Lombard houses in St. Petersburg : pawing <sic> as a survival strategy of low-income households? / Heiko Schrader.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schrader, Heiko.

Series:

Market, culture, and society ; v. 10.

Market, culture and society ; v. 10

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pawnbroking--Russia (Federation)--Saint Petersburg.

Pawnbroking.

Poor.

Finance, Personal.

Mixed economy.

Saint Petersburg (Russia)--Economic conditions.

Saint Petersburg (Russia).

Mixed economy--Russia (Federation)--Saint Petersburg.

Finance, Personal--Russia (Federation)--Saint Petersburg.

Poor--Russia (Federation)--Saint Petersburg--Finance, Personal.

Russia (Federation)--Saint Petersburg.

Physical Description:

xi, 175 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Other Title:

Lombard houses in St. Petersburg : pawning as a survival strategy of low-income households?

Lombard houses in Saint Petersburg

Place of Publication:

Münster : Lit ; Piscataway, NJ : Distributed in North America by Transaction Publishers, 2000.

Summary:

The book is an outcome of a research project on pawnshops in Saint Petersburg, which took place in 1999/2000 in cooperation with the Center of Independent Social Research. It relates to the function of pawnshops in the life strategies of low-income households. The research investigated different topics with various methods: a reconstruction of the history of Russian pawnshops based on secondary materials and government reports; a description of the current pawnshop landscape in Saint Petersburg based upon secondary material and own information; a questionnaire of 100 pawnshop customers focusing on demographic data of the respondents and their households, the living conditions, the income situation, the importance of pawnshops in their life strategies, the use of credit, alternative sources of credit, defaults, and the like; five pre-structured deep interviews of pawnshop customers who already had lombard experience in Soviet times to work out differences and similarities, as well as the psychological component of pawning; open pre-structured interviews with pawnshop directors on their companies' business, their target group and the pawnshop market; and finally a profile of one successful private firm in the market and the biography of its chairman. In addition to an institutional analysis the book aims at a description of the milien of pawnshop customers, which is shaped by an ongoing crisis of the Russian economy and society.

Contents:

1. On Pawnshops 5

The Institution 5

The Customers 7

The Origin of Pawnshops 10

2. The History of Pawnshops in Russia and Saint Petersburg 15

The Development of the Lombard Market in Russia and Saint Petersburg before the Revolution of 1917 17

Soviet Lombard Houses as an Element of "Household Service of the Population" 26

After Perestroika 29

Lombard Houses in Moscow 31

3. The Present Lombard Landscape in Saint Petersburg 33

The Lombard Market 33

A Brief Description of Different Lombard Houses 38

Pawning Regulations 51

Test Pawning 52

4. Data Analysis of the Questionnaires 57

Demographic Data of the Respondents 59

Demographic Data of the Partners 65

Household Structure and Income Situation 67

The Household and the Lombard House 79

Summary of the Questionnaire's Findings 95

5. Guided Deep Interviews with Lombard Customers 99

Precarious Life Situations 99

The Practical Side of Using Lombard Services 102

Initial "Complexes" and Stereotype Views of a Lombard and Getting Adapted to Using its Services 109

Changes in the Informants' Financial Standing 112

6. Analysis of the Interviews of the Directors of Three Lombard Houses 113

The Companies' History and Present Condition 115

Objectives of the Lombards 119

The Directors' Relation to One Another and Other Lombard Firms 122

The Clientele 124

The Influence the Crisis of August 17, 1998 on Lombard Business and the Clients 124

7. The History of a Pawnshop and It's Chairman's Biography 127

Basic Information 127

Biography of Nikolai V. Bobrov and United Lombard 127

The United Lombard Franchising System 132

The Buy-and-Sell System 135

Technical Equipment, Accounting and Advertisement 136

Perspectives of the Company 138

8. The Interregional Pawnbrokers Association in Russia 147

Literature 171

References in English and German Language 171

References in Russian Language 174

Table 1 Establishment of Municipal Lombards in Russia, 1888-1905 20

Table 2 Balance Sheet of Saint Petersburg City Lombard, 1899-1906 21

Table 3 Balance of Payment of Saint Petersburg Metropolitan Lombard in 1888 and 1898 24

Table 4 Balance of Payment of Northern Lombard, 1914 24

Table 5 Indicated and Real Interests of Licensed Lombard Houses in Saint Petersburg (as of March 1, 1997) 38

Table 6 Gold and Silver Assessment in The Municipal State Lombard, Jan., 11 1999 41

Table 7 Prices per Gram of Gold, Saint Petersburg City Lombard, 10.02.99 44

Table 8 Prices per Gram of Gold in United Lombard, 10.02.1999 47

Table 9 Silver Prices in United Lombard per Gram. Spring, 1999 47

Table 10 Interest Structure of the Firm "Sitmar" in Relation to Length of Loan 49

Table 11 Prices of Gold per Gram at "Sitmar", 09.02.99 49

Table 12 Prices of Silver per Gram at "Sitmar", 09.02.99 49

Table 13 Loan Sum per Gram of Gold in "Ikstlan" in Relation to Length of Loan. Prices are of 10.02.99 50

Table 14 Interest Rate in Relation to Loan Sum, "Ikstlan", 10.02.99 51

Table 15 Test Pawning, Golden Chain (1.91 Grams, 583 Quality), April 2000 53

Table 16 Change of Interest for 30-Day Credit from February, 1999 to April, 2000 54

Table 17 Age Distribution of Respondents I (Six Categories) 62

Table 18 Age Distribution of Respondents II (Two Categories) 62

Table 19 Employment Status of the Respondents 64

Table 20 Education of Partner 65

Table 21 Employment Status of Partner 65

Table 22 Employment Status of Partner * Employment Status, Cross-tabulation 66

Table 23 Household Income Assessment Classes 68

Table 24 Household Income According to Income Class 70

Table 25 Survival Minimums, Autumn/Winter 1999, according to Committee for Labor and Social Protection of the Government of Saint Petersburg 71

Table 26 Survival Minimums for Poverty Assessment 72

Table 28 Comparison of Poverty Assessment 1 and 2 75

Table 29 Present Debts according to Sources 83

Table 30 Corporate Members of the Russian Pawnbrokers Association in various Regions (Winter 1998/99) 149

Figure 1 Lombard Market Shares in Saint Petersburg, 1997

Figure 2 Distribution of Interviews per Lombard House

Figure 3 Number of Dependent Household Members

Figure 4 Household Income of Respondents

Figure 5 Income Gap Between Defined Minimum Household Income and Real Income, Assessment 1 (excl. four cases with extraordinarily high incomes)

Figure 6 Income Gap Between Defined Minimum Household Income and Real Income, Assessment 2 (excl. four cases with extraordinarily high incomes)

Figure 7 Length of Insufficiency of Household Income

Figure 8 Usual Loan Period of Lombard Customers

Figure 9 Assessment of Last Pawn

Figure 10 Credit Obtained for the Present/Last Pawn

Figure 11 Credit Category of the Present/Last Pawn

Figure 12 Organization Chart of United Lombard's Management.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 171-175).

ISBN:

3825851095

OCLC:

49211001