Russia: You Know There's a Crisis, If ...
More and more indicators are pointing to the seriousness of the financial and economic crisis across Russia. They are similar to those that popped up across the West as well, though few Russians are finding solace in the fact their country's misfortune is not that unique after all.
Recently, it's not just the legal guest workers - Russians who came to Moscow for work - who are leaving the capital. The number of illegal guest workers from the former Soviet republics has decreased almost by half, according to the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda. According to Fedor Karpovets, Head of the Office of Federal Migration Service, "in January, 70,000 migrant workers arrived per week, but in April, only 40,000. Many do not stay long here, and go to nearby towns where there may be work. Some of them even go to Siberia and the Far East: There, foreign labor force is needed, and life is cheaper than in the capital. It is quite understandable - in the capital, life is no longer sweet. There is less work - many construction sites are frozen." Moreover, with the advent of the crisis, residents of the capital are taking up jobs that previously were considered solely for the guest workers: "There are many more Muscovites who are willing to work as taxi drivers, " according to Oleg Neterebsky, Head of the Department of Labor and Employment in Moscow. "People are actively looking for work and are learning new professions."
Even car thieves are now adjusting - there are more and more old Soviet and Russian-made sedans stolen on the streets than ever before. According to official statistic, the total number of auto thefts has dropped by 20 percent. Because of the crisis, the criminals are now preferring domestic "Lada," produced by the Zhiguli car company, as the most popular brand (23% of all car theft), followed by Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz and Audi. This year, more than twice as many older Russian cars were stolen in Moscow - 507 in all - than Toyotas (193 cars) or Hondas (179 cars). As the sign of the times, criminals stopped stealing super-luxury Maybachs and Bentleys, which in 2007 were stolen every month - because of the crisis, it's almost impossible to find a buyer willing to pay money for such expensive cars.
But, crisis or not, Russia's super-wealthy individuals are still at the top of their game, although with less actual money. The total monetary wealth of Russia's richest people has been more than halved from $380 billion to $142 billion. Russia now has only 32 billionaires - in 2008, there were 110. Mikhail Prokhorov (metals, gold, financial sector) heads the list of Russia's super-rich with $9.5 billion dollars, followed by Roman Abramovich (famous for owning Britain's Chelsea soccer club) with $8.5 billion. Former leader of the billionaire list Oleg Deripaska (aluminum and finances) now dropped to 10th place - he went from having $28.6 billion to only $3.5 billion. One thing is certain- this bunch will surely not trade their cars for Russian-made Ladas. But the year is not over, right?
