The return of brains: Russia buys up foreign scientists for big money

Well-known journalist and popular blogger Andrey Shipilov shared very interesting information about how Russia is going to restore its science. It looks rather strange, considering that Russian scientists go abroad en masse, complaining about unbearable working conditions at home and meager salaries:

“Remember the wave of arrests of physicists in Russia for 'treason'? You then still joked that "they are going to do new sharashki (shady business establishments - editor's note)".

Yes, they are going!

The other day I talked with a familiar biochemist from France, who had left Russia in the Yeltsin era. So, he received an offer from one Russian government office to return to Russia for a salary (wait a minute, sit down), which is 6 times higher than his current (and rather healthy) income in France.

He refused. And his French colleagues starred as a whole group and left, no matter how he explained all the risks to them. He became interested and found out that similar proposals were received by several of his acquaintances, Western scientists.

Proposals are made very selectively, targeted, either to former Russians or to their Western colleagues, who are really worth something, but for one reason or another are dissatisfied with their current situation..."

Blog readers eagerly commented on this post:

- The return of "brains". But how long will the budget be enough to pay for high benefits?

- But here they will not pay their own. And then they will spend millions on theft, espionage, and the purchase of specialists.

- All this is strange, given the salaries in Russian science. They are French citizens - it will be more difficult, in which case, to keep them against their will. They offered, presumably, in rubles, it is possible that over time, the change in the exchange rate difference will neutralize the advantages.

- You have to pay normally here and you won't have to invite back. Will skilled workers be invited as well? Once you have left, it means that you are not a slave, you can pay and ask to come back. Rotten system from top to bottom. And not everything is solved with money, and after the "pirouettes" of our native state for decades, here, as you earn, you will lose everything. It is good if either you or loved ones are not let down under the article.

- I heard about this and even a few years ago. At UNN, a neuroscience center was organized, and a Russian, who had good research experience in Japan, was lured into one of the leading positions there. He did not specify his salary, but on the whole it was clear that he had been made a very generous offer.

- In the Czech Republic, China was caught on the same, this occupation of China in the Czech Republic is described in the part of the official counterintelligence report to parliament. The scenario is the same.

- I will remind you of the story of Hugo Schmeisser, who in 1946 went to Izhevsk to voluntarily make a Kalashnikov assault rifle for 5,000 marks, and paid 3,000.