Garbar Leonid Petrovich Central. Leonid Garbar: “There are not enough artisans in the restaurant business. Leonid Petrovich Garbar

Leonid GARBAR, President of the Federation of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers of the North-West - about the potential of regional cuisine and the trend Back in USSR.

– Leonid Petrovich, what are the forecasts for 2017 for the St. Petersburg restaurant business?

Restaurateur Leonid GARBAR

- Both for the coming year and for the next three years, all forecasts and expectations are related to the Confederations Cup - 2017 and the World Cup in 2018. This is in addition to the prospects that the gradual transformation of St. Petersburg into a forum platform for business activity gives us. In addition to forum participants, we now have up to seven million tourists a year, and sports will also provide an influx of fans. So, the appearance of new sports bars will become natural.
In general, in terms of the industry situation, the promotion of St. Petersburg at the international level will continue. In May, we are waiting for a high-level event - the breakfast of the chefs of the world. In 2020, we will host the World Congress of the Association of Chef Societies, which has been held every two years since the first congress in 1928 in Paris. This was announced at the last congress, in Thessaloniki, Greece. In the international competition for the venue, the candidacy of St. Petersburg outperformed Lyon and Sydney in the final, and there were 12 applications from candidate cities in total.

– How can we surprise you in 2017? In tourism, "red routes" have been developed for organized groups from China. And in the restaurant business: will there be a bet on the symbols of October
in the year of the 100th anniversary of the revolution?

- The surge is already slightly manifested, but to a greater extent in Moscow. An example is the Doctor Zhivago restaurant near Red Square. We have a restaurant "Kommunalka" on the Petrograd side ...

- You also opened a restaurant of Soviet cuisine. Within walking distance from Smolny…

– This restaurant is a tribute to the memory of the 1960s and 1970s. The tastes of childhood, the hobbies of youth. Gift to friends. By the way, Soviet cuisine itself - it was the same everywhere, with one cookbook for the entire Soviet Union, which was called a collection of recipes. The menus of different cities coincided by 95%, some additions were made only to specialties.
But not everything was so monotonous and bad. If they followed the norms and were afraid of OBHSS, it turned out great. Remember the Kiev cutlet in the Leningrad "Metropol"! There, since the post-war years, Ali Abdurakhmanovich Babikov was in charge of production, everyone called him Oleg Ivanovich. His ability to maintain standards and quality brought the restaurant all-Union fame. In Leningrad Kiev cutlets they cooked amazingly in two places: in the Metropol and in the restaurant of the Pulkovo-1 airport. It was a very good, almost foreign-tourist restaurant, as there was a high turnover of products.
“However, in our Leningrad youth, we didn’t go to the Metropol,” 56-year-old Leonid Garbar clarifies today. - Most often, our restaurant was the front door or the Foundry Garden, which is at the rear of the halls of the Public Library on the Fontanka. What did they drink? Port wine. The girls had "Tamyanka", a kind of ladies' drink, Bulgarian. There was a wonderful Romanian "Murfatlar", now it's impossible to get it ... I lived on Nevsky, 74. In a communal apartment with 11 rooms and 35 tenants, where neighbors learned to cook from each other. Tatars made belyashi, Jews - stuffed fish, necks and forshmak. My mother, originally from Western Ukraine, cooked dumplings with cottage cheese or potatoes with cracklings. Across the road, at the corner of Nevsky and Vladimirsky in the Solovyevsky grocery store, later "Diet", for breakfast before classes at the film technical school, I bought 50 grams doctor's sausage sliced, French bread for 7 kopecks with a crispy crust ... Everything was very tasty and healthy! In all that time, I ate a pineapple once.

- At the elections? I remember that pineapples were sold every few years: at polling stations ...

- No, they bought it in the Eliseevsky store. Bananas I ate five times, probably. I know friends whose dream of eating a banana came true when the Iron Curtain opened. On the first trips abroad, - Leonid Garbar recalls the realities of that nostalgic "USSR that we lost." From what is lost in the post-Soviet public catering landscape, he calls patties:
- I feel sorry for the Pirozhkovs. On the corner of Sadovaya and Nevsky, next to the Molodezhny cinema, three steps down, in the basement: there was an amazing, exemplary pie shop. It could be set as an example for the whole city. It was only later that I realized why. You see, everything was bad everywhere. And everyone had to survive in public catering - bring something home: meat, flour, and everything else, and at the same time give something to the hall. And if they don’t cook according to the standards, then it doesn’t turn out very tasty. And if it has fallen into disrepair, then it’s scary. At school, I once got poisoned with a cutlet for 7 kopecks - I was in the hospital for a month.
So, the entrance to this unique pie shop was three steps down. And on the left, three steps up, was the entrance to the public catering department of the Kuibyshev region. The pie shop was wonderful. Better than "Minute" on Nevsky. And even the one on the corner of Belinsky and Liteiny, in which my father regaled me from the age of three, because he worked as a gas boiler operator in the next house.
- We talked about the Soviet direction, - continues Leonid Garbar. - In general, I am for the domestic, my own direction, and not the exotic. Tourists who come to our city want to try something local, national, local. No need to offer pasta to a tourist from Italy. Promising classic Russian menu. Someone is fond of the royal menu, someone is a simple noble, peasant, oven - Russian culinary culture is diverse. Young chefs begin to create a new Russian cuisine - traditional, but in new technologies and techniques. It is difficult to install a Russian stove in a restaurant, but you can buy an analogue of the equipment and cook the same porridge in pots. They do it in Moscow and it's very interesting. In St. Petersburg there is also a regionality of products. After the imposition of sanctions, willy-nilly, you turn to the domestic market and think about what you can cook from now. However… I have not yet seen a single restaurant closed due to sanctions. Closed due to poor management.

Leonid Grabar: “If you want to return to good nostalgia, I’ll tell you: Moskovsky Prospekt! Exit the metro station "Park Pobedy" and turn left 300-400 meters to the airport. A very inconspicuous entrance, and in the vestibule you can make three shawarmas. Pirozhkovaya since 1956, the people are always from opening to closing. There are no fried meat pies, but there are belyashi, very worthy. When I find myself in those places, I can’t help but go. I always take two sausages in dough and coffee. I compared this sausage there and the one I took in the sideboard of the Mariinsky Palace - it's not just day and night, it's the moon and the earth.

It so happened that in post-Soviet St. Petersburg the word "Central" (in one form or another) surprisingly personified the ideas of the development of society as a whole. Starting with the broken "Central Station" era of the sunset of the nineties and ending with the centralization of power in the zero ( the legendary gay club on Lomonosov opened in 2005, the editors suggest that, in the author's interpretation, the sunset of the nineties dragged on for another decade - approx. ed.). And now, in the era of sanctions and the heyday of patriotism, the baton was intercepted by the restaurant "Central" .

The disdainfully gray façade of the house near Smolny and alternately front and slightly modern halls manage to play with contrasts very subtly, creating a general mood vector with a completely different approach to design. Therefore, for some, "Central" will become a place with white tablecloths, curtains and a huge chandelier. To some, it will seem like a spectacular two-story bar with Soviet posters and characteristic bottles of Crimean port wine on the shelves. Others will casually occupy the VIP-hall. Because the interior is interior, and lunch is on schedule.

The menu of the "Central" is about as self-confident as the average deputy of the Legislative Assembly. With only one difference: this menu, unlike the work of most deputies, can be rightly proud of. The list of dishes itself, from assorted pike-perch, salmon and sturgeon, or Petrovsky shchi covered with puff pastry to, for example, ministerial schnitzel, seems understandable, logical and almost ideally suited to the restaurant from the point of view of the concept. And if you add to this very, very humane prices, then you begin to understand that art, at least gastronomic art, here really belongs to the people to some extent.

Of the little things, but vital - the menu reveals special offers with the cuisine of the Komi Republic (as you like "Northern foie gras" - deer brains with apple marmalade?), “the same” Pepsi glass bottles from the Olympics-80 and cocktails inspired by the aesthetics of the Land of the Soviets, from Isaev to Snezhka. In general, in the "Central" in some cunning way, genetic memory is turned on. Which, even if you are at least three times a fan of fine dining, equally respects salads with mayonnaise, and Eduard Khil from the columns, and vodka for an aperitif.

With food in the "Central" everything is predictably excellent. Here they manage to strike a balance between nostalgic Soviet cuisine and the subtlety of its execution. Therefore, black bread with vigorous mustard sets the tone for dinner better than any compliment, and jellied crabs On the contrary, they are as delicate as possible. So much so that even the horseradish declared as a sauce turns out to be beaten very gracefully and does not pull the blanket over itself at all.

Serious, both in volume and execution, portion "Leningrad" pickle is also beyond praise. Bright and dense broth, pearl barley, two solid pieces of meat, potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, onions, veal kidneys, obligatory cucumbers and optional meat pies - this is one of best recipes pickle in the city.

The branded trio of mini cutlets can be safely ordered by both foreigners who want to understand the mysterious Russian cutlet variety, and people who historically love to get more out of life. Respectful Execution the Kiev's cutlets, harsh liver spirit "Metropolitan", an explosion of fragrant oil from the core "Pozharskaya" and the uncompromising sourness of the sauce, which manages to go well with all cutlets at once - all together this turns out to be one of the most appropriate attractions of Soviet cuisine.

Of course, it is quite difficult to choose one of the assorted cakes, so the order is carried out according to the original Russian principle: “Can I see everything?” After this request, the waiter brings out a separate plate with all the available desserts, definitely of Soviet appearance. For those who are still a little intimidated by baskets, cream roses and impenetrable icing, the menu has, for example, apple in puff or sorbets.

Despite all the solidity and deliberately becoming "Central", the speed of serving dishes can sometimes resemble Usain Bolt's extraordinary hundred-meter dash. At least in my case. And if all three courses are taken out 23 minutes after ordering, then this is scary. Very. When appetizers are brought before drinks. When soup materializes on the table, and you haven't finished with the start yet. When the main course is put on the table with little or no pause, and at the first attempt to take a breath, the waiter gives out an armor-piercing: “Can I take it away?” No, sorry, I just want to put down the fork and knife, the fighter's hand is tired of stabbing. Okay, I can understand this approach in any pizzeria "22 centimeters", where a large penetration is our everything, and there are very few tables. But why here? I am sure that the kitchen, which had just finished serving business lunches before my arrival, simply did not have time to slow down, and in the evenings there are no such problems. But the fact remains that such a restaurant as "Central" is completely inappropriate for rush in any form.

Leonid Garbar, President of the Federation of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers of the North-West, certainly has a great experience as a restaurateur. In his track record- restaurant "Palkin", steak house "Stroganov", "Museum of Russian vodka", restaurant of Leningrad and Soviet cuisine "Central". From the latter - such polar stories as the launch of a chain of patties and the restaurant of St. Petersburg cuisine "Fontanka 30". The correspondent of "Petersburg avant-garde" talked with Leonid Garabar about whether there is a national cuisine in Russia and in what direction the St. Petersburg public catering is developing.

Leonid Petrovich, can we say that along with French, Italian, Asian cuisine there is such a phenomenon as national Russian cuisine?

Why shouldn't it exist, if there is a language, a people... People must eat something of their own from local, local products. The kitchen is the same as the human environment. And if we rephrase the expression that being determines consciousness, we can say that the stomach also affects the worldview. I have always believed that cooking is part of the culture. Through it, you can convey and even promote the culture of your country.

This is what the French and Italians do...

Many. One single dish can become a symbol, a way of perceiving a country. If we play culinary associations, then naming the Czech Republic - let's remember sausages, Germany - sausages and beer, Italy - pizza and pasta ... And if they say Russia? The answer is caviar, probably pancakes ...

This is your association with caviar as a restaurateur. Most European inhabitants will say: "Russia - borscht!".

Maybe. And beef stroganoff - the most famous Russian in the world meat dish. Note that foreigners do not call our favorite food - Russian dumpling or Russian ravioli, Russian pie, but they try to pronounce it, albeit with a funny accent - pies, dumplings. This emphasizes Russianness, the peculiarity of what is cooked here. So there is no doubt that there is national cuisine.

What do you think, for a Russian person cooking tasty food important?

Certainly. Remember, trips to visit, our trips out of town. You invite guests to the dacha. You prepare and buy meat in a cherished place, then, in a special way, marinate kebabs according to your own recipe, fry on the grill, surprise and rejoice when everyone praises .... Probably, hospitality is in our mentality. In Russia, guests have always been well received. Whether you cooked yourself, or a cook, as in pre-revolutionary times, they always boasted. Russian aristocrats boasted of their cooks, like the French - Vatel or Karem.

In France, gastronomy is a cult. In Italy - rather a cult of the product, fresh, local. There, for each dish, even garlic is special. The Scandinavians have a “trick” in marinating fish and meat. And what is the peculiarity of Russian consumption, Russian cuisine?

In two words, I would describe it like this - languishing and salting. We had a rich country in terms of cooking infrastructure. In other words, a lot of firewood. And for this firewood, they won’t pull on a zugunder, as in feudal Europe. (Remember when Robin Hood distributed firewood from Sherwood Forest to the poor?). No one in the world had such a universal "apparatus" as a Russian oven, in which you can cook, wash, sleep, heal ... And, of course, keep warm. Cookers - yes, fireplaces - too, braziers. But the oven, which occupies a quarter of the house! Saracen, Arab domed ovens are a bit similar, but they are for fast food. And with us, he melted it in the morning, and the cabbage soup or porridge languish in the pots all day long. With the preservation of all the features and taste, by the way. Amazing taste…

And the traditions of Russian cuisine in Soviet time preserved?

How to say ... There was a famous chef Fedor Dmitrievich Kornilov in Russia. He worked in St. Petersburg for the great French restaurateurs Borel, Kyube .... After the Revolution, he could not stay in the country, already during the NEP period, in the 1920s he left for Paris, where he was in charge of the kitchen at the Russian restaurant Hermitage. He had a wonderful interview with Illustrated Russia. It is interesting in the attitude of old-school chefs to what happened to Russian cuisine after the revolution. In a nutshell - devastation in the minds, like Bulgakov's in "Heart of a Dog". But someone still remained. And many pre-revolutionary editions of cookbooks by Radetsky, Avdeeva, Ignatieva were like textbooks for cooks of the Soviet public catering.

I would call Soviet cuisine simplified Russian - in terms of products, for example. When, in fact, did we live well, at least began to eat decently? A little in the thirties - and then the war. Then in the 1960s? And that's not all. “The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food” was just re-released in the 1950s: “It’s time for everyone to try how tasty and tender crabs are.” By the 1980s, in general, everything collapses, the variety of products disappears, “sausage trains”, food packages at enterprises for the holidays ...

But in the 1990s, when the country opens up, various products from abroad appear ... Finnish servelat, Roual alcohol, Mars chocolates ... I exaggerate this ...

Exactly, products that are often unusual for us ... And then everything is destroyed by greed, the desire to make money quickly. Let's take some bread. Sometimes, it is simply impossible to eat it! In my restaurant of Soviet cuisine "Central" they bring bread from Kuzmolovo. There were old recipes and equipment on which bread is baked correctly.

And in my opinion, now in St. Petersburg there is just a boom in bread and coffee: private bakeries and coffee houses are on every corner ...

Yes, but how can a baguette from such bakeries be compared, for example, with a French one? good bread doing is long and expensive. I recently had an interesting conversation with Valeria Nikolaevna Romanova, the director of Pirozhskaya on Moskovsky Prospekt. Pirozhkovaya is the only one in the city left from Soviet times. I wanted to know the recipe for coffee with milk, which is prepared there. Valeria Nikolaevna accepted my appeal with a laugh: she says there are no secrets. You just need to follow the technology, do not pour coffee into cold water, and in boiling water. And take good coffee. Valeria Nikolaevna is 80 years old, and two generations of chefs have already changed in Pirozhkova. According to Romanova, it is very difficult to find those who will do exactly the right thing. Young people, he says, for some reason do not care what kind of water they throw coffee in - cold or boiling water. They don't listen, they don't do what they need to do.

Here is the dough. There should be only flour, water, salt, sugar and that's it. No additional baking powders, improvers, emulsions. Diversity is being killed and the authentic individuality that has remained, for example, among French bakers, because all bakeries have the same bread mixture, Chinese baking powder, baking powder, to speed up the maturation process. You can knead and leave the dough to “reach” overnight and by the morning you have it magnificent, and the bread comes out good ... Or you get the same “splendor” after 15 minutes, and when you baked it, it’s tasteless. I understand Valeria Nikolaevna very well, because I myself am fighting for individuality in restaurant business... But mostly the owners think about survival, about profit ...

That is, in Soviet times, food was worse, but the quality of food was better?

Not certainly in that way. There just wasn't enough chemistry. There were tough GOSTs. But with Perestroika, we discovered books that we had not read before, because they had not been translated into Russian, a cuisine that we had only heard about, since most had never been abroad. And we have new habits, a way of life has changed. Coffee houses and pastry shops, fast food like McDonald's came into use ...

In Leningrad, there was also fast food - dumplings, patties, puffs. And by the way, there was also street food - when the same pies, soda, ice cream were taken to the streets on carts ...

It looks like these traditions are making a comeback. Is there a desire for Petersburg individuality, manifested, among other things, in food?

There are attempts. In the last two years, lush ones have begun to appear. Even the Ginza group, the market leader and restaurant fashion trendsetter in the Northern Capital, created the Leningrad Pyshechka chain. The next hit will be good patties. We have already opened one on Ligovsky Prospekt.

I am a supporter of the purity of the format. Why call a pancake shop that specializes in pancakes a restaurant home cooking, and even the author's? Then the puff shop will be called a restaurant, and a glass shop ... Or "Stolle" - suddenly they began to cook chicken Kiev and hodgepodges. You are an amazing pie! That's why they love you! The absence of a format leads not to purification, but to perversion. You go into a coffee shop to drink coffee, and there is food in full growth. Do not confuse the client!

Leonid Petrovich, why do you think that in the 1990s we fell under a flurry of new gastronomic ideas and unfamiliar products, and only about five years ago did the fashion for our own, national, appear?

This is the market. In recent years, due to various considerations, political and economic, for example, it became necessary to rely on our local products. And you can't make a mixture of French and Nizhny Novgorod out of them. Local cuisine is Russian. It can be Russian northern, Little Russian (Ukrainian), southern, Caucasian, Central Asian. St. Petersburg has always been an exemplary city in this respect: 95% of products were imported here from near and far provinces of the Russian Empire, from abroad. There was a lot of influence here. french cuisine. Since 1815, with the return of our army from France, it has intensified even more. And Caucasian cuisine! We fought with the Caucasus for decades, and our army tasted Caucasian food. Well, and the Russian tradition, of course ...

And what was the difference between the culinary infrastructure of our city?

Diversity. There were kitchens - canteens, coffee houses, confectioneries, tea houses, taverns, taverns with strong drinks, taverns without strong drinks, restaurants at the hotel, buffets at railway stations and entertainment establishments, just restaurants. There were many things. A lot came out of this in Soviet catering. Although they took something from abroad - automatic cafes, bars, for example, or American eateries. Globalization and then came ...

Have the tastes of Petersburgers changed in twenty post-Soviet years?

Certainly! Otherwise, in the "Central" tables would be bursting with people who want to return the forgotten Soviet sensations. But not like that. Over the years, people have traveled a lot, tried a lot and looked for the taste they liked. After tours to Thailand, a fashion for Pan-Asian cuisine appeared in the city. The people wanted to eat tom yum and exotic fruits here too ... Turkish shawarmas are the heritage of shuttle traders from Istanbul ... Italian, Japanese, Chinese restaurants - everything is there ...

What has changed in home cooking? Previously, they cooked at home: simply, without pickles. He made broth, from boiled meat - stuffing for pancakes or pasta in a naval way. The first day - broth, on the second - dressing soup such as cabbage soup or pickle. The spices are salt and pepper...

They stopped cooking at home. The speed of life has increased, and how the answer to this challenge appeared on sale ready meals different price range and good quality. Almost all chain stores have huge culinary departments: I took it and ate it. The question of quality, of course, is open ...

And the tradition of inviting guests?

Previously, going to a restaurant or cafe was a rarity - a wedding, a dissertation defense and, alas, a commemoration. Now, especially for young people, celebrating a birthday or some kind of festive event at home is a rarity, but in a cafe, on the contrary, it is commonplace. For example, I have one St. Petersburg dinner party once a year. I was lucky to be invited to the birthday party of Aliya Kayumovna Kuraeva, former editor of the Leningrad television. This is a real beautiful, Leningrad-Petersburg dinner, the Hostess herself prepares "signature" dishes, sets the table, as is customary - cutlery, napkins, crystal, tureen ... Wonderful ... We communicate and eat very tasty. Or we gather with friends at Lena Badmaeva's and make dumplings. And I brought an additional gastronomic touch to these gatherings and at the same time I cook cabbage soup .... That's all the cases when the holidays are at home ... Previously, in this sense, life was richer, although food, or rather its variety, is poorer ...

However, food has suddenly become an important part of life. Previously, it was embarrassing to discuss what you ate at dinner ... But now you haven’t posted on social networks - consider that you haven’t eaten. There are hundreds of sites and blogs dedicated to cooking on the Internet, in bookstores there is a sea of ​​domestic and translated literature... Look how many enthusiasts participate in restaurant days in St. Petersburg, when everyone can try to open their own tiny establishment for at least a few hours...

Changes have undoubtedly taken place in the public consciousness. First, people have become more demanding about what they eat. With the advent of gadgets and widgets, more attention is paid to the aesthetic component: how beautiful the dish looks, can I boast of it. Food is a universal way of influencing the audience that catches everyone. Alas, they rarely read, and they rarely go to the theater or to concerts. We don’t buy a new dress every day to show his girlfriends… They eat three times a day.

So the endless photos of food on Instagram are, in your opinion, self-expression?

In a sense, yes. What could be simpler: checked into a cafe, took a picture beautiful dessert and there is something to show people.

Isn't it connected with the appearance in our country, as elsewhere in the world, of entire television channels that not only share recipes, teach how to cook, but also simply talk about food? For example, TV shows with the participation of Yulia Vysotskaya or Alexei Zimin, “Street Food”, “I'll Eat This”, “Journey to the Culinary Capitals” ... The main slogan: “We will show and tell you how delicious it is.”

Cooking shows, series and movies about restaurants and chefs are the market's answer to the constant appearance of food on social networks. gastroculinary subculture. In general, it seems to me that the democratization of society follows the democratization and openness of public catering. Street terraces of cafes, kitchens in restaurants behind glass or a table for guests right in the kitchen. And you can watch how the chefs work, what the atmosphere is in the kitchen - neat, clean, beautiful. It looks like a modern theater, where the audience sometimes sits on the stage, eye to eye with the actors ...

And what are the current trends in Russian restaurant business?

First, a return to local products. Trying to make them something international. Author's cuisine on a Russian product. For example, river Siberian fish - broad whitefish, nelma, muksun. And a synonym for carpaccio is created - stroganina, only with a different taste, with a different serving - without olive oil but only salt and pepper.

The second is monoconcepts. For example, the Pelmeniya network appeared in the city. But they did not limit themselves to dumplings as such, they added Central Asian manti, Caucasian khinkali, Italian ravioli, and then China and Korea pulled themselves up .... Anything wrapped in dough. This is globalization at its best: you can experience the diversity of the whole world in one place. Then there were burgers with attempts to make a "Russian burger" ... By the way, no one has opened a network of cutlets yet. Maybe it's ahead...

And where is modern St. Petersburg cuisine going?

First, aside delicious food. Because of logistics, we have fewer products and worse markets in St. Petersburg than, for example, in Moscow. But there is the Leningrad region with fish, game, berries. I think that the city on the Neva should be more vividly presented in the sense of Russian, local. Our public catering can develop due to the guests who come to us for cultural impressions (see what our ancestors have left us for 300 years and, fortunately, we have not yet destroyed) and for culinary ones.

On the other hand, Petersburgers themselves will strive for international food - we have such a free spirit in our city. Our best chefs are laying these foundations for the new St. Petersburg author's cuisine: Arslan Berdyev at Birch, Dmitry Blinov at Duo Gastrobar, Tartarbar, Anton Abrezov at Taste Is and Dreamers, as well as Artem Grebenshchikov, Igor Grishechkin, Anton Isakov, Evgeny Vikentiev… People from Moscow come to enjoy their work.

For me, the discovery of recent years is Arslan Berdyev. With three of the same young guys from Turkmenistan, they opened the Birch restaurant on shares, got into debt and wiped out many of our famous restaurateurs. In Birch, you need to book a table in advance - there are only 40 seats. It's hard for me to say what kind of cuisine Arslan has. For example, pumpkin soup - what nationality is this dish? And now he made beetroot gazpacho with cherries and shrimp. Or oxtail stuffed ravioli. I don't know what type of cuisine these dishes belong to. But it's delicious!

Interviewed by NATALIA SERGEEVA

It will be possible to communicate with Leonid Garbar in person on October 3 at Kvartirnik in the St. Petersburg press center of Rosbalt.

Leonid Garbar is a co-owner of the Russian cuisine restaurants Tsentralny, Fontanka, 30, Pickles, in the past he was the general director of one of the leading restaurants in the city restaurant groups Stroganoff Group (Stroganoff Steakhouse, Russian Winery No. 1) and the head of the St. Petersburg branch of the international Gastronomy Guild.

The impression of another country is created not only by what sights you see, but also by what you eat, from national cuisine. A man from Tuscany has arrived, do you think he will want to eat pasta? He probably won't be interested. He is curious about what Russians eat. Club porridge? What is it? This Pushkin ate. Where is it? And nowhere. Nobody.

A person walks along Nevsky Prospekt and sees many Japanese restaurants, without best quality. I heard a story about how one musician was invited to perform at the Ice Palace, to which he answered with a question: “Who do you think I am, a hockey player?” A similar question arises in the context of domestic gastronomy. Yes, we are Scythians, yes, Asians. But what about here Japanese kitchen? Today in our city there are about 800 Japanese restaurants and more than 1200 establishments with Eastern European cuisine, which includes a combined hodgepodge from national dishes from Caesar salad to Finnish fish soup.

Lamprey and smelt could become a worthy gastronomic brand of the city.

“And I heard about cabbage soup, lard and pies. Where can you try all this? - continues to ask our guest. We again find it difficult to answer. With all that, Russian cuisine is rich in its traditions. And Petersburg, in addition, has its own wonderful culinary history, as well as products and dishes that could become a worthy gastronomic brand.

For example, seasonal fish - lamprey and smelt. Lamprey in restaurants is much less common than cucumber fish, meanwhile this delicious fish, which is found in the Narva River, a three-hour drive from the city. It is possible to make a gastronomic brand what is in the everyday life of St. Petersburg residents and seems surprising to foreigners, for example, buckwheat porridge, or to recreate the lost old recipes. In Soviet times, for example, it was popular Leningrad pickle or cutlets "Metropolka". You can dig deeper and revive the cuisine of the tsarist time and the cuisine of the Silver Age. The poet Nikolai Ognivtsev has a cycle of poems “Brilliant St. Petersburg”, where there is a description of the restaurant life of the city at the beginning of the 20th century: Dominika kulebyak, Quisisana pie, Solovyevsky sandwich ...

We don't know their taste. Much, unfortunately, is lost, but something can be returned. In the "Russian wine glass", for example, there is an appetizer that we recreated using the description of the historian Boris Rodionov - bone marrow baked on a toast of rye bread. By the way, it is mentioned by Bulgakov. bone marrow on rye bread his characters were very fond of - Philip Filippovich Preobrazhensky and Ivan Arnoldovich Bormental.

To make a dish or product a brand, the support of the authorities is necessary.

Recipes need to be revived, but, unfortunately, few people are interested in this today. Yes, there is Maxim Syrnikov, who is diligently and successfully engaged in gastronomic reconstruction, but he alone cannot turn the tide as a whole. Moreover, in order to make a dish or product a brand, the efforts of citizens alone are not enough: government support. Alternatively, you can create an expert council and include people who know their city and love it. The mechanism may operate as follows. The council proposes an idea, for example, "Smelt is a gastronomic brand of St. Petersburg." Further, the city authorities consider the project and develop, together with the council, a program for its implementation. And so one by one, restaurateurs cannot change the existing picture. Alone in the field - not a warrior.

The restaurant holding Svoi v goroda was established in 2006, at the same time its first restaurant, Stroganov Steak House, was opened. The crisis did not prevent the development and opening of new facilities. Now the holding, in particular, includes the Russian Wine Glass No. 1 restaurant and the Museum of Russian Vodka. Among the visitors of the Stroganov Steak House are Antonio Banderas, Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn.

The basis of success is a clear concept of enterprises, says Leonid Garbar, co-owner and manager of the restaurants of the Svoi v Gorod holding.

It is a pity that continuity has been lost, something has been lost forever, but something else can be saved, and we must try to do it. — Success for Stroganoff Steakhouse is mono-products. We do not have such fashion trends as, for example, sushi. Only the classic steakhouse menu with a little addition of Russian cuisine. Such restaurants tend to survive. Although, of course, the acuteness of the crisis situation was felt. Immediately there were fewer corporate parties. There were cases when companies that paid for the celebration of the New Year with us before the crisis came and asked to organize a holiday with their own money. We tried to be as flexible as possible, and in the end they were among the guests ...

"Friends in the City" Leonid Garbar

In addition, we monitor the observance of the principle - the price must match the quality. For example, we have wine under the brand of Igor Larionov. I'm not fond of hockey, but I like Larionov as a person. So, we offer this wine with an extra charge of 2 times against the purchase price. When he saw this price on the wine list, he liked it, because it corresponds to the one at which his wine is offered in the States. I am convinced that profit should be made from turnover. True, my suppliers do not always understand this. For example, domestic cucumbers have risen in price because oil has risen in price. I don't understand what it has to do with cucumbers? But in this case, I have to raise the price.

• You have friendly, well-trained staff. How do you achieve this?

- Repetition is the mother of learning. True, sometimes people, having learned, leave, because somewhere they were promised more money. It happens that they are deceived, and they want to return. But I do not accept it back, because once tempted by promises, a person will do it again. Exceptions are rare when the whole restaurant asks for a person.

• How was the name "Own in the City" born?

- I want the team to consist of like-minded people, to be a family. The brightest, most effective and cohesive team was created in 1995, when I opened the Premier complex. Then it was easy to select personnel - the former education system still had an effect, literate people came. In 2002, during the opening of Palkin, difficulties had already begun. And since 2006, when the Stroganov Steak House and other projects were opened, it became very difficult, because ignorant people with incredible ambitions and claims began to come. The trouble is that continuity has disappeared. There was a period when they were hired without experience, even if it was acquired in the Soviet public catering. After all, not everything was bad in that public catering system, you just need to organize work in such a way as to use only positive experience. Our restaurants have a well-established team, a team. There are people who follow me from project to project. I can truly rely on them. Usually I set the tone, but I try to make decisions after discussing them in a team.

• What is the most important thing in running a restaurant?

In the service, the saying “cat out of the house - mice to dance” works well. This requires constant monitoring. Sometimes people don't notice the little things. Sometimes it gets ridiculous. I ask why I see that the light bulb is burned out, but you do not? They answer, so you are Leonid Petrovich. In a word, while I come to a restaurant and look at everything through the eyes of a demanding guest, the staff works fine. If I come as a director, it will become easy for my subordinates, because their main task will be to please me, but in this case, visitors will become uncomfortable, because the quality of service will fall.

• Before "Friends in the City" you worked as a hired manager. Is there a difference between running your own business and running someone else's?

“I'm not exactly a real businessman. For me, business is more than just a business that brings money. Therefore, I always built someone else's business in such a way that it would work successfully. And I managed it the same way I manage mine now.

My last project, in which I participated as a hired manager, is the Palkin restaurant that still exists today. I created it for 8 years, realizing that this is a restaurant on my beloved Nevsky Prospekt, where I grew up. Unfortunately, now Nevsky has lost its former greatness, because the entrepreneurs who work there and earn money there do nothing for it, even elementary things - sweep the sidewalk near your enterprise, wash the door of your office. What kind of reorganization of society can we talk about in this case?

• How did you get into the restaurant business?

By chance. I was the deputy director for the technical part of the Titan cinema when, in connection with the creation of a casino there, the question arose of how to divide the cinema lobby into zones. Supervising the renovation there, I took one of its organizers to the Architect's House to see the interiors. As a result, the Premier casino was decorated in a classic style. This was done by the architect Grigory Mikhailov, who had previously restored the Menshikov Palace and the Hermitage Theatre. The repair was over, and I was offered to become the director of the casino, and at the same time the restaurant with him. By that time, I already had a dream to revive the Palkin restaurant. I made it in 2002.

• Where did the dream come from?

— When I came to work at Titan in 1987, there was an exhibition in the foyer dedicated to the history of the building. At the booth I saw 3 photos of "Palkin", they sunk into the soul. And then, probably, the spirit of Palkin began to help. It may seem strange, but mysticism was present in many ways. For example, already being the director of a casino, I unsuccessfully searched for the menu of the old Palkin restaurant for 6 years. Those who participated in its revival were accepted into the International Gastronomy Association Confrerie de la Chaine de Rotisseurs. Founded in 1248, today the Association has 40,000 members in 65 countries around the world. On this occasion, a gala dinner was being prepared in the restaurant, and, naturally, they wanted to make those dishes that were served in the pre-revolutionary Palkin. Our chef offered, among others, and unknown in Russia (as it seemed to me then) dishes of French cuisine of those years. He insisted on his own and turned out to be right - some time after this dinner, a man appeared in the restaurant and offered to buy a real old Palkin menu. Naturally, I bought. Imagine, it turned out that it consisted of about 60 percent of the dishes that the chef intuitively chose!

Another coincidence. The modern "Palkin" is located in the apartments of its pre-revolutionary owner Konstantin Palkin. In 1996, when we were expanding the casino and designing the foyer, there was a strange feeling - you look at the plan, and in one of the corners, where even communications are not connected, you want to put a bar. We installed it by making two more semicircular sofa areas. And four years later, two historical photographs of this part of the foyer were brought to us from the Peterhof Museum. On the spot where we identified the bar, there was a buffet, as white with the same vignettes as our bar! And the zones are the same, only instead of sofas there are Viennese chairs. The same palm trees, everything is very similar ...

• Leonid Petrovich, you have a film technical school behind you, the Leningrad International Institute of Management, the Higher School of Economics, but where does the experience of a restaurateur come from?

Arrived empirically. I love to travel around the world - this is Europe, and New York, and Mexico. Wherever I go, I look, I observe. For example, I saw how in Paris a waiter removes crumbs from the table with a special scraper - beautifully, simply masterfully! I bought scrapers, brought them, distributed them to my waiters. It didn’t work out for us - they cleaned it primitively. There was a difference in attitude. There, a person can work as a waiter for 40 years and be proud of it, love his work and be creative about it. Here, this profession is regarded as something temporary. Although we meet extraordinary people. Here is a case: in a Moscow restaurant, a kulebyaka was ordered on one table, and a pie on the other. Both dishes were taken out under caps. A tired waiter puts a pie on the table and says: "Your kulebyaka." There is a growing protest at the table: we did not order this! He understands that he misspoke, makes passes with his hands over the dish: “Crex, fex, pex! Please, your pie!". Everyone lay down at the table, a hundred dollars for tea and best reviews about the restaurant. But for this you need to love your profession.

And it is not at all necessary that a good head waiter can grow out of a good waiter. A person can have communication skills and not have the gift of a manager. If the leader does not see this, he will lose a good waiter and will not get a head waiter.

• Your restaurants have great food. Are there secrets?

— An integrated approach is important here. Can't cook good dish from poor quality products. In addition, technology must be observed. To achieve a good result, it is very important to remove the creativity from the chef, no matter how paradoxical it may sound. I'm talking about classic restaurants, which include the Stroganov Steak House. Here, stability is a sign of superior skill, and the chef cannot deviate from the initially approved recipe. The dish should have the same taste throughout the years it is served in the restaurant. This is what is encouraged, and not the desire to do the best.

If we talk about food supplies, we use American meat. But deliveries are mainly from Moscow. I tried to work with St. Petersburg suppliers, it doesn’t work with all of them - there is no responsibility. They can disrupt the supply, or violate the temperature regime. For example, to bring meat in a van, where instead of plus 3 - plus 16, and at the same time wonder why we do not accept it.

• Do you need any special character traits or knowledge to be successful in business?

“You have to love what you do and know. Of course, it is impossible to know everything. When I organized the Stroganov Steak House, I had little idea about meat. Invited experts. It is very important not to be greedy for good consultants. The more you give, the more you get back. And, of course, you have to be honest: “profit is above everything, and decency is above profit.” I heard this saying from Anatoly Pavlovich Zlobin, the former head of the Leningrad Department of Trade, a very good businessman, a real business executive.

• Who are your main clients?

Officials, businessmen. There are a lot of foreigners living in St. Petersburg. The Americans like it here, the entire American consulate eats here. This means that the restaurant is world class in terms of service quality, food, prices and safety. Many bring old photographs, give them, we hang them on the walls in the hall.

• Your restaurants have non-standard, thoughtful interiors. Were you afraid to invest in the renovation of rented premises?

— We started this business together: me, Alexey Noskov (member of the St. Petersburg Bar Association) and Dmitry Meskhiev (Honored Art Worker of Russia). Ideas for creating interiors were common. For example, I really wanted a revolving front door in the Stroganoff Steak House. Now she can be said to have become calling card restaurant. In general, in order to keep warm, such doors were installed in almost all public institutions before the revolution ...

We managed to find good designers who listen to the wishes of the customer. We set them the task of designing the Stroganov Steak House in such a way that it would give the impression that the restaurant has always been here, and now it has just opened after renovation. I think they made it.

The photographs on the walls were mainly due to my friend, cartoonist Vyacheslav Shilov. We discussed the theme of each hall together, then he acted independently. He also designed the "Russian wine glass No. 1".

"Stroganov Steak House" is located in the former stables - there were no communications or ventilation. Considering that it occupies 1,200 square meters, there was a risk of not recouping investments, but in the end, the fears were not justified.

• How did the Museum of Russian Vodka appear as part of Russian Wine Glass No. 1?
  

-When the Stroganov Steak House was opened, there was an idea to place a Russian restaurant on its territory. Then we realized that it would be difficult organizationally to combine the two directions in one kitchen. But when a free space appeared nearby, we opened a Russian restaurant in it. Now in the "Russian glass" you can try 220 varieties of vodka. The museum of Russian vodka was in the house opposite. After the reconstruction of this building, the museum was closed, and part of its collection was transferred to us. This is how our Museum of Russian Vodka was founded. Many exhibits are given to us, many can be found from antique dealers. There is even an unopened bottle of German wine 1826, I found it in one of the antique shops.

• Russian wine glass has a narrowly limited assortment. Have you tried expanding it?
  

No. If you follow this path, you will not get anything good. There will be a Grand Cafe with a multi-armed and multi-headed chef who must know all the cuisines of the world, including tandoor, porridge, cabbage soup, and sushi.

• You don't like sushi?
  

I love sushi. It's not about that. Not so long ago, there were five sushi bars not far from each other on Nevsky Prospekt. Put yourself in the place of a foreigner who has come to the city: "Is sushi your national dish?"

• By the way, what is your favorite dish?
  

— Buckwheat porridge and black bread with milk.

• Are you from..?

— I was born in Kronstadt. Three years later, the parents moved to Leningrad. I remember how I sat on the Nevsky on things. There was a room in an eleven-room communal apartment. The window overlooked the Nevsky. It was noisy, but there was not as much dust and dirt as it is now.

• Leonid Petrovich, in addition to being a member of the International Association of Gastronomers Confrerie de la Chaine de Rotisseurs, you are also a Knight of the Order of Testevin Confrerie des Chevaliers du Tastevin (Burgundy, France) and Commander of the Bordeaux Commandery (Bordeaux, France). Are the last two titles as serious as being a member of the Confrerie de la Chaine de Rotisseurs?

For a restaurateur, yes. All this helps to form a certain idea about him in the restaurant world community. I was accepted there as a person who revived the Palkin restaurant. And now I lead the guild Confrerie de la Chaine de Rotisseurs of St. Petersburg.

• Can you be called a happy person?

Perhaps yes. My dreams came true - I managed to revive Palkin, open my own restaurant.

• Dreams on this did not run out?

- Of course not. It’s a pity there is no money, otherwise I would return “Vienna”, “Bear”, “Danone”, “Dumas” ... You look at the photographs of their halls and you understand how unusual they were, now there are none.

• Why such a passion for history?

“When I was young, I wanted to be a historian. And then, and now it was not an interest in science, but rather in history itself, in what was. It is a pity that continuity has been lost, something has been irretrievably lost, but something else can be saved, and we must try to do it.

• And in your family there will be continuity, is there someone to continue the work?

- There is. True, the heir is only 10 years old. But his taste has already been brought up. If he says it doesn't taste good, then it's true.

Interviewed by Galina Nesvit

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1 Comment

Today we visited stroganoff in Repino and enjoyed it a lot!
Warm, homely and, at the same time, refined atmosphere! Thanks!
Would like to meet the owner. I read about Leonid Garbar on the Internet. Understood, Russia will not disappear! Yes, I already knew that. Thanks!!!

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Yury Sverdlov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Severnaya Poultry Farm, considers independence from the state to be a big advantage of his business. This is an ideal model, which, among other things, allows one not to subordinate one's own political experience to conjuncture considerations.

• What explains your interest in poultry farming?

I considered it inappropriate for me to run again. Gotta come on time and leave on time- Only the economy. In the 1990s, one of the most important criteria for a successful business was the speed of turnover, the quick return on investment, because, of course, there was no talk of long-term investments. Food production, import substitution was then a very profitable direction. Poultry farming compares favorably with the rest of agriculture by its short production cycle and the fact that it does not require very large investments. There were no insights that open up new niches in the market then.

• But from abroad came a wave of cheap products, subsidized by the governments of European countries, the United States. How did you manage to ensure the competitiveness of our poultry?

- Apocalyptic ideas about what happened in the 1990s are greatly exaggerated. Many believe that thanks to the rampant imports, the powerful developed agriculture of the Soviet Union fell into disrepair. This opinion has no objective basis. In 1995, it was impossible to look at poultry farms without tears: there were neither technologies nor personnel left. They still functioned, people were busy, they gave some kind of product. But from the point of view of competitiveness, we did not have anything close to what was available in other countries. We haven't lost anything.

Maybe it's for the best. You can mess around with old assets for a hundred years, patch and repat, or you can demolish everything and build a modern, much more efficient production facility. This is not always the most profitable for business, but in the poultry industry it is. Life has confirmed this both in the Leningrad region and in Belgorod, which is also a leader in the industry.

As for competition with imported products... Of course, in developed countries there are established forms of support for the agro-industrial complex. But they were and are in Russia. In the 1990s there were customs duties that were never particularly low. Then a quota was introduced, giving a powerful incentive to the development of the agro-industrial sector of the economy. Investments in the industry and in the food sector as a whole were not unprofitable. As a matter of fact, all food holdings were laid down in the middle - late 1990s.

• What did you know about this business when you entered it? Who did you learn the basics from?

“I got into the poultry business with Dutch partners who are not in the first generation in this business. And if I lacked special knowledge, then this was more than compensated for by the knowledge of my partners. And I had the opportunity to constantly improve my skills, tracking all the changes that took place during this time in the industry. Poultry farming is conservative. And yet technologies are changing, views on certain aspects are changing, genetics is moving forward. An exchange of information is needed. As soon as Russia became informationally open, the industry began to develop and achieved good, according to international criteria, indicators.

• During the years that you have been working with your Dutch partners, has your approach to business changed in any way?

Public procurement is one element of a broader process that is no good. There is a feeling that all this is beyond repair - I do not think that you can learn anything in business. There are fairly simple mechanisms in management that just need to be skillfully applied. Business is not akin to a scientific discovery, handicraft is more adequate here, the ability to do simple things every day.

Approaches change as the business grows. When it first starts, the golden rule is short-term good decisions. The case may be closed every day, and there may not be a second chance or, as they say in tennis, a second ball. Well, as the enterprise grows, it is necessary to plan development, evaluate its capabilities, market prospects, link them with the tasks that the enterprise sets for itself. We have learned this for 16 years.

• It is believed that the productivity of Russian personnel is much lower than in Europe, and there are certain problems with quality. Do you agree with this, or is it still a myth?

The new budget is a declaration. The discrepancy between income and expenses will definitely be revealed No, its true. Objectively, the level of technical knowledge among workers in Russia is lower than in the West. The myth is that once this level was high, and then fell. Our training of technical specialists has always lagged behind, and it is lagging behind now. In Western Europe, even a tile-laying worker works differently. This is visible to the naked eye.

But labor productivity depends not only on the level of staff training, but also on the level of process automation. It depends on the willingness of the owner to invest in the modernization of equipment, in the training of their personnel. A solid technical education is not something impossible. By and large, all foreign industrial companies that transfer production to Russia successfully solve the problem with the qualification of personnel. As for the organization of work, control, these are questions for management, not for staff.

• Are there local conditions, traditions that the European approach failed to fit into?

- Not. Of course, there are no large integrated complexes in Western Europe. There, the farmers themselves grow poultry and sell it to processors, who are already slaughtering, cutting and selling to retail chains. The industry is structured differently. There, different depths of integration of technical processes are possible, but no one does it the way it is customary to do it in Russia. But our approach, when the entire production chain is in the same hands, cannot be called inefficient.

I don't think we need to copy the Western European approach. It is possible and necessary to resort to borrowing when it comes to fundamental issues: technology, automation, feed production, organization of veterinary and sanitary measures. And whether production is an integrated complex or is fragmented according to different owners is a matter of exclusively local characteristics.

Aleksey Kudrin is a top-class professional; in the budgets of the 2000s, unfeasible expenses were not included Russia is not a black spot where business is impossible. This is confirmed not only by our experience. Look at the development of the beer industry. For construction, finally. There are no problems that foreigners could not solve by coming here with industrial production.

• Does running a poultry farm require your personal involvement?

- Hardly ever. Business processes have already been debugged, the management of the enterprise is working quite successfully. There are no reasons that require daily intervention in the management process. But I love visiting the factory, watching how the birds are raised, how the sales are going, how the construction of new buildings is going.

• Are there irreplaceable people in this business?

- The expression "We do not have irreplaceable" seems to humiliate human dignity. But the business is so arranged that there really should not be indispensable. I'm not talking about unique, rare businesses where the intellectual, creative component is essential. But in a large enterprise that employs a thousand people, it is very risky to allow irreplaceable ones to appear. "Irreplaceable" - one who regularly makes non-standard decisions. But this, in fact, means that the process is not debugged.

Business is the daily adoption of standard decisions that are optimal in the current environment. The training of all personnel, management of all levels is important here. As Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov said, "a soldier must understand his maneuver." If employees do not understand the maneuver, then these irreplaceable gurus arise, who must make some fantastic decisions every day, only accessible to them.

• Are you a democrat or an authoritarian in terms of your management style?

Under no circumstances can the adoption of final decisions be entrusted to a collegial body in which the decision is made simultaneously by all and no one. Although it is the people I trust who prepare the solution, shaping my position as a leader and bringing me up to date with the circumstances in which I have to act. If I imagine something wrong, and they open my eyes, I am always very grateful for this.

It is very easy for a leader to slide into a situation of “reality is me.” Too often we want to abstract away from reality, replacing it with our idea of ​​it. When a business is competitive, it ends very badly and very quickly. And our business is very competitive.

• What is an indicator of the level of competition?

— One of the indicators is the prices of products sold in relation to inflation. Over the past two years, poultry prices have not increased by a single ruble, while inflation, even according to Rosstat, in the last year alone amounted to more than 6%. This means that the level of competition does not make it possible to include the increase in costs in the selling price.

• Shortly before the crisis, you began a large-scale expansion of the Severnaya poultry farm. And announced a doubling of production by 2013. The economy did not force the project to be adjusted?

The crisis has not affected our plans in any way. We made the right choice back then, in the mid-1990s, because poultry meat is always the most sought-after protein product. As for project implementation, at the end of 2011, 60% of new capacities were put into operation. During 2012 the project will be fully completed.

Perhaps due to the fact that both we and our competitors have increased production, we reduce our costs and keep each other in good shape. Demand is naturally rising due to the fact that in difficult times, consumers are abandoning more expensive types of meat in favor of poultry meat. And we meet this demand.

• Did you have to change the sales structure? In general, doubling production is serious. Do you think that the market of Moscow and St. Petersburg will "swallow" such a volume?

- Yes. Perhaps someone will have to make room. But business is not a state order. And there are no guarantees that the market that we have will remain with us in the future. The advantage of our business, from my point of view, is very serious - it practically does not depend on the state. This is an ideal model of relationships when there are no such decisions made by officials or government agencies that could seriously affect the state of affairs. Well, there is no one to be offended in case of failure, except for themselves.

As for the structure and geography of sales, they are related to the nature of the product. Fresh poultry has a tight deadline, so the delivery area is quite clearly defined. Of course, if the development of road transport and the road network made it possible to achieve a higher average speed of a truck, the sales area could be increased. On the other hand, the North-West of Russia, not to mention Moscow and the Moscow region, the regions that are located between them and a little beyond Moscow, is already a significant market where not only we, but also local producers work. And I can't say that it's completely saturated. In any case, competition has not yet begun to seriously affect the viability of the manufacturer.

• What is the market share of your products now?

- Do not believe it - never considered. I don't think these numbers make any sense. There are no adequate statistics. Everything else is speculation. Even having received a specific figure, I would not take it very seriously into account for drawing up future plans.

We have always seen prospects in reducing costs, in creating more efficient production, and not in monopolizing the market. And if in order to achieve new parameters of efficiency it will be necessary to further increase the volume of production, I have no doubt that we will do it.

• Is the prime cost of Russian poultry meat really significantly higher than in Europe? How different is the cost structure here and there?

- I would not compare us with Europe, there is still a slightly different economy. But when compared with comparable economies, poultry prices in Russia are higher than, for example, in Brazil and Argentina.

The cost structure is indeed different. We lose to Brazil in terms of climatic conditions; much less energy is spent there. There is one common article - a huge share of the cost is feed. But in Latin America they are cheap. There is a developed production of soybeans, which we grow very little.

The point is that today's grain prices are determined exclusively by the export market. In theory, Russia could not only produce fodder grain for its own needs, but also export it. But for this, firstly, it is necessary to grow a much larger volume of grain. Secondly, it is necessary to have a completely different infrastructure in the Central Black Earth Region, in the South, which would allow the export of grain. Because today it is only a little bit to go beyond 100 million tons, and the problem of overproduction immediately arises inside the country, grain prices fall below cost, with all the ensuing economic and social consequences.

It is obvious that the export of renewable resources of all kinds - cereals, meat - is a more profitable type of export, because the added value is exported in its pure form. This is much more promising and, I would say, more worthy than energy exports. But while in the struggle for foreign markets, our industry is not able to compete with other countries. As for the domestic market, the chilled product is in demand, while Brazil can only supply frozen. Accordingly, there is no direct competition in the domestic market.

• How will the situation change for you in connection with the fact that we have joined the WTO?

— Negotiations on the WTO have been going on for a very long time. Direct effects are yet to be seen. Wait and see. When it comes to the functioning of such complex systems, any attempt to evaluate all the factors leads to the fact that there is still one that has not been taken into account by anyone. Those. error is almost guaranteed. The last thing I fear is that the consumer will suddenly begin to switch to an imported product en masse, he has already appreciated the difference in quality. The technological level of production in Russia is already quite high.

• That is, you do not see direct threats. And a recession will probably only play into your hands, as it will push the consumer to switch to more affordable poultry meat. So 2012 promises to be prosperous?

- Yes. Everything depends only on us. In general, it is strange to refer to the fact that the economy has not lived up to your expectations. What is the recession talking about? The fact that there is no economic growth "in the hospital as a whole." But at the same time
There are successful enterprises that increase their performance by tens of percent, and there are those that stagnate. By and large, I would not say that there is something unhealthy in a recession. It's normal when the more successful one achieves the result. If there is a feeling “whatever I do, everything will be fine”, then it is most likely false and dangerous. When they say that after growth there always comes a crisis, the question arises: was there such growth?

I can't say that a sharp rise or fall in the economic environment was reflected in our numbers. Development has always been smooth. Although since 1997, when we started our production, there have been many economic shocks.

• What attracted you to work in the State Duma?

— It was interesting for me in 2007 to see how representative power works. At the same time, I have never been attracted to executive power, I did not want to become a rigid hierarchical system. In the State Duma, there are no formal “boss-subordinate” relationships, all deputies are equal, and the speaker can only coordinate the discussion. I learned a lot of interesting things in terms of public relations. When everyone has the right to make a decision, but, on the other hand, does not accept it, because it is not in the interests of those who support it ...

I deliberately did not go to the committee associated with the agro-industrial complex, so that no one could accuse me of having come to lobby for the interests of my production. The committee in which I worked oversaw construction, land relations, and road facilities. the law on state orders was developed in our committee.

• Amendments to the 94-FZ, which the Duma managed to adopt in the first reading before the new elections in the fall of 2011, are they the work of you too?

It was also a new experience for me. I cannot say that I am a naive person, but it always seemed to me that sound and logical things can be implemented in any situation. And this is not so. Because other people see things differently.

Your attitude towards I can describe 94-FZ in one phrase: in form everything is correct, but in essence it is a mockery. It reflected the views of people who believed that it was necessary to draft the law this way and not otherwise, and everything would work out. They did not want or did not consider it necessary to listen to the opinion of a colossal number of participants.

At the same time, there was no conscious malice. The ideology of the document was laid by the Minister of Economic Development German GREF. He sought to increase competition, sought to remove the subjective approach, i.e. did exactly the right thing. This is the case when the policy does not correspond to the economic and administrative decisions being made. And public procurement is just one element of a broader process that is worthless. There is a feeling that all this is beyond repair.

The new leadership of the Ministry of Economic Development put forward the idea of ​​a federal contract system. The problem is that the state order process cannot be slowed down, frozen for 2 years, in order to experiment with the new system in the meantime. So that later, if it doesn’t work out, return to the state order. Government orders are one of the main ways to shake up the economy all over the world.

Here, by the way, about authoritarianism. It is difficult to find people who would be against clear directive decisions taken by the state if they led to an increase in living standards. It is much worse when the authorities go into theorizing, as was the case during the discussion of amendments to the 94-FZ, they play with different concepts, and in the meantime the problem has turned into the plane of facts. And you need to take a contract for any large facility and figure out what is happening.

When both the President and the Prime Minister talk about the trillions of rubles that are lost in the state order, this means that the verdict on this law has already been passed. What is the point of already discussing this or that amendment? Another question is that nothing concrete is visible that would help to solve the overripe issue.

• But what about the budget that the Duma also managed to adopt before the elections? How do you feel about the sharp increase in military spending to the detriment of the economy and infrastructure?

- In my opinion, it is wrong when the leaving thought accepts the budget with which the following convocation will have to deal. There are questions on which - I am absolutely sure of this - a cross-party decision is needed. This is another thing that I have never been able to convince my colleagues of. Only a cross-party solution can ensure stability. The idea that stability can be achieved through the guarantee of one specific person does not correspond to the realities of the 21st century.

In the United States, a huge number of issues are decided by consensus between the Republican and Democratic parties. And it is obvious that the change of the president and the parliamentary majority cannot lead to a change in the decision.

The militarism declared by the budget has never been seriously discussed in society. This is again a decision from the area “it seems to me that it will be right”, “reality is me”. Life is still stronger, it will show how feasible it is.

If children see that their parents work hard, they will not treat the need to work from morning till night as a tragedy. The trouble in the 1990s was that budgets that were initially unrealistic were adopted. The parliaments of 2000, thanks to the majority, were able to refuse benefits, make socially unpopular decisions, but at the same time form budgets that ran like clockwork. Any budget recipient knew that there would be no circumstances under which money from the budget would not come.

The budget did not include unfeasible things. In this sense, Alexei Kudrin is a professional of the highest class. And when he says that our budgetary system is not able to bear such military expenses, one cannot but believe him.

The new budget is a declaration. The discrepancy between income and expenses will definitely be revealed. And then you have to take money from those who did not plan to give it back. Or do not give them to those who believe in the declaration and make bets on the promised income. Both of these are bad. Because trust takes a long time to earn, but is lost instantly. After all, we still remember: "You can't gamble with the state", etc., our political culture knows a lot of such aphorisms.

• Do you plan to continue playing political games or is the experience gained enough?

– I was not disappointed. He simply considered it inappropriate for himself to run again. You have to arrive on time and leave on time. But I like the desire of people to independently resolve the issues that arise before them, relatively speaking, “to change the management company”. They begin to understand that they should and can be masters in their own home. And then they begin to look wider and seek to understand on a larger scale what is happening.

• That is, a healthy restart of the political system?

- Well, how healthy, let's see. If the degree of radicalization continues to grow, then we will not see anything healthy. And parliament, as a representative body of power, should reflect what is happening in society.
It can be said with full confidence that the last Duma was formed with a sense of a fair distribution of votes. Thus, the appointment of B. V. Gryzlov as Chairman of the State Duma was supported by everyone, including
including three opposition parties. And this is despite the authoritarian leadership style and catchphrases “parliament is not a place for discussions” and others.

The much more refined and democratic S. E. Naryshkin received the support of only the United Russia faction. So no compromise could be reached. And this is only the beginning of the work of the State Duma.

Now it is obvious that large-scale and very important sections of society are not represented in the Duma. They gather in the squares, hold actions on the Internet, without having their representatives in parliament. This means that no full-fledged consensus is possible in the Duma on any issue important to society.

Without a sober assessment of this factor, the state will constantly fall into extreme decisions, act situationally, "steer according to the situation." But after that, we will begin to lag behind not China and India, but Bangladesh. Because developing countries have already worked out more adequate mechanisms for resolving social contradictions.

• Why, then, do you continue to be a member of the United Russia party?

- I do not consider it possible for myself to change the flag under the influence of the "street". Although I think that the party is behaving absolutely wrong. She won a majority in parliament, even if we accept the opposition's calculations as plausible. She has no reason to remain silent, to go underground. All the same, it remains a party supported by millions of Russian citizens. The emergence of the Popular Front is a political trick.

You see, people want normal observance of the law. They are right about this. I have always adhered to the conviction that the law, whatever it may be, must be followed. Because not doing it is even worse. If a party must nominate a presidential candidate, then let it nominate. And when a party formally nominates, but in reality a new organization with incomprehensible functions, an incomprehensible legal framework, and all this happens with a wink, they say, you understand ... Citizens say: we don’t want to understand anything, follow the law.

There are people in our party who have compromised themselves. But I have no doubt that a conservative party that reflects the interests of a wide range of our fellow citizens is needed. If socialists of various stripes remain instead of it, then nothing good awaits us. Socialists have not built anything in this world. They are needed to restrain the aggressive aspirations of capital, its desire to monopolize everything and everything, in order to defend the interests of the weaker part of society: workers, hired personnel. But as soon as the socialists come to power, it turns out badly. And the world has already seen it.

If United Russia received its due percentages, and this would not be disputed, and if it were necessary to look for alliances, enter into a coalition with other parties, this would be a healthy reboot scenario. There would be no need for demonstrations. Demonstrations, like an increase in temperature in the body, may be good, but it indicates a deviation of the system from the norm. I hope that the rise in temperature will lead to the fact that our top leaders will understand that something must be sacrificed. Or someone.

• Are there figures in the opposition that you personally like?

- Many. For example, Vladimir Ryzhkov is an adequate person, a professional. In general, we have few professional politicians who are ready to sacrifice something personal in order to achieve public positions. Most of our fellow citizens do not live well. And when someone who seeks their support lives in a big way, demonstrating this, it is difficult to call him a professional politician. The countries we want to be like don't behave like that. Accept the restrictions associated with the profession.

• Are there truths that you discovered not as a result of experience, but from books or films?

- After watching the movie "The Godfather", I felt that you can lose everything by constantly moving up.

Shale breakthrough: the end of the global hydrocarbon market or another bubble?

The main players in the oil and gas market direct their investments into the development of shale gas fields. Even today, the "shale factor" affects the price of gas and the development of its infrastructure. At the same time, fears are being expressed that another " soap bubble» - expectations from the shale boom are greatly overestimated.

Finished the game

Shale is a ubiquitous sedimentary rock containing organic matter. This rock can act as a source oil and gas rock and as a reservoir. Shale gas is natural gas and mainly consists of methane (CH4).

It is believed that the first shale gas production was undertaken in 1821 in the United States. However, the world reached the shale boom only two centuries later - after the transition to horizontal drilling technology and the development of the hydraulic fracturing method. In 2009, Russia lost the palm as the largest gas producer. They became the USA. The breakthrough took place thanks to the rapid growth of industrial production of shale gas. At the same time, cardinal changes began to take place on the global hydrocarbon market - prices crept down, long-term contracts began to be reviewed, and gas OPEC countries are threatened with demonopolization.

The largest oil and gas companies are actively engaged in shale projects: ExxonMobil (drilling in Germany and Hungary), Shell (in Sweden, Ukraine, Poland, Germany), ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Marathon (in Poland). European companies - Total, British Petroleum, Eni and StatoilHydro - have bought stakes in US shale projects and intend to gain experience there.

Investment in new gas production technologies was spurred on by the financial crisis, as well as the policy of monopolists. IN winter period 2006 - 2007 As a result of disagreements with Ukraine, Russian gas supplies were interrupted, consumers in Western Europe were left without fuel. Winter 2011-2012 At the peak of frost, history repeated itself.

Trump card

Luckily for Europeans, the global economic crisis coincided with the “shale revolution” in the United States – America almost stopped importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Middle East. All this flow was reoriented to the Old World. The appearance of surpluses immediately affected the gas sector, it began to acquire market features, prices on the spot market (trading at current prices) crept down.

Already in the foreseeable future, the gas and even oil market will cease to be global, but will become similar to the coal market (where the world market accounts for 10-12%), experts predict.

The deposits of traditional natural gas are distributed very unevenly around the world. The main suppliers of natural gas include several countries: Russia (which regained leadership in 2010), the United States, Canada, Algeria, Iran, the Gulf countries, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

Shale is found on all continents, in almost any country, but gas deposits in them differ in volume, availability and quality.

In 2011, the Baker Institute published a report titled Shale Gas and US Homeland Security. The document says that the large-scale development of shale gas deposits will allow the country to turn from an importer into an exporter of gas, weaken the influence of Russia, Venezuela and Iran, depriving them of their “energy trump card”, and also strengthen the economic and geopolitical position of the States.

In the coming years, a revival of heavy energy-intensive industries (aluminum, steel) may begin in America, experts predict.

PFC Energy has calculated that by 2020 the United States will become the world leader in total production of oil, gas and liquid gas fractions.

Whatever it was, b Thanks to the "shale factor" in the United States and Europe, electricity, heat for industrial enterprises, and petrochemical raw materials have already fallen in price. All this has increased the competitiveness of their production, analysts note.

And in Russia, the picture is reversed - the price of gas, electricity, heat is growing rapidly.

Hypothetical freedom

Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug produces 2 times more oil than Kuwait, but the oil flow rate per well in Russia is 20 times lower The world is vigorously discussing the "shale breakthrough", countries dream of how they will live in a world free from monopolists. The favorable picture of the post-revolutionary picture is overshadowed by the fluctuation of forecast calculations and the truth of life - the rapid depletion of shale gas deposits, extremely unstable production profitability and environmental risks.

There are regional problems. So in China, there is a shortage of water resources. True, the ability to quickly rally around national ideas can be attributed to the positive features of the Celestial Empire. The Chinese Ministry of Energy has already reported on the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, which includes the development of shale gas production infrastructure.

The dense population of Europe and its saturation with various kinds of communications increase the factor of environmental problems.

Experts admit that there are no exact figures for real and forecast reserves. Foreign analysts base their calculations on a ten-year-old algorithm proposed by G.-Kh. Rogner, but he himself called his figures speculative.

The profitability of production depends on the availability of reserves, the development of technologies, and current prices for hydrocarbons. In addition, the question of the origin of shale gas, and hence the renewability of its reserves, is controversial.

As a result, the scatter of forecasts differs by several times according to different versions, they can easily change by an order of magnitude even according to the version of one source.

According to the IAEA, the world's gas reserves amount to 24,060 trillion cubic meters. cube m, including shale gas - almost 500 trillion. cube m (2%). At the same time, explored reserves (that is, more or less reliable) account for 0.7%.

With the price of the issue, things are even more vague than with stocks. In the United States, the cost of shale gas production, according to various sources, ranges from $80 to $320 per 1,000 m3. Traditional gas goes to Russia at a price of $3 to $50. It would seem that the conclusion is obvious. But at the same time, the costs of geological exploration, transportation, storage are not stipulated - all this is not in Russia's favor.

On the other hand, shale deposits have geological features that require an individual approach to exploitation. The costs are also affected by the geochemical parameters of the deposit, so it is difficult to predict the gas recovery factor and the cost in advance, draws attention to Vladimir Archegov.

In the USA, whose achievements are tried on by everyone, the stimulating and advantageous factors are: state support, a high degree of geological knowledge of the country, as well as technical equipment (the States account for half of the drilling rigs in the world!) And vast experience. This fundamentally distinguishes the United States from any other country.

The extreme politicization of the issue of production costs will also do a disservice.

According to the calculations of Gazprom specialists, the cost of shale gas production in Europe will be 2 times higher than in the United States.

Another bubble?

The first dissonance in shale euphoria was the publication of Texas geologist Art Barman in World Oil magazine. He concluded that the actual cost of developing deposits is several times higher than reported by companies.

Later, official documents appeared, confirming A. Barmen's guesses. In 2010, the US Department of Energy admitted that the country's production figures were indeed inflated.

An internal EIA document leaked to the media also indicated that companies are overestimating the profitability of wells, focusing on the best wells and using the most optimistic models of their productivity, and base their assumptions on limited data.

President of the Moscow Mining University Lev Puchkov is convinced that the Americans are inflating another "soap bubble", as they did with the extraction of coal methane in the second half of the 90s. After it was blown off, the scientist recalled, the US gas industry failed.

Vladimir agrees with him Archegov.

— I think that successes in production and cost reduction of shale gas are greatly inflated. It may turn out that in 5-10 years there will be a collapse in shale gas production, and countries will return to traditional gas production. The topic is very highly politicized, there is a lot of speculation around this. The American shale breakthrough requires careful study, you can’t trust the word of mining companies, - shared h len-correspondent of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences with his doubts with the magazine "Business Management".

Environmental factor

The production of shale gas by hydraulic fracturing (HF) faces serious environmental constraints due to the large coverage of areas and significant and intense damage to the integrity of the subsoil.

One hydraulic fracturing requires 1000 to 7500 tons of water, approximately 30-50% of which remains underground. If there are 1200 tons of water with sand left in the reservoir, then the earth's surface with an area of ​​64 hectares (well drainage zone) will rise by 6.6 mm in a year (after 3x, hydraulic fracturing), by 3.3 cm in 5 years, and with a grid of 16 ha/well - by 13.2 cm, experts calculated Institute of Economics and Organization industrial production Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. These processes will be concentrated along the horizontal wellbore and the beginning of the fractures. In other areas, rock subsidence may occur due to the removal of methane gas. As a result, technogenic movements of various sections of the reservoir, tens of centimeters in size, can occur. Possible consequences of such processes are powerful landslides in the clay deposits located above.

A decrease in pressure in shallow formations gradually leads to a redistribution of stresses in them, shifts and even man-made earthquakes with a magnitude of 2-3 points.

However, the main environmental problem is not even rock subsidence, but pollution of aquifers. In dense rocks, the development of rupture cracks is very much dependent on natural fracturing. Fracture fractures (their length reaches 150 m) can propagate into the overlying layers. Moreover, these operations are almost always accompanied by the inflow of extraneous waters from the overlying horizons. In the case of a gas deposit, either groundwater will be contaminated with the injected liquid (for 1 hydraulic fracturing operation, 80-300 tons of a chemical mixture is used, which can include up to 85 toxic substances), or shale gas will enter them, which will be found in artesian wells.

In the United States, the first moratorium on the extraction of gas from shale was introduced by the authorities of the state of New York (at the end of 2010). In the summer of 2011, France became the first country to practically block the extraction of shale gas - the Senate voted to ban the hydraulic fracturing method. The moratorium was introduced on the lands of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany.

State-forming factor

Gazprom's management denied the shale factor for a long time, attributing the decline in sales to the crisis. A year ago, the company intended to improve its business at the expense of the nuclear power plant accident in Japan (Fukushima), counting on the growth of demand both in the East and in the West. But the "shale factor" has said its weighty word - the terms of long-term contracts have to be reviewed in all directions.

If in relation to Europe there are hopes that the development of shale gas will be limited by environmental requirements, then in China there will be no such problems. "Gazprom" is still planning to lay 2 gas pipelines in China - from Western and Eastern Siberia, but negotiations are already underway taking into account the "shale factor".

Gas is getting cheaper, oil prices are fluctuating, in this regard, Russia will face a deficit budget in the coming years Gazprom is forced to postpone the development of several gas fields - the Shtokmanskoye (it was primarily focused on the liquefied natural gas market and for export to the United States) and Bovanenkovskoye, to mothball the Kovykta field in the Irkutsk region.

A number of experts express concern that the Nord Stream pipeline will experience sales difficulties, and the point of return will go into the distant future. Building the South Stream in the current conditions is ruinous, just like developing the pipeline network in general.

President of the Institute of Energy and Finance (Moscow) Vladimir Feigin does not share these fears.

- Nord Stream is largely secured by long-term contracts, he told Business Management magazine.

The expert is also calm about the fate of South Stream, which, along with the development of gas supply to the region, is designed to provide guarantees for the delivery of energy resources in the context of unstable transit through Ukraine.

(Energy Information Administration)

Trumpet case

A serious problem of Gazprom and, in connection with this, the entire Russian economy, is the non-competitiveness of the oil and gas industry. Over the past 7 years, the cost of producing 1 ton of oil has almost doubled from $25-28 to $50-55.

— The Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug produces twice as much oil as Kuwait, but our average daily oil production per well is 20 times lower. It is obvious that even with high oil prices on the world market, it is more important to reduce the cost of production, rather than increase its volumes with low profitability of work, - says Cand. m.s. Vladimir Megerya.

According to the expert, the decline in economic indicators in the oil and gas industry both in the world and in Russia is due not so much to a decrease in investment as to outdated concepts about the structure of oil and gas fields. Such approaches not only reduce the profitability of production, but also significantly increase environmental pollution, do not resist the recent increase in accidents at wells.

— Gazprom's strategy is too much focused on the pipeline sector. It is necessary to introduce new technologies in gas production and processing, it is urgent to eliminate the backlog in the LNG market, - I am convinced Nikolai Ivanov, a traveling analyst at the Institute of Energy and Finance.

The head of Sberbank German Gref insists that Russia should return to the issue of demonopolization of the oil and gas sector.

“Where we have gone in the energy sector creates enormous systemic risks for the economy, where we are moving in the gas sector causes fear. We are still trying to build pipelines and protect the monopoly on production,” he said in January 2012 at the Gaidar Forum.

Gas - one of the main fillers of the Russian budget - is getting cheaper, oil prices fluctuate. In this regard, in the coming years, the country will face a deficit budget. And this is still a conservative scenario. Experts are also concerned about the situation that will develop in the Russian economy after the presidential elections - in the middle and end of 2012.

If trends in the labor market continue, then in Russia by 2025 there will mainly be “pipe personnel” and the service sector, such conclusions can be drawn from the forecasts of the Institute for Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Irina Kravtsova