I N Russia, outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg, hunting for computer service and parts is a game marked by retail incompetence and technical incompatibility, a product of last decade's models and the last regime's disregard for the wishes of the customer class. Not so in Novosibirsk. Walk into Technocity in Akademgorodok and not only will you encounter the kind of service that betrays the sales force's acquaintance with capitalist fundamentals, but you had also better hope that your own hardware is up to speed. With Bluetooth rigs jammed into their ears, the attendants will let you know that their merchandise moves so quickly that all they have is the newest of the new, about which they are highly conversant. As this sinks in, walk out the door and deposit a few rubles in the hand of a terrified pensioner whom society has cast aside. (来源：老牌的英语学习网站 http://www.EnglishCN.com)

There's a lot of that in this town, the up-to-date encased in the same old sausage skin, the ultramodern colliding with the outmoded. Developers at Broker Consulting Services design a Panasonic home-theater system in a building that once served as casing for a giant computer, in the days when mainframes were of such size. Laser Crystal Solutions, which grows crystals under a lucrative contract with a California photonics firm, operates out of a darkened warehouse. One of the top exporters in Akademgorodok, the Novosibirsk Institute of Nuclear Physics, houses an electronpositron collider that its 65-year-old director used during his school days. In a drafty hangar that was until recently inhabited by drunks and rodents, Screen Photo Electronic Instruments produces night vision devices for a San Francisco company. "It's so cold here," says Vladimir Aksyonov, the general director, wrapped in a white lab coat, "there's nothing to do but work."

Even with less than ideal facilities, Akademgorodok presents a singular picture of Russia. A sense of purpose is difficult to ignore. "What you feel out there is pride," says Intel's Chase. "That's what their history is all about."

Before the railroad came to Novosibirsk in 1893, travelers endured a ten-month journey to reach the area by horse cart from Moscow. Now, Dmitry Verkhovod interrupts a meeting to sign for an overnight package from Ozon, Russia's equivalent of Amazon.com. "Look at this," he says, tossing the package from hand to hand. "Even out here in Siberia, I can receive DVDs, books, music."

Verkhovod, deputy president of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is the man in charge of plans for Novosibirsk's one-million-square-foot business center, designed to alter the way Akademgorodok tech is turned into profit. "The history of Novosibirsk is a series of jumps like this," Verkhovod says, spreading architectural drawings across his desk.

First the rails came, the town sprouting up after engineers chose this barren spot for the Trans-Siberian Railroad to cross the Ob River. Then, during World War II, the state evacuated factories from western Russia to the safe harbor of Novosibirsk. Akademgorodok was the next major development. "This will be another jump," Verkhovod says. "Right now we don't have a way to commercialize our developments. The Novosibirsk Akademgorodok is a huge brand, and it has to be marketed."

Novosibirsk's tech center will be one of four in Russia, part of a plan President Vladimir Putin announced in Akademgorodok in 2005, on the heels of a trip to tech-savvy India. The complex will receive $100 million in state funding for infrastructure, with private firms kicking in the rest and receiving tax breaks in return.

High tech is the sort of thing the Kremlin would like to develop, understanding that natural resources can't last forever and brain resources need tapping. "We simply mustn't waste this chance," Putin declared. But Russia is still learning on the fly. The Ministry for Information Technology and Communications was established only in 2004. Deputy minister Milovantsev stresses patience. "It's not like building a house, where you put people in it and they're happy," he says. "Our goals are more distant."

Lenin once commented disapprovingly about the disposition of the Siberian peasant: wealthy, satisfied, and uninterested in revolution. But there are revolutions of grapeshot, and those that employ more subtle means. In the tech revolution, Novosibirsk has shown itself to be more than game.

"My grandfather was a fighter," Lavrentyev says, emerging from his institute, braced against a cutting wind, wearing only a sport coat. Attached to his lapel is a small pin, a cameo of his grandfather. "I think he would appreciate worldwide high-tech brands like Intel and Schlumberger here. At the same time, I think he would want business to pay for using our brains."