Posted on 12/27/2012 8:47:48 PM PST by blam
Superstitious Russians Spent 30 Billion On Preparing For Apocalypse
Politics / Russia
Dec 27, 2012 - 11:52 AM
By: Pravda
The Russians, who shared the horror of impending apocalypse with the rest of the world, spent 30 billion rubles on the eve of December 21st. The calculations were made by FBK analysts, who examined the data on the structure of trade turnover and services purchased in December. The end of the world did not come, but many people have to deal with its consequences now - the shortage of money.
The hype around the "end of the world" still goes on. There are people, who programmed themselves for apocalypse. They still believe that it is too early to relax, because the end of the world has been pushed back to another day. Some others have been living in bunkers for five days already. A more mercantile and less trusting part of humanity counts the losses from preparing for the doomsday.
Analysts of the Russian audit and consulting company FBK conducted a detailed analysis of the data on retail trade turnover, the volume and structure of paid services in the last month of 2012. As a result, they were able to figure out that the Russians spent a total of 30 billion rubles to prepare for the long-expected doomsday.
The bulk of this amount includes the range of services and products, such as candles, salt, sugar, dry alcohol, buckwheat and stewed pork. The Russians also spent a lot on drugs, including those for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. The pre-apocalyptic spending of the Russian people was just as absurd as it was curious and even brave. Some of our fellow citizens decided to travel to the heart of Mexico, the home of the Maya, purchasing one-way tickets. Others decided to see the end of the world on paradise islands. The people who were not ready to say goodbye to their life in any part of the world, bought tickets to not so remote places - the bunkers, where they were going to survive the impending disaster.
Many Russians went to special training courses to be able to see the "end of the world" in as real men and women. During such classes, "tutors" advised their "students" should stock up on water, candles and matches instead of electricity. The "tutors" also tried on the role of psychologists and advised citizens to apologize to their friends and family, to pay off debts. Five days after the doomsday, many "students" may have regretted spending their money on such courses. However, their "teachers" and organizers of this business were happy to count the profit earned on superstition.
Insuring companies rub their hands too. The citizens, who decided to insure their lives, organized a nice bonus for insurers on New Year's Eve. Bookmakers also count their profit that they made while expecting the world to disappear.
In total, three percent of Russians were preparing for the end of the world, according to a survey conducted by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM). At the same time, a survey conducted by Levada Center showed that the might-have-been apocalypse pushed approximately 14 percent of Russians to action.
FBK Director of the Strategic Analysis Department, Igor Nikolayev, said that in November this year, "retail trade on the fact made up 1892.7 billion. Judging by the experience of recent years, the December turnover exceeded the turnover in November by 19-20 percent, which is about 2.3 trillion rubles.
These quite conditional calculations led to the figure of 23-24 billion rubles that were allegedly spent on the preparation of the day of December 21st. Nikolayev decided to round this amount to 30 billion rubles saying that many Russians began to get ready for the end of the world before December.
I thought the end of the world is January 1st when we go off the cliff,
“When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing — they believe in anything.” (G. K. Chesterton)
That’s the result of not hearing and obeying the Word of God. Their fear and actions came from another voice.
dry alcohol?
Good, that’s 120 less ICBM’s aimed at us.
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.
John Adams
The world was supposed to end?
Our money would be worth a lot more if we had lopped off a Zero in November.
The opposite of dry is not wet. It is sweet.
In production of wine and beer you purposely let yeast consume the sugar in the wort or must (for beer or wine, respectively). When yeast do this they produce alcohol, but the obvious cost is a reduction in sugar present.
As such, what was a sweet liquid is now not sweet but instead alcoholic. When you have a wine which has very low sugar residuals (that is, the amount of sugar remaining after fermentation is complete) it is described as dry. A wine which is stopped short of total fermentation would have higher sugar residuals and would not be as dry, but may even be described as sweet. Beer is generally dry, especially higher alcohol microbrews. The classic idea of a dry beer is a dry stout, such as Guinness. The opposite of that style in the same family would be a cream stout, which is sweeter — an easy to find example being Samuel Adams Cream Stout.
The term dry is sort of an understatement for liquor, which has practically no sugars at all. Gin is the epitome of a dry liquor, as the dryest martini is actually just a glass of Gin and no vermouth.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081114101554AARSfpI
Where I live (in Russia) they were having “end of the world” sales at many of the shopping malls, and a lot of night clubs had “end of the world” parties... I don’t think too many people were freaking out.
Actually, IIRC the ruble is about 28:1 now. Making $1.7M.
Where have you been for the past three years? :P
30 billion rubles! What’s that, like 5 dollars?
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