Posted on 03/30/2022 8:50:51 AM PDT by marshmallow
Russia is better than other BRICS countries. In lots of ways. Besides issues with health care and heavy medal poisoning. Russian society is far better than it was just 30 years ago. Putin got rid of the rampant crime. And now its a calm place to live. But own a business. And lets see how big your business gets before someone takes it from you. Your wealth is not safe in Russia. You’re better off in Norway or Poland. According to Worldometer Russian life expectancy for last year was 113th. Thats below China and all of its neighbors including most of the former USSR.
After many years of poverty and crime, Russia now provides its citizens a nice stable lower middle class life. Not a long life. But if you concentrate on your family, your garden and your job, it can be a short happy life.
You are basically telling the stories from the 1990s. Ease of business ratings tell otherwise.
In the 1990s the store shelves were empty and the crime was high. Those two things have changed. Russia looks like Poland now. There are stores with lots of choices and low prices. There are new roads. There are choices between gas stations. And Moscow was considered the most expensive city to live in in the world from 2008 to 2013. But now its rank is below 120 in the world. The average citizen in Moscow makes about what a person in the US makes on Social Security. And in the rest of Russia the average is less than half that. While crime is very low, corruption is not. Business’ are skimmed, scammed and taken over by corruption.
We should all believe every word that comes from Russian state-run propaganda and disinformation outlets like Sputnik News. It’s gotta be true, amirite? 🤨
We should all believe every word that comes from Russian state-run propaganda and disinformation outlets like Sputnik News. It’s gotta be true, amirite? 🤨
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That’s the case for every country. Either state-owned, like Ukraine or owned by 6 interlocking oligarchical corporations like the US.
I think the UK has an independent channel and there’s one in Australia that seems to tell the truth more often, but these days, it is difficult to trust major news outlets.
On You Tube, I have watched Dan Sheekov and my husband watches a couple of channels of other Russian vloggers, mostly in Siberia and the Russian Arctic. They have interesting lives and seem quite happy. While the Sheekovs have family in the countryside with a farm, the tours of supermarkets show variety and prices similar to the US, although produce is very cheap. They did not mourn the closure of Western retail outlets and scorn fast food, in general. The woman who vlogs from the Arctic island shows shortages mostly due to access from the mainland limited by weather, yet they all have snowmobiles, which are essential. Everyone has electronics and international internet.
These 2 articles are dense and show some of the serious considerations within the Russian academic/intellectual society.
Make of them what you will.
From constructive destruction to reassembly
Art history essay on the future of Russian politics
“Reissue” of the Russian Federation
The contours of Russian foreign policy for the period of hybrid war
Russia is going its own way and withdrawing from the obvious current Western suicide. Difficult to fault the reasoning, IMO.
As always, YMMV
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