--- Jim Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com> wrote:
> Russia, pumped
>
> SHAWN MCCARTHY
>
> >From Saturday's Globe and Mail [March 3, 2007]
> http://tinyurl.com/27qfj3
>
> MOSCOW - This city of 12 million has all the
> hallmarks of an oil-fired
> boomtown - traffic snarled at all hours of the day
> along roadways not
> built
> for three million cars, ubiquitous construction
> cranes hovering overhead,
> rampant consumerism in the luxury shops of the elite
> and the more prosaic
> housewares and electronic stores of the growing
> middle class.
>
> Gone from the underpasses and Red Square itself are
> the legions of
> pensioners who just five years ago were begging and
> selling off family
> treasures to put food on the table. Flush with
> petro-rubles, the
> government
> of President Vladimir Putin cannot only pay their
> state pensions but has
> increased them.
>
The difference really is quite striking to the eye. There seems to be a Shokoladnitsa coffee shop (basically like Starbucks) on every street corner in Moscow. I had lunch there today. I think there were maybe 5 in the whole city when I came here six and a half years ago. There are also dozens of McDonald's, which, surpisingly, don't pay that badly.
(Kasyanov's nickname is "Misha 2%," as that was what he reportedly insisted on as his kickback during the 1990s privatizations.)
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