SREDNEURALSK, Russia, Nov 16 (Portal) – For Darya Stepanova, a mother of two living in a small town on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains, rising prices for everything from baby food to diapers have forced her family to Save money on most treats and eating out.
The Stepanov family is one of millions of Russian families who have had to make compromises due to the significant changes imposed on the Russian economy by the war in Ukraine and the countless sanctions imposed by the West.
Stepanova, 34, her five-year-old son and newborn son are trying to make ends meet on the 50,000 rubles ($550) a month that her husband Sergei earns. As she walks through the snow to the stores, she checks prices looking for bargains.
“I can imagine that in the last five years everything has become more expensive,” Stepanova told Portal at her apartment in Sredneuralsk, a town on the shores of Lake Iset, about 25 kilometers north of the Ural city of Yekaterinburg and 1,400 km ( 870 miles) east of Moscow.
“Before, you could easily buy a thousand rubles worth of food for three or four days, but now when you go to the store, a thousand rubles is nothing – you can only buy everyday food, like milk, yogurt, bread and that’s it – “Your thousands have flown away.
The price of baby milk has quadrupled in the five years since her first child, she said, while the price of strollers has tripled to 60,000 rubles. Prices for disposable diapers and baby formula have at least doubled, she said.
The family’s income has not increased in any way, while the ruble has fallen against the US dollar since February 2022, when President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine, making imported goods more expensive in ruble terms.
“There is no money left for treats,” said Stepanova. “Of course you can live without them, but life is less fun.”
While many families around the world are struggling with price increases, the peculiarities of Russia’s war economy have created high inflation for millions of Russian voters in the run-up to the 2024 elections.
The family did not want to discuss politics, Ukraine or who was to blame for the price hikes, so it is not immediately clear what longer-term impact the stricter conditions will have on voting rights in Russia.
Putin is expected to run in next year’s election, a move that would keep him in power until at least 2030.
RUSSIAN ECONOMY
The West imposed what it called the toughest sanctions ever on Russia to weaken its economy and force Putin to change course in Ukraine, but he refused and goaded the West for failing to do so. fomenting an economic crisis.
Russia, the world’s largest exporter of natural resources, has continued to sell its oil on global markets and the government has increased military spending to post-Soviet record levels while weapons production has soared – as have the salaries of combat-ready contract soldiers.
The International Monetary Fund forecasts Russia will grow 2.2% this year – faster than the United States or the euro area – although the fund has cut its forecast for growth in 2024 to 1.1%.
When Putin came to power in 1999, Russia’s nominal gross domestic product was just $210 billion after a decade of chaos and contraction, but by 2013 it had grown into a $2.3 trillion economy. Last year, nominal GDP was $2.2 trillion.
Headline inflation in Russia was 11.9% last year and this year the forecast is 7.0-7.5% – while according to official statistics, at least 15.7 million people are below the 14,375 ruble ($157) poverty line. live per month.
Igor Lipits, a Russian economist, said official Russian data on poverty levels was poor – as was the overall picture of the Russian economy – despite often rosy announcements aimed at pleasing the Kremlin leadership.
“The actual situation is bad,” Lipits said, adding that he sees at least stagnation and a serious deterioration in the economic situation after the March presidential election. “A large part of the Russian population has very low wages.”
He said that about 20 million people in Russia could be living in or on the verge of poverty, that many were in debt given the central bank’s 15% interest rates and that some economists believed the ruble could fall after the election.
At a food market in the former imperial capital of St. Petersburg, Lyudmila said she and her friends tried to save on food and look for discounts. She declined to give her middle name.
“What option do we have? Of course we won’t die and we won’t cry – we’ll try to survive somehow.”
($1 = 91.4000 rubles)
Text by Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Alexandra Hudson
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