R

ussia has appointed Mikhail Yurievich Galuzin, a senior career diplomat as its new ambassador to Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, the Russian Embassy announced in Jakarta, on Saturday.

Russian Ambassador-designate to Indonesia, Galuzin, will concurrently work as Russia’s Permanent Representative to ASEAN during his tenure in Indonesia.

“Ambassador Galuzin will arrive in Jakarta on Monday. He will soon present his credentials to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono,” Russian Embassy’s Charge d’Affaires Sergey G. Tolchenov told The Jakarta Post last week.

Galuzin, who joined the Russian Foreign Ministry in 1983, is
not new to Indonesia and Southeast Asia.

“Since 2010, Galuzin headed the third department of Asia at the ministry of foreign affairs of the Russian Federation, which deals with bilateral cooperation with Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia,” the Russian Embassy said in a statement.

The 52-year-old Galuzin graduated from the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Moscow State University in 1983.

Previously, he had worked at the Russian Embassy in Japan. He speaks fluent Russian, Japanese and English. He is married and has one grown son.

The biggest challenge in Indonesia for any Russian diplomat will be to convince Indonesian people, especially businesspeople, that present day Russia is completely different from the defunct communist Soviet Union.

“People in Indonesia think that Russia is still a communist country. Many people show little interest in doing business with Russia,” one Indonesian oil business executive, who preferred anonymity, told the Post recently.

Yet the previous Russian Ambassador Alexander A. Ivanov, who speaks Indonesian fluently and understands its culture, was able to boost economic, defense and political ties between Russia and Indonesia, thanks to his embassy’s hard work and immense activism from both sides.

For example, based on data from the Central Statistics Agency, trade between Indonesia and Russia surged to US$2.54 billion, a huge jump from $774.88 million in 2009. Bilateral trade increased to $2.38 billion during the first eight months of this year, a 47.36 percent increase from $1.61 billion during the same period in 2011. In a major breakthrough, Russia sold $542.91 million worth of oil and gas products to Indonesia during the first eight months of this year.