Russia Delivers a New Shock to Crimean Business: Forced Nationalization

Good!

Well, not good in a moral sense. But good in a "you made your economy-crippling-bed now lie in it" kinda way.

My first Russian administrative assistant when I worked in Moscow taught me something about Russia that applies in this case: "Nothing in Russia is as it seems."

I posted the Russian government's explanation for why they are nationalizing businesses in Crimea but using my assistant's hypothesis, what is the REAL reason the Russian government is nationalizing those businesses in Ukraine?? Anybody??

This should make Ralph_Wiggum very happy. Communism is making a come back!

Yeah crimea really had no choice. They were essentially invaded while the world sat on its hands.

I don't think many of the Crimeans are Ukrainians. I think they are vast majority Russian. I think the original Crimeans were 'Turkmen' and have long since been bussed to the hinterlands.

Communists imposing communism. Shocker.

I think you're really, really close to what the real reason is the Russians are taking over some of the businesses in Crimea.

With the Russian economy in a recession and maybe even in a depression, the Russian government is hurting for revenue. Taxes, paid in Russian rubles, of course, are likely coming in very slowly and when they do, the ruble has devalued so much so quickly that the taxes won't pay the government's obligations.

So in spite of the 'official' line that the businesses being taken over in Crimea are inefficient, they are probably some of the most efficiently run (by their standards) enterprises, having been owned and managed by either ethnic Ukrainians, Turkmen or Cossacks for 20+ years since the Soviet Union broke up.

Rather than being satisfied with collecting taxes on the profits of those businesses, by nationalizing them the government can keep ALL the profits to shore up its weakening revenue stream from taxes being collected.

The government won't put any of the profits back into the businesses so they will eventually fall apart, but in the meantime the Russian government has bought some time to get past the recession and international sanctions.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

You apparently didn't read the link I provided.

The reasons you gave coincide with the stated reasons in the article....punish the opposition, take away assets from supporters of the Kiev government, etc.

That means your reasons are too obvious and therefore do not fit the "In Russia nothing is as it seems" theory.

I'll defer to Freud. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I think the real reasons were as stated by the Russian authorities.

I've never claimed to have more experience dealing with Russians than you. I'm simply stating that sometimes you have to take things at face value. Why aren't the obvious reasons good enough? Are the intended results somehow insufficient to Russian objectives? What more important objective(s) do the Russians have?