Words about trade-economic relations and negotiations were not pronounced at the offices of regional leaders, especially not among the tourists. This was an exclusive prerogative of the Ministries and government departments of the capital, and even the thoughts about trade with foreigners at the local level could bring you to court, if not according to the paragraph of the Criminal Code then according to the paragraph of Party Charter for sure. The reforms of the last years rapidly traded everything's and everybody's places. In accordance with these changes, the problems to be solved by the regional specialists in international issues became different as well. Even our meetings with the Chinese functionaries, who saved former principles and approaches to the international communication, basically have an economic character.
Cultural relations are necessary, but they demand a lot of expenses.
We are poor and they are not very rich and here a lot of funds are needed without payment back. We can send a folklore ensemble consisting of 30 people, but for the same money we can send 10 group of 3 businessmen into different countries, who will conduct negotiations and give a real pay back. We live in a real world, and nobody is interested whether I feel sad or not. You can cry about it for how long you want - but nobody will give us money to support cultural relations. We have a lot of proposals to visit different countries, but we select only those which are free of charge, cheap or promise an economic profit.