Russia: Crisis? What Crisis?

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In the meantime, the price of oil has dropped below $70 a barrel, a critical level for the Russian economy, and the government looks set to start using its stabilization fund. It is considering earmarking at least $200 billion for a rescue of Russia's ailing banking system.

The move would be sure to infuriate ordinary Russians, who regard bankers as "speculators." With 63 percent of the Russian people earning less than 15,000 rubles (430 euros) per month and 30 percent getting just 5,000 to 6,000 rubles per month, the use of the stabilization fund for a banking rescue plan is bound to be unpopular.

Naturally, it has not yet reached the stage when tens of thousands of Russians besiege their banks, become desperate to save their kopeks or stare in disbelief at empty shelves in food stores. But has any official wondered what is going to happen when a critical mass of the population becomes genuinely concerned?

Here is one example. In May, panic gripped many residents in St. Petersburg after rumors spread of a serious accident at the nuclear power station in Sosnovy Bor, 70 kilometers west of the city. The station operates four Chernobyl-type reactors and has a history of minor accidents.

Thousands of people stormed local pharmacies, emptying shelves of iodine, while teachers in kindergartens and nurses in some hospitals closed all the windows in fear. Internet forums teemed with "eyewitness" accounts of the first victims of radiation poisoning arriving at hospitals and of a radioactive cloud moving toward the city at speed.

The authorities were quick to appear on all TV channels with reassuring statements denouncing what they labeled "provocation," "hooliganism," and "information terrorism." Yet the panic continued the next day, until it finally died out naturally as nobody experienced symptoms of radiation poisoning.

In the end, the leak scare proved to be a false alarm. In an extremely rare case of agreement between environmental groups and officials, the station's managers and independent ecologists said the rumors were false. The incident, however, served as a litmus test for the public trust in the words of the authorities and the mainstream media that readily transmit them. And it was not the authorities who stopped the panic. The bureaucrats had to wait for its natural end.

It became painfully obvious that even when officials speak the truth, the Russian people have been told too many lies to take government promises seriously.

After all, hadn't all Russians been promised in 1998, as the ruble continued to lose value and prices for Russian exports plummeted, that the state was definitely not going to default on its debts?

Indeed, keeping people in the dark about the real scale of the financial crisis is not worth the effort. However they choose to describe it, a crisis is in the air, and is being increasingly felt in Russia from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. And as so often before, the Russian people are resorting to their own devices, without waiting to hear what officials have to say. They have long since learned the meaning of the expression "sink or swim." As the Russian proverb puts it, saving a drowning man is that man's own problem. They would appreciate it, however, if their ability to understand and assess a situation were more highly regarded by their governors, at least to the same extent as in other countries that have already been severely hit. When panic sets in, nobody is going to listen.

Provided by Transitions Online—Intelligent Eastern Europe