Russian small business, authorities and the state

The main focus of this research is to understand how the legal, fiscal and administrative conditions affect the establishment and growth of small family enterprises in the Russian economy. The research was conducted between September 1998 and March 1999 in two Siberian cities. These were Novosibirsk, the industrial-commercial centre of Siberia with a population of over 2 million people that in the past was the largest military industrial centre, and Berdsk, a satellite of Novosibirsk, now a so-called depressed town but in the past an advanced industrial town with a population of 300 000. The initial dataset on which the study is based comprises detailed semi-structured interviews with 40 people-20 leaders of small companies, 15 officials from the tax inspectorate, local committees on small entrepreneurship, the property committee of the local authority, business associations, the state fund for small business support, the public health laboratory, the fire inspectorate and the housing trust, and five experts in the small business field. The spheres of business covered are very different, including processing of food, education, production of computer programmes, show business (dancing), wholesale and retail trade, tourism, construction, medicine, legal services, advertising and catering.