Roy Medvedev, "Moskovskaya Model' Yuriya Luzhkova" (The Moscow Model of Yurii Luzhkov), pp. 47-48.
MOSCOW SOCIALISM
The enormous and complicated systems of life support of Moscow continue to operate today, but bring no profit to the Moscow economy. The use of water by residents of Moscow is not limited. Telephone calls within the city are not limited either. In the majority of Moscow homes, pay for upkeep of apartments and for electricity does not cover the cost of production. Costs for the services of kindergartens are not too great, and likewise for medical establishments. For elderly people, use of public transport is free. Heating bills also do not cover the city's costs. Education in primary schools in Moscow is free, as everywhere in Russia. Education in the majority of higher schools of education is also free. The basic branches of the Moscow economy work according to a plan. Several categories of citizens receive apartments after waiting for an open place, but free of charge. Pensions, as well as benefits for children and invalids, and all other sorts of social assistance -- are also "survivors of socialism." In rich Western countries such types of social assistance are to a large extent the result of the activity of Social-Democratic governments. Communist China does not allow itself such expenditures at present and, to the contrary, spends great efforts on limiting the birthrate. Those who took part in the Patriotic War and several other categories of Muscovite have the right to free travel on city trains or shuttle busses.
As is know, in the summer of 2004 the new Russian government was able to, despite protests, pass in the State Duma the extremely unpopular law "On Monetization of Benefits," which stipulates replacing a large part of benefits with small monetary compensations. However, the Moscow Mayor's Office made a decision to preserve the system of of benefits for old and sick people in the capital.
Elderly Muscovites are not able to either forget or forgive the liberal politicians of the beginning of the 1990s for the theft of their deposits in state banks, which occured in 1992 and was partially repeated in 1998. The residents of Moscow are ready to support any reasonable economic structure, but not liberalism a la Chubais and Gaidar. The present benefits have not only an economic, but also moral, sense -- they are understood by the population as respect for age, for military valor, for service in labor -- and not as assistance for the poor.
Here's a paragraph from Med's chaper on the New Moscow Proletariat:
It is possible to speak a bit more precisely about the national composition of the new Moscow proletariat. According to all assessments, in first place those who work in Moscow are citizens of Ukraine. They come and work, as a rule, organized into crews. There are many of them in construction, because many Ukrainian workers are certified builders, and one can expect them to carry out complicated work. A great part of the workers on Moscow building sites are Tajiks. Many of them work in road construction. They, as a rule, are very strong and healthy people, as the majority do not smoke or drink and work very conscientiously. They support their family connections in Moscow and help each other. Five or six years ago they were uncertified workers. But many Tajik builders come to Moscow not for the first time, and in that time they have mastered well many professions. Crews from Moldova have shown themselves to be good and conscientious workers in Moscow. Uzbeks also work on building sites -- however, many of them are physically weaker than Tajiks. This fact is probably because a large number of schoolchildren, and also young Uzbek women, work in cotton fields where herbicides that are harmful for human health are used. In trade in large and small markets Azerbaijanis are most noticeable, and in some markets -- Georgians. But there are also many Ukrainians here, but they are less visible, like Belorussians. On public transport as drivers of busses and trams work a large number of Ukrainians, Georgians, workers from Belarus. In hospitals, the junior medical staff includes Ukrainians, Belarussians and Moldovans, as well as women from poor Russian provinces, such as Ivanov or Yaroslavl oblasts. Women from Slavic regions are often hired as ordinary salesgirls by Azerbaijanis. The lifters in Moscow's train stations are often Afghans, refugees who came to Russia and Moscow as early as 1991-1994. In Moscow separate Chinse and Vietnamese markets exist; in other areas Chinese and Vietnamese do not work -- they neither hire them to work on building sites nor on public transport. As early as the end of the 1990s crews from Smolensk and Ivanov were already working on the restoration and construction of Gostiny Dvor, and then they moved onto different building sites. The largest great project of the 1990s, on which worked around 100 thousand workers from many Russian oblasts and countries of the CIS, was the construction of the Moscow Ring Road. This was the school of mastering the profession and adapting to the Moscow environment. At that time, everyone remarked upon the good and conscientious work of Moscow's gastarbeiters. No one wanted to be fired, and the pay for their work at that time was completely acceptable.
===== Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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