Alexey Nemeryuk about licensing funeral agents: “Market tariffs are quite understandable for participants in this market, but incomprehensible to the state, to us, and this is precisely where the more stringent function on the part of the state in terms of the regulator is due. Initially, the Federal Antimonopoly Service proposed to return to the creation of a self-regulatory organization in this area so that some kind of regulator would appear, because licensing in this area has been abolished for more than ten years, and from that moment everyone went where they wanted. As a result, the Ministry of Construction has prepared a fairly significant volume of amendments to the federal law, where the first paragraph discusses the issue of licensing this activity, because the area is very delicate, every person encounters it at least once every ten years. When specific services are persistently imposed on you in a rather difficult life situation, the agent comes to your home, and in many other countries the provision of services at home is strictly prohibited. That is, a person must choose for himself where he wants to go, where he wants to order, he must familiarize himself with the price list and choose a more or less convenient option for himself. And when agents come into your apartment and immediately try, after assessing the furnishings and decoration of the apartment, its area, to offer services - this is not entirely correct.”

Artem Ekimov on unfair competition in the market: “The current number of agents per number of deaths per day ensures absolutely unhealthy competition. That is, this is not the kind of competition that ensures high-quality provision of services, provokes it, provokes some kind of proper struggle, fair, market. Here we are talking about competition between administrative and corrupt local opportunities.”

“On average, there are approximately 10 burials per month per funeral director abroad. For 1.5 agents, sometimes we have 2-3 burials, no more. That is, this suggests that now there are about 3 thousand agents working in the Moscow market alone, who are trying to earn their living on a daily basis.”

Alexey Nemeryuk about the reform of the funeral industry in Moscow: “Reform is underway, on the one hand, along the lines of legislation: there is a clear understanding of how to move, and we are now talking not only about licensing, but also about many other points that cannot be kept silent about,” this includes the involvement of abandoned sites into circulation, around which there has already been a lot of controversy, whether this should be done or not, these are aspects of the introduction of norms, new concepts into the law, because life does not stand still, it moves on. As for the organization itself, of course, a change in format is also overdue, and we have said this repeatedly that the SUE format in this case is not entirely justified.”

Alexey Nemeryuk about the problems of the industry: “The fact is that there should be a regulator in this market. Still, the sphere is really very thin. Lots of deception, lots of misrepresentation. There are complaints from residents about the way services are provided. First of all, ethical standards are not always taken into account in this industry, so those companies that actually own or have certain knowledge, qualified personnel, premises, and vehicles can provide services. Relatively speaking, free agents who come to your apartment unceremoniously and, in fact, leave with nothing, understand well: “Here I’ve just made money or loaded a client with, roughly speaking, 100 thousand rubles. Of these, 30 are mine, and for 70, I’ll now run to this, to that, and order. There will also be a markup, and my income will be 50-70%.”

“Every person encounters the field of funeral services at least once every 10 years”