“Of Poverty and Wealth in Russia” - Russian Roulette Episode #48

In a particularly excellent episode of Russian Roulette (we say that every time, but we always mean it), Olya and Jeff are joined by Leonid Grigoryev and Yuval Weber. Leonid is Chief Adviser to the Head of the Analytical Centre for the Government of the Russian Federation, a professor at the Higher School of Economics. He worked as a Deputy of the Minister of Finance of Russia during the Yeltsin administration. Yuval is the inaugural Daniel Morgan Graduate School-Kennan Institute Fellow, and has held professorships at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and at Harvard University. Following an event at CSIS titled “Social Inequality and the Russian Economy,” they discuss what inequality looks like in Russia and what it means to be wealthy and poor in different oblasts, Russia’s migrant workers, and how Russia copes with poverty at the personal, local, and national level.

A quick definition: Leonid uses the term “gastarbeiter.” German for guest worker, this word is often used by Russians to refer to labor migrants.

And a quick correction: the poverty rate in the US has dropped to just under 13 percent, and remains just high of 13 percent in Russia. Olya inflates the rate of both to 14 percent in her comments.

To contextualize the conversation further, here is a recent article on poverty in Russia:

“Number of Russians In Poverty Hits Decade-High,” RFE-RL, April 6, 2017, https://www.rferl.org/a/recession-sanctions-left-20-million-russians-living-poverty-2016-up-300000-2015/28413387.html

If you’re interested in hearing more from Leonid or Yuval, check out video of their event at CSIS, “Social Inequality and the Russian Economy,” here: https://www.csis.org/events/social-inequality-and-russian-economy. And you can find their bios and recent publications, here: Leonid - https://www.leonidgrigoryev.com/, Yuval - https://www.wilsoncenter.org/person/yuval-weber.

As always, keep sending us mailbag questions! If you would like to have your question answered on the podcast, send it to us! Email rep@csis.org and put “Russian Roulette” in the subject line. And, if you have one, include your Twitter handle, so we can notify you publicly when we answer your question (or, if you don’t want us to, tell us that). We look forward to hearing from you.