EDITORIAL
Russia to Jobs, Gates — Drop Dead!
One thing that we here at LR, as visitors to Russia, have always found at once both most hilarious and most obscene about this benighted, fetid land is the Russian attempt to test foreigners for diseases like AIDS before allowing them to dwell within Russian borders. That Russia, one of the world’s worst breeding grounds for diseases of all kinds, would think itself endangered by American tourists says all you really need to know about just how truly barbaric Russia really is.
But there are plenty of other examples. In their recent Moscow Times column, for instance, Ian Pryde and Suzanne Stafford of Eurasia Strategy & Communications in Moscow point out that if either of two most famous computer experts on this planet, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, wanted to try to set up a business in Russia, they would get simple response: “Drop dead!”
That’s because neither Jobs nor Gates hold a college degree, and therefore neither could present a college degree with an apostille to the Russian authorities, which is a prerequisite for starting a business in Russia. In America, no such requirements are applied — and America has a GDP seven times larger than Russia despite having a population only twice as great.
You read that right: Russia thinks people like Jobs and Gates are unqualified to start a business in Russia even though they run two of the largest and most successful businesses on the planet. If they wanted to start up something in Russia, they’d be rejected automatically. Russia, you know, has its standards.
As we’ve repeatedly documented here on this blog, Russian education is in fact utterly fraudulent. University degree, even from the very best schools, are bought and sold every day of the week. Russia lags behind America in virtually every conceivable measure of technolgy and innovation, and is totally unable to put Russian-made products into the global economy. The only thing the world buys from Russia is raw materials because Russian schools are totally unable to teach Russians how to compete in the world markets.
Apparently, that’s just the way the Kremlin likes it. Blind Russian paranoia and xenophobia will continue to dominate Russian policy, and Russians will continue to live in bleak, backward darkness, cut off from the benefits people like Jobs and Gates bestow on their countries.
And so it goes in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
La Russophobe 
Oh yes we are so barbaric for asking for uni degrees…..listen to yourself….oh wait i’m sorry this is probably quite personal to you since you probably don’t have one either right? and thats why it pisses you off so much, poor uneducated you
Please continue to “think” like that — so that the Russian versions of Gates and Jobs will continue to flee Russia and come to the United States, which will continue to benefit from their achievements whilst Russia languishes in the darkness.
visitors to Russia
In the beginning of August, 2010 they went to Russia to visit their relatives in Chechnya and Ingushetia. On August 10, they were registered at Belorussian border and got on a train bound for Brest – Moscow route at 5.40 p.m. On August 11, Makhauri and Borchashvili were to arrive at Belorussian railway station of Moscow and transfer to a train bound for Grozny which set off from Kazansky railway station at 2.33 p.m. According to the relatives of the missing, Ramzan and Islam didn’t get on the train to Chechnya. The relatives have tried to find them on their own, but with no success.
As of August 23, Ramzan Makhauri’s and Islam Borchashvili’s whereabouts could not be discovered.
Khedi Makhauri, Ramzan’s mother, gained the suit against the Russian Federation in the European Court of human rights (ECHR) in the autumn 2007. The essence of the case was as follows: on January 21, 2000 Khedi Makhauri and two more women were detained, robbed and shot down by Russian soldiers in Staropromyslovsky district of Grozny.The two women died, while Makhauri survived by a miracle. On January 24, 2000 the relatives took her to Ingushetia. She spent two months at hospital. As a result of the wounding Khedi Makhauri’s left hand was paralyzed. The woman turned to HRC Memorial for legal assistance the same year. The Center’s lawyers prepared and forwarded a complaint to ECHR. On October 4, 2007 ECHR delivered its decision on Khedi Makhauri’s case. The court decided that the Russian Federation had breached Article 2 (the right for life) of the European Convention on human rights and main freedoms. ECHR also decided that Article 13 had also been violated (the right for effective legal remedies) of the Convention as no effective investigation of the events of January 21, 2000 in Staropromyslovsky district of Grozny had taken place.
http://www.memo.ru/eng/news/2010/08/24/2408101e.html
@LR – AIDS testing is required only for long term visa, not for tourist one (max 30 days)
document urself before opening ur mouth, pretty please, with sugar on top
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
Uh, we wrote: “Russian attempt to test foreigners for diseases like AIDS before allowing them to dwell within Russian borders”
“DWELL” means LIVE THERE, you hilariously idiotic, hypocritical cretin! thanks for the deep belly laugh to start the day!
next time, try a dictionary for words you don’t understand.
and thanks for pointing out that Russians couldn’t care less about evil foreigners contaminating them with AIDS, as long as they don’t do it for more than 30 days. does that make any kind of sense to you? uh . . .
you moronic moron :D put your 2 neurons together to decide – are u talking about “tourists” or “long term dwellers”.
and also go out from the hut you’re living into and have a look into real world, nobody – unless suicidal like you – would have unprotected sexual relationship with somebody that he/she knows in less than 30 days (tourists) – therefore the need to reduce the risks for the long time “tourists” uhm, errm “dwellers”
Actually this is the first time I’ve heard that you need a college degree to start a business in Russia. If it’s really true then it’s total insanity. If things carry on in this way I guess before long you’re going to need to be a member of United Russia or even an employee of the FSB to start a ‘business’ in Russia.
I do believe that testing visiting Americans for HIV/AIDS makes sense in a way, at least according to this map from Wikipedia http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/People_living_with_HIV_AIDS_world_map.PNG
The US still has more people living with HIV/AIDS than does Russia
You’re missing the point. Three, actually. America is twice the size of Russia and the odds that a person with AIDS will choose to live in Russia is ASTRONOMICALLY small. The notion that the average American, who lives TWENTY YEARS longer than the average Russian, poses a health risk to Russians is abject nonsense. What’s more, Russia is doing NOTHING in terms of domestic policy to slow the spread of AIDS, and has one of the worst rates of increase on the planet. And Russia is not in a position to alienate foreign investment in any case. The damage from doing so is FAR greater than anything AIDS might do.
Look, Russia’s done far worse things to alienate foreign investments than asking people who come here for more than 30 days to have an HIV test. So if anything this HIV test thing is a non-issue. I don’t know if they’re doing anything to stop the spread of HIV (and what can you do except teach people to always use condoms, which by the way also have the positive side effect of stopping the spread of unwanted children), but these days whenever you present with even mildly suspicious symptoms they send you for an HIV test, whenever you’re admitted to a hospital, they test you for HIV etc. so I’m really a bit puzzled by what a big deal you’ve made of it.
Your claim that the simply fact that Americans live 20 years longer than Russians on average means that Americans can pose no health risk to Russians is totally illogical; one has nothing to do with the other, plus potentially one can always imagine a hypothetical situation in which an American travelling through some tropical African countries eventually comes to Russia and brings some weird tropical disease here. Think about how many Indians got killed by small pox against which they had no immunity.
but on second thought it may even be for the better, after all there’s places like Cyprus, the British Virgin Islands, Singapore, or the Check Republic where you can register a business even if you’re not that country’s national and without having to prove you graduated from a university. This simply means that more motivated Russian entrepreneurs will be given another reason to leave Russia and that can only be good for them.
@the Check Republic where you can register
Chech Republic ;)
Actually, Czech Republic ;) ;)
as far as HIV testing goes, I remember not so long ago (late 1990’s) it didn’t use to be this way, i.e. you didn’t have to have an HIV test before you were given a visa even if it was a long term visa.
I remember in the city I live in a relatively famous gay teacher of English invited a friend of his, an American, to teach English at the school he worked at part time. The school also jumped at the opportunity as they had the reputation of the best place in town for English. In a bit that American came over, rented an apartment and taught English happily for quite a long time as far as I can recall, over a year for sure, until one hot summer day he drank some Fanta and for some reason it made him feel so bad he had to call an ambulance and was hospitalised and while he was at the hospital they tested him for HIV, which was and still is a standard procedure at Russian hospitals and he tested positive. It was a sort of a faux pas as at the time even though people entering Russia were not required to have an HIV test they were required to inform the authorities if they were HIV positive or some such thing. The guy naturally claimed he hadn’t had HIV when he came to Russia and he may well even have been telling the truth. The authorities, thought, naturally assumed he was lying and he got expelled. (By naturally I mean that Russian authorities are xenophobic by default, plus in Russia instead of presumption of innocence we have presumption of guilt, which applies not only to foreigners but to Russian citizens as well.)
So I don’t know I guess I’m just rambling but to me HIV testing doesn’t seem like such a big deal. The bit about having to have a higher education degree to start a business is much more idiotic, imho
Ah and btw to the best of my knowledge BG did eventually get some sort of a degree from Harvard or some other place, so next to Steve Jobs he’s sort of an intellectual.
Gates never finished college. He may have received one or several honorary degrees but that’s not the same.
I still don’t understand this, to open a sandwich shop one needs a college degree (provided it’s true, of course). Why?
yeah, just looked it up on wikipedia – lots of honorary degrees.
As for the bit about having to have a college degree to open a sandwitch shop, I personally find it hard to believe.
From what I read in the original article http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-need-not-invest-here/413499.html, my understanding is that this requirement applies only to foreigners. Presumably if you’re Russian, your citizen passport will suffice to register a business.
I certainly know of a Russian in-law owning a small pharmacy business, without a degree, I think. (his wife being the original pharmacist).
Given its location, I imagine (and dare not ask) that his ‘roof’ is far more important.
and now …. what do you think about? soros banned , rotchild banned , bill gates banned … only in rusia …. have you been living in rusia? yo really know wtf is hapenning there? ¿do you know john galt? you dont know nothing john snow …. winter is comming and you are a sheep and they are getting cold … prepare for defend your skin….