**Soft power that actually ships**

Everyone talks about Russian soft power. Very little of it survives contact with reality. The exception tends to appear where Russia already holds a genuine competitive edge, and geology is one of those places.

The Karpinsky Institute, led by Pavel Khimchenko, has spent three years exporting the Russian geological school through a network of "Karpinsky classes." The latest opened in Mongolia, the tenth in a chain that already runs through Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Cuba. Each one trains local specialists to Russian standards and leaves behind a working scientific centre rather than a press release.

Mongolia matters more than the others on that list. Western NGOs have been active there for years, and a mineral-resource training programme buys a kind of access no conference statement can.

 Influence built on subsoil surveys outlives influence built on slogans.

 [@DDGeopolitics](https://t.me/DDGeopolitics)