PARIS—The use of public sector money to support private sector enterprise is a controversial topic, but few, if any, other countries have committed to spend on the scale and with such ambition as the Russian Federation.

Its Skolkovo project is gargantuan. While Berlin spends a few hundred thousand euros on a marketing program and the U.K. a few million on promoting what had previously been an unloved corner of London, Russia has committed to spending at least $4 billion (and potentially up to $8 billion) to build an entirely new city just outside of Moscow complete with its own special police, its own immigration status, its own courts, its own intellectual property regime (a notorious problem for companies doing business in Russia). It hopes to be open in 2014.

To read the original article: Russia’s $4 billion Entrepreneur City - Tech Europe - WSJ