Translated material
Funeral competition
Moscow is getting rid of excessive liberalization of the funeral services market
Even on their last journey, Muscovites will go under the strict control of the authorities. Deputies of the Moscow City Duma decided that excessive liberalization in the ritual sphere does not meet the interests of their voters, and took the first step so that city residents who have lost loved ones do not have to be torn between “bezenchuk” and “nymphs”.Having adopted amendments to the law “On burial and funeral business in the city of Moscow” in the first reading on Wednesday, parliamentarians limited the number of companies that have the right to accept orders for organizing funerals. All this will strengthen the position of the main player in this sector of the market - the city-owned state unitary enterprise Ritual .
It is noteworthy that representatives of the mayor’s office did not have to spend much time agitating deputies, including those from the opposition, that grief-stricken Muscovites should be freed from annoying funeral agents. Perhaps one of the arguments was the loud scandal in February, when ambulance paramedics came into hand-to-hand combat with a representative of the funeral home, finding out who had more rights to send the “client” to the morgue. Deputy Head of the City Department of Consumer Market and Services Larisa Korzhneva, presenting the bill, said that only city specialized funeral services should remain on the market, the procedure for creating which is determined by the capital government. Funeral homes that do not pass the competitive certification will be outlawed. “This will make it possible to hold unscrupulous representatives of this market accountable,” Ms. Korzhneva explained to Vremya Novostei.
Today there are 19 funeral homes certified by the capital government in the city, 16 of which are state unitary enterprises. According to the medium-term privatization program for 2005-2007, most of them should find private owners in the near future. However, control of the sphere of funeral services, according to the chairman of the commission on social policy and labor relations of the Moscow City Duma, Mikhail Antontsev, will remain in the hands of the city, since any joint-stock company that wants to participate in the funeral business must transfer 15% of the shares to the city.
In addition, the State Unitary Enterprise “Ritual”, which has a monopoly on the main service - registration of rights to use burial plots , will not be privatized. According to Ms. Korzhneva, after updating the law, this enterprise will become the only one providing burial, reburial and cremation services. The rest of the funeral parlors will only have to deal with the production and sale of ritual paraphernalia, as well as the care of burial places.
According to the project developers, in Moscow, where approximately 120 thousand people die annually, 20 funeral parlors are quite sufficient. “When there are too many people willing to provide funeral services for one deceased person, this is no longer a competition, but a fight,” says Larisa Korzhneva. And Mr. Antontsev, in a conversation with a Vremya Novostey correspondent, expressed confidence that even among this small number of funeral homes, “townspeople will have plenty to choose from.”
Today there are more than twice as many companies actually working in the ritual sphere, including non-specialized ones, in the capital. According to the Russian Union of Funeral Organizations and Crematoriums, the number of such organizations in Moscow changes every month and a half - now there are about 50 of them in the city. And the leaders of the union are not afraid of the imminent reduction. “With the abolition of licensing for this type of activity in 2002, many dishonest amateurs really poured into the sphere of providing funeral services,” assistant executive director of the union Nikolai Pavlovich told Vremya Novostei. According to him, the lack of proper control on the part of the authorities significantly increased the number of funeral parlors, among which there were fly-by-night companies that “died” after the first client. Private owners are also blamed for poor quality services, poor transport, and incommensurable prices. However, according to Mr. Pavlovich, businessmen will not disappear, but will only narrow their scope of activity - 80% of them today are engaged not so much in burying the dead, but in the production of tombstones and other ritual accessories.
Anton Avdeev, chairman of the trade union of funeral service workers in Moscow, who represents the interests of 500 certified funeral agents, has a slightly different view of market conditions. In his opinion, “if we abstract from the interests of the city,” then there should be a full-fledged competitive environment. True, the emergence of a civilized market in the sphere of funeral services, Mr. Avdeev believes, “is a long process of changing the consciousness of Russians, when they finally begin to prepare for death in advance.” “It’s about the peculiarities of funerals,” he tried to explain to Vremya Novostei the specifics of this business. “This is not a simple consumer area where people are preparing to buy and studying the market.” They prefer not to think about death, and therefore people who have lost loved ones are, as a rule, completely disoriented. And therefore they can become a victim of scammers.
However, as Mr. Avdeev himself admitted, a recent survey conducted by the trade union showed that the majority of his colleagues in the shop still prefer “limited competition.” Because they also agree that there are too many business entities per deceased person in Moscow.