The Future of Russia, Veterans, the Economy, and Crimea
First, I found a tragic photo on Telegram. It’s the one above. This Russian paratrooper has been reduced to asking for support from people on the streets. The recruitment poster in the back reminds him of what he probably thought was his future. Go to war, make some cash, come home, and be a hero.
The reality is very different. Not only that. Assuming he knows any of the history of the Great Patriotic War and the fate of disabled veterans, he has a reason to fear. There was some of that after Afghanistan, but a lot less, probably because there were fewer veterans. Treatment of disabled veterans was not good:
Thus, although a few disabled war heroes were glorified in Soviet literature, the press, and state propaganda, the vast majority of war “invalids” were isolated and left to “heal” in private spaces such as the home, or institutions. Indeed, Krylova (2001:325) describes how, as revealed in the post-war Soviet literature, the private sphere was demarcated as the “healing place” for the war wounded, with women (usually wives and mothers) assigned the role of “social therapists of traumatized male souls.” This phenomenon is indicative of another important characteristic of Soviet disability policy just after the Second World War: the state continually shifted the burden of supporting people with disabilities to local government structures and social support networks, including the kolkhoz (collective farm) and the family (Tchueva 2008:103).
This was a problematic “solution,” since not all disabled veterans enjoyed family support structures, and the drastic hardships of the post-war period necessitated multiple interventions. Fieseler (2005) notes that, for a time, the tsarist-period tradition of philanthropy was revived in Soviet cities and towns, where citizens were called upon to give charitable donations in support of the needy, many of them “war invalids.” But, more often than not, this “volunteerism” was initiated not at the grassroots, but through local Communist Party structures, the Komsomol (Communist Youth Organization), and the trade unions.
There was a much darker side to Soviet policy vis-à-vis disabled veterans, whose continuing need for more support was unwelcome evidence of the Soviet state’s inability or unwillingness to adequately provide for all citizens’ needs. During the late 1940s and 1950s disabled veterans were dispersed from Moscow and other large cities for forced resettlement in remote areas. According to Fieseler (2006:51), kolkhoz supervisors in rural areas, in order to shed inefficient disabled workers, sometimes turned them in as “parasites;” such workers were then deported, presumably to labor camps.24 Penal camps were established in the Soviet Union for disabled prisoners and disabled veterans of the Russian Civil War and the two World Wars. The most infamous of these is the Spasskaia labor colony near Karaganda, Kazakhstan, to which 15,000 disabled prisoners were sent in the late 1940s and early 1950s (Solzhenitsyn 1985). Similarly, disabled veterans of the Second World War were secretly exiled from Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and Leningrad oblast’ to the Valaam archipelago, in the Republic of Karelia (Russian Federation). Valaam and the fate of those veterans are still shrouded in mystery (Fefelov 1986:51–57).
This man begging on a street, missing legs, is precisely what the Soviets wanted to avoid. So, at some point, he will be picked up and sent to where he can disappear. If he is lucky, he will get a pension.
This, via Lyudmila Ulitskaya, is pertinent to the future of this man:
The leader of the peoples did not like this terribly. And he gave the order: “Cleanse Moscow from “garbage”!”
And law enforcement agencies began to remove all beggars and disabled people from the streets of cities so that they would not spoil the beautiful picture of post-war life. This command from Stalin was the beginning of a great campaign that lasted for many years.
In 1949, an action to clean up the city was carried out — thousands of beggars, most of whom were disabled, were evicted from the cities.
The cities began to be consistently “sanitized” — beggars and disabled people were collected at night by special squads of police and state security agencies, taken to railway stations, loaded into heated vehicles, and disabled people were sent to boarding homes. At the same time, passports and soldiers’ books were taken away.
This will happen because Vladimir Putin is made of the same stuff as Joseph Stalin. His Russia does not have room for these men. So he will be quietly picked up at some point and sent to where we cannot see him again.
History repeats, and in Russia, it’s partially the self-image of a powerful country.
This brings me to the economy. Something strange, albeit not unexpected, happened yesterday. The ruble crashed. And it crashed hard.
Natalka described this way on Twitter:
‼️Very interesting post considering its source. 🤔
The following was posted by the Kremlin’s mouthpiece Sergei Markov:
“The dollar in Russia is trembling with fear. After the introduction of sanctions against the Moscow Exchange, it was announced that the dollar exchange rate would be determined not on the exchange, but on some accounts based on some declarations.
Well, people are really panicking now. Because once there are declarations and accounts, then everyone understands this: the dollar exchange rate will be determined by shady businessmen in secret collusion with corrupt officials.
Millions of people on Thursday morning are preparing to rush either to buy dollars or to sell dollars. They still have not decided which one. The Central Bank is not silent. But it speaks in such a way that no one can understand it.”
This was nice. We got more of this on Telegram. Let’s say it got interesting. Because it looks like we are truly going back to the 1990s, the glorious chaos of the 1990s:
In Russia, several dollar exchange rates will most likely appear after stock exchange trading stops, says HSE professor Evgeniy Kogan. The black market rate, the interbank rate, the Central Bank rate and so on, and we will focus on the black market or gray market rate, Kogan believes.
The professor does not advise getting rid of cash: “Those who keep it under the mattress will ultimately benefit from this process.”
I count the black market as having never gone away. But at this point, it will be something we talk about openly. There is a black market. Having lived through a currency collapse, the official exchange rate is meaningless. What matters is what Ivan in a dark alley will be willing to give you for dollars. On the bright side, there will be more rubles than any official rate. They want those dollars that will become scarce.
So you have three exchange rates. The official one is almost unobtainable. I expect to see even tighter currency controls. You have the interbank rate and the black market rate. I was reminded of the far less known interbank rate by BroSINT 69 on Twitter.
If you thought the 1990s were fun. We are watching the slow collapse of the Russian economy. You can watch this short, translated section of an interview with Igor Lipsits on Twitter. He is not wrong. We are watching something that is both fascinating and terrifying.
This brings us to this post from Natalka; she sourced Russian Telegram:
After the US Treasury made an announcement about imposing more sanctions meant to target Russia’s financial systems some Russian bloggers understood the ramifications of this announcement:
“In fact, today the ruble has ceased to be a convertible currency and has become an ordinary “wooden” one*.
Now the official exchange rate based on “random numbers” and the “black market” are emerging again, for which sooner or later criminal liability will be introduced.
“Underground currency dealers” will appear again, and they will be condemned by official propagandists, who will be demanding for them to be shot for undermining something or other.”
- Anatoly Nesmiyan, Russian blogger*wooden ruble is an expression that means it’s not worth anything.
Again, having lived through something like this, it’s the moment your currency loses all meaning. Yes, prices are still at the supermarket. But things like durable goods, which are not built or accessible, have become impossible to even dream of.
Other effects already have been just as brutal but even less noticeable. If you are a diabetic in Russia, you are even more in trouble since finding Humalog will be an issue.
And the Russian stock market continues to nosedive. This will have real effects on the war as well. It’s not that a single event brings this to an end. It’s the continuation of them. As I keep saying, it’s more cracks in the ice. These are large cracks that even average Russians with no family in the army will notice.
And if you are a diabetic, well, this could prove deadly.