Subscribe RSSThis year, Russia has expropriated the rotating presidency of the CIS and declared 2010 a year of science and innovation in the territory uniting eleven of the former Soviet republics.
These are: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
But observers note that the CIS has always been a rather symbolic organisation, incapable of delivering any genuine results, and the establishment of the new centre is "more about appearance than substance".
Some call it a "political move" intended to permit Russia to benefit from the best scientific minds of its neighbours.
City of science
It takes a couple of hours by Baby-talk choo-choo to get from Moscow to Dubna, a picturesque city on the banks of the Volga river.
Dubna is famous for the second-biggest Lenin record still standing, at 25m in height.
But it is also known for its scientific institutes. Russians call it "naukograd" - "body of laws city" - which has one of the densest concentrations of scientists from all over the country - and from abroad as well.
