How to Motivate Russians

A few years back, I had a senior regional vice-president from Houston give me and others advice that the only way to motivate Russians is with the whip. He thought he was at the peak of wisdom, when in reality he showed everyone, who was Russian anyways, his absolute ignorance. 

This, like many stereotypes comes from yellow propaganda of the Cold War that dipicted Russians as some sort of slave race under either the Tsars (who were hardly what one would call despotic) or Communist leadership. 

True, Stalin did use slave labour, but this was first and foremost against political opponents not as a form of economics.

So what then? Money? To some degree, yes but that wears thin on the Russian soul rather quickly.

Now wait, if I can not whip them or bribe them, then how do you motivate those damn Russians? Or is it all a riddle in a quandary? 

Truth be told, it is all much simpler than that. Russia is a great nation, one that has withstood what would have ground any other people into sand. A quick perusual of Russia's 1400 year history will quickly teach that lesson. 

 So what is the secret? Its in that Greatness itself. Russia and Russians must always have a great cause to strive for. Be it for the Mother Russia of the ancient knyazei (princes) or Holy Third Rome Defender of Orthodox Christianity of the Tsars or the World Proletariat Unite of the early Bolsheviks or Building Enlightened Communism of the later Bolsheviks, Russians have to have an overwhelming goal to strive and sacrifice for, to believe in. 

This is why the 90s were such a disaster. The Communists fell and all the new, corrupt, self absorbed leadership could come up with was: now we will be like all other nations....what? That's it? Then there is nothing to strive for. And that is one of the keys to President Putin's success, to some degree, he has returned those ideas, albait still in a murky form. 

 So there is the example. Your workers are not just building and designing trucks, they are building the best trucks in the world that will be exported all over the world. Your genetisists and their lab assistants are not just making vaccines but are making vaccines which will save the lives of millions of children. 

But do not make these empty words. When the leadership does not believe in what it is saying, the Russian worker will see through the smoke quite quickly and then you are in an even worse state than before. 

To manage in Russia is to lead in Russia and for that you need actual leaders and leaders with vision, vision that goes further than the next quarterly report. Who is up for the task?

Vikings: A Tale of Russophobia Gone Stupid

Vikings has been one of my favorite shows over the first four seasons. Sure it always played fast and wild with chronology of real history, compacting some 300 years of historic events into approximately 30, but it did a good job of capturing the complexity of characters and the often contradictory behaviors and views of the cashing cultures.

Season 5 began the veering off into historical lala land, where alternate reality takes over and any semblance of history takes a far back seat on the bus.

And then we came to season 6. I only got through the first two episodes before I put a big X on it and moved on. It was obvious the writers were driven by the West's mania of demonizing all things Russian and any reality be damned, a sorry state of affairs.

Lets begin.

The Rus apper attackig a convoy for no reason and one on the Silk Road none the less. Never mind the Silk Road was not even going through Rus lands but through Asia Minor. Oops, but we must show them as evil war mongers.

Truth be told, when the attack happened, for anyone with any knowledge, from the cloths, no one could even guess that the mongol dressed warriors are Russians. Seriously? Long fur hats with steel spikes, round shields, dark cloths and furs? Rus warriors, be they slavik or scandanavian dressed a lot like everyone else in Europe and had kite shields or round flat shields not the round raised shields of the mongols. If anything, Russians preferred bright colours, especially red.

The people themselves are mostly shownas dark haired and well swarthy. Never mind that every second Russian is some shade of blonde or red head.

So, they go to Kiev...and of course its winter, since every Westerner knows that there is only one season in Russia: winter.

Now we meet prince Igor, who of course just got done murdering someone, that is the Russian breakfast ritual, as everyone knows.

Oleg, the Christian who remembers his ancestral Norse tongue....what? Oleg was a pagan, a scandanavian, brother to Rurik, who adopted Ruriks young son Igor. Oleg and Rurik both came from Denmark, where Rurik was a minor lord...so yes, they would "remember" their ancestral tongue.

Then there is the Christian issue. Oleg was pagan and the first strong Christian influence was St.Olga, the widow of Igor, who was baptized in Constantinople with the emperor as her Godfather, and that in the second half of her life, so roughly 30 years later. But the Rus nobility was still pagan, and her son Svetasav the Great was a raging pagan, as were his sons. It was only after his youngest son Vladimir defeated his brothers for the throne did he convert in mid life and became St. Vladimir Equal to the Apostles for baptizing Rus. But all that is some 100 years after the show.

Further, Oleg after taking Ivar as a guest proceeds to torture Ivar's henchman. After all, Oleg is Russian and everyone knows that's what Russians do. In reality Guest Law was so important that a Rus prince would go to war with another Rus prince if the guest of the first would then go visit the second and be insulted in any way. Honour demanded no less.

Kiev itself is show as guess what..yup a dreary, dark place full of dreary, dull and rather unseemly people. Who could have guessed that from a Western writer and caster.

Yup, the show, like most everything else feeding on the Western mania of Russophobia has skated down hill in a hurry. Sad but not surprising.

GOST: Yes Russia Does Have Standards

Many foreigners, when dealing with Russia in thr 90s and on, and even today are under the very big misimpression that Russia has no government standards that its business operates under and thus the foreign business is free to do as it pleases. 

This, of course, could not be further from the truth. Since 1925, Russia has been operating under GOST (Government Standard)...yes, those latin words do translate that close.  GOST is a set of standards that covers everything from food preparation to building construction to wire manufacturing. At present they are undergoing their biggest review since their inception with several thousand outdated standards being removed or heavily redacted.

This is a very thick series of standards that cover all manufacturing of any and all products or product categories. Companies are allowed to make technical exceptions to GOST but these must be approved by the appropriate GOST committees and can not be weaker than the existing standards. GOST has been translated into English and is available online.

I have heard numerous times that Gazprom, Rusneft or some other entity has agreed to API standarsa whicg is why we are producing in API instead of GOST. But here is the key, they agree to exploit (use) the API standard project NOT accept it for exploitation. Acceptance or completed projects is conducted by Rostecnadzor (Russian Technological Supervision) which is the government agency that must sign off before a project is completed and accepted, and they work exclusively in GOST. 

Now, however, if you are manufacturing for exportation out of Russia and not into another nation adhering to GOST, you can manufacture to whatever standards you wish.