EDITORIAL
Third-World Russia
Only two countries on the planet are losing kilometers of railway each year. Congo in Africa is one of them. Care to guess which one is the other?
Yep, Russia. And the average age of a Russian railway car is 15 years; it is as old as Russia itself, likely built in the USSR. Think that’s a safe and convenient way to travel? Think again.
Maybe you imagine Russians can fly instead? Not hardly. The number of airports has fallen by nearly a factor of four, from 1,342 in 1991 to fewer than 350 today. Russia’s airlines are among the most dangerous in the world to fly on, dropping out the sky like flies.
Still, Russians who can travel by rail or air are lucky. More than ten percent of the country, 15 million people, have no access to the transport network at all.
These are stunning, shocking facts, but you still haven’t read the worst of it: Despite being awash in windfall oil revenues and record economic growth rates, investment in infrastructure is now a mere 2.5 percent of gross domestic product, compared with a global average of 4.2 percent. That’s right, “rich, resurgent” Russia is spending nearly 40% less than the world average on improving the lives of its people. In other words, the Kremlin couldn’t care less about all this suffering. It expects its citizens to simply take it. And that’s exactly what lemming nation does.
And therefore, of course, things are getting much worse by the day.
Paul Roger of Renaissance Capital estimates that $27 billion of the $99 billion planned total infrastructure spending in 2009 will be scrapped because of the lower availability of private sector finance due to the financial crisis. And he estimates that $875 billion needs to be invested in Russia’s infrastructure through 2015, with $457 billion going into transportation. The transportation figure alone is more than the total amount of FOREX reserves Russia has remaining from the oil windfall.
But even if the Kremlin had $875 billion in reserves, it wouldn’t spend them on infrastructure, for two reasons.
First, doing so would prevent the Kremlin from sailing warships in to Cuban ports, buzzing American targets with nuclear bombers, and sending missiles to Syria. It would undermine the Kremlin’s ability to wage cold war with democracy, just as it would have done in Soviet times. So it won’t happen.
And second, even if the Kremlin could afford both infrastructure investments and cold war, it wouldn’t spend the money to make the people of Russia better off. Prosperity would leave Russians powerful and free to wonder whether they were better of being governed by the KGB or by civilians. The Kremlin can’t have that. It needs weak, desperate people to rule over, people who will be happy with the crumbs it cares to give, eager to follow rules and unable to resist. Ignorant, scared, sick people are far easier to government than prosperous ones.
La Russophobe 
“Only two countries on the planet are losing kilometers of railway each year. Congo in Africa is one of them.”
Highly doubtable, but let us assume this is correct. If Congo and Russia are the only two countries that fall into this category, that would mean Zimbabwe doesn’t. Does this make Zimbabwe any better off than Congo or Russia?
Maybe for Larussophobe but hardly for any rational human being.
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
1. We cited a source, you cited none. That makes you an imbecile AND a hypocrite
2. YES, in railways Zimbabwe is MUCH better than Russia, and that means not that Zimbabwe is good but that Russia is amazingly bad. Many African nations, as we have documented here often, have international ratings better than Russia in many categories, corruption being a prominent one.
“The number of airports has fallen by nearly a factor of four, from 1,342 in 1991 to fewer than 350 today.”
Yes but which airports were these? Some one in a remote village in Siberia where one plane took off once a day? Please enlighten us as to how many have closed since 1998 and pray tell us which were these. Something tells me it isn’t Sheremetyevo.
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
Are you saying Russia WANTED to lose those airports, you imbecile? If so, cite evidence to prove Russia is better off with out them. Did you even read the part about millions of Russians being totally cut off from transportation? Something tells us you don’t live in any of those areas. Hypocrite! Idiot!
“Russia’s airlines are among the most dangerous in the world to fly on”
Maybe, how many visitors to Russia do you know that flew in but never flew out because the plane crashed? Care to give us the record for the country’s major airlines.
“dropping out the sky like flies”
Do they really? Next thing you know you’ll be telling us they have a 50-50 chance of landing at the wrong airport!
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
We have a whole category in our sidebar devoted to Russia’s recent air disasters and air traffic safety rating. It’s here:
https://larussophobe.wordpress.com/category/air-disasters/
Please do us the courtesy of at least reading our blog before you “comment” on it you ridiculous baboon.
“Despite being awash in windfall oil revenues and record economic growth rates, investment in infrastructure is now a mere 2.5 percent of gross domestic product, compared with a global average of 4.2 percent.”
Yeah well, the USA spends comparatively more as a percentage of its GDP on health care than countries in Western Europe and the rest of the developed world but its health care system has not been ranked accordingly favorably. It also spends more on defense but is still not the safest country.
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
This post isn’t about healthcare you moron, it’s about infrastructure. But if you’d like to talk about healthcare, why don’t you compare the average lifespan of an American to that of a Russian and see who comes out on top! But you won’t of course, because you’re not the least bit interested in facts. The simple fact is that Russia needs billions to be spent on infrastructure and refuses to spend them, choosing cold war outlays instead. And your only, pathetic, response is to try to change the subject.
“That’s right, “rich, resurgent” Russia is spending nearly 40% less than the world average on improving the lives of its people.”
Apart from using number with an aim to impress to such an extent it is almost a manipulation of numbers, you must ignore the notion of overheating of economy or inflation. Just because you’ve got money, doesn’t mean you spend it from day one wherever one sees fit. You also ignore the concept of saving it would seem. Spending-happy?
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
The fact is Russia is spending far less on infrastructure than other normal countries even though it has worse problems, and has been doing so throughout the Putin years, even when the economy was not in crisis. Please stop lying, you’re only making Russians look bad with your stupidity.
“In other words, the Kremlin couldn’t care less about all this suffering. It expects its citizens to simply take it.”
There seems to be a logical gap between your latter incredible statement and that previously mentioned.
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
The only logical gap is your pathetic excuse for a brain. Russian people need billions spent on infrastructure and the Kremlin is spending them on cold-war confrontation because it doesn’t care about the people.
“And he estimates that $875 billion needs to be invested in Russia’s infrastructure through 2015, with $457 billion going into transportation.”
Duh, this is supposed to happen over a period over a period of nearly a decade. Take 2.5% of the Russian GDP over a period of 8 years, adjust it for inflation and whatever growth in the economy and your half-way there.
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
What you’ve just said is that 50% of Russia’s infrastructure needs will be intentionally disregarded by the Kremlin. Half a road is a road to nowhere, dimwit. Your pathetic rationalizations are the same ones used by the Soviets, the same ones that led the USSR into the ashcan of history.
“The transportation figure alone is more than the total amount of FOREX reserves Russia has remaining from the oil windfall.”
The Forex reserves in the case of most countries is not nearly enough to pay for their stimulus packages with the economic crisis. Does this mean a country is going to collapse or that its reserves are useless?
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
Other countries don’t depend on their FOREX reserves the way Russia does. The total lack of anything remotely like research or data in your “comment” is childish and pathetic.
“But even if the Kremlin had $875 billion in reserves, it wouldn’t spend them on infrastructure”
“First, doing so would prevent the Kremlin from sailing warships in to Cuban ports, buzzing American targets with nuclear bombers, and sending missiles to Syria.”
Are you claiming the above was done with Russia’s reserves? Until now Russia’s budget was running at surplus so clearly this can;t be the case.
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
1. “can;t” — thanks for the English lesson!
2. If Russians reserves had been used for infrastructure, they could not have been used to prop up the ruble and the stock market. Since they were used, this freed up money to be spent on the cold war. You have the intelligence of a lemon.
“And second, even if the Kremlin could afford both infrastructure investments and cold war, it wouldn’t spend the money to make the people of Russia better off. Prosperity would leave Russians powerful and free to wonder whether they were better of being governed by the KGB or by civilians. The Kremlin can’t have that. It needs weak, desperate people to rule over, people who will be happy with the crumbs it cares to give, eager to follow rules and unable to resist. Ignorant, scared, sick people are far easier to government than prosperous one”
1) Dictatorships sometimes spend on public work to support their popularity by making life look better on the surface for citizens (e.g. Half of Greek roads were built under the 1967-1974 junta), so your theory is fundamentally yet not surprisingly wrong.
2) The only way Russians would wonder “whether they were better of being governed by the KGB or by civilians” is to go ABROAD. Russians would not wonder this if it becomes easier to travel from Perm to Moscow. I was not aware f the fact Russia’s international airports were in such a bad condition they were a hindrance to travel. Or do you expect the Russian government to build an international airport in Ust-Kut or to make an international airport out of the one in Billings, Montana?
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
1. Those dictatorships were stronger and more confident than Russia’s. A pathetically weak and unstable Kremlin does not believe it can afford a strong population. Were you taught to read in Russia?
2. Most Russians, who earn $4/hour, can’t afford to travel abroad, and hardly any do. Your knowledge of Russia is so primitive that it’s genuinely laughable.
Speaking of airports and difficulty traveling, using the US airports has not been particularly easy (not that it ever is). Should we perhaps assume the US government wants to prevent people from traveling? Seriously now…
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
If you think the difficulty of travel in the US is comparable to that in Russia, you need to have your head examined (or you are simply a shameless neo-Soviet liar).
Perhaps your primary occupation should not be whether Russia is a third world country but whether your editorials are third rate editorials. Moreover judging by the fact that, although this is supposed to be an editorial, one cannot find where the source is used and where Larussophobe is speaking, it would perhaps be an even more pressing preoccupation whether this is an editorial at all (first, third, fifteenth or whatever editorial) and not just a piece of third rate plagiarism.
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
Perhaps your primary occupation should not be to tell us what our primary occupation should be, but rather to publish a blog that is more popular and powerful than ours and show us how it is done. But you can’t quite manage that, can you, silly little cockroach that you are. The source is linked-to in the second paragraph, you helplessly ignorant troll. It is an op-ed from a leading world expert published in the Moscow Times. Please lay off the vodka before attempting to comment, it will help you look a bit less foolish.
P.S.”Not hardly”
“And that’s exactly what lemming nation does.”
A bit of correct English never killed anyone, especially if you want to be taken seriously!
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
1. There’s nothing wrong with our English, and if there were it would hardly be a sign of your substance and seriousness for you to attempt to attack us for it, would it?.
2. Don’t you think it’s a bit silly for you to suggest we might think you want us to be taken seriously? Are you perhaps writing from a mental institution?
3. Don’t you think it’s a bit mind-blogglingly idiotic for you to write such a long comment on our blog and then suggest we aren’t important or to be taken seriously?
4. This blog is one of the most heavily trafficked sources of information about Russia in the world, and has been cited by many prestigious publications. You, by contrast, do nothing more than comment on it. So perhaps it’s not a such a good idea for you to talk about being taken seriously, is it you ridiculous little microbe?
5. Your comment doesn’t contain ONE SINGLE SHRED of course material or links of any kind. It adds no value whatsoever. Lame, lamer, lamest. What a pathetic hypocrite.
I am thoroughly pleased to have found you, La Russophobe.
Excellent info!
Keep up your good works.
I will return often, and don’t be surprised to see I have linked you to Gates of Vienna.
Several irritating Russophiles appear there, and impugn any that dare offer a different view.
no2liberals – Amazing isn’t it that anyone would defend Putin’s Russia. And, you can bet they are lefty hypocrites that from the comfort of their safe cushy free speech and human rights protected locations wouldn’t live in a dump like Russia.
LR provides are very valuable service by aggregating the horror of the real Russia. Gates of Vienna does a needed service in documenting the religious fascism of Islam.
We live in dangerous times. Those wishing the demise of America as a Good Cop force are too stupid to realize how easily and quickly thugs like Putin, Chavez, Iran and rabidly tribal and intolerant Islam will fill the vacuum.
penny,
Are you the blog host or an admin?
Yes, it is surprising, with all the info and events of the last ten years, that some believe that the current Russian government is new and improved, and a beacon of hope for Europe.
Even more baffling, is that some of the one’s I have encountered, claim to be conservatives.
Here is a link for you, that I need to respond to, one last time. I have been enjoying the Christmas holiday with my children and grandchildren, and am only now returning to normal activity.
This isn’t the only one, but one that sprang up after the Conservative Swede didn’t care for some videos I linked to about the Russian government’s stifling political free speech.
Let me state, I was as hopeful as anyone, that beginning in 1992, Russia could join the free world in giving it’s citizens a representative government, and removing government obstacles so the free markets and creative abilities of it’s citizens could flourish. Watching Putin, and his old cronies, using the same repressive tactics, altering the political and judicial systems, and enriching themselves, has been sad to watch.
Russia should be making friends with the free and peaceful nations of the world, one’s where trade and prosperity can grow, not with despots, tyrants, and totalitarian nations.
I’m sorry, that was the comment link.
Here is the thread link.
no2liberals – I have no formal relationship with LR. I simply comment like others although I discovered her a long time ago.
Reading the thread on Putin at your link it appears that many of the posters are young people, home from college, that simply aren’t knowledgeable about what has been going on in Putin’s Russia over the years. They also have no understanding of how totalitarian states operate. My son-in-law’s parents are refugees from Cuba. I’d have pitied the typical liberal moral relativist college professor that attempted to defend or minimize Fidel’s crimes against humanity with him.
The hesitation to not connect the dots from from KGB careerist Putin to the KGB connected defendants in the Politkovskaya murder is naive at best. I don’t believe for a moment that a murder of that stature in Putin’s vertically power structured Kremlin happened independently without tacit approval.
No2liberals – your name and comparison of this blog with Gates of Vienna seem utterly stupid. You might ponder for a second that it is precisely liberalism, in all of its forms – be they human rights, international legal frameworks, respect for minorities, fair and transparent elections, gay and women’s rights, NGOs and so forth – that Russia under Putin both fears and despises. In addition to that, you might also consider that the liberal and democratic governments of Georgia and Ukraine are regarded by the Kremlin as the greatest current geopolitical threat to Russia. Liberalism is the antidote, the cure for this authoritarian nightmare, and if you want to say “nyet” to that, you might do some reading and find out who Oleg Kozlovsky and Nikolai Alekseev are. To name just two of Russia’s bravest and best of recent years. And you’ll also find that Politkovskaya was also, by all measures, a liberal.
As for your stupid comment about the Gates of Vienna, you might also want to do a little research on how Russia treats and has historically treated its Muslim “citizens”. A Europe that viewed Islamic immigration as its greatest threat would be like 10 Christmases all at once for the Kremlin, who would then have the perfect excuse to continue and perpetuate its systemic and barbaric repression of Russian Muslim minorities in the name of European “security”.
Grow up.
“1. We cited a source, you cited none. That makes you an imbecile AND a hypocrite”
Seriously now – could you have an intelligent CULTURAL discussion here for once? Everytime someone writes something you disagree with, you call them names. It’s childish (“it’s Soviet” for you).
While i agree with what’s being said in the article, i must concur that the author just rendered himself/herself a complete idiot in readers’ comments section. Before you call yourself some sort of authority on Russian politics, as you do in your ‘about’ page, you might consider evaluating your etiquette. You might also want to evaluate the name of your blog. Calling yourself a Russophobe while trying to get your readers to “join the struggle for democracy in Russia” makes absolutely no sense. So what is your aim exactly?
What a big sorry for LaRussoPhobe. The connection between well-cited research works and conclusion is not logical, because the losing of the railroads itself doesn’t mean anything, particularly it doesn’t give a ground for such a vast statement.
Yes, if you stuck with GDP, maybe Russia isn’t looking good enough, neither does it look good through the prism of average life expectancy. While there is a certainly a short life expectancy for men in Russia, the birth rate is low too, which puts it into the range of developed economies with declining and aging populations, giving a mixed properties of the developed and developing countries.
It is also impossible to deny that despite the lack of innovations in economy and in productions of goods, Russia is leading in many fields of math, physics, chemistry, nuclear and rocket industry and engineering research and technologies, not to mention the space program. None of the developing country posses any of this activity, at least to this scale and experience.