Hi Terry

I lived in Russia for two years in the city of Ivanovo north east of Moscow. I returned to Canada in 1996. To help give you a better idea of the business climate there I will share some of my experiences.

The former communist bureaucracy was built for control. For example, virtually everyone lives in apartment buildings. There are no thermostats to control the heat. Instead there are several steam plants in the city that pipe steam to all the buildings. The mayor decides when to turn on the heat and when to turn off the heat usually in November after you have been freezing for a while. Some building are unable to get heat so you spend the entire winter without heat in -20 to -30 degree weather.

It all depends on who you know. For example, one of my friend's phone stopped working, after contacting the phone company she was informed that it would take 1 year to get the part. Fortunately, we knew a man who was best friends with the head of the telephone company we talked with him and the phone was fixed in two days. Had we not known him the phone would not have been fixed. If an official decides to rule against you there was no legal avenue for appeal. The bureaucracy was king.

A another friend had a brother who owned a Kiosk (basicly it was a small 8ft by 8ft shed) from which he sold food etc. One day during the elections when general Lebed was running against Boris Yeltsin an army representative showed up asking for a political donation. Since the kiosk was located on army land the donation was made otherwise the kiosk might disappear over night. Later that same month a city inspector showed up and fined him $500 (which was the entire profit for the month) because he did not have a refrigerator. Apparently a new law had been made that stipulated that certain items had to be refrigerated. The kiosk owner asked for proof of this law. He was told he could go to the city archives and find it himself. However, no one knew who to contact or where to look. He decided it was better to pay the inspector (real or imposter) than to spend the time searching for the information only to find his kiosk taken away. So there was no income that month. On top of which "you had" to pay for security or your kiosk might go up in flames.

When I went to hire a graduate of the university, I discovered that if I did that the taxes would amount to 110% of the salary we would pay. There were so many overlapping tax laws nobody really knew for sure what the final total would be. The same type of thing happened to a doctor who ran a pharmacy. The taxes turned out to be more than the profit he made in a year.

There were factories in the city which were deliberatly allowed to go bankrupt and left idle until they were worthless. This allowed people in the right positions to buy them for nothing. Despite the fact this scheme put all kinds of people out of work. It was also not uncommon for workers and teachers not to be paid for 4-6 months.

The phone system that I had to use could only sustain 300baud so access to e-mail and the internet were nearly impossible. Even today I cannot contact my friends via e-mail.

Everything is available and possible in Moscow but this does not apply to most of the country. My experience with approaching regional leaders is that they will take control and move things in a direction that is advantage to their interests not yours.

Simon


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>>>Start with your provencial leaders and neighbors. Organize. Get the changes you need to make development tools cheaper - or (my preference), compete and offer the world another [better] option. Don't waste time looking back or lamenting the issue!
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>>I can understand what are you hinting at :)
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>Don't start reading between the lines on me! Don't lay your European sensitivities on me:-) Now I feel bad for sounding like an obnoxious Yankee! I am, of course (obnoxious), but I don't like feeling bad about it:-)
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>Some of us in the states are independent contractors. Customers like that because they just have one bill to pay (no health insurance or social security or unemployment insurance). An independents job is to get fired. You deliver the project and then you're fired. Hopefully, some follow-up work and we get to work in a variety of industries. Very Risky work! It always helps to understand bookkeeping (and accounting) systems and rules. Automating bookkeeping tasks is a big part of custom projects I have the fortune to enjoy. It always helps to have flow charting skills. It's the only basis to determine a price and delivery schedule. This is how a prospective niche market might be isolated. If the developer is writing a system, it means that a useable system is not available. A market - maybe!
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>Now, you tell me about Russia - do you have job boards where you can search for work? Do you have independent developers? Can you set up a company and get funding?
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>Do you see yourself selling development services, or do you have an idea for a product? ARe there any success stories you can share about other engineers or startups?