As a Russian citizen I find this dicussion quite entertaining, though not really ontopic.
I am really pleased by level of politcial correctness shown by Tomalak, this is rare thing to find.
However, the space sector of Russian inductry is not quite well funded (I saw an advert for engineers in some Space Constructing Bureau where salary was stated for about $700, that is very minor for Moscow and certainly below expectation of mission-critical workers) and there were serial faults of space rockets that made the impression.
PS current Lada might be better than in 90ties.