Alexander Latkin. Alexander Latkin, head of the Institute of Highly Qualified Personnel, Doctor of Economics, Professor: “We focus on practice. Alexander Latkin – opinion on PrimaMedia: The benefits of ASEZs and SPVs are not the most important thing for an investor
Alexander Guryevich Latkin (1952, Uoyan village, Severobaikalsky district, Buryat Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) - writer, publicist.
The writer’s life changed unexpectedly: it became known that gold miners were going to develop the Tungiro-Olyokma region. This meant that 524 Evenks would be deprived of their ancestral land and would be on the verge of death. Latkin makes a decision: he needs to be close to his fellow tribesmen; he must return to the taiga. He enters into an unequal struggle with the Chita generals from industry, proposes to organize an independent examination of projects for the development of gold-bearing areas, and conduct surveys among local residents. In response - threats, random bullets in pursuit, arson of the apartment. He is forced to leave for Irkutsk. In February 1990, he wrote: “My departure can be considered a defeat, but I did not stop my actions. The Tungir-Olyokma taiga is too expensive for Siberia! And so insignificant is the mighty gold that, while remaining alive, one should give up completely.”
Latkin could not live long in Irkutsk; he returned to the taiga again. Life among fellow tribesmen was not easy. It was painful to watch how local authorities, for the sake of momentary gain, not only soldered the Evenks, but also simply bribed the national elite and hunters, who, as representatives of a small ethnic group, were entitled to licenses to hunt rare animals. In one of his letters, Latkin writes:
“There is a total destruction of elk, wild deer, and musk deer. It has already exceeded reproduction. Most of the “official” poachers are Evenks (they are allowed!). In fact, the future is being destroyed. Drunkenness is overwhelming... Dishonest insolent people are taking advantage of this terrible misfortune. They mercilessly rob the Evenks, whose joy has become a drunken stupor. Some Tunguska houses are empty, everything is drunk. There’s not even a bed...People without a future!”
The writer does not want to put up with this. Together with a corresponding member of the Russian Academy medical sciences Sergei Kolesnikov offers his solutions to the demographic problems of the Evenks. He also has his own program to save the Tungir-Olyokma taiga. And most importantly, helpers appeared both among the Evenks and Russian old-timers of Transbaikalia. This saves him from reprisals from the “golden” and “forest” kings of the Chita region. Latkin is especially concerned about issues of cultural development. He himself, having a blood connection with the Evenki people, writes in Russian and does not see any tragedy in this. He writes a lot. He has many unknown manuscripts.
On October 13, VSUES will become a platform for the I International Scientific and Practical Conference “Entrepreneurship as a Factor in the Dynamic Development of the Russian Far East.” Head of the section " Special conditions conducting entrepreneurial activity in the Far East" will be performed by Alexander Latkin, head of the Institute of Personnel highly qualified VSUES, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Professor. In our interview, he spoke about the features of the Far East as an entrepreneurial region, as well as why VSUES is considered an entrepreneurial university.
- What are the main areas of business in Far East? Which of them do you consider the most promising?
Historically, the Far East has the most main business- fishery: production, storage, processing, transportation and sale of fish. The second direction is timber processing. The third direction is related to trade, catering, which is facilitated by close proximity and close cooperation with China, as well as with South Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Recently it has been developing rapidly agriculture, supported by the state. We have a lot of land resources and a fairly favorable climate, but it is worth considering the possibility of cyclones and typhoons.
I consider the most promising areas of business in the Far East to be such new industries as petrochemical processing, mining and metallurgical industry, and road construction. I would highlight road construction separately. Valid national program construction of roads, large-scale work has been carried out in this area, and now we can get to Chita by car. I'll note good quality roads to Ussuriysk, roads to the airport and roads to Russian Island, as well as many others built over the past five years.
Among the traditional industries, this is, again, the fishing industry, as well as mariculture.
- What would you note are the key problems of entrepreneurship in our region?
I would put first the problem of the survival of enterprises in the current crisis conditions. Our region is very import dependent - huge amount goods are imported from Asia-Pacific countries. Due to the fact that the exchange rate has increased significantly and it is impossible to accurately predict it, enterprises involved in imports began to experience difficulties. There are official statistics according to which the number of unprofitable enterprises in this half-year is 30%.
The second problem is related to the fact that demand for many goods and services is decreasing due to the outflow of population from the Far Eastern federal district. When demand is low, many entrepreneurial projects fail.
I note that private enterprises in the Far Eastern region do not have Far Eastern allowances, and many organizations experience difficulties in providing employees with decent wages.
- What are the development prospects for Far Eastern business?
On the one hand, these prospects are determined by large investment projects related to the petrochemical, fishing and mining and metallurgical industries. The Vostochny cosmodrome was built in the Amur region, around which an entire city is now being created. In addition, this is the “Free Port of Vladivostok” and the Priority Development Territories, where entrepreneurs have certain tax benefits.
In the Far East they are creating large enterprises, infrastructure is being created, and I think that in the foreseeable future business will develop, move forward, increasing profits.
Alexander Pavlovich, what features of the business conditions in the Far East would you note? Does this create problems for entrepreneurs? Or maybe some of them might be useful?
I consider our main feature to be our remoteness from the western regions of Russia. This remoteness is reinforced by high tariffs for transport transportation. Another feature is a huge territory with a low market capacity. That is, it is impossible to increase the scale of the enterprise. In addition, despite the development of road construction, we have few intraregional roads, which creates serious problems in the delivery of products.
What kind of work is being done at VSUES in the area of entrepreneurship? Why is VSUES considered an entrepreneurial university?
First of all, we changed the format for training specialists. We focus on practice and building the foundations of entrepreneurship. I teach the discipline “Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship,” and students within this discipline present their business projects. We prepare students to work in the regional sector of the economy. Our graduates feel confident in the labor market - 97.2% of graduates successfully find employment almost immediately after graduation, open their own business or enter graduate school. 4.8% - share individual entrepreneurs among VSUES graduates.
A meeting of the international business club “Dialogues” on the topic “Blockchain and cryptocurrency as a new economic idea” will be held on January 25 at the Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service (VGUES). The organizer will be Cybersecurity Legal Consulting Center. Participants will be representatives real business, including the banking sector, tourism and entrepreneurs from all over the Far East.
We spoke with the scientific director of the center Alexander Latkin about the difficulties of blockchain consulting and pro bono cybersecurity, international cooperation, mining trains to China and the valley project.
- Tell me, what is the purpose of the meeting?
We want to tell business representatives about what awaits us in terms of the development of these events. By events we mean blockchain - it is the basis for the cryptocurrency market, we will now say, it is already being formed.
- It seems that businesses are still afraid to do anything. Do you have any idea how to regulate this market?
They are rightly afraid, because not all countries actively accept this currency. And there are a lot of them, Bitcoin just has a little more high level development. Of course, the president gave a decree regulatory framework to create by the middle of this year. It must be perceived ambiguously, as it is perceived all over the world. Even in our neighboring Republic of Korea, the government is divided into two groups.
- What are you focusing your work on so far?
We have several areas of interaction with business. We hold the club for the sake of closer interaction between business and the university. It is precisely one of the areas for which the Consulting Legal Center was created; we were one of the first universities - extending a helping hand to our colleagues who have fallen into the web of fraud. In any new case, attackers appear. And this was an initiative from Moscow, where a cybersecurity center is also being created on the basis of the Internet Development Institute. We are still a pilot project on a voluntary basis.
- Who usually contacts you?
Cybersecurity isn't just about currency, right? People are being deceived in banks now, even very large ones, when money is withdrawn from people’s accounts. E-commerce is a thing today and needs to be approached differently.
- What other areas of your activity are there?
In addition, we need to educate and enlighten people. Literacy is very important, but for now most people have little understanding. Therefore, the second direction is how to organize various educational programs. And the third is just scientific. In fact, imagine, we need to research what types of this currency there are, there are many of them, come up with a classification, because they have different levels of development and activity. If researched, entire dissertations could be written on this topic. A whole scientific direction. Build a model of how to build this market - for the future. Now it’s difficult to say whether cryptocurrencies are here to stay or not. Regarding blockchain, modern information technology, then it is clear that this will last for a long time. Emails, electronic government services began to work... It’s elementary, before at the university we opened the doors with a key, but now there are electronic locks.
- Surprising, yes. Will the Far East be able to gradually become the financial center of Russia?
You see, we think about what we need educational programs for beginners - 2-3 days, and more serious ones - a week, a month, we will even open a master's program now. Universities related to this matter will probably be opened specially. Large banks already conduct such courses for themselves. Because you can imagine, if people in our country begin to actively get involved in cryptocurrency, then regular trading will be supplanted by electronic trading.
- That is, so far it is mainly young people who turn to education for education?
Yes, and it’s not that simple. It is necessary to develop a program so that there is not only a lecture course, but also master classes. Young people are mining a lot now. They go to China, where electricity is cheaper than here in the Far East.
- Are they going to China specifically?
They are buying tourist trips, I just returned from China. The ticket costs 4 thousand rubles. I got on the bus and went, the bus goes straight to China.
- Have you been there on a business trip?
I just went to meet with a branch of the large Yanbiansky state university in Hunchun. I also negotiated with them that we need to implement a joint project, create a research center for cryptocurrency and blockchain. In addition, we signed an agreement with Chinese businessmen to create an enterprise in the Primorye Territory, on the territory of the free port of Vladivostok, to assemble these mining devices - like computers, only more modern. And on January 29, my colleagues and I are flying to Japan, where we will have a meeting with representatives of their blockchain center in Tokyo at the site of an international university, and we will also talk about cooperation. The problem is that if someone deceived someone in cryptocurrencies, e-commerce, then the person lost money, millions of US dollars. We in Russia may simply not be able to solve the problem of finding the culprit. We need international cooperation, because money circulates, bitcoins into dollars, abroad, but in our country it is prohibited to cash out.
- There are other centers in Russia besides Moscow. Do they contact you for cooperation?
Well, in Russia everything is just beginning, however, blockchain centers have been created in many cities. We communicate.
- There was an idea to create a mining valley. Now in Vladivostok, in Primorye, have you heard anything about this?
This idea came from the plenipotentiary representative of our president, Yuri Trutnev, that somewhere in the Far East, but somewhere - I can imagine where there is cheap electricity, because mining farms are very expensive, and in Primorye our tariffs are high. If we take, say, the Amur region, where there is the Bureyskaya hydroelectric power station, energy is cheap there and you can create this mining farm. In the meantime, this is still only an initiative proposal, what will happen next? The state, you see, on the one hand, wants to legitimize this matter, but on the other, it has its own points of view. Cryptocurrency, blockchain is also an opportunity to see who is stealing government money, you know. And, according to my observation, cryptocurrencies are developing most in those countries where the population does not really trust the state to store and accumulate their money. For example, Venezuela. Russia has now all rushed, China too, and even Japan, because Japan has a huge public debt. Cryptocurrency is an opportunity to escape state control. Here, too, people have lost a lot in different companies and stock exchanges. I myself lost what I invested in Troika Dialog. Even large banks guarantee a return of only 1.4 million - what is this? If the bank was closed, 1.4 million was returned, and the rest was lost. That’s why people are rushing harder into these new processes.
- What are the main difficulties the Center faces?
You need to start, and for this you need to have starting capital. Nobody funds us, we are on our own initiative, we employ retired employees from those structures that were previously directly involved in identifying thefts and finding the perpetrators - the Ministry of Internal Affairs, first of all. We hope that after the return of the stolen funds we will be paid some percentage of that amount. The state is not funding it yet. This is the main problem, because you need to look for good specialists, and there are few who are ready to work for free, on a voluntary basis.
interviewed by Elina Masimova, photo: Pixabay, Vl.ru
