(from Johnson's Russia List  9 September 2002.  [log in to unmask] A
CDI Project
www.cdi.org)

Vek.  No. 30.  September 6, 2002
TWO RUSSIAS: SPEAKING DIFFERENT LANGUAGES AND NOT UNDERSTANDING EACH OTHER
A sociologist discusses the gulf between Russia's rich and poor
Author: Inna Muravieva
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
PROFESSOR NATALIA RIMASHEVSKAYA, DIRECTOR OF THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC
PROBLEMS OF THE POPULATION INSTITUTE AT THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF
SCIENCES, TALKS ABOUT POVERTY IN RUSSIA TODAY. RESEARCH SHOWS THAT
MILLIONS OF RUSSIAN CITIZENS ARE IMPOVERISHED AND MALNOURISHED, AND
THE SITUATION IS NOT IMPROVING.

     An interview with Professor Natalia Rimashevskaya, director of
the Socio-Economic Problems of the Population Institute at the Russian
Academy of Sciences.
     Question: Your institute has a department engaged in research on
poverty. What does poverty mean in contemporary Russia?
     Natalia Rimashevskaya: I'll give a simple answer. Poverty is
defined by a family's income. If this is below the subsistence
minimum, we definitely have a case of poverty.
     Question: And what is the subsistence minimum in Russia today?
     Rimashevskaya: The national average is 1,719 rubles a month. But
I'd like to stress that this is the average figure. It varies from
region to region. For example, in Moscow it is 2,600 rubles a month;
in the Bryansk region it is 1,400 rubles; in the Chita region it is
2,053 rubles; in the Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous district it is 2,700
rubles; and on Sakhalin Island it is 2,700 rubles a month.
     Question: Are these differences due to the economic situation?
     Rimashevskaya: Yes, of course. The economic situation, but with
variations among the regions. Our reforms have been underway for ten
years. Remember how euphoric many people were when the reforms began?
A little longer - just a little, it was thought - and the whole
country would be richer, better off, more confident. But everything
turned out as it always does. Unfortunately - and this is particularly
painful, but impossible not to point out - the most significant socio-
economic result of the reforms has been income polarization and social
division; this has essentially created two Russias, counterposed and
drifting further apart in their behavior, preferences, and
orientations. There are two living standards, two consumer markets
which differ in their prices and range of consumer goods. The members
of the two Russias speak different languages and don't understand each
other very well at all. A particularly dangerous aspect of this is
that the political elite is part of the land of the rich and super-
rich, those who are very well off. According to experts, the
difference in living standards between the top and bottom five percent
in the two Russias is up to a hundred-fold (with the poorest living on
the equivalent of $30 a month, and the richest on $3,000 a month).
     Question: And meanwhile, the government has been assuring us
lately that Russia has entered a period of economic stabilization...
     Rimashevskaya: But the figures indicate the contrary: we are only
just getting back to the living standards we had before August 1998,
when the default literally cast people into the abyss of poverty; but
we are nowhere near the living standards of 1991, when average incomes
halved or dropped to a third of their previous level. I'm not even
going to mention Gaidar's shock therapy. That therapy was like an
operation without anaesthesia for millions of Russian citizens.
     Question: I'm aware that after your institute researched poverty
and uncovered some horrifying figures, you raised the alarm - you
addressed the Cabinet, the Duma, and the Federation Council. You
coined the term "bottom of society". Who - which groups - are now at
the bottom of society?
     Rimashevskaya: We included four groups in the concept of "the
bottom of society". We coined the term in 1995. And though I don't
claim it is flawless as a concept, I'm still convinced that now, seven
years later, the situation has not changed for the better; the number
of people at the bottom of society is not decreasing.
     The assessments we have made based on special studies show that
the bottom of society is made up of around 10% of urban residents
(10.8 million people): including 3.4 million beggars, 3.3 million
homeless, 2.7 million abandoned children, and 1.4 million street
prostitutes. Adjacent to the bottom of society is the near-bottom:
another 5 million people.
     Question: Thus, in your view - despite the apparent efforts being
made recently - there is a tendency for the bottom of society to
expand?
     Rimashevskaya: Unfortunately, I cannot be optimistic on that
issue at present. The number of beggars, homeless people, prostitutes,
and abandoned children in Russia is not decreasing. And now there is
another source of additions to the bottom of society: refugees, forced
resettlers, those unfortunate people who have no rights at all. Russia
has a serious migration problem.
     The basic factors in poverty are low wages, low pensions, grants,
and benefits, and rising unemployment. The minimal old age pension is
30% of the subsistence minimum; monthly child welfare benefits are 5%
of the subsistence minimum; the minimal student grant is 8% of the
subsistence minimum; unemployment benefits are 8% of the subsistence
minimum... Half of the families living in poverty are "the new poor".
As a rule, these families have two parents of working age, with one or
two children. Of the total number of people living in poverty, around
50% are children or young people under the age of 30; and 13% are the
elderly.
     The impoverished groups in our society suffer the most from
malnutrition and not having enough food. In small towns and cities -
home to almost a third of the population - many families are
struggling in poverty. Their diet is monotonous and not nutritionally
balanced, with insufficient variety. Residents of large cities and
rural residents are not going hungry, but their diets are short of
animal protein. The usual foods eaten by the "new poor": potatoes,
pasta cooked without adding butter, grains, bread, and tea with a lump
of sugar... Many haven't tasted meat or fish for years. Some of the
outcomes of malnutrition: 10% of young conscripts are underweight,
while over 40% of pregnant women are anaemic and most are not getting
the full range of foods and vitamins they need. Some areas of Russia
have high concentrations of poverty: the North Caucasus, the northern
part of European Russia... Heating homes in winter has become a
serious problem in small towns and villages. Most poor families live
in apartment buildings which require major repairs, with the
infrastructure in emergency condition.
     Thus, no matter how often we are told that life is improving,
that still isn't true.
     Our ministries - the Labor Ministry, the Health Ministry, the
Education Ministry, and others - are still influenced by the old
ideology. They seek to expand, to have as many organizations as
possible subordinate to them; they think that all problems will then
go away of their own accord. It's the same as it was in the recent
past. We need to make a transition to an ideology of efficiency, to
take a systematic approach, to ensure that each of the government's
moves is well-considered. For example, why do we suddenly decide to
raise teacher salaries - in emergency mode? What about health workers,
engineers, researchers, miners - don't they need pay rises too?
     Question: You and some Canadian colleagues recently completed a
major study on a very important topic: social welfare in Russia. Could
you tell us about this?
     Rimashevskaya: We were basically looking at what Russia's social
strategies ought to be, and how they should be characterized. Firstly,
everything should be viewed as a whole. All social reforms should be
conducted in parallel, even if spread out over time. Not sequentially
- one after another - but in parallel; and they should be aimed
primarily at implementing a certain set of minimal social welfare
guarantees - something we still don't have, unfortunately. The state
should provide some minimal social welfare guarantees for all
citizens, in accordance with the social contract. And another point:
although the rich and powerful insist that it's impossible to take
redistribution measures in order to reduce the polarization of wages
and incomes in society, this will still have to be done. Alexander
Livshitz was entirely correct when he summed it up as: We have to
share.
     Question: Can you imagine the reaction to those words?
     Rimashevskaya: But all nations - even the most developed nations
- use redistribution measures to some extent. Moreover, we're talking
about the 5% of Russian citizens who have become fabulously rich over
the reform years by appropriating state assets. This is something we
can't avoid dealing with. And the longer we ignore it, the worse it
gets. I'm not a politician - I'm an academic who can prove - with
figures in hand - that Russia cannot continue in the situation it is
in now.
(Translated by Arina Yevtikhova)

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