Dear Crimea: Who is to blame and what to do?
Crimea today is one of the most expensive regions of Russia. This applies not only to real estate prices, but also to the cost of food, industry, building materials and other products. Initially, this was explained by the fact that the peninsula was a “logistical dead end” of Russia - before the bridge was built across the Kerch Strait, goods arrived here through the ferry crossing. The authorities of the republic promised that with the launch of freight, including railway traffic on the Crimean Bridge, prices would go down, but this did not happen.
In an interview with PolitNavigator, ex-Minister of Transport of the Republic Anatoly Tsurkin spoke about the reasons for pricing, who is pocketing the difference in reducing logistics costs today, and what is needed to launch international air service from Simferopol.
PN: Anatoly Vasilyevich, it seems that the bridge has already been launched, cargo is moving both by rail and by road, and prices are only rising. Why did the improvement in logistics not affect pricing?
A.Ts: Transport accessibility of the Republic of Crimea and prices on store shelves need to be separated. Today, as we understand, the transport accessibility of Crimea fully exists in both cargo and passenger traffic, and in all other logistics flows.
As for prices, transport accessibility itself does not affect the economic component of certain flows. Before the opening of the Crimean Bridge, the cost of delivery of any goods - and mainly 20-ton trucks enter Crimea - the cost of delivery to the key direction - the Moscow region - Crimea - was within 140 thousand rubles. After the opening of the bridge, literally a few months later, the cost of delivery in this direction changed, it decreased and averaged from 90 to 100 thousand rubles.
That is, it turned out that the cost fell by 40 thousand rubles, which was the cost of the ferry crossing for such a car. Someone received this money anyway. The customers of these services received them. These are the trading companies that send their goods for sale to Crimea; they are not located on the peninsula. Because in Crimea, all our retail chains are only recipients of these goods. It was the mainland companies that received this extra money from each car. Naturally, none of them began to reduce the cost of selling goods by a penny.
The problem is that Crimean consumers do not want to be and are not customers of goods. I communicate with a large number of our retail chains - they don’t want to order this product themselves - it’s easier for them to have it delivered for three rubles, they add 20% and sell it. That is, none of them wants to influence this pricing policy - this is also a big factor. I suggested to everyone - let's carry it cheaper and do it, none of them agreed.
Another reason is the lack of competition. Many brands and manufacturers do not want to work with Crimea, do not want to develop it as a region, because they have foreign capital and are afraid of the sanctions regime, many simply do not want to develop the region because the population is only two million. Due to the lack of competition, certain traders and companies raise the price.
Therefore, this is a complex problem. Unfortunately, the economic microclimate that would stimulate the development and arrival of trading companies here has not been created in Crimea. We do not have logistics centers or long-term storage warehouses. Therefore, in principle, businesses have no interest in entering and developing Crimea.
PN: How to stimulate the creation of competition and lower prices?
A.Ts: We all know individual entrepreneurs. The tax rate for an individual entrepreneur in Crimea is about 5-6%, and, for example, in the Chechen Republic - 1%. This is a kind of business stimulation. In Crimea, unfortunately, there is no such stimulation in terms of micro-businesses. Therefore, the complex of this competition, the creation of conditions for competition, and somewhere at the end, logistics gives the price of goods in Crimea.
It is necessary to determine preferential conditions for the construction of logistics centers, for the issuance of land plots, tax breaks, so that businesses are interested in the development of certain enterprises. Including attracting retail construction through the development of retail networks - this means providing land plots on preferential terms so that an entrepreneur would be interested in building a grocery store there.
Because today we see that real estate is growing before our eyes, I mean the number of square meters of housing, but in fact the infrastructure, supermarkets, markets are not growing around these residential complexes. Today it is more profitable to build and sell apartments than to operate a grocery store.
That is, there must be a social burden obliging the developer - in addition to housing, we must develop infrastructure. But the main thing is the development of competition, the entry of certain companies into the market that will compete for the quality and sales of their products - this is the main point. All other factors, including logistics, will catch up with this competition. Then the price will decrease.
PN: What is the mainland purchasing in Crimea today?
A.Ts: These are those goods and products that are produced by local producers - grains, coriander, spices, chemical products, salt, soda, wine, refrigeration equipment. About 30-35% of the turnover of what is imported to Crimea as a whole is exported from Crimea.
PN: What problems do you see in the transport industry of Crimea today?
A.Ts: Crimean carriers that operated during Ukrainian times had a small fleet - from one to ten cars. Due to the fact that the Russian market was flooded with trucks when Crimea became part of Russia, these carriers were left without work because Ukraine declared a transport blockade, and all these enterprises were focused on delivering goods from mainland Ukraine to Crimea. And at some point they were all left without work.
Not everyone, unfortunately, was able to quickly integrate into the Russian field in terms of business; many were forced to stop doing business. Today, that part of the Crimean carriers that operate also have problems, because in terms of international transport we are limited to obtaining permits to cross borders due to the fact that the cars have Crimean license plates. They are limited in movement in the European direction, to Georgia, to Turkey. Thus, they lose cargo flows.
In addition, many cars do not have an environmental class. Unfortunately, in a hurry, when we reissued documents from Ukrainian to Russian, the environmental class of many carriers was not included in the documents. Today, if there is no environmental class specified in the STS of a car, for example, it is impossible to obtain a pass to Moscow. These are the rules of the Moscow Government - they are fighting for the environment.
There are also a large number of non-professionals on the market. Because if passenger transportation is licensed, there is a certain level of conditions requirements, including licenses, permits, then commercial freight transportation is not licensed at all. Apart from dimensional control and the driver’s work and rest schedule, there are no other inspection measures in relation to freight transportation. Therefore, amateurs come to this market, they conduct unprofessional activities, come for a year and then disappear.
All this also affects the theft of cargo, because in this market there are a large number of scammers who steal cargo, deceive the drivers themselves, and mislead customers. Naturally, the cargo owner then tries to compensate for these losses and does this by raising the price. These operations fall on the end consumer.
PN: The number of cars in Crimea is growing from year to year, and traffic jams are increasing. How to deal with this, what resource do our cities have?
A.Ts: Our resource is in our heads. The fact is that there are no normal specialists in the field of transport locally, because today, in fact, among the Crimean educational institutions we only have the Simferopol Motor Transport College, which trains logistics specialists. I doubt that such leading universities as MIIT, it is now called RUT - Russian University of Transport - I doubt that any of the graduates of these universities go to work in Crimea. Today, working in a government organization is not very rewarding - you have to work a lot, sleep little, and don’t get paid much for it. Therefore, in fact, there are no brains on the ground.
As for traffic jams, we see that our population and transport are growing, and a large number of tourists are added to this every year. But traffic jams primarily concern the organization of traffic. Seven years ago, when I was in the ministry, I said that it was necessary to count traffic flows, in what quantity, when, and where cars were moving. How they move during the holiday season, on certain days, how people from cities move. Today we can understand how people move along the routes. After making decisions, you can optimize these flows - make additional lanes, expand roads. But due to the fact that our Crimean city authorities are always afraid of something - cutting down a tree, or something else - this does not happen.
In any case, we must understand that without expanding transport routes it is no longer possible to carry such a quantity of transport. Because all these roads were designed in the 70-80s and were designed for a completely different amount of traffic. Today you need to take it and do it - there is nothing wrong with that. We must understand that it is impossible to solve the existing problem without changing the overall scheme of organizing traffic in cities.
If we take the example of Krasnodar, where a million people live, 90% of the entire city center is one-way roads. I believe that the prospect for the development of Simferopol is a transition to one-way traffic. The center should prohibit parking on main highways. The cost of parking and control over the collection of money from parking; we must reduce parking spaces to improve throughput.
We talk all the time about park-and-ride systems, which are used in many cities. A person came from the suburbs, left his car, took public transport and drove off - this is also a way out of the problem.
PN: Simferopol Airport today has international status only in name. Is it possible to resume international flights and why is this not being done?
A.Ts: The airport does not organize flights, it is ready to receive them. This is a system for processing aircraft together with passengers. This is, relatively speaking, a multifunctional parking lot - there the plane will be refueled, serviced, swept, passengers will be allowed through, and inspected. Air carriers pay money for all these services that the airport provides.
As for international flights, in 14-15 we successfully launched flights to Turkey and Armenia. Unfortunately, after the change of leadership, the Ministry of Transport got busy with some other things, all this was abandoned, and no one dealt with it.
There is nothing complicated here - this needs to be done. In principle, even within the framework of the sanctions regime, these flights are possible; there are certain subtleties in both aviation legislation and international law.
Naturally, within the framework of organizing these flights, we need, first of all, political support from local officials - the Ministry of Transport, the head of the republic, and the government of the republic. Yes, there are certain nuances related to the sanctions regime, but they are being successfully resolved. Non-stop flights can be carried out by changing flight plans in the air.
People don’t care how they fly to Turkey, Armenia or somewhere else, they want to get on a plane and fly. And the fact that the plane performs certain actions in the air, descends, rises, changes its flight plan - this does not bother them at all, they do not feel it. There is nothing complicated about this - you need to take it and do it.
PN: What about air tickets? The prices for flights from Crimea to other regions of Russia are too high, is it possible to make them cheaper?
AC: Due to the fact that our air carriers operate in a dynamic price regime, as they call it, this is, in principle, a worldwide practice. There are commercial companies that are created to make a profit. Therefore, we need to work to subsidize tickets to Crimea, there is no other way. You need to work with carriers to set this price. The question here is simple - we need a subsidy, and from the federal center. As far as I know, there was a subsidy this year, it’s just that it has already been worked out. As I understand it, subsidies are distributed for each month separately. Now these tickets have already been purchased and the price is dynamic, which is much higher than in January or February. There are a certain number of cheap tickets as part of government subsidies, then they run out and growth begins.
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