Vladimir Putin helps railway carriage builders.
Vladimir Putin visited Europe's biggest railway carriage factory yesterday, located in the city of Tver. In 1942 the plant repaired tanks for the Kalinin Front. The enterprise is now experiencing hard times because the Russian Railways Company has reduced orders for carriages (from about a thousand in 2008 to almost half that number today). Employees have been put on a three-day workweek, their wages have dropped, and before long about 20% of the workforce will be laid off.
A group of about 20 to 30 people were awaiting Mr Putin in the shop where they make limited-edition, specialised cars that, for example, carry money or important government officials. The meeting with the Prime Minister was set up as a "roundtable" discussion, in which Putin sat in a chair surrounded by factory workers and answering their questions, a format that has become fashionable as of late.
"We hope that the layoffs will be stopped, our business is shrinking," said local trade union leader Viktor Koltsov, immediately getting down to the matter at hand. Employees who are paid by the unit produced have seen their wages drop by two to three times".
"But they used to earn up to 34,000 roubles," Mr Putin interjected.
"We don't need more money, give money to Russian Railways, and then some of it will trickle down to us," Mr Koltsov replied angrily.
"So you do need money, after all," the Prime Minister said.
"Well, we do," the trade union leader conceded.
During the course of the meeting, the topic of the financial crisis came up again and again. One of the employees complained about rising tariffs: "Perhaps tariffs should be suspended, for example, for 10 or 50 years while the crisis lasts, as we have been told it would". The factory worker laughed at this, pleased with his jab at Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin (who had suggested the day before that the crisis could last 50 years).
"Mr Kudrin is probably under some stress," said Mr Putin, defending his Minister, and suggested that the economy would start recovering not in 50 years' time but within a year.
"I support domestic car makers and drive a Lada, but I cannot get to work because there are no bridges: they are shut down or broken," another factory worker added.
"You know... this year we are opening three new bridges across the Volga," the Prime Minister quickly responded. "Though not in Tver, that is true."
The factory worker chose to leave it at that.
Another factory worker, however, again brought up the question of "social tensions" and said that "people are waiting". True, he did not specify what they were waiting for.
"Russia has nothing to do with the causes of the crisis, I need hardly repeat that," Mr Putin said. "Nobody thought that the world economy could crash".
As has recently become common, the meeting ended with a multi-billion rouble handout. Mr Putin promised that the Government would allocate 3 billion roubles for the Tver Railway Carriage Factory, and would subsidise interest rates on loans taken out to finance technological production. The Prime Minister also said that Russian Railways "managed to raise an additional 3.1 billion to buy rolling stock".
"Come back in six months' time, and see whether the money has reached us and helped us," yelled Vladimir, a grinder, as Mr Putin was leaving the building along the rails.
Koltsov, the trade unionist, looked crestfallen after the meeting. "The 3 billion won't make a dent", he said, waving his hand in a hopeless gesture as the Prime Minister walked away. That is just 120 carriages, and they won't make much difference. The 3.1 billion from Russian Railways will also make no difference because the money will be spent on term purchase".
"What sum of money would make a difference?"
"At least 7 billion. Then layoffs would stop. As it is, they will continue."
"What are you going to do now?"
"We will think", said Mr Koltsov staring into the distance. People have enough time to think.
By Alexander Latyshev