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Russia is spending billions on infrastructure all over the country and from some of what I have read getting a lot more bang for its buck. In the Puget Sound region of Wa state there are significant geographic challenges to building most major infrastructure. This leads to exorbidant costs when doing a lot of things. Hills, water, mountains have to be tunneled under, moved or bypassed. Russia is for the most part flat so you can lay down infrastructure cheaply.
Not so flat ... We have no less hills, rivers, mountains and forests than you ... Maybe it's all about salaries?
Russia is spending billions on infrastructure all over the country and from some of what I have read getting a lot more bang for its buck. In the Puget Sound region of Wa state there are significant geographic challenges to building most major infrastructure. This leads to exorbidant costs when doing a lot of things. Hills, water, mountains have to be tunneled under, moved or bypassed. Russia is for the most part flat so you can lay down infrastructure cheaply.
Well, that's one thing V.V. deserves credit for ( Yes, I said it!): developing Russia's infrastructure. Even during his first term, he did hydroelectric development and roads, railroads, around Russia, into rural areas, which improved the quality of life. But the main point is, that you need to do infrastructure development first, if you plan to do broad-based economic development.
OTOH, he still hasn't supported light industry, for domestic consumption and export, which is something Medvedev wanted to do, but couldn't, because the price of oil collapsed after he came into the Presidency (such as it was). Russia still depends mainly on raw materials and (including energy) exports and arms exports, rather than value-added manufactured goods. It's still basically a 3rd-world economy, trying to catapult itself into developed nation status. Too bad all this infrastructure development didn't happen 50 years ago, or even 30 years ago.
Well, that's one thing V.V. deserves credit for ( Yes, I said it!): developing Russia's infrastructure. Even during his first term, he did hydroelectric development and roads, railroads, around Russia, into rural areas, which improved the quality of life. But the main point is, that you need to do infrastructure development first, if you plan to do broad-based economic development.
Exactly. Don't build a house without a foundation. The problem is that the public rarely sees the benefits of this in their daily lives and the way people think demands just that. Immediate palpable benefit. Building that foundation can take years, even generations with little if visible benefit to individuals.
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OTOH, he still hasn't supported light industry, for domestic consumption and export, which is something Medvedev wanted to do, but couldn't, because the price of oil collapsed after he came into the Presidency (such as it was). Russia still depends mainly on raw materials and (including energy) exports and arms exports, rather than value-added manufactured goods. It's still basically a 3rd-world economy, trying to catapult itself into developed nation status. Too bad all this infrastructure development didn't happen 50 years ago, or even 30 years ago.
i dont know what to do about that. When it comes to consumer goods China seems to make everything for everybody cheaper and faster and in some cases better than anyone else. Who wants to buy a Russian made big screen TV with all the different brands that are available out there anyway? What investor wants to build a factory that produces consumer goods like that when it's almost certain to fail? Who wants to buy a LADA when they can get a Toyota or Subaru? Why buy things from any other home store than Ikea?
Maybe that's in the future. It looks like Russia will have to stick to making great battle tanks, artillery, Kamaz and Ural light trucks and great food products for now.
It's all right with sales of these cars. AvtoVAZ had a cooperation with Renault and improved the quality of products.
This is the statistics of sales in March 2019 in Russia: LADA - 34 000 (+10,1%), KIA - 20 000 (+2,4%), Hyundai - 16 000 (-2,3%) and Renault - 13 000 (-7,1%).
Exactly. Don't build a house without a foundation. The problem is that the public rarely sees the benefits of this in their daily lives and the way people think demands just that. Immediate palpable benefit. Building that foundation can take years, even generations with little if visible benefit to individuals.
i dont know what to do about that. When it comes to consumer goods China seems to make everything for everybody cheaper and faster and in some cases better than anyone else. Who wants to buy a Russian made big screen TV with all the different brands that are available out there anyway? What investor wants to build a factory that produces consumer goods like that when it's almost certain to fail? Who wants to buy a LADA when they can get a Toyota or Subaru? Why buy things from any other home store than Ikea?
Maybe that's in the future. It looks like Russia will have to stick to making great battle tanks, artillery, Kamaz and Ural light trucks and great food products for now.
Russia could make its own kitchen housewares. Russians complain a lot about the junk quality of the stuff the Chinese import and sell. The US may get better quality from China (though not as a general rule), but Russia gets China's lowest-budget goods, so Russia-made items would be better, plus home-grown factories would create jobs, and profit would (theoretically, haha) by cycled back into the local economy, vs. being siphoned out across the border.
Russia used to have a furniture factory on the Amur River, that turned out extremely nice classical-looking furniture, like some kind of Louis XIV style, or something. For a higher-end local market, I guess...? But they could do more of that type of thing, and could be competitive with European manufacturers, because of lower labor costs (if they could do strict quality control), or export to "Eastern" Europe, if not Western. They certainly have plenty of raw material, with their extensive forests.
There's a lot of potential for expanding consumer goods in Russia, IMO. Heck, if Germany saw fit to set up factories in Russia back in the 90's and 2000's, to take advantage of cheap labor, why shouldn't Russia have their own factories??
Russia could make its own kitchen housewares. Russians complain a lot about the junk quality of the stuff the Chinese import and sell. The US may get better quality from China (though not as a general rule), but Russia gets China's lowest-budget goods, so Russia-made items would be better, plus home-grown factories would create jobs, and profit would (theoretically, haha) by cycled back into the local economy, vs. being siphoned out across the border.
Russia used to have a furniture factory on the Amur River, that turned out extremely nice classical-looking furniture, like some kind of Louis XIV style, or something. For a higher-end local market, I guess...? But they could do more of that type of thing, and could be competitive with European manufacturers, because of lower labor costs (if they could do strict quality control), or export to "Eastern" Europe, if not Western. They certainly have plenty of raw material, with their extensive forests.
There's a lot of potential for expanding consumer goods in Russia, IMO. Heck, if Germany saw fit to set up factories in Russia back in the 90's and 2000's, to take advantage of cheap labor, why shouldn't Russia have their own factories??
I remember where my xs father worked as an designer and architect for a furniture factory. I saw some of the stuff they made in Gomel. Dining room sets made from cherry and walnut going for $40,000 to 60k a pop in 2005. It was all hand made and beautiful stuff. The chairs had silk coverings on the seats, backs and arms. I've never seen anything like it in recent history in America. At least not in the homes of the lowlifes I hang out with.
I think I know why Russians don't move into the local markets with consumer goods such as house wares. I do remember when I worked in Moscow a lot of their problems wasn't the engineering, maintenance or lack of talent to do the jobs required. The problem was all kinds of inconsistencies in logistics and materials quantities and quality. Bus bars and contacts for electrical switches are an example. Some bus bars were burning out twice as fast as others because the copper had more impurities in it, the same with bronze fittings. Silver contacts? Forget it, we found lead/tin contacts in some instances. Whoever made the contacts was pocketing the silver and using the lead/tin as a substitute. I once threw a switch, turned around and walked 3 steps only to have a brand new 600 amp breaker melt down on me because the contacts turned to vapor in an instant. Bob, our engineer became a metallurgist trying to figure out stuff like that and it's one of reasons I spent so much time there.
Raw materials for the work need to be have quality standards attached to them and they need to be enforced. Logistics need to be reliable. A lot of the time the engineers/QC in Moscow were faced with a choice. Take these dubious components or you won't have any at all. Something is better than nothing when those trains need to be on the tracks.
I'm willing to bet that better infrastructure will solve some of their problems. They certainly got way better with that stuff in the early 2000s. They also contracted with a couple of local tooling companies so if they needed they could drive over to the place and throw the defective goods at the managers. I heard that happened once.
It's all right with sales of these cars. AvtoVAZ had a cooperation with Renault and improved the quality of products.
This is the statistics of sales in March 2019 in Russia: LADA - 34 000 (+10,1%), KIA - 20 000 (+2,4%), Hyundai - 16 000 (-2,3%) and Renault - 13 000 (-7,1%).
I always wanted a LADA Niva. The broinlaw had one and it was indestructible.
I remember where my xs father worked as an designer and architect for a furniture factory. I saw some of the stuff they made in Gomel. Dining room sets made from cherry and walnut going for $40,000 to 60k a pop in 2005. It was all hand made and beautiful stuff. The chairs had silk coverings on the seats, backs and arms. I've never seen anything like it in recent history in America. At least not in the homes of the lowlifes I hang out with.
I think I know why Russians don't move into the local markets with consumer goods such as house wares. I do remember when I worked in Moscow a lot of their problems wasn't the engineering, maintenance or lack of talent to do the jobs required. The problem was all kinds of inconsistencies in logistics and materials quantities and quality. Bus bars and contacts for electrical switches are an example. Some bus bars were burning out twice as fast as others because the copper had more impurities in it, the same with bronze fittings. Silver contacts? Forget it, we found lead/tin contacts in some instances. Whoever made the contacts was pocketing the silver and using the lead/tin as a substitute. I once threw a switch, turned around and walked 3 steps only to have a brand new 600 amp breaker melt down on me because the contacts turned to vapor in an instant. Bob, our engineer became a metallurgist trying to figure out stuff like that and it's one of reasons I spent so much time there.
Raw materials for the work need to be have quality standards attached to them and they need to be enforced. Logistics need to be reliable. A lot of the time the engineers/QC in Moscow were faced with a choice. Take these dubious components or you won't have any at all. Something is better than nothing when those trains need to be on the tracks.
I'm willing to bet that better infrastructure will solve some of their problems. They certainly got way better with that stuff in the early 2000s. They also contracted with a couple of local tooling companies so if they needed they could drive over to the place and throw the defective goods at the managers. I heard that happened once.
You're right; Russia needs to resolve its corruption problems, before the economy can take off in various directions.That kind of thing is Old Think, leftover from the soviet era, but it's still going on. Will be tough to root out.
Several times I've set up projects with a partner in Russia, only to see the funding on the Russia side get misdirected to someone in Moscow's regional crony, or otherwise embezzled. One was a major project, with funding coming from Canada, and matching funds set up by the Yakut government, on behalf of one of the smaller Native nations there. The people appointed to administer the fund robbed it blind. And the project was to benefit their own people, it was going to be a dream come true.
Local improvements and economic development can't happen with that kind of thing going on.
It’s the name of a Yes song, but does it have a bigger meaning?
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We have no less hills, rivers, mountains and forests than you ...
Maybe it's all about salaries?
Yes, I said it!): developing Russia's infrastructure. Even during his first term, he did hydroelectric development and roads, railroads, around Russia, into rural areas, which improved the quality of life. But the main point is, that you need to do infrastructure development first, if you plan to do broad-based economic development. 
AvtoVAZ
