Developmental challenges of entrepreneurial activity in Buryatia in the context of the Russian society transformation in the late 20th and early 21st centuries

The article is devoted to the development of entrepreneurial activity in the Republic of Buryatia in the period of society's transformation. In the article attention is paid to the criteria and grounds for the organization of entrepreneurship in Buryatia under difficult economic conditions. The specifics of Russia's transition to the market affected the development of small businesses. The liberalization and legalization of free trade, began in the 1990s, led to uncontrolled, all-Russian privatization. In fact, this process saw permission for commercial activity and the purchase of state property which was not always perfectly legal. All this has led to the fact that as a result of economic reforms, entrepreneurship in Russia has found itself in close relationship with governmental structures. The development of entrepreneurship in the Republic of Buryatia, by its very nature, is an ambiguous process. Small and medium-sized businesses are called upon to change a certain level of unemployment and to provide the labor market for the republic with jobs, but, in practice, this does not happen. Entrepreneurs do not create jobs, instead they open more new enterprises, which is the activity of the same people. All these indicators of the development of entrepreneurial activity in Buryatia do not affect the improvement of the population living standard.