Moscow Orientation – Day 15 – Regional Trip

Our first meeting today was with the staff of the Chamber of Commerce. It was interesting to hear their assessment of the regional economy and what they identified as business issues. Truth be told, though, a lot of the long presentation was eminently forgettable. Their legal director, for example, cited chapter and verse of the Russian law that established arbitration courts.

After lunch, we transferred by van over to the main government offices of the president of the republic. We waited, seated, in a formal conference room until he entered from a door in the back of the room.

His opening remarks focused on the role of the president as the preserver of Chuvash culture and language, and then progressed to some of their projects and accomplishments.

Somehow, without natural resources to speak of their economy has grown quickly and transitioned into an information-based high-tech economy. I asked him how he did this, and why Chuvashia has had a higher investment rate than the national average since 2001. He joked and said that that was very valuable information, but he agreed to answer when I said that I wouldn’t tell anyone else – besides the 10 of us in the room, there were TV crews and reporters, too.

His answer boiled down to good governance, responsibility, and transparency. For example, all of these have combined such that the republic can borrow directly from the WorldBank without a federal guarantee. That’s unique in Russia.

The president was elected to the post 3 times since 1993. President Putin recently took back all that power, though, and now has the authority to appoint all regional heads. Given the success of the Chuvash economy (and perhaps some other assurances), he appointed him for another term.

Down the hall from there we had a meeting with the head of the parliament and about 10 deputies. We got to ask all sorts of questions and they asked us a few, too. The conversation was just getting going, however, when our 2 handlers appeared and whisked us out.

We traveled out of town to the local tractor factory. By now, we had become an actual motorcade – our minibus, 2 black Volga sedans, and a police escort.

At the factory we met the minister of trade, the deputy director of the factory, and the chief engineer. Unfortunately for them, I’m quite adept at the plant-tour format of rolling conversation and I peppered them with questions the whole time. Also, I’d done some homework on the financials and asked questions about them, too. They were pretty surprised by that line of questioning.

PromTractor is an absolutely vast complex of enormous buildings. 100% of the tractor is built on premises (except for a few imported engines) – from foundry operations right through final assembly. The legacy of a centrally planned economy is that there isn’t much opportunity to outsource. We then got a chance to drive the tractors in the parking lot.

It was a bit scary, frankly. The parking lot is metal tile to protect from the treads of these giant tractors, and these rumbling behemoths slipped and skidded all over the place. Especially when they did doughnuts; that’s right – the driver put a 63 ton tractor into a spin.

Part of the demonstration was the precision nature of the machinery. They set an egg in a champagne glass on the ground. The tractor lumbered up and gently lowered a weird blade appendage backhoe just until the egg broke. We clapped as they proudly showed us a gently cracked egg in an unscathed champagne flute. Impressive, but I thought the real purpose of a 63 ton tractor was to do serious damage to something. Regardless, I’ll save the $350k and continue to use the edge of a frying pan to crack my eggs.

We loaded back into the motorcade and sped off to dinner. The police escort allowed us to blow through traffic lights, cut other drivers off, and generally disrupt the evening commute. I felt a bit embarrassed looking out the window at people waiting at bus stops in the rain. “Out of the way, you peasants, it’s time for my dinner!”

Dinner was, of course, another marathon of courses and toasts. I avoided the vodka completely and felt much the better for it.