This is what Russians hear every day; but here’s something important that you might want to know – a lot of us don’t really care about these things anymore. People are preoccupied with a more important question: the current state of the Russian economy. In fact, Russians were worried about poverty more than they feared a new world war breaking out, RT reported, citing a Levada Center poll.
It’s pretty simple. Russians aren’t too worried about Syria, ISIL terrorists or even Ukraine anymore, because guess what – prices keep rising, the ruble is still weak, oil is trading below $50 a barrel, meanwhile salaries have been consistently the same.
To be honest, the economy has constantly been on my mind as well. According to the Federal Statistics Service (Rosstat), a number of Russians living on less than the minimum income increased by 14.8 percent from last fall. Frankly, I don’t need to see these figures to realize that today there are more poor people than a year ago. I know more people who couldn’t afford to travel overseas this summer than in the past. And I certainly know that I paid 20 rubles less for a bottle of milk and almost twice as less for a US dollar, exactly one year ago.
What’s happening across the world is obviously very important, but I think now Russia needs to focus on the domestic front and the national economy more than anything else. It’s time to scale back on foreign affairs and focus on our own people instead.
Constant talks about the police shootings in the United States and migrants storming the shores of Europe distract us from real hardships that a lot of Russians face on a daily basis – the ongoing economic crisis in the country.
Instead, let’s focus on solving real problems in our hands right now. Let’s discuss ways how to decrease Russia’s dependency on the import of oil and gas amid falling energy prices. Let’s fill in the pages of major Russian newspapers with questions on how to make our country more competitive in the global economy, how to bring in more foreign investment, support small and medium-size businesses and lift millions of Russians out of poverty.
At the end of the day, most of us have no say in world events. It doesn’t matter whether we know all the latest details about chaos in the Middle East or deadly shootings in the United States; unfortunately, we can’t change these things. But I’m pretty sure that we can do more to influence the politics and fix the economy of our own country. Am I not right?
