Cherkisovo market

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The Cherkisovo market ( Russian Черкизовский рынок ) was in the 1990s and until mid-2009 a largely covered market on the eastern outskirts of Moscow , next to the stadium of the Lokomotiv Moscow football club . With an area of ​​well over 200 hectares (equivalent to around 150 football fields), it was the largest market in Moscow and was considered the largest market in all of Eastern Europe. In the vernacular he was also jokingly called Tscherkison or Tscherki-Sona ( Sona (zone) is a colloquial Russian term for prison camp ).

The market

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2010
At the Cherkisovo market in March 2008

The Cherkison emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. The market halls were for the most part on an area that belonged to the Russian state , more precisely to the University of Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism , and to a lesser extent also on land belonging to the city of Moscow. The market is named after the village of Cherkisovo , which used to be in its place. The catchment area from which the buyers came encompassed the entire European part of Russia. They bought cheap goods there in order to sell them again in their homeland. In addition to around 25,000 stalls for goods and services of all types and price ranges, there were also two-story market halls built from containers with illegal dormitories on the upper floor and workshops such as sewing and ironing rooms on the ground floor, tea rooms, around 300 cafes, cookshops, gambling dens, massage parlors , Translation offices, cheap medical practices of all disciplines, several mosques, prayer rooms for different religions, etc. Tajikistan even maintained a consulate on the market site for the around 17,000 citizens of the country who were active in the market. The range of goods ranged from clothing, shoes, toys, fireworks and all kinds of cheap trinkets to bull testicles and drugs.

Estimates say that 100,000 to 150,000 people worked on the area as stand tenants, wholesalers, freight forwarders, carriers, mobile toilet operators, etc. and sometimes lived in the market area for many months without leaving it. Most of them were people from the Central Asian former Soviet republics (e.g. Tajikistan ), the Caucasus , as well as Russians, Afghans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans, Indians, Pakistani, Turks, Uyghurs , mountain Jews and Syrians. Overall, the market complex housed around a dozen different sub- markets, for example Eurasia or Sirenewaja . Due to the dominance of traders of Asian origin, who formed a real Chinese quarter inside the market as an inscrutable "city within the city", in which only Chinese was spoken and Chinese characters predominated, this part of the Cherkison was also referred to as the Chinese market . According to the authorities, only around 3,000 foreigners were officially registered. In reality, however, thousands or even tens of thousands of employees are said to come from China and Vietnam. A stand with around six square meters of sales area on the Cherkisovo market cost the equivalent of over 2,200 euros a month, to be paid in advance. On top of this official court fee, there was often a 100 percent bribe to all possible authorities.

Whole freight trains headed for the market every day, trucks were unloaded every minute. Every day over a million visitors came with over 1000 (up to 5000) buses, trucks or the overcrowded night express train from the direction of Dushanbe . The net income of the market operators was recently estimated at the equivalent of more than 1.2 billion euros annually, on good days sales should have been 50 million dollars (35 million euros), other figures speak of up to 250 million euros daily. The Azerbaijani entrepreneur and billionaire Telman Izmailov controlled most of the market through his AST group.

closure

Since 1999, the Moscow city administration has carried out various raids and several unsuccessful attempts to shut it down. After Moscow's Mayor Luzhkov had eliminated 200 small markets in the city since 2002, the Russian government unsuccessfully urged the city of Moscow to close the Cherkisovo market for years. The corruption in the authorities prevented this again and again. Police officers in uniform were not allowed to enter the premises, and the migration authorities and customs were also not allowed. On August 21, 2006, the ultra-nationalist Russian group Spas (Спас) carried out a bomb attack against the market, killing 14 people. Open fires destroyed parts of the market several times.

On June 25, 2009, the head of the investigative department of the Attorney General's office demanded that the market be closed and described it as a "hellhole" and "cesspool of crime". On June 29, 2009, the Moscow administration ordered the closure and this time enforced it that same night with the help of the OMON militia without any warning . Initially it was only supposed to be for a few days until the restoration of hygienic conditions, then a period of 90 days was announced, on July 15 Mayor Luschkow announced: "The market is closed, I think forever." This was justified with violations of Fire safety and hygiene, as well as customs offenses, illegal immigration, drug abuse, prostitution, gambling and brand piracy. 36 cases of syphilis and 13 cases of AIDS were reported among the dealers . According to the Moscow Prosecutor General, 6,000 containers with contraband worth the equivalent of two billion US dollars were discovered in a raid in September 2008. Toxic toys from China were also discovered. Over 40,000 of the employees are said to have either no or falsified health papers. Vice Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko gave another reason for closing the market to protect the Russian light industry from foreign competition with dumping prices.

The real reason for the market closure is speculated in the media about differences between Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his long-standing adversary, Moscow Mayor Luzhkov, and about differences in the distribution of profits. After all, the abuses in the market would not have bothered anyone for 18 years. The pompous opening party of the Mardan Palace hotel in May 2009, at which star guests such as Sharon Stone , Richard Gere , Mariah Carey and Paris Hilton and Luzhkov as a friend of the owner Ismailov, despite the current economic crisis, was seen as a welcome trigger for the closure . This luxury hotel in the Lara district of the Turkish city of Antalya , which is also a popular destination for Russian tourists, is considered to be the "most expensive hotel in Europe" (in the Asian part of Turkey) with construction costs well over a billion euros Cherkisovo market to be financed. After the hotel opened, Izmailov also announced that he wanted to apply for Turkish citizenship , although he had become prosperous in Russia. On June 7, 2009, the state television broadcaster Rossiya broadcast a report focusing on Ismailov. Shortly before, on June 1, 2009, Prime Minister Putin asked at a government meeting why nobody had actually been arrested because of the scandalous market. Foreign policy backgrounds are also suspected in the media: shortly beforehand, the Kyrgyz government agreed to a transit base for the US military at Manas airport , against the resistance of Russia. The Kyrgyz textile industry, which sold up to 40 percent of its production there, has been particularly hard hit by the closure of the Cherkisovo market.

Consequences of the closure

According to the "Federation of Migrants in Russia" (an association of migrant workers ) at least 100,000 people were unemployed as a result of the closure, and millions of jobs were indirectly affected. According to official information, a maximum of 200,000 jobs will be lost. The city practically only supports Russians in finding a new location. According to official information, two-thirds of the 3,000 officially registered foreigners have found new jobs after the closure, including 1,200 in the “ Moscow City ” trading center and 450 in the Luzhniki market. Over 100 Chinese and Vietnamese were reportedly expelled from the country. Moscow Mayor Luzhkov said: "We will find new places for local producers, but all Chinese and Vietnamese are leaving Moscow." Larger store operators, especially Muscovites, were able to find replacement space in other stores such as the Luzhniki Market or (also from Ismailov-controlled) Warschawski-Markt. After the closure, according to the authorities, around 1,500 trucks with goods were removed, which often represent the entire assets of the small traders, who mostly live on the edge of the subsistence level. Numerous traders tried to switch to other Moscow markets, which on the one hand demand significantly higher stand leases, which few of the driven Cherkisovo traders can afford. On the other hand, the alternative markets are facing increasing competition and price dumping and have founded an anti-Cherkison association. The thousands of displaced market traders initially couldn't get hold of their goods stored in the cordoned-off market area for weeks, after which it was difficult and for high fees and bribes. Many therefore face ruin. The lack of supplies from the Cherkisovo market meant that several reseller markets in the Asian parts of Russia also had to close.

Due to the large number of Chinese affected by the closure, the government of the People's Republic of China intervened and declared the continuation of the distribution of goods in Moscow a matter of state. At the end of July, a delegation from MOFCOM , led by Vice Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng, traveled to Moscow to negotiate the future of the Chinese migrant workers. China wants to support the construction of a new trade center for 80,000 Chinese traders in the Moscow suburb of Lyubertsy for one billion US dollars, but according to the Moscow city administration this project is not yet concrete. The consequences of the closure of the market for Russian-Turkish trade relations were also discussed during a visit by Russian President Putin to Turkey in early August 2009.

The market area is now to be rededicated for the construction of apartments, hotels and public sports facilities. The demolition is to begin in September 2009. In August 2009 an investigation was initiated against Oleg Matyzin , the former rector of the University of Physical Culture, Sport and Tourism, on whose property the market was located. He is accused of having illegally rented the premises to the market operator Ismailov.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b When Moscow closed hell , Wiener Zeitung , July 18, 2009 (accessed November 14, 2013)
  2. ↑ Moscow's Chinatown , Berliner Zeitung , July 28, 2009, p. 3
  3. ↑ Cherkizovsky Market closure heralds transformation of Sino-Russian nongovernmental trade , xinhuanet.com , July 29, 2009
  4. ↑ Chinese merchants in Russia discuss future business after market closure , xinhuanet.com , August 12, 2009
  5. ↑ Chinese shopping mall to be built in closed Cherkizovsky Market  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Global Times , July 30, 2009@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / business.globaltimes.cn  
  6. ↑ Moscow Denies Plan For Chinese Market ( Memento of the original from August 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , The Moscow Times , July 31, 2009 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.moscowtimes.ru
  7. ↑ Moscow Market Crackdown Strains Turkish-Russian Trade Relations , The Jamestown Foundation (ed.): Eurasia Daily Monitor, Volume 6, Issue 144, July 28, 2009
  8. ↑ The area of ​​the Cherkisovo market becomes a sports center , Russia News , July 21, 2009
  9. ↑ Dismantling of Moscow's Cherkizovsky market to begin in September , RIA Novosti , August 10, 2009
  10. ↑ [1]  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , The Moscow News, No. 30, August 11, 2009@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / mnweekly.ru  

Coordinates: 55 ° 48 ′ 0 ″  N , 37 ° 45 ′ 9 ″  E