If you bought a car in Russia a year or longer ago, you may remember that getting the "tehosmotr" was nearly impossible. (Tehosmotr is a government certificate verifying that a vehicle is up-to-date in its maintenance, technical, and safety features). Absurdly enough, the brand new cars must receive the certificate as well, which, logically, makes you wonder - what is the job of the federal commission that allows the supposedly unsafe, poorly designed vehicles to the market. Logic aside, the easiest way to get a card was to find online (or by phone via friends) a traffic police officer who could "take care" of the problem for $100-200. The little card saying that your car is just fine would've been delivered to your office.
Medvedev's fight against the corruption changed the playing field. He won; corruption (and people) lost. My relative who recently bought a car, tried to get the government certificate via the old method. Apparently, the corrupt way was not an option anymore, and he had to get his documents the legal way. Sure enough, Medvedev, who raves about modernization and innovation, inspired the traffic inspection to allow drivers register for an appointment on a website. With one caveat - an appointment is allocated to a driver at a random time and day out of any of 30 days in the system. No problem. The relative drove to the inspection's physical office. There were 30 cars waiting to be inspected, the line was two days long.
He could sign up for a place in line, but had to stay there until the line reached him, or--if the office closes for the day--come back the first thing in the morning, and get back in line. The relative went to another location. 112 cars there, people camped outside to get in line, and are awaiting their turns. Finally, a friend within the traffic police gave my relative a valuable advice - there was an office with only 12 cars in line. The new car owner went there, got in line, and got his appointment ticket at midnight. Tomorrow morning, he will have to come back with the car at 7 am and... wait in line. Hopefully he will get his car inspected before the office closes in the evening. Otherwise, leave at midnight, come back at 7 am on Monday. All this nonsense makes you wonder - are Russians--and especially the Russian government--ready to live without the corruption? Maybe the government's stupidity costs more to the economy than corruption does?...
I had four cars in Russia over the period of ten years. I had no problem with "techosmotr" or routine official technical check up. Paid nothing to police other than official fees. Corruption problem is blown up out of proportion. Vast majority of population never pays or receives any corruption money. Many of sad stories of the kind above are especially construed for foreign listeners. Yesterday I've heard a sad story of a foreigner been detained in Russian airport in the 1990s. Reason? Tried to illegally get 20 cans of caviar out of the country. Too sad.
$100 to $200 for a "ok" operate certificate is great. I just got a ticket for an expired transit sticker on a minivan from the Astoria city police for $1000.00 !!! (a late fee). Now tell me folks, where is the economic rent problem more flagrant, russia or the USA? We have the example of entron, halliburton, etc. Noone has executed any officials for such in the US of a, that I know of. (compare Chinese style justice- which seems more a disincentive to such economic rents.) I say Russia is doing quite well on its own terms. God forbid they should ever follow our example of flagrant corruption. Maybe that is why Thomas Jefferson advocated periodic revolutions, just as a matter of course, stating that it would be necessary "housecleaning". As usual - he was right.
Lois Dupey
Mid Columbian Sin Cayuse Nation