Abstract
ABSTRACTThis article focuses on Russian traders operating in China, particularly in Yiwu, the major commercial hub for the ‘small commodity’ trade, and explores the idea of the ‘Russian merchant’ prevalent in Russia today. Rather than examining the new commercial culture from the perspective of global neoliberalism, it deals with Russia’s pre-Soviet merchant estate (soslovie) and its present-day political-ideological evocations. While there is no direct cultural-professional continuity between pre-Soviet and post-Soviet merchants, some similarities have come to the fore and have been encouraged by the state and the Church. This is due to the promotion of a particular moral economy wherein the ‘Russian merchant’ figures as a positive category. Using a case study of a Russian trader in Yiwu, the article illustrates the new ways in which mistrust as well as ‘traditional’ merchant attributes such as patriotism and patriarchal authority, have been harnessed to create a successful Russian transnational business.
Highlights
During the final years of the Soviet state, a mass of ordinary and not-so-ordinary citizens from different professional and social backgrounds entered the novel sphere of entrepreneurship
I turn to the articulations of moral economy in interconnected spaces: a case study of ‘Russian merchant innovation’ in China – a Russian trading company organised as a micro-enclave – and its headquarters in Russia
А Russian wholesale company based in Yiwu that I call ‘the Corporation’, which has grown out of the efforts of a small trader, illustrates how mistrust is harnessed to achieve economic success and how together with the patriotic-traditionalist discourse it forges a model of Russian moral economy
Summary
During the final years of the Soviet state, a mass of ordinary and not-so-ordinary citizens from different professional and social backgrounds entered the novel sphere of entrepreneurship. This article focuses on Russian traders operating in China, in Yiwu, the major commercial hub for the ‘small commodity’ trade, and explores the idea of the ‘Russian merchant’ prevalent in Russia today.
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