I just read an article of Shamil Ibraghimov, Executive Director of EFCA Kyrgyzstan, about responsibility of businesses for the development of society and what makes them frugal today in our country.

Author tells us that in 1910 in the Russian Empire, which also included Turkestan from where the Central Asian Republics would rise during the Soviet Union, there were 6,278 charitable organizations, 75% of which were financed by private donations. In Moscow alone there were 628 charitable institutions: hospitals, schools and almshouses. In Kyrgyzstan, most specifically in Karakol Russian and Tatar merchants were traditionally engaged in patronage, publishing books and founding the first theater companies.

So far as Soviet citizens were not allowed to be enterprising and any mark-up on goods constituted as illegal the system of private charities fell down. After the fall of the Soviet Union, entrepreneurs used to think only about themselves, which is actually good, but all social projects started to be financed by various international donors: the European Commission, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), OSCE and many different embassies.

Author says that the situation in Kyrgyzstan today still leaves a lot of room for improvement:

…our legal norms don’t include sponsorship and charity. A business giving social support to a project has to do this surreptitiously, altering its accounts secretively in order to avoid incurring additional taxes. Although, of course, it is also important to understand that the government is not in the position to solve all social problems, especially on a local level. It simply cannot reach every village. Only corporations and the community itself have the necessary resources for this.