Yes, not the promise land:
Residents of Apollonovka, a village of 960 in Omsk oblast, have taken the unusual step of producing a video appeal to Vladimir Putin demanding that he intervene to address their lack of gas, water, roads, medical care and Internet connectivity. They say that “the last straw” was the end of bus service to the district center 55 kilometers away.
We may be able to exist without gas, water, roads, Internet, and medical care,” the villagers say in their video; “but we cannot sit still when we are deprives of the elementary opportunity to get out of the village.
That additional demand is intriguing because it suggests that the power of the Internet in Russia is far broader than many suspect. Even those who don’t have it want it; and if they aren’t connected with the world wide web, they want to be, a remarkable change in public needs and wants in less than a decade.
http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/02/we-have-no-gas-water-roads-or-internet.html
Thirty-seven percent of Russians life on 19,000 rubles or less a month, Rosstat says, a figure that works out to a subsistence of ten US dollars or a less a day, 23.2 percent live on less than 15,000 rubles a month (under seven dollars a day); and 12 percent have incomes under 10,000 rubles a month (five dollars a day).
Only 11 percent, have incomes of 60,000 rubles or more a month (30 dollars plus a day)
According to surveys conducted by The Conference Board and Nielsen consulting companies at the end of last year, “23 percent of Russians do not have money even for clothes. All of their income goes for the most necessary expenditures like food and payments for communal services,” the Moscow paper says.
And that figure is up by four percent from a year earlier, when only 19 percent of Russians were in that position. It is thus no surprise, Novyye izvestiya continues, that Russians “do not believe they can cope with inflation which in January alone was one percent” over all and as much as 20 percent for some basic products.
http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/02/nearly-40-percent-of-russians-subsist.html
https://newizv.ru/news/economy/08-02-2019/tsifra-dnya-37-rossiyan-zhivut-menshe-chem-na-10-v-den (Russian)
Putin told the Federal Assembly that Russian regions, not his government, must ensure that all schools have indoor toilets.
http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/02/putins-words-about-lack-of-indoor.html
https://versia.ru/putin-vse-rossijskie-shkoly-dolzhny-byt-obespecheny-vodoj-otopleniem-i-tualetami (Russian)
I believe they didn’t move to Apollonovka.
Every country in the world has places with poor conditions and there are better places for sure.
United States has places like Camden, NJ. Does it mean US is a bad place to live in general?
As for incomes they were three times higher just five years ago. 90% of people believe they know why it has worsened and maybe only two in ten believe the problem is inside the country.
The Russians have had a slave mentality for at least a thousand years
Thanks AdmSmith.
Gee, very little money, no gas, water or medical care, etc. What’s not to love?