Chelyabinsk, Russia: Then And Now
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98480062 December 15, 2008 · While based in Russia in the 1990s, NPR's Anne Garrels followed developments in the "real Russia" from the provincial town of Chelyabinsk. Returning 10 years later, much has changed. This series charts the transformation.
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December 15, 2008 · Ten years ago, Chelyabinsk was still stuck in the Soviet past, gray and grim. Now, new megamalls, supermarkets, cafes, hotels and museums fill the town center. But the new confidence has also seen a rise in drug use and widening class divisions.
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December 16, 2008 · Ten years ago, the factories of Chelyabinsk were almost at a standstill. Then prices for raw materials and metal began to rise, which fueled extraordinary growth. Now factories and businesses have started cutting back again.
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December 17, 2008 · In the early 1990s, foreign missionaries could pack a public hall in the city with hundreds of curious Russians. But the Russian Orthodox Church has grown, meaning other religions may suffer.
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December 18, 2008 · Astonishingly low life expectancy for men and anemic fertility levels have resulted in a population drop in Russia. And although Chelyabinsk's health system has made gains in the past 10 years, it is still short on specialists, tools and hospital space.
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December 19, 2008 · President Dmitri Medvedev has had little success fulfilling his promise to fight corruption in Russia. Corruption in Chelyabinsk has actually worsened in the past decade. Ask someone in the town how he supports himself, and the answer is usually ''krutitimsa," or "we hustle."
EDITORIAL: The Horror of "Life" in Putin's Russia << La Russophobe
By larussophobe
National Public Radio reporter Anne Garrels has produced a multi-part
report on the horror of life in an average Russian city in Vladimir
Putin's neo-Soviet Russia called Chelyabinsk: Then and Now. It's full
of jaw-dropping little-known ...
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http://larussophobe.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/editorial-the-horror-of-life-in-putins-russia/>
"..
There are more abortions than live births, and this isn't surprising the way one mother described the conditions surrounding her childbirth:
"Horrible, horrible. A room with 10 women in it. You have to go to a pharmacy and buy everything — stitching, cotton wool. Everything you need during the birth, you buy and pay for. We were told to bring our own sugar. If you are a patient in a hospital, you better have a friend who can bring you food."
.."
"...Garells writes:
In Chelyabinsk, corruption has worsened in the past decade. Ask anyone in the city how much he or she makes, and the likely answer is somewhere between $200 and $600 a month. Russia is expensive — really expensive — even in remote areas, so how they live on that is questionable. People usually say "krutitimsa," translated as "we hustle." Few live on their declared salary. People get paid an additional amount under the table, or they take bribes. This endemic corruption has bred bitterness and cynicism. Mark Kelleher, an American teaching English in Chelyabinsk, was astonished at his students' behavior. "Not all, but a large number — they just cheat like crazy," he says. "And blatantly. It's accepted."
But Genrikh Galkin, a local investigative journalist and editor of the newspaper Evening Chelyabinsk, can't write about the corruption he unearths because he remembers the fate of Anna Politikovskaya and other journalists who have been brutally murdered for daring to speak truth to power. He states: "It's important to write about it. But it's not worth getting killed for."..."
"...Strangely, Garrels overlooks the most sensational negative feature of life in Chelyabinsk, namely radioactive contamination from the city's Soviet-era nuclear installations. Called by some "the most contaminated spot on the planet," the city is ravaged by special health issues: "Skin cancers have quadrupled over the last 33 years. The total number of people suffering from cancer has risen by 21%. The number of people suffering from vascular diseases has risen 31%. Birth defects have increased by 25%." Putin's government has done nothing in response to this crisis except to repress information about it. ..."
