Whose interests does the bill on organization of the funeral business reflect?
In the near future, the State Duma deputies will receive a draft law on the organization of the funeral business in Russia. Among other things, the document will spell out the concept of “specialized funeral service” and formulate the conditions for its work. It is assumed that only legal entities and individual entrepreneurs who have the appropriate permission from the authorized state body will receive the right to organize a funeral, and the prices for the services they provide will be entered in a special open register. Also, employees of ritual agencies will be forbidden to receive information about the death of a person and be the first to contact the relatives of the deceased. This item should theoretically remove from the market numerous “black ritualists” who illegally obtain personal data and exert psychological pressure on the relatives of the deceased in order to sign an agreement for the provision of expensive services. Often the competition between the “ritualists” themselves turned into terrible consequences, such as the loss of the bodies of the dead or the refusal to take them to the morgue. As part of the discussion of the bill, the state budget institution “Ritual”, which is subordinate to the Department of Trade and Services, is taken as a model for the activity of a ritual company. The mass brawl at the Khovansky cemetery brought scandalous fame to this structure, as a result of which three people died and about 30 people were injured. The general director of Ritual, a former employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Artem Ekimov and his deputy Valerian Mazaraki are closely connected not only with the head of the Department of Trade Alexei Nemeryuk, but also with high-ranking security officials, such as the head of the regional FSB, Colonel-General Alexei Dorofeev and his former assistant Marat Medoev, fired after a high-profile story with drugs planted on journalist Ivan Golunov.
Will the funeral business be taken over?
The bill on the organization of the funeral business in Russia can be submitted to the State Duma deputies in the near future and already in the spring session it was adopted in the first reading. The document should replace the current since 1996 and outdated federal law
On burial and funeral business. “Protection of the rights of citizens who have lost loved ones, the formation of a clear conceptual apparatus and the achievements of digitalization in relation to the industry, ensuring state supervision and suppressing illegal actions by all participants in the process are just some of the tasks of the new law,” one of the authors of the bill told Vedomosti. Deputy Chairman of the Duma Committee on Economic Policy Artem Kiryanov.
In accordance with the proposed changes, the basis for the implementation of activities for the organization of funerals by individual entrepreneurs and legal entities will be the presence of a permit issued by the authorized body of the constituent entity of the Russian Federation in the field of funeral business. All those who have received permission will be entered in a special register, which will indicate the services provided and their cost. According to TASS, the document establishes a clear division of powers between the authorities in control of the funeral sector, consolidates the concept of “specialized funeral service” and specifies the conditions for its work.
In addition, it is planned to create and maintain a special register, which will include information about cemeteries and burial places, which will oblige citizens to take care of the burial places and help solve the problem of the so-called “ownerless graves.” Public registers will also contain data on unscrupulous funeral service providers.
It is significant that a separate bill will include a ban on providing commercial structures with information about the death of a person without the permission of relatives. According to Svetlana Razvorotneva, deputy chairman of the State Duma committee on construction and housing and communal services, co-author of the document, representatives of funeral organizations will be prohibited from being the first to contact the relatives of the deceased: they will be able to offer their services only after contacting them directly. Otherwise, administrative fines are provided.
The last point attracts special attention, as it aims to make funeral services as transparent as possible and exclude the activities of the so-called “black ritual agents” who illegally obtain personal data and begin to literally terrorize relatives immediately after the death of a loved one. There are cases when competing “black ritualists” clashed with each other right in front of confused customers.
Funeral turned horror
At first glance, the deputy’s initiative looks more than timely: it is high time to bring order to the funeral services market. Thus, according to media reports, in Moscow alone last year there were more than 500 “shadow” ritual offices that grossly violated the law: their agents bought up information about the dead, imposed expensive services, and exerted psychological pressure on relatives in order to sign contracts. According to experts, the annual turnover of the “shadow” market exceeds 15 billion rubles.
“In fact, today anyone can perform funeral services, since there are no clear burial standards and regulations for ritual services,” Elena Andreeva, executive director of the Union of Funeral Organizations and Crematoria, tells Vedomosti.
In practice, this state of affairs translates into truly terrible things. For example, TASS wrote about how the body of a Moscow State University professor was lost as a result of the illegal actions of “black ritualists”: instead of being cremated at the Khovansky cemetery in Moscow, it was taken to Nizhny Novgorod, where it simply disappeared (later it was nevertheless found and reburied). In the regions, the situation is also not the best. The Znak news agency in one of its publications described the horrific consequences of the competition of ritual agencies in the Krasnodar Territory, where mortuary orderlies disfigure bodies beyond recognition for money, pumping them with boiling water and, thus, forcing relatives to pay to the “necessary” offices.
A story that took place last fall in Timashevsk, where ritual agent Roman Pikalo brought to the city administration building a body wrapped in a sheet, which they refused to accept at the local morgue, received wide public outcry, extorting money for providing a service that is de jure provided free of charge. Representatives of other funeral organizations, who found themselves in a similar situation, threatened to join Pikalo.
Later it turned out that the White Angel company established a monopoly on funeral services in the city, which signed a contract with the state bureau of forensic medical examination (SME). As a result, the morgue began to work exclusively with the monopolist, refusing to accept bodies from other agencies. The fact that this decision was supported by a material factor is hardly worth specifying.
Paid agents of “black ritualists”
About where and how the “hunt” for potential clients is being conducted, the REN-TV channel spoke, whose correspondents, under the guise of organizing a funeral, turned to the Togliatti City Department for a place in the cemetery, which is provided free of charge by law:
“An employee of the city administration, Yulia Lopatkina, hands our journalist the phone number of a ritual agent named Yury and strongly recommends contacting him. “Be sure to tell him that you are from Yulia Valerievna from the department,” the woman said. As soon as our journalist agrees, he is immediately given signed documents. Agent Yuri is already in place – and immediately to the point: preparing the grave, coffin, wreaths, cross, transport, funeral procession, farewell hall, funeral service. There is no official price list, but Yuri takes out a calculator and sums it up: 99 thousand rubles.
TV channel experts estimate the services of information sellers (in other words, “ringers”) in Tolyatti at 10-15 thousand rubles, in neighboring Samara – at 15-20 thousand. According to TASS, in Moscow informants receive an average of 25- 30 thousand rubles.
Serious administrative connections in the ritual business are indispensable. Not surprisingly, a significant part of the market is controlled by former or current officials. For example, the founder of the company “Pamyat” in Volgograd in the early 2000s was the current deputy of the regional Duma, the chairman of the Committee for Environmental Protection and Nature Management, Irina Solovieva.
According to REN-TV, together with her husband, she began maintaining the archives of city cemeteries, at the same time blocking access to burial sites for competitors: at the gates of the cemetery, the funeral procession was waiting for the Memory hearse, into which it was proposed to transfer the body of the deceased. In case of refusal, relatives had to carry the coffin to the grave on foot.
Despite regular inspections by the Federal Antimonopoly Service and the prosecutor’s office, “Pamyat” is still operating and thriving. True, Solovieva herself officially had to distance herself from the activities of the company, transferring the management of the funeral business to a relative.
Moscow “Ritual” under the “roof” of the security forces