Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 2, 1992 TAG: 9201020102
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
KAZAKHSTAN GETS HELP FROM VIRGINIA
A computer expert hired to help bring part of the former Soviet Union into the technological age says he is amazed at the scope of the task.Wayne Russell just returned from a month in Kazakhstan. While he was there, the central Soviet authority controlled by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev collapsed and republics including Kazakhstan pledged to join a new commonwealth of sovereign states.
In the shakeup, the Central Asian republic emerged as one of the world's leading nuclear powers. Secretary of State James Baker visited Kazakhstan last week to talk about its 1,800 nuclear warheads.
"What we found is that there was very little technology and none of the computers worked," Russell said. "They're working the entire republic of Kazakhstan with no computers. They're really desperate to get American technology there."
Russell, an independent consultant working for American Management Systems of Arlington, was one of eight people sent to Kazakhstan.
AMS has signed a contract with the republic's government to help set up a state-of-the-art computer system, Russell said. The firm plans to have the system, which will link the president's office, the ministries of finance and agriculture, the state statistical committee and the state economics institute, running within a year.
Russell said the Soviets developed technology by acquiring hardware such as American IBM 360 computers, then reverse-engineering them to figure out how they worked.
AMS plans to buy and test American equipment, then train the Kazakhstan programmers and computer people to use it. Russell will return to Kazakhstan in late February to present the design.