Recently, a new KAMAZ 54901 mainline tractor was shown. The features of the next generation vehicle became known long before its official release.
Two years ago, the tractor was shown at the KOMTRANS exhibition. At the same time, manufacturers announced that the truck would become a premium vehicle for the domestic market. Now it has become possible to take a closer look at KAMAZ, "feel it with your hands" and identify all the shortcomings. They will be discussed.
1. High price
The car was known for a long time.
The novelty has an unusually high price for KAMAZ creations. The last car cost about 5 million rubles. Manufacturers release the novelty for 6,430,000 rubles. The price, as expected, includes a 3-year service contract. It covers the entire warranty period. With a set of additional options, the price tag soars up to 7 million rubles, which puts the tractor on a par with the popular Scania and Mercedes Actros. There is some disappointment in this, because many were waiting for a cheaper (relative to foreign cars) truck.
2. Can't buy
You can't buy it yet.
Sales of the car will start only after all tests are completed. This will definitely not happen until December 2019. However, this "disadvantage" is exclusively temporary. It remains to wait "a little more" and the domestic novelty will be ready to take to the road.
3. Death of predecessors
Still in test stage.
According to some reports, the novelty in the face of the 54901 model will bury the 5490, and in the most "barbaric" way. The production of the predecessor is simply curtailed. The manufacturers have even announced when they will retire the machine. This will happen sometime at the end of 2021. Thus, really inexpensive tractors will be produced for another two years, but no more.
4. Strange equipment
A strange model.
A number of experts noted a very strange package of new items. For example, the basic set does not include an engine brake. For cars of this format, this is an outright oddity. Let's remind that the "motor" is needed to reduce the speed of the road train, without using the braking system. Without it, the "happy owners" of a new tractor in the most modest configuration will have to burn the brake pads. At the same time, the cost of the best complete set of the tractor has not yet been named.
5. General dampness
Coming soon.
Finally, experts complained that the new product is still quite crude. For this reason, it is not entirely clear why KAMAZ showed the car right now. For this reason, it makes no sense at the moment to evaluate the build quality and the quality of the interior. However, the 54901st will be shown to the general public only this fall. Therefore, the manufacturer still has a little time to eliminate any shortcomings.
Note: the new KAMAZ received a cab from the current generation Mercedes-Benz Actros tractor and an in-line 6-cylinder turbodiesel with a volume of 12 liters and a capacity of 550 hp from Russian production.
The main reason for serious breakdowns of KAMAZ vehicles
Alexander Mikhalev is the owner of the car.
The main reason for KAMAZ 6520 breakdowns is its overload.
I'll start from afar. I came to the conclusion that people operating a car are completely unfamiliar with the concept of limiting the maximum weight. Everyone who works on cars has a card - a vehicle registration certificate. On the reverse side of the card, the penultimate item says about the allowed maximum vehicle weight in kg, where the figure is 33100 kg. Below in the last paragraph, the mass without load is indicated. On my car, it is about 13 tons. By some simple mathematical operations, you can calculate that the carrying capacity of my car is 20 tons. It is the KAMAZ 6520 that is called the 20th.
But for some reason, most of the drivers who work on such cars believe that 20 is not a carrying capacity in tons, but the volume of a loading platform. I agree that KAMAZ trucks have bodies with a volume of 20 cubic meters. Here the situation is like an old children's riddle - which is heavier than 20 tons of fluff or 20 tons of metal? For a car, I will paraphrase it, what is heavier than 20 cubic meters of millet or 20 cubic meters of granite? It is clear that granite will be heavier.
All the problems that occur with cars and are found in comments and complaints about these cars follow from this. The most common one found in the comments - with the engine crankshaft and with the engine heads - burst, crack. The second complaint is that the bridge stockings are breaking.
But, these machines are not designed for the loads that we carry. Of course, the overload of the car is to blame for everything. Further complaints are clutch problems and a very common problem with the brakes.
I want to give an example about overloading my car. Now we have just loaded and I am carrying crushed stone of almost 20.5 cubic meters. By car weight, I got 27360 kg. Do not forget that the carrying capacity of this machine is 20 tons, and now I am carrying more than 27 tons with a hook. What complaints can there be about the plant if I am now carrying 7360 tons more than the norm. I have exceeded the permitted maximum vehicle weight by almost 50%. This is an exceptional case for me. I always keep track of the permitted weight of a loaded vehicle, and if I overload it, then no more than 3-5 tons. How did it happen with overload? Perhaps a very damp gravel was caught, perhaps the scales produced such a mass. There is nothing I can do about this fact.
Many drivers say that the Iveco car is safer and does not break down. If I am not mistaken, the carrying capacity of the Iveco is 23 tons, and it seems to me that 3 tons play a big role.
Colleagues, it is your own fault that your KAMAZ breaks down very early. You overload them yourself. We ourselves are responsible for vehicle breakdowns and also before the law for large overloads. Therefore, let's treat loading the car wisely. I understand perfectly well that demand creates supply. Today, the clientele is demanding more and more volumes, the competition in the transportation market is enormous, everyone is trying their best. KAMAZ employees are not to blame for their cars breaking down ahead of time.
I try to carry 18 cubes in my car, as the car has a low side. KAMAZ 6520 with a high side takes exactly 20 cubic meters.
From: mdr, & nbsp
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The former chief accountant of the auto giant on the economic realities and the consequences caused by the emergency at the engine plant, which turns 25 tomorrow. Part 4
Evaluating the damage caused by the destruction of the KAMAZ engine plant in a fire 25 years ago, Evgeny Goldfain, at that time an accountant of the foundry, and subsequently the entire KAMAZ, considers this emergency a springboard for the company's formation on the market. In an interview with BUSINESS Online, Goldfine calls real disasters the managerial mistakes that followed the fire, which led to the loss of the service network and the spare parts market. The 1998 default and an adventurous contract with Saddam Hussein helped out.
"THE ANALYSTS ALREADY IT WAS UNDERSTOOD THAT KAMAZ IS ON THE THRESHOLD OF A CRISIS ..."
- Evgeny Lvovich, the history of KAMAZ is divided into two periods: before the fire at the engine plant and after. How do you assess the role of this event from a 25-year distance?
- Until 1993, KAMAZ was powerful and rich. If I am not mistaken, over 120 thousand people worked at KAMAZ along with their own auto centers throughout the USSR. The leadership had federal status, Beh ( Nikolay Bekh - General Director of KAMAZ in 1987-1997 - approx.ed.) was considered for the post of prime minister. The football club was in the major league and even made it to third place. There was a plane, which after the fire was sold to pay workers. But what to say - almost the entire New City was on the balance sheet of KAMAZ, plus the facilities of Zainsk, Neftekamsk, Stavropol ... At the same time, KAMAZ became the first JSC in the country, and the management managed not to transfer part of the proceeds from corporatization to the state. All this wealth made it difficult to really assess the situation on the domestic market. Even then it was clear to analysts that KAMAZ was on the verge of a crisis, because the country did not need so many cars, the market was potentially overstoppable. Business entities still bought trucks out of habit, like the Plyushkins, and there were no construction projects or other prospects for their operation in such volumes. From the losing country, they have already made a raw material appendage, a gas station. It was time to save money, to rebuild from a social to a commercial enterprise - without theaters, a football club and other things. But there was money, loans were given - which means you can spend, not refuse applicants and make Napoleonic plans.
- Was there a big turnover before the fire?
“Not enough for such an empire, with expenses exceeding revenues. Just fat remained, there was replenishment from corporatization, while KAMAZ began to get addicted to loans. But the analysis of demand showed that 50 thousand trucks a year will be enough for the country - instead of the estimated 150 thousand. There was a lack of need for export. Nobody wanted super-efforts to conquer foreign markets.
- There was no export in principle?
- Was, but passive. KAMAZ and so remained the leader in export, especially when the CIS appeared - it was possible to close reports by Kazakhstan and Ukraine. We had a record production - 128 thousand cars, and this together with the army, Eastern Europe and the developed economy of the USSR. In addition, there was initially an incorrect calculation: all the 1980s KAMAZ produced large volumes, 100 thousand cars rounded. Trucks are designed for 10-15 years, maximum 20 years. All professors and analysts said that in 10 years KAMAZ would not have to engage in advertising or marketing, consumers who would need to change their car would come running and queue up for new KAMAZ trucks. The secondary market should have formed by the end of the 1990s, good demand was expected. The fact that expectations would not come true became clear already in the mid-1990s. Even the new benchmark for the production of 50 thousand cars while maintaining high prices was not justified. The Soviet army began to sell off gigantic stocks of KAMAZ trucks, which had stood on stocks for 10 years, and this, among other things, ruined the market. In the CIS, the volume of cargo transportation and investments in general have sharply decreased. The fire, oddly enough, became a reason to think about saving, about what to do with the market, about how to feed the huge infrastructure facilities, designed for 150 thousand cars and 250 thousand engines per year, plus the city and its subcontractors.
“We had a record production - 128 thousand cars, and this together with the army, Eastern Europe and the developed economy of the USSR” Vladimir Vyatkin, RIA Novosti
“NOBODY ACCEPTED THE SCALE OF THE DISASTER. ONCE ON BURNING, MEANS, EXTINGUISHED ... "
- Is it possible to estimate the cost of the engine plant?
- You can't. I tried to do this when I was the chief accountant of KAMAZ. Very complicated conversions of foreign currency rubles. KAMAZ was purchased for petrodollars - in America, Europe, then they decided to switch to Japan, but did not have time due to a sharp drop in the market. In addition to the lack of domestic demand, worn-out foreign cars were imported to Russia due to good customs conditions. Europe had to spend money on their disposal - and it was easier to sell them according to various schemes either to Africa or to us. The real market forecast did not give KAMAZ an estimate adequate even for the cost of scrap metal. Shares were quoted at less than 5 cents, and debts were sometimes resold for 10 percent of their value.
- What forforeign cars did we need it if the market was overstocked with trucks?
- After the fire, KAMAZ was not up to the quality of the vehicles. Used "Europeans" in terms of price and quality were comparable to the new "KAMAZ", or even surpassed them. They still compete, but now KAMAZ is fighting with them by lobbying a recycling program. You cannot import a used Mercedes now until you pay for its future disposal.
- And in these circumstances, April 14, 1993 came. First of all, your opinion - arson or accident?
- I had a friend, at school they sat at the same desk. He was then working at an engine factory. A few hours before the fire, he had a scandal at work, he was led out of the territory under the white hands of the VOKHR. According to him, he cursed them, and a few hours later the plant caught fire. Since then, it has been going through ... Seriously, the versions were different, including sabotage, but there is no actual data. Personally, I do not exclude arson - everything happened too "in time". In the country, there was a struggle between "raw materials" and "industrialists". It seemed that the “raw materials industry” had pushed their prime minister Chernomyrdin instead of Kadannikov from VAZ, but the struggle for the choice of the country's development strategy was just beginning to flare up. Bekh was also considered for the position, with him one could hope for an industrial path, and at that time Americans from the KKR investment fund appeared at KAMAZ, who still own a part of KAMAZ shares, and any international consultants who dug in Moscow had a huge interest in KAMAZ facilities. The plant supplied many engines to other regions for trucks, tractors, tanks, armored personnel carriers, buses ... In their place, I would think about how to get rid of such a growth point as KAMAZ. But the examination showed that the fire developed naturally ...
- How was the news of the fire received by the management of KAMAZ?
- Fires at KAMAZ happened often, they were treated lightly - well, someone will be removed, well, they will be punished. When in the evening the news that the engine factory was on fire spread through all the channels of the first level, no one understood the scale of the disaster. Once it burns, it means they will put it out. Just before that, a fire safety training took place at the engine factory. Apparently, they coped with the assessment perfectly, and the fire brigade traditionally began to celebrate it. Then there were a lot of complaints about their actions. Eyewitnesses told me that many of the firefighters looked like drunks. But, even if they were sober, they still could not achieve anything with their methods. In the end, they blamed everything on Kosygin ( Alexey Kosygin - Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR until 1980 - approx. ed.), which allowed the use of a non-fire-resistant roof insulation. Rather, they are actually to blame - the leaders who allowed this insulation. Before the decision to use it at the same engine plant, this roof was tested - they tried to prove to the authorities that it did not burn. It flared up so that it was impossible to extinguish. Nevertheless, the highest permission was obtained, and if the firefighters were on full alert, they would not have extinguished it anyway. Someone was needed who would dare to command the explosion of the roof around the perimeter of the fire in order to localize the fire, but no one took responsibility. If the management did this, part of the plant could be saved. When morning came, the KAMAZ workers started to work, and then they got a shock - they still did not understand that the plant had burned out almost completely and was continuing to burn. Except mate, no one could say anything. General confusion.
“Before the decision to use a non-fire-resistant insulation material at the same engine plant, this roof was tested - they tried to prove to the authorities that it did not burn. It flared up so that it was impossible to extinguish " Photo from the archive of Viktor Volkov
"POLYAKOV SAID:" RESTORE ". ECONOMICALLY THIS DECISION WAS EXTREMELY WRONG "
- How much was the damage estimated in the end?
- You see, the USSR has just ended, the 1990s have come. Official estimates were underestimated, because they were given in rubles, but it was necessary to count in dollars. There was no professional assessment, I can only give a very rough figure - something about half a billion dollars. Now it would have cost a hundred or two million dollars, but then everything was different. The engine plant was the largest of both KAMAZ and Europe. At that time I worked as a chief accountant at a foundry, we had 15 thousand people, the engines employed 18-19 thousand people. The plant was considered advanced, advanced management technologies were introduced, business games were held, there was a separate structure for the development strategy. Again, inadequate and non-core spending, such a social Soviet plant running on a deficit and unaccounted for resources ...
- How did you start the recovery?
- We were looking for a solution for a week, then Bekh turned to Viktor Polyakov - this is the former Minister of the Automotive Industry, the creator of VAZ. He was already quite old then and could barely walk, but he rushed in instantly and brought Bekh and his entire team out of prostration. Polyakov said: “Restore,” and this decision was extremely wrong from an economic point of view. The scale was such that no one could assess the required resources, and most importantly, the market situation. Now, many years later, it is clear to me that it was necessary either to build a new plant in an open field, or to take some kind of air defense system ( Engine repair plant— approx. ed.) or other available capacities and install the equipment there. It was possible to make room and not throw out huge resources for restoration. In fact, the engines were already quietly produced in a few weeks on a small air defense engine, albeit in a small volume. He could produce them today, but when the engines were restored, the ZRD lost its repair volumes. It was necessary to abandon ambitions and carry out reengineering at the rate of 50-60 thousand cars and no more than 70 thousand engines.
- Did Polyakov's word decide everything? It was time to think again, to calculate the economy ...
- It is now in hindsight that it is clear that it was just necessary to move to the ZRD and not spend money on recovery in such volumes, but at that moment the most important thing was to get people out of their stupor, and Bekh and Polyakov did it. Here you can draw parallels with the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor. The sailors did not know what to do - they had no weapons against aircraft. Then, by order of the captain, they began to throw potatoes on planes, and it was important to give people a field of activity. In the same way, it was necessary to load 18 thousand people who came to work in the morning and did not find a job. Therefore, it was necessary to restore, but they took up it from the same end - not counting on 250 thousand engines per year, smaller, but still without taking into account the realities of the market, on an imperial scale. Thousands of organizations participated in this work, all of them had to be coordinated. It could be a team from a neighboring plant, a cooperative, a contractor, or some ministerial assignment. A coordination mechanism was created - everything is on paper, in each structure there is a responsible coordinator, everything is brought together on a computer. Once a day, everyone gathered for a planning meeting, each reporting on events. Such computer-manual control made it possible to accomplish this feat - the restoration of the engine factory. The main organizers were Bekh and the director of the plant, Viktor Konopkin. The development structure was headed by Igor Klinitser, he instructed Vladimir Kosolapov and Nikolai Zolotukhin to create a coordination mechanism. All were interdependent - some make deliveries, others draw diagrams ... If there are no resources, they are dragged in manually, the next day a report. It would have been impossible to do this using conventional methods.
- At whose expense was it restored?
- First of all, they shook their own fat. Most likely, this gave more than half of the resources. When the state issued shares, the money from their sale, as I said, somehow remained at KAMAZ. They let them down. Then KAMAZ had an excellent system of the revolving fund of repair engines - it would allow the corporation to withstand the coming crisis of the automotive industry only on its service network. But both the fund and the entire network were put under the knife, and then we could not restore it. Relatively speaking, KAMAZ had about 250 auto centers and representative offices in every major city of the USSR. The centers had warehouses, KAMAZ employees worked for them, there was a warranty repair, each KAMAZ was assigned to an auto center. KAMAZ could live much better after the fire if it kept this network. Hundreds of thousands of revolving engines were stored in the warehouses - they were put to replace the repaired ones, thanks to which the car was returned to the client in a few hours. The market for spare parts and engines was then completely owned by KAMAZ, but after the fire, the entire working capital was put on the conveyor. The automobile plant and everyone else had to work, so they were given service engines for assembly. It was a huge time bomb. And then KAMAZ began to produce "gliders" - cars without an engine.
Polyakov said: "To restore" - and this decision was extremely wrong from an economic point of view Photo: minpromtorg.gov.ru
FIRST, KAMAZ LOST THE SERVICE NETWORK, THEN - MONOPOLY FOR SPARE PARTS
- It's not very clear where the service network itself has gone. Couldn't she have worked without a revolving engine fund? These are not warehouses ...
- 250 auto centers could sell spare parts, engage in repairs - this was an invaluable asset of KAMAZ. No one even knows what an advantage it is to have an auto center in every big city. But we could not make the network a market one. On the ground were Soviet bosses who either decided to quietly privatize assets for themselves, or could not compete in the market. At KAMAZ, non-KAMAZ dealers suddenly began to appear, businessmen, who were well known to our specialists and bosses. With the help of certain resources, they received the same discounts, deficits, terms of supply as auto centers.
- Do you think the use of the revolving fund was a critical mistake during the restoration of the plant?
- In addition to its elimination, another decision was made, possibly erroneous, - after the fire, KAMAZ handed out the engine drawings to everyone who asked. There was an illusion that subcontractors would start producing parts, supplying them to us, and we would assemble them. They began to produce parts, but mainly for the market. Parts began to be produced in every garage; in addition, powerful manufacturers appeared (in particular, former defense workers), who legally, with good quality, produced parts and sold them cheaper than KAMAZ. ZRD, by the way, lost repair volumes thanks to them, and KAMAZ as a whole lost its monopoly on spare parts. According to my personal expert assessment, we have lost about 70 percent of the spare parts and service market.
- The plant was a full-cycle production, didn’t buy components on the side?
- By cooperation, a minuscule amount was supplied, and so it was a production focused on the principles of civil defense and the requirements of the Cold War. There was a huge state reserve of raw materials, spare parts, tools, lubricants in the second department, which allowed for a year to produce KAMAZ vehicles under an anti-nuclear umbrella, without any subcontractors. The entire KAMAZ project is a project of survival in a nuclear disaster. Subsistence economy, several alternative sources of energy supply, a railway, federal highways, waterways ... Otherwise, the problem of fire would have been insoluble.
- If aspare parts were purchased at the same prices, does it really matter who the dealer is?
- The profit of auto centers was also KAMAZ, as it were. We had to conduct our own pricing policy, help our specialists in auto centers, teach them how to make money on the market, create a sales network of cars on the basis of the centers, which everyone still drove to Naberezhnye Chelny. The wealth of KAMAZ was not so much in the Chelny iron, but in its service network - its loss led to the shutdown of the enterprise at the end of 1997. Just before that, large factories also received legal entities, the managers were not up to the assembly line - all year they tried on the chairs of the general directors of former divisions, there was a continuous personnel leapfrog. In January it turned out that there was no money for metal, for components, suppliers stopped believing in debt. Financial flows and liquid assets came under the special scrutiny of bailiffs.
Photo: "BUSINESS Online"
"COST OF" KAMAZ "TEN TIMES EXCEEDED ITS MARKET PRICE!"
- If KAMAZ found half of the funds for the restoration of the plant, then who else took part in financing?
- A lot of partners sincerely offered their help - some free of charge, and most of them, unfortunately, did not pay off on time. Deliveries were made without prepayment. Cummins just then offered its engines, but KAMAZ was not ready for them. We have allocated certain amounts from the federal budget. The consultants worked actively. There was, for example, a Hungarian, the owner of a reputable company, who tried to instruct KAMAZ on market relations. The international consulting firm McKinsey operated. In 1994-1995, young KAMAZ leaders were assembled, promised that they would replace the old guard in a few years, and fed them with black caviar for a whole year, demanding reorganization plans in return. In the first months there was a wave of offers for help, and then, when the questions of calculations, possible theft arose, this desire subsided. Six months later, an era of economy slowly began - a reduction in the number, social burden. During the restoration of the plant, the staff of the corporation was halved. Before the fire, our foundry had a very powerful infrastructure for teenage production. Dozens of sites had a social role - they were supposedly taught, but in fact they were "reservations" for school graduates who lacked either work or places in universities. Six months after the fire, these structures were turned down.
- Have the salaries of KAMAZ employees fallen?
- Not. This was also a mistake. At that time, the Council of Labor Collectives was still retained - legislators of opinions were delegated to the STK, they tried to choose directors of enterprises ... Patriotic bosses came, spoke to them: they say, we will restore everything, everything will be fine. In addition, salaries were low and inflation was gaining momentum. I then became a black sheep, a defeatist in the eyes of my colleagues, because I said that it might not be for a year or two, but for ten. Nobody understood that KAMAZ would have fallen into a crisis anyway without a fire. The fire consumed resources, worsened relations with partners, but thereby only accelerated the launched process.
- How long did KAMAZ come to exhaustion?
- We were on the verge of bankruptcy in 1998 - the liquidation option was seriously considered then, but, thank God, they did not go along with it. It would have been a scam of the partners, but the plant decided to settle accounts with them. KAMAZ stopped at the end of 1997. We left for the New Year holidays, but there was nowhere to go. KAMAZ stood for six months until those violent ones were found who again started the conveyor.
- Before that, during the recovery period of the "engines", the conveyor never stopped?
- No, he just worked with underload and huge losses. The prime cost of KAMAZ was dozens of times higher than its market price! Nobody believes in these figures, but I, as the chief accountant, are responsible for them.
- You want to say that KAMAZ was sold, for example, for 2 million, and was going for 20?
- Maybe 30 or 40. There was a huge infrastructure that needed to be fed, plus crazy loan commitments with huge fines - all this was written off for a measly few thousand issues. Even if KAMAZ is standing still, some kind of compressor, lighting, machine tools, which supposedly cannot be stopped, are still working. The foundry had entire production facilities that needed to be maintained around the clock. KAMAZ did not know how to stop, shrink, save money, but if there were no fire, it would not have learned. UralAZ did not learn to stop - it was almost dead; AZLK, the pride of the Soviet car industry, did not learn - it was over; KrAZ - to the same place. The market sank sharply, the national economy had no money to buy cars, it was just necessary to bring expenses in line with income. And the costs of the pearl. Over time, it came to the point that the chief power engineer Vasily Titov even regulated work shifts so that people went out during those hours when the electricity tariff was minimal. Nobody did that at the time. KAMAZ did not go bankrupt and restarted only thanks to the fact that it learned to save money in the 1990s, after a fire on its engines.
Photo: "BUSINESS Online"
"AND HERE, FOR OUR HAPPINESS, THERE WAS A DEFAULT ..."
- Due to what was able to restartin 1998- m?
- Then Shaimiev gave 100 million, KAMAZ scored pieces of iron for the first batch of trucks. We produced 100 cars, the next month - 500, then - 800, 1200. And then, luckily for us, there was a default, a collapse of T-bills.
- How did the default help KAMAZ?
- The currency rose sharply, people could no longer buy foreign cars, only for rubles. Imports of everything decreased, enterprises started working, cargo turnover increased, a sane government came. This is called "fools are lucky." Without the 1998 crisis, KAMAZ would not have been able to trade at reasonable prices. By the time the industry woke up, we had already learned to work cheaper. For example, I cut my bookkeeping by three times. With auto centers, we had about 1200 accountants. They were real people, very deserved, but if we had not reduced them, the cost of KAMAZ would have exceeded its price tag by ten times.
- When did the production of KAMAZ become profitable? And in what year did you take over as chief accountant?
- In January 1996, I became the chief accountant, and the costs leveled off, if I'm not mistaken, in 2004.
- It turns out that for more than 10 years the cost price was dozens of times higher than the price tag ... It sounds incredible. What reserves could withstand such a regime?
- I'm surprised myself. They believed in KAMAZ. Take 1998 - I remember this period better. The costs included huge interest and penalties on loans and taxes. KAMAZ did not produce anything, and the power industry was charged. Some of the facilities were frozen, but they had to be heated. According to the obligations of KAMAZ, if a person went to work, his salary has already been charged, so many were not allowed to work, but two-thirds of the salary was charged. Much has been sold out to survive.
- When did you pay off your debts?
- They were restructured. We fixed debts, issued several issues of shares, and distributed them with them. "Kidalovo", perhaps, was, but in little things, not on such a scale as in bankruptcy. I, as a chief accountant, can subscribe that there was no deliberate concealment of accounts payable. The main debts were closed by 2000, by about 2004 they were finally paid off, already under Kogogin ( Sergey Kogogin — General Director of KAMAZ PTC — approx.ed.). Before that, we were helped by another lucky break - the Iraqi contract. There was a delivery for Saddam Hussein for, it seems, 500 KAMAZ trucks at a good price. The program was as follows - oil in exchange for food: KAMAZ vehicles allegedly carried food, and the Americans, relatively speaking, allowed the supply of non-military equipment. We delivered a crude KAMAZ-6520 vehicle several weeks before these vehicles were bombed. It was a pure gamble. Kogogin thought for a long time whether to get involved or not, but decided to get involved, took out loans for production on his word of honor. Trucks broke down at every step, but we did not have time to wait for complaints from the Iraqis - the bombing destroyed them. This delivery brought 500 million rubles of net profit, due to which we managed to overcome the crisis of 2002. Then Kogogin worked out the levers of control, losses began to decrease. This was the end of a series of crises. Until 2004, KAMAZ incurred net losses of 50 billion rubles for several years. Bank interest rates were very high.
- What banks financed?
- All major Russian ones. Even the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
- Why did they take debts with shares if KAMAZ was unprofitable?
- They didn't lose. Most lenders ended up very well. In the 2000s, the capitalization of KAMAZ was good, the shares could be sold for a high price, having recouped their expenses.
"IF THESE FUNDS WERE DEVELOPED, KAMAZ WOULD BE A WORLD BRAND TODAY ..."
- When you turned to saving, how did you get rid of the social burden?
- The surrender of the city to Altynbaev was a terrible epic ( Rafgat Altynbaev - Head of administration of Naberezhnye Chelny in 1991-1999 - approx. ed.). We could not support the city from the assembly line, we ourselves did not have enough for the salary. There were many imperfections in the city, the municipality did not want to take it. Beh signed a "blood oath" that he would fix the imperfections, but, of course, no one did anything. Altynbaev himself had to sort out the problems of repairs, urban infrastructure, housing, for which the KAMAZ employees could no longer fully pay the rent.
- You said that the salary was not cut. Why was the city depressed then?
- Officially, it was forbidden to reduce the staff, but they simply stopped paying salaries - they postponed them for a month, two, six months, a year and a half ... At the same time, they stopped indexing, the salary lagged behind real prices. They began to pay for the work closer to 2000. People were fed with checks according to the system of workers' supply, they made goods in special stores. I just introduced them - for checks you could go to the dining room, buy some goods. Then we made it possible to pay with them for the rent, and non-KAMAZ wipers received them.
- To summarize, the fire on the "engines" became a black page in the history of KAMAZ, or rather an incentive to recovery?
- In general, the fire became a reason to bring itself into a market state, but it is a pity, of course, for those gigantic resources that went into recovery. If these funds went into development, KAMAZ today would be a global brand with its service network throughout the CIS. There were huge prospects in China, where we opened several enterprises, but the fire adjusted this priority. The project eventually took place, but we were no longer able to conquer the Chinese market. The Chinese then did not release anything and loved KAMAZ very much for its low sides - it was convenient to load it with shovels. Foreign cars have high sides, the Chinese could not reach. If, according to the plan, we transferred the lost resources to assembly plants in China, to the service network, to training managers with an understanding of the Chinese market, then now we would reap these benefits. We were there before the global automotive industry.
Once in the accounting policy of KAMAZ there was an off-balance account “lost profit”. If we sum up the consequences of the small spark of 1993, then tens of billions of dollars would have to be reflected on this account. Consumers began to divide KAMAZ products into “pre-fire” and “post-fire”, and this affected both engines and cars, and even spare parts - our products began to be considered third-rate. KAMAZ itself has become an extremely unreliable supplier, almost a fraud. These dire consequences of grudges against unfair partnerships have yet to be fully overcome.
