On February 2, 2026, The Observer paid a courtesy visit to the Russian ambassador to Uganda, H.E Vladlen Semivolos, to discuss media partnerships and collaboration, and what an interesting 90 minutes it turned out to be!
This ambassador knows his country like the back of his hand and loves it to bits. Upon arrival, we were asked by an attaché whether any of us had ever been to Russia and we answered in the negative.
When the ambassador walked in a minute later, it was to deliver a masterclass in everything Russian, and we were enamoured students. Did you know, for example, that Russia is so huge, it takes 11 to 12 hours to fly from the east to the west of the same country?
To give this context, flying from Entebbe to Johannesburg takes four hours, five and a half hours to Dubai, eight hours to LondonHeathrow. Twelve hours, one country!
Did you know, Russia is one of the best-armed countries in the world, because, according to Semivolos, 80 per cent of Russia’s existence has been warfare/conflict?
No wonder, one of the key ways Russia cooperates with the government of Uganda is through supply of military equipment. The latest batch of donation worth $53m, was delivered to the UPDF at the College of Logistics and Engineering Magamaga, in October last year.
The shipment comprised engineering and naval equipment. Semivolos talked with pride about how Russia is gifted with so many natural resources, which have made it a target for other countries for centuries, “but we won’t give an inch of our nation to anyone”.
Russia has the world’s most extensive mineral reserves, boasting huge deposits of gold, nickel, palladium, cobalt, natural gas, oil, titanium, uranium, aluminium, to list but a few.
Did you know, Russia’s metro is believed to be the most beautiful in the world – like an underground museum (some stations are 70 to 80 metres deep and can withstand a nuclear attack) – dotted with sculptures and colourful fittings that characterise almost every major city of Russia?
Pausing to open pictures on Google to show us these elaborate train stations, Semivolos said people go through the metro not just for transit, but also to admire it at a touristic level.
Built in 1935 and nicknamed the ‘palace of the people’, the metro, according to the ambassador, was designed with marble, sculptures, mosaics and chandeliers, and looks really luxurious for a train station!
Did you know that it is a myth that Moscow plunges to minus 40 degrees Celsius in winter?
“It never gets that cold in Moscow. Only in places like Yakutsk, where temperatures can plunge to -60 degrees C; right now, Moscow is at minus 25 degrees C and that is very unusual and very cold for us! We don’t know what is going on,” Semivolos said.
Did you know that Russia is one of the most artistic countries in the world? If you love literature, you would have loved listening to Semivolos’ deep dive into Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and other authors that I now forget. It is equally rich in music and art.
For 90 minutes, we felt like we had been transported to a lecture room in Moscow or St Petersburg, before we delved into the different ways Russia and The Observer can collaborate journalistically.
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