Sitting on 400 hectares of the most expensive Russian real estate outside central Moscow, Skolkovo is intended to be one of the biggest tech innovation centres in the world. In 2010, then-president Dmitry Medvedev gave orders to create an innovative centre from scratch – this in a country where all tech parks and scientific centres have been inherited from the Soviet past. “We have money but don’t have our Silicon Valley,” he said on his visit to Silicon Valley, after earlier stressing it was a project “that should become the largest test ground for Russian new economic policy.”
Three years after its announcement by President Medvedev, Skolkovo still raises more questions than answers. Getting Skolkovo off the ground has not been cheap, with billions of oil dollars spent, and yet more to be allocated. There are doubts that the Russian government – now headed by Vladimir Putin – has the conviction to keep going. The investments are impressive though. The road to be built to Skolkovo and around the area is said to cost $2 billion. However, the biggest questions facing start-ups that have, or want to, set up shop there is where they are going to work and live. The whole site is supposed to be finished by 2020.
