Russia Unveils a $2-Billion Campus on the Edge of China

By Anna Nemtsova. Russky Island, the home of Russia's newest university, is not a hospitable place. The winds from the Pacific Ocean are incessant, and temperatures can plummet to minus 49 degrees. Winters are especially bitter, lasting six or seven months.
Yet Moscow has invested billions of dollars here in hopes of attracting some of the world's brightest young people and reviving a steadily shrinking local economy in this geopolitically sensitive region on the edge of China. The government has spent $20-billion constructing a convention center, banks, shops, and housing, among other things, along with three spectacular bridges across Vladivostok's several bays.