There is no corruption in Russia
Small business people choose between bribes, bandits, and endless red tape
Written by Kate Sheppard
Posted April 21, 2005
Russian joke: A wolf walks into a forest one day and finds a rabbit. The rabbit is hitting himself repeatedly on the hand with a hammer. The wolf says to the rabbit, “Why are you doing that? You're causing yourself so much pain!” The rabbit responds, “No, no, I'm making pleasure.” “But you're hitting yourself! That's painful!” the wolf exclaims. Again, the rabbit responds, not pausing from striking his hand: “Sometimes, I miss. Then I have pleasure.”
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“In principle corruption is impossible to end, just as it is impossible to end pain in the human body,” said writer Georgiy Satarov, speaking last March on Russia’s NTV program “Freedom of Speech.” “On the scale it now exists in Russia, however, it inflicts colossal damage,” he said.
The program, aired on the fifty-first anniversary of Joseph Stalin’s death, focused on corruption at a national level¬ãin major political holdings and publicly recognized “economic crimes.”
During the 75-minute show, David Yakobashvili, chairman of the board of directors for a major producer of milk, juice and baby foods in Russia, dodged questions of his own propriety but spoke eloquently about the reality of corruption in Russia today.
“We live by the rules that exist at the moment.”
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Russia ranked forty-seventh of 133 countries on the Global Corruption Report’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2004. Not the top of the list, but not the bottom, either, as most Russians will point out. Russia ranked highest in the Bribe Payer’s Index of the report, based on interviews with more than 8,000 citizens and entrepreneurs in 40 of Russia’s 89 regions. The report, conducted by the international non-profit think tank Transparency International, defines corruption as the misuse of public power for private benefit.
The discrepancy between the perception of corruption and the empirical data on bribery gives insight into the attitude toward corruption in Russia. Corruption isn’t corruption. Corruption is accommodation, and it’s apparent in most Russian cities. This includes Rostov-on-Don, the capital of southwest Russia in a region that ranks among the six “highly” corrupt in the nation. The city numbers 1 million residents and was voted the “most livable city in Russia” in 2003.
The main drag through Rostov-on-Don is lined with European and American businesses like Mango and Sela clothing stores, Adidas and McDonald’s, most of them brought to town in the last decade. Beyond the main road lie the domestically owned market stands, corner stores and street carts, the more frequent targets of militias and would-be-bandits. In the Rostov region, average monthly income is just 4,794.50 rubles, the equivalent of $166.83. Bribes to public officials, police or inspectors can cost small businesses half of their monthly income.
“Corruption in the power structures not only deprives a citizen of legal defense but also makes him or her accommodate to the existing circumstances,” writes Lev Timofeev of the Centre of Research on Illegal Economic Systems at Russian State University for Humanities. “This process of accommodation means actually a peculiar sort of criminalization of the public consciousness.”
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