My wife taught at a state university in a decent sized Siberian city teaching English. She had to take in outside work just to make ends meet--all the teachers did/do—at state universities. My wife’s cousin is a manager and his wife a prominent cardiologist, yet they just recently were able to buy a three room flat (2 small bedrooms and a living room, 1 bath, small kitchen area). When I walk around Russian cities, I see grannies and cripples begging for money or selling various items of no real value just for a few rubles more. When I go to a friend’s flat, the 5-story building they live in (built under Khrushchev) looks absolutely uninhabitable on the outside (and these buildings are ubiquitous). No one it seems responsible for anything outside an individuals place of residence. On the other hand, it seem most Russians own their own flats even if not much to speak of and a lot of families still have an allotment on which to grow food in summer.
The more I read and the more Russian people I talk to, the more I am coming to believe that Russia is Russia and it doesn’t matter whether the guy in charge is a Tsar, Commissar or President nothing will change. The Russian people are serfs (my wife agrees with me on this) and always will be. Other than a few minor changes, what is so different now than it was when Gogol was around? I have been to Russian villages and it seems not much different than the impression I got from reading Dead Souls.
Don’t worry though, we in the US are working hard to catch up with Russia, soon the economy will crash making 1929 look like a picnic and we will all be in the same boat.
Jan 22, 2022·edited Jan 22, 2022Liked by Edward Slavsquat
This blog appears to be turning into a "Russian people haters" forum. Didn't the events of the last two years proven with utmost clarity that population of Russia retained much less of the "serf" mentality by mass refusing to get the clot-shot, to obey the senseless rules with masks and social distancing etc. and by leading as much of a normal lifestyle as they can in the face of 24/7 fear mongering and propaganda by state sponsored media? In this regard they have succeeded much more than any Western society I know of. Here, in the state of New York, when I go to the store only perhaps 5% of the customers (myself included) don't wear masks, yesterday I saw two cars on the street with drivers wearing a mask being alone in the car. While in Russia, as multiple recent videos show, hardly 50% wear masks at the stores and other public places where most people use masks as chin straps. Russians, as ethnicity, have retained one of the highest degrees of internal freedom in the World, e.g. perception of oneself as a sovereign individual that can make independent decisions. Why this is the case is explained very well by professor of biology, Dr. Sergey Saveliev in his book, Cerebral Sorting (Церебральный Сортинг), where he explains in detail how greater diversity of brain specialization and behavior models was formed in Russia during the middle ages, as compared to the Western European society where much greater uniformity was achieved. Fascinating read for those who strive to understand specifics of Russian mentality and why it is distinctly different from the Western and Central European ones. Your wife, as Russian language speaker, can probably help you to translate this book, but if it is difficult to order, you can listen to Saveliev's lectures on YouTube.
great comment. the blog made me despise the Russian government, showing that Putin is essentially a poser. but my respect for the Russian people increased by a lot
Appreciate that comment, gig. Things in reality are more complicated, as usual. Is Putin a total loser from the perspective of why he was pulled out of nowhere and installed as Russia's president? The answer to this question is a decisive - NO. He was actually very successful at balancing interests of the completely West oriented financial circles in Russia, natural resource oligarchy, also dependent on the West, and the so called "siloviki", e.g. military, police and National Guard, meanwhile gaslighting most of Russia's population that he is a patriot with people's interests being top priority for him. It is only now many Russians are beginning to realize that their king is rather naked. Was he a total failure in foreign relations? I'd say that he wasn't wildly successful, but, considering huge pressure and massive anti-Putin propaganda in the West, he could be characterized as fairly successful. He's got a reputation of a tough guy (big part of it was built by the Western media itself, btw), he meets regularly with the world leaders and Russia under Putin is considered to be a country that is ascending from the status of regional power to the ranks of a minor global power (US and China as major ones). Where Putin really failed was that he missed on huge opportunities for Russia that appeared after Yeltsin's departure. Economically he squandered and gave away position that USSR had as one of the world's major industrial powers with one of the best cadres of engineers and scientists. Instead Russia was turned into resource appendix for the West and China. People's real incomes are in decline since 2014, a very decent healthcare system, legacy of Semashko system created under Soviets, was destroyed through "optimization" and introducing health insurance model copied from the West that immediately sent the costs through the roof and shifted focus from treating people to making money. I can go on and on summarizing Putin's legacy, but you got the idea, I hope, why this is a complicated topic. Probably would be useful for me to do a write-up about it in my own blog.
before this blog, and comments like yours, I had the idea of Putin as some sort of Xi Jinping domestically. Going after big guys, breaking oligopolies, helping small business etc etc. And he is not and in this sense he let Russia miss the opportunity of becoming a high income country.
But his foreign policy is quite impressive, specially in the second half of his tsardom, when Russia´s economy started to give him some room to manoeuver in geopolitics
In the end he keeps Russia´s natural resources in the hands of Kremlin approved plutocrats, not the people. ANd by preventing ANglo-american plutocrats from taking control he sets in motion all NATO hostility
I am an American and if there is a people I "hate" it would be Americans for the evil we have inflicted on the world around us including this scamdemic. I actually love the Russian people I know, wonderful people all of them. The comment I have heard most often in Russia from Russians is, "This is Russia." and always said in a resigned tone of voice as though nothing will ever change. And this always in reply to my numerous questions regarding so many things I have seen that make no sense whatsoever. One example is vehicle parking. OK so they built this building 60 years ago when few Russian had cars, but things have changed so why don't the throw some gravel on the mud at least to cut down on the dirt? The answer? "This is Russia." There are a lot of questions I have asked and always the same answer. My observations regarding the state of things in no way implies a "hatred for Russian people. Your reply reminds me of how in the west if you make observations regarding the behavior of certain groups--just because that behavior was noticed it must mean the observer is hateful. No it is just noticing and wondering why that is so.
Jan 22, 2022·edited Jan 23, 2022Liked by Edward Slavsquat
All right, perhaps calling you "Russia hater" was excessive, as calling all Russians - "serfs" was underserving. You know, after having lived or worked in over a dozen countries in Europe, North and South America and Asia I have stopped thinking of Americans as Americans, Dutch as Dutch, Indians as Indians and so forth, instead I think of them as people, good and bad individually, the ones I like or I don't, or those that for some reason don't like me. I'm familiar with the kind of Russian mentality you described here, a quiet resolve to suffer and do nothing to improve the situation, but it is far from universal in Russia and varies greatly by region and also by the circle of people you get to know closer. As I mentioned in my other comment here, I stem from Don Cossacks and the mentality there is very different from the people of central Russia. To illustrate I'll tell readers a little anecdote from my childhood. My father got a foreign service assignment and situation was such that he couldn't take a four year old child, me, with him, only his wife, my mom. So my parents decided to ship me off to my grandparents in the village in the Don region for about a year. Having lived there, learning of Cossack freedoms and Cossack ways I became incredible "tough". So when my parents got me back to the city where we lived, when my mom started to discipline me, trying to adjust me to the city way of life, with all seriousness, me, 5 year old kid, warned her, that if she'll continue to infringe on my freedoms, I'll cut her up and throw away from balcony. But this was just a perverted interpretation by a little boy of what being Russian Cossack meant, in reality what I have learned there as a child was peoples ability and habit to change things around them, instead of suffering patiently.
I don't know if some of you here speak French but there is that very interesting website about Ukrainian Cossaks who have settled in France after the Tchernobyl's disaster and have managed to stive promoting their culture in the most meaningfull way:https://www.centreculturellafermebashkircosaque.com/
Thanks for your comment, Bugey libre! I looked at the site link you have provided and it points not to Ukrainian cossack settlement in France, but of Bashkir cossacks, from Bashkirtostan that is in the Eastern part of Russia before Ural mountains. Nonetheless, fascinating that their small community that lives in France decided to self organize and create a cultural display of how traditional cossack village lived a century or more ago. I just looked at the protests that continue in many cities in France against mandatory jabs and so called "health passports" - I stand with the people of France in your fight for human rights and freedoms!
I was at the protest yesterday in Bourg en Bresse... Thank you very much for the precision about the location of "our" cossaks.
Health pass have became pass vaccinal and has been voted in the Conseil constitutionnel. It's president is the Jew Laurent Fabius who had been indicted in the 90's in a contaminated by VIH blood scandal while being a minister. At that time, he had been declared... Responsible but not guilty! His son Victor is the head of Mc Kinsey in France who is in charge of the vaccination program in France! No conflict of interest of course... Mc Kinsey and Bain have bypass the administration in charge of epidemy in our country which has became worst than a third world country... And I know the subject since I have spent 7 years in West Africa...
Laurent fabius is also famous for having say as a foreign minister that "Bashar Al assad didn't deserve the right to live" and that "Al Nosra is doing a good job on the ground"...
Thank you for that interesting comment. I have been studying and practicing A Russian martial art, Systema for 7 years now. One of my teacher/master put a great emphasis on Cossack's culture and it has been very important for me as a cultural input. Even my 11 year old Mali/French daughter has been immersed in that environment and has loved it a greatly benefited from that mentality where martial art and dancing is so important.
I think it's both. My family is Slav, my name goes back to founding of Orthodoxy in Russia. We are serfs. But that's only because we have little desire to rule. This is why varagians, Germans, Jews, everyone except Slavs, have ruled over us. But don't confuse our unwant to rule with a subservient nature. We are very rebellious! Which is why which ever ethnicity rules over us, does so walking on egg shells. This is the history of Russia! Leave me to my family and plot of land! So that I can plow the fields, and watch my children grown up but never assume I am a slave because of this. Right now, Jew Zionists and.umm .. Nazi Zionists (like honestly what the fk is this world coming too, Jews funding and supporting Nazis lol 🤦🏼♂️) are fighting for control of Slavic lands. As they have done for thousands of years.
As I noted above, we (i.e., Americans) are already there. The fraudulent plandemic grossly exacerbated this; the rich get richer & the poor get poorer. At least Russians own their apartments; Americans are perpetual renters.
Yes I hear that a lot, but the Soviet times you refer to only lasted around 25 years or so. It is a very narrow perspective for a country with a thousand year history.
This is true but still very interesting. I could say the same thing about the France I grew in. Good education, free healthcare, paid vacation, good cultural life for most... So can we be blame for having some nostalgia and maybe more importantly that our children know that this had been achievable with a different social contract than the actual covidian/digital goulag we are trapped in? Take care
Jan 22, 2022·edited Jan 23, 2022Liked by Edward Slavsquat
WARNING - lengthy comment!
Edward - great topic to touch upon...
As usual, there is more to any story, same with the economic situation in Russia. First of all, we need to understand the background of the author of the article on Russian economy in the Nakanune.ru (translates as "on the eve") Vladislav Zhukovsky. I have been watching him for several years and have to say that he is one of the brightest among the young generation of Russian financial markets analysts. On top on all figures and statistics he has the ability to get his point across in a concise way. He did undergo a substantial political transformation, though, especially in the last couple of years, when he went from critiquing establishment from the liberal, almost libertarian positions to being a devout communist, assistant to Duma's deputy from CPRF (communists) Valery Rashkin, one of the harshest critics of the ruling United Russia party, that also got infamous last fall when he was caught poaching a moose in the forests of his electoral district near Saratov. Zhukovsky is a tireless critic of the economic policies of the establishment and his glass is always half full or the way he presents it glass is rather empty. So we need to take his conclusions and exclusively dark tones with which he depicts the state of Russian economy also with a grain of salt.
On the establishment's economic policies. I don't think that economic policies under Putin's rule can be described as disastrous. This term is more applicable to places like Venezuela, to a lesser degree Argentina, post-Soviet countries like Moldova and even Ukraine after Maidan of 2014. Russian economic development can be described as less than stellar and underperforming given all the natural advantages this country has compared to the most other nations. There are two major blocks that prevent Russia from posting much better economic results:
1. Country's president, Vladimir Putin, that doesn't understand how economy works, nor does he care to understand, since he is more interested in playing his 5D chess (at Edward likes to put it) with Xi, Biden, Modi, Erdogan and the rest of them.
2. As result of the point number one, but also by design, how previously unknown Putin was allowed to come to power in the late 90s, economic and financial policies were outsourced and remain under management of the liberal-monetarist block with Nabiullina, Siluanov, Kudrin, Gref, Shuvalov to name a few. Putin has publicly stated many times that he won't be telling Nabiullina how to run Central Bank and that she is doing admirable job.
As an outcome of the two obstacles I described above, Russia's economy is artificially slowed down by the strict adherence to IMF rules designed for (under)developed countries, keeping base interest rates very high, and sticking to the "Washington consensus" rules when its currency and overall economy is not allowed to become long term investment grade.
Now, what about Russians, how do they survive on an average salary by a working family member of $500? What is their perception, do they live well or do they live poorly? This is where observations start to diverge from some of the alarmist statements by the likes of Zhukovsky, Levchenko, Potapenko and the host of others. Based on survey conducted by Russian WCIOM (state social studies organization) published on 10/27/21 59% of Russians rate their economic situation as average, 25% see it as difficult and 15% see it as good. Can we trust these numbers, especially that they come from the state agency? To me they sound about right. But numbers aside, I can judge from my own family. Before the scamdemic, my younger half sister did very well in Moscow as a young designer-architect. She was renting a place not far from the Foreign Ministry building in the city center and overall was enjoying a glamorous lifestyle there. With the start of restrictions she had to come back home, to Kiev, where she continues doing all right, but perhaps not as good as in Moscow. My more distant relatives in the provincial, formerly miners town, in Rostov-on-Don region. My niece is a junior manager working for the Russian Post Office, her husband is an assistant train operator. Together they earn probably around $1000 take home salary per month. They have an 8 year old son. They've got a car, vacation at least twice a year in Turkey and Sochi and also in Caucasus during winter months. I don't know how they manage? Perhaps life is somewhat cheaper in Russia. Here in US, we, the family of 2 humans, 2 dogs and 2 cats spend at least $1000 - $1200 on food every month.
For all the talk about "Russia and China's 50D chess move to end US dollar hegemony" and build up their local currencies, you have to remember that most Russian officials have property and family overseas, in the US and EU countries. A lot of the stolen money is in foreign currency as well somewhere offshore, so the "USD hegemony" benefits them greatly, and having the ruble do well really doesn't because Russia and China both have quite a bit in foreign reserve capital.
On top of that, when people have to live paycheck to paycheck they don't have time to sit and think about nuking Mars, feeding people GMO crickets, building a "Sber digital slavery ecosystem", or any other insane plans that rich people have. They don't even have time to think about how to spearhead social change, which is exactly why officials steal every last ruble and every last New Year's gift to cancer-stricken kids. It's part neglience and incompetence and partially by deisgn.
Interesting and unsurprising that the writer's description of the situation in Russia mirrors that in the US: billionaire oligarchs ruling & impoverishing the vast majority of the population. It's not rocket science: both are capitalist countries.
My wife taught at a state university in a decent sized Siberian city teaching English. She had to take in outside work just to make ends meet--all the teachers did/do—at state universities. My wife’s cousin is a manager and his wife a prominent cardiologist, yet they just recently were able to buy a three room flat (2 small bedrooms and a living room, 1 bath, small kitchen area). When I walk around Russian cities, I see grannies and cripples begging for money or selling various items of no real value just for a few rubles more. When I go to a friend’s flat, the 5-story building they live in (built under Khrushchev) looks absolutely uninhabitable on the outside (and these buildings are ubiquitous). No one it seems responsible for anything outside an individuals place of residence. On the other hand, it seem most Russians own their own flats even if not much to speak of and a lot of families still have an allotment on which to grow food in summer.
The more I read and the more Russian people I talk to, the more I am coming to believe that Russia is Russia and it doesn’t matter whether the guy in charge is a Tsar, Commissar or President nothing will change. The Russian people are serfs (my wife agrees with me on this) and always will be. Other than a few minor changes, what is so different now than it was when Gogol was around? I have been to Russian villages and it seems not much different than the impression I got from reading Dead Souls.
Don’t worry though, we in the US are working hard to catch up with Russia, soon the economy will crash making 1929 look like a picnic and we will all be in the same boat.
This blog appears to be turning into a "Russian people haters" forum. Didn't the events of the last two years proven with utmost clarity that population of Russia retained much less of the "serf" mentality by mass refusing to get the clot-shot, to obey the senseless rules with masks and social distancing etc. and by leading as much of a normal lifestyle as they can in the face of 24/7 fear mongering and propaganda by state sponsored media? In this regard they have succeeded much more than any Western society I know of. Here, in the state of New York, when I go to the store only perhaps 5% of the customers (myself included) don't wear masks, yesterday I saw two cars on the street with drivers wearing a mask being alone in the car. While in Russia, as multiple recent videos show, hardly 50% wear masks at the stores and other public places where most people use masks as chin straps. Russians, as ethnicity, have retained one of the highest degrees of internal freedom in the World, e.g. perception of oneself as a sovereign individual that can make independent decisions. Why this is the case is explained very well by professor of biology, Dr. Sergey Saveliev in his book, Cerebral Sorting (Церебральный Сортинг), where he explains in detail how greater diversity of brain specialization and behavior models was formed in Russia during the middle ages, as compared to the Western European society where much greater uniformity was achieved. Fascinating read for those who strive to understand specifics of Russian mentality and why it is distinctly different from the Western and Central European ones. Your wife, as Russian language speaker, can probably help you to translate this book, but if it is difficult to order, you can listen to Saveliev's lectures on YouTube.
great comment. the blog made me despise the Russian government, showing that Putin is essentially a poser. but my respect for the Russian people increased by a lot
Appreciate that comment, gig. Things in reality are more complicated, as usual. Is Putin a total loser from the perspective of why he was pulled out of nowhere and installed as Russia's president? The answer to this question is a decisive - NO. He was actually very successful at balancing interests of the completely West oriented financial circles in Russia, natural resource oligarchy, also dependent on the West, and the so called "siloviki", e.g. military, police and National Guard, meanwhile gaslighting most of Russia's population that he is a patriot with people's interests being top priority for him. It is only now many Russians are beginning to realize that their king is rather naked. Was he a total failure in foreign relations? I'd say that he wasn't wildly successful, but, considering huge pressure and massive anti-Putin propaganda in the West, he could be characterized as fairly successful. He's got a reputation of a tough guy (big part of it was built by the Western media itself, btw), he meets regularly with the world leaders and Russia under Putin is considered to be a country that is ascending from the status of regional power to the ranks of a minor global power (US and China as major ones). Where Putin really failed was that he missed on huge opportunities for Russia that appeared after Yeltsin's departure. Economically he squandered and gave away position that USSR had as one of the world's major industrial powers with one of the best cadres of engineers and scientists. Instead Russia was turned into resource appendix for the West and China. People's real incomes are in decline since 2014, a very decent healthcare system, legacy of Semashko system created under Soviets, was destroyed through "optimization" and introducing health insurance model copied from the West that immediately sent the costs through the roof and shifted focus from treating people to making money. I can go on and on summarizing Putin's legacy, but you got the idea, I hope, why this is a complicated topic. Probably would be useful for me to do a write-up about it in my own blog.
before this blog, and comments like yours, I had the idea of Putin as some sort of Xi Jinping domestically. Going after big guys, breaking oligopolies, helping small business etc etc. And he is not and in this sense he let Russia miss the opportunity of becoming a high income country.
But his foreign policy is quite impressive, specially in the second half of his tsardom, when Russia´s economy started to give him some room to manoeuver in geopolitics
In the end he keeps Russia´s natural resources in the hands of Kremlin approved plutocrats, not the people. ANd by preventing ANglo-american plutocrats from taking control he sets in motion all NATO hostility
Please do it. Thanks
I am an American and if there is a people I "hate" it would be Americans for the evil we have inflicted on the world around us including this scamdemic. I actually love the Russian people I know, wonderful people all of them. The comment I have heard most often in Russia from Russians is, "This is Russia." and always said in a resigned tone of voice as though nothing will ever change. And this always in reply to my numerous questions regarding so many things I have seen that make no sense whatsoever. One example is vehicle parking. OK so they built this building 60 years ago when few Russian had cars, but things have changed so why don't the throw some gravel on the mud at least to cut down on the dirt? The answer? "This is Russia." There are a lot of questions I have asked and always the same answer. My observations regarding the state of things in no way implies a "hatred for Russian people. Your reply reminds me of how in the west if you make observations regarding the behavior of certain groups--just because that behavior was noticed it must mean the observer is hateful. No it is just noticing and wondering why that is so.
All right, perhaps calling you "Russia hater" was excessive, as calling all Russians - "serfs" was underserving. You know, after having lived or worked in over a dozen countries in Europe, North and South America and Asia I have stopped thinking of Americans as Americans, Dutch as Dutch, Indians as Indians and so forth, instead I think of them as people, good and bad individually, the ones I like or I don't, or those that for some reason don't like me. I'm familiar with the kind of Russian mentality you described here, a quiet resolve to suffer and do nothing to improve the situation, but it is far from universal in Russia and varies greatly by region and also by the circle of people you get to know closer. As I mentioned in my other comment here, I stem from Don Cossacks and the mentality there is very different from the people of central Russia. To illustrate I'll tell readers a little anecdote from my childhood. My father got a foreign service assignment and situation was such that he couldn't take a four year old child, me, with him, only his wife, my mom. So my parents decided to ship me off to my grandparents in the village in the Don region for about a year. Having lived there, learning of Cossack freedoms and Cossack ways I became incredible "tough". So when my parents got me back to the city where we lived, when my mom started to discipline me, trying to adjust me to the city way of life, with all seriousness, me, 5 year old kid, warned her, that if she'll continue to infringe on my freedoms, I'll cut her up and throw away from balcony. But this was just a perverted interpretation by a little boy of what being Russian Cossack meant, in reality what I have learned there as a child was peoples ability and habit to change things around them, instead of suffering patiently.
I don't know if some of you here speak French but there is that very interesting website about Ukrainian Cossaks who have settled in France after the Tchernobyl's disaster and have managed to stive promoting their culture in the most meaningfull way:https://www.centreculturellafermebashkircosaque.com/
Thanks for your comment, Bugey libre! I looked at the site link you have provided and it points not to Ukrainian cossack settlement in France, but of Bashkir cossacks, from Bashkirtostan that is in the Eastern part of Russia before Ural mountains. Nonetheless, fascinating that their small community that lives in France decided to self organize and create a cultural display of how traditional cossack village lived a century or more ago. I just looked at the protests that continue in many cities in France against mandatory jabs and so called "health passports" - I stand with the people of France in your fight for human rights and freedoms!
Hi,
I was at the protest yesterday in Bourg en Bresse... Thank you very much for the precision about the location of "our" cossaks.
Health pass have became pass vaccinal and has been voted in the Conseil constitutionnel. It's president is the Jew Laurent Fabius who had been indicted in the 90's in a contaminated by VIH blood scandal while being a minister. At that time, he had been declared... Responsible but not guilty! His son Victor is the head of Mc Kinsey in France who is in charge of the vaccination program in France! No conflict of interest of course... Mc Kinsey and Bain have bypass the administration in charge of epidemy in our country which has became worst than a third world country... And I know the subject since I have spent 7 years in West Africa...
Laurent fabius is also famous for having say as a foreign minister that "Bashar Al assad didn't deserve the right to live" and that "Al Nosra is doing a good job on the ground"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlm76h4ndBM
Take care
Thank you for that interesting comment. I have been studying and practicing A Russian martial art, Systema for 7 years now. One of my teacher/master put a great emphasis on Cossack's culture and it has been very important for me as a cultural input. Even my 11 year old Mali/French daughter has been immersed in that environment and has loved it a greatly benefited from that mentality where martial art and dancing is so important.
I think it's both. My family is Slav, my name goes back to founding of Orthodoxy in Russia. We are serfs. But that's only because we have little desire to rule. This is why varagians, Germans, Jews, everyone except Slavs, have ruled over us. But don't confuse our unwant to rule with a subservient nature. We are very rebellious! Which is why which ever ethnicity rules over us, does so walking on egg shells. This is the history of Russia! Leave me to my family and plot of land! So that I can plow the fields, and watch my children grown up but never assume I am a slave because of this. Right now, Jew Zionists and.umm .. Nazi Zionists (like honestly what the fk is this world coming too, Jews funding and supporting Nazis lol 🤦🏼♂️) are fighting for control of Slavic lands. As they have done for thousands of years.
As I noted above, we (i.e., Americans) are already there. The fraudulent plandemic grossly exacerbated this; the rich get richer & the poor get poorer. At least Russians own their apartments; Americans are perpetual renters.
Yes I hear that a lot, but the Soviet times you refer to only lasted around 25 years or so. It is a very narrow perspective for a country with a thousand year history.
This is true but still very interesting. I could say the same thing about the France I grew in. Good education, free healthcare, paid vacation, good cultural life for most... So can we be blame for having some nostalgia and maybe more importantly that our children know that this had been achievable with a different social contract than the actual covidian/digital goulag we are trapped in? Take care
WARNING - lengthy comment!
Edward - great topic to touch upon...
As usual, there is more to any story, same with the economic situation in Russia. First of all, we need to understand the background of the author of the article on Russian economy in the Nakanune.ru (translates as "on the eve") Vladislav Zhukovsky. I have been watching him for several years and have to say that he is one of the brightest among the young generation of Russian financial markets analysts. On top on all figures and statistics he has the ability to get his point across in a concise way. He did undergo a substantial political transformation, though, especially in the last couple of years, when he went from critiquing establishment from the liberal, almost libertarian positions to being a devout communist, assistant to Duma's deputy from CPRF (communists) Valery Rashkin, one of the harshest critics of the ruling United Russia party, that also got infamous last fall when he was caught poaching a moose in the forests of his electoral district near Saratov. Zhukovsky is a tireless critic of the economic policies of the establishment and his glass is always half full or the way he presents it glass is rather empty. So we need to take his conclusions and exclusively dark tones with which he depicts the state of Russian economy also with a grain of salt.
On the establishment's economic policies. I don't think that economic policies under Putin's rule can be described as disastrous. This term is more applicable to places like Venezuela, to a lesser degree Argentina, post-Soviet countries like Moldova and even Ukraine after Maidan of 2014. Russian economic development can be described as less than stellar and underperforming given all the natural advantages this country has compared to the most other nations. There are two major blocks that prevent Russia from posting much better economic results:
1. Country's president, Vladimir Putin, that doesn't understand how economy works, nor does he care to understand, since he is more interested in playing his 5D chess (at Edward likes to put it) with Xi, Biden, Modi, Erdogan and the rest of them.
2. As result of the point number one, but also by design, how previously unknown Putin was allowed to come to power in the late 90s, economic and financial policies were outsourced and remain under management of the liberal-monetarist block with Nabiullina, Siluanov, Kudrin, Gref, Shuvalov to name a few. Putin has publicly stated many times that he won't be telling Nabiullina how to run Central Bank and that she is doing admirable job.
As an outcome of the two obstacles I described above, Russia's economy is artificially slowed down by the strict adherence to IMF rules designed for (under)developed countries, keeping base interest rates very high, and sticking to the "Washington consensus" rules when its currency and overall economy is not allowed to become long term investment grade.
Now, what about Russians, how do they survive on an average salary by a working family member of $500? What is their perception, do they live well or do they live poorly? This is where observations start to diverge from some of the alarmist statements by the likes of Zhukovsky, Levchenko, Potapenko and the host of others. Based on survey conducted by Russian WCIOM (state social studies organization) published on 10/27/21 59% of Russians rate their economic situation as average, 25% see it as difficult and 15% see it as good. Can we trust these numbers, especially that they come from the state agency? To me they sound about right. But numbers aside, I can judge from my own family. Before the scamdemic, my younger half sister did very well in Moscow as a young designer-architect. She was renting a place not far from the Foreign Ministry building in the city center and overall was enjoying a glamorous lifestyle there. With the start of restrictions she had to come back home, to Kiev, where she continues doing all right, but perhaps not as good as in Moscow. My more distant relatives in the provincial, formerly miners town, in Rostov-on-Don region. My niece is a junior manager working for the Russian Post Office, her husband is an assistant train operator. Together they earn probably around $1000 take home salary per month. They have an 8 year old son. They've got a car, vacation at least twice a year in Turkey and Sochi and also in Caucasus during winter months. I don't know how they manage? Perhaps life is somewhat cheaper in Russia. Here in US, we, the family of 2 humans, 2 dogs and 2 cats spend at least $1000 - $1200 on food every month.
excellent comment as always, Stanley! thanks so much
neoliberalism.txt
For all the talk about "Russia and China's 50D chess move to end US dollar hegemony" and build up their local currencies, you have to remember that most Russian officials have property and family overseas, in the US and EU countries. A lot of the stolen money is in foreign currency as well somewhere offshore, so the "USD hegemony" benefits them greatly, and having the ruble do well really doesn't because Russia and China both have quite a bit in foreign reserve capital.
On top of that, when people have to live paycheck to paycheck they don't have time to sit and think about nuking Mars, feeding people GMO crickets, building a "Sber digital slavery ecosystem", or any other insane plans that rich people have. They don't even have time to think about how to spearhead social change, which is exactly why officials steal every last ruble and every last New Year's gift to cancer-stricken kids. It's part neglience and incompetence and partially by deisgn.
It’s worse here.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-homeless-society-collapsing
Interesting and unsurprising that the writer's description of the situation in Russia mirrors that in the US: billionaire oligarchs ruling & impoverishing the vast majority of the population. It's not rocket science: both are capitalist countries.
Nobody trusts the Prison System here either. Just ask the victims of Jeffrey Epstein.
Sobering. And terrifying.
I think I will stay put and try to bring some of Russia to me in a form as yet undecided. Any guidance or advice on this measure is welcome.