enterprises had operating and commercial independence, but with strong competition from former partnering telecommunication companies. Loss of monopoly In 1996, the Ministry of Communications for the first time decided to end the state postal monopoly on some postal services, resulting in Russia having commercial mailing companies. 2002 reform Since the Soviet Union dissolved, the Federal Postal Service consisted of a network of 90 disparate entities which were mainly listed as state institutions or federal state unitary enterprises. In legal terms, they were completely independent concerns. They were linked to the Federal Postal Network only by a trunk intrazonal and inter-district transmission and delivery system. Different parts of the same system, connected by a single mechanism in adjacent regions, were in outright competition with each other, trying to lure corporate clients away from other competitors even if it involved an operating loss. There were no uniform budgeting, planning or other processes. These companies operated using outdated postal facilities representing as many as 50 different IT solutions in terms of industry technology. In accordance with the concept of restructuring the federal postal service, adopted by the government decree on 28 June 2002, the postal industry in the Russian Federation carried out the reorganization, aimed at creating a unified, efficient and competitive company — the Federal Unitary Enterprise Russian Post — able to make a significant contribution to the solution of urgent problems while accelerating development of the economy. Post-reform period In 2004 Elsag Datamat won the tender to build Russian Post's first automated sorting centre. In 2008, Andrey Kazmin, former CEO of Sberbank was appointed to the CEO of the company. In January 2009 it was announced that Kazmin was to leave his position as CEO of the Russian Post due to a financial crisis from ambitious but poorly implemented reforms. From 2009 until his ousting in the 2013 reforms the General Director was Aleksandr Kiselyov. The current CEO of Russian Post is Mikhail Volkov. Growing inefficiency in the 2010s The early 2010s saw a rise in complaints. The number of parcels from foreign online retailers had been rising steadily for several years and was certain to rise further. According to Russian Post's own estimates, orders from Internet retailers are delivered to Russia mostly in ordinary or registered parcels; in 2009 there were 2.3 million, by 2012 the number had soared to 17 million. On March 6, 2012, five trucks from Germany