Post-Soviet racketeers offered farmers protection for monthly payments

Evidence

In an interview in Repubblica in late 1990, Gennady Filshin, deputy economic minister of the Russian Republic, predicted a vast increase in the number of new private farms. In January 1992 it was reported that, in the wake of price deregulation, private farmers in the Kemerovo region of Siberia had been victimized by armed men stealing their cattle and poultry. These racketeers promised to leave the farmers alone for a monthly payment of 5,000 rubies. Instead of paying, the farmers, through their association, requested permission to carry firearms (Kuranty, January 22, 1992). In March of the same year private farmers of the Cheliabinsk region in the Urals received permission to carry shotguns to protect their lives and property in the aftermath of a spate of crime. Under an agreement with the farmers’ association, the police were prepared to patrol their property (Megalopolis-Continent, March 16, 1992). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 668

Categorization

• XREF: Concrete narrative evidence of the exact protection-extortion mechanics Gambetta models for Sicily — farmers resort to self-armament when state protection fails, mirroring the Sicilian lemons-and-protection dynamic.
• CANDY: Siberian farmers being offered protection by armed gangs for 5,000 rubles a month after price deregulation is a vivid, self-contained anecdote.