The 29th St. Petersburg Economic Forum opened on June 3. Kommersant special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov studied what details it consists of and shares them without hiding anything.
Externally, nothing has changed compared to last year. From the top, from Pulkovskoye Highway, you can see a picturesque view of the bright buildings of Expoforum. Sunny and hot (not always the same). This time, only somewhere in the distance, 12–15 kilometers away, a column of dark smoke can be seen, one might even say a haze. But still, this is apparently the result of a morning UAV raid.
However, the Internet worked, taxis traveled using a navigator, and it was possible to call a car from the checkpoint (last year, forum participants struggled: there was no mobile Internet, only Wi-Fi was already in the buildings). And in general, amazing calm was recorded on this issue at the St. Petersburg Forum. No one simply noticed the new features in the form of haze among some new buildings, and, it seemed to me, no one thought much about it. Everyone here had their own troubles. And this was still evening life. But there was also a night ahead.
At the entrance to the forum territory they are no longer allowed to carry power banks, that is, batteries. (And even then, some will look and look at it, take it somewhere and return it somehow reluctantly: go with God.) And so the inspection is no different from last year.
The pavilions begin almost at the entrance. Here are the same inquisitive family tree researchers as before. In a prominent place they have a tree (or even a shaft), dare I say it, of the President of Russia. As they say, to attract attention, because it works flawlessly.
However, this time there are new exhibits. I’m proudly shown Steve Jobs’s first computer, which he gave to a colleague when he wanted to buy some shares in Apple. Steve Jobs, according to legend, gave it to a colleague, but how the computer, more like a typewriter, got to the authors of the stand, the story and its creators are silent.
On the wall hangs a tree of travels by Fyodor Konyukhov, another new product from caring authors. Sitting under the tree is the cheerless Fyodor Konyukhov himself (not really active, but just sitting – in the photo). It seems that he knows too much and is very tired of it…
But first they still lead me to the main exhibit and tell me:
“Here it is, our classic: the family tree of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin,” says the booth employee. “The president’s second cousin, Alexander Mikhailovich Putin, first studied it himself.” And then, after almost 20 years of independent study, he came to us, and we visualized it!.. So the tree took shape from us… It’s foam board, not canvas, not an oil painting… But it seems like it’s done in oil, right?!
Yes, I must admit, it seemed so to me.
While we were talking, the Chinese surrounded us. They listened very carefully, literally hanging on every word. I thought these were Chinese studying Russian or even having already learned it. But it turned out that they did not understand a word. They’re just interested.
I left, and they looked for a long time at the family tree of the Russian president, as if trying to solve the great mystery of how the crown arose from the roots… But here, what has grown, has grown.
In the Eurasia pavilion it was, on the one hand, energetic, and on the other, calm. Speakers sat on stage exploring how recent events would impact the military campaign in Ukraine. “We did not take drastic actions, did not resort to extreme measures…,” said one philosopher. “This strategy did not produce positive results… Russia is clearly going to move to a new phase, sharper and tougher… The power lines of domestic and foreign policy are changing!..”
And a girl sat next to her and knitted socks, looking at her phone. Either I read the knitting instructions, or I watched a Turkish TV series. Nearby, someone’s nervous baritone was thundering about the image of success of the Russian Federation, and she was quickly fiddling with her knitting needles, not being distracted, in her opinion, by the momentary.
“So you’ll knit a pair of socks today…” I told her sympathetically.
“No, I’m knitting a People’s Friendship blanket,” she sighed. “And this will last for a long time… For all three days…”
In huge pavilions, stands opened one after another. PSB Bank, one might say, pulled the cover off the five-meter matryoshka doll, and now the forum participants were pushing it, trying to swing it so that it would squeak, like in their childhood. And she squeaked.
The head of the ice shows, Ilya Averbukh, told me about the prefabricated skating rinks in Crimea:
– Three have already been opened! And we don’t stop, no matter what, but on the contrary!..
The Uralchem company presented, as last year, a panel of living, in my opinion, flowers that did not smell.
At the Alfa Bank stand there was a line for its mascot Push – just like everywhere else where something was given away for free.
But in some places it was necessary to work hard: the Aeroflot company insisted on video answers to questions in exchange for name tags – and received them.
Everyone already knew that the set lunch at the Forum restaurant was expensive, but no one knew why. And I found out, because the chef Davide Corso, who works there now, told me everything:
— One great chef from a Michelin-starred restaurant on Lake Como came here, and how he cooks!..
Davide Corso kept silent about himself, but I could tell you something about him: Davide Corso is great himself…
The pavilion of the Republic of Bashkortostan seemed huge to me, and so it was, and you could listen to the Bashkir AI image:
— The republic ranks first in Russia in the production of ropes, we have drone technology in full swing!..
“St. Petersburg is the capital of unmanned technologies,” said the inscription on the pavilion of the Northern capital, and it was believed, taking into account all the events.
And how many foreign participants there were this time… That is, more than ever. The Indonesians presented a supercar racing in the BRICS Formula (and it’s not that difficult to figure out this formula). And the Chinese… The Chinese presented everything. They presented, it seemed, SPIEF itself…
At the GAZ stand there was a brand new Volga, everyone was closely interested in it, and some delegates were perplexed:
– Now it’s clear: the Chinese copied our Volga!.. That means they made the Geely Monjaro out of it… But we didn’t understand… Until we saw it, we thought the opposite… But it’s just a copy!..
And there should have been no doubt: “A national brand with a sense of responsibility to the client!..” read the slogan above the car.
“The Ryazan region is the heart of Russia!” – this was the case in the pavilion, where regional stands predominated. Two regions laid claim to her soul at once. Arms and legs were in demand… It seemed that Russia had been dismantled into organs…
They invited me to the stand of the Smolensk region and told me that “The Smolensk region is the youth capital of Russia”! But why exactly her, I wanted to understand… But it was not given, not this time… I just had to believe…
And the “Work for Faith” foundation was also represented in the wide corridor between the pavilions. There was going to be a presentation here with the participation of the “Patron Saints of Entrepreneurs”…
But what is this – again I fell victim to the activities of the Smolensk region, and they already gave me a machine gun and explained that this is just a game, and you just need to shoot and shoot to win… And I shot… And then they also gave me a gun and convinced me that it was also a toy, but passers-by didn’t believe it…
And then, so that I wouldn’t worry, they explained that the Smolensk region is in fact the diamond capital of Russia, because here they are, all here…
“So it’s not a youth group?” I weakly resisted.
“And youth too…” they explained to me, and I didn’t mind.
At the Positive Technologies group stand, white hat hackers told me how they help people:
— We need to check whether the device is protected or not?.. We generate hypotheses, calculations are carried out, and testing begins. Testing can be either simple, if we are talking about, say, Chinese smart watches, or very difficult…
— But how do you test? — I ventured to ask.
– For example, we turn off the power of the chip very briefly… And because it turned off too briefly, the device continues to work, but it fails… Physically, no one knows what is happening, but we study the protection mechanisms… But we listen to how encryption occurs in real time… We load it into our own software… And by the way it changes, we select pictures in large numbers… Thousands, tens of thousands, millions of times… And we can recover the keys encryption… But this is a simple approach… And we will tell you about the complex…
Well, I listened… And it was better for me not to know…
And final clarity was brought by Yuri Maksimov, co-founder of the Cyberus Foundation and Positive Technologies:
– This is one of the elements of the beginning of a country’s sovereignty!.. The ability to take someone else’s and see how it actually begins to work!.. And if you can’t do it yourself, you take it and watch… And this, in fact, is the only salvation for countries that cannot do it themselves!.. And your sovereignty is reduced from the level that I must do this, and I must do it safely, to the level that I cannot do it, but I can make it happen safe… Well, or control how someone else’s becomes yours…
Nearby they were talking, of course, about artificial intelligence:
— Last year we had a massive rush for personnel, we really lack them… Look at the numbers! In 2025, 61% of companies experienced an urgent need for personnel, now 35%… What happened? Are there more people? No, there are no more… Their work is done by AI!.. And what does “highly qualified employee” mean, taking into account the development of artificial intelligence?..
You go out to catch your breath in a wide corridor and see in the human stream two robots, walking more or less confidently towards some goal, or perhaps pursuing it… And you find out, involuntarily following them, that he is Robert, and she is Matilda, and that they are going to the “Buranovsky Babushki”, who sing in the Eurasia pavilion… And you are not surprised by anything, nothing at all, but simply follow them.
– But who are they anyway? – you ask the girl who shows the robots the way.
And she shrugs:
– I don’t know!.. I just brought them!.. They are so cool!..
— Do you have access to the plenary session? – Robert asks me as we walk.
And he seems genuinely interested.
I have…
And so they enter the pavilion, and the grandmothers are happy to see them, they are already singing, something like “Trump-pump-pum, come on, everybody, we’ll dance, lie on the grass…”, the dancing begins, and the robots dance, they really dance… And let them dance…
You approach the exit, barely moving your legs, you see the stand of the Prosecutor General’s Office, which is in the same place as last year, and this is stability, and you ask the employee if people are still contacting them.
“Many people believe that the prosecutor’s office performs an exclusively punitive function…” she shrugs. “This is also true… But also a protective one!
She looks at you inquisitively: were you tortured or not?
Oh, they tortured me…
“We will help you,” she promises.
“But look,” you tell her and immediately regret it, just in case. “You’re in the most visible place here, at the entrance and exit, and yet people still pass you by…
“What are you, what are you…,” she convinces, “many people come up to take pictures, they say that we will be like a talisman for them…
“What,” you suddenly ask, not expecting this from yourself, “is it possible to write a statement to the Prosecutor General’s Office?”
“In any form!..” she says triumphantly and takes out a blank piece of paper.
And also instructions so that you don’t suddenly confuse anything.
You remember with love and tenderness the pavilions of Rosatom and Gazprom Neft, where on multi-meter walls you, like children, are shown fairy tales with a baby mammoth and a hare on skis…
And you take away the leaflets and instructions.
