Ицхак Адизес об Иркутске.

Недавно наш город посетил Др. Адизес. Я постоянно читаю его блог, а особенно его посты о странах и городах, в которых он бывает. Естественно, с нетерпением ждал отзыва про Иркутск. 
И вот оно свершилось... Грустно конечно читать про свою вотчину такие печальные вещи... Но человек со стороны, скорее всего, все так и видит. И он не постеснялся прямо спросить то, о чем мы не очень любим говорить. И так же не постеснялся написать. Ниже собственно сам пост. Надеюсь перевод необязателен.

Irkutsk, Siberia

Irkutsk is a small town by Russian standards: 585,000 inhabitants. Yet it is a major city for Siberia.

Major companies headquartered in Moscow have their production facilities here: aircraft manufacturing, aluminum production, etc. The city of Irkustk, however, is vulnerable. If any of the five major employers chooses to close shop, the city will suffer.

Young people know this, so anyone who can leave leaves.

The city has a major university and a business school with joint programs with University of Maryland and the University of Queensland, Australia. The programs are in English and some graduates chose to move abroad.

I asked why the city authorities do not do whatever it takes to build local businesses for the sustainability of the city.

The answer was that Moscow central government controls it all and there is nothing they themselves can do.

This feeling of disempowerment reappears in many forms: in companies and now in cities.

I love small cities in Russia. This is the second small city I have been to in Russia, Novosibirsk being the previous one. The common denominator? People are warm, hospitable. The pace is slow and thus enjoyable. I really do not like Moscow, with its traffic jams and hurried people. Everything there is expensive and you can feel how everyone is running breathlessly after the ruble, the local currency.

Irkutsk is a forty-minute drive from Lake Baikal, the deepest sweet water lake in the world: a mile deep. It contains twenty percent of the world's fresh water. It is so clean you can drink the water right out of the lake.

"Why not export it?" I asked, like the Fiji water or Icelandic water we drink in the USA?

Distance and transportation costs are prohibitive, was the answer.

What about fishery?

Not many fish in the lake. It's too cold.

Irkutsk was built for and by political exiles that were "sent to Siberia."

"Can I see a camp from that time?" I asked my hosts. "Have you kept any for memory?"

"No," they answered. They had absolutely nothing to show.

"Do you have a museum about that period?" I wondered.

"No."

"Were your parents born in Irkutsk?"

"Yes."

"Grandparents?"

"They came from Belorussia."

"Why would they go to Siberia?" I asked.

"They never wanted to talk about it."

The Gulags and the Stalinist era are swept under the rug, as if the country is in denial.