2 years in Russia - some experiences

[deccie]

So, just recently we passed the 2 year anniversary of my arrival in Russia.

Our Baby daughter is just about to reach 9 months of age and much has happened. I really do have enough material for a book from this place already just in 2 years but  at least some of which I cannot write about whilst we remain inside the country as it ids quite sensitive.

In general terms I have to say the Federal government has been very helpful in most matters. Government issues where they exist have been local. This is where we have also dealt with most issues relating with corruption.

As some of you may recall from a previous post of mine we had a small business going which we closed after our employee stole/sold off everything while my wife was in hospital giving birth. We took her to court and had a judgement made against her. So she faced doing mandatory work in a hospital doing laundry and we are supposed to get half her salary each month as compensation.

After that incident we rebuilt the business enough to be able to sell it on. That was a good decision with excellent timing as business in the shopping centre collapsed with most places either closing or moving. So, what did management do in this place? Put down rents? No. Run an advertising campaign? No. They put up the rents instead forcing more places to close! That has actually been our experience with most businesses here in that they look entirely at the short term and will not take a short term loss even if it means boosting longer term profits.

Also, gotta say most of the banks here are complete crooks. Even the big ones. We have had 2 banks appropriate inwards transfers for their own uses. After many months of work and even 2 more court judgements (which the banks ignored btw) we finally got some assistance that forced the banks into giving our money back. Most Russians would not have access to the type of help we had. One of these incidents resulted in us uncovering a major scam of the local bank managers stealing millions of dollars from the bank branch that Moscow was not aware of... Stupid manager tried to leave via the airport and got caught... :-) Result - that bank is now closed and bankruptcy is proceeding. Most local Russians who were with that bank will lose everything they had. On the plus side the managers are in jail. :-)

Employee contracts are worth absolutely nothing here. Management at most places here seem to steal all they can from people lower down the chain.  Banks are not paying commissions to  sales partners even if it means those partners stop selling for the banks. (again ,very short sighted decision making). The concept of selling off old stock that is no longer viable at the original price seems to be an unknown concept. I've already seen one electronics place trying to sell off a 1st Gen iPod for the same price as the current gen stuff...

My wife is working at an electronics place now as a manager and already she has had one customer smash a cabinet and then threaten her with a piece of smashed glass (she broke his hand btw!) and another employee take drugs at work and go into a hallucinogenic attack and one more  try to steal her personal belongings as well as the shop takings... It is very, very eventful here!

I do see some further business opportunities we can do here from home for ourselves which we will start to work towards and  we still hope to move...

[deccie]

I thought I should add that in no way have our experiences been totally negative here.
We have met some amazingly generous people who have helped us enormously.

[msmobyone]

Hi Deccie,


I am interested to read of your experiences in Russia - setting up a business involves lots of red tape, perhaps ....

If you have the time / inclination - it would be great to hear of your experiences and proceedures

[ML]

It does sound like you could write a horror novel, which would be non-fiction for you.

[deccie]

The city here is pretty horrible and the population is declining as many people have reached the conclusion they need to move elsewhere. 

However, I still do see a lot of business opportunities for us - but because we can't trust staff we need to do it ourselves exclusively until we achieve critical mass. I still remain positive about Russia generally - just not the local area here. Though I did here from my former partner in St Petersburg recently and she said her mum (who is also a business woman) is  having similar problems right now. If I was to disclose who had helped us with the banks  though I'm sure it would raise a lot of eyebrows here! But, that will have to wait for now.

I am also very positive about my wife. She is just an amazing person and considering the issues I had with my previous Russian GF she has just been a breeze to live with. She is an amazing woman and I'm so lucky to have found her. Her integrity is unquestionable and that is not such a common Russian trait. For that I have to thank her grandparents.  Teenage daughter has been more problematic...  but that is pretty normal too. Normal crap like being messy and lazy but most families deal with that at some point.

[ML]

Teenage daughter has been more problematic...  but that is pretty normal too. Normal crap like being messy and lazy but most families deal with that at some point.

I never heard of anything like that.

[ML]

Her integrity is unquestionable and that is not such a common Russian trait.

That is putting it pretty mildly.

[mendeleyev]

Deccie, welcome!

[Chicagoguy]

Geez, and my wife wants us to move to Russia. Cheboksary. I would not need a business but I would worry about money and banks. I have been to Omsk many times and found most of the people there are wonderful. Still, it helps to know the right ones. Thank God Chicago isn't like that 

I did have one business episode there in Omsk and lost $$. Never again. Fool me once.

[deccie]

Deccie, welcome!

Thanks for the welcome back Mendy. You have an interesting blog I must say...

[deccie]

So some further updates...

Wife is currently in the process of wiping out mid level management at two Fortune 500 companies that have offices here.

Basically the managers were stealing from everybody left and right when they decided to steal gifts that were planned to be given to my wife for meeting sales targets... As is normal for this place that was not all they were stealing. Greed here really knows no bounds. The managers were even stealing the salaries of their junior staff.

Well, one US company sent staff here from the US to sort out the mess - and Russia seems to have broken him rather quickly.  Apparently he has had all sorts of hysterics. Second company sent Moscow managers ot sort out the mess which is rather unfortunate for them as the Moscow guys are also stealing...

Still, I gather there is going to be rather a lot of mid level manager positions come vacant here...

In other news  (regional) government agencies are cutting salaries like crazy. We have heard that hospitals are the latest to cut wages and we know of one friend who has had her wage cut now to 3500 rubles a month. She is recovering from a major operation and her medication alone is 5000... So there is no way she can pay for her meds and eat anything at all. Let alone pay bills.

[calmissile]

Deccie,

This has been an interesting read.  I am much more familiar with Ukraine and have not been to Russia.  Your story about doing business in Russia is especially interesting because it is my belief that it is a view into the much larger picture of government in general. 

I  have met many Russian's in our US city and my wife (Ukrainian) has many Russian and other FSU friends.  For the most part, the people are wonderful.

With your skills and capabilities, I am curious as to why you remain in Russia, when your could do so much better for yourself and family in a different country?

[deccie]

Deccie,

This has been an interesting read.  I am much more familiar with Ukraine and have not been to Russia.  Your story about doing business in Russia is especially interesting because it is my belief that it is a view into the much larger picture of government in general. 

I  have met many Russian's in our US city and my wife (Ukrainian) has many Russian and other FSU friends.  For the most part, the people are wonderful.

With your skills and capabilities, I am curious as to why you remain in Russia, when your could do so much better for yourself and family in a different country?

Thanks for the reply and interest Doug.

Yes, our story is somewhat different to the "standard" approach on here by a wide margin.

I'll try to go into some of our reasoning..

Firstly, I was already working overseas and have done so on an almost continual basis since 2007.
So, I did not have the traditional home base many have here. I was only in Canada for project work and once my project ended I would need to leave as I did. Both my wife and I already had animals and whilst I could have taken my cats back to Australia from Canada that was not an option for my wife and her dog.

Her dog is very closely bonded to her to the extent that it probably would not survive away from her for any length of time. It is a very close and very individual bond with him. Without her around he just mopes until she gets back home again and then he comes alive. I do not think he would survive quarantine for Australia let alone that it is not even allowed for Russia anyway which would mean a 6 moth stay in another country before that point.

I did actually get an offer to go back to work for my previous employer on an operational site back in Australia whilst I was in Canada. Unfortunately I was unable to accept it as my then employer would not have paid my relocation back to Aus if I left  and my new employer did not have the budget to be able to do it either. The cost to me would have been $20k plus in up front costs to take the job which meant I didn't see it really as viable.

There has also been a general downturn in industrial projects in recent times. A lot of people I worked with on our last project have still been unable to find new roles. My old boss has gone back to teaching Engineering to pay his bills.

I would definitely take up a role in another country again - so long as my family could be with me and it was safe for them. Neither my wife or I have any desire at all to be apart. Given how little time we have been married we are incredibly close. It was once posted on the boards that when a Russian woman loves you, you will simply know it. Well, I bloody well know it!

I still don't see Russia as being that bad overall - but there is a smell of death in the air in this region due to  having a particularly corrupt local and regional government. There is a definite poverty trap here for a lot of people. My wife has worked for 4-5 businesses in the last couple of years. ALL the managers or owners stole from the business or from other staff lower down the chain. The accounts department in her current job are also stealing from her but we are not ready to move against them just yet.  We will when we judge it to be safe to do so.

Certainly, as I have posted before we have had a lot of support from the Federal government. They have been efficient and did not dick us around anywhere near as much as the regional guys did.

I can summarize my wife's feelings that while she certainly wants to leave this city - she is still nervous about leaving Russia completely.So, we certainly would leave Russia if the right opportunity arose - but it has to be the right one. And it needs to keep our family together.

I am not that enamored to go back to Aus in any event both from a political perspective and from a cost of living perspective. Cost of living there is just getting completely out of hand. NZ would actually be a far better option for us.

[calmissile]

 Thanks for the update and explanation.  I have been very attached to some of my pets over the years, but not sure I would allow it to become an obstacle to  a life changing event such as relocation.   

I don't know your skill set, but for whatever it might be worth you might check into ESRI.  It is a multinational company located here in Redlands, California.  In fact it has become the largest non-government employer.  Look them up on the internet and see their web page. This company has been hiring many, many people from Russian, Ukraine, Belarus, etc.  In fact, most of my wife's FSU friends have husbands working there.  I have never asked any of them about relocation benefits but will ask when I next meet one of them.   I assume they also have employees servicing their customers worldwide.  If your skill set does not match what they do, perhaps others reading this might check them out.

Good luck!

[deccie]

To be honest I don't really like the dog very much and he doesn't like me either... But it is an essential part of my wife's make up as to how she feels about her animals and for that reason I respect her wishes.

My cats are actually street cat rescues from the Middle East and given the hard life they have already experienced I could never walk away from them. Unfortunately one of my cats died a couple of months after getting here. A corrupt vet clinic is majorly responsible for that horrible episode.

[deccie]

One of the jobs my wife was offered was as an Administrator/Manager for a certain government facility here.

The salary was very, very good.  5 times average salaries for other equivalent jobs in the region.

She declined the job due to me. There are two risks associated with this type of work - 1st that we would attract unwelcome attention from the authorities but the 2nd is far more important - that she would be a convenient scapegoat should anything go wrong...

[calmissile]

One of the jobs my wife was offered was as an Administrator/Manager for a certain government facility here.

The salary was very, very good.  5 times average salaries for other equivalent jobs in the region.

She declined the job due to me. There are two risks associated with this type of work - 1st that we would attract unwelcome attention from the authorities but the 2nd is far more important - that she would be a convenient scapegoat should anything go wrong...

Funny that you mentioned that.  My wife was offered the job as Chief Financial Officer for a medium sized corporation in Kiev a few months before we decided to get married.  She was #2 as chief accountant and refused the job for the same reason as your wife.  Any irregularities found and she would be criminally liable no matter who made the mistakes whether intentional or accidental.  She figured the risk was not worth the additional salary.

[deccie]

Funny that you mentioned that.  My wife was offered the job as Chief Financial Officer for a medium sized corporation in Kiev a few months before we decided to get married.  She was #2 as chief accountant and refused the job for the same reason as your wife.  Any irregularities found and she would be criminally liable no matter who made the mistakes whether intentional or accidental.  She figured the risk was not worth the additional salary.

Yup. Definitely have to guard your ass here all the time and watch in all directions for the next person who will try to screw you. Employment laws here are pretty horrible in general. Basically as long as your employer pays you something there is very little an employee can do to force an employer to pay the rest. So most employers here continually force down wages... And if you get sick you are just screwed. Most  will sack you within a week or so.  It really does not matter what is written into any contract you have.

It does seem as though a lot of the bookkeepers work in cahoots with management to do the stealing. When my wife asked for her employer to give her a salary payment slip the accounts department ignored her - when she pushed the issue they cut her salary for the month by 70% - just for asking for a pay slip! So it is 100% sure they are fiddling the books.

With the bank that collapsed here the local managers had been stealing the IT budget for years... and then when the servers collapsed because they weren't upgraded or replaced they just stole more.. and left the bank closed and their customers hanging. Then they started to run for it. One made a run via the airport though and was very quickly arrested. Moscow guys arrived to a closed bank! That was pretty much stripped bare...

Just down the road from us our local supermarket went up in flames two weeks ago. Very eventful times!

[mendeleyev]

Yup. Definitely have to guard your ass here all the time and watch in all directions for the next person who will try to screw you.

Your earlier comments about your wife's reasons for turning down a job make a lot of sense. Your situation reminds me of one of my wife's publishers in the days immediately after the fall. She worked as an in-house artist and made the mistake of introducing me as her future husband one afternoon. He made her life a living hell after that because he blamed America for the fall of the evil empire. One of the first things we did once together was to help her find another publisher.

We had dinner not too long ago with a Russian musician who is famous for his steadfast nationalism. A friend of my wife's family, he and I have never had a run-in but I can see it coming. As we were enjoying dessert he asked my view of events in a neighboring country. He already knows, as I have reported from there, and so his questions were not so innocent. Those types of situations are what in English we term as "no win," and so I responded by asking about his latest CD and concert project. He is a rather big fan of himself and that did the trick, but I sense that a day is coming when he or someone else will not be so easily sidestepped.

[deccie]

In general, the fact we are married has just been an item of interest for most people. Followed immediately by "Why are you still here?".

However, for those who would wish to use us to further their own ends - yes, we are vulnerable.

We have already experience of that. In one job someone tried to frame my wife for stealing a half million rubles. However, they were clumsy about how they did it and we were ready for it anyway. (I had actually explicitly warned my wife to expect something like it a week or so before it happened based on what was going on in her work at the time). So the end result for them was 2 people lost their jobs.

[deccie]

We did get screwed over by our former landlord though. I should have picked up on it when her and her family came around for an  inspection about  3-4 weeks before they pulled a fast one on us. Biggest pack of vultures I have ever seen. They were almost drooling over our stuff. That was the clue I missed something was coming.

Our previous apartment was not an overly large one but it was in a very central area and a very safe one at that (right by the courts and official residences surrounded by video cameras). Landlord had a lot of soviet era furnishing - most of which did not work/broken. We  asked for permission to get rid of her broken stuff - which she gave but we made the mistake of not getting that in writing. She then accused us of stealing her stuff and got the police involved once we started to move out to a bigger place. Because we had thrown it away we could not actually prove we hadn't taken it - even though she was invited to come to our new place (by the police!) and could not find a single item of hers in the new place. (Because we hadn't taken anything!). In the end we paid her some "compensation" money just to go away. Lesson learnt. Our new landlord does everything in writing - just the way we like it. We've started looking to buy our own place but until we know what direction we are going to go  we will hold fire for now. One option we are considering is to buy student apartments in a good area and rent them to uni students. Each apartment would cost about 1 million to 1.5 million rubles each.

[deccie]

My wife actually got a verbal offer of employment from a certain US company today!

Best thing about the offer - she would not report to ANYONE in Russia - just US.

Salary would also be from the US. They have even offered to pay for her to finish a higher level degree from a US university.

It will be about 2 months before we know if it  will happen for sure but so far it is looking very, very good and there could well be opportunities for me as well. So the new year could well be a big time of change for us.

[deccie]

Your earlier comments about your wife's reasons for turning down a job make a lot of sense. Your situation reminds me of one of my wife's publishers in the days immediately after the fall. She worked as an in-house artist and made the mistake of introducing me as her future husband one afternoon. He made her life a living hell after that because he blamed America for the fall of the evil empire. One of the first things we did once together was to help her find another publisher.

We had dinner not too long ago with a Russian musician who is famous for his steadfast nationalism. A friend of my wife's family, he and I have never had a run-in but I can see it coming. As we were enjoying dessert he asked my view of events in a neighboring country. He already knows, as I have reported from there, and so his questions were not so innocent. Those types of situations are what in English we term as "no win," and so I responded by asking about his latest CD and concert project. He is a rather big fan of himself and that did the trick, but I sense that a day is coming when he or someone else will not be so easily sidestepped.

To be perfectly honest I do see the Russian point of view in current events going on in that certain country - however the official line from the government (here) is complete garbage as well. But, it remains that the Russian national interest is for that country  not to go to NATO or the EU. It may well be in the EU interest for it not to happen either for there are just as many crooks there as here! I certainly don't like the chances of any of the recent loans ever being repaid.

I can only say that we have seen a lot of Russians queue up at the post office desperate to try and send money to help friends/relatives over there knowing full well the odds were that it would be stolen en route..

For all the crooks here there are still a lot of incredibly generous and kind people here too.

[Anotherkiwi]

I am not that enamored to go back to Aus in any event both from a political perspective and from a cost of living perspective. Cost of living there is just getting completely out of hand. NZ would actually be a far better option for us.

I'm glad you think so, but the cost of living here (in Auckland, anyway) is not that much different from Australia.  Average house prices are astronomical relative to salaries, and are increasing by hundreds of dollars a week.  However, having spent some time in Australia a few weeks ago, I feel that life in general is probably slightly better here.

[deccie]

I'm glad you think so, but the cost of living here (in Auckland, anyway) is not that much different from Australia.  Average house prices are astronomical relative to salaries, and are increasing by hundreds of dollars a week.  However, having spent some time in Australia a few weeks ago, I feel that life in general is probably slightly better here.

I've been monitoring NZ house prices for a number of years now and in areas where we would be likely to live the costs are far cheaper than AU. Also, I'm a large electricity user and your charges in that area are also a lot cheaper. On a climate perspective it is a little closer to Russia so it would be less of a transition for the wife and family. Finally, your pollies are not quite as bad as the recent crop of Aussie ones have been.