In this video from November 2017, Alexei Navalny gives an ironic unboxing of an “innovative” phone case with a second screen made by a Rosnano subsidiary. Anatoly Chubais personally gave Alexei this non-working gadget during their debate, trying to prove the greatness of Russian technology. Using this useless plastic box as an example, Alexei vividly shows how 10 billion rubles in budget money turned into nothing, while the promised super-factory in Zelenograd remained nothing more than a pretty drawing. Released at the height of Alexei’s presidential campaign, the video became a perfect monument to Putin-era “import substitution” and the embezzlement of state funds.
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Hi, this is Navalny, and this is an unboxing video.
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We need one too—people get tons of
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subscribers from them, and I need subscribers.
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You’ve probably seen 150 videos like this, where
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famous bloggers—or really anyone—
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take all kinds of gadgets out of their boxes and
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examine them closely. So now I need
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to do the same thing, but at the same time
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somehow stand out, grab attention, and
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that’s not easy, because some people, for example,
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unbox an iPhone worth 500,000 rubles (about $5,500),
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or a laptop worth 700,000 rubles (about $7,700), or
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a phone worth $20,000. But I accept
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the challenge. I’m ready for the competition, and if I’m going
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to make my unboxing debut, then today I
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will
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unbox a gadget worth 10 billion rubles (about $110 million).
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You don’t believe me, you laugh, and you say
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there’s no such thing as a gadget like that, because
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no one would ever buy it. Sweetheart, this is Russia—
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not only do gadgets like that exist here, but
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you bought it yourself, my unbelieving
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viewer. In this little box are concentrated,
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packed together, all the super-inventions
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of Putin’s Russia. This is the cutting edge,
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the embodiment of what Vladimir Putin
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and his team have managed to achieve in the field of
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high technology.
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You know that Putin has this
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chief special man, Anatoly
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Chubais,
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who is in charge of technology, in charge
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of making sure we catch up with and surpass the West
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in the most advanced industries.
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That’s why Putin and Chubais himself created
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a structure called Rusnano,
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and over the ten years of its existence they poured
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more than 240 billion rubles of budget money
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into it. And when someone criticizes Rusnano,
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this is exactly the thing they
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show the critics, as if to say: shut up,
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look at this, and die of delight.
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Anatoly Chubais even compared this project
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to a rocket: “We believe this project is now
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sitting at the launch pad like a rocket.”
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But how did this mighty
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rocket end up in my hands, you ask? I can proudly
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declare that this amazing little box was given in Russia
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to two people: Vladimir
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Putin and me. And it was personally given to me by
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Chubais, the head of the state company
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Rusnano. It happened during a debate where I
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was trying to prove that Rusnano was a
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useless outfit. Anatoly Borisovich
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then pulled out this box and said, look,
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Alexei, and be amazed—we do know how to
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work. “This product you’ve called
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meaningless, which you
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don’t believe in at all—but that’s your right,
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to believe in it or not, just as it is my
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right to give it to you. So I’m giving it to you.”
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Time passed. I kept the precious little box,
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and now we know exactly what
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happened to this project after that moment.
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And today we will carry out Anatoly
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Borisovich’s instruction. Ready to check? Let’s
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check. So, we take the box,
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look at it, and there is an important
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explanatory label on it: “Phone case
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Popslate with a Plastic Logic display.”
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This is a Rusnano subsidiary
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into which they invested 10 billion
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rubles over four years—that is, they simply
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bought
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a stake in the British company of the same name back
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in 2010 and then dumped all that money into it.
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Why they did that is impossible
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for a normal person to understand. By that time, the company
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had already existed for ten years. It
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had been trying to produce flexible screens like these,
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but absolutely nothing
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was working out. They tried to make tablets,
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but then at some point the iPad came out and
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all of it lost its meaning.
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They tried to attach their displays to
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all sorts of things, and they even opened a factory in
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Germany, but things just weren’t
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going well. Then in 2010 they got involved
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right after the failure of their tablet launch.
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Rumor had it the company was up
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for sale, but there were no buyers. And then
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grace descended upon the British boffins (a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Russian cliché about “British scientists”)
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in the form of Chubais, with his billions from
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the Russian state budget.
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It was the largest one-time deal in
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the history of the European venture capital industry.
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Well then, let’s open it and see what
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is inside, and what exactly
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cost us—you and me—10
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billion rubles. Now cue the bright, triumphant
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music for this moment.
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I’m opening it.
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to do
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[music]
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Here’s what we see. First, there’s a big
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ceremonial “RUSNANO” inscription
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with their logo. This, in fact, is
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the very case itself. Let’s
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carefully—very carefully—
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handle a gadget that costs 10
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billion rubles.
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A case that has... well, and you can
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use the screen. On this side we
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see what looks like a standard screen, like on
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any e-reader.
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Though, to be fair, it’s pretty crooked. I can see
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with the naked eye that here there’s a kind of spot where
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the Rusnano logo—and from this side there are some
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bulging bits.
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But overall it’s a standard screen, like
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an electronic book screen.
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On this side we have an indication that
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the device works via Bluetooth.
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Let’s see what else is in this
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box. There is an instruction manual.
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It’s fairly short—just four points
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on how to start it up. But overall it’s also
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made in that typical Japanese style.
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This is a device where everything is supposed to be very...
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...simple: you just turn it on and it works. And here we have...
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...a cable. Let’s take it out right away — a regular...
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...standard Chinese cable, all super...
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Let’s pull out the little foam insert, the little foam insert...
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...and check in case there’s something else tucked away inside.
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You never know — otherwise later they’ll tell us that for 10...
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...billion rubles (about $100+ million), there was some...
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...tiny little part we failed to take out.
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No, the box is empty. That’s everything there is for 10...
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...billion rubles (about $100+ million), right in front of you. Let’s...
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...try it.
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And according to the instructions, to turn...
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...this thing on, the manual tells us that...
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...it needs to be charged. We charged it...
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...for about 40 minutes before the start, before the start...
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...of our demonstration. I’ll try turning it on.
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So, let’s see: there’s one button...
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...no other buttons, nothing else, just...
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...a thing for...
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...charging and a button. We press the button and...
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...wait 3 seconds. One, two, three. Again: one...
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...two, three.
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Nothing happened. No, apparently our device didn’t charge.
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So then let’s add to...
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...our lovely white table...
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...a disgusting gray dirty extension cord.
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All right, now we have an extension cord. We take...
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...the cable and plug it into the extension cord.
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There we go, it’s on. Let’s wait...
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...a little, and now let’s try again...
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...to do the exact same trick, in full...
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...accordance with the instructions: press, one, two...
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...three. It worked. It’s showing — well, that is...
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...something worked, and it’s showing some kind of...
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...I don’t know what these are, some sort of headlines...
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...probably, or some kind of stylization...
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...made to look like newspaper headlines, like a newspaper.
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Let’s try once more.
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One-two-three. A short press. This is like...
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...those kaleidoscopes people had as kids, I mean...
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...what’s happening now looks like...
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...you know when a broken e-reader...
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...has one image showing through another...
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...image? Right now, simultaneously...
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...we can see a smiley face, and through it a geometric pattern...
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...is showing through...
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...the one that was there before, and underneath that you can still see...
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...those same newspaper headlines.
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A short press — sorry, oh...
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...some kind of little chart has appeared...
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...apparently something like a planner page...
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...possibly. So apparently short presses...
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...demonstrate the different features...
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...that are supposed to appear, but in fact...
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...it doesn’t really demonstrate them, because...
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...you press it and one image gets layered...
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...on top of another.
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But all right, right now we’ve got...
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...something showing through again. Let’s try...
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...the next step and do something with...
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...our phone. Here’s the phone...
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...the very one...
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...an iPhone 6. We...
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...installed the app on it in advance...
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...it’s there. We tap it and launch this...
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...application. It loads and immediately asks us...
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...to enter some personal details. Well...
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...let’s enter them, put in an email. While...
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...the registration is processing, let me tell you a little...
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...about the company Plastic Logic...
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...which is marked right here on...
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...the box, and which is in fact the one that...
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...absorbed those 10 billion rubles (about $100+ million).
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This same Plastic Logic...
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...was also supposed to produce tablets like these...
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...for schoolchildren. You may remember — it was...
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...a big story. But as soon as this...
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...tablet with a screen like this was shown...
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...to gadget experts, they called it...
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...simply a stripped-down version...
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...of a failed tablet from three years earlier.
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And besides, neither teachers nor...
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...schoolchildren were really able to use it...
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...because the image was dim...
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...the textbooks weren’t properly adapted, and the...
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...tablet itself broke down more often than other...
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...similar devices. At one point, screens using...
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...this kind of technology were, by Chubais and Putin (major Russian political figures),
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...declared something that should be produced in...
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...Russia rather than imported — specifically at a new...
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...high-tech factory in Zelenograd (a technology hub near Moscow).
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Rosnano (the Russian state nanotechnology corporation) said in Zelenograd that it wanted...
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...not just a factory, but also a research...
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...and development center.
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A wonderful idea: import substitution and...
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...jobs for young specialists. And...
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...look what a beautiful factory it is. Too bad...
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...it’s only a drawing. So basically...
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...the tablets, the textbooks, and the factory for...
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...producing things like this...
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...turned out to be needed by absolutely no one. It was...
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...simply a complete failure of a project. It was...
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...ultimately shut down.
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Nothing was built, and by 2014 all...
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...the major outside investors who had...
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...financed...
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...this project had exited it, and the stakes...
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...remained only with Rosnano, which since...
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...2015 has effectively been...
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...the sole owner of the company Plastic...
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...Logic, which is listed on this box.
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One of the basic principles of all our...
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...investments — and as of today we have 87 projects —
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...is that we always...
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...officially, we don’t just always...
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...have a private partner, but a partner...
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...who is the controlling...
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...shareholder. And this is done for a reason...
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...namely so that, as a result of...
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...our involvement in any project, we can exit...
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...that project. After this little case/device...
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...failed spectacularly, showing it off...
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...became rather embarrassing, and Rosnano...
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...tried to distance itself from the project and...
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...even issued a special press...
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...release saying, essentially, that the manufacturers of the case/device...
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...did a bad job and we had nothing to do with it, but...
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Anatoly Borisovich himself is obviously not
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in agreement with the press release, because
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let me remind you, he thinks this is a rocket.
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At launch, we believe that the project is now
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right there on the launch pad, like a rocket, so
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registration just keeps going and going and going,
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it’s been continuing for a minute already, probably
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somewhere on the other end, at the British
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company Plastic Logic, they must have seen that
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someone opened the app — well, not Putin himself,
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and I can just imagine the kind of
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panic they’re in. There’s probably a big commotion there — they must be thinking our
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main sponsor has shown up, we’re waiting online.
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Anyway, we entered several different
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usernames, several different
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email addresses, several different
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passwords, and finally confirmed that
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the app simply does not work.
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It’s a dead app. It exists, you can
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download it in the App Store, but
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you can’t actually use it in practice,
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you just can’t do anything with it, with this app.
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So let’s finally just
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insert the phone and see how all of this
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works. According to the instructions on the back,
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it says that you need to remove this
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lower part here — peeling it off, the middle section comes off.
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It peels off. We take our phone with the
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installed app and insert it.
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It seems to work. We close it back up.
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Now let’s see what happened. So here
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it’s all the same as before — just some kind of set
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of incomprehensible symbols.
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[music]
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Now let’s try doing the same thing with
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the phone — we’re trying to register with
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a phone that has
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Bluetooth turned on. From this side, there’s absolutely no sign
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of any, any communication
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between the phone and the app. Here
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the same thing is happening:
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registration is endless, it just keeps going on
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and on, and basically regardless of whether
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you have this device or you don’t have this
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device, you won’t be able
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to register, and you won’t be able
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to use it, because all of this has long since
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died.
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Well, maybe there were once some
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functions where the phone connected to
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this thing, but we can see that, well, here
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nothing works. There’s just
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a screen through which you can see
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several different pictures.
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Registration here still doesn’t work.
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So, essentially, 10
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billion rubles were spent (about US$170 million at the time), and on the other
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side there is nothing — even the mobile
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app doesn’t work in this whole setup.
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Let’s take all of this apart again. When
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the gadget is disconnected from power, can it
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be brought back to a working state, can it be restored
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to any state? That is, nothing works anymore,
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neither a short press nor a long press.
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I wanted to make it display
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that nice Rosnano logo,
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but it disappeared here. So now I’m
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trying to make it
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show me that nice “Rosnano” inscription so that
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I can — ah, there it is, it worked, and now I
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can finally, with exactly this
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inscription on screen, come to the conclusions of our video.
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Because
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well, here are the conclusions. This unboxing turned out
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to be rather sad, because this
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little box
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could very well become a symbol
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of modern Putin-era Russia.
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10 billion rubles were invested in it (about US$170 million at the time),
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a whole lot of people made very good money
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off it, and it would be interesting to look at
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Anatoly Chubais’s own income during the years
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of active work on this project. From 2010
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to 2014, he earned an average of
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210 million rubles a year (roughly US$6–7 million annually at the time). We
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ended up with less than nothing here, once again.
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high
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But you and I have neither tablets for schools
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nor a factory in Zelenograd (a Russian technology hub near Moscow), nor innovative
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laboratories — only this little thing
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sitting in the storage room of the Anti-Corruption Foundation
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(Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption organization).
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Well, you know, in the innovation sector
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uncertainty is always high. It may be
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that something being developed
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won’t work out. That always happens, it’s
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inevitable. And here, guys,
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the choice is yours: if you want to keep living like this,
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keep handing over your money for this, well then
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support Putin and these kinds of his
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“high technologies.”
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If you’re sick of all this, then vote for
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me. You’ll find a link in the description of this video.
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Add your signature in support of my
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candidacy.
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If I become president, I will put an end to
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the squandering of the budget and send to trial
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everyone who stole from this, and
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I will try to recover the stolen money.
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Give this video a like,
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send the link to your friends and
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acquaintances, and subscribe to our channel.
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This is where the truth is told.