Up, Up and Away

Russian officials are watching monthly inflation numbers climb higher and higher. And they just won’t stand for it!

The government has ordered prosecutors to crack down on supermarket chains to prevent price gouging or collusion between the larger retailers. Food seems especially susceptible to inflationary pressures, given the country’s dependence on imported goods, Russia’s self-imposed embargo on Western agricultural products, and the plummeting ruble.

Inflation in January was the highest it has been since the winter of 1999, when Russia was reeling from the effects of the 1998 default.

Opposition leaders are preparing an “anti-crisis” rally, trying to mobilize dissatisfaction from withering purchasing power. But Russian officials argue that the country is ready to withstand increasing poverty and hunger and will support President Putin no matter what.

“If a Russian feels any external pressure, he will never sacrifice his leader. Never. And we will sustain any hardships in the country – eat less food, use less electricity, I don’t know, some other things that we are used to. But if we feel that somebody from the outside wants to change our leader against our will, that it is an influence against our will, we will be more united than ever.”

Igor Shuvalov, first deputy
prime minister

“If, broadly speaking, there is not enough money, one should recall that we are Russians, Russian people. We went through hunger and cold. We could eat less, for example.”

Ilya Gaffner, regional deputy from Sverdlovsk region

“To tell you the truth, when we introduced response measures (an embargo) against Norway, we were at a loss. We thought, how are we going to do without Norway? Then I asked my driver Pavel: ‘Your parents live in the Moscow region, do they often eat fresh salmon?’ And he said: ‘They don’t know what that is.’ So I thought, we don’t need to be afraid, we just need to look at things objectively.”

Sergei Dankvert, head of
Russia’s agricultural watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor

“We are better off today than we have ever been since the Revolution. So if our standard of living falls slightly, it cannot destroy our national self-awareness.”

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill

“We must help the population to overcome this situation, to persevere during this difficult time. Obviously, when spring comes, there will be nettles, so it will be easier. But one must first survive until spring.”

Yevgeny Shulepov, mayor of Vologda, suggesting that people will take to eating nettles come springtime

January inflation: 3.9%

on food: 5.7%

on grain and beans: 7.4%

on sugar: 19.1%

on produce: 22.1%

on electronics/appliances: 6.1%

on medicine: 6.6%

on the basic food basket: 8.3%*

* Food basket = 3,592 rubles = $51. Source, State Statistics Service

northern exposure

Leviathan, director Andrei Zvyagintsev’s fourth film, was Russia’s first Golden Globe winner in over 50 years, and at press time it was the Oscar-tapped darling of film festivals. At home, the film was officially scorned and the source of unprecedented debate.

In fact, the film has generated so much buzz that columnists have been racing to share their thoughts. TV Rain issued a list of “20 texts about Leviathan that you need to read” (some compared it to Malevich’s “Black Square”). And all this came weeks before the film actually opened in theaters!

Several million Russians viewed a bootlegged copy of the film available online: so many that conscientious viewers launched an online donation drive for the film’s makers, inviting people to contribute after watching it for free. Even Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted that he asked his subordinates to watch the movie (illegally) online and summarize it for him.

Zvyagintsev, a soft-spoken bespectacled man who has struggled through the Hollywood hoopla, denied allegations that Leviathan was made to order for western consumption. “I absolutely believe that this is the truth of today, and that this truth can heal, despite being bitter,” he said in an interview with TV Rain.

In its first week, the movie earned $110,000 in Russian theaters.

OFFICIAL PLOT SUMMARY

In a Russian coastal town, Nikolai is forced to fight the corrupt mayor when he is told that his house will be demolished. He recruits a lawyer friend to help, but the man’s arrival brings further misfortune for Nikolai and his family.

“Strangely, there is not one positive character among the protagonists in the film. It is more or less clear whom and what Zvyagintsev hates. But whom does he love? Fame, red carpets and statuettes – that is clear. But does he love any of his protagonists? That I doubt.”

– Vladimir Medinsky, culture minister (Izvestia)

“I liked it. It is an honest film…. Vodka-vodka-vodka that is everywhere, that is very depressing. But in general the film inspires by pointing to the real problems of the country as if at a human body’s gaping wounds, from which that body is hurting, decaying and dying. Serious healing is needed.”

- Metropolitan of Murmansk and Monchegorsk Simon