Institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences surround the incubator. Academics there study everything from science to humanities. Anna Bolshakova, a numismatist, reviews ancient Slavic coins she collected during a field expedition for her studies at the Institute of Archaeology. 
Grant Slater
Institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences surround the incubator. Academics there study everything from science to humanities. Anna Bolshakova, a numismatist, reviews ancient Slavic coins she collected during a field expedition for her studies at the Institute of Archaeology.
Grant Slater
Ilya Surin repairs a collider in the Institute of Nuclear Physics. Grant Slater
Ilya Surin repairs a collider in the Institute of Nuclear Physics.
Grant Slater
Sergey Polosatkin stands with dissambled pieces of machines that he uses in the study of plasma physics. The machine behind him is a neutron generator. Grant Slater
Sergey Polosatkin stands with dissambled pieces of machines that he uses in the study of plasma physics. The machine behind him is a neutron generator.
Grant Slater
Nikita Sokolov, 6, draws frames for a cartoon he is conceiving. The daycare and movie studio where he plays is inside the first building ever built in Akademgorodok, before the town's official beginnings in 1957. Grant Slater
Nikita Sokolov, 6, draws frames for a cartoon he is conceiving. The daycare and movie studio where he plays is inside the first building ever built in Akademgorodok, before the town's official beginnings in 1957.
Grant Slater
A cardboard cutout of a character for a mobile video game created by Playtox, an Akadempark startup, stands in the main incubator office space of the towering main building. Grant Slater
A cardboard cutout of a character for a mobile video game created by Playtox, an Akadempark startup, stands in the main incubator office space of the towering main building.
Grant Slater
A mural in the stairwell of the academy's Institute of Cytology and Genetics. Grant Slater
A mural in the stairwell of the academy's Institute of Cytology and Genetics.
Grant Slater
The main building of Akadempark lit up at night in the red, white and blue of the Russian tricolor. The 13-story buildings spans a road and towers over everything else in Akademgorodok. The top floor, accessible via a transparent skybridge, is a dedicated coworking space for tech entrepreneurs. Grant Slater
The main building of Akadempark lit up at night in the red, white and blue of the Russian tricolor. The 13-story buildings spans a road and towers over everything else in Akademgorodok. The top floor, accessible via a transparent skybridge, is a dedicated coworking space for tech entrepreneurs.
Grant Slater
Anastasia Titova wires transistors and circuits in the bowels of a San Francisco-style startup incubator called Akadempark in the middle of the Siberian taiga. Russian government officials and local entrepreneurs started building the complex – called Akadempark – three years ago in an attempt to revive a declining Soviet planned town. Grant Slater
Anastasia Titova wires transistors and circuits in the bowels of a San Francisco-style startup incubator called Akadempark in the middle of the Siberian taiga. Russian government officials and local entrepreneurs started building the complex – called Akadempark – three years ago in an attempt to revive a declining Soviet planned town.
Grant Slater
A machine is used to wind wire for transistors in the innovation center's fabrication building. Akadempark is a cluster of buildings, one dedicated to office space, one for biotechnology and another to fabricate components that are hard to acquire in the middle of Siberia. Grant Slater
A machine is used to wind wire for transistors in the innovation center's fabrication building. Akadempark is a cluster of buildings, one dedicated to office space, one for biotechnology and another to fabricate components that are hard to acquire in the middle of Siberia.
Grant Slater
Marina Pilipenko watches her friends – many of them born in Akademgorodok and now attending university there – burn the effigy of a witch on the frozen waters of the Ob Sea to mark the end of winter. The town is also home to Novosibirsk State University, a pipeline of talent for the academy and now the incubator. Grant Slater
Marina Pilipenko watches her friends – many of them born in Akademgorodok and now attending university there – burn the effigy of a witch on the frozen waters of the Ob Sea to mark the end of winter. The town is also home to Novosibirsk State University, a pipeline of talent for the academy and now the incubator.
Grant Slater
A sign reading Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences marks the entrance to Akademgorodok. The academy is losing local control to a federal agency based in Moscow. Grant Slater
A sign reading Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences marks the entrance to Akademgorodok. The academy is losing local control to a federal agency based in Moscow.
Grant Slater
Polina and Ivan with their daughter Vasilisa in their home.Polina studied in South Korea and speaks fluent English. Ivan programs set-top cable boxes for American and Russian televisions. It's the second tech company he has worked for in Akademgorodok. Grant Slater
Polina and Ivan with their daughter Vasilisa in their home.Polina studied in South Korea and speaks fluent English. Ivan programs set-top cable boxes for American and Russian televisions. It's the second tech company he has worked for in Akademgorodok.
Grant Slater
An apartment block in Akademgorodok at night. The town was conjured from nothing by Soviet leaders in 1957 as a meritocratic haven for intellectuals. It featured larger apartments than most Soviet towns at the time. Grant Slater
An apartment block in Akademgorodok at night. The town was conjured from nothing by Soviet leaders in 1957 as a meritocratic haven for intellectuals. It featured larger apartments than most Soviet towns at the time.
Grant Slater
An aspiring startup founder presents his invention, an automatic servo, to the judges. They grade ideas' innovativeness on a scale of 1 to 5. This entrepreneur was not among the funding winners. Grant Slater
An aspiring startup founder presents his invention, an automatic servo, to the judges. They grade ideas' innovativeness on a scale of 1 to 5. This entrepreneur was not among the funding winners.
Grant Slater
Anton Nikolenko makes adjustments to a particle collider that he uses for experiments at the Institute of Nuclear Physics. Grant Slater
Anton Nikolenko makes adjustments to a particle collider that he uses for experiments at the Institute of Nuclear Physics.
Grant Slater
Sasha Vasiliev, 6, prepares before a violin recital in one of Akademgorodok's oldest buildings. Grant Slater
Sasha Vasiliev, 6, prepares before a violin recital in one of Akademgorodok's oldest buildings.
Grant Slater
Audience members applaud the winners of the winter startup accelerator. Akadempark fosters new companies and finds new talent in two accelerators each year. Grant Slater
Audience members applaud the winners of the winter startup accelerator. Akadempark fosters new companies and finds new talent in two accelerators each year.
Grant Slater
Feofil Zhuravel, a retired professor of mechanical physics, ices fishes on the Ob Sea on a sunny day. Though many academics left with the fall of Soviet Union, those that stayed hope that Akademgorodok will not lose its intellectual and quirky character to become just another sleep Russian suburb. Grant Slater
Feofil Zhuravel, a retired professor of mechanical physics, ices fishes on the Ob Sea on a sunny day. Though many academics left with the fall of Soviet Union, those that stayed hope that Akademgorodok will not lose its intellectual and quirky character to become just another sleep Russian suburb.
Grant Slater
An atomic device dismantled in an ante chamber of the Institute of Nuclear Physics. Grant Slater
An atomic device dismantled in an ante chamber of the Institute of Nuclear Physics.
Grant Slater
Anatoly Chernov fabricates components for inventions in Akadempark that are difficult to acquire in the middle of Siberia. Grant Slater
Anatoly Chernov fabricates components for inventions in Akadempark that are difficult to acquire in the middle of Siberia.
Grant Slater
Inside the annex of the Institute of Archaeology and Paleontology, a building on the outer edge of Akademgorodok. Grant Slater
Inside the annex of the Institute of Archaeology and Paleontology, a building on the outer edge of Akademgorodok.
Grant Slater
Institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences surround the incubator. Academics there study everything from science to humanities. Anna Bolshakova, a numismatist, reviews ancient Slavic coins she collected during a field expedition for her studies at the Institute of Archaeology. Grant Slater
Institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences surround the incubator. Academics there study everything from science to humanities. Anna Bolshakova, a numismatist, reviews ancient Slavic coins she collected during a field expedition for her studies at the Institute of Archaeology.
Grant Slater
Ilya Surin repairs a collider in the Institute of Nuclear Physics. Grant Slater
Ilya Surin repairs a collider in the Institute of Nuclear Physics.
Grant Slater
Sergey Polosatkin stands with dissambled pieces of machines that he uses in the study of plasma physics. The machine behind him is a neutron generator. Grant Slater
Sergey Polosatkin stands with dissambled pieces of machines that he uses in the study of plasma physics. The machine behind him is a neutron generator.
Grant Slater
Nikita Sokolov, 6, draws frames for a cartoon he is conceiving. The daycare and movie studio where he plays is inside the first building ever built in Akademgorodok, before the town's official beginnings in 1957. Grant Slater
Nikita Sokolov, 6, draws frames for a cartoon he is conceiving. The daycare and movie studio where he plays is inside the first building ever built in Akademgorodok, before the town's official beginnings in 1957.
Grant Slater
A cardboard cutout of a character for a mobile video game created by Playtox, an Akadempark startup, stands in the main incubator office space of the towering main building. Grant Slater
A cardboard cutout of a character for a mobile video game created by Playtox, an Akadempark startup, stands in the main incubator office space of the towering main building.
Grant Slater
A mural in the stairwell of the academy's Institute of Cytology and Genetics. Grant Slater
A mural in the stairwell of the academy's Institute of Cytology and Genetics.
Grant Slater
The main building of Akadempark lit up at night in the red, white and blue of the Russian tricolor. The 13-story buildings spans a road and towers over everything else in Akademgorodok. The top floor, accessible via a transparent skybridge, is a dedicated coworking space for tech entrepreneurs. Grant Slater
The main building of Akadempark lit up at night in the red, white and blue of the Russian tricolor. The 13-story buildings spans a road and towers over everything else in Akademgorodok. The top floor, accessible via a transparent skybridge, is a dedicated coworking space for tech entrepreneurs.
Grant Slater
Anastasia Titova wires transistors and circuits in the bowels of a San Francisco-style startup incubator called Akadempark in the middle of the Siberian taiga. Russian government officials and local entrepreneurs started building the complex – called Akadempark – three years ago in an attempt to revive a declining Soviet planned town. Grant Slater
Anastasia Titova wires transistors and circuits in the bowels of a San Francisco-style startup incubator called Akadempark in the middle of the Siberian taiga. Russian government officials and local entrepreneurs started building the complex – called Akadempark – three years ago in an attempt to revive a declining Soviet planned town.
Grant Slater
A machine is used to wind wire for transistors in the innovation center's fabrication building. Akadempark is a cluster of buildings, one dedicated to office space, one for biotechnology and another to fabricate components that are hard to acquire in the middle of Siberia. Grant Slater
A machine is used to wind wire for transistors in the innovation center's fabrication building. Akadempark is a cluster of buildings, one dedicated to office space, one for biotechnology and another to fabricate components that are hard to acquire in the middle of Siberia.
Grant Slater
Marina Pilipenko watches her friends – many of them born in Akademgorodok and now attending university there – burn the effigy of a witch on the frozen waters of the Ob Sea to mark the end of winter. The town is also home to Novosibirsk State University, a pipeline of talent for the academy and now the incubator. Grant Slater
Marina Pilipenko watches her friends – many of them born in Akademgorodok and now attending university there – burn the effigy of a witch on the frozen waters of the Ob Sea to mark the end of winter. The town is also home to Novosibirsk State University, a pipeline of talent for the academy and now the incubator.
Grant Slater
A sign reading Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences marks the entrance to Akademgorodok. The academy is losing local control to a federal agency based in Moscow. Grant Slater
A sign reading Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences marks the entrance to Akademgorodok. The academy is losing local control to a federal agency based in Moscow.
Grant Slater
Polina and Ivan with their daughter Vasilisa in their home.Polina studied in South Korea and speaks fluent English. Ivan programs set-top cable boxes for American and Russian televisions. It's the second tech company he has worked for in Akademgorodok. Grant Slater
Polina and Ivan with their daughter Vasilisa in their home.Polina studied in South Korea and speaks fluent English. Ivan programs set-top cable boxes for American and Russian televisions. It's the second tech company he has worked for in Akademgorodok.
Grant Slater
An apartment block in Akademgorodok at night. The town was conjured from nothing by Soviet leaders in 1957 as a meritocratic haven for intellectuals. It featured larger apartments than most Soviet towns at the time. Grant Slater
An apartment block in Akademgorodok at night. The town was conjured from nothing by Soviet leaders in 1957 as a meritocratic haven for intellectuals. It featured larger apartments than most Soviet towns at the time.
Grant Slater
An aspiring startup founder presents his invention, an automatic servo, to the judges. They grade ideas' innovativeness on a scale of 1 to 5. This entrepreneur was not among the funding winners. Grant Slater
An aspiring startup founder presents his invention, an automatic servo, to the judges. They grade ideas' innovativeness on a scale of 1 to 5. This entrepreneur was not among the funding winners.
Grant Slater
Anton Nikolenko makes adjustments to a particle collider that he uses for experiments at the Institute of Nuclear Physics. Grant Slater
Anton Nikolenko makes adjustments to a particle collider that he uses for experiments at the Institute of Nuclear Physics.
Grant Slater
Sasha Vasiliev, 6, prepares before a violin recital in one of Akademgorodok's oldest buildings. Grant Slater
Sasha Vasiliev, 6, prepares before a violin recital in one of Akademgorodok's oldest buildings.
Grant Slater
Audience members applaud the winners of the winter startup accelerator. Akadempark fosters new companies and finds new talent in two accelerators each year. Grant Slater
Audience members applaud the winners of the winter startup accelerator. Akadempark fosters new companies and finds new talent in two accelerators each year.
Grant Slater
Feofil Zhuravel, a retired professor of mechanical physics, ices fishes on the Ob Sea on a sunny day. Though many academics left with the fall of Soviet Union, those that stayed hope that Akademgorodok will not lose its intellectual and quirky character to become just another sleep Russian suburb. Grant Slater
Feofil Zhuravel, a retired professor of mechanical physics, ices fishes on the Ob Sea on a sunny day. Though many academics left with the fall of Soviet Union, those that stayed hope that Akademgorodok will not lose its intellectual and quirky character to become just another sleep Russian suburb.
Grant Slater
An atomic device dismantled in an ante chamber of the Institute of Nuclear Physics. Grant Slater
An atomic device dismantled in an ante chamber of the Institute of Nuclear Physics.
Grant Slater
Anatoly Chernov fabricates components for inventions in Akadempark that are difficult to acquire in the middle of Siberia. Grant Slater
Anatoly Chernov fabricates components for inventions in Akadempark that are difficult to acquire in the middle of Siberia.
Grant Slater
Inside the annex of the Institute of Archaeology and Paleontology, a building on the outer edge of Akademgorodok. Grant Slater
Inside the annex of the Institute of Archaeology and Paleontology, a building on the outer edge of Akademgorodok.
Grant Slater
The town of Akademgorodok, nestled among birch and conifers 3,400 kilometers east of Moscow, is becoming a hub for 21st century Russian innovation and entrepreneurship. You've heard of Silicon Valley. This is Silicon Forest.
Visual journalist Grant Slater recently traveled to the remote Siberian city to document the tech boom and create a broad portrait of the people driving, and caught up in, the changes.
"Initially, I was just curious to see what the inside of a Russian tech incubator looked like," he says. "As I spent more time there, I became interested in the character of this town as a whole."
Akademgorodok has a storied past when it comes to innovation but only recently became the center of Russia's tech world. The town, founded in 1957 by the Soviet Academy of Sciences, was the result of a plan by Nikita Khrushchev to huddle the Soviet Union's sharpest minds. At its peak, Akademgorodok (which translates as 'Academy Town') was home to a university, 35 research institutes, a medical academy, and 65,000 scientists and their families.
Immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, Akademgorodok experienced a massive brain drain as engineers fled to the West. Novosibirsk University remained an important institution, but citizens of nearby Novosibirsk, Russia's third largest city, transformed Akademgorodok into a bedroom community.
Its rebirth began last summer when President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin ordered a federal takeover of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Science with the intent of once again making Akademgorodok a technological centerpiece, this time focused on start-ups instead of nuclear science. The push toward a very 21st-century culture was something of a culture shock, and long-time professors, engineers and physicists took to the streets in protested.
"I wanted to explore how the legacy of Soviet state-driven science clashed or coalesced with the ideals and values of startup culture," Slater says of his choice to shoot young techies and scientists in the established institutes. "I'm interested in the way technology or—the idea the future—manifests itself. One of the interesting aspects of that is the way different cultures view innovation."Nowadays, the main institution in Akademgorodok is a 13-story startup incubator called Akadempark. It is home to Playtox, which makes games for mobile web browsers; Winkcam, an app that lets you take photos with your phone even when it's locked using the accelerometer; and Genetic Test, a company that uses genetic traits in biometric access and analysis. Start-ups win a place at Akadempark by successfully pitching their ideas during winter and summer academies.
"When I was there, one of the recent winners was [a start-up developing] an improved version of the infamous Russian dash-cam with extra sensors to help prevent accidents, a bit like a dumbed-down version of the Google self-driving car," says Slater.
If you need excess gases cleaned from anesthesia machines, or a personal-trainer webcam consultation for distance training, you'll be no doubt calling on products developed at Akadempark.
Start-ups are given a one-year runway to turn a profit at their company. It's early days for all involved.
"Everything is just now getting started," says Slater, who thinks that the glass floors and skybridge of the incubator as compared with the Soviet functionalism of the old institutes depicts the conscious effort to present Russian technology and science as that of the future, not the past. Akadempark and Akademgorodok generally are headed in the right direction but it's a long way from Silicon Valley.
"Russian officials view these projects as a way to diversify its economy away from oil and gas," says Slater, "but it is far from becoming a 21st-century economy that pumps out tech startups."