In new Russia Expo, a look at what Putin wants his country to be

With the onset of the holiday week between New Year’s Day and Orthodox Christmas, Russians have been thronging the halls of the new Russia Expo, a collection of 130 colorful, innovative, and surprisingly upbeat exhibits spread over nearly 600 acres of exhibition grounds. 

More than 4 million visitors have passed through the exhibits representing every Russian region, plus four occupied Ukrainian territories and Crimea, that make up the new Russia Expo, which runs from November to April.

That timetable also happens to coincide with the upcoming Russian presidential election campaign – with voting to be held on March 17 – in which incumbent Vladimir Putin is considered the top contender. After his first visit to the exhibition in early December, Mr. Putin seemed so pleased that he told a group of foreign ambassadors that they should also visit so that “you can see with clear examples how Russia is developing, how it lives.”

Some analysts suggest that the show is the very embodiment of Mr. Putin’s electoral program, aiming to knit Russia’s past and present into a single continuum of great achievements, with the emphasis on building a bright, unified, and prosperous future.

“The central image on display at the exhibition is the success of Putin-era Russia. You see it reflected in every exhibit, in a multiplicity of ways,” says Alexei Mukhin, director of the Center for Political Information, an independent think tank. “The unspoken message of holding this big show at such a time is to demonstrate that Russia can wage war and deliver domestic prosperity at the same time. Outwardly, this exhibition is a clear projection of Putin’s vision for Russia’s future, and he is positioned as the person who changed Russia and makes that future possible.”

A distorting mirror

The expo is being held on the sprawling grounds of the former Soviet Exhibition of Economic Achievements (known by its Russian acronym, VDNKh), which features vast green spaces and about 400 buildings, including many ornate Josef Stalin-era constructions that were built to highlight the former USSR’s achievements, including space, atomic energy, industry, and arts.

The original Soviet exhibition was established in the 1930s to convince the population that the hard times of revolution, civil war, and famine were over and a bright communist future beckoned. After World War II, it was repurposed and expanded to showcase Soviet achievements in science, industry, and technology. It was modeled on the concept of a world’s fair, but one that would encapsulate the globally isolated Soviet Union, with its 15 diverse republics supposedly united by socialist ideology and scientific dynamism. Following the collapse of the USSR, the vast grounds fell into disrepair, and many of the pavilions were used by commercial companies to warehouse and market a bewildering array of goods.

At every point, the VDNKh exhibitions served as an invitation to the population to come and embrace the state’s vision of itself, says Pavel Nefedov, curator of the museum.

“This place has always been supported by the state, and it owes its continued existence to that,” he says. “In its original conception, it represented Utopia built on a limited territory. For the visitors, visiting the exhibition was a kind of symbolic reward. It was always a mirror held up to the country, but not one that reflected things as they were, but as the state thought they should be.”

Even in the 1990s, when a veritable bazaar sprang up on VDNKh’s ruins, “it reflected the dominant idea of the time, a commercial marketplace. The communist symbols became vending platforms,” Mr. Nefedov says.

In recent years, the Russian government has spent considerable sums renovating the territory and kept it open for people to roam the grounds. But until the Russia Expo was announced, the place seemed without purpose.

Broadening the outlook?

The present exhibition looks very much like a Putin-era reincarnation of its Soviet predecessor, with entries from 84 regions of Russia, plus five annexed Ukrainian regions, and pavilions for several major state corporations. It exudes a more festive atmosphere than the old Soviet fair did, with updated presentations that include holograms, robots, interactive displays, and a parade of associated events such as daily lectures, seminars, and forums on a wide variety of (mostly nonpolitical) topics.

It’s not clear how much the Kremlin has spent to stage this show, but figures mentioned in the Russian media suggest it’s at least $60 million.

It has attracted huge crowds in its first several weeks, including large organized tours of schoolchildren. Nadya Titova, a journalist’s field assistant, says the fair appeals as a travel substitute.

“Now that our borders are closed, people have less opportunity to travel abroad, so they are turning inward, wanting to see more of Russia,” she says. “An exhibition like this broadens the outlook, and maybe gives an idea of how many interesting Russian tourist destinations are still accessible.”

The regional displays include attractions such as watching a simulated volcanic eruption in the Pacific territory of Kamchatka, taking tea in a Buryatian yurt, virtual river rafting in Krasnoyarsk, and listening to a robot explain the history of Birobidzhan, a Jewish autonomous region near the Chinese border where Yiddish is an official language.

The Crimea pavilion features a giant replica of the 12-mile-long Kerch Bridge – which has been the target of Ukrainian attacks – and an array of special effects designed to create the audiovisual, tactile, and even olfactory atmosphere of that annexed Ukrainian region, which hopes to become Russia’s premier tourist destination once the war ends.

The continuing war is a mostly silent subtext at the exhibits of the four Ukrainian regions that Mr. Putin declared officially annexed by Russia just over a year ago. The Donetsk pavilion features a “coal mountain” with a “time tunnel” that shows the region’s progression from czarist times, through Soviet-era industrialization, to its “trial by fire” as a separatist region at war with Ukraine and its projected bright future as a province of Russia. The half-occupied Ukrainian region of Kherson features its agricultural potential and nature reserves, which – left unmentioned – are not presently safe to visit.

“Not a coincidence”

Andrei Kolesnikov, a Carnegie fellow who continues to live and work in Russia, says the exhibition is an old Soviet form that’s been reinvented, modernized, and put to work to project Mr. Putin’s current vision of where Russia is headed.

“It’s not a coincidence that VDNKh was chosen for this purpose,” he says. “The grounds are filled with traditional symbols of Russian empire and achievement. The current message is that ‘everything is OK; these are peaceful times. Putin can wage war in Ukraine, and develop Russia as well. We don’t need the West; we can do it ourselves.’”

The Putin-era social contract, in which people pursue their private lives but stay out of politics, has been slightly amended, he says. “Now you don’t need to go to the trenches, but in return you must demonstrate your patriotism. Vote for Putin. Pay for a quiet life. Accept the new balance between war and normality.”

Yaroslav Listov, a Communist Party deputy of the Duma, offers a more prosaic complaint.

“To what extent do these displays correspond to real achievements?” he says. “It’s apparently costing a lot. Wouldn’t it be better to spend this money actually improving peoples’ lives than on expensive demonstrations of how life is supposedly being improved?”