Arkis — a Nizhny Novgorod commercial company producing cakes, pastries, and desserts. "Arkis" has been in existence for more than 17 years.
Advantages of Working at Arkis
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working at one of Nizhny Novgorod's leading companies, in a team of true professionals;
the company's reliability and commitment to its employees and partners; a genuine interest in employees' success and professional development (training, skills upgrading, participation in seminars and workshops, conferences, and exhibitions) a dynamic and friendly corporate atmosphere. |
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Charity
The company "Arkis" is guided by the principle: "Once you've achieved success — help others!" We pay great attention to charitable work and sponsorship. The younger generation directs all its energy into sports. "Arkis" presents tasty prizes to the pupils of the Yubileyny children's and youth sports and cultural center who have won the football tournament held at Gymnasium No. 180. "Arkis" does not forget about children with physical disabilities and tries to bring a little celebration into their difficult, trial-filled lives. Our cakes and pastries bring joy to the pupils of the regional center for the social, occupational, and psychological rehabilitation of the visually impaired, "Kamerat," and to the wards of the regional social rehabilitation center "Brigantina."
The best reward for us is the smiles of the children from the Solnyshko orphanage, who were genuinely delighted by the wonderful cake we gave them.
In the Mass Media
= Workers' Strike over Unpaid Wages, TV Channel "Volga"
"The strike was organized by former employees of one of the region's largest confectionery companies. Several dozen workers at the sweets factory were left penniless after sudden dismissal.
The new management decided to cut staff. According to official documents, wages at the company were modest, and according to the workers themselves, the remainder was paid in cash under the table.
In order to obtain any kind of comment, the dismissed workers had to practically storm the confectionery firm's office.
Demolition at Meshcherskoe Lake
The head of Kanavinsky District returns to old habits. 14.03.2008
The head of the Kanavino administration, Nikolai Sataev, is already well known to Nizhny Novgorod residents as a fierce opponent of everything illegal. Last year he made headlines when a bulldozer under his command tore the canopy off a gaming arcade building that lacked the required permits. But Nikolay Petrovich decided to scale up his operations and has now moved on from canopies to entire buildings.
— I did warn you! — the head of Kanavinsky District declared menacingly to representatives of the firm "Arkis," and gave the order to demolish their retail outlet on Yesenin Street.
Sataev's indispensable assistant — the bulldozer — dragged the brand-new kiosk several metres into the mud, badly denting the roof.
— We're just glad we managed to talk Nikolay Petrovich out of demolishing the kiosk completely, — say the representatives of "Arkis." — After all, it cost a decent amount of money.
So what did the sweet sellers do to fall foul of Sataev?
According to the entrepreneurs, the documents for setting up the retail outlet are still in the process of being obtained. But they say the permits should be issued any day now.
— By the time you get through all that bureaucratic red tape, so much time will have passed, — the businesspeople sigh.
— They were warned straight away that nothing good would come of it, — say the sellers at the neighbouring vegetable kiosk, throwing up their hands. — First the foundation of their building was damaged — probably as a warning. But evidently that didn't help…
Local residents now stop in bewilderment at the site of the former mini-market.
— What a shame — we used to buy pastries for the children here! — they say indignantly. — The entrepreneurs would have sorted out all the paperwork eventually. Why demolish it straight away? We're not living in prehistoric times.
Nikolay Sataev sees it differently.
— I will always defend the city from this chaos, — declares the indefatigable truth-seeker. — This firm illegally placed three kiosks in Kanavinsky District. They ran electricity without any permits and started trading. If by Friday they have not demolished their mini-markets, we will carry out the demolition ourselves!
It is possible that Nikolay Petrovich will have to pay for this high-handedness. After all, as is well known, he has already paid one million roubles out of his own pocket to the owners of the gaming arcade — by court order, as compensation for the damage caused.
— I don't begrudge any amount of money for the sake of justice, — the official declares. Who knows, perhaps one day the citizens will properly appreciate our hero's efforts. And then grateful Nizhny Novgorod residents will erect a monument to the uncompromising district head — together with his bulldozer, of course…
"Komsomolskaya Pravda," 14.03.2008. Society / Sataev ousts confectioners from Meschera
Registered to a Female Security Guard
The Leninsky District Court of Nizhny Novgorod has concluded its hearing of the high-profile criminal case concerning a salmonella outbreak in the summer of 2008, when more than 50 people were poisoned by contaminated cakes sold under the "Arkis" brand.
The sole defendant in the case was the former head of production at OOO "Niko-NN," Marina Gulnyeva, whom the court found guilty but released from criminal liability due to the expiry of the statute of limitations. The company's founders could not be located, and recovering damages from the legal entity itself will be extremely problematic.
In June 2008, confectioners at OOO "Niko-NN" produced a batch of cakes under the "Arkis" brand, in which salmonella bacteria and staphylococcus were subsequently detected. As a result of the localised salmonella outbreak in the summer of 2008, more than fifty people were hospitalised in Nizhny Novgorod, Arzamas, Kstovsky District, and Bor, some in a very serious condition. All of them had eaten cakes produced by "Niko-NN" the day before falling ill. Following an unscheduled inspection by Rospotrebnadzor (the Federal Service for Consumer Rights Protection), "Arkis" retail outlets were temporarily closed, and sanitary services seized around 3 tonnes of confectionery products.
The head of production at OOO "Niko-NN," Marina Gulnyeva, was charged with multiple violations of food storage conditions, under Article 236 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Violation of sanitary and epidemiological regulations resulting in the negligent mass illness or poisoning of people"). During the preliminary investigation, the "Niko-NN" employee admitted guilt, but denied it at trial, claiming that the contaminated products had been produced during a shift other than hers and that the company's management should bear responsibility for the firm's activities.
As the court announced yesterday, Marina Gulnyeva was ultimately found guilty but released from criminal liability due to the expiry of the statute of limitations (the investigation lasted more than a year, and the case was heard in court for a further year). In addition, during the court proceedings an attempt was made to locate the legal entity itself — OOO "Niko-NN" — in order to hold it financially liable. The fact is that many of the 57 victims had filed civil claims ranging from 50,000 to 1,000,000 roubles. The cakes seriously disrupted the lives of some residents: for example, newlyweds were taken to an infectious disease hospital straight from their wedding, and a pregnant woman had to undergo a caesarean section due to fears for the child's life. According to federal judge Zhanna Igoshina, OOO "Niko-NN" was ordered to pay the victims 5,000 roubles each in moral damages, but the organisation itself had deregistered from the tax register and re-registered in Dzerzhinsk under new founders.
The Main Investigative Directorate (MID) of the Main Internal Affairs Directorate for Nizhny Novgorod Region noted that in the course of investigating this case it emerged that "Niko-NN" had been registered using dummy individuals. "Everything was arranged so that you couldn't pin anything on anyone — the OOO itself was registered to a female security guard who stood at their gate. According to the documents, they were merely renting premises from 'Arkis' on Lenin Avenue."
Roman Kryazhev, Kommersant-Privolzhye
Contacts
Cake Orders
- E-mail: zakaz@arkis.nnov.ru
Vacancies
Office
Address
Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhegorodsky District, Lenin Avenue, 57/3
Phone
(831) 240-50-60
HR Department
- yachmeneva@arkis.nnov.ru
- plehanova@arkis.nnov.ru
Phone
- (831) 257-66-28
Official Website
Opinions
For
- I also want to complain.... only not about the management of the Arkis company, but about a bunch of losers spreading rumours about the company and its owner... I have been working at Arkis for about two months in a managerial position. Before I went in I read the reviews, but didn't believe them — I'm used to trusting my own judgement. In my first days, the rank-and-file employees reacted negatively to my enthusiasm and tried to frighten me with terrible stories about the company's owner, Andrey Arkadyevich Margolin (none of them having ever spoken with him, since Margolin only communicates with management). I had never seen so many disloyal employees within a single company, and it immediately became clear where the wind was blowing from and how rumours about the company spread around the city.
Margolin is a born leader — it's no wonder the company has been on the market for more than 15 years despite all its troubles. There is staff turnover at the company, but it is not the owner's fault.
Margolin himself strives to build a permanent team of professionals, and the only people who don't last at the company are weak individuals who set the bar too high for themselves. I would like to hope that through our joint efforts with Margolin we will manage to build a stable core of professional managers and restore the company's reputation. It is such a shame when decent people, having read all this nonsense, don't want to work at the company. Trust only your own judgement.
Against
"The Andreyevsky shop (2003) — a juicer in action.
.. After that I ended up] in the Andreyevsky shop, which was owned by Andrey Margolin. At the time he ran the confectionery firm "Arkis" and 2 self-service shops — one in Molitovka, another on Sormovskoe Highway.
This happened literally about two weeks after I left the VKT firm (holding company). Staffing was also done through external sources. As I now understand, in a firm like that it couldn't be any other way. The company deliberately maintained an enormous staff turnover. But more on that later.
I saw the advertisement in the newspaper. It said they needed a head of the information department. Salary — 18,000. I called. I had a conversation with the current head. He said he was planning to leave soon. Since I had spent almost a year before that working in the Raytsentr retail chain and knew all the ins and outs of self-service shop operations, my application was suitable. But they first offered me a position as a systems administrator at the shop on Sormovskoe Highway, with a net salary of 14,000.
The HR department was located in the Molitovka shop. Two or three young women worked there. I handed over my employment record book and got to work. I noticed no other activity on their part — in the sense that there were no lectures, training sessions, or inductions of any kind.
The work arrangements were as follows. The store already had a programmer — my future partner. We were supposed to work seven days on, twelve hours a day, then a week off. But that partner quit soon after — within a week. I was promised they would find another one. They never did.
The salary they promised was quite high. But it turned out they paid it with a delay of nearly two months. I worked like a Stakhanovite hero and waited for the day I would finally get my money. Once I was paid almost in full. By that point, however, I had already started thinking about what working twelve hours a day, every day, with no days off was doing to my health.
While I was working at that store, I couldn't help noticing how often the managers changed. I worked there for two and a half months, during which time no fewer than four came and went. The fourth was Margolin's assistant, a former cop by the name of Shikin. I had the impression he was there to stay.
Other staff turned over very frequently as well.
From the moment I started, I noticed that the people working in the store seemed somehow beaten down. Although the behavior of the staff — men and women alike — was fairly coarse, with everyone often expressing themselves through the great and mighty Russian mat. That, incidentally, is not a digression from the main topic; it speaks directly to corporate culture (and falls squarely under personnel management). The beaten-down quality came from pressure exerted by management. One time, when the printer at the checkout broke, the new manager called me over and told me that if I didn't fix it within five minutes he would fire me. I fixed the printer, but I didn't care for that kind of treatment at all. Then, on another occasion, in front of everyone, he showed off his police background and asked: "Want me to have you put away?" My sense of humor usually saves me in situations like that, and I replied: "Werewolves in epaulettes, are we?"
A little later I learned that when someone quit or was fired, whatever wages they were still owed were paid out at roughly ten percent of what was due. The personnel management system thus became transparently clear to me. A person is promised a good salary. They start working. But it turns out the salary is two months behind. The working conditions turn out to be terrible — in my case, twelve hours a day every day with no days off, since no one was in any hurry to replace the partner who had quit. On average, after about two months, a person is either fired or quits of their own accord. And they are paid only one-tenth of what they were owed for the time worked. This appears to be the firm's steady-state mode of operation — an original approach to personnel management. By robbing workers in this way, the firm (that is, its owner Margolin) shovels in extra profit.
I very much wanted to stay on until one more full payday, but I began to feel sorry for my health. A person only has one. I handed the former cop my resignation. He started asking me to stay on for at least another two weeks and promised that all the money I was owed would be paid in full. My mother, after I explained the situation to her, took the trouble to call Margolin's chief assistant — an elderly man with the wonderful surname Shvarts — and this Shvarts also swore that I would be paid in full. I worked another two weeks. All the same, they deceived me. They did not pay the full amount. I had to chase down even the small portion I did receive — standing in a queue for several hours on three separate occasions. There turned out to be quite a few people in exactly the same position as me — a whole queue of several dozen. And when the HR department returned my work record book, it was in pristine condition — there was no entry recording my employment at the Andreyevsky store.
So, the innovations at the Andreyevsky supermarket are quite substantial. A system has been constructed in which a significant share of employees — or perhaps the majority — are effectively compelled to work for about two months, their wages are delayed for those same two months, and upon dismissal they are brazenly robbed, meaning they are paid only a small fraction of what they earned. The firm balances, so to speak, on the "wave" of the transitional period — the onboarding of new employees. As a hired worker, all of this naturally fills me with deep aversion. I remember perfectly well that the management of the stores described above — Margolin and Shvarts — owe me a substantial sum of money, and I will demand it back when the opportunity arises.