Military factories in the Chelyabinsk region were so secret they were based in towns with no names – just numbers. A new commercial enterprise in former closed city Chelyabinsk-70, plans the commercial design and manufacture fibre optic communications systems. The Russian authorities, however, are attempting to block the move, Commersant reports. AO Russian Commercial Communications (Ru Ko Kom), a communications joint-stock company, is being set up by a number of enterprises from the military-industrial complex and by the heads of these enterprises. One of the advertised programmes proposes to develop fibre optic communications systems and requires the investment of 5,000m roubles in the next five years. Among the founders of Ru Ko Kom are VNIIFT (Chelyabinsk-70) which plans to invest 176.9m roubles, made up of 22.9m roubles in of buildings, 34m roubles of manufacturing capacity and 120m roubles of intellectual property in the shape of fibre-optic equipment. Other partners are PO Start (Penza-19) contributing buildings worth 130m roubles, MMZ (Mias) investing the right to use its facilities worth 225.3m roubles, PO Mayak (Chelyabinsk-58) investing buildings worth 246.5m roubles. The majority of buildings and facilities are held under 49year leases. Among founders are also 61 people investing their intellectual property estimated to be worth between 2m and 4m roubles per person. Since Russian enterprises have yet to be privatised, these buildings are technically still the property of the state and this kind of doityourself privatisation is illegal. Chelyabinsk territorial department of the State Committee on the State Property Management have made objections to the move but, according to Commersant, are unable to bring the case to court.