Word: french
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...farmers' market, where babushkas from nearby villages with woolly hats and dodgy teeth sell homegrown carrots and potatoes for 25˘ per pound. But look closer, and it's clear that even Lyudinovo isn't frozen in time. A shopping emporium that opened a year ago sells South Korean refrigerators, French yogurt and fake Italian pumps. Several houses are being built on the outskirts - the first new residential construction in more than a decade. And until recently there was plenty of work for everyone at the five factories that employ the bulk of the townsfolk. (See pictures of Russian aristocracy...
...swirling red-and-gold patterns on the walls and easy credit. Here, 450 people - mainly women in their 20s - sit side by side in booths and field calls from Russians wanting to borrow money. Most of the time the answer they give is a resounding yes. Owned by the French bank Société Générale, Rusfinance is aiming to build a massive presence in Russia. Back in Paris, SocGen's chief executive Frédéric Oudéa even talks about Russia becoming the bank's second biggest market after France...
...French Architect Jacques Ferrier is a big fan of concrete. He has used it extensively in his latest work, including his design of the French pavilion for the 2010 World's Fair in Shanghai, and believes it has strong aesthetic appeal. "It has a sensuality," he enthuses. "It evokes images of white minerality." Most of all, Ferrier praises concrete for its environmental friendliness. One of his concept projects is Hypergreen, a showcase tower with a curved, concrete lattice façade, designed to generate enough energy to meet most of its own needs...
...based chemical firm AkzoNobel, this year started selling a new type of paint called Ecosure that sharply reduces the amount of embodied carbon and other so-called volatile organic compounds--and is being heavily marketed as "a new era in sustainability and performance." At the R&D center of French cement giant Lafarge, director Pascal Casanova waxes lyrical about Ductal, a superresilient concrete the center developed that he calls the Formula One of concrete. It's what architect Ferrier used in his 807-ft. (246 m) Hypergreen tower, a project that wouldn't have been possible with regular concrete...
...sense of how technological progress is translating into environmental gains, take a trip to the research campus of Lafarge, just outside the French city of Lyons. The world's largest cement company, with sales of $22.5 billion in 2007, Lafarge has set itself the goal by 2010 of cutting its net CO2 emissions for every ton of cement it produces to 20% below the 1990 level. But it is also steaming ahead with research efforts into smarter, stronger and less polluting products, including ultra-high-performance concrete. Research director Casanova traces the path of innovation back to the 1980s, when...