The village of millionaires Bashny.Net

13.28, 13.29, 13.30 ... With the Leningradsky railway station in Moscow moves off-speed "Sapsan". In business class - clean-shaven man with expensive laptop and woman with perfect haircuts. For passengers who go in the intermediate Okulovka not get from one capital to another, they look with a barely noticeable sympathy. The air here is filled with very different smells - rougher and simpler. Setting write a report about the village of dollar millionaires, located somewhere in the neighborhood seems bad joke editor.
7 photos via newspape





- In Pestovo? Yes, over there on the roads alone "Hummers" and "Mercedes" go! Even dogs lodge in special VIP booths: two rooms, corridor, double-glazed windows - I saw! - At the counter in the station shop about a neighboring village told in epic style. However, in contrast to the same epic about a suburban estate Rublyovka legends about Pestovo not give rise to any social protest even in the soul of the narrators. Maybe because they have the final one and the same:

- But there are guys and injected be healthy! Baste their cabins from morning till evening. When asleep, when they eat - do not understand.

Module - those temporary houses, cabins, where the workers live on any construction site in any city of Russia. And almost everything - from here, from Pestova.

- Muzzle thick, healthy, fun! - Visitor station store still can not calm down about the dog's happiness. And all the way to Pestova before my eyes are cheerful thick mordahi Pestovskoye dogs.

Jerk Cousin

If you want to understand the phenomenon of local economic miracle, the first thing you need to find a businessman Oleg Kuzin - he started a private business in workers' sheds.

- Yes, I have it all started - a businessman nods Kuzin.

Twenty skinny kid Oleg instinctively sensed a gold mine, took a hammer, nails, planks and began to manually "pounding cabins." These two words have since become synonymous here the word "success."



"Baste cabins" - means a lot of work to earn a lot and generally get out of life. Kuzin still have their batters and sells only the scope and geography of sales increased significantly. Now he is a real dollar millionaire tycoon and owner of his empire - the group of companies «HVAC».

... It's evening, about eight. Normally at this time the province is dying, and here the work in full swing: in shops swarming workers janitor sweeps territory and Kuzin, and does not think to leave the workplace. We are sitting in his spacious director's office, and I'm trying to understand how it happened that in the midst of hopelessness velikonovgorodskoy itself without any state care arose a whole archipelago of economic growth and prosperity.

- In the Soviet time in Pestovo were two city-forming enterprise - lesokombinat and mechanical plant - starting from afar Kuzin. - LESOKOMBINAT produced timber, and along with by-products - wooden huts, the so-called house of the forester. And did OMZ metal cabins for builders, they also block containers. It was a powerful production, products sold to Algeria, Guinea-Bissau, Mongolia, Iraq, Cuba. Money was a lot, and did not save on technology - cabins equipped with everything, down to the beds and refrigerators.

And then came the restructuring. Large enterprises cracked and quickly fell into disrepair.

- I have to lesokombinat worked first in lestsehe assorted timber, then the driver was - continues Kuzin. - But in 1992, went to wage arrears for three or four months. I had just got married a year, the son has already been born, and no money. In general, I drank grief to the fullest. Here on TV began to promote small business, shuttles to Moscow and Peter began to go procured, the first private shops pootkryvali. My wife and I went to work at the point of receiving the bottles to a local businessman. And then we thought: we are worse ?! And for a couple with a friend, I opened the first grocery stall. Then, second, third. They came first money Oborotka. But the ceiling of this business is low, invest in it new money simply nowhere: a small village, the purchasing power of the people is low, meager assortment. Where to invest?

The answer came by itself. LESOKOMBINAT and OMZ has breathed its last, but by habit in Pestovo kept driving Moscow buyers and supply vessels.

- They were looking for cabins at lower prices than they could offer SOEs, and therefore left with nothing - says the father-founder of a local business. - I thought and thought and even bought a small territory on the street Schmidt hundred twenty. He hired two assistants, and we began to beat the first cabins - the most unpretentious, no frills. We have simplified the technology, dropped it. Privateers easier than larger plants: moved here, there is a discount made. About twenty or thirty huts personally amassed, and then look - it is, hired workers, became engaged in the supply, sale ...

In 1993, no clairvoyant could have predicted that the collapse of the country will be built slowly, and then did come a construction boom and cheap building wood cabins will be a necessity.

- No one expected that there will be a high demand - says Kuzin. - Goods left in flight. Guys look: Yeah, Cousin things go smoothly. Yeah, Oleg bought a car, a brand new 99th. Then the "Mitsubishi Lancer". Then I saw - after me one too familiar cabins began to beat, pulled the second, the third. Workers, who I have worked, my business started. Fan. And so it went.

The nineties were a difficult time, Russian businesses, but by some miracle Pestovo businessmen out of scrapes, and even pay their problems into opportunities.

- In "Black Tuesday" in 1998, I was just lucky, like Prokhorov in 2008 - laughs Kuzin. - It was at that time the Moscow organization bought me a large batch of block containers, and I was able to sit out the crisis. But other somehow survived from Pestovo business decimated just two or three people. Then we clearly realized that it is necessary to expand the business, making it more versatile. Do not go cabins - will bring profits shops, construction crews, and entertainment center. Do not put all your eggs in one basket.

Victory Day

History rapid and resounding success of the business Pestovo unfolded in front of everyone. Life is in full swing, the roads were worn trucks loaded with cabins. Some - in the direction of Moscow, the other - in the direction of Peter.

- Pestovo is located halfway between the two cities, 470 kilometers from Moscow, 480 - to St. Petersburg, - says another Pestovsky heavyweight, head of the firm "Pestovoeksportles" Oleg Sterkhov. - In the late 90's we paved the path to construction sites in Moscow and the region. In the early 2000s, Peter woke up, the trucks went to the northwest. Dozens pestovchan steel company representatives in both capitals. And in the middle we have zero, one after another pootkryvali their sites on the internet - and the flow of buyers from across the country at all zashkalil.

In this unique situation where the whole town, in fact, engaged in the same business, making the same product, not surprisingly competitive war broke out.

- No, what kind of competition! - Puzzled objects Kuzin. - All work to do. One, this market simply will not do. Moreover, when you have a lull, and a competitor shaft orders, he appeals: "Oleg, help me!" - "Yes please!" And vice versa. We're all grown here, from kindergarten know each other inside out.



Egorov. - If the implementation only in Pestovo was, there would be competition. And so they have nothing to share, great country. All sites on the Internet, who sell to Chita, who in Samara, who in Ukraine, and some in Spain. They, on the contrary, combine to orders not to miss. In all the time I'm working here, never between entrepreneurs avoid misunderstandings. When people are rich, then they get nervous?

Now Pestovskoye cabins are in the tundra and taiga, and in the sea, on oil platforms. So gradually pestovchane seized throughout the country, up to the Far North.

- From Pestova they are sent first to Arkhangelsk by rail and then by boat to Igarka, and then by plane to the village of oil, - expounds transport logistics Oleg Sterkhov. - The cost of transporting up to one million rubles of income, and own the block containers are 140 thousand. But oil is still bought one block container - is not only housing, but also ready-equipped bath, come and wash up, we are there, even the wood as a bonus add up, because you will not find tundra wood. And one of our employed to optimize the cost of shipping, the newly built assembly plant in Vladivostok: it is more convenient for the railway to deliver complete, collect the block containers in place and deliver from there throughout the Far East. Many orders being taken in Sochi for the Olympic venues, and Chechnya ... so easy to say, where it is not being taken.

- Do you remember the moment when I realized: this is a victory? - I ask Oleg Kuzin.

- A! Of course, I remember - he smiles. - When the shaft went orders from the Internet, such a sense of satisfaction come: All right, life is good. As if indeed the war ended.

Money smell

When the city flooded money, life began to change before our eyes. And the gulf that separates Pestovo from neighboring towns over the years, becoming deeper and deeper.



According to some indicators of the living standards of the village already surpassed ... Moscow. For example, the number of cars per capita - almost doubled in the capital for five people account for two cars in Pestovo for four people - three. And mainly foreign cars. When Pestovskoye arrive in showrooms in Novgorod, Tver and Borovichi, from there the sellers exacerbated doubts about the prospects of their own profession. "What you got there for the Klondike in Pestovo?" - "Oh, hammers knocking gradually».

- First, in the 80 years, we have people on the street in jerseys but walked in sneakers, and now in the capital's boutiques decided to dress up - do not lie, and do not blush pestovchane. - Children learn in Moscow and St. Petersburg, in the same apartment to buy, but to live and work until prefer here at home. One of supermarkets in Pestovo - two "Pyaterochka", three "Magnet" two "Dixie." And hardware stores - fifteen pieces.

Another indicator by which the village competes with the largest cities of the country - a number of businessmen. According to the Economic Department of the Administration Pestovo Municipal District, in the village of 938 registered entrepreneurs. Plus, about two thousand people are engaged in visiting the construction. And it's 16 000 inhabitants.

- If you create a local list of "Forbes", how many people will enter into it?

- A minimum of ten, maximum of fifty - confidently answers Oleg Sterkhov. - Of course, dollar millionaires, not the ruble. Our ruble millionaires - is ordinary builders who work on the road. Season battered cabins, baths, cottages - now he has a new car for a million rides. Welder block containers a day for two or three thousand rubles earns. The driver of one flight to Moscow - three or four thousand. Work is her lot. I drove to visit a friend from Arkhangelsk, looked, sniffed: "Yes you have, even the air smells of money!" But people are not enough, at least local.

... Morning. Streets and yards are filled with sunshine. Trying to make sense of the numbers to give me the day before, I methodically, street by street to go around Pestovo. What is so special about this place that makes batches of ordinary people in successful businessmen millionaires? Elsewhere, and under different circumstances, they would have happily drank themselves and flourish here.



Outwardly, this provincial town is almost indistinguishable from the hundreds of provincial Russian towns and villages - the same wooden hut on the main "avenue", the same gray streets without sidewalks, terrible broken road entirely in the pits, the rare passers-by so fresh delicious air.

Well, a lot of cars. Well, a lot of new houses, big and strong. There is even a Ruble brick mansions and tall fences - Popovo village. But in fact it left a strong Pestovo prosperous village. Well, maybe, very, very wealthy.

- City Pestovo was only in the mid 60-ies of the last century - explains to me 54-year-old director of "Pestovoeksportlesa" Oleg Sterkhov. - Because - see the difference - it is very straight wide streets and large plots of land because until 1965 in rural areas were isolated for 20 acres on the house. And as soon as received the status of the city, have become no more than six hundred to give. Imagine Pestova area - 50 square kilometers. That's a lot! For comparison, the area of ​​Moscow within the Ring Road - a thousand square kilometers.

Conscience as an investment

Oleg Sterkhov - the first private entrepreneur Pestova. When Oleg Kuzin was still working at the plant, Sterkhov already being traded in the Leningrad "Commodity-Stock Exchange" Saint Petersburg "." Birthday of his business - December 3, 1990. Now, 22 years later, half of the St. Petersburg DIY stores sterhovskie sells building materials. In Spain, in Andalusia, in the town of Ubeda, is built Sterkhovoye village of 27 two-story frame-and-shield houses. He knows all the ins and outs of business Pestovo. Therefore, I address to him the most painful for the Russian entrepreneurs in question. And I get an unexpected answer.

- You know, we do not have corruption, - says Oleg Sterkhov.

- Well, yes, of course - I play along.

- Yes, I'm serious! Can not believe it, but we really work laws. And why? And because when people are working, then the laws work. And when people do nothing when they have no real interest, they did not defend - and then chaos begins. Yes, and who is to take a bribe, extort money from whom? All his. You stole - an hour the whole town knows. In court, one chairman tried to enter the custom in the leg with a business take - he had to leave town. But just do not take the court and the prosecutor's office on the young guys were pressing business is not.

- Well, the traffic cops - that, too, do not take?

- We just do not take local - included another giant, 60-year-old owner of the company "Kamstroy" Alexey Kolosov. - If take, it may have non-resident - the authorities did not explain what for gasoline also need money. But when a local stop, not even stutter - we train them all know inside out.

So, maybe, the whole secret of success Pestovskoye business in this - everyone knows each other, and nobody does not hinder anybody? When they started their business, the state was simply not up to them. And then "train has left": the local bourgeoisie has matured, and the conscience of a small town is still a real economic factor, not that big.

Now the main concern of Pestovo entrepreneurs - that the city did not grow. Otherwise, all the advantages of a small town, and in fact a large village will be lost. Once people no longer know each other inside out, disappear Pestovskoye main ingredient of success - Pacanskaya common decency.

Inventors bicycle

While business is booming. Most Pestovo entrepreneurs came to the pre-crisis level of 2008. So, in the construction business in Russia, and, consequently, the entire economy is doing well. Because Pestovo - the best barometer. There is a shaft of orders - is in the development of the country, there is no order - beware of investing in long-term projects.

But not all of the flagships of the economy Pestovskoye sure that their reign of the market hut will be eternal.



- I think that soon we will not sustain the competition - said the head of the construction company "El" Sergei Trushkov. - We are too far from the Moscow and St. Petersburg, many spending eats up the road. If somewhere closer to Moscow, for example, will be a company that will do quality cabins, of course, it will be in a better position. But while for some reason no one tried.

Seeing shared prosperity in Pestovo, it took up the lucrative business neighbors. But did not work: someone does not have enough experience, someone - quality, someone ruined by greed.

- After we tried to do in Rybinsk production block containers, they did not work out - says Kuzin. - Vologda company started business, but wrung such impossibly high price, that short-lived if our block containers decorated with paneling and MDF are from 44 to 55 thousand rubles, the price they were at 100 thousand. Who needs to pay twice?

They wanted to compete pestovchanam and neighboring Borovichi - also did not get.

- And the thing that Pestovo entrepreneurs prices reduced to the limit - sure Pestovsky businessman Alexei Kolosov. - Now the maximum profit from each block container - 1500 rubles. The real benefit only large orders. And who will give them to you if you just walk into this business? They appear when you have earned a name for itself as one ... We have a bike that had time to be dispersed.














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