Keyboards acquired through Russia’s “parallel imports” strategy are proving impractical for the country, which is now scrambling to provide workers with the hardware they need. Russia adopted the parallel imports scheme following a slew of sanctions from tech companies in the US and other parts of the world. On paper, the strategy was meant to facilitate Russia’s continued import of products made in countries that had issued sanctions, but in a roundabout way. But the plan is clearly backfiring.
Under the parallel imports scheme, Russia is allowed to purchase sanctioned goods from third-party countries not experiencing sanctions, so long as the third-party country acquired those goods legally. In practice, this means Russia can obtain tech like Apple and Microsoft devices from, say, China, because China isn’t being sanctioned by Apple and Microsoft. However, this strategy has a major caveat: because the devices shipped to third-party countries are made for the people within those countries, they aren’t exactly compatible with the Russian language.
A typical Russian keyboard layout. (Image: MDragunov/Wikimedia Commons)
It doesn’t take a linguist to see that Russian is not Mandarin is not Serbian (as Serbia is another third-party country willing to trade out sanction-enforcing countries’ devices). If a keyboard is set up for Mandarin speakers, it’s not going to be very useful to those who conduct their work in Russian. This has proven challenging for a country that’s contractually obligated to provide government workers with individual workstations, each with their own Russian keyboard.
The issue is so prevalent that experts believe at least 10 percent of the country’s keyboard stock will consist of non-Russian keyboards by the end of the year. According to the independent Russian news outlet The Moscow Times, the country’s Industry and Trade Ministry has begun engraving Cryllic (the alphabet used in Russian and other Slavic languages) into individual keys. But doing this comes with its own disadvantages: engraving the keys requires taking keyboards out of their packaging, which makes them less attractive to potential customers. Worse, configurations that require keyboard disassembly and reassembly can void the hardware’s warranty.
Should the Russian government have seen this coming when it implemented its parallel imports strategy? Probably. Is a keyboard shortage going to be the straw that breaks Russia’s back? Almost definitely not. Nevertheless, the tech hardware companies that sanctioned Russia in the first place are likely pleased that their punitive measures are working.
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