Just over a hundred years ago, the great philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev wrote: “The Russian people are a great, but sinful people, full of weakness and temptations. And the expectation of a social miracle is one of the weaknesses of the Russian people, one of its greatest temptations.” If the author of the original concept of the “New Middle Ages” were lucky enough to live to this day (for us, by the way, given our current lack of fish, this would also be lucky), he would understand that the The expectation of a miracle exists among the Russian people, not only in the social sphere. For example, in the car industry we also want ‘the strange’, which makes us easily fall for any temptation.
Don’t make yourself an idol
It seems that, constantly bumping into a rake, it was time to find a safe path and deeply engage in cultivating domestic industry on domestic soil. But no. In the early 1990s they clearly explained to us that it was not our job to produce cars ourselves. We believed in this so fervently that we began to turn our eyes in all directions, from where, it seemed to us, a miracle could come.
But if for our ancestors the source of happiness was the Lord, then we were drawn to more earthly givers of good. America, Europe, Japan, Korea – they all came here and disappeared overnight, without leaving significant material traces in the Russian automotive industry. However, the disappointments we experienced have not served us well.