Fire Safety Inspection, Russian Style

This episode had taken place when I lived in Moscow, Russia. Russia is sadly known for bribery and corruption, and Victor, a friend of ours, had a chance to experience some of it first-hand.

Victor had started his own business, a hardware store, if I'm not mistaken. The building had to be inspected for fire safety. Victor did not expect any trouble when the inspector had arrived, he knew the store met all the requirements. However, there was a problem. The inspector wanted a bribe.

That is, he did not openly say so. Not on the first day. He just went around the building, checked whatever he was supposed to check, and informed Victor of numerous violations, clearly made up. "I'm not signing your fire safety papers," he said.

Another inspection was scheduled; Victor did his best to comply with the inspector's orders - only to see more "violations" found and to hear once again that the building did not meet the required safety standards.

Now, some of you might ask why Victor hadn't demanded a printed copy of the fire regulations and an official report stating what exactly was wrong - or something like that. Well, things work in their own special way in that part of the world. You can demand all you want, and you may or may not receive an official response. What it boils down to is that in order to operate your store, you need the fire papers signed. And it is up to the inspector whether to sign them or not.

I don't recall how many "inspections" Victor had had before he lost his patience and confronted the man. "The building is fine," he said, "I can see you are doing this on purpose, making stuff up to keep me from opening my store. What do you want?"

The inspector was quick to reply; this must have been the question he waited for. "A Jacuzzi tub," he said. "Nice and new. And not just packed in a box, I want it brought to my house and installed."

Victor did his best to hold down his anger. And he instantly knew what to do. Showing no emotion, he said, as if thinking aloud, "Well, let's see here. A good new Jacuzzi tub is somewhere around $3,000, perhaps $3,500. Delivery would be $100-$150, installation $300. So we are talking about roughly $4,000... Nope, it's not worth it. Hiring a killer to take care of you will cost me much less."

I don't know whether I'd recommend Victor's approach, but in his case, it worked. All the "violations" were instantly gone, safety papers signed, and he had no trouble from the fire inspector ever again.