Russia seems to be the country that everyone wants to make friends with. Following the suit of his French colleague, Recep Erdogan expressed loyalty to his Russian counterpart. In a typical of the Eastern culture manner, the Turkish president made big promises which impressed even ardent optimists. He revealed determination to reach head-spinning highs in the mutual trade with Russia at the opening ceremony of the MAKS 2019 International Aviation and Space Salon, a showcase of Russia's aerospace industry. Mr. Erdogan stated that Turkey wanted to increase the bilateral trade volume with Russia to $100 billion. Currently, the volume is hardly reaching $25 billion, so a 4-fold increase seems to be an unattainable goal. Admittedly, such grandiose plans of a cosmic scale fit in a format of the aviation and space event. Speaking of aviation, Turkey has signed a contract with Russia for the delivery of the S-400 missile defense systems. Besides, Ankara has got interested in Russian aerospace developments. However, the contract value is just $2.5 billion and this figure is unlikely to increase bearing in mind Russia’s achievements in space exploration. The only thing that regularly grows in the relations between these two countries is the amount of money invested by Russian tourists in the Turkish economy. In this regard, the statistics are always upbeat. “The number of Russian tourists visiting Turkey this year keeps breaking new records. We predict nearly 6 million Russian tourists to visit Turkey in 2019,” President Erdogan outlined, adding that the tourist flow from Russia plays a significant role.
