Head of regional office of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing answers students’ questions

Marina Patyashina held an open talk with students at the University.

She first spoke about Rospotrebnadzor’s (Russian abbreviation for the agency) work, its key objectives and priorities, “The first area is medicine, everything that relates to the prevention of all diseases – both infectious diseases, which includes COVID-19, and non-infectious diseases – is environmental factors. You probably know that your health depends 50 percent on your environment and lifestyle, and only 10 percent of your health depends on the health care system, it’s the quality of care. 20 percent is genetic, it’s the health that your mom and dad gave you. Most of our work is medicine, we are doctors. The second area is consumer protection.”

In the past years, citizens submit more and more grievances to the agency, with the steepest growth related to online purchases – 54-fold increase in 5 years.

She informed the audience about basic provisions of Russian consumer protection legislation but also warned about the so called ‘consumer terrorism’, a practice where buyers return goods within the legal window after effectively using them for profit.

Among interesting things which the official shared was the information that face control is in fact illegal in terms of Russian law and that no one can be obliged to give tips or pay for an accompanying show program in eateries.

The speaker also told about her career path from healthcare to consumer protection and shared that she definitely made the right choice with her current occupation.

In conclusion, she advertised existing job opportunities in Rospotrebnadzor, including those in IT, media, management, economics, and law.