Today, a large agribusiness there, told me they finished their wheat harvest, a full week after the ministry said it was already done.
When I told my contacts that the wheat harvest had officially finished there a week ago, they were surprised and told me there is still standing crop in the region.
This reminds me of the time we received a visit from the head of the local administration to tell us we were not harvesting quick enough.
He produced a piece of paper with a league table of farms and how much they had cut to date, and sure enough, we were bottom last.
I told him we didn't really care what everyone else was doing, that it wasn’t a competition, our harvest schedule was bang on target, and he shouldn’t worry.
This made him angry, so I got angry back, he shouted, I shouted, we glared at each other across the table, we'd reached an impasse.
Then, a colleague of mine piped up, "What if we 'report' we have harvested more hectares, will that be alright?"
Yes, came the immediate reply, that will be fine, smiles resumed, the atmosphere improved, the head of administration was happy, he could now report up the chain that all was well, and presumably keep his job for another season.
I mention this because it seems old habits die hard, and we still need to take official reports coming out of former soviet countries with a degree of scepticism.
Including harvest data.