Kommersant-Vlast (Moscow): "What they write about us"
Life in the Urals has become harder. People here read their destiny from the pillars of acrid black smoke rising from the chimneys of the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Plant (MMK)....
When the smoke from the blast furnaces became thinner in the autumn of 2008 people became nervous. "We had not expected it," says Victoria, a 30-year-old blonde who got a taste of the Putin-era "economic miracle" (2000-2008), bought a foreign-made car on credit, and became the chief editor of the city news website. The site was shut down in October 2008. Victoria was left without a job, without illusions...
30-year-old Vitaly recently lost his job as a metal worker at the Metiz plant, a subsidiary of the metallurgical plant. He was not sacked, he quit himself claiming no severance and handing in his resignation "of his own accord". He chose to quit empty-handed so as not to quarrel with the plant. "If the plant recovers to full capacity they will call me back," Vitaly hopes. He says he is ready to do any work waiting for better times. However, his visit to the job centre left Vitaly speechless. A hundred people are crammed into a small office. There are 6,000 jobless people and the centre has only 300 vacancies to offer, most of them low-skilled jobs: doorman, load handler, cleaner, road building worker (4,000-5,000 roubles a month or 87-109 euro)... With such a wage how can he pay a dollar loan for his Volkswagen, child support and utility rates?
Fyodor, 24, is just as nervous as Vitaly. A recent graduate of the law faculty, he knows he cannot find a job in his sphere of competence: "There are way too many lawyers in Russia". He decides to become a bus driver. Training costs 14,000 roubles (307 euros), the job centre is ready to pay half of that sum, but Fyodor is not sure he can raise the remaining sum...
Information is hard to come by in Magnitogorsk. The plant's "vertical power structure" is efficient. The veil of silence is as thick as the smoke from the blast furnaces used to be. At the sight of a journalist, especially a foreign one, officials behave like inquisitors. "Tell me with whom you talked during your stay in our city and what they have been telling you," the press secretary of the Magnitogorsk Metal Plant, Yelena Azovtseva, demanded.
There is no trade union, no opposition parties, no civil society, no environmental protection groups, although the city is heavily polluted...
"The city exists like a small fiefdom", says businesswoman and a member of the municipal council Rozalia Beloshapko.
That dark-haired lady in a mink coat with an impeccable hairdo and resolute gait went into business in 2003 starting with the construction of two retail centres... Viktor Barabanov, the head of the local small business association, laments the monopolisation of the economy: "Magnitogorsk is a mono-city like many other industrial cities in Russia. Its development model is based on the rule of a single corporation which is not interested in fostering a competitive environment."
On holidays the people of Magnitogorsk converge on a large stadium built by the plant. Beer is flowing and passions run high. "Get him", one of the spectators shouts to the ice hockey player engaged in a scuffle with a member of the visiting team, the CSKA of Moscow. Metallurg, the local team, wins the match to a storm of applause. "The plant will also win. It has been through a lot during its lifetime, just like all of us", says Dmitry, a worker who is watching the match together with his family. The banner over the ice arena reads: "It's safer with MMK".
NEW YORK, USA
"Vodka reflects the charm of power."
The Putinka vodka owes its success to the popularity, verging on a cult, of Vladimir Putin. It became one of the best selling Russian brands of hard liquor. Vodka named after the new President is struggling to catch up with Putinka, just like the successor is struggling to catch up with Putin himself.
The Medvedeff vodka appeared in Russian shops in December. It sits on the shelf together with Putinka and costs exactly the same, 150 roubles, or $4 for half a litre. But while Putinka, in the market since 2003, remains the second most popular vodka brand in Russia, Medvedeff hasn't even made the top twenty. The inequality reflects political reality. Vladimir Putin left the post of President in May and became the Prime Minister, but opinion polls show that he is still more popular than Medvedev and his aura of absolute power is undiminished... The use of Putin's name to sell vodka is a clever move of the producers of Putinka who have played on the former President's name. The annual sales of that brand exceed $500 million...
Market watchers believe that Medvedeff so far has a tiny market share... "It has no chance", says Alexander Yeryomenko, managing director of Brand-Lab, a consultancy. He claims that Medvedev's authority is so shaky that vodka consumers deny it the welcome they once gave Putinka.
A Kremlin official says he is not sure that the President knows such a vodka brand exists, but he added that such initiatives are not normally welcome. Putin's representative said that Putin "has a very negative attitude" to the commercial use of his name, but in the case of Putinka he has no legitimate grounds for banning it...
Nikolai Zubov
