Strange partners: How Russians have discovered Iran is worth their attention

No, Russia and Iran are not producing jointly the big killer drones, that have performed with such efficiency in Ukraine. Iran, also, is not supplying us with anything of the kind. And, no, Russia is not shipping to Iran any mysterious substances to speed up any mysterious programmes of developing nuclear weapons. That’s yesterday’s statement by the Foreign Ministry in Moscow. The people out there are getting tired of denying that kind of allegations, but allegations keep on coming down on us. We live in a strange kind of world, where up to 100 per cent of news on several subjects, especially about Russia, tend to be fake. But there is a reason to look closely at anything reported about Russia and Iran, and that reason is an explosive blossoming of all kind of ties between these two neighborly states. The Expert magazine is the Russian analogue of The Economist from London, read by anyone who wants to do business seriously. The latest issue contains a huge, really huge supplement on everything from the current trading data to estimates of technical potential of Iran as a partner of Russia. That information looks sensational for a simple reason, namely, that Iran has never been in the spotlight of attention here. Now we discover that our two oil powers are not competing, since there are projects of joint development of oil deposits in Iran, and also of swap deals, like supplying North Iran with oil while Iranian oil from the south of the country goes to India and Pakistan. That will be, legally, Russian oil, so nobody needs to care about any anti-Iranian sanctions. There are also projects, discussed at the inter-governmental bilateral committee, of Russia building solar power stations in Iran, with a little help from China. That, again, is mostly about the northern provinces, bordering Russia across the Caspian sea. And then there are things like joint production of automobiles and their parts, with the same plans in aerospace and shipbuilding. In fact, the projects of building jointly big ships on Iranian wharfs are already being launched. Sea ports are lucrative, too. And here we touch upon a very old problem – the North-South Corridor, under discussion between Russia and India for at least two decades. The idea was to open a new trade route from India across Iran, then over Caspian Sea to Russia and beyond. It looked iffy, considering the Russo-Indian trade not exceeding $13.5 billion. But now the things look different, and a lot of Iranians and Russians discuss completion of the route, to the extent of building a separate rail link across Iran, only for the sake of Russo-Iranian trade. Not to mention the idea of building whole new sea ports for that and other purposes. And then there is a wonderful case of a huge order of Iranian turbines for Russian power stations, and then… There are at least two basic factors behind that surge of plans and projects. The first factor is not exactly related to Iran, and that’s the general mood in Russia. Polling is a great art, if you know how to ask the right questions. So, in November 2022, 59 per cent of Russians are expecting a raise of incomes in 2023, while exactly a year ago only 20 per cent of us were that optimistic. Surely it had to be vice versa, since Russia is at war with all the West, with innumerable sanctions being heaped on us on weekly basis. Most people were supposed to only hope to keep themselves at the current level of incomes, weren’t they? So the polling agencies began to ask around things like “why are you so optimistic” (and that was before President Vladimir Putin mentioned, on the last day of November, that the people working for the state will indeed get a raise very soon). The answer was, basically, that the mood had changed. Stagnation was a name of the game a year before, with most people seeing that nothing was going to change in the things they were doing. These things amounted to business models of all trades, with the same supplies coming from the same sources, with sales of the same goods keeping stable, but flat. While now – well, now everything goes, now you can make all kind of plans and have all kind of hopes. And the second factor behind Iran’s sudden popularity in Russia may be called the joy of discovery. The nation in general suffered from an acute case of westernism, to use the coin word by Alexander Zinoviev, the philosopher. Be it vacations or sourcing supplies, the West was not only the first, but often the only choice. There were some lobbying groups, supported by the governmental officials, that tried in vain to educate the business people: look, there are dozens of Asian or African countries to do business with, there is, in particular, Iran, or India at that, or… But nothing much was happening. Besides, Iran seemed to be a very strange kind of partner. It’s under Western sanctions, so what do you mean mentioning Iranian hi-tech production? What kind of money they may have? Besides, Iran is a clerical autocracy, with miserable women wearing black veils, while we, Russians, like our women to be in different stages of undress in summer. And, suddenly, there was that rumour about Iranian drones supplied to Russia and becoming invincible in the war. The rumour, as we have just said, had been refuted, but the mental link between “Iran” and “hi-tech” stays. And then the Iranian cars, among some others, began to fill in the void, left by all these Audis and Toyotas proclaiming their intention to leave Russia, with an inexplicable idea to shame us. These are modest middle-class creations, but cars they are, and they are Iranian, for God’s sake. That nation had always been our close neighbour, and we knew nothing about it, thought the adventurous business people of all kinds. That’s how it all started, and it goes on and on. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram .