International Potato Tour (Международный картофельный тур) visit to Slava Kartofelya. Conversation with Khasiat Sibulovich and Ramil Khasiatovich
Slava Kartofelya is 24 years of steady growth built on simple, disciplined things: crop rotation, 100% irrigation for potatoes and vegetables, a home-grown talent pipeline, and careful, non-flashy investment. Launched in 2001 as a partnership of several families, the company today operates across three districts of Chuvashia with a standalone seed program and its own laboratory.
How it started
In 2001, math teacher and village school principal Khasiat Sibulovich teamed up with partners Alexander Petrovich Kapitonov and Anatoly Yegorovich Potyomkin to register the firm—and in the very first season shipped 80–100 railcars of potatoes (part own harvest, part purchased).
The first harvest on 27 ha was picked by hand—families plus hired crews. Early sales to Ministry of Defense structures helped pull the business out of initial debt.
Growing without rash “leaps”
In year two, plantings jumped to 130 ha; later the farm peaked around ~900 ha of potatoes, but deliberately stabilized near ~700 ha within a ~5,000 ha land bank: “Without trained people and tuned processes, expansion is just a gamble.” The operating principle remained step-by-step, prioritizing efficiency over scale.
Soil, rotation, and irrigation
The technical backbone is strict crop rotation (potatoes, cereals, green manures) and organic matter to build soil structure. The drought year 2010 was a turning point: the farm moved potatoes and vegetables to full irrigation and doesn’t plan to work otherwise.
Seed production as a separate track
Running seed inside the table business proved suboptimal, so seeds were moved to a dedicated site (Yalchik District). The path: from purchasing mini-tubers to a full original-seed cycle:
- Own laboratory,
- Heated greenhouses for two mini-tuber cycles,
- Elite production.
The team highlights promising domestic varieties (incl. Lorkh Institute, TatNIISKh) even as foreign genetics still account for a sizable share. State programs helped launch infrastructure, but the company stresses breeding is a long, systematic effort.
Team and succession
The hardest part: building and keeping a like-minded team. Slava Kartofelya now prioritizes local, trainable hires and in-house mentoring. The second generation—Ramil Khasiatovich—focuses on quality and rigor, digitalization and mechanization, and squeezing efficiency as input costs rise.
Social footprint: revival and creation
Many assets began as abandoned collective farms. Sites and fields were cleared and rebuilt, with hundreds of hectares brought back into rotation. The enterprise now provides ~250 jobs and continues upgrading yards, workshops, and fields.
The road ahead
The 5–10 year philosophy is unchanged: quality and efficiency first; measured digitalization, mechanization, and consolidation of the seed track—without risky leaps into processing. “We’re not chasing a ‘wow effect’; stability and the team matter more.”
Quotes
“If there’s no ‘skeleton’—people, processes, culture—adding ‘mass’ makes no sense.”
“Potatoes and vegetables are irrigation-only for us. Otherwise it’s a different economics and a different risk.”
At a glance
- Region: Chuvash Republic (Komsomolsky, Kanashsky, Yalchiksky districts)
- Land bank: ~5,000 ha
- Potatoes (current plantings): ~700 ha (historical peak ~900 ha)
- Irrigation: 100% on potatoes and vegetables
- Seed production: separate track; own lab and heated greenhouses
- Team: ~250 employees
- Early logistics: up to 80–100 railcars per season
Prepared within the International Potato Tour (Международный картофельный тур) for Potatoes News.
