Russia in the garage

Alexander Suvulko and Alexander Pavlov - about how the informal economy works

• More than 25% of Russian GDP is produced in the informal sector. In the "Shadow" tens of millions of people work.

• The motivation for leaving the informal economy is pressure in the country for small businesses, the desire for independence from the state.

• In recent years, this area has been slightly reduced due to the fact that private traders have displaced by the state and large business.

If a furniture factory is nearby, then furniture repair activities will be deployed in the garage

Sergey Medvedev: From a quarter to 40% of the Russian GDP is produced in the informal sector - these are manufactories, artisans, wasteers, submarines and garages, a well -known garage economy in which tens of millions of people work.

Correspondent: In this area there is dependence on proximity to various infrastructure. For example, if a furniture factory is nearby, then in the garage production, furniture repair activities will be deployed, if a car for the production of cars - for maintenance of cars and the supply of spare parts. Advertising for such enterprises is the same - "Saranfan Radio". Each garage has its own clientele, and the success of such a business directly depends on the number of personal acquaintances.

Video version of the program

Advertising for such enterprises is the same - "Sarafan Radio"

The motivation for transferring or creating production in the garage is pressure on small business, the desire for independence, and sometimes self -realization. Garage activity is almost invisible to most inhabitants, this is such a parallel reality. Local authorities are usually aware of it, but so far the business has not crossed the conditional monetary threshold, it is of little interest to the state. But in the event of the enrichment of the owner, its production is covered with a tribute, forcibly legalized or removed. There are practically no formal mechanisms of interaction with the authorities.

Sergey Medvedev: In our studio, a culturologist, field researcher Alexander Suvalkko .

Alexander Suvulko: Such a distributed lifestyle (the term was introduced by Simon Cordon ) - these are cottages, gardens, cellars. And the garages here occupy one of the central places, since this place where you can not only store all kinds of material resources, but also spend free time. In conditions when people do not have the opportunity to visit some jewelry coworking or rent a cafe, they are found in garages.

Formal mechanisms of interaction with the authorities in this area practically does not exist

Sergey Medvedev: This garage life is parallel to ordinary existence, state accounting and control, tax, and police bodies. This is, as it were, some wrong side of life that exists its own.

Alexander Suvulko: There are absolutely amazing cases. Here Dubna is a science, a powerful concentrator of creative human capital. One of my interlocutors is a former physicist, then a financial analyst, by the age of 40 he managed to earn enough to earn his future life and left this sphere, was carried away by tube amplifiers, and makes them not for sale, but for his pleasure.

One of the enthusiasts opened a private boat engine in the garage. It is focused on the transfer of experience and understanding work with this technique to the young generation. Today, this technique-boat engines-is mostly foreign, and it even has motors of the 60s.

In the same Dubna, since the city stands on the river, boat garages, Hellenes play a huge role, and there are still meeting with friends, they arrange picnics. The whole community has grown there.

Sergey Medvedev: Is this a kind of garage civil society, which, inter alia, has an economic dimension?

Alexander Suvulko: Of course! This is property, rather serious money.

Sergey Medvedev: This is legally a "gray" zone, because officially it is impossible to engage in economic activity in the GSK, but go and prove - "I do for myself, for friends."

One of the enthusiasts opened a private boat engine in the garage

Alexander Suvulko: Yes, it is quite difficult to trace. This, in fact, is the art of being not subject to.

Sergey Medvedev: The famous sociologist and anthropologist James Scott explores the life forms of people who leave the state.

Alexander Suvulko: These forms can acquire such a character in some crisis moments when the state, for example, cannot maintain its social obligations. And there is nothing wrong with this, this is one of the possibilities to prevent the risks of some hunger, God forbid.

Sergey Medvedev: The state covers his eyes to all this huge sphere. But the numbers are giant! These are tens of millions of people, Golodets even officially admitted that 30 million. And according to Kordonsky, almost 100 million people are busy in such paraformal activities.

Alexander Suvulko: Now the state is still paying attention to this and through self-employment is trying to legalize this process.

Sergey Medvedev: Self -employment showed zero reporting.

Alexander Suvulko: This is a matter of time, given that we ourselves are not very well imagined what data about us have.

The state covers eyes to all this huge sphere

Sergey Medvedev: Skoring agencies, rating, credit stories.

Alexander Suvulko: This is a matter of the coming years when these mechanisms will also be connected to measure the real incomes of citizens. Bank transfers that we make for some minimum services will become more transparent.

Sergey Medvedev: Apparently, purchases too. A person everywhere shows zero balance, and then suddenly goes and buys a car for five million. Obviously, there will be a presumption of guilt: you must prove the sources of income.

Alexander Suvulko: This is the case today, for example, with the purchase of expensive jewelry: it is necessary, as far as I know, to indicate your data, TIN.

Sergey Medvedev: Are these localizations of an informal economy - garage, cottage, garden, cellar - is this for itself, for family consumption or to the market?

Alexander Suvulko: At one of my friends, my parents made a huge business on cucumbers in the Kirov region. They have some kind of cunning system associated with barrels, with salt. This is a huge richest culture!

Sergey Medvedev: Such a landlord story from the literature of the XIX century: jars of jams, pickles have been disposed of. After all, in Russia, the tradition of drying of mushrooms, sauing cabbage is very strong. A couple of years ago, with one of your colleagues, we discussed the culture of road trading in these pickles: people raise 500 thousand rubles per season, selling them.

At one my friend, my parents made a huge business in cucumbers in the Kirov region

Alexander Suvulko: In Karelia, I came across a curious concept - "humpbacked business": it is just concerns to collect mushrooms and berries. Cloudberry, which tourists from lightning speed, is in particular demand there.

Sergey Medvedev: plus fighting, hunting, including illegal, poaching?

Alexander Suvulko: Up to Pandemia, up to 700 foreigners officially came to the Kirov region. This is one of the brighter tourist destinations.

Sergey Medvedev: Alexander Pavlov , expert of the Khamovniki Foundation , join us.

Is it possible to attribute the Russian informal economy to non -state forms of life in Scott?

Alexander Pavlov: Partly - yes, but there are two aspects: the first is forcedness, and the second is ideological care to be away from the state. The garage is the cheapest real estate that can be used for some own business, and nothing more. But now in the garages you will not particularly hide: garage amnesty, registration, and so on. And hunting and gathering are mainly forced practices.

Sergey Medvedev: Economists can refer to this, as a certain large reserve of the Russian economy?

Now in garages you will not particularly hide: garage amnesty, registration

Alexander Pavlov: Economists tried to refer to this, in 2016 I even tried to make assessments in monetary terms. But since then, the situation has changed quite much, and this phenomenon no longer exists in such a prosperous form as four to five years ago. And the number of such people has somewhat decreased.

Sergey Medvedev: What is the reason? Does the state come to the informal sector?

Alexander Pavlov: The state, too, partly. The point is the enlargement of all kinds of things related to large business. For example, taxi renting cars, which flourished in 2015-17. A man drove a rotten "ten" from Moscow for 50 thousand, repaired in the garage and handed over 1200 rubles a day to a taxi driver. Now this niche was occupied by taxi pork, which are engaged in rolling out leasing. The trucker can now individually compete with great difficulty with a large carrier if there are no stable customers. A story related to the maintenance of all sorts of KamAZ, MAZ and old foreign cars also died due to the same leasing.

The extremely common area of garage employment was furniture. Given the increase in the prices for lumber, the cost of furniture created without automated machines is now 30 percent higher than the factory. The same thing in all other areas.

Sergey Medvedev: I read that in Togliatti more people work in garages than at AvtoVAZ. It so happened that the car rolls out of the enterprise, and then goes to tuning, refinement. On KAMAZ, people generally make spare parts and supply for production.

There are a lot of stories about the gearbox hunters

Alexander Suvulko: I have examples "in the other direction". In the Chelyabinsk region there is a town of Berdyaush, which stands on the Trans -Siberian Railway. There, those who have served their passenger and cargo wagons are used today as garages, sheds, stand in personal plots. In the city, finds are used as garages by sea containers, which are now in a huge shortage. And in two o’clock in the summer there is a village of Terna from there, where the locals, apparently, in the 90s, dismantled the runway and make amazing fences from its elements.

Sergey Medvedev: It is brought to hear a lot of stories about color mixters. I read the telegram channel Pavel Pryanikov, he says: people drag the lids of sewer hatches. Is this also a type of hunting and gathering in a post -industrial society?

Alexander Suvulko: Of course! It resembles some kind of computer games in the spirit of post-apocalypse. But today there are people who live this. And, by the way, the same Pavel Pryanikov gives interesting numbers: for Soviet metal, one can exist for many years.

Sergey Medvedev: Soviet space turned into a mineral. There was a powerful metal era under the leadership of Comrade Stalin (not by his pseudonym), the era of iron people and iron machines. It is all buried in Russian space, and people simply get this iron.

Sergey Medvedev: The architectural critic Grigory Revzin argues.

Both Microsoft and Xerox got out of garages

Grigory Revzin: The garage economy is not a business, but a post -industrial fishing. In the early 90s, computers were collected, then a massive delivery of computers began, and it became unprofitable to do something from components. And all large computer firms have grown exactly from this. Both Microsoft and Xerox left the garages. This is not exclusively Russian history, as it appears in the research of colleagues. Another thing is that they arise in our garages, but somehow they are not very good. We can say about Apple that he left the garages, and quite quickly, but it cannot be said that we know Russian firms that were born precisely from the garage economy. There you can enter the market, and we have nowhere to get out. This has never passed into a legal field, the garage economy is very afraid of communication with the state, its legalization system.

Sergey Medvedev: I wonder why the state does not actively go into this area? This is a very large social shock absorber, a giant pillow that allows Russia to survive and calmly look at possible crises.

People are saved by garages

Alexander Suvulko: Of course. But these crises can have both mass and personal nature at the level of an individual. We had an informant who said that he had left the house to the garage, because his wife brought home a mother -in -law. He has the perfect cleanliness there - in the garage, in this "one -room apartment." He is engaged in private cargo, and resolves household issues with the help of friends. Around this garage there was a developed community, such a club for their own.

In the student, comrades and I once celebrated the New Year in Kirov. And on January 1, parents of one of our friends invited us to their garage. We fried kebabs, they have a huge infrastructure there, some inconceivable snacks were constantly getting from the cellar. It turned out that there are many people around us who spend their free time in this way. People are saved by garages.

Sergey Medvedev: The involvement of so many millions of people and a large part of GDP in a shadow economy is a unique Russian phenomenon? I recall Ernando de Soto and his famous book “Another Way” and the study of this informal economy in Peru.

There is a huge layer of parallel life next to us, thanks to which tens of millions of people survive

Alexander Suvulko: Just in Latin America, such things should be widespread. At least, modern mass culture shows us how people who are engaged in drug trafficking use this kind of distributed manufactories (the series "Narm" on Netflix). In Iran, I honestly did not see anything like this. I saw in Uzbekistan, but there is another phenomenon, it is called - "Mahalla" . By the way, folk art crafts-ceramics, the manufacture of some scarves-are developed there simply fantastically!

Sergey Medvedev: In China there are similar quarters - hongongs, this form of civil society.

Literally next to us there is a huge layer of parallel life, thanks to which tens of millions of people survive, have income. But we have not even talked about informal urban employment, about tutors, nannies and other self -employed people!

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