ABSTRACT
This chapter is the first of three ethnographic case studies on how entrepreneurs deal with the challenges facing businesses in Russia’s real economy. It focuses on Oleg, who has run a successful retail company since 1991. Oleg’s view is that the government is not supportive but hostile towards the private sector, so he has developed a pragmatic approach to business, working as autonomously as possible from the state but closely with competitors to maintain a shared stake in their local market. This pragmatism, together with a business culture oriented to minimising risk and maximising control in business and state relations, accounts for his commercial success. In the second part of the chapter, attention turns to a social entrepreneurial initiative established by Oleg to broaden the horizons of the local youth and encourage independent thinking. This shows a normative side to Oleg’s entrepreneurship, separate from the hard-nosed approach of his commercial activities. In the final analysis, the author shows that Oleg’s entrepreneurial success highlights the need to re-examine predominant ideas about how business–state relations work in Russia, which is also a theme in the following case studies and discussed at length in Chapter 6.
