Word: fyodorov
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...queue at 36 Kropotkinskaya Street extends around the corner of the elegant green-and-cream 19th century building. People are waiting patiently for a chance to experience one of the first visible signs of economic reform, a free-enterprise restaurant. "We've got a big problem here," Manager Andrei Fyodorov says. "Too many customers...
Some problem. Fyodorov, 44, is co-chairman of the eight-member cooperative that opened Moscow's first such venture last March. He and his seven partners, most of them experienced cooks or waiters, are investing in a business that will prosper -- or fail -- without government interference. "We never imagined we would do this well," says the energetic, chain-smoking co- chairman. Cafe 36 Kropotkinskaya, as they named the restaurant (bureaucrats wanted it to be called Cafe Cooperator), is a consequence of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms legalizing small-scale private enterprise. One of the goals is to improve the country...
...Three of us put up a total of 4,500 rubles ($6,750) of our own savings," says Fyodorov, a former hotel food-service director. "The state bank loaned us 50,000 rubles (($75,000)) interest-free to pay for renovating and furnishing this building. We have to pay that back over five years. We got another 10,000 rubles' (($15,000)) credit at 3% interest for start-up costs, but we've only needed 5,000." The loans paid for the restoration and redecoration of an elegant old building in turn-of-the-century style, including damask wall coverings...
During the hectic start-up, the partners put in 16-hour days, which began early in the morning at farmers' markets and collective farms, where they paid premium prices for top-quality meat and produce. Says Fyodorov: "Before, we were accustomed to having somebody tell us everything. Now we have to think for ourselves." Despite the long line outside, Fyodorov worries. "Who knows how it will be a year from now? There are 50 other cooperatives planning to open restaurants in Moscow, and soon we'll face harsh old capitalist competition...
Soviet health officials hope to build more eye-operation factories around the country. The approach not only lowers costs, says Fyodorov, but may actually improve the quality of operations by permitting each surgeon "to perform the part of the operation that he does best." Someday, Fyodorov predicts, appendectomies and even heart surgery will be assembly-line products...