The entire communal army: how management companies parasitize at the expense of tenants

“These are Russians walking around,” the French taxi driver explains and immediately adds, not without a touch of sarcasm: “Russia is a rich country.”

However, the Russian rich, sybaritizing in some picturesque bay, never aroused delight among Europeans. Rather, annoyance and embarrassment for our “rich” country, where a narrow group of “chosen ones” burns life, measuring the length of vintage boats. And the people, as always, survive in conditions of galloping prices.

For some reason, it was this scene that came to my mind when the news came that from December 1, utility bills in our country would increase by 9%, which would turn out to be a heavy burden for ordinary poor fellows. For them, the onset of winter will literally be a cold shower. Maybe not even less than the sanctions for some oligarchs. Those at least hope that their bottomless holdings will be unlocked sooner or later. An ordinary person has no assets at all, no hope that prices – at least for the same “communal apartment” – will win back.

And the fact that the upcoming increase was announced in advance, back in early autumn, does not change the essence of the matter. It is unlikely that anyone has come to terms with the increase in prices during the relatively warm months. It will still be excruciatingly painful to extract from the mailboxes the more expensive “letters of happiness” that will arrive in late December – early January.

No, of course, our people are meek, humble and ready to forgive a lot to those in power. The current increase in tariffs will also certainly not become a social drama. Residents sigh and with sad faces stand in line to pay for fat bills, taking the last banknotes out of their pockets. And it would never occur to anyone to call to account and conscience greedy public utilities, to straighten them with a sharp style. And it would be worth it!

According to statistics, there are several tens of thousands of management companies (MCs) operating in Russia, mainly engaged in collecting payments for resources provided by federal and local monopolies. Although, according to the charter, they must also provide care, maintenance and repair of households. But these duties do not seem to be so important, because they do not bring income, but are fraught with costs alone.

The increase in tariffs for UK is a direct benefit. But it is not clear why intermediaries themselves are needed between resource-supplying organizations and the population? The state coped without them in previous eras.

Today there are no factories, no collective farms, no labor artels, no machine and tractor stations and other “remnants” of socialism. On the other hand, various organizations such as “horns and hooves” grow without counting, as if by budding. And their vacancies are in tune with the time: office manager, HR, menpoper and others that have never been heard of before.

In the chairs of the directors of the Criminal Code, there have long been former heads of housing departments, around whom entire family clans and dynasties have grown up. Almost like that of the shy thief Alkhen, the caretaker of the 2nd house of Starsobes, at whom the four Yakovlevich brothers and their well-fed cousin Pasha Emilievich dined.

If you look closely, nothing has changed in a hundred years. Their matured children, nephews, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, grandchildren joined the current Alchens. After all, someone has to feed and support the family clans that are earing in the housing and communal field. Therefore, the tariffs are constantly increasing, so that everyone has enough a little!

Both in the United States, which is “unfriendly” to us, and in “brotherly” China, there are much fewer employees in the management of housing and communal services, despite the fact that the housing stock in both countries is gigantic. How do they cope without numerous intermediary offices? Somehow they cope and manage to maintain tariffs for years.

“Inflation regularly devalues ​​payments,” the municipal structures convince us. Therefore, they say, they are forced to change tariffs from time to time. But salaries and pensions are also devalued! According to the latest data from Rosstat, real wages (adjusted for inflation) in the country fell by almost 2%. And with these thinner salaries, you will have to shell out even more for housing and communal services.

Therefore, I think: first of all, you need to take not from the orphans and the poor, but from the fat and obese. Those who do not even notice these nine percent, who live “below themselves without feeling the country”, who have boxes with billions stored in closets or on the mezzanine. It is a pity that utility bills are calculated not by the scale of the stolen goods, but by the size of the living space.

I am sure that many domestic “Pinocchio” do not even know how much housing and communal services cost them. Because the last ruble does not slobber, pulling it out of a phildepers stocking, like our old people. These old people in their entire lives have not earned as much as modern nouveaux riches receive in one light day … It would not hurt to apply a progressive scale for paying housing and communal services to them, as in the tax sphere.

When did the astronomical gap in the assessment of labor and income among different categories occur? Why do some officials, top managers or “TV stars” have dozens, hundreds and thousands of times higher than that of a nuclear physicist, design engineer, physician, ordinary teacher, librarian, cultural worker, not to mention poor pensioners?

But many of them gave all their youth and health to their country, working hard in its most difficult and important areas. And having gone on a well-deserved rest, they remained in their homeland, unlike some servants of the sovereign, who fled to the “hated West” at the first opportunity.

Of course, in general, changes in tariffs are inevitable. But I would like clarity – why so suddenly and abruptly? And precisely at the moment when the cost of medicines, food, clothing, gasoline is growing at the same time. Many of our citizens do not have enough even for the most necessary needs. And very soon they will have nothing to pay for electricity, water, gas, not to mention other needs.

Not so long ago, while still in the corridors of power, today’s relocator Anatoly Chubais proposed letting foreign investors into the Russian public utilities market and symmetrically increasing tariffs. Like, in Europe they have long been higher at times. Thank God, the “privatizer” departed in an unknown direction, not having time to carry out his plans. Otherwise, little-known types at exorbitant prices would sell our citizens energy resources produced by our own monopolies. And the money would go to the accounts of cunningly … smart “foreign investors.” The very ones that plow the southern seas on their own yachts, surrounded by unthinkable luxury. Everything that Chubais undertook ended in a fabulous enrichment of a narrow circle of his relatives and the impoverishment of the broad masses.

In this regard, I recall an aphorism that reveals the essence of traditional Russian drama: one with a bipod, seven with a spoon. When several inspectors immediately run to one initiative, who limit and nullify all undertakings. This also applies to management companies that parasitize on homeowners.

If we compare it with old Europe, which is clearly not in trend now, we need to start with improving the well-being of Russian citizens, and not with utility bills. To ensure that our salaries, pensions, insurances, social benefits meet their standards, and not vice versa. Then the tariffs will be equal to European ones – by themselves.

It would also not hurt to lower bank rates to 1.5-2 percent, to ease the burden of consumer and auto loans, mortgages and other loans that kill any business in the bud. And various scammers from the prolific microfinance structures should be identified and neutralized. That is, rid the population of them and the bandits behind them, who call themselves collectors.

The pandemic dealt a knockout blow to small and medium-sized businesses that were already not very developed. Before it’s too late, we should think about providing them with assistance and softening the working conditions, and not just for a large oligarchy, as is often the case with us.

Then, perhaps, a revival will begin in our country, which will lead to an increase in the standard of living. There will be a middle class, working adults and old people, smoothly turning into prosperous pensioners traveling around the world. As in the West and, by the way, in the East. For example, the Japanese, South Koreans, Indonesians, Malaysians, Arabs move with their families across countries and continents. And the Chinese have become a phenomenon of the global tourism industry of the 21st century.

Alas, for the most part we are still far from such peaks. For starters, it’s good to at least not experience stress when receiving new payment documents. And count the days, waiting for the desired pension, which may not be enough for a “communal apartment”.