Paparazzi Ethnography

St. Petersburg Economic Forum

At that event in Houston, I met the former speech writer for Robert Dudley. As many of you know, Dudley was CEO for the TNK-BP. Of course, BP stands for British Petroleum and TNK stands for Tyumen Oil Company. Robert Dudley is now the chief executive for BP. And in fact, he was just at the March 2011 CERA Week. In any event, the speech writer argued that we must attend the St. Petersburg Forum if we want to know the intersection of elites, consultants, and experts on Russian arctic gas development. In fact, as we discovered when attending the Petersburg Forum, energy Guru Daniel Yergin of Cambridge Energy was in attendance and presided over a fabulous forum on energy development.

Upon arriving to St. Petersburg, we noticed publicity for the Forum throughout the city. In the photo on the upper right, you see the poster we encountered along the boulevard heading into town from the airport. In fact, we were able to obtain our passes and identification cards right there in the airport. It was a big deal as it turned out, so in the end we were lucky we had it all sorted out. An entire part of the city, where the Forum was taking place, Vasilevsky Ostrov, was practically cordoned by police and impossible to get around– impossible to enter, in fact, without security identification. We strolled right through.

Security

Security was ubiquitous at the Forum. Our attempts to take photos of security personnel were thwarted at every turn, with guards hitting the delete button on the camera. I was nervous about taking photos after several failed attempts.

security

We changed our strategy and started using ourselves as decoys, as the photo on right depicts. I had Alex Karamanova, my then assistant, stand in front of security throughout our trip. Notice that there in background is security personnel observing.

There was a lot of lounging going on at the Forum. People were immaculately dressed, entertaining themselves everywhere. We hung tight to the energy pavilion where there were fabulous exhibits from Gazprom, and other concerns seeking energy development in Russia. We were after, and wanted to see a younger generation of experts and their emerging role in Russian energy development.

lounging

And here we got lucky: There was an panel titled Global Russians, where in attendance and asked to speak were Russians who received degrees from abroad, in western Europe and the United States. Even a former UC Berkeley graduate was invited to speak. From this experience, we identified two communities within Russia, made up of contrasting social positions having investments in shaping arctic gas development.

The first group we call rear-guard, made up of older specialists whose structural position as managers of organizations such as Gazprom and the government ministries is based on their accumulated political capital– their built-up personal connections throughout their career. The second group we call vanguard or alternatively labeled Global Russians (Globalnye Ruskie) – a phrase adopted right there, at the St. Petersburg Forum, to identify a younger generation of Russians educated in the West and who are now serving as experts in Moscow in the capacity as energy analysts, journalists, etc. for western firms (e.g., Citibank), or for newly created government entrepreneurial incubation parks.

lounging

The vanguard is further characterized by their reliance upon American economic discourses concerning relationships between capital expenditures, transparent reporting, and returns on investment.

By the way, I should mention, that after this event, we began using this model to inquire into the status of Global Russians within Moscow. And we had some success when speaking with financial analysts now working for Citigroup and the like.

The entire Forum lasted about 3 days. Unfortunately, we missed the first day because we were in Murmansk, at the Petromax workshop, checking out Norwegian and Russian contacts in the context of developing the Shtokman field. What a total difference between these two events.

global russians

Gabbing

Finally, we attended the closing ceremony with speeches given by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, as seen here on the left. There is much more to say about the Petersburg Forum, and so we will return to this fantastic event.

presidential speeches