Re: Roy Medvedev interview (on Putin)

["Chris Doss" <nomorebounces@xxxxxxx>]

>
> I invited Chris here because he does have a lot of information on Russia.  I do not
> share his views about Putin, but I still learn from him.

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I don't know how much of it is due to the Putin administration, how much is due to high oil prices, and how much is due to fluctuations in the solar tide, but there is no question that life in Russia has vastly improved since Putin came to power (not that you would know this reading the New York Times). The difference is unbelievable. When I first came to Russia, people would tell me that "Russia is dying" all the time. That doesn't happen anymore.

Of course the NYT is not interested in what is _actually happening_ in Russia or most anywhere else.

I see the most amazing distortions of reality about the country in the English-language press, and not just the mass media. For instance, Edward Herman wrote a very well-intentioned article on Znet about the Russian healthcare system that was, unfortunately, wrong. He could have just called up a Russian clinic and asked. Lifespan in Russia has not dropped due to a collapsing healthcare system, which Herman, if I remember aright, asserted. Male life expectancy has dropped 10 years; female life expectancy by about 2 years. That should tell you off the bat that it has little to do with the state of the healthcare system, and a lot to do with a giant increase in alcoholism and stress among Russian men and a greatly increased availability of alcohol in post-Soviet Russia. The majority of the excess deaths are middle-aged men dying from cardio-vascular diseases (not from "hunger-related diseases" either, another frequent, and strange, canard. There is not much "hunger" in a country in which most people grow their own vegetables.) Alcohol was expensive in the Soviet Union and very cheap today.

In fact, Russian healthcare is about the same as it was in the Soviet era: free and bad, although you are expected to give the doctor a gratuity. For instance, I had an operation on my lower gum in a state clinic in Kaluga. I gave the doctor $3. For treatment of frostbite in my fingers, I gave about $1.50 to the woman who lanced the blisters. A friend of mine just had work done on her ear, and she bought the doctor a bottle of cognac. In fact the majority of the income of Russian healthcare workers is probably in the form of such gratuities from patients.