When is enough not enough?

(Krasnoyarsk's "Planeta" shopping centre.)

Ok, it's time for one of my beefs about life in Russia. So many Russians I know including my friends complain about not having enough in life. This is a rather old story. Before I continue, let me qualify a few things- there are some very poor people in Russia. Russia is not a developed country. But on the flip side there are also a lot of middle class people in Russia, and Russia is developing rapidly.

This is a complex topic and I will not go into all of the statistics. A few basic pointers though:

-Economic collapse was about to happen in the USSR in the 1980s. This is the main reason that Russia opened up to the west. In the 60s and 70s the Socialist system was working reasonably well. Anyone who studied hard and worked hard could expect a good life. (This is not to say that Russians do not have a long memory of struggling and suffering. The life of the Russian peasant still exists in the Russian psyche.)

-The 1990s was a very difficult decade for Russians. On the whole, there were a few very wealthy people in Moscow and the rest of the population struggled to get by. They remembered the glory days of the 60s and 70s (the golden age of Russian Communism), and lamented its disappearance. The 1990s was a very wild time in Russia. In the early 90s the shelves were often empty in the shops. Russians have always managed to get by though. People who live in villages grow their own food and live much of a subsistence lifestyle, with their own animals too. People who live in cities often had a patch of land outside the city for growing vegetables. (Sadly not all do today, as many chose to sell their Dacha land for quick cash, probably a bad decision in the long run.)

-The first decade of the 2000s saw a lot of economic growth. This can be attributed to a time of stability brought to the country by Vladimir Putin. Both Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin are now seen as failed leaders by many Russians, but they also did much good for the country. Before the economic crisis in 2008 Russia's economy was growing at 8% per year, a similar figure to China's (hence such terms as BRIC(S)). Now in 2011, economic growth is on the recovery, the industrial sector is growing at 6%. Russia of course will be in perpetual oil boom until the world no longer demands it.

-Statistics about the middle class. It is hard to determine exactly who and how many people make up the Russian middle class. There is an in depth article that you can read about it here: http://www.aei.org/outlook/12224
The United Nations classify middle class as being anyone who has more than $5000 disposable income (above and beyond living expenses) per year. According to those kinds of figures, about 50% of Russia's population now fit into this definition of middle class.
In this article "Russia's middle class sees revival" the statistics point to 48% of people describing themselves as middle class. This is a staggeringly high figure when you consider that back in 2007 the figures were around 26%.

What is middle class from a Russian perspective? From my anecdotal anthropology I would say the following are good descriptors of a middle class Russian life style: 1) Own an apartment. 2) Own a car. 3) Have the ability to travel abroad for holidays. Many people I know fit into this category. Again to qualify, I also know others who only have one room to live in for a whole family. Those friends of mine are not middle class, they work hard and get by. When those friends come to our place I feel embarrassed that we have so much more than them. At the same time, we have other Russian friends who can not understand why we don't own a car. Still, we do fit into the middle class by Russian standards (I am not sure that we do by Australian standards though.)

So many Russians who have something seem to want so much more. This topic came up for discussion in one of my Russian language classes recently. I asked the cheeky question, "what is the difference between a rich person and a satisfied person?" The teacher did not seem to appreciate my question. "We have economic crisis in Russia, there is no middle class," was her answer. Mean while the discussion included ideas of owning holiday houses in Spain. The rich upper class in Russia often own property abroad, while the middle class can only afford to visit Europe. But for some reason, many middle class people will not be satiated until they also own a holiday house in Spain.

To quote a Russian friend, "life is so difficult in Russia, we are all struggling."  This friend owns a new apartment in one of the new areas of town and a $20 000 car. Sure, he has to work hard to pay off his mortgage (mortgages are at 12%, while five years ago they were 26%). This is not the voice of satisfaction speaking. It constantly frustrates me that Russians are complaining about their lot in life. They have so much more than many in the world, but they are not satisfied, they are not content.

This reminds me of a quote from St. Paul, "godliness with contentment is great gain." (Which follows on from the famous quote "the love of money is the root of all (kinds) of evil".) What does contentment mean? I think it means to not constantly want more, but to be content with what one already has (and I am not including people who do not have enough to eat or wear, or a warm bed to sleep in). The secret to being content, I think, is to be happy when needs are met and to deny some of the wants that keep cropping up in life. I keep looking at cars as I walk past them and thinking "I want a car." But I know many times over that we do not need a car, and that all of our needs are happily met. I realised that this is a "want" that keeps cropping up in my heart, one that I would like to see disappear. Or maybe the "want" is just a symbol of what I need to deny to remain content. The fact is, that if I were to satiate that "want" there would be another to follow quickly on its heels. So perhaps saying no to this want is a way of drawing a line in the sand.

I was struck by the face of the difference between contentment and unsatiated want again today. A Russian mafia guy at the swimming pool responded to my comments. I had just finished telling him that Jesus loved him. His response was to say "but where was Jesus when I was hungry, when I had no food." I had a genuine concern to say, "but Jesus did care for you in your pain in that time." For a moment I had no words, and it seemed that my acquaintance had made his point for ignoring God in his life. But then it came to me in simplicity- where was Jesus when this man was hungry.... Jesus was on the cross. I told him this. It seemed a strange response to him. At the end of the conversation he responded, "well if Jesus loves me, then so be it."

I don't pretend to have all the answers. Russia continues to be an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, inside a riddle.