Russia: Get Rich or Die Trying

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“It’s the same old story; someone will approach you and offer a pittance for your business, an offer you can only refuse. Next thing you know your family home is raided by police officers and you are imprisoned for a crime you did not commit. Why? Because the system is corrupt. The police are corrupt; the judiciary is corrupt and at the very top is Putin- the ex-KGB officer who has engendered the demoralization of justice in Russia. “

These are the ominous words of Sergei- a member of Russia’s most persecuted class. Sergei is not a human rights lawyer nor a political activist or any other member of society that is most often oppressed under despotic regimes. Yet 3 million of Sergei’s peers have been imprisoned in the last ten years. And there is a 1 in 6 chance that my interviewee will too find himself behind bars.

Sergei is an entrepreneur.

Sergei created his business in 2005, a cattle farm situated in European Russia. It was the post-Soviet period of hope and growth spanning from the fall of Communism in 1992 until 2008 that enabled Sergei, a humble Russian citizen with an entrepreneurial vision, to join the growing market. Indeed, it was in this period that entrepreneurism was apparently actively encouraged. The government’s ‘belief’ in capitalism and the capability of its citizens was exemplified by the ‘National Priority Projects,’ implemented by Putin in 2005. As well as huge investment into the country’s education and healthcare systems, the government aimed to spur growth in the agricultural sector through the backing of private loans to start-up businessmen and small time farmers.

It has since been recognised that Putin’s ‘National Priority Projects,’ were no more than a means of winning votes and securing electoral victory in the lead up to the 2008 election. Most of the funding never came to fruition and any funds that were raised were tragically mishandled.

What was once designed as a means for the common man to realise his business aspirations became another channel for corrupt officials to receive kickbacks and undermine the prospect of development. The officials set with the task of providing applicants with credit would only do so on condition that they would receive a 20% cut personally over the 5 year loan period. This meant that the struggling businessman was playing a losing game from square one due to the endemic corruption. Very few Russians therefore could afford to risk competing on such an uneven playing field.

The surly ex-KGB lieutenant Vladimir Putin has clung to power in the questionable ‘tandemocracy,’ or duumvirate with Dmitry Medvedev long since feigning responsibility for socio-economic development. Embodying all the corruption, nepotism and repression of the Soviet era, Putin has ensured that the nation has not recovered from the Communist hangover. After securing another term in March 2012 despite mass protest, it is clear that democracy is rapidly regressing. Further, how can fair governance be entrusted to the man who famously described the fall of the USSR as the ‘greatest geo-political tragedy of our time’?

Indeed, Russia’s budding entrepreneurs have far more to fear than the petty corruption of the civil servants that inhibit the growth of their business. As the imprisonment of the dissident girl group Pussy Riot has made all too clear; the justice system is wholly dependent on the state and opposition to Putin will not be tolerated. There is little difference between the Judiciary under Putin today and the reviled totalitarian judiciary of the USSR. Neither court is independent from the state so you cannot be protected from the tyranny of the state officials. Moreover, neither you nor your private property are protected by the law. Only 1% of cases that go to Russian courts are given ‘not guilty,’ verdicts, a shocking figure when compared to the UK’s rate of 19.3%. So if you are framed and find yourself before the judge, it is very unlikely that you will avoid a sentence.

The police too are as corrupt and defunct as the courts and state officials. Sergei explains how “the police’s main function is not crime prevention, instead they serve a punitive function that primarily focuses on the suppression of dissent. Unfortunately, in a nation where corruption is rife, it is all too easy just to bribe a policeman and have your business rivals placed in jail. A couple of thousand roubles and you can have him framed for fraud under Article 159 or better still the most Machiavellian conspirators even have their competitors jailed for contentious drugs charges.”

It is fear of this unjust imprisonment that plagues small business owners in Russia and has led to over $84billion dollars in capital flight as business owners no longer feel that their assets and freedom are adequately protected in their homeland.

It is not just refusal to relinquish his company to any of his astute competitors that could land the Russian entrepreneur in jail. The former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky proved that even being on the Forbes 100 list does not make you immune to persecution if you chose to oppose Putin. Khodorkovsky is undoubtedly the most famous of the Russian business prisoners. Khodorkovsky was imprisoned in 2003 after he highlighted the prevalence of corruption in civil society and the Kremlin at a meeting with Vladimir Putin himself. It was a bold and courageous move to make, especially at a time when the President who was in the early days of his reign was systematically dismantling the fledgling democracy. Putin had made it clear that he wanted the oligarch’s wealth and loyalty- two crucial things that Khodorkovsky was not going to give over. Khodorkovsky was jailed for fraud, tax evasion and a plethora of economic crimes that prior to his arrest were not even illegal.

There are stories that bear uncanny resemblance to that of Khodorkovsky’s everywhere; Vladimir Gusinsky for example was a media mogul owning numerous magazines and two television networks. Gusinsky’s journalists had also been highly critical of the Putin regime until Gusinsky was arrested and coerced into signing over his company. Since 2001, he has been living in exile in Israel. The seizure of media also highlights Putin’s media manipulation. The media is none but a propagandist tool that spurts pro-Kremlin mantra whilst presenting every business man as a thief or a swindler. The role of the Russian media cannot be overstated, for it is important that Putin paints the picture of the entrepreneur as a tax-evading fraudster, for how else could he explain to the people that they account for a staggering 15% of the prison population?

Nevertheless, for every high profile story that we hear, there are at least one thousand harrowing tales of injustice that go untold. When faced with the fact that there are over 100,000 businessmen behind bars, there is a tendency to view these prisoners as just figures on a piece of paper.

Although, Sergei is devoted to his business, he is first and foremost a husband and father to his two children. For him the risks of running his agricultural business are becoming graver and he plans to gradually move away from the perils of business ownership and into trade.

According to Sergei, “It is important that every Russian, and moreover that every Westerner recognises that each statistic is in fact a son, a husband, a father, a mother, a sister, a wife, or a daughter. They are living in barbaric prison conditions and are loved dearly and missed sorely.” The emergence of economic prisoners has led to the creation of thousands of ‘business widows,’ who have not had their husbands taken away by death, but by the government and by the judicial system. Sergei lives in constant fear that his wife too will become a ‘business widow.’

Once your loved one is imprisoned there is no guarantee you will ever see them again. The days of the Gulag are over but the current Federal Penitentiary Service seems to fair no better than the notorious prison camps of years ago. 53 year old Estate Agency Owner Vera Trifonova met her untimely death in Moscow’s Matrosskaya Tishina detention centre after the diabetic who also suffered kidney failure was denied medical treatment and forced to sleep standing up. The accused died awaiting trial and has posthumously had her charges of conspiring to sell a parliamentary seat for $1.5million dropped. Such an acquittal is meaningless, as the innocent businesswoman is no longer with her family.

Similarly, prior to Trifonova’s passing, 37 year old lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died at the same detention centre from toxic shock and heart failure. In 2008, Magnitsky accused the Russian Interior Ministry of embezzling $234million of taxes paid to the Russian government by his firm Hermitage. Months later, the whistle blower found himself behind bars under tax evasion charges. It has been claimed that Magnitsky was subjected to torture, inhumane conditions, physical and psychological pressure and was ‘forcibly denied the right to life,’ in order to avoid his unravelling of the gross misconduct of the politicians involved. Yet most sickening of all, is the recent decision by the Russian government to reopen criminal proceedings against the deceased man. Indeed, the posthumous trial against Magnitsky means that even in death, the individual’s fundamental human right to a fair trial is being abused. The grief of Magnitsky’s widow is cruelly compounded by the fact that her late husband will never be able to prove his innocence.

Sergei believes that Putin is trying to adopt the Chinese model of state-orientated capitalism by killing the enterprising spirit of his people and seizing as many assets as possible. The seizure of mobile phone company Euroset by Russian authorities in 2006 is one of hundreds of examples which prove Sergei’s theory. Moreover, state ownership of the crux of the country’s energy reserves via Gazprom also represents unrivalled state control of the economy. This does not bode well with our cattle farmer who remembers with disdain the negative consequences of state-centralism.

Finally, I ask Sergei if he plans on jumping ship and leaving Russia with his family and his assets intact before the Putin regime now at the beginning of another six year term threatens his livelihood and his freedom?

He replies wistfully; “I cannot leave Russia, it is my home. One day my children will have the democracy we were promised.”

Written by Clara MacIver займ на карту без отказов круглосуточно займ срочно без отказов и проверок www.zp-pdl.com https://zp-pdl.com/best-payday-loans.php payday loan