One of my favourite professors at the University of Regina was Bernie Zagorin, who was my professor for modern Russian history and honours-level historiography.
He had a grand, glowering and (to some) intimidating lecturing manner when describing periods of Russian history. I’ll never forget him looking out over his glasses at we puny students and, in a tone of mock outrage, describing a character in a mid-19th century Russian novel, who was “AN EATER OF RAW MEAT!!!!!!” and who had “THE PHYSIQUE OF A VOLGA BOATMAN!!!!!!”
Read Also
Crop insurance’s ability to help producers has its limitations
Farmers enrolled in crop insurance can do just as well financially when they have a horrible crop or no crop at all, compared to when they have a below average crop
He referred to me and Paul, the guy who sat beside me in the class, as the “cherubs,” because we were the youngest folks in the class, which was mainly much older students who weren’t scared of him and his manner.
Prof. Zagorin’s theatricality helped establish in my mind forever the bizarre and unique Russian culture, society and history, and that semester of studying Russian history from the emancipation of the serfs (can you believe that was only in the mid-19th century) through the repressions of the last Tsars and past the nightmarish mess of the 1917 revolutions and the horrors of the communist state.
I can still remember what a “Stolypin necktie” was. (It was a noose – the preferred method of dealing with anarchists and other rebels by a late Tsarist interior minister. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolypin_necktie). Years after taking the Russian history course I actually dug out my text books and re-read them, something I haven’t done for too many of the university course I’ve taken.
The bizarreness and weirdness of Russia was up front in my mind as I recently toured the Versatile tractor factory in Winnipeg. (There’s a story about the Versatile tractor and the Russian market in our July 9 paper.) The company not only sells tractors into the Russian market, but is in fact owned by Russians. A couple of years ago it was purchased by Combine Factory Rostselmash. (Isn’t that a great Soviet-sounding name? Love it.) The company was making great sales from the Winnipeg plant to Russia, especially as crop prices spiked last year, but the credit crunch wiped out the ability of most Russian farmers to buy equipment, so sales have collapsed. Plus, the Russian government has imposed import tariffs on non-Russian machinery, further damaging their attractiveness.
Rostselmash’s owners encouraged Versatile to ship the tractors over to Russia in parts and have them assembled over there in order to beat the tariff, but Versatile didn’t like that idea. The company assembles the tractor at the Winnipeg plant and runs each one on its test track before sending it out of the factory. They thought they might be able to work around the Russian regs some other way. But after a year of haggling with Russian officials, Versatile’s managers have come to realize that their Rostselmash owners were right, and the tractors need to be assembled over there to avoid the 15 percent tariff.
But they’re still not willing to send out their tractors untested, so the compromise they’ve established is that they are building the tractors completely in Winnipeg, testing them to make sure they’re “bulletproof,” then breaking them down into pieces and boxing them up in shipping containers and shipping them across to Russia for re-assembly. It’s the kind of thing that makes sense in that uniquely weird Russian way. (Actually, it’s like how buses mostly built in Winnipeg have to be shipped to Pembina, North Dakota for final assembly to get around U.S. bus import rules . . . )
Yesterday on Bloomberg TV I saw the head of John Deere saying they wanted various Russian tariffs and complications reduced so that they can sell their equipment to Russian farmers. Apparently the Russian officials said: sure – once the economic crisis is over.
I wouldn’t bet on that happening too quickly.
Versatile sales to Russia have collapsed because of the credit crunch, but their understanding of how to get stuff into the Russian market is probably an advantage they have over some of their much bigger competitors. Obviously all exporters to Russia are going to try to figure out creative ways around Russian regs, but Versatile actually has Russians in the room telling them how to do it.
And these aren’t just any old Russian businessmen. Apparently they’re buddies with Vladimir Putin, and if my brief studies in Russian history taught me anything, it has been that it’s good to be friends with the Tsar, and figuring out what makes sense in Russia is easiest to do from within the winter palace rather than from outside.
That way you don’t end up crying vainly for the Tsar’s attention. And it’s unlikely you’ll end up seeing your sales strangled by a Stolypin Necktie.
