"I think it’s safe to say that our delegation members are bullish on Russia and they see great opportunities down the road. You’ve got a very stable and popular government, great natural resources, you’ve got a highly educated workforce… There’s a great interest in coming to Moscow," Kupka, who is also an YPO member, said.
The event organizer added that the interest to coming to Moscow was really great and YPO members are eager to understand how the Russian government works and get acquainted with the inside politics and the country's public policy.
How it became possible
"The genesis of this program started about 13 years ago, when an old roommate of mine, we both worked in the White House and we found out that we are both YPO members, we decided we wanted to do a program inside Washington, D.C. called ‘Inside Washington,'" Kupka said.
According to his words, the officials in Washington embraced the idea of providing business people from around the world with the chance to have a closer look at the US public policy and to get access to the US decision makers up to the level of the president. The program in Washington became annual.
"Three years ago there was such an interest inside the program that maybe we should look at other cities. And we started ‘Inside Westminster.' That was so successful that we were thinking what is the next logical world capital, so we came with ‘Inside the Kremlin.’ That’s the genesis," Kupka said, answering a question how the Moscow visit became a reality.
Kupka noted that a dialogue with Moscow officials was initiated with the help of Russian Ambassador in Washington Sergey Kislyak.
"Ambassador Kislyak, once he understood what YPO was, the power of YPO, and how successful the ‘Inside the Washington’ and ‘Inside the Westminster’ programs have been, he fully embraced the concept of 'Inside the Kremlin.' Without his support and him reaching out to the officials in Moscow we couldn’t have put up this program," Steven Kupka explained.
Investments, currency and sanctions
According to Steven Kupka, neither the sanctions regime imposed by the West on Russia over the Ukrainian crisis nor currency fluctuations are of great importance for companies looking for long-term investments.
"Currency cycles come and go, big corporations don’t worry about that, they look at the long-term view of the world, not short-term currency fluctuations… People view sanctions as a short-term issue. Russia has been a great friend to the West for a long time and they will continue to be," Kupka said.
The current business delegation to Moscow consists of 46 delegates representing various business sectors — from tourism to IT. According to Kupka, the businesses are as diverse as the countries the delegates come from.
"A lot of people in the world do not understand how Moscow developed into a world-class city and the opportunities here are immense… We have seen how Moscow has transformed and we would hope that our members would see that Moscow is a world-class city as well," the organizer said.
Kupka added that Russia should be viewed as an investment to be "highly appreciable" in the next few years and that people who invest in Russia in the meantime will be "very pleased" with those investments in future.
Asked to formulate the main goal of the business visit, Kupka paid particular attention to making friendships and building trust.
"I would say for our people to really listen, learn and engage, make friendships. The basis of any business relationship is really understanding and creating one-on-one friendships and trust. And we are doing it," the organizer concluded.
'Inside the Kremlin' visit is taking place amid the atmosphere of deteriorated relations between Russia and the West over different stances on Crimea and the Ukrainian crisis.
