions and the bureaucracy to build a framework which she then uses to analyse Vladimir Putin's Russia today.

Mendras is not afraid of advancing strong opinions. But here this is not a disadvantage, as her view on how Russia works comes - in my opinion - close to what is actually happening in the country. Mendras argues that instead of rebuilding a strong Russian state, Putin has successfully undermined most public institutions, to established a patronage system of rule. Loyalty to the elites in the centre is the criteria that decides if state employees are promoted or not. This has resulted in a state apparatus that is weak and inefficient, with the wrong incentives in place and the elites at the center being unaccountable to the society they govern.

Mendras skillfully presents the research of a large number of major Russia watchers to back up her analysis. If you buy her argument, it's a good explanation why Russia has such difficulties to implement a modernization agenda and some kind of industrial policy. A good book.   

Qufu (曲阜)

Master Kong

In the year 551 BC, Confucius was born in the eastern Chinese city of Qufu.

Today, more than 2500 years later, the Kong mansion, the Confucius temple and the cemetery where all members of the Kong family have been buried since the great master died are still places of great interest, with travellers coming from far away to have a look.

 In the estate of the Kong family, I met professor Wang.

Professor Wang is an eminent scholar of Chinese literature and poetry. He was showing Master Kong's birthplace to his granddaughter.

Later on in the Confucius temple, a couple of people were lighting incense sticks, but otherwise the temple grounds were quiet and empty:

In the afternoon, I went to see the famous cemetery, which is actually a small forest north of town. In the forest, suspicious guardians were keeping watch over the many graves that lay scattered throughout the woods.

  

Early the next morning, I rented a bicycle to have a look at the sourrounding countryside. All throughout town, people were already up and busy:

A bit to the east of Qufu, the Beijing - Shanghai highspeed line passes by...

...but otherwise, the countryside still looks very rural, and most people seem to walk to get from place to place.

When I came to the gate of a middle school, a man was waving. He was a mathematics teacher (first from the left on the picture), and wanted to present me to his colleagues:

Then he brought me to a class where a girl who was the same age as me was teaching English. First her students were very shy, but then they asked many questions. How is the weather in Europe? Who is your prime minister? How did you come to China? Is everyone in Europe supporting FC Barcelona? How tall are you? I tried to answer as best as I could.   

 

After class, the English teachers invited me for lunch.

Then I said good-bye and continued cycling. In the next village, people were wearing white clothes and making strange music. First I didn't understand what was going on, but then I saw that it was a funeral. 

 

A bit further on, a couple of roadworkers had a rest in the shade next to the road. They were constructing a new highway:

On the way home, a man with an interesting vehicle overtook me. He was transporting white paint, and was leaving a trail of small white dots on the road behind him.