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Get Acquainted with Snezhinsk!
The City of Snezhinsk is one of the 10 closed cities of Rosatom. It is situated between two large industrial and cultural centres in the Urals, Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk, approximately 100 kilometers away from each. And since they are two of the largest cities in Russia, the region has a well-developed business, transportation and industrial infrastructure, including international airports, railway network and multiple business centres, US and British Consulates, and representative offices of the largest foreign companies. The establishment of both the institute and the city were top secret. In 1955 the first groups of specialists from Arzamas-16 were sent here to establish new scientific departments. Throughout its 50-year history, the Institute has always been staffed with the best graduates in the country, the national technical and scientific elite, meanwhile very few people knew about the institute or the city till 1992. The city-forming enterprise is presently a huge scientific-research and design company, performing the entire cycle of nuclear defence activities. It deals with the most complicated scientific and technical challenges in the areas of fission energy, and a wide range of research in fundamental and applied science. The city has the status of a closed administrative territory (ZATO), with a total area of over 36 square kilometers. The commercial sector has recently been developing rapidly. What stimulated the development of private business in such a military, scientific city? At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s the Russian Government realized the redundancy of its nuclear potential and initiated its gradual reduction. At the same time, the country was transferring from a state-planned economy to a market economy, the old social structure and the governmental systems were collapsing rapidly, and nobody was interested in solving problems in the weapons research complex. These years were a serious challenge for Snezhinsk; nuclear specialists did not get paid for several months; work was decreasing and one of the directors of RFNC VNIITF could not find any way out other than to commit suicide. At that hard time the problems in the Russian atomic sector drew the world’s attention. At the beginning of the 90s the first ISTC projects were launched; and in the middle of the 90s RFNC VNIITF started cooperating with US laboratories on small lab-to-lab projects and in 1998 the first government-to-government programme was initiated. The US-Russian Nuclear Cities Initiative was focused on creation of alternative employment and retraining of former nuclear scientists. The International Development Centre Fund was founded in Snezhinsk in 2000. By that time it became obvious that an independent entity was needed to serve as a bridge between foreign donors or investors, Russian business partners or customers, and the local society, including the City administration, and the city-forming enterprise. One of the main goals for the Centre’s creation was providing support to former nuclear specialists, laid off from the city-forming enterprise, assisting in adjusting to the new labour environment, and giving professional advice on any unclear or questionable issues. Since 2003 the UK-Russian Closed Nuclear Cities Partnership (CNCP) has been developing its activity in civilian job creation. Snezhinsk was one of the first cities to cooperate with the British Partnership. The first project accepted by CNCP for funding was a project from Snezhinsk, initiated by Rastr-Technology Ltd. Active partnership during these five years has enabled us to bring the number of projects implemented in Snezhinsk up to 18, and the amount invested by the British side to £7 million. Our efforts have helped create about 400 new civilian jobs in the city, including 260 positions for former nuclear specialists. As for civilian business development, contemporary Snezhinsk has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include its unique scientific and technical potential, high level of education and citizens’ creativity, high level of culture, medicine and training. Our drawbacks still include mono-economy, subsidized budget, legislative limitations of the closed city, risk of unemployment and limited energy resources. We value the outcomes of the CNCP’s operation highly and we feel how involved the British side is, how attentively it deals with our problems, ideas and suggestions. It is obvious that we are making progress and positive changes are taking place. We would like to thank the British and Russian participants of CNCP for their efforts to help us solve the problems Snezhinsk is facing. We are very interested in maintaining our meaningful relations and expanding our cooperation in the future. Yuri Rumyantsev, | |
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