There is a common Russian aphorism, attributed either to classics of Russian literature such as Gogol or Saltykov-Shchedrin or to the modern satirist Mikhail Zadornov, which goes like this:

The problem with roads in Russia (at least the major ones) has mostly been dealt with. It’s now possible to cruise between St. Petersburg and Moscow at 150km/h (paying a hefty toll, of course) with 4G wifi access throughout, service areas, rest areas, dog walking areas, convenience stores, etc., on a completely new autobahn which is in the process of being extended all the way to Yekaterinburg, in the Urals, beyond which Europe ends and Siberia begins.

But the problem with fools remains. There may be many instances of Russian foolishness, but here I will pick on just one: the propensity for causing shortages.

The cultural pattern goes back to Soviet times, when there were actual shortages of consumer goods of all sorts. Be they toaster ovens or bananas, they appeared in stores suddenly and in restricted quantities and people instantly queued up in order to buy whatever it is, be it one kilo of bananas or one toaster oven. As a result of very simple operant conditioning, people learned to queue up first and then inquire what the queue is for.

There was an entire favor-based protocol built upe around queues. Some people stood in queues with no intention to buy, strictly for the purpose of yielding their spot to an acquaintance who did want to buy, as a way of earning a favor. Others would buy the item being sold in order to later resell it at the same exact price (profiteering was strictly verboten) to someone who was late to the queue, again, as a way of earning a favor. The limited quantity per person was easily overcome by rounding up some neighborhood children, giving each one of them just enough money and having them all stand in the queue together, under strict supervision.

None of this was particularly foolish at the time; it was a way of adapting to a planned economy that favored producing capital goods and serving basic needs, leaving the frills of a consumer economy as an afterthought. But the atavistic trait of queuing up and thus causing instant spot shortages of this and that in the context of a fully developed consumer economy which now exists throughout Russia is indeed foolish.

Another bit of atavistic foolishness has to do with the habit of blindly copying the West. In the late Soviet era, the products of domestic industry came to be seen as unfashionable and low-quality while imported stuff had a certain cachet and was sought after. This was, to a fair extent, foolish to start with. The lack of slick marketing was another side-effect of a planned economy that did not lavish resources on advertising and marketing and did not automatically reflect on product quality.

On the other hand, domestic products did not suffer from the defect of planned obsolescence and did not lack maintainability; they were designed to be maintained practically forever using off-the-shelf components. Some of these old Soviet items are still in use; for example, there are still plenty of 40-year-old Soviet cars on the roads, which simply refuse to ever die.

Be that as it may, now Russia is full of foreign-branded products, most of which are made in Russia. For example, for the past decade LG washers, refrigerators and television sets have been made at a factory in Ruzsky district of the Moscow region. As a result, from a consumer’s perspective, whether an item is domestically produced or imported is now a distinction without a difference and is mostly ignored.

What is not ignored is news of consumer behavior in the west. Somehow, the penchant to blindly copy Western consumer behavior, inculcated through many years of Western-inspired advertising and marketing, persists. Given that Western consumers are languishing while Russian consumers are prospering (Russia is currently behind only South Korea in the rate of increase of personal wealth while the US and the EU are barely treading water), this is another unhelpful atavistic trait.

Add these two traits together — the propensity to queue up and the idolization of all things Western — and the result can be truly strange behavior. For example, when Russian mass media reports that Americans are buying up toilet paper, Russians empty the shelves of toilet paper. The thought that such behavior is ridiculous, given that in the US toilet paper mainly comes from Canada while in Russia it comes from Kaluga, Leningrad and Tula regions and the Republic Tatarstan, doesn’t seem to cross their minds. A similar made-up shortage resulted when reports arrived of high egg prices and egg shortages in the States: all of a sudden, Russians were sweeping the shelves clear of all eggs.

If a report of a shortage elsewhere in the world can trigger hoarding behavior in some significant number of Russians, a Western report of a shortage, or of a looming shortage, inside Russia itself, is doubly effective. Thus, when Western propaganda outlets start screaming about Russian oil refineries set ablaze by Ukrainian drones and long lines at gas stations, some of the more foolish Russians immediately queue up.

Russia has far more oil refineries than it actually needs. The only region which could be said to be low on refining capacity is the Far East, which exports oil to China and imports gasoline and other distillates. This effect is more cost-effective most of time time — except when there are artificial shortages. Another exception is Crimea, which is currently tricky to resupply because of Ukrainian drone attacks. Everywhere else the task of producing more gasoline is a question of turning a few valves.

Yes, some refineries have been damaged by Ukrainian drones, but here we are talking about plants that occupy anywhere between 5 and 15 square kilometers whereas the most area a drone strike can hope damage is around 100 square meters, typically puncturing a few steel pipes. Since what is inside is almost invariably highly flammable, this results in a rather impressive conflagration, which is most useful for as anti-Russian propaganda but which is easily dealt with using standard fire-fighting techniques. And then the refinery crew replaces the damaged piping and production resumes. This explains the somewhat lackadaisical attitude toward drones on the part of refinery operators: it is more cost-effective to sporadically have to replace a few punctured pipes than to completely drone-proof several square kilometers of territory.

But the fact is, Ukrainian drones do sometimes hit Russian refineries. To wit, gasoline output year-on-year is down 4%. This could be a random fluctuation or due to unrelated factors, but if you want to stir up trouble, why not come out and bald-facedly declare that this is a result of successful Ukrainian drone warfare? And then the natural next step is to bald-facedly declare that gasoline shortages loom throughout Russia.

And then some considerable number of Russians (more specifically, Russian fools), responding to Western reports of looming gasoline shortages throughout Russia (seconded by unscrupulous operators in Russian mass media, who are ever looking for a sensation) queue up at gas stations and start topping off their tanks and filling up their jerrycans. This causes gasoline demand to sure by around a third because of several factors:

• More gasoline being purchased to top off tanks and fill up jerrycans

• More gasoline being burned while driving to and from gas stations

• More gasoline being burned while waiting in line at gas stations

• More gasoline being vented from tanks and containers (especially in hot weather)

An instant 30% supply shortage is rather difficult for the supply network to handle spontaneously. Many gas stations ran out, sometimes only out of certain gasoline grades, sometimes altogether. Most gas stations had to introduce a 20-liter limit and a ban on jerrycans (this limit has since been increased to 30 liters). To definitively solve the problem, Putin had to summon a meeting of oil company executives and government officials and formulate a plan for fixing the supply problem. There was probably a lot of gulping and fidgeting around the room because all concerned thought they could continue profiting handsomely from gasoline exports given the ongoing trouble around the Strait of Hormuz. Rest assured, the problem is being dealt with (or you must believe that Putin is a ham and cheese sandwich).

Gasoline exports are banned for now; there will also be some gasoline imports. India immediately offered to export gasoline to Russia; unfortunately, it cannot immediately deliver the gasoline. The great-circle distance between Moscow and New Delhi is 4,340km and goes through the Urals, the Tian Shan and the Pamir mountains while the shortest sailing distance (Chennai-Vladivostok) is over 10,000km — a 15-day sail at a minimum.

In the end, the fools who reacted to Western propaganda reports of looming gasoline shortages in Russia turned out to be their own worst enemies: while driving up demand by a third, they overspent on fuel, they wasted time driving around between gas stations and waiting in lines at gas stations. In effect, they caused a problem where none ever had to exist to begin with.

Over this period of time, while driving sporadically at an undisclosed location in Russia, I waited in line at gas stations on two occasions, for 15-20 minutes each time, and purchased 20 liters the first time and 25 liters the second time. I was, am, and shall remain entirely unconcerned about the availability of gasoline here.

Having dealt with fools who are Russian, I will next turn my attention to fools elsewhere — specifically, those who believe that the Ukraine is winning, or that the Ukraine is not losing, or that the Ukraine will not be inevitably destroyed, or that the Ukraine will not drag them down into the abyss with it as it is destroyed. These are all very dangerous delusions of which I wish to disabuse them.

Thank you for reading, and please drive safely!