On The Mark -- Reporting From Russia, Series II -- It's A Nasty Winter

On the Mark has returned to Russia. This is the sixth in an ongoing series of posts.

It's a nasty winter this year. It's about 0-2 degrees C and actually sprinkling in some areas during the day. Nasty. Nasty. Well, if you're a Russian, anyway.

Being a Westerner, especially from a warm weather region, I assumed that Russians hated winter. Piles of snow. Freezing cold weather. I was wrong. They love their winters. They love -25 degrees C. They love snow up to their knees. That's perfect weather for them. So, when it's barely freezing with slush on the ground, and black ice...it makes them very cranky.

"Global warming," is a term I hear muttered constantly, and sometimes I feel like they are staring right at, and blaming, me. Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but there have been times when it seems that my Russian friends think I'm the one (instead of my president) who abandoned the Kyoto Treaty.

Another reason it's a nasty winter is that with the new year the Russian government stopped providing some social services, such as prescriptions and mass transportation, free to pensioners. They now receive a monthly stipend of approximately 200 rubles, or about 7 USD. It doesn't take an economist to figure out who is getting the shorter end of the stick. There have been some protests (wouldn't call them "mass" yet) in and around Moscow and St. Petersburg.

I've had a chance to talk to many pensioners, several who fought or dug anti-tank trenches during the Great Patriotic War, and they are furious. They're barely surviving as it is.

In Ukraine they had the Orange Revolution. In Russia, I predict they will soon have the "Gray Revolution" if the government underestimates these retirees/pensioners.