The only consolation is that it is not just foreign car production that has increased – that of domestic ones has also grown, by as much as 50 percent.

It shows how much the Russian car industry has recovered after the recent economic slump in 2009. So far this year, already half a million cars have been produced, and the figure is likely to grow to a million by the end of the year. This is way up from last year’s total of 600,000 – which reflects a change in demand. The production rates, though, are still down, compared to the pre-crisis peak of 1.5 million cars.

Strange as it may seem, the dominance of foreign makes does not mean there is a lack of interest in Russian ones: in terms of sales, the Association of European Businesses reports, the national model Lada has been so far the most popular.

The association has released a list of the top 25 best selling cars in Russia this year: it turned out that all the four top places are occupied by different models of Lada produced by Russian car-maker Avtovaz.

The other cars in the list, however, are foreign makes, including Fiat, Daewoo, KIA, Ford, Hyundai, Toyota and the likes. This is evidently what makes the demand for such cars higher.

Moreover, foreign cars producers themselves are planning to boost production in the years to come: for example, Volkswagen plans to double its production to 90,000 cars, Hyundai by 50 percent, and Peugeot and Citroen from 150 to 200 cars per day.