A group of 12 top-ranking Russian government officials are wrapping up a week at UW-Madison, attending programs aimed at easing the process of creating a market-land economy in their country.
UW-Madison is the only institution in the United States to have won funding from the World Bank to hold the training session.
\[Russia] started off with a very difficult situation in that they had no traditions of market economy before,"" said Rod Matthews, a UW-Madison professor of international business and real estate, and former director of land and real estate reform for the Russian Privatization Center in Moscow. ""The land mass is nearly halfway around the world.""
When a country does not have a real property system, it has no property taxes, no local revenue and resultant problems with its cities, Matthews said. That is the problem Russian officials are now trying to change, Matthews said.
""Remember 12 years ago, Russia was still the Soviet Union,"" he said. ""[This reform] is just a Herculean task and it will take a little while.""
While they are here, the governmental officials will attend training sessions designed to inform them of issues related to the valuation, finance and taxation of land. UW-Madison faculty and staff will give them ""ideas of what we do here that may be applicable in Russia,"" Matthews said.
Alexey Overchuck, the deputy chairman of the federal cadastre service for the Russian Federation and leader of the group currently in Madison, will speak to Matthews' international real estate class this morning at 9:30 a.m., 1170 Grainger.
The Business school and the Land Tenure Center organized the second of two week-long training sessions. The first group of Russian officials came to UW-Madison in November. The second group arrived Feb. 3 and will leave Feb. 10.
Founded in 1962, the LTC is a Madison-based organization that acts as a resource for developing countries around the world, including countries in Africa, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Latin America, on issues related to land ownership, rights, access and use. Most recently, the LTC has hosted officials from Guatamala and West Africa, according to Christine Elholm, the LTC's visitor coordinator for the current event.
""[The LTC] has played a permanent role in land reform around the world,"" Matthews said. ""And our business school has a high-rated program in real estate.""
The center receives funding from organizations such as the American Bar Association and the United States Department of Agriculture.
""We'd like to think that what we're doing is providing relevant training for whatever phase the country is going through in land reform,"" Elholm said.
