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“In June they laid off about 70% of my shop,” said Sergei, a cabinetmaker in the Siberian city of Tomsk. The company has been in trouble since March after its main customer, the Swiss retail giant IKEA, pulled out of Russia following his February 24 unilateral Moscow invasion of Ukraine.
“To be honest, I haven’t been looking for another job for a month,” said Sergey. “It was a shock.
During this time, Sergey’s family worked with meager savings. Before he worked as a security guard in a supermarket, he earned money by taking a car-hailing service.
like many I spoke with RFE/RL For this report, Sergei asked to withhold his surname for fear of repercussions for speaking out amid an escalating government crackdown on dissent by President Vladimir Putin. Stories like his are easy to come by as more and more ordinary people’s lives are disrupted by the war and the unprecedented Western sanctions it brought to the country.
according to study A survey last month by state-run pollster VTsIOM found that 21% of respondents said their savings had fallen since the February invasion. Additionally, 34% said they had no savings even before the invasion and the changes it brought to Russia.
About 39% said their savings were unaffected, and 5% said they managed to save more.
Such figures are difficult to verify in Russia, where public opinion polls and sociological research are constrained.Ann online survey According to a survey released by Raiffeisenbank in early February, 70% of respondents reported having no savings at all.
“We don’t store anything”
The Russian government predicted in August that the economy would grow by 4.2% in 2022, and Economy Minister Maksim Reshetnikov said on 6 September that figure could be 2.9%.But independent economist Vladislav Inozemtsev believes that the contraction by the end of the year is likely, partly due to confusion over Putin’s mobilization orders. at least 10 percent.
According to Michael Alekseev, an economist at Indiana University in the United States, the true size of the shrinking average Russian population will be driven in part by increased spending on weapons and other equipment needed to wage the war in Ukraine. It is possible that it is hidden.
“This means even less production to meet the needs of ordinary consumers,” he said. “If you keep this in mind, the situation looks even more dire.”
Asked about VTsIOM’s findings on savings, Alexexeev said the most alarming finding was that 44% of respondents aged 60 and over reported a lack of savings.
“Given how small pensions in Russia are, this is even more alarming than the general decline in savings,” he said.
Irina is a nurse at a clinic in Kemal, a settlement in the Altai Republic in southern Siberia, where she earns 25,000 rubles ($400) a month. The rugged and breathtaking mountainous terrain makes her one of the poorest areas in the country.
“Savings? Are you kidding me? I can’t remember the last time I heard that word,” said Irina. “We don’t save anything. On the contrary, we borrow money and live in debt. We currently have about 9,000 rubles ($150) in debt.
She sees only two ways to improve her situation. “Either you work in a COVID hospital or you work in Ukraine.”
“But I have two children and a father to take care of,” she said. “I hope things don’t get any worse.”
Dmitry is from Irkutsk, a city in eastern Siberia, and moved to Moscow a few years ago to work as a web designer. In late May, he was fired for his message in a group chat with other colleagues. His boss said the company’s foreign customers had pulled out of all projects, saying business in Russia had become “toxic.”
“I later found out that he had stopped all development of the Russian-language project and was working entirely in the Western market,” Dmitry told RFE/RL’s Siberia.Realities. “He had already left Russia by then.”
For more than three months, Dmitri lived on 200,000 rubles ($3,300) in his account.
“Now I work for a national agency,” he said. “On a three-month project. But what happens next – will there be work after November? – I don’t know.”
Dmitry said he is now more concerned about Russia’s military mobilization.
“They’re catching people in hostels and subways,” he said. “I no longer use transportation and order grocery delivery.”
Before Putin announced the military mobilization in September, 27-year-old Alexander worked at a chemical plant in the city of Achinsk in the Krasnoyarsk region. To avoid being called out, he quit his job and moved to the region’s eponymous capital, where he now makes a living as a driver.
“I don’t want to go to war,” he said. “I don’t have a business there. So I live in a big city now.”
He says he used most of his savings to pay off a mortgage in Achinsk before leaving. He took about 150,000 rubles ($2,500).
“Nothing Good on the Horizon”
Economist Maxim Ananiev, a researcher at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics and Society in Australia, said consumer price inflation has been a problem in Russia since the February invasion.
“according to [government statistics agency] Sugar prices have risen by 30%, margarine by 42% and beef by 15% since January,” said Rosstat. “These are not luxuries. Couldn’t restock.”
Since the VTsIOM poll was conducted, there have been three significant developments, the impact of which has yet to be observed, according to Ananiev. Mobilization, the explosion that disabled the Nord He Stream natural gas pipeline to Europe, and a new series of sanctions by the European Union aimed at curbing the price of Russian oil and gas.
He said it’s difficult to predict the impact of such an unprecedented development, but it seems fair to say that “there will be less money.”
“Economists like Sergei Guryev and Oleg Itsuhoki say that every new dollar will be used to finance wars,” Ananiyev said. “I agree with them, but even if the government tries to use a portion of every dollar that comes in to support the economy, there will still be significantly less money.”
“It is very difficult to predict what will happen in the future, but overall I would say that there is nothing good on the horizon,” he concluded.
RFE/RL feature writer Robert Coalson contributed to this report.
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