Are you feeling the crisis?

[peacetraveler22]

We see the word "crisis" constantly thrown around in text and news articles, but I want to know the reality of the situation for the average person living in Russia. I understand almost nothing about the financial markets, and my investments are all handled by stockbrokers with expertise in the area. Yet I go to the gas station each week and see the gas prices continually drop, which is great for me given that I commute a very long distance to work now. Travel is also less costly with the strength of the dollar, whereas many Russian friends no longer can afford to go abroad due to the continual decrease in the ruble. So, are all of these stories on LJ simply written by alarmists and pessimists, or do you feel there's a real crisis now in Russia as a result of sanctions and economics, which dramatically impacts your life? If so, in what way? Do you have hope for improvement in 2016?

Comments

[romanklimenko.livejournal.com]

I wish California gas prices were reflecting the oil price trend :(
http://www.losangelesgasprices.com/retail_price_chart.aspx

[kichiro-sora.livejournal.com]

What sanctions exactly are you talking about? Most EU-US sanctions are about banning top Russian kremliady* from traveling. Why would it cause economical crisis??? :)

Now in return Putler started a lot of his own sanctions, surprisingly - all of them targeting his own people. Like ban on EU food. Considering that Russia doesn't have agriculture - most of the EU food still makes it there, but now it has added cost of routing through third countries like Belarus (landlocked fUSSR country), with famous Belaurs pineapples, salmon, and seafood being а popular joke.

Some of the food gets destroyed on TV, and than Russian poor go to the dumps and save what they can:





Severe Russian crisis is caused by the fact that they have no hi-tech/manufacturing economy, and their natural resources based economy is severely hurt by falling oil prices. 99% of Russian people are getting paid in Rubles. The cost of almost everything they buy (food, cars, electronics, travel) is dictated by USD/EUR prices. Ruble dropped from 30 to 80 per USD since 2014. So they can buy 2.5 times less unless the salary is adjusted. Which it mostly didn't. I just read another thread on LJ where small town people where comparing salaries: nurses, teachers and such are mostly getting paid $50-$100 USD per month. Yes, $600-$1200 a year. At the beginning of 2014 it was $1500-$3000 a year. Obviously on those salaries people are just in survival mode. Just buying food, no luxuries, no travel. You've been there, you've seen ( I hope ) their prices for food. Often it's higher than in US. I don't know how to survive there on those 2014 salaries. Now it's 2.5 less food. The horror!... But they have Krimea now! :)

---

* kremliady (rus. кремлядь, plur. кремляди) - new russian slang word for super rich Putler regime elite. Who all happen to be top goverment officials, with sole goal of enriching themselves. Cobmination of "Кремль"(Kremlin) + "блядь" (whore)

[sergej-vl.livejournal.com]

Yes, I feel.
Revenue in rubles former. Household appliances and electronics become more expensive by 2 times. Food lesser degree, but considerably.
The cost of car insurance in the last year increased by 2 times.
At the beginning of 2015 increased some state duties.
Raise taxes, introduced new payments that did not exist before. For example, payment with truckers per kilometer.
Since the beginning of 2016 increased excise taxes, including gasoline by 40%.
Closing small shops, empty leased area.
Many enterprises are moving to a shorter working week.
It is more difficult to find a job.
In the province jobs with a salary of 10,000-20,000 rubles a month (130-260$) - a common mass occurrence.

[morduc.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately i don't. We are in a deep crisis today, and it is not only an economic one.

[moskitow.livejournal.com]

My mom's pension is $220 a month. The prices are very high....indexation hmmm, not enough(she got a 6% increase not long ago while prices went up 13 to 23%). Now she was told that the pension of working retired people won't be indexed. Almost everybody who's retired works part time (you just can't survive on this money) so lots of people will be effected.

[modest-so-zvezd.livejournal.com]

Yes,  l very feel(( and my friends too

[krasnogorr.livejournal.com]

Я помню как смеялись пару лет назад над словом "стабильность". Гоготали так, что даже и правда становилось немного стыдно. Сейчас стабильность потеряна и те же самые люди уже не смеются.

Когда я говорил тебе, Шеннон, что твой президент сделал плохо лично мне, я не выдумывал ничего. Ряд банковских и прочих санкций привели к тому, что курс рубля пошёл вниз, и цена на энергоносители ускорила эти падения. Сейчас зарубежные банки, из-за отсутствия стабильности в курсе рубля, выдают кредиты, исходя из курса до 100 рублей за доллар, для перестраховки. Таким образом те товары, которые ты покупаешь без проблем, для меня могут стоить в 4-5 раз дороже. Полки пустеют и ответные санкции на сыр - это смех. Исчезают, конечно же, экзотичные товары или те товары, которые расширяли ассортимент - редкая электроника, редкие продукты и т.д. Естественно экспортные.

В повседневной жизни, конечно же, это ощущается не так сильно. Бензин дорожает потихоньку, цены тоже ползут вверх, но не критично. Мы и не помним, когда что то дешевело.

[elena-88888.livejournal.com]

My cousins say that everything is OK, that prices are the same but some products disappeared from shops... But when we visited Lithuania and Poland with one of them she bought some foodstuff to bring home...
And ability to buy dropped far down...

Moreover now Russia entail the same for us...

[vasya-chainikov.livejournal.com]

It would be hard to find average person here :) But anyway all ruble salaries decreased twice if we count in euro. As for food, it is available in market. The prices increased and quality decreased. But we still have enough space to fall further.

[caramba-hola.livejournal.com]

I don't feel crisis. I feel anger. Anger at our goverment, our president, his friends-олигархс (how to translate?) I don't want to have restrictions at any where. Restriction as lack of money is not offensively (I understand the world's crisis) But restrictions due to somebody's ambitions...... фак ю, спилберг

[a000796.livejournal.com]

The crisis has nothing to do with Putin, but the "liberals" ruling russian economy. For years they have been saying that investing money gained from overpriced oil in russian economy is dangerous and wrong because it will induce inflation. Instead they invested this money in US bonds and treasuries.

[koluchkka.livejournal.com]

No cheese in supermarkets! At all. (There is some, but I can't eat it)
Prices.

[eltelfo.livejournal.com]

Travel and leisure in Russia is very inexpensive now for foreigners, but for us foreign countries are less avaliable. So, welcome !

[xuswan.livejournal.com]

Yes, I feel it very much. When crisis had begun I was fired. I try to find a work with the same salary, and now it is harder than year ago. Prices of all products rised. Especially food, clothes, travelling. And in this year it will increasing again and again. The future looks like very pessimistically.

[iiiko.livejournal.com]

The Russian crisis ever. Our president is the head of the dumbest in the world. He is a criminal, an international terrorist, a thief and a bandit. Only he is to blame for the Russian crisis.
Prices for food and gasoline are rising. Unemployment. Rampant crime. Kadyrov - a terrorist №1, very ohuel.
Every day is getting worse and worse. I live in Moscow and see everything.
It's very sad.

[seadevil001.livejournal.com]

I feeling the crisis - family lost 200 000 since New Year.

[whiteeye.livejournal.com]

Hi Shannon!
I am quite lucky living in Moscow, so my family has not bad salary and can afford a lot of things. How I feel the crisis: there is less good quality food (esp cheese, which is very expensive in roubles and usually very disgisting) - and we spend 50-70% more on grocery now than 2 years ago before Crimea and dollar rise. Gas is not going down despite oil price gets less. Home appliences cost almost 2 times more expensive - so if I want to move to another apartment and need to make reconstruction/decoration - it will cost 2 time more than several years ago. I stopped buying clothes and other things in the US - because it doesn't make any sense. It's not easy to travel abroad now: last summer we traveled to Netherlands - one of the expensive European countries - during 1 week we spent the same amount of monew as 1 week in the US in 2014, taking into account that in the US we rented a car and made huge great shopping.
Overall, we still live but as someone has already mentioned: there is no hope that finally we will live well, there is no tendency to do so.

[yshikalenko.livejournal.com]

I live in a province, may be citizens of Moskow really feel a fall of life level. I and lot of my friends feel nothing. Ok, Russian currency was reduced. And what? All prices in shops are in rubles and they all increase but not in 2 times. Just for 10% aproximetely. It is not critical at all.

[qui11.livejournal.com]

We feel it pretty bad in life quality. Personally i feel great amount of agression everywhere. Never seen such things before.

[creaze.livejournal.com]

I'm jobless for over a year. Apart from that, everything's fine.

[moonrainbow.livejournal.com]

Yes, the crisis is here and I can feel it.
The main impact is due to dramatic fall of oil prices. The sanctions are secondary to that, although you can argue that finance sanctions demanding faster payoff of the commercial debts result in limited money and investments. Yet, oil price is a much more fundamental factor.
Rouble is down, because of that imports become much more expensive. It is also much more expensive to travel abroad.
In the country, prices are rising, though much more slowly that the import prices.
Some people lose jobs, other companies stop hiring.
This year will probably be worse than 2015, but I expect some recovery in 2017 when the economy adapts to new reality.

[yacc11.livejournal.com]

I would say that I feel crisis in Europe much more than inside the Russia. For russians crisis is more sensible for travellers mostly.

[lion351978.livejournal.com]

Львов,Украина.Гривна упала раза в 3.5 и продолжает падать.Цены выросли и растут.На некоторые товары они почти как в Москве.Массовые зарплаты по 100 долларов, а пенсии по 50 долларов.Отменяют социальные выплаты.Моя сестра занова собирает документы на выплату на ребенка.Так как она мать одиночка.Хорошо хоть еще дают субсидии на коммунальные услуги.

[sergej-vl.livejournal.com]

In the US, too, not all are optimistic about the future.
http://usawatchdog.com/investors-heading-for-slaughter-one-more-time-david-stockman/