If the business objective of this edition is clear, then why the Nizhny Novgorod Business Encyclopaedia should be interesting for archivists? In defiance of the trite opinion about the archivists as the people focused on “ the time of yore”, the archivists draw not less attention to the current developments as well ( in any case sooner or later they will be eventually filed in the archives shelves ).

Therefore the value of the Business Encyclopaedia for the state archive service is first of all that this book accurately and impartially mirrors the current economic potential of the Nizhny Novgorod province. The time we live in - the 1990’s of the 20-th century - is one of the most crucial period in the history of Russia, but it could turn up to be the most “silent” period. The effects of the current economic developments of re-organisation of the former state-owned firms into joint-stock companies and a rapid growth of the share of small and medium businesses resulted in disruption of the traditional procedure of the document circulation. The archivists are very much concerned with the catastrophic drop in the amount of documents raised about the firms of the Nizhny Novgorod region and their industrial operation. To fill this gap the Nizhny Novgorod Business Encyclopaedia might be very instrumental in terms of highlighting the opportunities of business contacts for all organisations involved in collecting the information resources available in the region.

Obviously this is far from being the only asset of the Nizhny Novgorod Business Encyclopaedia. To a wistful businessman with analytical mind it gives a rich of food for thought. The material presented in the Encyclopaedia if compared with the retrospective documents proves that the present economic potential in the Nizhny Novgorod province has not been developed from a scratch but it has deep roots and traditions. What is unique in our region is the fact that its production resources are self-sufficient. There is a good opportunity to develop all production industries using our own resources. Metallurgy and metal processing, energy production and machine building, oil refining and chemical industry, forestry, light and food industries - this is far from being a complete list of our local industries. And the similar situation was in the past - many our factories and plants are more than a hundred years old ! Already in the 19-th century the heavy industry in our province was represented by firms well-known to the Russian and foreign businessmen - Sormovo, Vyksa, Kulebyaky factories, Ter-Akopoff oil refinery, Persitz chemical plant, and the grinding mills of Bugrov and Dektayrev do not need any further comments. All these firms are successfully operating to-day ( in some cases under other names though) - but their industrial growth is fascinating ! The Nizhny Novgorod province entered the 20-th century with 345 factories and plants which employed only 18,105 workers ( in average a fraction more than 50 people per firm ).

At the turn of the third millenium our province has a number of successful industrial giants, for example, OAO GAZ where the number of employees is higher than the number of workers in the whole province a hundred years ago, and the production output is beyond any comparison.

In the past hundreds and thousands of small trading and production businesses could find their place, their partners and customers in the Nizhny Novgorod province economy. A hundred years ago by the early 20-th century 24,629 handicraft small businesses with 47,815 employees (i.e. in average 2 people per each small business) were available in the Nizhny Novgorod province. So it means that our small businesses of to-day did not sprang up from nowhere and it means that there is an economic niche for them in the region. The need for finance and loans of such a wide range of business activities was always very stimulating for bank activities. A modern wide-spread banking network in the Nizhny Novgorod province, presented in full in the Nizhny Novgorod Business Encyclopaedia, had also its predecessors: before 1917 there were about 20 banks and their subsidiaries operating in the region. Similar to the past, to-day very good sales opportunities are provided by the Nizhny Novgorod Fair. Finally, there used to be certain commercial areas to which analogues we are only starting to get used to - for example, pharmacies ( before there were only 27 chemist’s shops for the whole province) or paid educational and training institutions. Only one kind of the activities has no analogs in the past - planning, a child of the 20th century. But thanks to the planning, however, we have now an opportunity to develop long-term economic forecasts, to carry out an analysis of the region economic progress.

Continuous succession of economic development, existence of firm-successors demonstrates clearly to a wistful reader how solid turned up to be the business traditions in Nizhny Novgorod. Only to-day when we compare some historical similarities we start to realize the problems of « the business and power». Interestingly, in the past centuries the Russian government traditionally was a guardian to the private business (practically all defense industry was under a government wing), but it was not a petty tutelage ! It never occurred to the local government to impose on businessmen the names of firms and conditions for the contracts to make. How it will look like in the coming century?

The Nizhny Novgorod Volga region was always featured by a high business activity level and as it became evident from the Nizhny Novgorod Business Encyclopaedia data it was able to preserve this quality. That is the best argument in favour of investment opportunities!

B.M. Pudalov
Chief of Information Department of the Archive Affairs Committee with the Nizhny Novgorod province Administration.