For example, Mikhail Demuria founded his own electric transportation production company. In an interview with Sputnik Mundo, he shared his reasoning for creating the new business.
The idea of producing electric transport in Crimea came to him in 2012, when Demuria worked in a company selling electric vehicles for the recreational sector. He was thinking about importing spare parts from abroad and then collecting cars in Crimea.
In 2014, after reunification with Russia, he decided to come back to this idea, but on the basis of Russian components.
"I applied for a grant from the Crimean government designed to support small businesses. The competition was great, but thanks to the fact that our project fell into two target categories (production and tourism), we became one of the ten winners. The grant, amounting to 300,000 rubles (about $ 5,300), was fully invested in the necessary equipment to start creating experimental prototypes of small commercial electric vehicles," the founder of the ELGO company said.
The products produced by the enterprise include Yak electric trucks, Breeze electric catamarans and Dilizhans electric buses.
"Tourists are becoming more and more demanding, and they like it when they are taken to their hotels on a comfortable electric bus, and not a stuffy 'minibus'," Demuria said.
The bus, designed for 11 passengers, costs about $22,000 and it is very quiet and comfortable, Demuria said.
The lightweight universal electric Yak truck is capable of carrying a ton of cargo for 120 kilometers (with the possibility of expanding to 250 kilometers), including on mountain roads with steep slopes.
According to Demuria, Western sanctions contributed to the faster development of the local business and economy.
"It may sound strange, but we, Crimean producers, are extremely thankful for the sanctions!" Demuria said, adding that in his opinion, this is the first time that the Crimean market is "owned" solely by Crimean producers.
