Skiing on Russian Wood

What do Madschus, Karhu and Whitewoods skis all have in common? All have outsourced some or all of their ski and pole production to Russia. More specifically, to the ski factory Center of Sports Technologies (CST), located in Balabanovo, Kaluga region, about 60 kilometers from Moscow.

Along with skis, CST produces ski accessories such as greases and waxes, as well as hockey sticks and Nordic walking poles. CST also plans to launch production of snowboards.

CST owner and Chief Executive Igor Gavrilenko is a Master of Sport and lifelong sports professional (in the biathlon). After retiring from sports in 1997, he founded CST and has since grown it into Russia’s largest producer and exporter of skis. In its first year, CST produced just 10,000 skis per month; it now outputs some 90,000 skis each month, filling orders from some 15 major brands in Europe and the U.S.

CST does not just produce wooden blanks, but supplies retail-ready laminated fiberglass skis, painted and packed for consumers in Russia, Europe, North America or Japan. Some 40% of CST production is sold abroad.

Why do foreign brands choose to have their skis made in Russia? The answer is simple, said CST business manager Tatyana Kashnikova: cost. While Chinese factories are improving their technology and may be a concern in the future, today, according to CST, no foreign competitor can beat the company’s combination of price and quality. What is more, there appears to be no competition on Russian soil. While some large, formerly State-owned enterprises used to produce millions of pairs of wooden skis per year, they have been unable to keep up with technological and market changes and have cut production sharply. CST, for its part, is continuing to grow, and in fact is in the process of moving to a larger factory, in order to meet increased demand from abroad.

“We give primary attention to the quality of our product, ensuring that it is produced in strict accordance with current technological standards,” Kashnikova said. “These standards are the same for all skis of a certain brand, so Russian-made skis have no principal difference from those produced in other countries, except for their price and their inscription, ‘Made in Russia.’” That inscription can be found on some Whitewoods skis, distributed in the U.S. by Eriksports, and on skis manufactured according to the exacting standards of Finland’s Karhu and Norway’s Madschus.

But don’t go looking for any of these big producers to tout the Russianness of their brands. In fact, CST itself is a bit media-shy. It seems that Russian Life was the first representative of the American media to visit CST’s facilities. An Eriksports representative, Michael Messler, meanwhile reported that last year Whitewoods production was moved from Russia to the Czech Republic. Messler said he was “not at liberty to discuss” any of the issues surrounding the move.

- Andrei Nesterov