Quote Originally Posted by nulle View Post
Maybe that's because soviet manufacturing was shit in general?
And it could not compete with much more superior products from the west.
Well, you see the way the import and export works is a bit more complex. For example, Latvia might not produce any competitive cars, but it could export food. That is called the "comparative advantage" and serves as a foundation for the world trade. The same thing applies to Russia. It used to export things like steel which were very competitive on the market (and some of it could still be competitive). Economically, it makes much more sense to place the processing factories close to the raw material mines and export (=transport) the processed raw materials. And "processed" does not necessarily mean "assembled". The assembled parts might perhaps be more competitive in China. And so on. So, it might be more beneficial (=more economically profitable) for everybody that Russia would export the refined gasoline and not the raw oil because the price for the end user of the gasoline in Europe would ultimately be cheaper. But, at the present, as Ramil indicated, the options are very much limited. The oligarchy prefers to export raw materials and wouldn't care about the long-term economic benefits, because they seem to be more interested in the immediate capital and so they do not want to invest and take risks on the long run.

Quote Originally Posted by nulle View Post
And that's sad - it means that cold war against Baltic states will continue.
Would you be able to elaborate on that? I mean, I realize the Baltic states have historically earned a great deal of fear. Perhaps, they have their right to be anxious. I'm not sure if that could qualify for the "cold war" though.