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Global Business Rebooting Rural Russia Fighting poverty with felt shoes?

Lucy Ash visits a social entrepreneur in the impoverished Russian countryside.

  • Step one - processing the sheep wool
  • Tatiana Nikolaeva is in charge of production at the valenki workshop
  • Nadezhda Ivanova combines the wool and felt with a four pronged needle
  • The Soviet era Valenki factory in the nearby town of Sebezh
  • The Pskov region: 'The Land of Three Thousand Lakes'
  • Abandoned homes and empty villages in the Pskov region
  • The raw material – wool from Romanov sheep
  • Sveta Grigorenko packs the boots according to colours and sizes
  • Shaping the damp boots around a shoe tree.
  • All weather, longer lasting - Snegiri’s valenki have rubber soles
  • Kirill Vasiliev, owner of the Snegiri brand of Valenki
  • Wood fuelled energy powers the factory- steam is produced by burning logs
  • A family atmosphere - the staff share meals in the factory kitchen
  • Owner Kirill Vasiliev sees himself as a social entrepreneur and says...
  • Olga Kuznetsova sews the labels and piping onto the slipper boots
  • Russia’s answer to UGGS? Felt boots are healthy for feet...

This gallery is from

  • Global Business—Rebooting Rural Russia

    Can small businesses revive Russia's rural economy?

    ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ World Service

Galleries

  • The World of Work in the USA—American Jobs: The Ties that Bind

  • Fighting poverty with felt shoes?—Rebooting Rural Russia

  • A young Malawian woman has a great business idea but can she get the backing she needs?—Pitch Night

  • Charlotte Ashton reports from a Sugarcane Outgrowers plantation in Malawi—Growing Malawi

See all galleries from Global Business (12)

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