ABSTRACT
This chapter describes and analyses the ways of establishing private firms and especially the preconditions that determined success and failure in exploiting the opportunities that the dissolution of the Kanepi kolkhoz created. The significance of social networks in the success of a private firm is evident in the development of the most prosperous enterprises in Kanepi. Great societal upheavals create ample grounds for several types of semi-legal entrepreneurship that may serve as a basis for ‘respectable’ entrepreneurship. When the collective farm was disbanded and collective property was privatised by auction, many former employees truly believed in the promises of the ultra-liberal government and that the days of growing prosperity had finally arrived. The stories of entrepreneurs in Kanepi show the extent to which the sphere of opportunities opened by the transition was exploited and the roles various factors played in the success and failure of individual businesses.
