A combination of excessive bureaucracy and corrupt officials makes it a hazardous enterprise.
For example, producing milk is fairly straightforward in most parts of the world.
But it landed Dmitry Malov in jail.
He started out by buying a milk-packaging facility. Then he bought two old Soviet dairy farms. He poured his life savings into them, and took out a bank loan to modernise them. He soon had a thriving business...
...The first sign that his investment was going to turn sour was when he had a visit from some men who turned out to be officers from the FSB, Russia's interior security service.
They tried to persuade him to sell his business at a knock-down price to an unknown buyer. Mr Malov refused."
BBC News - Russian entrepreneur 'jailed for not selling'
What a terrible story! It looks like things haven't really changed in Russia.
The quote that stood out for me was:
"...one in six Russian entrepreneurs is in jail, and that one in three prisoners in Russia is a businessman."
