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RUSSIA: Do Pensions Prove a Penchant for Local Manipulation?

September 01, 2003

The economy is booming in mother Russia. At least, one would expect this to be the result from the current sales figures for such companies as Aviaconversiya, KBP Tula and others responsible for illegal arms sales and support to Iraq and other regimes the past few months.
 
At the same time, a recent moderate hike in pensions for Russians may prove a catastrophe for families and the aged in all parts of the land that produced Sputnik and the first man in space. Historically rich with oil, gold and diamonds and the worlds leading exporter of grain prior to the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, people today in this vast land are desperate for the most basic provisions. According to Newsmax, the most recent pension increase of 33 Rubles (about one US Dollar) per annum amounts to the price of only a few loaves of bread. Especially hard hit are senior citizens in the newly re-apportioned regions in the far-eastern part of the Russian country, which Putin reconstituted in 2000.
 
Back in February this year, President Putin along with Prime Minister Kasyanov initiated the new pension rates during one of the worst winters in recent Russian history. In Vladivostok, where Putin recently met with North Korean ruler Kim Jong Il to discuss strategic ties, people were left without food or heat. In a place where it can take but a few seconds for water to freeze, people were left with precious little to stave the frigid weather. People are said in fact, to be leaving this region, or dying, at the rate of 150,000 a year.
 
Fortunately, this seems to not be going totally unprotested. At least, not in Russia. Many in the far eastern provinces, such as the nearly-isolated Primorye region were vocalized their discontent, taking to the streets in protest. Some carried signs declaring simply, "We Want to Survive". Yet Moscow merely has responded with what seems little more than the pre-revolutionary France's queen Marie Antoinette and her now infamous pronouncement of "Let them eat cake". Yet, while news of a little boy who lost his arms in Iraq possibly due to an errant U.S. missile seems to round the world in less time than it took to take him to Kuwait for surgery, very little is being said of the plight of the hungry in Russia, or the apparent mass relocation of their people. 

Yet Russians fight on in their struggle against Putin’s regime. In response to the seemingly mocking 33 Ruble pittance which came from the Kremlin, people from all across the hard-hit region responded by mail with classic Russian savoir faire. Thousands of envelopes arriving in Moscow were filled with the rejected afore-mentioned pittance and a rather terse note each, which declared to their beloved Putin, "Putin, Padovis!" meaning quite literally, "Choke (on this) and die!"

However, even if the Russian people are aptly dealing with their own crisis, the question remains to be asked, what may be the purpose of making refugees of your own people?  As hundreds of thousands are leaving the impoverished far-eastern region, it is being flooded with immigrants from China. Why would a country seem to want to clear out an entire region and then look the other way while immigrants poured across their border from a country such as China that rattles its sabers regularly at everyone else in the world, save France and a few others. Arguably, with a nation such as Russia, little on this scale occurs without someone’s blessing.

Some theorize Russia could be allowing this to occur for more than one reason. One wonders what those might be, and therefore some have began speculating, as one might expect, which motive is truly behind these events. One theory begins that Russia has plans for Primorye related to the trans-Siberian railroad that the government has been laying the groundwork, in conjunction with her strategic allies (Germany, France, China, North Korea &c.) to connect Europe to Asia, right through Seoul, South Korea. Naturally, no obvious direct link can explain a deliberate relocation of peoples simply for purposes of railroad construction. Other reasons, at least for the pension-short changes which are more readily apparent include the fact that available resources are quite low in Russia. "Available", of course means items that are market-ready and within economic grasp of most consumers. But this does not explain the air of coincidence which seems to hover around this part of the mother country which borders North Korea.

Regardless of what the reasons are, the simple fact is that the best case scenario is that there are some very greedy people in power in Russia who don’t mind harming people to get where they want to be. And this should alarm us all. With respect again to the financial resources we spoke of being in short supply on the street, it would unfortunately seem at this point that the way to find where those resources are going is to speak with Russia's defense minister. His sphere is seemingly living rather large these days, sitting atop unprecedented increases in military spending since 2000. The fatness only in the relative sense out shadowed by the military and other nationalistic government expansions of our dear trading partner China and our crazy aunt in the basement North Korea. China and Russia signed a strategic partnership agreement in 2000.

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