Nakhlebnichestvo (Russia, Ukraine, and FSU)

Nakhlebnichestvo 🇷🇺
Location: Russia, Ukraine, and FSU
Definition: Taking advantage of someone else's ideas or resources
Keywords: Russia – Ukraine – FSU – Rule-bending – Trickster – Parasitism
Clusters: Free-riding
Author: Danylo Cherevatskyi and Irina Shaparovska
Affiliation: Institute of Industrial Economics of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine in Kyiv, Ukraine

By Danylo Cherevatskyi and Irina Shaparovska, Institute of industrial economics of National Academy of Science of Ukraine in Kyiv, Ukraine

Nakhlebnichestvo is a long-standing phenomenon in the region. The image of a nakhlebnik is frequent in the nineteenth-century Russian literature, with the most famous literary characters depicted in Ivan Turgenev’s play 'Nakhlebnik' (Turgenev 1857) and Fyodor Dostoevskiy’s novel 'The Village Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants' (Dostoevskij 1850). Those characters are described as impoverished people of noble descent, living in the landowner’s or merchant’s house out of mercy at the hosts’ expense, without any defined obligations.

A cult novel depicting the controversies of the Soviet Union in the 1930s, 'The Golden Calf', highlights a character of a clandestine millionaire Alexander Ivanovich Koreiko, who conducted his business in from the modest position of an accountant and followed principles similar to those given to the spirit of present-day recommendations. "If you can be a parasitic company", a well-known business guru instructs, "look for ways to use someone else's assets, figure out ways in which you can sell your product through other companies" (Lukyanov 2018).

“He [Koreiko] traded in bakery products, cloth, sugar, textiles – everything. And he was alone, all alone with his millions. Large- and small-scale scoundrels worked for him in different parts of the country, but they had no idea who they were working for. Koreiko acted exclusively through front men. And only he knew the length of the chain through which the money was coming to him.” (Ilf, Petrov 1961: 65).

In the Soviet Union, where living without a job has been outlawed see Brodiazhnichestvo (USSR), nakhlebnichestvo has become associated with the privileges, perks and other piggybacking possibilities associated with jobs. In particular, intelligence services enjoyed a privileged position in a society, capable of converting their power to economic or other advantages. For example, intelligence could be piggybacking on various sectors and exhibitions of the achievements of the Soviet Union. This was the pattern of GRU’s operations [the Soviet Union's top-secret military intelligence organization]. “Every exhibition attracts the GRU’s interest, whether it be an exhibition of military electronics, tanks, cats, agricultural machinery, or flowers... Who goes to these exhibitions? People with a lot of money, who are connected with the world of finance, of big business and big politics. Exhibitions are attended by counts and marquises, ministers and their secretaries. All sorts of people go to exhibitions. Of course, you have to know how to piggyback” (Suvorov 1986: 241-242).

In the modern world, the concept of a nakhlebnichestvo is fundamentally different, the expectation of mercy from the hosts has been replaced with the aspiration of the nakhlebnik to 'piggyback on someone' – to impose their presence on the host in order to get something at their else's expense (Grachev 2003: 827). “And if boredom overcomes me, I will piggyback someone, drink vodka with some folks...” (Maksimov 2018). Drinking, eating, and use of drugs are common forms of nakhlebnichestvo, known as ‘sponging on friends’ in English-speaking cultures, or gorroneo in Hispanic ones. On the one hand, the modern context of the piggybacking is not limited to the use of relationships and connections. On the other, it is not illegal. Converting one’s position into business profits can vary in form and degree of intrusiveness and may provide counterintuitive development.

For example, a popular Ukrainian weather website, Sinoptik.ua, is not concerned with meteorological research as such but makes money from advertising. It reproduces data from the Finnish meteorological service Foreca. Similarly, a major American TV channel, the Weather Channel, uses the data and forecasts of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (noaa.gov), a federal agency of the US Department of Commerce that monitors weather conditions and issues warnings of danger in times of destructive disasters (Watkins & Stark 2018: 70).

On a larger scale and degree of invasiveness, an online retailer Amazon used a company Best Buy's retail stores as its own showrooms. ‘In 2008 Amazon introduced a mobile phone application linked to the phone’s camera. Users were encouraged to take pictures of products inside brick-and-mortar stores, which the app would search for in Amazon’s stock. Amazon’s offerings were typically at a lower price-point, because Amazon did not have to sustain the overhead of a physical presence. Shoppers could check out new digital products in Best Buy and then buy them from Amazon, all while standing inside Best Buy (Watkins & Stark 2018: 68).

Nakhlebnnichestvo can take forms of subtle parasitism. The use of investments from other companies is becoming increasingly common. It costs a lot of money to build your own customer base, but market entry can be made significantly cheaper and easier if you 'tailgate' and take advantage of a ready-made customer base. In the age of digitalization, this happens even without permission. WhatsApp, founded in 2009, is a digital messaging app built on top of the pre-existing contact lists in users’ mobile phones. After a user downloads the app, WhatsApp automatically imports the users’ contacts from their phone’s native contact management program (Watkins & Stark 2018: 68).

An utmost degree of parasitism can be found in the case of the state-owned coal mining enterprises in Ukraine. These economic entities are nakhlebniki not only because they exist as unprofitable entities at the expense of subsidies from the state budget, but because they are piggybacking the state and benefit from the deterioration of their economic situation by receiving higher subsidies. In addition, they are piggybacking electricity suppliers by not paying for the consumed electricity, aware that the disconnection of water drainage plants is fraught with flooding of mines (Cherevatsky, Kotliarenko, Stibliy 2018).

Modern nakhlebnnichestvo is multidisciplinary, it results in not only tangible, but also intangible assets, such as goodwill, reputation, or a famous brand. To avoid the exploitation of an existing brand, the Russian Federation Arbitration Court has annulled the registration of a trademark Vacheron Constantin in the category clothing because of its similarity to the famous Swiss trademark in the category watches (Rospatent 2012). It is therefore appropriate to speak of an economy of nakhlebnnichestvo, an international phenomenon that becomes increasingly widespread and needs monitoring.

References

Cherevatsky, D., Kotliarenko, D., Stibliy, A. 2019. ‘In Anticipation of an Investor.’ The Mirror Weekly. May 18-24, issue no.18

Dostoevskij, F. M. 1850. Selo Stepanchikovo i ego obitateli. Otechestvennye zapiski. V. CXXVII. November. P. 65–206. December. P. 343–410. [in Russian]

Grachev, M. A. 2003. Slovar tisyacheletnego russkogo argo - 27000 slov i vyrazhenii [Dictionary of the millennial Russian argo: 27,000 words and expressions]. M._ RIPOL KLASSIK

Ilf, I., Petrov, E. 1961. The Golden Calf: Collected Works, Moscow: State Publishing House of Fiction Literature. Vol. 2

Lukyanov, D. 2018. The Russian style start-up. Business Reboot. 2nd edition. Moscow: LitRes. URL: https://books.google.com.ua/books?id=zHJmDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT103&lpg=PT103&dq=паразитирование+в+бизнесе&source=bl&ots=Sh4wu5C9GQ&sig=ACfU3U0Mtv4jaZGqRS9XCJ8b8bbd35-_Mw&hl=ru&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-y7e-goruAhVOPBoKHVobB9M4KBDoATAJegQIBRAC#v=onepage&q&f=true

Maksimov, V.P. 2018. Zhivaja dusha [Live soul]. Veche [in Russian]

Rospatent. 2012. Policy Brief on Disputes Related to the Legal Protection of the Intellectual Property and Means of Differentiation. URL: https://rospatent.gov.ru/ru/documents/analiticheskaya-spravka-po-sporam-svyazannym-s-pravovoy-ohranoy-rezultatov-intellektualnoy-deyatelnosti-i-sredstv-individualizacii-za-2012-g/download

Suvorov, V. 1985. The career and defection of a Soviet military spy. Harper Collins Publishers

Turgenev, I. S. 1857. Chuzhoj khleb (Nakhlebnik). Komediya v dvuh dejstviyah. Sovremennik. 3. [in Russian]

Watkins, E. A., Stark, D. 2018. ‘The Möbius Organizational Form: Make, Buy, Cooperate, or Co-opt.’ Sociologica 12 (1): 65-80