How Western Investors Came to Own Most of Russia's Assets

#shorts #podcast #venturecapital #climatechange #public #assets

Have you heard the story of Russia’s Voucher privatization scheme after the fall of the Berlin Wall? It’s a cautionary tale of unintended government consequences and misreading the needs of the ordinary citizen.

Picture this: a country flooded with public assets from the USSR era. We're talking about everything - trains, ships, even nuclear submarines. These weren't just pieces of metal; they were public assets the Russian Federation didn’t want to manage in a post-Soviet economy.

The Russian government had a plan. They distributed vouchers to every citizen, allowing them to own a piece of this colossal asset pie. But here's the twist: owning a part of a submarine sounds cool, but it doesn't put food on the table. Every day Russians wanted to sell their voucher for cash today vs. investing it for fractional shares in future protifts of a Siberian oil field.

Enter enterprising entrepreneurs – mostly from the West and UK. They grabbed at a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by offering to buy these vouchers from citizens en masse. The result? Assets that once symbolized the might of the USSR, intended to be shared among the Russian people, ended up as privately owned assets by foreign hedge funds.

This story is a stark reminder of how big shifts in policy can have unintended consequences, especially when the basic needs of the ordinary citizen clash with high-minded economic models.

Given how much the climate and industrial automation world intersect with governmental affairs, I often try to remind myself of these consequences. It’s not just about designing for the future; it's equally about understanding and addressing the needs of the present.