SberCity seems nice
Russia's friendliest "smart city" is waiting for you!
Close your eyes and imagine that you’re Herman Gref.
Suddenly, as if by magic, you’ve become very fancy: you’re the CEO of Russia’s largest bank, a former member of the World Economic Forum’s Board of Trustees, and the author of the preface to the Russian-language edition of Klaus Schwab’s The Fourth Industrial Revolution. You co-starred with Tony Blair at Cyber Polygon 2020 and were “involved in the work to create” Sputnik V. You were also one of the first people in the entire world to be injected with Russia’s safe and effective genetic slurry—months before it was approved by the Russian Health Ministry—or so you claim.
You’ve developed “a whole universe of services for human life”, like cattle-tag systems for schoolchildren and surveillance cameras that can face-recognize muzzled wage slaves and even stray dogs.
Your bank reported record profits in 2023 and you were ranked last year’s most prominent business leader in Russian media.
You’re a true visionary and important people like your ideas. You meet periodically with Vladimir Putin to talk about how every aspect of existence will be transformed by SberAI.
There’s nothing left for you to do. You did it all. You did all the terrible things.
SIKE, WELCOME TO SBERCITY:
HERMAN GREF HAS HIS OWN CITY.
Sorry for yelling.
Located in a quiet Moscow suburb, SberCity will one day be home to more than 65,000 lucky residents. The “smart city” was initially reserved for Sber employees but now anyone insane enough to want to live in Herman Gref’s ant farm is welcome to do so.
Maybe you are interested? Just hear Gref out. Give him a chance.
Bedecked in his most dazzling denim jacket and matching jeans, Herman Gref invites you to look at a door. Not just any ordinary door, but a symbol of something new; behind this door is something special—the future that Herman Gref invites you to live in. He’s talking about SberCity, in case you’re not following.
If you hate yourself you can watch the full 30-minute pitch.
As a public service, your correspondent created a one-minute summary of Gref’s Door to the Future:
Sometimes there’s a man... I won't say a hero, because what’s a hero? But sometimes, there's a man, and well, he’s the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that’s Herman Gref, in SberCity.
For those who are interested in learning more about this exciting real estate opportunity, the always excellent Anna Rudneva has an article about Gref’s Moscow Region Utopia and other friendly urban development projects in Russia, including Dobrograd, a self-described “15-minute city”:
Until next time!
Can't we just lock him in his city? He seems to like it there and we'd have one less WEF agent to worry about.
Dobrograd!! Wow whoever came up with the name is a genius. If you don't speak Russian (not you, Riley, I know you speak it), it means "City of Kindness" and the sound of it rings like an old Slavic tale.