Russia: Is She Really That Corrupt?
Corruption Is Universal!
I was drinking my second cup of coffee and reading once again about the corruption in Russia. Sometimes that is all you hear about. How corrupt the Government is, how corrupt the cops are and how corrupt Moscow is. The fact is the articles are correct and if Russia could really get corruption under control that would be fantastic. I am not going to hold my breath though.
Another fact is that out of all the countries that I have lived in, I find Russia one of the least corrupt countries that I have had to deal with. Now I realize that is going against everyone else's thoughts in the world. But corruption is a matter of opinion allot of times. Russia also is the cheapest country to bribe compared to other countries. The most expensive country I have dealt with was Vietnam then the USA.
The most corrupt places in Russia are Moscow (42% have paid bribes), Tatarstan and Krasnodar Territory (41%), Stavropol Territory (40%), Moscow Region (37%) and St. Petersburg (34%). The least corrupt places are Perm Territory (12%) and Tyumen Region (18%). There has been no research in Yakutia, Chechnya or Dagestan yet. Most Russians (54%) have a tolerant attitude toward those who take bribes. That figure ranges between 63 percent in Moscow and 32 percent in Sakhalin. Thirty-seven percent of Russians (55% in Leningrad Region, 30% in Moscow, 28% in Krasnodar Territory) strongly condemn corruption. (Link)Remember most of what they are calling corruption has to do with the police. It can get interesting at times while you drive the Russian country side, but it also makes it exciting and fun. Also put in perspective about the people that pay bribes to get things done faster: We have yet to pay a bribe to get government work done, but then we do not wait until the day it is due to get it done. Everything gets done with out bribes, but bribes get it done faster....
I remember in America that I helped someone get a liquor license, after we had gone through Hades and back with the State application to get a license. We then had to deal with the local officials; We took (6) Six envelopes with several thousand dollars in each then it took us a day of begging and bribery: 1st and 2nd envelopes went to City Police department and County Sheriff department to ensure our status as non criminals. The 2nd envelope went to the Head of the Town Council to activate our application with the city. The 3rd envelope went to the Mayor of the town to ensure our future security with the police department. The 4th envelope went to the City Fire Chief to make sure our building passed fire code inspection. The 5th envelope went to the County Health Department to make sure that they passed us for serving beer. This was just the county and city side of the transaction. The State side was another whole ballgame of bribery and begging (Just bigger bribes.).....
So corruption is in the eye of the beholder:
I would much rather pay a 500 ruble (20 dollars) bribe, no points off my license, no increase in insurance and no court hearing; to a cop for speeding in Russia. Than a $250 dollar (6250 rubles), points off my license, court day and increase in my insurance (ouch), speeding ticket in America!
Just thoughts for a Tuesday...
Kyle & Svet
comments always welcome.
Plus
Minus
Reset
It's hard to reply to a post on corruption without either lying or incriminating ourselves!
As a teacher in the south of Russia, I was perfectly aware that without a certain amount of "flexibility" our college would have closed. We had an entry of 15 students, and a list of 17 who were definitely going to pass the entrance examination - children of builders, decorators, plummers, company owners, each of who could be useful to the college. I am sure that some of the maintenance gifts made their way to the homes of the director and other staff....
Students always provided small gifts for teachers before exams and at the end of the academic year - usually organised by the whole class. In a finite western definition this is corruption, but I certainly don't see anything negative about it.
I recently referred one of our clients to a very good IT services supplier. The supplier sent me a box of wine as a thank you, which I have no intention of sharing with my colleagues;
Several consultants bring in gifts at Christmas time, but providing it is clear that they do not receive preferential treatment (i.e. more work) from us is there anything wrong with that?
I DO disagree stongly however with you Kyle about driving offences. I would much prefer bad drivers to get points on their licenses, pay higher premiums, and ultimately be banned from driving.
And that's the issue isn't it? Corruption circumvents the law so that it gives a feeling of invulnerability to the rich. Another example: the son of the biggest employer in the town where I lived, K, while 6 times over the legal alcohol limit knocked down and killed two teenagers on the main street during the middle of the day. His father arranged for him to do 20 hours community service in his own company. I would have prosecuted him for murder/manslaughter with a 10 year sentence and banned from driving for life (some would call that a very liberal sentence).
I don't mind encouraging an official to process my documentation a little quicker, nor do I have a problem with an incentive to get an officials attention, but as soon as you involve criminality you create a huge problem.
It also leads to the expectation among the police and officials of a bribe, which means there is little chance of getting things done fairly UNLESS you pay up front.
I much prefer the concept of "margrich" after the event as a thank you, rather than up front cash.....
Very true!
My comment was a bit rambling, but you got the gist of it.
The UK has the highest density of speed cameras in the world (I believe, but can't find a "proper" stat to prove it) - and for the record I don't believe they're the answer to speeding.
My main issue is that in Russia (as well as similarly greased societies) the police's expectation is that you will offer cash. If you don't offer enough, you end up in court facing a speeding charge, AND a corruption charge. When you get to the court you can either bribe the judge or you can pay a similar amount in fines plus legal fees.
I don't want to draw comparisons, because what is corruption to one is honest business to another, but my gripe is with the built in inequality that it produces - those who can least afford to pay get worst hit.
Corruption and bribery will always exist and there are always ways of giving someone a bribe, even in the strictest of societies, but I strongly believe that Russia would be a better society without the bribe culture.
As an aside I have heard that in Germany until the late 1970's you could declare bribes in your tax return to make them legal - you had to pay tax on both received and given bribes, but at least it was open - apparently this is what killed off a huge amount of minor corruption!
Hey Matt,
That is why I said:
"So corruption is in the eye of the beholder:"
Remember I am a country boy: My thoughts are with wide open spaces and 30 to 50 miles between towns.
I come from a society that does not consider speeding to be criminal. I come from a society that has speed traps all over the country. Cops hiding in bushes with radar guns, speed limit signs covered up by trees and speed signs hidden behind other signs and so on and so on.... (speeding is sorta a game)
I use speeding as an example because the same cop that speeds by you at 100 miles per hour in a 45 mile per hour zone to go get donuts: will pull you over in a 45 mile an hour zone doing 50 miles per hour. The standards are not the same. I myself have had to spend thousands of dollars in court fees and hiring a lawyer to save my license points and insurance increases over speeding tickets of 47 miles an hour in a 45 mile per hour zone. I have had to several times spend a small fortune on speed meter calibration and testing to get proof that my speed o meter was off by 3 miles an hour and that I had no ideas that I was speeding. You do this to keep insurance from going out of the roof. A speeding ticket does not mean that you were speeding... But a single speeding ticket in America could have you dropped from your insurance carrier and from that point on you are high risk. The fact you got a ticket does not mean you were speeding.
I also do not talk about speeding like 100 miles an hour in side city limits or though residential areas. That type of speeding is wrong.
I talk about the speed trap speeding that destroys your license and you really did not speed.
The rich pay they way out so they do not care about tickets in America. They give it to their Daddy who has friends in the Mayors office. :) Just bribery in another form.....
The fact is totally different when it comes to drinking and driving. (they are "bad drivers") Should be no tolerance....
By the way in America it is real easy to get the points put on your license even if you have done nothing wrong but it is an act of God to get them off your license. The insurance companies will not care you are high risk and will stay that way for years, even when you did not speed and prove that you did not speed.
Most of the time in America it was just much easier to just pay your way out of a speeding trap and get on the road. I spent several days in jail once over 3 miles an hour, over the speed limit. I refused to pay the bribe and had a few days rest. The case was thrown out of court and all I had to do was pay a hundred dollar jail fee for room and board, before I could leave of course. :) I paid and was happy to go..... (they got me in the end and that is their game)
You are correct, Criminal activity should never be circumvented by bribes but who says what is criminal and what is not?
It really is all in your perspective!
Kyle
hmmm - something missing there.....
BTW comments are hard to post - have to click "post" at least three times to get it to accept them.... Maybe it's just me!
As we've talked about before, the company I worked for in the nineties built the Coca-Cola-MOscow plant. Apparently my boss and the Coca-Cola folks didn't pay attention to a suggestion that the site needed more security.......in the amount of $50,000 US. Consequently, a minor RPG punctured the side of the building and coincidently blew up the newly installed $70,000 computer/server room. Of course the culprit was never apprehended.
I remember everybody in my office being shocked about such audacity, criminality, etc, etc. But being from Kansas City, I also remembered all to well the River Quay district bars that were being blown up by mafia-type folks in the early 70's. Not to mention the famous 1930's Frank Nash shootout at Union Station to which my grandmother was a direct witness.
So I take care not to cast stones towards Russia or anyone else from my proverbial glass house.
That being said, Russia's(and Ukraine's) justice and legal system personnel learn from an early age the power that can result from being in a position to accept a bribe. For example, it's my understanding that a police officer in Ukraine has an average salary of $100 per month. When the average rent is $400 per month this police officer still has to survive and feed his family. So right from the beginning of an policeman's career, he learns to accept bribes just to survive. But ultimately the resultant power that accompanies this corrupts the officer's assumed integrity.
When something criminal does happen, it is easy to bribe someone in the police department to ignore the crime. The officers are already quite familiar with the process so it comes quite easy to them with the plausible excuse, they are just trying to survive.
This is the part of Russia, although it does not have a monopoly on this type of situation, that I don't appreciate as much as other people. Especially after an aquaintance of mine in Ukraine was kacked in the head with a hammer and then shot in the head and left for dead. The person who did this was an influential casino owner who paid off the police to ignore it. I don't know what will happen but my aquaintance, an extremely tough individual, lived through this.
Perhaps if the police were paid a professional salary they overall system would progress to a point where the need/demand for graft money would be minimized, thereby negating the institutional bribery that ultimately leads to criminal graft.
Just a suggestion to be balanced with the observation that I feel much safer eastern European cities.
Hey Blackseabrew,
You brought up some lost memories today when you mentioned the River Quay district in Kansas City.
I use to have a vending company in Kansas City called Depend o Vend o, I thought that I would just have a quiet little business and have a happy life. I had no idea that the Mafia owned the vending business in Kansas City and when I became successful they demanded protection money.....
Needless to say: It was a battle that I could not win and 30 to 40 destroyed vending machines later I could not afford the protection nor the non protection. So ended a fantastic money making company that failed due to exterior pressures. The police would never help, unless I had more money to pay than the other guy. Sad....
I feel that pay has a lot to do with the corruption also.
I feel much safer in the eastern countries also.
Thanks for stopping by.
Kyle & Svet
Hey Matt,
Blogger, which is what I use for blogging this Blog, sometimes gets so messed up that I am ready to scream. The comments disappear then reappear. The posts take three tries to get them to post. Then I end up with two or three post identical. The comment section is really bad at times. yesterday I was getting comments from people and I had duplicates all day long.
Blogger tries to send messages of explanation:
---------------------
If a blog has comment moderation enabled and receives multiple comments in the same minute to different posts, some of those comments will not appear in the comment moderation list, though they will be counted on the Dashboard as needing moderation. These comments will also not appear on the blog.
The comments have not been lost, and we will be fixing this in the near term to prevent it from happening again. At that time we will also recover the past missing comments so that they can be
moderated.
-------------------
So I spend half of my time chasing comments....
I have to double and triple click all the time to get pages to load on work. I thought it was my IP yesterday but I see that it was Blogger.
Sorry about the problems and I will contact blogger and complain. (like it will do any good)
Kyle & Svet
PS: I am thinking about removing moderation and hope that people do not write rude, crude and socially unacceptable things.......
you can also post-moderate I think....