"But despite the overall economic upturn, Russia’s people are still in dire straits. One-quarter of Russian companies cut salaries in 2016, at times even skipping payments to their employees. The average monthly wage in Russia dropped 8% last year (after falling 9.5% in 2015) to under $450 — less than the mean monthly pay in China, Poland or Romania — while the poverty rate jumped to nearly 15%. And the country’s regional governments are not faring much better, much to the Kremlin’s consternation."
Russia’s vast territory is split into 85 official regions of varying shapes, sizes and designations. (Two of these regions, Sevastopol and Crimea, are not internationally recognized as Russian territory since Moscow annexed them from Ukraine in 2014.)
According to the Russian Finance Ministry, only 10 of Russia’s 85 official regions — most of them commodity producers and metropolitan areas with substantial tax bases — are economically or financially stable, down by half since 2015. Of the country’s remaining regions, 30 manage to scrape by because direct federal subsidies make up at least 33% of their revenues. Half of the $3.5 billion in subsidies that the Kremlin disburses each year goes to just 10 of those regions: Dagestan, Chechnya, Yakutia, Kamchatka, Crimea, Altai, Tuva, Buryatia, Stavropol and Bashkortostan. That leaves more than half of Russia’s regions struggling to fulfill their social obligations and meet the federal government’s demands for funding.
Seventy of Russia’s regions send 63% of the income they generate to the federal budget, keeping only the remaining 37%. The federal government, meanwhile, returns at most 20% of the money by way of subsidies and intergovernmental transfers.
The Kremlin has raised the amount of income it takes from these regions by 12% over the past four years, and it is set to increase its cut by another 2% this year.
To make matters worse, Moscow foisted much of the burden of social spending off on regional governments after the 2008-09 financial crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin then issued a series of decrees in 2011 and 2012, after winning a third term in office, calling for various improvements in the country, from replacing dilapidated housing to increasing salaries for doctors and teachers. The so-called unfunded edicts added tens of billions of dollars to regional budgets. Just a few years later, the country found itself back in financial crisis.
Owen Watson
Dozens of regions tried to break away or gain more autonomy from Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union; Chechnya’s attempts at independence sparked two wars in the 1990s. During the 1998 financial crisis, many regional heads bucked the federal government’s demands for funding, prioritizing their own financial survival.
Today, the Kremlin is facing a similar problem. At the end of 2016, more than 25 Russian regions had debt-to-revenues ratios of over 85%; the Republic of Mordovia’s is nearing 200%. What’s more, the regions have no path to economic recovery outside of increased borrowing — hardly a viable solution.
Standard & Poor’s estimates that regional governments would need to borrow another $20 billion just to cover the debt payments they have due this year. Between their high deficits and their high debt-to-revenues ratios, seven regions are teetering on the brink of financial instability. Yet the Kremlin has continued its demands for more money. Now, many regions are starting to push back.
In growing numbers, regional governments are failing to repay their federal or state bank-issued loans. The Ministry of Finance has admitted that more than a dozen regions have stopped paying off their government loans over the past two years, and four regions have reportedly defaulted on international loans. Mounting financial stress, moreover, has provoked backlash from some regional leaders.
On Dec. 27, Tatar President Rustam Minnikhanov decried the Kremlin’s plan to increase its take of regional income as “extremely dangerous” and an example of “stupidity.” Minnikhanov even likened Moscow’s current economic policies to Josef Stalin’s dekulakization program, an initiative under which the Soviet government snatched private farmlands and turned them into catastrophic collective farms, killing millions of people in the process. Responding to Minnikhanov’s tirade — which was broadcast on national television — Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev warned the leader to “know Tatarstan’s place.”
Wyatt Bailey
At the same time, Moscow has cracked down on regional leaders, arresting three different governors on corruption charges in less than two years’ time. One of these leaders, the former governor of Kirov, was affiliated with the liberal technocratic circle that the Kremlin has systematically targeted in recent years.
But another fallen governor, the former head of Komi, was a member of Putin’s own United Russia party. Russian media devoted extensive coverage to each arrest, running pictures of cash-laden tables, diamond-encrusted fountain pens and elaborate gifts that the leaders had supposedly presented to call girls. Putin struck another blow to regional leadership Jan. 23 when he signed legislation requiring all governors to disclose their assets and incomes. In addition, although the Kremlin typically has a hand in gubernatorial elections, recent votes have ushered an extraordinary number of security services members into office. Putin has also begun appointing regional and district court judges to cut into governors’ authority.
Carter Reed
why bother stealing all these these territories when you can't fucking manage them
The Kremlin’s somewhat scattered response to the regional upheaval is due in part to a battle raging between Russia’s security services over which agency oversees regional policies. In 2016, the Federal Security Service (FSB) developed a new system to evaluate governors’ performance based, at least in principle, on their regions’ economic stability, their electoral performance and the Kremlin’s confidence in them.
Soon after, the Federal Protective Service (FSO) — which is fiercely loyal to Putin and has been feuding with the FSB for the past few years — came up with its own color-coded system to track governor performance and regional stability. Putin then ordered his personal forces, the National Guard, to hit the streets alongside FSO members to gauge local satisfaction with regional leadership, just as the FSB had reportedly begun beefing up its presence in various regions.
The financial instability plaguing Russia’s regions is as much a product of the country’s difficult economic position as it is the result of power struggles dividing the Kremlin. Though Moscow has the means to pre-empt and respond to the financial crises unfolding in its regions, it cannot settle on how best to do so. And until the federal government has settled its internal disputes, it will be of little help to its regional subjects.
Cameron Scott
fuck off nigger take a close look at your piece of shit state
Fucking hell yank. Wind your neck in a touch. Of all western nations you put some third world resort to shame with your ghettos and food stamps. I'm not saying we are much better over here but have some respect for a white brother.
Owen Sanchez
because the russian intelligentsia was murdered by the (((bolsheviks))) in the genocide and thus the country was set back a couple of hundreds of years. There was no russian revolution, it was a jewish revolution. Imagine if your country would have a genocide where everyone who is above 110IQ is murdered. Well you don't have to imagine if you continue on this path it will soon be reality.
Do you know about golfstream? Also average temperature in Norway is much warmer than in 75% of Russia
Jason Jenkins
Russian life is simply unpredictable because Russians believe in arbitrary power and constant flexibility. Which is why Russians have no honour, lie and don't honour contracts
Also, Russians are fatalistic and don't expect any standards from government. Whatever happens in Russia, Russians see as sad necessity
I wish Russia becomes islamized because russian culture is a fucking mistake. Sorry
Lincoln Sanders
it must be frustrating to waste so much time collecting all those pics of semi abandoned soviet industrial towns and see that nobody cares about your shit thread
Carson Jackson
I alway live in fear that pic related could happen to my mothers commie block.
It got raped by communists, then germany, then communists again, then put its resources into fighting the US and then when its union fell apart it was vulnerable to incredible amounts of corruption.
Que triste es ver a un gordo americano poniendo fotos de zonas de mierda de Rusia y generalizando cómo si fuera todo el país así, porque no pones fotos de detroit estúpido yanke de mierda con el coeficiente intelectual de un chimpancé
Russians really rely on one person. In Russia there's no aristocracy or townspeople. No associations of peoples with their own language and interests. There's tsar and the rest is just a sea of separate individuals. Formless mass
This is why I wish that islam destroys Russia because then maybe those people will change
Because russian people are scum in general. Just take a look at the election results, they simply don't fucking understand that they live in poverty and they won't do anything to change that.
Their economy is shit because the sole purpose of the United States of America is to destroy the White Race, creating conflict between EU and Russia. If Russia enter EU their economy will skyrocket and Western Euros and East Euros will find their common identity: Whiteness.
