Tamara
Kunina, a skilled ophthalmologist from the city of Belgorod,
received her first experience of entrepreneurship in 1992. At that time, she
was the head of the Laboratory for Contact Vision Correction at a regional
hospital. The hospital lacked funds to support the Laboratory’s program; the
Laboratory was on the verge of being closed down permanently. Tamara Kunina, to her personal risk, took out a loan and bought all the Laboratory’s equipment from the hospital. The entire
staff of the hospital’s Laboratory transferred to Tamara’s private practice.
Today, Tamara’s much renowned Center for Vision Correction has two locations in
the city of Belgorod.
The Center’s cutting edge equipment and its wide variety of services make it
one of the best in Russia.
The
company, which is headed personally by Tamara Kunina,
has a 17-year-long experience of producing contact lenses in its mini-factory.
The Center makes soft and hard lenses that are highly impermeable to gases.
Customized colored lenses that comply with all world standards are also
produced.
The
prices of the Center’s products are among the lowest in Russia.
The
Center employs highly-qualified specialists in ophthalmology and optometry.
The list of services the Center provides:
• Retail of
glasses frames and sunglasses
• Producing
contact lenses of any complexity from imported materials that are impermeable
to gasses
• Producing
soft contact lenses with the use of the sharpening technique
• Selecting
soft lenses produced in England
and the United
States
• Diagnosing
eye abnormalities and illnesses
• Producing
eye glasses of any complexity using Spanish machines (INDO)
• Treatment
of nearsightedness, squint, amblyopia
Tamara
Kunina has visited the United
States four times.
In
1996, she participated in an exhibition in New
York; in 1998, she was in St.
Louis at an event of the Contact Lens
Manufacturers Association (CLMA). In 2003, Tamara visited Columbus,
GA, for a
seminar on creating .private medical practices; her trip was organized by the
CCI program (a program for increasing business efficiency among Russian
entrepreneurs).
From
March 20 to March 30,
2004, Tamara Kunina, along
with other 100 businessmen from Russia,
participated in a CCI conference held in Washington
under the title World
Experience of Countering Corruption. On March 30, CCI delegates,
in their turn, came to the Kremlin, where they were hosted by Andrei Illarionov, and gave the Russian officials valuable advice
on how to develop a free-market democracy in Russia.
While in the US,
Tamara Kunina received official recognition as a
Leader.
Tamara
also took part in learning seminars in Switzerland,
France,
Italy,
and China.
“There
are many different directions of possible mutual work with potential American partners – such as creating a
jointly-owned company,” Tamara Kunina says. “We own
400 sq. meters of land in the city and rent about 300 sq. meters more. We have
the space for building a clinic downtown.”
Possible ways of cooperating with American partners:
• Assisting
in building the eye-care clinic
• Helping in
finding additional facilities in which to place the contact lens production
line
• Helping in
finding additional facilities in which to place the production line for soft
contact lens liquids
• Any other proposals
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Center for
Vision Correction
Private
Practice of T. I. Kunina
[Main
Office]
308007, City
of Belgorod, Russia
Prospekt Hmelnitskogo, 96
Tel./Fax: (0722) 34-13-95
e-mail:
kunina_optika@mail.ru
www.optika.beltelecom.ru
Tamar Kunina – biography
Tamara
I. Kunina [left in the above picture] was born in the
town of Stariy
Saltov,
Harkovskaya Region, on February 17, 1953. In 1977,
she graduated from the Harkovskiy Institute of
Medicine as a pediatrician. In 1978, Tamara Kunina
received training in the field of ophthalmology at the Hospital no. I in Belgorod. Since, ophthalmology became her
specialization area. From 1979 to 1985, Tamara worked in the eye-care center of
the Regional Children’s Hospital as an ophthalmologist. In 1985, she was
invited to the Regional
Hospital
no. I to assist with the creation of a Laboratory for Contact Vision Correction
(producing contact lenses for correcting vision of patients with various
abnormalities – most patients had serious eye problems). From 1985 to 1992,
Tamara Kunina headed the Laboratory and was the chief
specialist of contact vision correction at the Region’s Department of
Healthcare. Since 1992, Tamara works as the director of the Belgorod
Center
for Vision Correction. In 2001, she also became the chairman to the regional
branch of a public organization First Nationwide Association of Doctors in
Private Practice.
