Vil Dorofeev, Investigation of a Shortage: In the Presence of an Absence (1981)

While the articles above take a familiar approach in stressing that black-market opportunities result from the failure of state enterprises to produce and sell desired consumer goods, the following article implies a reverse cause-and-effect relationship: The author suggests that the absence of such basic consumer goods as toiletries and cosmetics in state stores in the city of Krasnodar (population-more than 500,000) actually results from the widespread theft of goods to stock a black market that flourishes unimpeded in broad daylight.

Original Source: Literaturnaia gazeta, 25 March 1981, p. 12.

This winter I agreed to undertake an experiment proposed by the editors: I took a plane from Moscow to the resort-area capital of Krasnodar and deliberately left behind all toilet articles-soap, razor, cologne, toothbrush, shaving cream, etc.–and took along no extra underwear or socks or even laundry powder for washing out clothes in my hotel room. The aim of my trip was to investigate reports that such articles were unavailable in Krasnodar stores.

I spent my entire first day in Krasnodar systematically visiting every small, large and medium-sized store in the city in an unsuccessful attempt to buy the articles I had left behind. I did manage to get the last package of razor blades in one department store and I found a child’s toothbrush in another. But that was all. I found no shaving cream soap, shampoo, or any of the other things I needed. When I tried to use the child’s toothbrush the next morning, it broke.

A salesclerk in one Krasnodar store told me that laundry detergent had been available in Novorossiisk two weeks previously, so the next day I went there. I couldn’t find anything I needed in Novorossiisk either, but my neighbor at the hotel there did tell me I could get anything I wanted at the flea market in Krasnodar.

Back in Krasnodar, I went along with a local resident to one of the city’s several unofficial flea markets, which was located on a muddy patch of ground on Yablonovskaya Street. It was an ordinary workday, but the place was thronged with customers. I was struck by the abundance and variety of scarce goods that were being offeredeverything that was unavailable in Krasnodar and Novorossiisk stores. One old crone had enough toilet soap and other scarce goods for sale to fulfill a medium-sized store’s daily sales plan. Another seller broke open a fresh factory carton filled with cellophane- wrapped toothbrushes in assorted colors. Everything cost at least twice as much as it would have cost in the stores, but there was no use haggling. When I protested paying a ruble and 50 kopeks for a bar of toilet soap, the crone told me: “Everything costs what it costs. If you don’t like it, don’t wash.”

The only things I couldn’t find at the flea market were laundry soap and shampoo. One seller explained to me that this was because these were “locally produced goods”-to get them I would have to go to the “black hole.” My companion knew where this was and took me there. The site of the “black hole” turned out to be an ancient brick wall surrounding the Krasnodar Fat and Oil Combine, one of the country’s largest, which produces the excellent-even exported-Turist laundry soap. The wall was pocked with patches of fresh brick and mortar and riddled with new, unpatched holes. A shift had just ended, and employees were pouring through one large hole. My companion approached the first man who came by and said we needed soap. The man immediately said he would get us a box for five rubles-he wouldn’t deal in smaller quantities-and disappeared back through the hole in the wall. Twenty minutes later he returned lugging a heavy box full of soap. My companion suggested we carry our experiment with theft a bit further, so he stuffed his pockets full of soap bars wrapped in newspaper. We dragged the nearly full soapbox back to the plant’s railroad siding where some cars were waiting to be loaded, and then we proceeded to cross the plant grounds and walk out the main gate. Although my companion’s pockets were conspicuously bulging and we were obviously strangers, no one bothered us, including the watchman at the wide-open main gate.

I later visited the office of Iu. L. Belozerov, Deputy Director of the Krasnodar Territory Trade Administration, to discuss the reasons for the shortages in Krasnodar stores. He said it was all the fault of the manufacturers, who, in a desire to fulfill their plans at any cost, overproduced some goods and underproduced others. Yet officials at the Russian Republic Ministry of Trade informed me that the production of soap and detergents had actually been increasing. I also learned that the planned production of consumer goods for a given region such as Krasnodar Territory is based on careful estimates of demand, and that plans for the delivery of personal accessories, toiletries and cosmetics to Krasnodar Territory were not only fulfilled but substantially overfulfilled last year. As it happened, while I was in Belozerov’s office he actually received a telegram saying that, in accordance with statements of requirement, the territory had received 2.7 million toothbrushes in September 1980 alone.

Why, then, are there shortages such as the one I encountered in Krasnodar stores? Another common explanation offered by trade officials is that these shortages are due to hoarding by housewives. I might be inclined to believe this explanation if I didn’t recall what I had witnessed in Krasnodar: the open theft of soap from a factory, and flea-market merchants who were well stocked with goods that obviously had never found their way to store shelves. How do consumer goods bypass stores and get to flea markets without anyone’s noticing? Why do officials from the appropriate services persistently fail to see the “black holes” through which these goods disappear? It’s these unanswered questions that keep me from sympathizing with trade officials’ complaints about the failures of production and the habits of hoarding housewives.

Just before this article went to press, I made another trip to Krasnodar. Unfortunately, the situation had not changed: Virtually the same items were unavailable in the same stores. The “black hole” through which my companion and I had obtained soap from the oil and fat combine had been patched up, and a new one had appeared. And merchants at the flea market still had plenty of detergent, high-quality toilet soap and other scarce goods for sale at three to five times the official price.

Source: Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. XXXIII, No. 15 (1981), p. 13.