| Sixty years ago this month, a mine ripped through the
righthand side of
19-year-old Yuli Fayershtein's body as he fought the Finnish on the
Karelian front. Today the shrapnel from that blast still floats in his
lung
and arm.
Less than a year later, he was hit in both hands while liberating Vienna.
Unable to shoot a gun - or even sign his name - he returned to Moscow
a
hero but unemployable.
For six decades, Mr Fayershtein has relied upon generous benefits:
half-rent for his flat, free basic medicines and public transport travel,
and discounts on food and telephone calls.
But last week, the Kremlin announced an end to this benefits system.
Instead the estimated 102 million Russians who receive some form of privileges
from the state, including the poor, veterans, pensioners and disabled
people, will have these slowly converted to financial compensation. A
total of 170bn roubles ($3.2bn) was put aside to plug this gaping hole
in the state budget.
Yet Mr Fayershtein knows this will never be enough. He can calculate
the cash cost of some of the things he now gets free, and this, he estimates,
comes to 2,830 roubles ($53) a month. Then there is the cheaper food,
the free annual holiday, train and plane journey, and the discounted utility
bills. In exchange for these benefits, the Kremlin will give him 2,000
roubles a month.
"During the hardest time for Russia, immediately after the war,
the metro
was free for veterans," he said. "And now the state says it
is wealthy from
oil, and even has a budget surplus, [yet] they ask us to pay."
Asked how he will get by, he replies: "I do not know. There are
some
veterans I know who collect empty beer bottles just to get the deposit
back. What will they do?"
Today, aged 79, he still has a job: working for the veterans committee,
which is campaigning against the Kremlin's plan and on Thursday
demonstrated near the Kremlin. "If I had enough money, would I still
be
working? No, I would spend my days sat on the grass."
The system of Soviet benefits - or privileges - is perhaps the last
benevolent legacy of the Communist era. But to today's Kremlin it is a
huge
burden on state resources and the antithesis of the privatised Russia
it
wants to create.
From next year, between 14 and 17 million of the 102 million people
receiving benefits will instead be given financial compensation.
Preliminary figures show this will rarely exceed 3,000 roubles a month,
and
there are fears it will not be index-linked.
Galina Mihaleva, director of the Centre for Modern
Politics Research, said: "Putin and the government declare the fight
with poverty [is] their priority. But in reality they are pursu ing the
social policies of the extreme right, depriving the most vulnerable elements
of society of the minimal benefits they still have."
She added: "These measures hit the disabled, veterans and pensioners
hardest, because in reality the privileges they have today are much bigger
than the compensation the government is offering."
Viktor Tulkin, a hardline Communist MP, said: "These reforms are
a new and
tragic step in the road towards the state's refusal of its social
commitments. Today's pensions do not even reach 60% of the Soviet average
in 1989."
But Russia's bureaucrats, the million-strong army tasked with implementing
the Putin reforms, will keep their privileges. A senior official can expect
a $7,000 salary to be boosted by $3,500 in medical treatment, a chauffeured
car and mobile phone bills to the tune of $1,000.
See also:
Social
Policies
| 