From: imbibe@mindspring.com   
      
   How Russia’s Rich Get Their Luxuries Now   
   By Troianovski and Ewing, May 11, 2023, NY Times   
   On a dusty roadside on the outskirts of Dubai, Sohrab Fani is profiting from   
   the West’s response to the war in Ukraine: his shop installs seat heaters   
   into cars being re-exported to Russia.   
      
   12,000 heating pads languished in his warehouse for years, he said, until   
   Russia’s invasion and the resulting Western sanctions drove American,   
   European and Japanese automakers out of the Russian market. Now, Russians   
   import those cars via Dubai, in    
   the United Arab Emirates — and because cars shipped to the Middle East tend   
   to be made for warm climates, accessories shops like Mr. Fani’s are doing a   
   brisk business outfitting them for winter weather.   
      
   “When the Russians came, I sold out,” Mr. Fani said, so he ordered several   
   thousand more seat-heating pads. “In Russia, they have sanctions. Here,   
   there is not. Here, there is business.”   
      
   More than a year into Putin’s invasion, Western sanctions have damaged   
   Russia’s economy but not crippled it. The web of global trade has adjusted,   
   allowing the Russian leader to largely deliver on a key promise: that the war   
   would not drastically    
   disrupt the lifestyle of consumption for Russian elites.   
      
   Russia is still importing coveted Western goods, enabled by a global network   
   of middlemen.   
      
   In Moscow, the latest iPhones are available for same-day delivery for less   
   than the retail price in Europe. Department stores still stock Gucci, Prada   
   and Burberry. Car-sales sites list new Land Rovers, Audis and BMWs.   
      
   Just about all of the West’s leading electronics, automobile and luxury   
   brands announced last year that they were pulling out of Russia. Not all of   
   their goods technically violate sanctions, but commerce with Russia became   
   very difficult in the face of    
   public outrage, pressure from employees, and restrictions on semiconductor   
   exports and financial transactions.   
      
   Still, Russian demand for luxury items remains strong, and traders in Dubai   
   and elsewhere are meeting it.   
      
   “The wealthy people always stay wealthy,” said Ecaterina Condratiuc, the   
   director of communications at a Dubai luxury car showroom who recently shipped   
   a $300,000 Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT to a Russian dealership. The war, she   
   added, “did not affect    
   them.”   
      
   In Dubai, buyers roam the showrooms of a sprawling auto market, haggling for   
   Western cars — the Dodge Ram is a recent favorite — to purchase in cash   
   and ship to Russia. Some are wealthy Russians buying vehicles for themselves,   
   or small-time    
   entrepreneurs looking to resell cars for a quick buck.   
      
   In other cases, Russian car dealerships, having lost their official   
   affiliations with Western brands, are organizing their own imports, sometimes   
   of hundreds of cars at a time.   
      
   The Russian analytics company Autostat reported that such indirect imports   
   accounted for 12% of the 626,300 new passenger cars sold in Russia in 2022.   
      
   Electronics also take circuitous routes to the Russian market. In Dubai’s   
   old commercial neighborhood, Deira, electronics wholesalers have scrambled to   
   recruit Russian-speaking staff.   
      
   “It’s an open secret thing,” said the owner of Bright Zone International   
   General Trading L.L.C., a few storefronts down from a wholesaler of hair   
   extensions. “Competition is very tough right now for Russia.”   
      
   The owner, who requested that he only be identified by his last name, Tura,   
   said he shipped hundreds of smartphones and laptops into Russia last year   
   ahead of the holiday season. One potential buyer wanted a quote for 15,000   
   iPhones, Mr. Tura said, but    
   apparently found a better deal elsewhere.   
      
   In another electronics shop nearby, an Afghan salesman, Abdullah Ahmadzai,   
   said he had arrived in Dubai less than a year earlier, and had since learned   
   enough Russian to negotiate with his Russian-speaking customers. Across the   
   street, a man from    
   Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic, said he and his colleague quickly found   
   employment in a shop selling phones, laptops and drones.   
      
   “All the stores here are looking for people who speak Russian,” he said.   
   “We got lucky.”   
      
   After many Western companies pulled out of Russia, Putin’s govt encouraged   
   unauthorized imports of their goods from other countries. The Russian trade   
   ministry published a list of dozens of companies whose products could be   
   imported without their    
   makers’ consent, including Apple, Audi, Volvo and Yamaha.   
      
   “Whoever wants to bring in whatever luxury goods will be able to do it,”   
   Putin pledged last May.   
      
   One Russian report estimated that such “parallel imports” of laptops,   
   tablets and smartphones totaled $1.5 billion last year. At the same time,   
   Chinese cars and electronics have flooded onto the Russian market.   
      
   “You can bring over whatever you want, as long as you have money,” said   
   Pyotr Bakanov, an auto journalist based in Moscow. “Everyone who isn’t   
   lazy is bringing cars over.”   
      
   The new trade routes largely pass through countries that have friendly   
   relations with Moscow. Western analysts and officials have pointed to Turkey,   
   China and former Soviet republics like Armenia and Kazakhstan as countries   
   redirecting Western goods to    
   Russia. They say that the Kremlin is taking advantage of those imports not   
   just to mollify a populace used to foreign phones and cars, but also to source   
   microchips for weapons used against Ukraine.   
      
   Bakanov, like other Russian car bloggers and journalists, has gotten into the   
   business himself: he posts ads on the messaging app Telegram, offering to   
   import cars “to order from any part of the world.” He said that foreign   
   car parts are also coming    
   in via parallel import — some are now available in Russia for lower prices   
   than before the war, when those parts were sold by authorized dealers charging   
   high premiums.   
      
   The workarounds have become so widespread that Russian car publications run   
   regular reviews of cars made for foreign markets. The multimedia console in   
   the Toyota Camry made for China only operates in Chinese, a popular auto   
   website warned in February;    
   the reviewer suggested holding a smartphone translating app up to the display.   
      
      
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