President Putin has switched to using Russian Aurus Senat Limousine (Russian Gold) since last year. For the first time, the Russian head of state drove this car in the Kremlin palace grounds, which took place on May 7, 2018, departing from the presidential office to the palace.
At the opening ceremony of the German Daimler automobile factory, Mr. Putin stepped out of the sparkling black limo and welcomed the factory representative. After shaking hands, one of the members of Germany's No. 1 automaker told Putin in German that he had "a beautiful car".
Mr. Putin also responded in German, proudly saying: " Ja, rat rat - Yes, it is very beautiful".
The president then visited the assembly line, the testing area and signed a new vehicle.
This factory will be the place to assemble Mercedes-Benz luxury cars for the domestic Russian market.
In June 2017, German automaker Daimler began construction of the first factory in Russia to produce Mercedes cars. Construction began under a special investment contract signed in February of the same year.
The factory's designed capacity is 25,000 vehicles per year. The number of jobs when the company deploys full capacity will exceed 1,000 people, by the end of March, the number of employees will have exceeded 500 people.
