Vardanian Doesn’t See Prospects in a Country Where Stalin Has Not Been Denounced

Strengthening the role of government in the economy has led to disastrous results: it turned out that some business owners resemble Soviet “tsekhoviks”, who earn money on the state’s account; they carry out transaction through the state but keep the profits from themselves. While other business owners, who don’t have access to the offices of officials, are in a state of confusion, said Russian-Armenian businessman Ruben Vardanian in an interview with Vedomosti. 

Vardanian has been head of the Troika Dialogue Group for nearly 20 years, but he is preparing to leave the company and sell his share. Speaking on the reasons for this decision, as well as the crisis in Russia, he said:

“In all countries, the crisis situation is different. In Russia, everything looks stable (from the outside), everything is in its place. But on the other hand, it’s obvious that businesses are at the stage where they say to a football player, until now, we were playing football, but now we have to move on to a game without rules. Whoever wants to, plays; who doesn’t want, doesn’t play.

“Previously, there was a feeling that there was capitalism here [in Russia], but the crisis showed that there’s no capitalism; instead, there’s pseudo-capitalism. In the market today again there are mediators who are similar to the tutors of the Soviet era, who took money from students [who were applying to university] but did nothing in return. Then later, when someone didn’t pass the exams to get into university, they returned the money. These are the types of mediators that have appeared particularly in the large state banks. 

“I think that times are better now for doing business than when we started our business. However, there’s a feeling of deja vu. We’re seeing a lot of things that happened in the 90s. 

“We’ve received a bitter legacy: people understand life not from the perspective of rules and law, but from the viewpoint of concepts, which strongly dominates everything. Today, everything is based on individuals (personalities) and concepts. In a country where for decades personality (the manifestation of desire of the individual) was destroyed, where brightness [i.e. being separate from the whole] was never welcomed, and the denunciation of Stalin has not happened, half of residents have sat in prison, while the other half guarded [them], and all this has been justified by the idea ‘we flew into space,’ in such a country it’s very difficult to do the right thing and to build anything for the long-term.”

According to Vardanian, he doesn’t intend to leave Troika Dialogue in 2012. 

“Ideally, in 2013, I would like to be able to do other things,” he said.