[02Hawk]

I lived, worked and travelled through out Russia and many of the USSR client states for 5 years To my knowledge everything they built except for aircraft was 100% crap. Vehicles, Tv's , fridges, stoves, furniture, steel, buildings...you name it it was ****. I was in the oil and gas side and everything outside of the actual drilling was bought in the west. Things like downhole pumps, Jacks, service rigs, drill pipe, sucker rods etc all came from Germany or the US. Their drill rigs were crap and it would take them 6 months to drill a three week hole. Their pipelines were crap and never buried, no swamp weights , float up in the middle of a lake, it was laughable if it wasn't so sad. Pipes broke all the time, water lines broke every day, Sewage was pumped into the ditches. Roads were built on a sand base with concrete mats thrown down on top.

The aircraft, however were first class. I rode on all their rotor wing fleet including Mi8 s and mi 6's .....They ran with little maintenance and crap fuel and kept on ticking. Their fixed wing fleet was well built also....all designed to operate from dirt airstrips. The people for the most part were great and easy to get along with.