Russia’s share of the global economy will continue to decline, even if the necessary reforms are implemented. Therefore, Russia will not be able to supplement its military and political influence with economic one. However, it will be able to supplement it with a powerful ideological influence and become an intellectual leader of non-Western countries through the development of education and science. This requires a transition from extensive development to intensive one, the idea of which was laid by the disgraced Soviet philosopher Michael Petrov. Such a transition will require fundamental reforms in both spheres, the rejection of quantitative fetishism, i.e. the transition from quantitative to qualitative assessments. Profound transformations should be preceded by a creative search for more effective forms of organization of education and science both. At the same time, the analysis of historical experience, both domestic and foreign, can be much more fruitful than borrowing modern foreign models, since neither science nor education in the West are now flourishing. Reforms of education and science should be “sharpened” under the Asian vector of development. Large-scale transformation is more likely to succeed when associated with a new big deal. These are the study and teaching of Oriental languages, Asian country studies, all kinds of applied research related to the development of energy-intensive and water-intensive technologies, basic research, allowing to increase the export of high-tech goods and services in the future, etc. Asian Russia is destined to become the laboratory of the future, a huge testing ground for experimental testing of new solutions — institutional, managerial, technological, distributed in case of success to the whole country or to the most economically powerful regions of European Russia and the Urals. It would be a strong move to make Novosibirsk the main intellectual center of Asian Russia’s reconstruction. In the research centers of Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences it is necessary to revive the unique experience of training in the course of research. This will give impetus not only to the development of natural and exact Sciences, but also the Humanities through a sharp strengthening of the training of Orientalists, specialists in various fields in Asia.