The secret of lending

For my first field experience in microfinance, I set off to our newly christened branch on the metro. Samara’s was a rather unusual metro comprising of one line that linked the outskirts of town with its very outskirts, and the last three stations to the center were in eternal construction since USSR’s break-up. Building a metro from the outskirts in was kind of like building a house from the roof down, dysfunctional at best, so everyone took marshrutkas to Samara’s river-side downtown. Nevertheless, what was built of it replicated the grandeur of Moscow’s metro on a smaller scale. Laid out in polished granite, the metro was spacious and ventilated, with high ceilings. Quite unlike the New York subway, this metro neither smelled, nor abounded in rats and trash. The trains themselves were old, but well-maintained, with coarse leather seats, fading “No Leaning on Doors” orders, and even air-conditioning units on one side. Naturally, passengers avoided the air conditioning draft like death and sat underneath the units. After observing continuous flares over our office conditioner where those sitting under it demonstratively shuddered, coughed and blew their un-congested noses at each attempt to turn it on, I was now used to the Russian fear of drafts. It seemed to me that only Gorbachev could have come to love the “Winds of Change” after all. The stations whizzing past were all well-preserved remnants of socialist realism: faceless wrestlers, skiers and hockey players flexed their muscles in massive mosaics at the “Sport” station, futuristic rocket and space displays splashed over “Gagarin,” while elaborate chandeliers with sickle and hammer emblems graced the marble interior of “Victory.”

Emerging from the metro I saw some of Putin’s wisdom on a large United Russia bill-board, “… together we must make Russia united and strong…” V.V. Putin. A little further down, Putin’s celebrity cult graced yet another billboard. Alongside the lead singer of patriotic Russian band “Lube” and some pop diva on her cell, Putin advertised main-stream newspaper Komsomol Truth. As he held up the newspaper, his serious face melted in gleeful limpness, lips parting in what could be almost construed as a smile: “On the way to work, I always read the Komsomolka.” I marveled at the President’s chameleon presence in the public and private realms.

Silence reigned over the branch where traces of Friday’s christening had been swept away. Clients dropped in, filled out forms, shush-shushed with loan officers and left. Nadia, the loan officer I came to shadow, was a demure petite Russian with short blond hair, green eyes and neat version of the “ghetto booty.” Out of breath, our client whirled into the office tightly clutching her cell-phone, and began a flabbergasted account of her tardiness between the huffs, “Hello Nadia, I’m so sorry for being late. I got off on “Victory” thinking it was the right station and then realized I had to walk three long blocks to your office. I took this cell phone in case you called, but the only thing I know is to say, “Hello, hello!” on it. I don’t understand these buttons, and can’t see a thing on the screen without my glasses.”

Irina Mihalkova was a bustling Russian in her fifties clad in black rubber sandals, a loose brown skirt and well-ironed crochet top through which peered out her white bra. With business-like self-confidence she carried a brown leather brief-case considerably worn on the edges and puffing out with all sorts of papers, and the most favored Russian accessory, a plastic shopping bag,. Irina was quite rotund in circumference, and had streaks of white running through her wavy brown hair, which was neatly pulled back into a tight bun. Her genial expression radiated a lively mix of initiative and kindness.

A bit awkward with my presence, especially after Nadia’s introduction as coming from America, which I contradicted by saying that I was actually from Kyrgyzstan, Irina began to fidget. She was reapplying for a loan for her fruit and vegetable stands. Nadia guided Irina through the application line by line, and Irina kept asking if she was writing in the right spaces, was she allowed to continue onto a new line, and how should she record numerical data. All these unsure gestures betrayed a weariness of bureaucratic forms, and while I doubted that my company’s team-oriented, open-door mentality embraced Soviet-style customer service or lack thereof, years of murky bureaucracies ruled by furies akin to Lubov had engrained this paranoia deep inside Irina. Irina also discussed her business details in a hushed tone, leaning into Nadia and intermittently huffing in an attempt to disguise these secrets from the other clients.

Through the huffing and puffing I made out that Irina started trading fruit and vegetables in late eighties, and had expanded to three bazaar stands, which her son also joined after university. They operated the stands together, paying workers to sell vegetables at two bazaars, while Irina traded herself at the third: she didn’t trust the hired saleswomen and liked to deal with customers on her own. The real reason for her loan, however, was the evil in-law who had never worked a day in her life and unscrupulously demanded Irina’s earnings for her son’s household. Irina came for the loan in order to strike out on her own. Ever the doting mother, she was willing to give up the other stands to her ungrateful son, although I wondered if the pitiful story was concocted to lull us into the loan. The hushed in-law laments continued on the metro as we rode to her first bazaar stand, and petite Nadia had no choice but to lean into Irina’s large maternal breast to be able to hear her. When we arrived there I finally learned why Samara’s shops were filled with rotten produce. Irina, along with other traders, bought her produce en masse from a base outside of town, which apparently received vegetables from all over the former USSR. Another Soviet tradition, this senseless centralization resulted in over-ripe, bruised and rotten produce. Irina informed me that traders from as far as Moscow came to this base. Her vegetables, although well presented, looked pitiful. I touched a cucumber, soft as play dough.

Our trip to Irina’s second trading point close to the city center was by “marshrutka” minivan, which was as well-maintained as the metro with blue leather seats, no smell, and clean passengers. After my last visit to Kyrgyzstan I tried to avoid public transport in this part of the world due to its lack of basic hygiene and poor ventilation. Thus, I was very relieved to have discovered it vice versa here. The sound of sirens approached our van, an ambulance turning onto the road. Its driver expertly puffed down a cigarette while his tan hairy arms forcefully rotated the steering wheel. The quintessential Russian ambulance experience: smoke, sirens and traffic.

At the second trading stand Irina was well-known. “It’s so nice to see you boss, finally!” exclaimed the saleswoman. Other bazaar traders came around for a chat, forming a relaxed welcoming community. Nadia carried on with her check up while I observed the bazaar. This little market had a small pensioner row where wrinkled grannies in kerchiefs, weathered dresses and worn-down shoes boisterously praised their home-grown herbs. The customers were also pensioners, buying a few pieces of produce here and there. Two elderly ladies looked at Irina’s eggplants, “Poor eggplants, they look like they are ready to go to the grave before us.”

A tall thin rake of a man popped out from the roadside with boxes of soft cucumbers and plums, Irina’s son. Although it was already mid-afternoon, he was still carting the produce to the stalls. The son’s wrinkles, unshaved face and willowy frame made him look much older than could be expected of someone who had finished university not long ago. He anxiously bustled around the stall, “Who are these people?! What are they doing here! Why are they looking at my things? What’s their business looking at my books!?”
Irina took him aside, “I’ll tell you later why they are here.”
Nadia continued copying transaction ledgers. The son didn’t back down, “I am the owner of this business! I don’t let anyone examine anything without my permission!”
Irina corrected him, “You and I are the owners of this business, and I gave them my permission.”
This had momentarily quieted him, giving the other traders a chance to voice their indignation, “Barking like a dog already. Look at him, what a great boss, eh!”
At this the man approached me and angrily asked, “You, girl, who are you?”
I was so taken aback by this rudeness that my eyes morphed into a round O and mouth opened about to tell him that we were here to give Irina a loan, but hesitated over devolving the financial matter of our visit. Nadia came to my rescue just in time. The son posed the same angry question to her, which Nadia calmly answered, “I’m Nadia. And would you introduce yourself please?” Irina’s secret was intact.
“I am the owner of this business! I didn’t authorize any inspections here!”
When we finished our inspection Irina was calming down her son, all the while refusing to tell him why we were there. I felt bad for doubting her story, which seemed to have had some truth after all.

Secrecy continued at the third and final check point where Irina traded herself.
“Not trading today, how come?” asked one trader, greeting her with warmth.
“I have visiting relatives here,” Irina pointed to us, “I’m showing my hospitality to my guests.”
“I thought you were dressed too smartly today,” another trader chimed in.

Irina received a call from which she excused herself citing that it was her “banny den,” sauna day. The sauna is a blissful indulgence where Russians spend their entire day stark naked slapping each other with fragrant birch branches, sweating in a hot wooden chamber, and sipping on cognac afterward, before snoozing into a siesta. The best thing about Russian sauna in the winter is rolling around in snow between the intolerably hot sweating sessions, which was always thoroughly enjoyed by mother’s American girlfriends when we lived in Kazakhastan. Public saunas used to be quite popular in the Soviet Union and ranged from uni-sex to co-ed, although most frequented the same-sex establishments. Anyone with a sauna in their backyard became popular in the neighborhood, and we made frequent trips to our neighbors’ sauna. As Irina was having her sauna day at the bazaar, I couldn’t help noticing that everyone received a different story on her whereabouts. Secrecy was in the air. Lastly, we had to check Irina’s cash reserves, which she brought with her, not owning a bank account. At this point it began to look like we were dealing something not entirely legal. We found a shady corner near the bazaar entrance. Nadia and Irina turned their backs from the street and fumbled inside her plastic bag while I flanked them, keeping an eye on the neighboring vendor stalls. The plastic bag was Irina’s ruse against potential thieves and the brief-case just a set-up prop. Having counted Irina’s stash we quietly dispersed. Irina walked me to my bus stop. On the way she saw an ice-cream stand, and heartily offered to feed me ice-cream. I politely declined, thanking her for the kindness. Then she made sure to physically deliver me to my minivan, and shouted to the driver, “Please don’t forget to stop on Gagarina, she is a guest and doesn’t know the town well!”

Irina’s warm-hearted kindness and care for me as her guest were certainly touching, but even more amazing to me was all the secrecy around her loan, and most of all, the fashion of transporting her life savings in a plastic bag. A recent conversation with another loan officer, Alena came to mind, “These are the most difficult people. They won’t discuss their financial situation with anyone. They apply for a loan and I ask them “Why do you need this loan?” They say, “To expand my business.” Naturally I need to know about their business in order to estimate their payment capacity, but they refuse to tell me. They learned this new capitalist phrase, “confidential” and confuse it with “top secret.” Everything about their business is private, confidential, and secret! Getting anything out of these people is like pulling their golden teeth from them!” Thus, when it comes to money, no Russian would ever tell you honestly how much he makes. If you ever asked a Russian how his business is doing, he would say, “Business is running bit by bit, we manage,” especially if business was prospering. All monetary transactions are shrouded in secrecy even within families amidst cloudy stories like Irina’s. In similar ways, people don’t like to seem happy. When asked, “How are you?” very rarely would a Russian reply with “Great, ” and the preferred answers are typically “I’m ok,” or “Things are going slowly,” and finally, “Things could be better, you know everything is so expensive.” I wonder if the habit of hiding one’s affairs and even emotions is yet another chip on their shoulder left from the USSR’s fall.