In this series of posts, Tatyana Strashnenko (Strategic Planning Director TBWA\Moscow) celebrates Russian innovation with disruption stories from the country’s past and present.

Resourcefulness is one of the key traits of the Russian mentality.  Since life has never been easy and the state has always tended to smother initiative rather than stimulating it, we’ve had no choice but to innovate. The saying “necessity is the mother of invention” could have been coined for us.

One of our most famous novels, of course, is Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Perhaps this is not surprising, because in battle, Russians have often been innovative. They’ve disrupted conventional military theory and defeated superior forces with unexpected tactics.

Perhaps the best example was the decision by General Kutuzov in 1812 to leave Moscow open to Napoleon. After the brutal battle of Borodino, the Russian army was in no state to defend the city. And so it was quite literally abandoned. Napoleon entered a dead metropolis. The few remaining provisions soon ran out. Napoleon was forced to move further south, where he was met and defeated by a fortified and morally superior Russian force. Kutuzov had been criticised for abandoning Moscow – but his unconventional strategy won the day.

On a lighter note, in peacetime Russians are famous for being able to make practically any object out of the materials at hand. Cotton, cable and a box of matches will get you an electric water heater. A record can be copied onto an X-ray photograph. And there is practically no car part that can’t be replaced by something concocted from a few items bought in a hardware store.

Humorists say that this is why Russians are not afraid of any crisis or calamity. Click here for examples.

Check again later for the two posts to follow.