Quote (Black XistenZ @ 8 Feb 2024 16:47)
Could it be worse? Sure. And a lot of Russians have lived through times when things were worse than they are right now. Still: the country has low life expectancy, a pitiful healthcare system, some 40% of their population live in bitter poverty and some 15% of the population haven't seen a toilet with running water in their entire life.
Those were called the 1990s - “A decade of humiliation”. A laissez-faire capitalism of proportions never seen before unleashed on a country that didn’t have a concept of private property yesterday. It is a miracle Russia managed not to splinter considering how badly it was run by Yeltsin’s “democratic” advisors. Don’t forget that Russia decided to inherit all foreign debt of USSR so new republics that emerged from this collapse got all their infrastructure for free. Steel smelters, nuclear and hydro plants, roads, airports, refineries, ports, pipelines. All of that - for free.
Remember when GDR got united with FRG? Pension and savings of the little peoples were converted so they could eat and retire with dignity. Pensions and savings of all Russians got zeroed in one fell swoop of “Shock Therapy” of the 1990s. Imagine losing everything you owned for no fault of your own, while ThyssenKrupp - where you worked your whole life - gets sold to a 20 year old american hotshot for three colas and two packs of bubblegum. You could buy anything in Russia in the 1990s. Slaves, submarines, hitmen, whole cities were essentially for sale to the right buyer. “Humiliating” doesn’t even begin to describe this. This is what Putin meant when he said that “collapse of the USSR was a tragedy”. He doesn’t want to restore the empire, he acknowledges the injustice that was perpetrated as a part of history of Russia that is behind them now.
This post was edited by Malopox on Feb 8 2024 11:19am