Translated material
Sofa as a national idea
Irina Rosenberg
To be revived, the Russian furniture industry needs to be born again
To be revived, the Russian furniture industry needs to be born again
(Photo: Max Novikov )
The economic crisis had a beneficial effect on the domestic furniture industry (as well as on other industries). Imports declined, and domestic goods filled the vacated space. And if since the beginning of the 90s, according to the Association of Furniture and Woodworking Industry Enterprises, furniture production has decreased by 3.5-7 times, then in 1999 alone it increased by 1.7 times. It is possible that the growth was even more significant (however, the fall might not have been so strong). After all, many furniture enterprises, evading taxes, do not report all their products in their reports. As a representative of one of the furniture factories admitted, some indicate only 20-30 percent of what is actually produced.
Consumer attitudes towards domestic products have also changed. “Previously, in order for goods to sell out, many Russian manufacturers passed off their furniture as imported, Belgian, French, even Polish, no matter what, but today they honestly indicate that the goods were made in our country,” says the editor-in-chief of the New Catalog magazine ( informs about new products on the furniture market) Inna Mogileva. “This is a sure sign that our furniture has become competitive and buyers, so to speak, have come to respect it.”
Unequal opportunities
Our country seemed to have all the conditions for the production of good furniture. Forest resources, large sales market, high potential demand. However, there was no professional school of designers, no school of technologists, no good components, no good equipment, which made it impossible to produce high-quality furniture. Therefore, when imports poured into the country, Russian furniture could not compete with it. “But these years, furniture makers did not waste time in vain. The managers of some old factories carried out work to reconstruct production. They began to study demand, improve the quality and design of furniture,” noted Andrei Shnabel, General Director of the Association of Furniture and Woodworking Industry Enterprises. “And today the products of such factories its level is almost no different from the imported one."
In the late 80s - early 90s, new factories began to appear in the country, initially producing furniture in artisanal conditions. Many of them have become quite successful enterprises, which, being more flexible than large furniture factories, are able to offer a more diverse range. However, a quantitative increase in production does not always mean a qualitative increase. According to estimates by the Association of Furniture and Woodworking Industry Enterprises, only 15-20% of furniture factories (taking into account both old and new) produce competitive goods. Such enterprises operate entirely or partially on imported materials and components. Of the Russian raw materials, only chipboards (chipboards), plywood, wood, as well as springs, some foam rubber and very few types of fabric are suitable for the production of good furniture. Everything else - mechanisms for upholstered furniture, hinges and all kinds of fasteners, varnishes, paints, almost all finishing materials - are either of low quality or are completely absent from us. We don’t even have all types of wood in sufficient quantities: a lot of pine, but not enough oak. There are practically no wide chipboards (more than 20 millimeters), which are necessary, for example, for the production of countertops. Decorative film (imitating wood), which is used to cover chipboard, for good furniture also has to be bought in the West, since ours is thin, allows glue to leak out, is not smooth, and has an uninteresting pattern. As Andrey Shnabel noted, approximately 30% of all types of raw materials used by the furniture industry are imported, and these 30% are purchased by successful enterprises.
Most of our factories continue to produce dull products, which in quality and appearance are no different from former Soviet furniture. “But the state of the furniture market is such that a factory can develop and have prospects only if it makes European-class goods,” notes the head of one of the factories. “Imports have decreased, and people demand quality things, although not cheap, but not very expensive. And you can gain a foothold in the market only by satisfying this demand."
Most of all, Russian factories have succeeded in the production of upholstered furniture. After all, it is sofas and armchairs that are in greatest demand among our customers - according to experts from the New Catalog magazine, 30 thousand sets of upholstered furniture are sold monthly in Moscow. Sofas in our country are not just part of the interior, but a thing that you cannot do without, since our living room often serves as a bedroom. In addition, a high-quality sofa costs much less than a wall or kitchen.
But most importantly, the production of cabinet furniture is much more complex and expensive, although at first glance it seems as if a wardrobe is easier to make than a sofa. “The production of upholstered furniture does not require either high technology or a large amount of expensive equipment. In fact, this is a semi-handicraft manual production, it can be set up even in a garage,” says Konstantin Kotsev, director of the Moon furniture factory. “Although, of course, there are some nuances. Sometimes it’s easier to buy an expensive machine than to find a normal worker. After all, the quality largely depends on the person - he came in in a bad mood and ruined the sofa."
“The production of upholstered furniture depends on only 4-5 suppliers of raw materials and components. But for me, for example, to produce kitchens I need to cooperate with more than 80 suppliers, because of the number of accessories (all kinds of handles, hooks, locks, hinges, nuts and screws) and finishing here much more is required, which makes production both more complex and more expensive,” continues Igor Khripkov, general director of ElT. The simplest kitchen set requires 40-50 types of components, as added by Eurocomfort representatives.
That is why, according to Inna Mogileva, upholstered furniture made in Russia now occupies 60-70% of the mass market (price up to one and a half thousand dollars for a set of a sofa and two armchairs). “Soon the only imported furniture in Russia will be expensive, exclusive products from world-famous designers, and the demand for mass-produced furniture will be covered exclusively by domestic production,” says Konstantin Kotsev. True, some of our factories are also trying to make expensive furniture, for example, with wooden trim in the form of stucco or inlay, upholstered in either leather or very expensive fabric. “But this doesn’t make much sense,” says Yuri Grebennikov, director of the Allegro-Classics factory. “The price of such furniture is close to imported furniture. But anyone who is able to pay, say, 110 thousand rubles for a set (which is how much complex furniture costs "Russian-made), will add another 20 thousand and buy furniture from a famous designer. In terms of the level of execution, this is higher - we do not have such refined forms."
And we can do that
Among the most successful, producing competitive products, experts note the factories "Marta", "Allegro-Classics", "PO Allegro", "Moon", "Prestige", "Modern", "Sector-M", "Instroymebel", "Vozrozhdenie" , the former Soviet upholstered furniture factory - now JSC - "Kuzminki" has also rebuilt well in a new way. The enterprises offer products of approximately the same quality; only the number of models and colors of upholstery differ. For example, in the Moon arsenal there are 30 models in 155 colors and types of fabrics, Allegro-Classics makes 40 models using 200 types of upholstery, and approximately 15 models are constantly in development.
In development, however, this is said loudly, since our factories do not invent anything new, but copy imported models. As Yuri Grebennikov admitted, more than 90% of domestic models are reproduced imported analogues; many do not even have their own designers on staff. “We have a design group at the factory, but we adopt models from international furniture exhibitions, although we slightly rework some of them,” said Nikolai Malinin, general director of Kuzminki JSC.
The head of one of the factories told how Russian furniture makers have improved. They bought imported chairs and sofas from Russia, trying not to miss a single new product. They disassembled them, studied their internals (materials, assembly technology), and then tried to do the same at their enterprises. It turned out that this is possible, the main thing is to use imported components, especially fabrics and folding mechanisms. Imported sofas had to be slightly adapted to Russian conditions. Our people want sofas to be foldable, even if they are not going to sleep on them all the time, but are bought for living rooms, and factories have begun to build folding mechanisms into the so-called guest sofa models.
Having gotten the hang of it, some Russian furniture makers are now able to make even the most complex model of sofas and armchairs from a picture. “The process of studying and introducing into production takes a little more than a month,” noted Yuri Grebennikov. A few years ago, a lot of Polish upholstered furniture was sold in Russia: the Poles are also great masters of copying. Now Russian factories have almost completely pushed them out of the market. Our furniture makers have learned to “reproduce” even the latest designs by famous Italian designers. Designers, as furniture makers assure, turn a blind eye to this. Firstly, it’s difficult to find fault - it’s almost impossible to patent a furniture design. Secondly, even the most skillful fake will not replace the original; any specialist will distinguish it. However, foreigners are still jealous of the “successes” of Russian factories. “Previously, at international furniture exhibitions you could easily get advertising brochures; they were distributed to everyone,” said the head of one of the enterprises. “At the last exhibitions, everything was hidden, and only trading companies could get the brochures; they were not given to manufacturers.”
One screwdriver, two screwdriver
The second successful direction of the domestic furniture industry today is kitchen sets, which are in second place in demand after sofas and armchairs. Kitchens are replaced less often than upholstered furniture, but more often than living rooms and, especially, bedroom sets.
Here we have also achieved a lot, although domestic production can often be called production very conditionally. What many Russian factories do can be compared to the screwdriver assembly of imported cars. That is, they buy ready-made components (doors, trim) from Italians for specific Italian models and assemble them in their factories. The only thing they do on their own is sawing chipboard (with a decorative film already glued), from which the frames are glued together, and drilling holes in the frames for fasteners and bolts. Equipment for sawing chipboard, gluing edges, and presses for gluing frames are also imported.
Many such factories grew out of ordinary trading firms. “In 1994, we started by buying a couple of kitchen models from the Italians, demonstrating them in stores, collecting orders and delivering ready-made sets,” says Alexander Zablotsky, general director of the Eurocomfort company. “But even before the crisis we realized what to collect Our kitchens are much cheaper, and the lead times for orders are shorter, because we can make a kitchen set in 3-7 days.” And after August 1998, the number of such companies increased - prices are lower. According to the leaders of Eurocomfort, in Moscow alone, 10-15 factories are engaged in assembly, their production volume is approximately 100-150 kitchens per month (for comparison: some former Soviet factories for the production of cheap Soviet-style kitchens assemble 6-8 thousand kitchen sets per month month). Assembly plants have appeared both in the Moscow region and in the regions. The delivery of components can be carried out in the shortest possible time; a minimum of equipment is required. There is no need to hire many workers; for example, in one of the factories, a little more than 20 people work to assemble 100 kitchens per month.
It is very difficult to determine the true volumes of such production, since a considerable number of kitchens sold under foreign names are manufactured in Russia. The general director of the ElT company gives the following assessments: “The share of Russian-made products in our kitchen market accounts for 95%, of which approximately 25% are “Italian” kitchens assembled in Russia.”
Russian-assembled kitchens are practically no different from imported ones, either in appearance or in quality. Some manufacturers even set a service life for assembled furniture (that is, they guarantee that nothing will happen to the product during this time) of 15 years and provide a 2-year warranty (the right to repair at the expense of the manufacturer). “We do the same as any Italian factory - we assemble ready-made kitchens from Italian components,” explains Alexander Zablotsky.
“We can probably develop our own models - although there are already so many of them that it is unlikely to be possible to invent something fundamentally new,” argue the leaders of Eurocomfort, “but then a problem arises. The Italians will have to cut out, for example, doors especially for us, but they won’t take on a small batch; a large batch requires a lot of money, and it’s unknown whether there will be demand for this model.” So there is no reason to expect the development of full-fledged kitchen production in our country in the near future (however, the leaders of the ElT company assure that they themselves are developing a model range).
The same can be said for the living room and bedroom industry, the least developed area of the furniture industry. “The production of good cabinet furniture is a much more technologically complex matter than the production of kitchens. In living rooms there are more elements, all sorts of drawers, cabinets and shelves that need to be assembled. There are much higher requirements for appearance, and the model range is much more complex and varied Compared to the same kitchens, there are much more subtleties (all kinds of finishing, inlays), and more fittings are required, and the material is exclusively imported, because we only make thin chipboard,” note the managers of Eurocomfort. In other words, producing good cabinets and living rooms requires expensive wood processing equipment and technology. Therefore, our manufacturers, striving to occupy the middle segment of the market, prefer to make sofas and engage in screwdriver assembly of kitchens.
The production of upholstered furniture is reminiscent of artisanal production. This is almost entirely manual labor (Photo: Pavel Gorshkov )