Flight 778

The Russian populous are chewing on a rather large slice of irony. For the the best part of the 20th century they were slaves to the Communist economic system. We all know that this was put paid to in December 1991 when the USSR was dissolved.

The Russian people had high hopes that their quality of life would improve as the free market economy took hold. Things didn't go too smoothly though and by August 1998 there was an economic collapse. The ruble blew out from 6 to the US dollar to 33 to the US dollar.

There is a lot more wealth in Russian society now. I also genuinely believe that there is a trickle down effect. This trickle is a lot slower than it should be.
Russia could potentially be the richest country in the world. Siberia is very rich in natural resources: oil, gold, diamonds and precious metals. In today's climate the oil in Russia is even more valuable. Currently Russia is the third largest oil producer in the world. As their production becomes more efficient there is every likelihood they will rise to number one at some stage.

There should be enough wealth to go round for everyone to earn a healthy wage. It has been said that no where in the world is the distribution of wealth more unfair than in Russia. Moscow is now officially the most expensive city to live, in the whole world.

The problem is that the owners and directors of companies like to line their silky pockets with as much profit as they can muster. The rates for personal loans are set at around 25% and home loans at 18%. I shudder to think how high credit cards are set. But an employee in one of these banks only earns $500 a month. This is considered to be a very generous wage in Russia. There is no reason why such an employee should not earn $2000 or more per month. The banks have the money to pay their staff, but they are all too greedy.

This brings me to the story that has put Siberia in the international news in the last couple days. A plane crashed when it arrived in Irkutsk from Moscow, killing 124 people. It happened to be the same airline that we arrived in Russia on, just 7 weeks ago. The sad and terrible thing is that accidents like this could easily be avoided. Russian airlines now charge prices comparable and higher than airlines in the west. The airlines here would pay less for their fuel as the cost of oil is lower in Russia. I can guarantee that their staff are paid low wages probably no more than $500 a month. The airlines are making big profits, but they are not spending enough money on new planes. It seems to me that this is the real cause of plane crashes in Russia.

Somebody once sent an email though to the OM team when Melody lived here 5 years ago. The email was full of statistics on the reliability of Russian airlines. My response was "Do they want us to walk?" There is no point in worrying. We will catch trains in Russia when it is practical and catch planes when it is nescessary. We will continue to trust in God, and you can continue to pray for our safety.

It has been proven that Communism in Russia did not work. Sometimes I think that Russia will have a good shake at seeing if Capitalism can fail too. I think it has very little to with the economic system and a lot more to do with the integrity of the people running the system.

This is the reality of life in Russia. Sometimes society vomits the irony back up.