Until the mid-1980s, wood processing industry, together with tourism and agriculture, was one of the region’s driving forces. Before the collapse of the USSR, this sector was especially well developed in the southern area of the region – the Otradnensky, Apsheronsk and Mostovskoi rayons. All has changed now.
“Lots of different goods were made there – from wooden spoons to furniture,” says agrarian sociologist, Professor Aitech Khagurov. “Say, in the Apsheronsk rayon there were villages entirely engaged in the industry. Now they are disappearing as settlements – like the township of Rezhet with just 7 inhabitants, compared to up to 1,000 in the Soviet time.
Woodworking was flourishing not only in remote areas – there were three big furniture factories in the city of Krasnodar: Kuban, Kavkaz and Krasnodar, as well as a great many of small enterprises and joiner’s shops. Today the situation is totally different – we have business centres and malls on the sites of former furniture productions.”
The main reason of the decay is lack of vocational system, says the entrepreneur Sergei Borisov: “I sell German and Swiss-made lathes and woodworking machines throughout the Caucasus, and I can say that many colleges are well-equipped – but nobody wants to work on that equipment.
Today there are only 2 vocational colleges in the region that teach future joiners and cabinetmakers.
Under current embargo conditions, the imported furniture has become much mor expensive, for its prices are tied to the currency exchange rates. And the niche of cheap but good furniture has been occupied by the factories from North West Russia and the Volga region – however, we could have been on their place.
The situation is difficult but not hopeless. The Krasnodar region has long-standing traditions in this sphere: our raw materials sources are the best in the country, and the import substitution policy supposes that the state budget should render aid to the industry. And – we have professionals that are prepared to transfer their knowledge to the youth. So the issue is just to reset the vocational system – and to reset it urgently.
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