How is it you ended up leaving Tatarstan? Was it with a program like the Algarysh grant?

No, it wasn't a program; Algarysh didn't even exist back then. I just made a conscious decision to go to graduate school abroad.

I graduated from Kazan State University and applied for doctoral studies in Germany and Spain. Germany has the Fraunhofer Institute, for example, where mp3 was invented; the Max Planck Institute of Mathematics; and the University of Bonn, which is one of the top 100 best universities in the world, and which is where I ended up going to study quantum computing with Professor Marek Karpinski, who is quite famous in the field of theoretical computer science. He had taught at the IAS (Institute of Advanced Studies), where Einstein worked.

I went to study with a specific professor at a specific institute, even though the education in Russia was already quite good in 2001–2002.

Or I would have to write a dissertation, teach, and develop all at the same time. The federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, however, gave me 630 euros a month, which was more than enough. It's not that much money, but there was nothing I needed.

It took me three years to defend my dissertation, although in Germany it's considered normal to work on your dissertation for four to five years. But, as you can see, when there's nothing distracting you, you can do it in three years.

I went there in 2002, and I defended my dissertation in 2005 and returned to Kazan. I had heard a lot then about how universities in Russia would be supported and jobs would be created. Well, that only started five years after I arrived. When I returned, it was difficult.

Then I found work in universities: I taught, conducted research, and developed.

Was it hard to make the decision to return to Tatarstan?

No, there was nothing difficult about returning for me. I watched TV, watched the news, Putin was saying that education is a strategic task, that they will start investing resources in science, significant resources.

I thought about my prospects for Waterloo. I would be one of millions, or not millions, well, tens of thousands of other specialists contributing to the development of the Canadian or German economy.

But I realized that there were not enough people with those skills at that moment in Russia. Even more, I urged everyone from my circle from that time to go to Russia. Scientific organizations in particular needed people with work experience in leading universities.

I wanted to return to my homeland for various reasons. First of all, I love my homeland and ... I saw that I can make a greater contribution here to the organizations that are developing and being revived.

Because postdoctoral research in the US is prestigious for a resume. There's also a brain drain in America; there's nothing you can do about it. But you can establish an inflow.

Where are the Americans going?

The same, Asia; Asians outbid them. Chinese universities, like Xinhua, are the most powerful universities; they've long since surpassed all of Europe in regards to publications. They're investing crazy money. I was invited to stay in China twice.

What's great about the Algarysh grant is that it works two ways: not only do they send students to other countries, but they also invite professors here, to us. So, in the end, more people get new experience, new knowledge, than when our people leave.

Obviously, coronavirus and Russia's bad image abroad have made it more difficult to invite people. But in general, Algarysh and similar programs have a delayed effect. Like with India, their educational program to educate young people abroad initially led to a massive brain drain. But in the long term, those who built successful careers in Silicon Valley—which, if you haven't noticed, is mostly made up of dark-skinned Indians and fair-skinned Russians—began reinvesting in India.

That happened in India. I'm not saying for sure that it will happen in our country too. That's how Bangalore and other Indian technology parks and startup wonders were born. It's sad that you can't predict with certainty when and how the investment will pay off, but, if you don't invest, the situation will be much worse.

You mentioned Russia's image. If it had been that bad in 2005, would you still return to Kazan?

Of course I'd return. There's no such thing as bad advertising. Like, that image of Russians helps out when meeting girls there. What's important is that they know about Russia.

Now it has become easier thanks to the Universiade; the FINA World Aquatics Championships; and of course, the World Cup. I really don't know the reason for the bad image, of course. It complicates, but does not hinder, the influx of foreign specialists to us; they haven't shrunk that much. But it makes it difficult for sure.

I personally came across it in 2015, when people were having problems coming to teach in Russia and keeping their contract at their western university. I don't think politics should comingle with science. It's sad that it happens at all. It's like with the Olympics, when sports and politics were mixed. It became too much for me to bear personally with the Olympics—I stopped watching the games.

Now anyone who has left has even more reason to return, and rational reasons, too, even taking love for one's homeland out of the equation.

We have large grant programs and substantial budgets for science. For example, Innopolis [a Russian IT village, technology park and university in Tatarstan] won a grant of 6.5 billion rubles this year, which, by the way, isn't for just one year of expenses.

Now it makes sense for young researchers to return to the republic. Government agencies are developing youth programs, and yesterday's graduate students are becoming aids to the president today. If you're a young, energetic person, there's definitely a job for you in Tatarstan, especially in the IT sector, and it's good, high-paying job, competitive. Our economy is growing, and in the next ten years 2.5 million IT specialists will be needed, and 300,000 are available. There's a terrible staff shortage.

Come on, a good plumber gets paid as well as an IT specialist?

Right!? Because you can count them on one hand.

But really, of course returning isn't for everyone. The Dalai Lama said that you need to leave at least once a year to see another culture in order to be mentally healthy. What if you're better off there? What if the climate is better for you? You can't just stop people from leaving.

It's better to figure out how to make sure that, despite our climate, there are concreate reasons why people would want to come to Tatarstan: city spaces are comfortable, infrastructure, and interesting and diverse opportunities for personal and professional growth. To make someone from California want to come to Kazan. That would be great.

Are you saying education in Russia was worse in 2002, so you chose to study in Germany?

No, even then it was possible to obtain knowledge; the expertise was at the global level. There was just a gap. You know, the older generation leaves, and we can't keep up with filling in their places. Today, education has been liberalized; there are many ways to get it remotely, without moving anywhere.

Now people involved in scientific projects earn enough money to support them. This doesn't mean that students are fully provided for, though, so there's still work to do.

But now, if someone with magna cum laude wants to return, they can definitely find a good job. And they won't have to work in as a sales assistant just to make money.

There's a particularly noticeable shortage of teachers in Russia: people are retiring, and it is not so easy to replace them. To teach—plus or minus—for every 1,000 students, you need 100 teachers. Well, there are fewer economists and more mathematicians. IT is a much more serious challenge.

At ITIS we wanted to increase our teaching staff, but there's nobody to hire. Not in our republic. We poached people from abroad: a teacher from Israel (who still teaches), an Italian.

He worked with us, at ITIS, and then left for Denmark, where he was offered much more favorable conditions. We paid him a very good salary; I can't say how much, but it was very good.

How did people react to your intention to return? Did they try to dissuade you?

I discussed it with my scientific advisor in Germany, Marek Karpinski, and with my advisor here in Kazan, Farid Ablaev. I talked to my parents. No one really tried to talk me out of it.

After returning, you didn't get the feeling that you were taking a step back?

Definitely not a step back. I had my doctorate, but where to go to for postdoc? Any step was a step forward, but in a different direction. It's not like I worked for two years on my postdoc at Stanford and suddenly got a contract somewhere in Tmutarakan ...

How did you get started in mobile development?

To make a living. I worked at five different universities at the same time, taught full-time, evening, correspondence. You come to work at 8 in the morning and you leave at 9 or 11, depending on your luck.

At some point, I got sick of that, and moved to the development of mobile devices based on Java Micro Edition. Now mobile devices have completely different platforms.

Then I launched a startup. I opened a software company with like-minded people. At first, we had small contracts, 30,000 rubles each. But by the end we reached a turnover of $1 million per year with different customers.

Then the rector of Kazan Federal University Ilshat Gafurov invited me to make a new faculty of information technologies based at the university. We launched the faculty, albeit with the somewhat dissonant name of VSHIT, which is how the Higher School of Information Technology is abbreviated. Then it was renamed ITIS. It still exists and is objectively one of the best faculties of the university.

I worked in one place for nine years and finally decided that I need to try out something new. I was offered a job as head of a branch of Sberbank's educational project: Kazan School 21. I thought about it, and I talked with German Oskarovich [Grefom, CEO of Sberbank] and made the final decision.

What is School 21?

School 21 is a franchise of the French Ecole 42, or School 42. The first campus opened in 2013 in Paris, then in Silicon Valley, Amsterdam, Rome, Helsinki, Seoul ...

The horizontal learning format has been known since Soviet times. You gather a large number of people without experience, without professional knowledge, but with a properly organized environment and access to sources, and they study together and solve problems together.

We've been looking into the format of School 42 since 2013. We thought about introducing it at the university, but there had been many nuances in regards to the law on education. Now, of course, it has been liberalized; there are more freedoms. But at the time we were licking our chops: how great would it be to introduce such a format here?

So they opened one in Russia, first in Moscow and then in Kazan. It's a great achievement by [President of Tatarstan] Rustam Minnikhanov that the second campus in Russia was opened in Kazan and not in St. Petersburg, for example. It's not really the obvious choice to open it in Kazan, and it's a great contribution to the capitalization of our region.

And now we see our people are doing even better than on the Moscow campus. One of our students won Sberbank's hackathon and got a job offer, meaning he could bypass his internship and go straight to work.

Of course, it has its limitations; a school like that can't replace a university. There are professions that this kind of school can't train you for. But we can train junior and middle developers, cybersecurity specialists, and many other specialists.

You've probably been invited to work in Moscow and abroad, right?

Sure, there were proposals from Moscow, and of course I considered them. But my love for the city, for Kazan, won out.

I love my city very much. It's an irrational love, not connected with specific things. Of course, Kazan has recently become easier to love; many parks have appeared, interesting jobs.

Here's the irrational thing: the tree in your yard, your parents, childhood memories, people who are similar in spirit. That's what you call the Motherland.

Even compared with Moscow, you can get from any point A to point B in thirty minutes in Kazan. In Moscow, if you got somewhere that quickly, it wasn't very far away.

What would you fix in the republic? What can be improved?

We need to increase interest in our region, look for niches in which it can beat everyone else. We need to find the thing that makes Tatarstan the best.

Like the extreme-sports park near the bridge. I have friends who've moved from abroad thanks to the world-class extreme sports, and they're athletes. It's convenient for them to train there, so why not?

The ecology needs to be improved also. A lot of people don't go to China because the environment is bad. Our country, of course, is also not perfect, but better than in China. I'd remove the chemical production from the city center, like Nefis Cosmetics near Kaban Lakes, which emits an unpleasant odor.

Will fixing this stop the brain drain from Tatarstan?

You know, for anyone who wants to leave, it makes no sense to go abroad for a bachelor's degree. Kazan Federal University, for example, is in the top 100 global ratings in one field, in the top 200 in another, in third and fourth fields it's in the top 300 or top 500. In fact, even if it's in the top 1000 overall, that means that it's in the 0.1% of the best universities in the world. So, if you just go abroad to study anywhere, there's a chance that you'll find yourself in a university that is inferior to KFU in the field you've chosen.

It makes sense to go for a PhD, work in different conditions, earn a qualification. But you should go to work with a specific leader in that field. Not that I urge everyone to return or leave. There's an English saying: "the grass is always greener on the other side." Everywhere has its advantages and its own problems.

If you leave, then your home isn't going to improve. If you fix up your own backyard, then it will be great. Then you live at home and everything seems just fine, but then the neighbor gets a newer iron door and a nicer carpet.

I can see myself in different places for a variety of reasons, but I want it to be nice here, for my children to be here. I teach them Tatar. Both my eldest son and daughter speak Tatar. The youngest one, she's only one year and eight months old, and she only speaks Tatar. She'll understand Russian on the fly. I respect all cultures, but we should do everything we can to preserve ours. Where can you do that better than in Kazan?