Union maniac

HALLO, EVERYONE,

 

Here is my brief message to you, lovers of INTERNET and professionals interested in international exhibitions worldwide. My name is Vladimir MOTOV. Я говорю по-русски, Je parle francais, Mluvim cesky and, of course, I have rather a good command of English. These are my reminiscences on the spot from the 4th International exhibition REKLAMA-96 on its third working day. I am not a guest at this exhibition. I am some sort of a host. I have been working with and for the JSC EXPOCENTR for 27 full years. I know a lot about exhibitions in the USSR and now in Russia. I am in charge of the acquisition for the advertising fair REKLAMA from now on to take place annually in Moscow. My present position with the company is a deputy chief of the firm MEZHVYSTAVKA the main task of which lies in the field of organising international exhibitions. I am also in charge of some other international exhibitions - THE WORLD OF CHILDHOOD, OBUV.MIR KOZHI, MEBEL, INTERNATIONAL SALON OF EYEGLASS OPTICS, COTTAGE, just to mention a few. 

This is a short report from the INTERNET CAFE at the REKLAMA-96 fair, an event at a seventh international exhibition in Moscow. I overlooked it at INFORMATIKA-96. But I managed to see it in action at the INTERNET+INTRANET exhibition staged in Moscow in the beginning of this November by the WPI BLENHEIM GROUP. The INTERNET CAFE there was located side-by-side, opposite or near to each other with the INTERNET THEATRE by MICROSOFT. We were rivals or competitors and I wonder what Bill Gates thinks of it. H-Y-E, Bill, if you ever roam in the WWW or INTERNET. The concept belongs to the GARANT-PARK company based within the Moscow State University. The access to INTERNET is provided by the GOLDEN LINE COMPANY. I liked the idea and pushed it through. So, here we are. 

I remember myself being a young man of 19, a first year student of the English faculty of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages named after Maurice THOREZ, after one year of working at a research institute entitled to spend my one month's leave during which I decided to visit CZECHOSLOVAKIA. That was as far back as 1964. On the verge of leaving Moscow for Prague I happened to be in a famous Sokolniki Park, a place notorious for international exhibitions. I found myself on the back stairs of a pavilion where there was a happening always interesting to young people just because it was a NON-PUBLIC exhibition from the COMECON countries of Advertising and Packaging of small-size consumer goods in comparison with similar pieces produced in the West. Admission was only by invitations and I had not any. Still I managed to talk a guard at the exit into giving me the invitation, and I joined the pleasure of visiting the exhibition designated for prominent professionals which were few there. Maybe it_s fate, but now I am somehow responsible for the REKLAMA fair. 

I also remember two other international events of the Soviet era - SVETOVAYA REKLAMA-70 and REKLAMA-88. These were shows where the bulk of exhibitors came from abroad and at the latter event there took part two major Soviet organisations - VNESHTORGREKLAMA and SOYUZTORGREKLAMA with minimum stand booths of 18 sqm each, the rest of the exhibitors being companies from foreign companies. The situation dramatically changed in 1992. At REKLAMA-92 there were just a few exhibitors from abroad but they were the CNN from London, NOVOYE RUSSKOYE SLOVO from New-York and the rest being the advertising agencies from Russia, mass-media from the CIS states. It was a festivity for newly born bodies in the field of advertising in Russia! We gained a little in the international character of the REKLAMA-94 edition and still a little more at REKLAMA-96. 

Giants like BBDO from the US and DENZU from Japan are already present at the huge advertising market of Russia, but they are not among the participants to the REKLAMA-96 show, yet, as I hope. They definitely will be present at some other editions in the future as the REKLAMA show will develop and grow. Once I appeared to be at the SICUREZZA-90 international exhibition in Milano, ITALY, in November of 1990. I was astonished to learn that there were very little direct participants from abroad. But I visited the stands of PHILIPS ITALIA SPA and SIEMENS ITALY SRL and that added international flavour to the exhibition in question. A similar process is now taking place in Russia - I cannot call companies like KODAK AO, COCA-COLA MOSCOW, PEPSI-COLA RUSSIA, AUTODESK AOZT to be Russian companies. They help a lot in bringing in western technology and western quality standards to commodities they sell. Chains of dealers and distributors are being formed up. Already now we can observe at REKLAMA-96 that there are few foreign direct exhibitors and many a western product is represented at the fair by Russian companies. 

I recollect 1967 as the year when the Department of International and Foreign exhibitions of the USSR Chamber of Commerce staged the exhibition ODEZHDA-67 (CLOTHES-67) in the same Sokolniki Park, a huge international exhibition, to which Russians were not accustomed. I visited the show with a girl-friend, we stood in a long queue guarded by horsed militia-men like police squad somewhere in CANADA. And then in 1969 after I already had joined the above department I worked as an interpreter at OBUV-69 (FOOTWEAR-69), the biggest so far footwear international exhibition in Russia, I remember it was highly attended. Visitors were counted by hundreds of thousand people. Nowadays visitors are counted by tens of thousand people. But their profile has changed. They have become more professional. Like in the West, any visitor can appear to be a potential Buyer, the most sought for visitor to any exhibitor. Announcements about exhibitions were placed practically with the only evening newspaper VECHERNYAYA MOSKVA. Now you cannot do without ads in many newspapers and magazines. In the former years visitors were attracted to exhibitions via centralised information dissemination system of branch ministries, now direct mail and much of advertising is used. There exists a slogan in Russian translitereated into English as "Advertising is an engine of trade". Now in Russia there is too much of advertising. It is expensive, especially on the TV, and still it is abundant. It is everywhere, on the radio, in the streets, on the walls and on billboards. Now it is also in the sphere of exhibitions. And EXPOCENTR is not lagging behind. It switches from the biennial basis to the annual basis. I welcome you at the next REKLAMA show edition to take place from November 3rd to November 7th of 1997.

Some figures on previous editions: 

 

YEAR SPACE       Number of Number of

countries   exhibitors    visitors    specialists

 

1988 1278 sqm 12 51 46500 29000

1992 3576 sqm 8 151 47000 18000

1994 5203 sqm 9 242 70000 5000

P.S. Using the occasion of this entry to the INTERNET I pass my best regards to Mr. Thorsten FUHRBERG from the MCO company in Duesseldorf, Germany, the owner and organiser of the DIMA international exhibition in Wiesbaden in the hopes of better cooperation in 1997.