I was chatting with Lao Lin Xiaozhang while drinking tea, when Brother Chao knocked on the door and came in.

After introducing Lao Lin to Brother Chao, I asked Brother Chao, "Has Vera started to be on duty?" Brother Chao nodded, and I smiled and said, "No wonder you have time to chat with us." Brother Chao glared at me and said, "Are you kid not talking for fear that others will sell you as a dumb person?" I hurriedly pretended to be scared, "Leader, I was wrong, I talk too much." Xiao Zhang said enviously on the side: "Brother Chao, I just saw you and that beautiful conductor go over there, the Russian beauty is so beautiful." This is the advantage of knowing Russian, I went to Novosibirsk to learn Russian hard, and also try to find a Russian beauty as a girlfriend. Lao Lin said with a smile on the side: "It's good if you are young and don't have a family, and if you say you want to find a Russian girlfriend, you can find one." If it had been twenty years earlier, I would have studied Russian hard and found a Russian beauty as my wife, so that I would not have been in vain in Russia. Xiao Zhang smiled and said, "Brother Lin, you are not old, you can also find a girlfriend in Russia now." Lao Lin laughed and said, "I don't dare, I'm afraid that the tigress at home will eat me." Hearing Lao Lin say this, we all laughed along.

Xiao Zhang ran a cup of Longjing for Brother Chao, and Brother Chao praised the tea in the cup before he started drinking: "Good tea, good tea." While saying Chao Ge, he raised the teacup and took a deep breath of the aroma wafting out of the teacup, and then slowly took a small sip of tea, and after quietly tasting it for a long time, Chao Ge said unsatisfactorily: "The real best Longjing." I was a little surprised and said, "I didn't see it, Brother Chao, you know tea so well." Xiao Zhang also said with admiration: "Brother Chao, you are an expert in tea drinking." Brother Chao waved his hand and said with a smile: "Where am I a connoisseur?" When I used to go to Zhejiang on a business trip, our related unit invited me to go to the best tea house to drink tea, and listened to the master of the tea house explained how to identify Longjing tea, and the related unit also gave me a box of excellent Longjing tea before the rain, which tasted very sweet and mellow, and now the taste of this cup of tea is much better than the one I have drunk before, so I said that it is the best Longjing. I told Brother Chao: "Brother Chao, Xiao Zhang's family is a tea farmer who grows Longjing tea, and the cup of tea he brewed is the best Longjing tea in the Ming Dynasty that is treasured at home. When Brother Chao heard this, he said to Xiao Zhang: "Thank you, it's really rare to be able to drink such good tea." Xiao Zhang said: "Brother Chao, you don't have to be polite, you will often come to me for tea in Novosibirsk in the future." ”

At this time, I remembered what Lao Lin said about Wittenham, so I asked Brother Chao: "Brother Chao, do you know Wittenham in Moscow?" Brother Chao nodded and said, "I know Wittenham, when I went to Moscow before, I went there once. I then asked, "Brother Chao, how do you write Wittenhain in Russian?" Xiao Zhang found a pen and paper, Brother Chao wrote the Russian Wittenham, seeing that the Russian Wittenham is four letters, I asked Brother Chao: "Brother Chao, this should be the abbreviation of Russian, what is the full name of Wittenham?" Brother Chao replied: "When Wittenham was in the former Soviet Union, he called the Exhibition Hall of National Economic Achievements of the Soviet Union, and now it is called the All-Russian Exhibition Center. Wittenham is very large, the entire exhibition hall covers an area of about three or four hundred hectares, and the circumference of the fence is dozens of kilometers. During the Soviet period, the fifteen republics of the former Soviet Union have special pavilions here, displaying the latest scientific and technological achievements in the fields of economy and science and technology, and the entire exhibition center consists of dozens of buildings of various types. Listening to Brother Chao say this, Xiao Zhang and I couldn't help but say "wow" in unison.

Brother Chao asked me curiously, "Dapeng, why did you suddenly ask me about Wittenhan?" "I then told Brother Chao that Lao Lin and his brother were working in the Chinese wholesale building that had been seized, and they were going to buy containers at an ant market and rent a place in Wittenham for wholesale and retail. After hearing this, Brother Chao said to Lao Lin: "Brother Lin, it's really not easy for you to do business in Moscow. I've heard a lot of people talk about Chinese wholesale buildings, but they've never been there, can you tell us about the Chinese wholesale buildings in Moscow? Lao Lin pondered for a while and said: "These Chinese wholesale buildings are the first to run the international train of the Chinese to Moscow temporary foothold, after the international train to Moscow, the Chinese master will have some goods left in their hands, and the remaining goods will definitely not be sold after they arrive in Moscow." In order to facilitate the sale of goods, but also for their own safety, the fallen masters generally live in the Chinese grandfather buildings in all directions of Moscow, and the Chinese and Russians who go to the market to practice stalls buy goods directly from these buildings. These Chinese buildings are generally abandoned dormitories in local schools and factories, and Chinese bosses have rented them from Russians and rented them out to Chinese bosses doing business in Russia. At present, many Chinese people who do business in the Moscow market live in such apartments, and as far as I know, there are at least a dozen Chinese buildings in Moscow, and the largest can accommodate more than 1,000 people. The goods are piled up in the room, and people sleep on the goods, and the conditions are as bad as they are. In this way, people and goods are together, and when they encounter the police seizure action, they will even bring money and goods. Even if there is no seizure operation, those police officers often come uninvited, looking very scary, all holding submachine guns in their hands, saying that they are checking passports, but in fact they are extorting money, and they beat people unreasonably at every turn. ”

After listening to Lao Lin's speech, Brother Chao said: "That's really terrifying, it's not safe to sell goods in the wholesale building at all." Lao Lin smiled helplessly and said: "It's still the same sentence, people die for money, birds die for food, doing business in Moscow is to pin your head to the belt of your trousers, and it is nothing to encounter extortion from the police, at most you will lose some money." The most unsafe thing is to go to exchange currency, after we sell the goods, not to eat, not to sleep and rest, the first thing to do is to exchange the ruble in our hands for dollars, because I don't know when the ruble will suddenly depreciate. Russia's foreign exchange is not legal, we can't exchange dollars from the bank, we can only go to the underground exchange points on the black market to exchange foreign currency, and the underground exchange points are hidden in hidden places that ordinary people can't find. Think about it, how dangerous it is to carry a big bag of rubles to such a place. Attacked on the way, deceived when exchanging huàn dollars, robbed this kind of thing often happens to the Chinese masters, and some of the fallen masters even lost their lives, and there was a tragedy in our batch building where a person was killed by a robbery on the way to exchange currency. ”

Hearing this, Brother Chao and I and Xiao Zhang looked at each other, and Xiao Zhang said to Lao Lin: "It is said that Russia is full of gold, and Chinese making money in Russia is like bending down to pick up money, I didn't expect it to be so dangerous." I never understood why the police were seizing your wholesale building. Brother Lin, you said that it was because of the investigation of smuggled goods, but I see that when you passed through the customs in Zabaikal, your goods were also subject to customs duties. Lao Lin said: "I only have a lot of goods, and when I was inspecting the customs, I also gave benefits privately, and she only wrote a little quantity." Most of the goods in our wholesale building are sent through guò gray customs clearance, and there are no customs clearance procedures at all. Xiao Zhang asked puzzledly: "What is gray customs clearance?" Chao Ge explained on the side: "After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia's daily necessities are very scarce, and it is urgent to import a large number of goods from China, so there are Chinese unfortunate men who have broken into Russia, most of the Chinese goods are entered through guò private trade in Russia, but the Russian customs clearance procedures are cumbersome, the tariffs are chaotic, in order to encourage imports, simplify customs procedures, the Russian Customs Commission allows customs clearance companies to handle import business for cargo owners. These companies work with customs officials to clear the entire aircraft or truckload of goods in the form of customs duties on parcel consignments, which are referred to as charter flights and chartered vehicles. The price quoted for this type of customs clearance is usually only one-half or even one-third of the regular price. In general, customs clearance companies pay the full amount of customs duties on only a small part of a batch of imported goods, and the rest are cleared by paying bribes to customs officials. This gray customs clearance method greatly reduces the cost of imported goods, and also provides convenience for Chinese people who do not understand Russian and are not familiar with the complex local customs declaration procedures, but the customs clearance company cannot provide customs clearance procedures to the cargo owner, and the goods without customs clearance procedures will be regarded as smuggled goods once they encounter inspection. ”

I have to admire Brother Chao's familiarity with the import and export business and Russia's national conditions, and I am now listening to Brother Chao's explanation to really understand what gray customs clearance is, and I only knew that gray customs clearance is an informal way of customs clearance. I put forward my opinion to Lao Lin: "Brother Lin, can't the goods go through the formal route?" Lao Lin shook his head and said helplessly: "That's really too troublesome, we have to register a company and go through all kinds of procedures, where can we, the peasants who have little culture and those who don't know Russian, figure it out." And if you go through the formal route, the tariffs are too high, and there will be no money to be made at all. We took the risk to come to Russia to sell because of the high profits here, which is the main reason why the Chinese masters are reluctant to leave in Russia after encountering so many hardships and difficulties. ”

At this time, Brother Chao used a sentence to the point to express the success and helplessness of the Chinese masters in Russia, and the gray customs clearance fulfilled the Chinese masters, and also harmed the Chinese masters.