Who benefits from the liquidation of the only electric lamp production in the east of the country

Novosibirsk defense enterprises will soon be forced to buy products to complete their products in China - the security forces are threatening to close the modern enterprise. The Tomsk Electric Lamp Plant is the only one beyond the Urals that has become a real competitor to Chinese LEDs, and, apparently, is living out its last days. His fate will be decided by investigators who have their own ideas about Russia's strategic interests.

Siberia on the Screen

At the end of July, Tomsk Governor Sergei Zhvachkin was presented with a miracle device for combating harmful microorganisms and even, who knows, the coronavirus itself. Antiviral exciplex recirculator "Ekran-50.1" was made in the shortest possible time by Tomsk scientists and production workers. The head of the region was pleased with what he saw, held in his hands a voluminous glass flask, received one lamp as a gift and made a pre-order for the first 1000 pieces. On the eve of September 1, which it was decided to hold in the region in the usual full-time format, the need for disinfection of premises that is harmless to humans is extremely high. The new lamp just allows you to disinfect the premises without taking people out.

However, the plans of the governor most likely will not come true. The only manufacturer of light bulbs in Tomsk and in the whole Trans-Urals, the once famous Tomsk Electric Lamp Plant, which created a glass bulb and is testing the technology of gas filling for a new lamp, is waging an unequal struggle for existence. It's all the fault of the company's tax debt. If at least agreements have been reached with the State Tax Inspectorate on restructuring and stage-by-stage debt repayment, the Investigative Committee of Russia is relentless and in August is going to bring criminal charges against the plant's management of deliberate tax evasion.

Taxes have to be paid, and the Tomsk "light bulb" agrees with this, although the conversation about the arisen debts is still ahead. "Bulb" is even ready today to take out a loan to pay a favor to the state. But in support of the lawsuit of the tax authorities, the assets and accounts of the enterprise were arrested. To understand how the plant continues to operate under these extreme conditions, one must know its history.

1000 and one lamp

In the fall of 1941, from under the very nose of the Nazis, two enterprises were evacuated to Tomsk: the Moscow electric lamp and the Zaprudnensky glass factories. Already in December, the equipment installed in the unfinished building of the medical institute in the very center of Tomsk produced the first thousand aviation lamps. Since then, December 15 is considered the official birthday of the plant. Thanks, among other things, to the electric lamp plant, one of the 32 evacuated to Tomsk during the war, the Tomsk region in 1944 was finally recognized as a full-fledged Siberian region and deprived of the humiliating status of the regional center of the Novosibirsk region.

Little remains of that evacuated industrial potential today. Few. Including the Tomsk Electric Lamp Plant, which at the beginning of the seemingly fat 2000s experienced the worst period in its life. So far the worst. By that time, TELZ occupied an entire block in the historical university district of Tomsk. He produced up to 100 products. The people of the factory were legendary in the country's tube industry. It was then that TELZ entered B.A.B.C.

This holding bought up electric lamp assets on borrowed funds throughout the CIS, opened a powerful lamp production in Shakhovskoy, Moscow Region, and by 2006 it went bankrupt, unable to withstand competition with cheap Chinese lamps. VA.B.C was declared bankrupt together with the Tomsk "bulb", which did not take loans and did not get into debt. From the whole block in the center of Tomsk, the plant has only one quarter left. Creditors took the rest. They took it - and these buildings are still empty and destroyed!

Light at the end

But every cloud has a silver lining. Another life of the plant began in 2007 under the new name "LIGHT OF THE XXI CENTURY" and the brand LEADlight. A management team led by Vladislav Golubev optimized production and storage facilities. We installed new high-tech equipment and a gas boiler house.

They thought this: if our predecessors during the war managed to set up production in three months, will we really bury it in peacetime? 250 million borrowed rubles were invested in the refurbishment. Then tax debts began to accumulate little by little. In 2008, the plant was the first in Russia to start serial production of LED lamps.

In 2014, a prototype of the first lamp in Russia using LED filamentous emitting elements was created, which was named "TOMICHA LAMP". The technology for its mass production was developed. On November 14 last year, a new high-tech robotic line for the production of new light bulbs was launched, and soon the country's only production site for LED filaments for these lamps. Today "light bulb" has become the only enterprise in Russia that produces lamps and LEDs for them. The products of the "bulb" are supplied to the famous JSC "Uralvagonzavod", JSC "Ural plant of transport engineering", JSC "PO Sevmash", and other defense enterprises. For several years, by order of the Novosibirsk PO "Katod" and ZAO "Ekran - Optical Systems" Tomsk residents have been producing glass capillaries and other semi-finished products for the manufacture of electro-optical converters used in night vision devices.

In May 2020, during the period of the threat of a pandemic, Tomsk residents have developed and started a small-scale production of devices for fighting viruses and pathogenic bacteria - LEADLIGHT ANTIVIRUS recirculators.

But the production successes are of little interest to the fiscal and law enforcement agencies.

Until now, the dialogue with the tax authorities took place in a constructive manner: the debt was gradually extinguished and restructured. But in 2020, the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Tomsk Region opened a criminal case under article 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - tax evasion. In the most difficult time of the restructuring of production in conditions of self-isolation, the seizure of documents began, calls for interrogations of employees began.

“Law enforcement officers are spreading rumors about the upcoming closure of the enterprise,” General Director Vladislav Golubev laments. - And this is essentially a slanderous statement. No cessation of activities is expected. They try to demoralize the collective, people are intimidated: they say, if during interrogations they say not what they want to hear from them, then criminal prosecution will be initiated against them.

In August, charges of willful tax evasion are possible. It is easy to prove intent in today's times: paid wages to 400 workers instead of paying taxes ?! Everything, there is deliberate evasion.

Did the enterprise management make mistakes? Almost certainly. The main thing is complete apoliticality. Golubev is not a member of any parties or public associations. Unless an Orthodox person does not hide this. Political apathy at the present time for a leader of his level is a misdemeanor, apparently worse than non-payment of taxes.

Swallow a light bulb

It is hard to imagine what can save today the group of companies "Light of the XXI century" - the successor of the Tomsk "bulb". Is that the intervention of some higher powers. In terms of form, both the Tax and the Investigative Committee are right, but in essence they are burying the symbol of Tomsk, the only manufacturer of light bulbs and the latest LED products in the east of the country. Another 400 people will become unemployed - this is another big plus to the tripled unemployment rate in the region.

Russians will buy Chinese bulbs again. But the lamps for the new governor's anti-virus devices will have to be carefully looked for. They are unlikely to be found by the new academic year. And the authorities will have less another example of import substitution and development of domestic production. However, they will think of something. But four hundred people will be thrown into the street, along with the hopes that the Fatherland will someday acquire its own modern industry.

Source: https://sibkray.ru/