Business | Good times in Grainville

Russia has emerged as an agricultural powerhouse

Enterprising farmers have overcome the legacy of Soviet collectivisation

Now yielding a bumper crop
|ZERNOGRAD

THE DISTRICT of Zernograd, or Grainville, in Russia’s southern Rostov region has many hallmarks of a depressed post-Soviet backwater. Decaying villages dot dusty roads; grey apartment blocks fill sleepy cities. Yet thanks to its namesake crop, times for many here have never been better. Take Yuri and Aleksandr Peretyatko. When the brothers launched their grain farm in the early 1990s, “we didn’t even have bicycles,” says Aleksandr. Now they own 1,500 hectares and cruise around in new white Lexus SUVs. Their children, Aleksandr boasts, “ride Range Rovers”.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Good times in Grainville”

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