ABSTRACT
Research into private businesses in post-Soviet Russia started with the collapse of the Soviet Union. While more than two decades have passed since the USSR disintegrated, many scholars still regard private entrepreneurs as participants in an economic situation that is new to them. This chapter focuses on a specific segment of private entrepreneurs who I call “reluctant entrepreneurs.” These people entered into business reluctantly in the early 1990s, when salaries in state jobs were not paid. These entrepreneurs also plan to return to a public-sector job at a later time in order to collect their social benefits. Therefore, although most of them have been engaged in private business for some time, they see it as a temporary activity. In their activities, entrepreneurs are led by local social norms and the policy of risk aversion. This attitude takes place within an economic climate where the state largely ignores informal and gray-market economic activities, and where enterprises are kept small, non-innovative, and diversified.
