Nepali Times

Russian ambassador to Nepal Sergey Vasilievich Velichkin has been in the country since 2010, holds a PhD in Indology, and speaks Urdu and Bengali. He spoke to Nepali Times this week about the history of Russia-Nepal relations, the current political deadlock, and even about how road-widening will affect his embassy.

CINDREY LIU

SV Velichkin: Basically, there’s the universal understanding that Nepal is a friendly country and that we should get to know it better. But Nepal is far away and we need to resume direct flights between Kathmandu and Moscow. The number of Russian tourists is growing, but is still only about 8,000 annually. There are also many more opportunities for trade and investment that haven’t been explored yet.

Most Nepalis who studied in the Soviet Union returned to Nepal, what is your impression of them?

Whenever I meet those people who graduated in the 70s and 80s from Soviet universities I’m quite impressed. They’re extremely motivated. They see personal fulfilment incomplete unless they have some ideas of changing their own country, not necessarily ideological ideas. Many of them are at the top in their chosen professions: medicine, engineering, journalism. This is what Nepal needs, more people coming back to serve their country.

What’s your opinion of the current situation in Nepal? Are you optimistic about the future?

Not all the solutions and scenarios are necessarily brought from outside. There is enough imagination among Nepal’s politicians to find their own solutions. I am not pessimistic, there is a remarkable spirit among leaders here. Even if they criticise each other, they are ready to sit down and talk. Some people underestimate the importance of that. I believe Nepal is on the path of gradual reconciliation, the peace process is not just words, and I would not dismiss the achievements so far. It’s going to be difficult, but you have to be patient.

Is patience one of the things we can learn from Russia’s own transition after the collapse of communism?

We went through a tremendous change, the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century: the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The destabilising potential of the largest country in the world with a nuclear arsenal disintegrating was huge. It could have been disastrous, but we managed to prevent it. There was some bloodshed, the country broke apart, there was a tremendous down slide in the economy. Few countries in the world have gone through wrenching change like that.

Nepal doesn’t face anything like that, it is one single nation and I’m sure it will remain so. We have some experience of transition which could be useful to share. One of them is to prioritise political dialogue and try to stick to some rules. Our constitution was highly controversial and was adopted through a referendum in 1993, but it has worked well through all further upheavals.

But now we all stick to the rules despite the controversy in which it was born. This is the lesson: make the rules and stick to them. In our case it took several years to adopt the constitution, it didn’t happen at one go. In Nepal’s case the priority is to find a proper way to conduct national elections so that an elected Constituent Assembly can write a constitution to set the rules of democratic governance.

How about the controversy about the chief justice being named chief executive?

You’re building democracy. You’re in the process of construction and you need to move some blocks around. Sometimes what is going to be at the top is lying in some corner at the construction site. For example, out of the three pillars a particular pillar is so important that you might want to temporarily sacrifice another one. Let’s not dismiss this matter of elections. Elections are essential. An elected legislature is as important for the completeness of democracy as an independent judiciary.

Russia has helped build factories and highways in Nepal in the past, but there isn’t much aid now. Those projects were the backbone of our cooperation in the 60s. At that time the most important thing was to lay down the basis for industrial development of the country.

The current situation is different. The main thing now is to address the contemporary challenges of Nepal, including the economy. The agenda has changed. Today, it’s about meeting the requirements of a 30 million strong country of which three million work abroad. Nepal is a very mobile country with a young population with enormous spread of education, a country which wants to develop itself.

Are there possibilities for Russian investment?

We recently managed to get the Nepali and Russian energy ministries to form a joint working group, they will be meeting in Kathmandu soon and this will be just the beginning. I expect the Nepali side to make a strong pitch for investment and offer opportunities. If the conditions offered are attractive, there are possibilities for investment. In recent years, Russia has invested in hydropower in several countries, including India.

What’s your position about the road widening project in Kathmandu?

Kathmandu needs road widening. It will be odd if someone would oppose this process. But in the process not only me, but authorities and the general public have come to know about the difficulties involved. It seems that much of the problems which we face are due to a lack of coordination between different departments. As a result we have troubles with the embassy premises. There were some suggestions about moving our wall from the External Affairs ministry. There’s not much we can offer by way of helping in that regard. This happens to be our property, we have not encroached an inch of municipal territory.

Embassy of Russia to Nepal