Almost five years ago I visited northwestern Russia, specifically, the
cities of St. Petersburg, Petrozavodsk, Novgorod, Vladimir, Tver and
Moscow. Just a few months before the economic collapse, the countryside
around most all these cities left a sorrowful impression on me. Ben and
Jerry's popular ice cream available from street vendors in Moscow. And log
houses on the outskirts of Tver with mud streets, no sewage, a woodcut
from 1848. Further north, factories closed, skeletal villages where hardly
a person could be seen.
Trucks in the north caravaned for daytime travel, because the night produced
piracy on the highways. Garbage was strewn from Vladimir to the outskirts of
Moscow along the main highway.
A third world countryside of a land where perhaps over 75% of the wealth
lives in the hands of just a few Moscovites who travel by Mercedes, conduct
business by cell phone. Crisp U.S. $20 bills in a wad to pay for drinks or
tickets, or whatever.
I dare not claim expertise in economics. I see what I see. I saw what I saw.
Paternalistic Communism's collapse left a people adrift, a society so used
to hardship and getting by with guile and imagination, a society wracked by
disease and deepening despair in some locations.
I observed what talking heads have spoken of often these past many years:
capitalism run amok has produced wealth for the very, very few. The middle
class is staggering. It was not a pretty sight.
Barry
--Barry Mallis The Organizational Trainer 110 Arch St., #27 Keene, NH 03431-2167 USA voice: 603 352-5289 FAX: 603 357-2157 cell: 603 313-3636 email: theorgtrainer@earthlink.net
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