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Russia reaches for the stars with its own Silicon Valley

The Observer

Skolkovo’s facilities are designed to attract the best minds in science to Moscow, but investors are still warned to be wary.

Russia is planning another revolution. Moscow has pinned its future on transforming 400 hectares (1.5 sq miles) of nondescript farmland 20 miles west of the Kremlin into a base camp for the next generation of Mark Zuckerbergs.

By 2015 these desolate fields will be transformed into a city of 35,000 boasting some of the most advanced research centres in the world, if you believe the Kremlin’s plans. This is Silikonnovaya Dolina: Russia’s Silicon Valley.

It’s no pipe dream, according to promotional material handed out to British scientists, entrepreneurs and investors last week as part of a global mission to drum up interest in the Skolkovo Innovation Centre, President Dmitry Medvedev’s pet project.