Background HistoryUniquely combing a wealth of natural resources of oil, gas, timber, peat and various minerals, production capacities in oil and gas extraction, and petrochemical industry, instrument-making and machine-engineering, as well as a high intellectual potential created and maintained by the university and academic science, the Tomsk Oblast has all the necessary prerequisites for success. Given favorable conditions, this advantageous concentration of industry, science and technology will, according to experts, lead to creation of a technopolis capable of ensuring a prosperous future to the Oblast at the threshold of the new century. It is obvious, however, that science and technology as such cannot be problem-free. The growth costs add to already existing negative factors which determine the state of economy and social infrastructure of the whole country. Account is to be made of the following features: many of natural resources are scattered over huge areas with scarce population and poor transportation; instrument-making and machine-engineering enterprises have been defence-oriented and utterly relied on guaranteed supplies, therefore, many of these appear to be unprepared for manufacturing of competitive consumer goods; the Oblast is located in a geographical zone of risky farming and has to import a considerable portion of farm produce; scientific developments and engineering designs were, in their majority, carried out to orders of the relevant ministries and were, therefore, loosely, if at all, related to the needs of the Oblast.
Modification of the centralized system of management of science makes it possible to formulate efficient scientific and technical policy of the Oblast, while availability of temporarily unused production capacities provides for a quicker switch-over to new technologies. Anyhow, the natural, productive and intellectual resources of the Oblast will ensure its successful adaptation to the demands of the market economy, even though the mere entering the market is rather painful.
The Kossaks chose to build the fortress, called Tomskoi ostrog, on the river bank rising above the Tom on the spur of the mountain, yet to be called Voskresenskaya (of the Resurrection) which was steep on the one side and protected by swampy bogs in the east and by a small river - Ushaika - in the south. In the north, the most dangerous direction, the Cossacks erected a fortress wall made of tall pillars sharpened on the top.
The new settlement was made on the lands of the Eushtin Tatar prince Toyan who took out Russian citizenship and promised to help the tsar Boris strengthen the Russian power in Siberia. The Tomsk fortress, according to historians, repeatedly pushed away the raids of the Kirgizs and other militant steppe nomads.
From the latter half of the 17th century, after the towns of Yeniseysk and Krasnoyarsk had been founded, the military-strategic influence of Tomsk tended to wane. Tomsk became a peaceful town and at different times was included in the Yeniseyskaya Province and the Tobolskaya Gubernia.
In 1804, when Tomsk became an administrative center of the Gubernia, a new leaf in its history was turned. The Tomsk Gubernia occupied a huge area, including the present Altai Territory, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, East-Kazakhstan and Tomsk Oblasts and part of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Growth of the town was especially booming in the 30s of the 19th century when gold was found and its intensive mining started in the Tomsk and Yeniseysk Gubernias.
Notwithstanding the fast economic development, an increase in the population was virtually due to exiles - counting out 30 thousand men and over 7 thousand women. Every fifth resident of Tomsk and its neighborhood was an exile.
The most outstanding personality among the Tomsk political exiles of the time was G.S.Batenkov. He was born in the town of Tobolsk. In the war of 1912 he showed uncommon valor and eventually became a lieutenant-colonel. In Petersburg Gavriil Batenkov joined the "Northern Society" of Decembrists. After the arrest and imprisonment in the Petropavlovskaya Fortress he was exiled to Tomsk and lived there for 10 years.
In 1880 the foundation of the Siberian University was laid. The architectural design of the main building was done by the Moscow architect academician A.K.Brunee. The accumulation of the University Library was started even earlier. Count A.G.Stroganoff, a descendant of an old dynasty of Russian industrialists, granted a handsome collection of books to the future University.
Eight years later, in 1888, Emperor Alexander III "by his sovereign will" opened the Tomsk University, the first in Siberia. In its early history the University had only the department of medicine which enrolled 72 undergraduates and 2 freelance students. A great contribution to establishing the University was made by the outstanding Russian scholar V.M.Florinsky. The year 1900 saw the opening of the first Technological Institute in the Asian part of Russia (now the Polytechnical University). And years later the Pedagogical, Medical and Civil Engineering Institutes were founded.
Early in the 19th century Tomsk ranked first in Siberia
in the number of educational establishments. The cultural life
of the town was boisterous. Four newspapers were published.
A brick building of the theater was erected. In the encyclopedia
of F.Brockhaus and I.Efron mention was made of the fact
that Tomsk had gone ahead of all other Siberian towns as
a cultural, commercial and industrial center.
Tomsk supplied cereals, fish, salt, wine, fat, copper, wax and leather to the neighbor gubernias. Cedar-pine nuts and furs were supplied to the western part of Russia and went for export. The Tomsk Gubernia was the main producer of butter, contributing 60% of the butter exports of Russia. The Siberian butter was quite competitive with the best brands of high-quality Danish and Dutch butter.
In the 90s of the 19th century the Siberian railroad was built. It ran to the south of Tomsk, bypassing woodland and swampy terrain. A branch line connected Tomsk with the main road in 1896. That seemingly minor event turned out to be of great importance for the development of the settlement of Novo-Nikolaevsk (now known as Novosibirsk) which became the main railway junction in the Tomsk Gubernia. Being away from the main road, Tomsk came to yield to other Siberian towns in the pace of economic development.
After the revolution of 1917 Tomsk became part of the Siberian Territory and later of the West-Siberian Territory. In 1937 Tomsk and its nearby neighbors became part of the Novosibirsk Oblast. Historians are agreed that Tomsk lost ample opportunities for cultural and economic growth due to its status of a subordinate town in the pre-war period.
As far back as 1932 Ilya Erenburg wrote that the lot of different towns could be readily judged by railroad stations: it was suffice
to see what kind of bread the local people ate. In Tomsk it was brown, soggy and heavy: the five-year-plan did not have any effect on the town, and it was dying. However, the famous writer further added that Tomsk could have died but for the University.
Shortly before the Great Patriotic war Tomsk won fame as a town of science and schools of higher learning, where every twelfth resident was a student.
Within the first year of the war 30 enterprises were evacuated to Tomsk. They laid the foundation for the industrial growth of the city. By the end of the war the industrial output was trebled. New branches of industry, such as electrical engineering, optomechanics and rubber engineering, were developed and machine building and metalworking as well as light and food industries expanded.
In August, 1944 an order was issued which decreed the formation of the Tomsk Oblast, since by that time Tomsk had regained its status of a big economic and administrative center in Siberia.
The post-war development of the Tomsk Oblast is in many ways connected with exploration and commercial development of oil and gas deposits. The first commercial oil influx occurred in the August of 1962 at the Sosninskoye oil field near the settlement of Alexandrovskoye. In 1966 the Oil Field Management Agency TOMSKNEFT was established. In succeeding years the Alexandrovskoye-Anzhero-Sudzhensk oil pipeline and the Nizhnevartovsk-Parabel-Kuzbass cross-country gas line were built and bridges across the rivers Ob and Tom were constructed.
The total area of the agricultural land is rather small, about 1.3000000 ha. In much of the territory there are forests, bogs, rivers and lakes. The largest rivers are the Ob, the Tom, the Chulym, the Chaya, the Ket, the Vasyugan and the Tym. The entire river system belongs to the basin of the Ob river which flows about 1000 km across the Oblast from south-east to north-west. The number of lakes, especially numerous in the river flood lands, reaches 95000. The water table of the largest lake in the Tomsk Oblast, the Mirny, lying amongst the marshes of the flatlands between the rivers Chusik and Chizhapka is 18 km2.
The working force of the Oblast counts 608,000 people, where 443,700 people have jobs (73%), 58,000 are students (9.5%) and 106,400 (17.5%) are people of the working age who are not engaged in the economy.
The average annual number of workers in the national economy in 1994 was 412,900 people.Experts forecast that the number of people involved in material production will gradually decrease by the year 2000, while the number of workers employed in education, culture and science, i.e. in the non-productive sector, will increase. The number of those employed in cooperatives and private farms will grow by more than 20%.
The current trends show that up to 14.000-18.000 workers will loose their jobs every year. As of January 1, 1995 the unemployed numbered 12.3,000 people. It will take a great deal of effort to provide additional labor opportunities.
As of January 1, 1995, explored and blocked out, prospected, extrapolated and inferred reserves accounted for nearly 480 million tons of oil and about 262 billion cu.m of gas. Experts predict further increase of reserves of raw hydrocarbons. The Tomsk Oblast numbers 98 hydrocarbon deposits, including 78 oil and 12 gas and gas-condensate fields. Those are mainly low-grade deposits. Nearly 45% of oil is concentrated in the Sovetskoye, Pervomayskoye, Luginetskoye and Igolsko-Talovskoye fields. Approximately seven million tons of oil and 135 million cu.m of associated gas were produced in 1994. A major part of the gas was flared.
ZIRCON-ILMENITE. The Tugan zircon-ilmenite deposit, 30 km off Tomsk, is considered to be most promising from a commercial point of view with its rich natural metallic mineral deposits. It has been included in the list of the Federal development projects within the framework of the Russian Metallurgy Program. A unique feature of the local zircon-ilmenite sands is a high content of scandium, tantalum, hafnium and rare earths, including lanthanum, cerium, samarium, neodymium, ytterbium, etc. Plans have been designed to launch commercial development of the Tuganskoye deposit and construct a mining and concentrating plant. The Tomsk Oblast is rich in iron ore available in 4 fields in Bakchar, Kolpashevo, Parabel - Chuzic and Parbyg deposits. These reserves have not been sufficiently explored as yet.
UNDERGROUND WATERS. Large reservoirs of artesian drinkable water, thermal and balneal waters (containing radon,
bromide, iodine and hydrogen sulphide) as well as unique
medicinal muds have been found in the Oblast. Of special
significance are the Chazhemto mineral springs. Suitable for commercial exploitation are reservoirs of mineral water in the Kolpashevo, Verkhneketsky, Teguldetsky and Parabel regions and near the town of Strezhevoy.
PEAT. Geological reserves of peat of 40% moisture content are estimated at 31 billion tons. The Tomsk Oblast ranks second in peat moors. These reserves have not been utilized extensively. Many opportunities are in sight, however, for a significant increase of peat extraction and manufacturing of nutrient yeast, peat bricks, growth stimulators and such. Peat resources have been explored by the Siberian Research Institute of Peat of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences (the only institution of its kind in the Asian part of Russia). Found in the Oblast are also considerable non-metallic mineral resources, such as raw clays for production of bricks and expanded clay aggregates, sandstone grid, lime-stones and brown coals.
WOOD. Woodlands cover about 57% of the territory
of the Tomsk Oblast. The total area of the forest stock
constitutes over 19.5 milion ha.
A major part is made up of commercial forests, with the estimated stock of technically exploitable and overmature forests being 1.8 billion cu.m.
Coniferous species, such as pine, Siberian cedar pine, spruce and silver fir, appear to prevail. The forests of high industrial potential are located in the basins of the Ket and Chulym rivers and also in the Alexandrovsky region. Availability of the forest stock makes it possible to maintain wood-working, wood-pulp and paper, wood-chemical and furniture industries. Only one third of an annual estimated felling area of 34.3 million cu.m is presently utilized.
VEGETAL RESOURCES.Among the main kinds of vegetal resources found in the Oblast are cedar-pine nuts and oil, soft resin, mushrooms, as well as medicinal raw materials: birch leaf buds, nettle leaves, mountain cowberry leaves, coltsfoot leaves, ashberries, birdcherries, hips and milfoil.
Until recently wild growing vegetal raw materials have been mainly stored up by the Consumers Union, the Forestry Management Agency, the Tomsk Oblast Forestry Administration and the Board of Pharmacy. Reorganization of the work of these Agencies and changes in the mode of ownership has made it difficult to collect information. Therefore, the figures provide only approximate data on stocking of wild medicinal and vegetal food resources.
MARKETABLE GAME AND FISH.Although these resources, according to experts, are quite huge, they become scantier with each year. The total list of marketable hunting animals and bird-game consists of 24 species of mammals and over 30 species of birds. The data collected by the Hunting Industry Department show that the number of squirrels, white hairs, beavers and reindeers has drastically decreased. The sable population has reduced by 50% within 5 years. The river Ob and its bottom land flood basins are of major importance for fish industry. The upper reaches of the river within the Oblast and some of the its tributaries are spawning grounds for fluvial andromous fish like sturgeon, white salmon, muksun (white fish) and pelyad (freshwater fish of the salmon species).
The development of the local chemical and petrochemical industries has primarily been related to operations of the Siberian integrated chemical works and the joint-stock company Tomsk Integrated Petrochemical Plant.
SIBERIAN INTEGRATED CHEMICAL WORKS are a leading plant of the Russian atomic power engineering. It was put into operation in 1953 when the first phase of the chemical separation project was implemented and enriched uranium produced. In 1955 the first nuclear reactor I-1 (Ivan 1) was started. Then the second reactor was launched in 1958 followed by the third one in 1961. The operation of the Siberian atomic power plant, (the first one in the USSR) was based on those reactors. In 1961-1965 the second nuclear power plant was launched. Its output was twice as high as that of the first plant. This nuclear reactor still produces thermal and electric energy for Tomsk and Seversk.
As years went by, sublimation, radiochemical and chemical- metallurgical plants were added to the chemical separation plant. In 1967 the whole of the complex received the official name SIBERIAN INTEGRATED CHEMICAL WORKS (SICW).
Assembled at SICW are most talented scientists, engineers and workers. For many years SICW has been training specialists for the whole of the Russian nuclear power engineering. SICW has built up unique expertise in processing fissible materials and in operating nuclear power reactors and installations. Developed here within a conversion program are ingenious production processes for ultrafine metal oxide powder (copper, iron, cesium and magnesium). Encouraging results have been obtained from research into piezoceramics and energetic magnets that will be used in medicine as well as in home and industrial electronics.
The joint-stock company TOMSK INTEGRATED PETROCHEMICAL PLANT (TIPP) is a unique industrial enterprise in the territory of the Tomsk Oblast.
It comprises polypropylene, methanol, formalin, urea resins, ethylene, low-density propylene and polyethylene plants. TIPP is being developed further. Benzene, nitrogen-oxygen and other plants are under construction now.
The public joint-stock company TOMSKNEFT is the biggest firm in the Tomsk Oblast. It incorporates oil and gas production, civil and industrial engineering operations, transport and communication agencies, logistics, social infrastructure and other functions. The maximum oil production from the TOMSKNEFT fields was 14.9 million tons extracted in 1989. The oilmen initiated the formation of the Eastern Oil Company co-founded by Tomskneftegasgeologiya, TIPP, Achinsk refinery and other companies. The Eastern Oil Company is to speed up the development of gas and gas condensate fields in the Tomsk Oblast.
The Eastern Oil Company, the Russian joint-stock company GASPROM and TOMSKNEFT, in turn, co-founded
the company TOMSKGAS in 1995. The latter embarked
on a development program for the gas industry of the Tomsk Oblast. This project is of great importance for the whole
of West Siberia as it will help meet the demand for gas
in this region, improve the environmental situation and bring the output of TIPP to the design mark. The target gas
production is planned to be up to 5-6 billion cu.m. a year. The first stage of the development program includes Luginetskoye, Myl’dginskoye and Kazanskoye fields where most of the explored reserves are located.
POWER GENERATION is of particular importance for the Tomsk Oblast. A large share of electric energy comes from other regions. Because of high prices for the electric energy brought in this area a number of local industrial plants fail to meet the competition. There is an acute shortage of thermal power. To solve this problem new heat and energy sources are to be put into operation (for example, at the thermoelectric plant TETS-3) and energy-saving programs realized in the immediate future.
FOREST and WOODWORKING INDUSTRIES rank among the key industries of the Tomsk Oblast. The major logging operations are conducted in northern regions. Large woodworking plants are clustered in Tomsk, Asino, Kolpashevo, Belyy Yar and Kargasok.
In recent years lumbering operations have been reduced by a factor of 2.5. The recession in the forest and woodworking business has to a large extent been caused by imperfect public tax and credit policy, high cargo tariffs and transportation costs and lack of readiness in a number of plants to work under new economic conditions. The Tomsk Oblast Timber - Merchant Association formed in 1995 is to consolidate efforts of local forest industry companies. In addition, a department of the forest industry complex has been established at the Tomsk Oblast Administration for this purpose.
MACHINE BUILDING is represented by 31 companies specializing in different types of electric motors, cables, wires, electric bulbs, manometers and pressure gauges, bearings, metal-cutting tools, medical instrumentation and other products.
Certain of the companies form part of the federal military-industrial complex. Starting in 1991 these companies have been carrying out conversion programs. More than 100 new civilian products have been launched, including fuel-, energy- and water-saving devices, electric motors, TV-sets, medical facilities and such. According to expert opinion, the military-industrial companies have gone through a stage where conversion can be effected by exploiting their own financial resources. Further realization of conversion programs calls for governmental financing and crediting on easy terms.
Factory farms employ about 11% of the total labor force in the Tomsk Oblast. Recent reforms have resulted in redistribution of land, development of new agricultural business management techniques and wholesale market.
As of January 1, 1995 there were 161 farming businesses, among them 114 joint-stock companies and partnerships, 19 cooperatives, 3 farm associations, 25 collective and state farms and 2.260 private farms. Within the span of four years (1991-1994) the percentage of land in small-holdings, orchards and collective kitchen-gardens has increased by 35, 100 and 40%, respectively. A stock of 373.7 kha, including 73.3 kha of arable land, has been made available for land redistribution.
As yet, the structural changes have not brought about any substantial improvements in the agricultural production. The gross output in terms of comparable prices has reduced by 16% in 1994 as against 1991, while in the public sector it was cut down by 35%. In small-holdings, however, including private farms, the gross output has increased by 16.2% and its specific weight in the total output has increased from 36% (1991) to 50.1% (1994).
13 Tomsk-based insurance companies and 19 subsidiaries of Russian insurance companies are active in the market. The limited partnerships Stoik-Med and Medica-Tomsk, the close joint-stock companies Doveriye and Tomestr accounted for the highest volume of premiums (together with mandatory insurance fees) in the first quarter of 1995. A major part of the premiums for different kinds of voluntary insurance was paid to the public joint-stock companies RosGosstrakh-Tomsk and close joint-stock company Bart.
In 1993 Governor of the Tomsk Oblast decreed that
a coordination committee be set up for small and medium
business development and support. The prime objectives
of the committee are identification of top-priority business areas and products for small and medium-scale enterprises, assistance in involvement of wide sections of the population
in entrepreneurial work and attraction of budgetary,
private, foreign and other funds to support small
and medium businesses.
The coordination committee bases its credit policy
on the following principles:
• competitive selection of economically sound projects
• tied crediting
• credit repayment in due time as a prerequisite lending condition
• a close relation between credit conditions
(e.g. the loan rate, term of repayment, penalties)
and the output or services to be performed, etc.
Preference is given to industrial and high-tech projects and farm produce processing enterprises. Further information on credit terms and conditions for small and medium-scale enterprises is available at the Marketing Department of the Tomsk Oblast Administration (3822) 225 261.
A number of small business support programs are being implemented in the Tomsk Oblast by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
The railroads are only 345 km in effective length. The main trunk railway is Belyy Yar—Tomsk—Taiga. The total length of navigable inland waterways is about 5.000 km along the Ob river and its tributaries.
Hard-surface motor roads connect Tomsk with 50% of district centers. Many of remote settlements in the Tomsk Oblast can be reached only by air. This generates a need for further development of highway engineering and road building, construction of new runways and modernization of river ports and landing piers.
Tomsk holds the lead in Russia in the number of distinguished scholars. 47 scientific institutions are engaged in research work, with 11 being part of the universities. Among these are Siberian Physicotechnical Institute, Applied Mathematics and Mechanics Institute, and Biology and Biophysics Institute associated with Tomsk State University, High Voltage Institute and Introscopy Institute affiliated with Polytechnical University, and Automation and Electromechanics Institute at Academy of Automated Control Systems and Radio Electronics.
The Tomsk Scientific Center of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences comprises 9 research, design and engineering institutes, among which are Institute of Atmospheric Optics, Institute of Petroleum Chemistry, High Current Electronics Institute, Institute of Strength Physics and Materials Science, Institute of Ecology of Natural Complexes and others.
The major research areas of particular interest to our scientists are theoretical and experimental physics, high-energy physics, plasma physics, computer-aided design of advanced materials and processes, mesomechanics, environmental monitoring, biotechnology, cybernetics, self-propagating high-temperature synthesis, structural macrokinetics, smart materials, precision instrument engineering, nondestructive testing, to name only a few. Ingenious work of our scientists pertaining to the humanities (philosophy, law, philology, history, ethnography and linguistics) has won universal recognition.
Good progress is being made by the Tomsk Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. It comprises 5 research institutes dealing with cardiological, oncological, pharmacological, and genetic problems as well as those related to mental health, balneology and physiotherapy.
A lot of credit must go to scholars of world renown who laid the groundwork for the development of new schools of thought in different branches of science. Among those famous people who added a glorious page to the history of Tomsk are the geologists Z.A.Obruchev and M.A.Usov, the mathematician I.M. Vinogradov, the chemical physicist N.N. Semyonov, the doctors N.N.Burdenko, A.G.Savinykh, N.V.Vershinin, D.D.Yablokov and S.P.Karpov, the physicists V.D.Kuznetsov and A.A.Vorobjev. Space considerations make it impossible to list the many individuals who lived in Tomsk and made outstanding contributions to science.
A scientific and educational program of the Tomsk Oblast incorporates 636 projects in 18 branches of science and engineering, including 90 advanced developments in new medical preparations, equipment, procedures and techniques, 73 resource - saving inventions, 57 ingenious designs of control instrumentation and diagnostic devices for radio and power engineering and information technology,50 novel products, preparations and processes for petroleum chemistry and oil and gas production,38 developments for improving fertility of soil, increasing crop yield and processing farm produce,over 60 advanced processes for woodworking industry, wood waste reclamation and economic energy consumption, and new types of heating appliances and communication facilities, about 100 ecological innovations, including efficient nature management technologies, environmental pollution monitoring and decontamination, about 80 rationalization proposals pertaining to computer software support of educational establishments, new specialities and specializations, educational services, etc.
There is a unique material and technical foundation
for conducting research and training scientific personnel. Students of science have at their disposal a set
of radiation-emitting machines operating in a wide range
of powers, a nuclear training and research reactor
(the only one to the east of the Urals), cyclotrons, microtrons, high-current ion and electron accelerators, advanced
cryogenic facilities and such.
The Siberian Botanical Gardens are the oldest park in the Asian part of Russia. Its collection numbers more than 5,5 000 plant species. Dozens of local science and training museums (paleontological, archeology and ethnography, mineralogical, anatomical, forensic medicine, etc.) hold much favor.
Of particular value for the scientific and educational community of Tomsk is the research library of Tomsk State University. There are 4 million books there, among which are hosts of unique collected works and incunabula.
Findings and developments of our scientists have aroused considerable interest on the world market of high-tech products. They were represented at a Russian - American workshop in Washington in Marth, 1993 and CEETEX-94 in London. Innovative and entrepreneurial efforts of our scientists are supported by the regional SibinFund and by the TACIS program.
The Tomsk Technopark was among the first to be established in Russia. Its operations are very effective in encouraging and promoting small and high-tech businesses and in marketing scientific and engineering products.
The major articles of export were oil and methanol. Specific weights of export products were as follows: oil - 62.1%, methanol - 30.2%, machinery and equipment - 4.8%, merchantable wood and timber - 0.6%.
The import goods structure is characterized by a greater diversity. It is represented by several family groups of goods, such as engineering products (industrial equipment, machines and facilities, cars, trucks and spare parts, medical instrumentation, etc.), ferrous and nonferrous metals, and foodstuffs.
The major exporters are TOMSKNEFT’, TOMSK INTEGRATED PETROCHEMICAL WORKS, RolTom (a ball-bearing plant), TOMSK INSTRUMENT (a cutting-tool plant), SIBCABLE, SIBELECTROMOTOR, Tomsk Electric Bulb Plant, Siberian Integrated Chemical Works, and TOMSKINTERSERVICE (an international economic association). The major products are largely brought from Europe. Currently trade links with China, Vietnam and Australia have been rapidly developed, however.
In 1995 a representative office of a Chinese overseas business and trade company based in Harbin was established. The Tomsk Oblast was presented at the VI-th All-China Fair.
There are about 160 joint-venture companies with foreign partners. The business ventures employ 2.6000 workers who are primarily involved in oil production, logging and woodworking operations, civil engineering work, food production, and international economic activities. Two mixed companies, Vasyugan-Fracmaster Services and Vakh-Fracmaster Services account for the highest sales of oil.
1. Construction of a mining and concentrating plant
to produce ilmenite, zirconium and leucoxene concentrates and quartz sand
In closing we may use our imagination and make
a generalized portrait of the Tomsk Oblast early
in the 21st century. We have every reason to envisage that it has got the better of "insular thinking" and enjoys
integration into the world economy and culture.
That is why transport and other communications will make rapid strides. The major focus will be on processing
and high-tech businesses and value-added products rather than a mere production of raw materials.
The Tomsk Oblast will vastly improve its energy base, which will help industrial companies to manufacture
competitive products.The educational and scientific complex will be oriented to the export of technologies and services. We will see the development of leasing companies and business incubators closely related to small and medium-scale enterprises. The number of inter-regional ecological programs covering the investigations of scientists of Tomsk will be increased.
Our everyday practice justifies this prognosis. Even though we have to struggle through numerous problems and hardships, welcome changes do occur. The improvements may not be readily noticeable but it does not make them less important. A new market economy comes into being which is undoubtedly more reasonable and effective.
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