These Boots Were Made for 22 M.P.H

Category Health, Sport | Permalink | 20. March 2007

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UFA, Russia — Being a star engineering student at the top-notch science university here wasn’t enough to exempt Viktor K. Gordeyev from his physical education class.

Mr. Gordeyev, a specialist in airplane piston engines, sweated it out with everyone else, running laps in lumbering heavy boots in this town in the foothills of the Ural Mountains.

He vowed to find an easier way. Eventually, he found one — or at least came close. Mr. Gordeyev invented a gasoline-powered boot that looks like pogo sticks that strap to your shins, and they work on the same principle as the air-cushioned basketball shoe.

nytimes.com–But rather than being dismissed as a crackpot invention, his boots — which use tiny pistons — became classified as a Russian military secret until 1994.

Now, they have been held up as a symbol of both Russia’s deep and rich scientific traditions and the country’s inability to convert that talent into useful — and commercial — merchandise outside of the weapons business.

Many government officials, Russian scientists and economists are focusing these days on the need to generate new sources of growth to diversify the country’s economy away from oil — the unsteady source of Russia’s recent prosperity.

And there is a growing consensus that entrepreneurialism has promise but faces serious obstacles, including no vibrant mechanism to bring together venture capitalists, inventors and entrepreneurs to develop viable commercial products.
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In February, President Vladimir V. Putin implored the country’s most prominent businesses to branch out and invest in innovation and science. German O. Gref, the minister of economic development, often says Russia’s scientific base distinguishes it from other emerging market economies in India, China and Brazil, even though Russia is often compared to them.

But as part of a series of pointed articles, the Russian edition of Popular Mechanics magazine argued that Mr. Gordeyev’s thwarted attempt to commercialize the shoes is a symbol of the country’s failure to tap its considerable scientific talent for profitable business ideas.

The dream Mr. Gordeyev conceived in 1974 to run faster and jump higher without getting tired might never have become a popular option for commuters or even caught on as a sport. But unlike the Segway, the American-invented self-balancing scooter, it never had a chance.

Instead, the boots became a military secret, as generals envisioned soldiers running swiftly and effortlessly alongside armored vehicles.

The boots were declassified in 1994, and Mr. Gordeyev and his partners imagined growing rich by selling their invention to a lazy public. Instead, the company went out of business in 2006.

Like the boots, Russian scientists are still trying to gain traction in the capitalist world. A company in Saratov making a novel transport airplane with no tail, called the “flying saucer,” never got off the ground.

Russia also has other examples of good ideas later bungled in the process of commercialization. The Russian inventor of the Tetris video game was unable to patent his invention, and thus lost out on huge amounts of money. Russian engineers invented submersible pumps for oil wells, but failed to invest in their development; now Russian companies buy Western models from Halliburton.

Original news and more : www.nytimes.com

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