The Moscow City Duma liked “Moskvich” – Newspaper Kommersant No. 69 (7514) dated 04/20/2023

The Moscow City Duma (MGD) supported a draft appeal submitted by Yabloko member Sergei Mitrokhin to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin to replace the service fleet from the current Toyota Camry to the new Moskvich 3 crossover. The deputy submitted his document in the winter, but the Moscow State Duma did not have time to consider this issue for two consecutive meetings. However, on Wednesday, speaker Aleksey Shaposhnikov suddenly moved this item from the end of the agenda to its beginning, and the project received 34 votes in favor and no votes against.

Draft appeal to the mayor of Moscow, prepared Sergei Mitrokhin, on the agenda of the meeting of the Moscow State Duma on April 19 was again the last item, which the deputies did not have time to reach at the two previous plenaries. But this time, after considering the first item on the agenda, speaker Alexei Shaposhnikov immediately moved on to the “Miscellaneous” section, which was supposed to consider the appeal. By that moment, its author had not even managed to appear at the meeting, and Mr. Shaposhnikov had to ask his colleagues to call Mr. Mitrokhin into the hall.

The main message of the appeal is to support the capital’s Moskvich plant by replacing the entire car fleet of the mayor’s office with the Moskvich 3 crossover and its electric version Moskvich 3e.

According to Sergei Mitrokhin, despite various reservations and nuances, Moskvich 3 can be considered a domestic car.

Yabloko proposes to sell the current service fleet, mainly consisting of Toyota Camry cars, at auctions in order to “at least slightly” improve the situation of Russian motorists who are faced with a lack of spare parts for foreign cars due to sanctions. “Thus, there are no negative consequences at all in the proposed measure. The consequences are extremely positive,” Mr. Mitrokhin is convinced.

Recall that in November 2022, Yabloko already sent Mayor Sobyanin a personal appeal on the same topic. But in the answer he received, signed by Andrey Berezin, deputy manager of the affairs of the mayor and the government of Moscow, nothing was said about the possibility of replacing official foreign cars with Moskvich. Therefore, the deputy decided to repeat the request, but on behalf of the MHD as a whole.

At the meeting, Mr. Mitrokhin’s initiative was not particularly criticized, but raised a number of questions. So, United Russia member Lyudmila Stebenkova was interested in the timing of the replacement of the fleet – right now or as the current one wears out? Mr. Mitrokhin replied that he did not specifically go into such details, because this issue should be decided by the mayor, but there is definitely no talk of “right now”, since the 2023 budget does not include funds for this. Ms. Stebenkova also drew attention to the fact that the mayor’s office’s fleet consists of Russian-made foreign cars, that is, Moscow already supports Russian production. Sergei Mitrokhin objected to this that the fact of supporting the Moscow manufacturer is important in his initiative.

Skepticism was also added by Pavel Tarasov (KPRF), who said that Moskvich was actually produced in China: “Then the engine, suspension, wheels and gas tank are removed, they come here, a nameplate is pasted here and the removed elements are put back.” In this regard, the communist asked: is his guess correct that the Yabloko proposal is not to support the Russian auto industry, but to reduce support for the capitalist countries in favor of communist China?

Mr. Mitrokhin agreed with the fact that Moskvich is not a “pure” domestic production, but recalled that China did not impose sanctions against Russia, and therefore its cars should not rise in price.

The topic was continued by Elena Yanchuk (KPRF), who emphasized that Moskvich 3 is just a renamed Chinese JAC JS4, so it is strange to talk about the revival of the automotive industry in Moscow. In addition, in her opinion, Moskvich 3 cannot be called budgetary and affordable (it costs about 2 million rubles— “b”). Sergei Mitrokhin considered the remark of the communist “a matter of genre.” In his opinion, it would be strange to “depict reality so harshly” in an appeal to the mayor: this would contradict the very message of the appeal and doom him to failure. At the same time, Yabloko promised to prepare another appeal in the near future with a proposal to increase the availability of Moskvich for ordinary consumers.

Spravoross Alexander Solovyov even called Mitrokhin’s idea “declarative”: in his opinion, it is not thought out from a legal point of view and may look like lobbying by a single manufacturer. And Yabloko’s colleague in the faction, Daria Besedina (included in the register of foreign agents), although she considered the initiative of her comrade-in-arms “truly wonderful,” refused to vote for it for environmental reasons, since she basically does not support the use of cars.

As a result of voting, the draft appeal to the mayor was supported by 34 deputies, no one spoke against, five abstained. The document will be sent to Sergei Sobyanin in the near future.

Elena Rozhkova