Ivanovo Blues: Economic Downturn in Russia’s Regions Fuels Decline, Sporadic Protests

IVANOVO, Russia — Avtokran is a company on the edge of disaster.

The large Russian machinery manufacturer, which saw demand for its mobile cranes collapse as economic crisis gripped the country in late 2014, is still battling hard to avoid bankruptcy.

Production nose-dived from 2,070 cranes in 2013 to a mere 70 in 2015.“We basically didn’t work [last year],” Vasily Belov, head of Avtokran, told International Business Times.