Transoceanic ekranoplan – Newspaper Kommersant No. 214 (7415) dated 11/18/2022

Even at the beginning of hostilities in Ukraine, on the first wave of Russians fleeing abroad, officials at various levels tried to convince the departed IT specialists that it was time to return. But the “reverse relocation” program, as the head of the Ministry of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev called it, never appeared (unlike, by the way, the programs of neighboring countries to attract the same specialists), and the mobilization turned the trickle of emigrants into a powerful stream.

As a result, companies, for which the personnel problem is becoming more and more critical, began to take the initiative into their own hands, sometimes in a very unusual way. Thus, SEZ “Alabuga” reported that it placed the slogan “It’s time to go home” on one of the screens in Times Square in New York. The unexpected move led to dozens of publications, first in the media of Tatarstan, and then in federal publications. But with all the excitement in the Russian Federation in New York, the Alabuga advertisement most likely went unnoticed. The only English-language site that noted its existence was a certain Russia Free Press, which published a translation of a post from the Mash Telegram channel.

In essence, the gesture of the SEZ, however, differs little from the statement of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, who back in April turned to IT specialists with the words that Russia “has done all the work opportunities for you.” The difference is that “Alabuga” had to pay for the placement of its message in the United States. Since the beginning of the year, the SEZ has concluded 39 contracts for advertising services for 145.3 million rubles, according to the public procurement portal. The description of three of them mentions the production of “propaganda or promotional films and videos”.

It is impossible to understand from open data exactly how much Alabuga spent on placing the video in Times Square. But an advertiser who is interested in the very fact of placement in this location, for all its iconicness, can not spend a fortune. In April, for example, American author and podcast host David Cadavy wrote in a Medium blog post that, as an experiment, he placed a $250 advertisement for his book in Times Square at a bid of $31 per 15-second video. It is noteworthy that the United States, despite the intensity of the sanctions struggle, has not banned the provision of advertising services to Russian individuals. The UK announced such a ban in September, but it has not yet been introduced.

Whether it’s in the hundreds or hundreds of thousands of dollars, these are the funds that companies are already willing to invest in returning employees as the authorities try to formulate “reverse relocation” initiatives. But calls for citizens to return may not be enough: even not so much material guarantees as guarantees of security will be required. And the official announcement of the “completion of mobilization” with an incomprehensible legal status is clearly not enough for this.