TOLYATTI, Russia — They have always made things in Tolyatti.
In the days of Communist rule, this city was the home of the Soviet auto industry, Russia’s answer to Detroit. It rose up around the vast car factory that sits at its heart, designed specifically to feed the 200 miles of production lines with the parts, the materials and the bodies they needed to operate.
The factory is still there — run by AvtoVaz, owned by Renault-Nissan — its buildings stretching for dozens of blocks, its chimneys belching smoke into the sky, the fruit of its labors glinting in the gray light of mile-wide parking lots.