Russia’s Silicon Valley

The business of innovation figures in the Geo Quiz: We’re looking for the site of what Russia hopes will be a major technology center.

This proposed $6 billion technology park is modeled on Silicon Valley in Northern California.

Construction is slated to start this year. The plan is for the site to host Russian technology companies like Yandex, which is kind of a Russian version of Google as well as companies like Cisco and Nokia.

The Kremlin would like to see 15,000 scientists and entrepreneurs working there by 2015.

The site isn’t far from the Kremlin: just head down the Novy Arbat, cross the Moskva River and drive about 15 miles out of the city.

Can you name the Russian village that’s lending its land and its name to the technology project?

The answer is the Russian village of Skolkovo, just outside Moscow.

It’s where Russia’s engineers and designers envision a new Russian Silicon Valley, a technological business hub that might someday resemble northern California’s Silicon Valley. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Chrystia Freeland who writes about this ambitious Russian technology initiative in this month’s Atlantic magazine.