Lucky ones

“Shuttle boats? And who is it?—grins Andrey, who sells sneakers at the Cherkizovsky market.—You are behind the times, there are no shuttles for a long time.” When asked who provides the market with goods, Andrei, straightening his chest, answers: "Businessmen." He is right: no one buys cheap junk abroad anymore, so that later they can drag trunks through customs and sell them on the market or through acquaintances. So the government, which declared war on the shuttle traders a month and a half ago, is also behind the times.

Moreover, for at least a few years, as long as they decided to adopt a resolution that reduced the rate of import of any goods by individuals from 50 kg per week to 35 kg, and not in seven days, but in a month. More is possible, but you will have to pay a fee, at least a third of the cost (and not less than €4 per kg). This was the dream of domestic manufacturers of clothing and footwear, because it was their business that Chinese and Turkish consumer goods dealt the most painful blow to. But while the exhausted producers gathered their strength, the enemy did not doze off either - as a result, the shuttle business will calmly survive the restrictions, even prices will not rise. It is designed in such a way that it is possible to transport the necessary cargo in batches of 10 kg each. It is also unlikely that the last draconian measure left at the disposal of officials will affect him—to reduce not the weight, but the maximum cost of imported goods (from 65,000 to 15,000 rubles). Unless wealthy Russians who buy clothes in Europe will have to cut off labels more often, pretending that they are bringing used clothes.

Blagoveshchensk is a city of shuttles: there are no jobs, and the inhabitants take on everything they pay for. Previously, they exported Chinese products from the opposite, across the Amur, the city of Heihe, where you can travel without a visa. It was mainly the Chinese who benefited from this: in a decade and a half, a city with a population of 1.2 million people grew up on the site of seedy shacks in Heihe, and Blagoveshchensk, as it was, remained with its 220,000 inhabitants. And almost all of them still shuttle. Only now, instead of huge trunks with contraband, which then have to be sold somehow, they just draw up someone else's cargo in small batches.

The clothing market of Blagoveshchensk is the same as in any other Russian city: hats from the Moscow Luzhniki Stadium, rows of Turkish-made children's clothing and an abundance of Chinese consumer goods. Saleswomen complain about domestic-made "a-laLuzhkov" caps—they say they take worse from month to month: "it's good if you sell one hat a day." Blame it—and rightly so—on the Chinese. “They give you 600 rubles, ask you to buy them a cap, you buy it, so in three days the market will be crammed with these caps for 120 rubles,” explains the bicycle saleswoman.

Questions about the troubles that the innovations invented in Moscow were supposed to bring to the border regions, and the inevitable rise in the price of all imports from her comrades only cause a smile. Individuals, judging by customs statistics, import gigantic volumes of products into the country — 60,000–80,000 tons of clothing and footwear per year ($800 million). These are both ours and the Chinese—they don’t even really compete. For example, Blagoveshchensk merchants buy in bulk part of the goods in the Chinese half of the market and sell them with a small markup—often it turns out cheaper than the Chinese themselves at retail.

Therefore, the saleswoman Tatyana and her son Artyom do not even have a foreign passport - they are not going to buy anything for sale in Heihe, because it will still be more expensive than the Chinese buy in their Beijing. But they are already thinking of doing it, and it is precisely in order to go across the Amur - "they say you can have a wonderful rest there."

It's just that the big shuttle business bypasses such merchants. Russian firms agree on the purchase of large consignments of goods with Russian businessmen from the regions. They also do not carry trunks, but go, for example, to Beijing and choose goods, which are then brought to Heihe. Then it's up to private carriers - this is the most common profession in Blagoveshchensk. The bosses who hire them—the “bricks”—dispose of the goods. The party is transported across the border by “lanterns” that have nothing to do with it, as a rule, students—for 400 rubles—and pensioners are also contracted.

Newsweek correspondents were hired by such "lanterns" to one of the Annunciation "bricks". Gregory (name changed) ordered to come to the port at half past nine in the morning. It turned out that at this time there are already full of people, although the box office opens only at nine. But all half an hour was just spent on solving organizational issues. Grigory turned out to be a very large "brick" - he himself does not lead anyone across the border, several assistants do this. Our group of seven people was led by Maxim, a 20-year-old student of a technical school, who until recently had himself been an ordinary “lantern”—he was promoted a few months ago. “He is an intelligent guy, very similar to me in his youth,” Grigory praises the new assistant. “Too hot-tempered for such work, but this will pass.” However, Maxim himself does not intend to stay long in the "bricks" - he wants to earn money for his studies in some large city, now he is eyeing Novosibirsk.

While Grigory is buying tickets, Maxim supplies the "lanterns" with the papers they need for Chinese customs and gives short instructions on how to fill them out. It’s really not possible to understand everything right away, for example, there is a separate declaration where you need to assess your state of health by ticking the list of suspicious symptoms - chills or coughing, and also tell you whether you are bringing a bird (live or dead) with you and the other "organism of the body" is an excellent example of "Chinese Russian".

And here are the tickets: we will go on the highest level, on the "Puma" - this is such a hovercraft, the most expensive way to cross the Amur (950 rubles round trip against 600 rubles on a boat or 700 rubles on a bus, but they spring ice is not allowed). Maxim complains that tickets are getting more expensive all the time. But in the company "Amurasso", which owns the entire fleet of vehicles, they are satisfied: where else can you take so much for a trip lasting about five minutes?

Much more time is spent on registration and inspection, besides, there are queues everywhere. The most pleasant thing is upon arrival, when Maxim pays a customs fee for the group (95 yuan, or 300 plus rubles per person) and releases before the agreed time on all four sides: almost like free time on a tour. But for the “brick” itself, this is a very important period: you have to go to the warehouse and pack the goods.

“We come in different ways,” says Maxim, “when for a couple of hours, when for a day or even with an overnight stay.” We got into the short program. Experienced fellow “lanterns” ran to a shopping center not far from the customs post—it doesn’t make sense to bring anything for sale from here, but you can buy for yourself a little cheaper than at the Blagoveshchensk market. We decide to look at China—Heihe, in principle, differs depending on the region in the same way as the developed megacities of the Celestial Empire differ from its rural slums. Office buildings and shopping centers are here, as in the Russian capital, but after walking for ten minutes at a brisk pace, you have to make your way through mountains of garbage, admiring the rickety huts. After some time, a hodgepodge of dirt and garbage dries up and natural dugouts begin.

Maxim is waiting for the "lanterns", having prepared the bags, the same checkered bags that every Russian strongly associates with shuttles. Only now they are not 50, but 35 kg (for those who are weaker, they make two). Each is accompanied by a complete inventory of the contents with prices - this is for customs, so as not to find fault. How the Chinese manage in the semi-darkness in a huge hangar (this is what the warehouse looks like) does not confuse anything, it is incomprehensible to the mind. But if the customs officers climb to check the result, everything is absolutely legal: in one of our bags, for example, two leather jackets, two synthetic winterizers, three pairs of men's shoes, two pairs of slippers, a pair of sheepskin coats are packed - in general, just a little bit, only this one the set is repeated seven times.

"For what purpose are you carrying things?" - "For personal needs." This mini-dialogue is a mandatory ritual at customs, although each of the parties is well aware of its deceit. The customs officer returns the passport, immediately, as if from under the ground, Grigory appears and picks up the bags. We did not see more "our" sheepskin coats and padding jackets. “They are no longer in Blagoveshchensk,” the main “brick” will explain in a couple of hours.

Everything is instantly sent to businessmen from various Siberian cities, mainly to Krasnoyarsk, and a lot is also taken in Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Tynda. Carriers simply reload the bags transported across the Amur onto the train. Due to the restrictions introduced in February, they did not even raise prices, although the whole scheme became a little more expensive (because more “lanterns” are needed). Grigory says that this is because they are afraid of losing clients: if you miss out, others who don’t value margin so much will immediately “spud”; anyway, this is almost the only profitable job in Blagoveshchensk.

Now each "lantern" brings its owners more than 2000 rubles. for a walker, this is minus all expenses, including the payment of loaders (“lanterns” have to lift a bag a couple of times when inspecting luggage). "Brick" Denis says that he has 20,000 rubles a month. usually “goes out without problems”, although the income is not very stable—depends on the total revenue for the flight; it happens that 100 rubles. per day remains, "only for gasoline." By Annunciation standards, this is good money, and the salary of a security guard in a trendy nightclub is also added to it. Denis says that sometimes with two jobs he sleeps for 4–5 hours, but he doesn’t complain about life — “I just wouldn’t sit in one place, I constantly have to do something.”

For a month and a half, the volume of shuttle traffic has not decreased at all, says Alexander Kival from the Department of Economic Development and External Relations of the Amur Region. On Mondays, 450-500 people travel, on weekends, up to 2,000 one way. After all, hiring extra "lanterns" in the Far East is not a problem. “It has become harder, but no one is going to leave this business, we are coping now and we will cope further,” Maxim is convinced. It only got worse for the lanterns themselves: before they could carry their 50 kg at least every week, but now only once a month.

Therefore, Maxim advises government officials to direct their energy not to compatriots, but to the Chinese—in Heihe, for example, there are a lot of unemployed who are ready for any work and for any money. Desperate hundreds are moving to Russia: “Chinese ships go to Russia [full] to the eyeballs, and go back half empty.” And all these half-measures will no longer help the light industry, so there is nothing to blame from a sick head on a healthy one, says Svetlana, a saleswoman of the Moscow Savelovsky market. Her shop is littered with Turkish women's suits for a maximum of 2,500 rubles. and never empty.