Press conference

Natalya Zubarevich, professor at Moscow State University

How to save Russian monotowns? And is it necessary? In the conditions of the financial and economic crisis, monotowns, which depend on one industry, have suffered most of all in Russia. Due to a decrease in demand, many large factories underwent cutbacks, and conveyors began to work not at full capacity. Thus, not only workers of individual factories, but also residents of entire cities found themselves in a difficult financial situation. In late spring and early June 2009, they started protests. The most famous of these actions took place in Pikalevo, Leningrad Region, where residents blocked the federal highway, creating a multi-kilometer traffic jam. How to change the situation in monotowns? How can you diversify their economies? Did the idea of ​​monotowns come true? The director of the regional program of the Independent Institute for Social Policy, a specialist in the field of socio-economic development of regions, social and political geography, professor of the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University Natalya Vasilievna Zubarevich answered these and other questions of the readers of Lenta.Ru.

Edik

Hello,

Are monotowns Russian specific?

No, this is not purely Russian specifics. At the stage of industrialization in developed countries, cities also arose around one large production or a group of similar industries. Detroit, the auto industry, is a classic example. There were cities with a great dominance of metallurgy. The specificity of Russia is that this process has become very large-scale in our country. The system of creating cities in an open field was, as it were, one of the foundations of a planned economy: a decision was made to build production, and housing and some kind of social sphere were attached to it. And Russia has gone through this industrial stage, for which monotowns are typical, especially in the early stages. Due to the planned economy, the number of single-industry towns is much larger than in other countries. But the process itself is simply characteristic of a certain stage of development.

Alexander

Is Detroit in the United States a "monotown"? Has the USA found a solution to this problem? What can the American experience teach us?

No Unfortunately. Americans generally have a different approach to these things. Basically, there are two formats for solving this problem. The first is that people get into cars, sell their homes and go to another place where there is work. That is, it is a high mobility of the population.

For Europeans, this is much less typical, they are more attached to the place of residence, and other strategies for the improvement of territories dominated there. The Americans also tried to improve their coal states, where their coal mining became depressed, they invested a lot in infrastructure, in the education of the population, in the creation of local centers. These were all correct measures, but the only problem was that they were very much sprayed over the territory, over many settlements, and in general the effect was not as expected. But he was there. But it didn't work with Detroit, because there is the highest concentration of the car industry, and then it began to move to other places, the assembly ceased to be so large, with such large factories. The technological system has simply changed, such technologies as "Just-in-time" - delivery of products from other places, then "Just-in-Sequence" - in a certain sequence appeared. And these huge assembly plants are already outdated.

This problem is solved for a long time and with a lot of money, this must be clearly understood.

Ivan

Is it just now that such close attention to the problems of single-industry towns has arisen? And how predictable was this situation? In theory, after the collapse of the USSR (and the economic model that gave rise to monotowns), it was possible to foresee that this type of urbanization is doomed.

The situation is absolutely predictable. These cities arose rather quickly in the 90s, but then, first of all, they were machine-building cities, because the demand for Russian machine-building was minimal. And metallurgical cities adapted better, because Russian metallurgy very quickly reoriented to export, and already in the mid-90s more than half of its production went to other countries.

Having entered the global market, in conditions of rather significant demand, Russian metallurgical products have found their niche.

And this crisis also killed the world demand (since the crisis is global), so all the structural ailments of the Russian economy immediately came out. Monoprofile is a risk always and everywhere. Because standing on one leg is not a very comfortable position.

Evgeniy

Hello!

The problem of the so-called. "single-industry towns" - is it unprofessional management of city-forming enterprises or a sign of a global structural "disease" of the domestic economy?

And if both, then what is more?

Let me explain - if the products are needed and competitive, but nevertheless, the plant's business is bad and the money for salaries does not know where has gone, this is a problem of unprofessional management.

If things are bad because the products are uncompetitive and nobody needs them, because somewhere there is better, closer and cheaper, this is a more global problem of our entire unmodernized economy.

The main factor is, of course, structural. Because if there is only one basic enterprise in the city, and its products do not find demand, but do not find demand, for example, now the products of all metallurgical plants, regardless of how they are managed, then this is the determining factor. Another thing is that the way out of the crisis, adaptation measures, reorganization measures - all this, of course, already depends on the quality of management. But this recession itself was large-scale and very strong for all events in the ferrous metallurgy. And in mechanical engineering, this is just a very long-standing problem of unmodernized Soviet enterprises, which remained mostly Soviet, with products that were in demand only when the country was flooded with oil money and generated demand in the service industries. Now there is no such thing - and there is no demand.

Therefore, do not blame everything on the quality of the business. Although there is a very clear rule: first of all, the crisis hits the unmodernized enterprises of single-industry towns very hard. Because at such enterprises, the costs are higher, the cost of production is higher. More modernized enterprises, of course, also face a sales crisis, it is difficult to sell, but due to the fact that they have high modernization, already more modern production, they still lose less during the crisis.

Tatiana

Good day!

To what extent do you think the problem of single-industry towns is connected with the existence, which has not actually been canceled, of the institution of "registration"? Are there real prospects in Russia of canceling registration at the place of residence in the version that exists now - with the linking of elementary social benefits and employment to the mark in the passport?

And that too. There are a lot of factors, I will name the most important ones. The most important factor is the really low incomes of the population and the very high cost of moving.

The second factor is that the money that you get for a sold apartment does not always allow you to buy housing in places where there is definitely work, and these are, first of all, regional capitals, larger cities in which the cost of housing is higher.

The third factor is institutional restrictions, registration regimes, all these nasty things that prevent people from moving freely. But for now, the basic constraint is that people simply do not have the money to travel. That is why it is not relocations that dominate in Russia, but labor migration, when people rent housing where they found work, either men, or women, or young girls are doing this, but not families. It is very difficult to drag a family and find housing in Russia with its monopoly housing markets in cities, at incredibly high prices.

Vlad.Pro

Natalya Vasilievna, don't you think that the problems of the vulnerable economy of single-industry towns highlight "ahead of time" the unsatisfactory situation not only with "realistic forecasting of the dynamics of economic development" in the country and the world, but also with the lack of research on the systematic analysis of the causes and risks of such crisis situations and ways to not just overcome them, but also to prevent them? For example, is it easy for your Independent Institute to get government or business funds for such research? Or are the state and business not interested in them and similar information, at least in "open and accessible to all" (including economically) sources of information?

Could the number of such dysfunctional mono- and "intermediate" cities increase significantly with the entry of the Russian Federation into the WTO? In any case, without conducting and publishing such studies, as well as other (what?) Preparation?

Don't you think that the role of IT in correcting such a negative situation can be much deeper and more effective than creating "new jobs"?

What is needed, from your point of view, for such studies to be effective, and their results would be available to both municipal and regional administrations and the population? Do you see the need for government and business support for such research and work? Don't you think that such support will give more in the fight against the global economic crisis than insufficient targeted support of producers and consumers with finances and benefits, as is now observed in most countries?

You know, probably, someone who could predict when the crisis would begin, he would have long been a multimillionaire. Because the crisis was expected for a long time, bubbles in the world markets were inflating, but when exactly it would begin - no one could predict. This is the first thing. The economy is surprising because it has cyclical and regular crises, but no research institute and no machine, even a superperfect supercomputer, can predict the date of the onset of a crisis. This is the first thing.

Second. You see, you don't need any global research to understand that monotowns are vulnerable in principle. This, as they say, is at the level of common sense. The sad-funny situation is that our authorities do not even have a list of these monotowns, they do not even represent the number of people living in them, nor the number of cities itself, and the asset quality of these cities has not been assessed. From this point of view, you are absolutely right. To be honest, in order to collect this information, a research institute is not needed; a group of people needs to work with concentration for several months. It's just that no one does it.

Svetlana

1. If you have statistics on the state of affairs in monotowns, could you tell us about it? Since we will never hear the truth from the authorities.

2. How, in your opinion, should the authorities behave when faced with the problem of single-industry towns in a crisis? To what extent, in your opinion, are the populist steps with the public payment of wages and the launch of unprofitable production lines justified "to spite" the owners who suspended them? Where do you see a way out for such settlements? To what extent are the authorities ready to help people left without means of subsistence? And is it necessary to bankrupt the country's largest single-industry town of Togliatti in order to stop riveting coffins on wheels instead of once and for all, through its bankruptcy, to close the issue of low-quality cars for the population of Russia?

1. This is a continuation of the problem that I spoke about in the answer to the previous question. Regional Russian statistics are unimportant, and municipal statistics are just really disgusting. First, it (like the regional one, by the way) is very late. We do not have a single online database of municipalities. What we can now use for the municipalities of Russia as a whole is the 2007 data. This is how the Russian municipal statistics are arranged, they are practically one and a half to two years late. Therefore, it is, in principle, possible to conduct systemic monitoring if this task is set, but this requires additional funding. That is, you need to have a list of such cities that does not exist, you need to establish a system for transmitting information about the dynamics of wages, about the pace of industrial production. But here's the next problem. Statistics protects the entrepreneur with a special law on non-disclosure of commercial secrets. If there is one enterprise in the city, then, accordingly, when you give its indicators in publicly available statistics, you disclose commercial information, and this is prohibited by law. Maybe in crisis conditions it is worth tracking at least the pace, but there is a problem, including a legal one. But this is not the main problem. The state does not allocate money at all for the development of municipal statistics. This is at the mercy of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. And the subjects have different financial capabilities. In general, I believed and continue to believe that the creation of normal information bases is the task of the federal state, it cannot be regionalized, this is a wrong decision. As a result, we are now faced with the fact that we do not have systemic information on single-industry towns at all.

2. These are, without any reservations, very bad decisions. Because you need to understand that a significant part of these cities, especially with old, uncompetitive enterprises, are hopeless. And it would be better if our government did not distribute salaries to the cameras and not from the oligarchs, but would come with a normal reorganization program. Because this program should also include an increase in the mobility of those who want to work outside the unfortunate Pikalevo, this means very cheap transportation to places where there is work, for example, the organization of some cheap or special vehicles (in that force majeure situation which is now) so that people can work in the nearby suburbs of St. Petersburg. This is an organization of assistance in resettlement, at least temporary, hostels or something else, so that people have work, so that they do not spend a lot to get to work. For those who cannot work, a competent and precise organization of the social protection system is necessary.

When is a prosecutor needed? When the owner did not fire people, and does not pay wages, when the relationship between the owner and the employed is not settled in a crisis. We must strive to ensure that these relations are clearly regulated. If you can't take it, fire it. The man was fired; if the state really wants to help, there is such a thing as an employment subsidy, when people can be retrained within the framework of an ongoing enterprise. If people are dismissed, then there should be a clear work of employment services with registration as unemployed, the organization of public works, a clear record of all people with incomes below the subsistence minimum of households and the payment of special targeted poverty benefits, the so-called poverty benefits.

This whole complex of measures should work so that those who can work are given the opportunity to go [to another city] and find work at least on a temporary basis, various types of public works are organized at the place of residence. But for this, the municipality must have money, since this work is financed from the budget.

Further, you provide benefits to those unemployed who, for one reason or another, cannot be mobile. And pay low-income households. These are all expenses of the state. And the most important thing is to help with social elevators those young people who are growing up in this city and entering the labor market. That is, they receive education in other places (in the same Petersburg or its suburbs) and then look for work outside Pikalevo. This reduces the pressure on the labor market.

Only a complex of these measures makes it possible to gradually revive the city. And one more very important condition: in no case should budget jobs be cut. In such cities, people who receive salaries from the budget must function, this is very important for families. As a rule, a wife can work in the public sector, in a kindergarten or somewhere else, and a husband, for example, at an enterprise, if you keep budget jobs, then at least one salary remains in the family. Fine adjustment is needed, here you cannot do anything with the command economy, in such cases everything must be done according to the mind, with decent government spending. Without this, nothing will work.

Alexander Rubin

Natalya Vasilievna, great greetings to you from a graduate of the Faculty of Geography, the Department of Geography of the World Economy from Germany.

Of course, in a market economy it is at least unprofessional and reckless to artificially keep uncompetitive enterprises afloat. And in principle, what our prime minister did, of course, deserves great respect, but it runs counter to economic feasibility, because you cannot just pay salaries to workers who produce products that do not pay for themselves or do not find a buyer in the market.

What do you see as the most acceptable option for "introducing" such enterprises into the current economic situation? To radically close and evict people from similar single-industry towns, as in the time in the coal-mining villages of Komi? Is it liberal to pay salaries for the production of unclaimed products? Or something in between? For example, structural diversification of production in similar cities?

Of course, there are some enterprises that are unprofitable and not modernized. In the Urals, factories with steam engines have survived, these are generally enterprises of the 19th century, they are absolutely not viable. And there, unfortunately, there is absolutely no mobile population. This is a huge problem! Some of these enterprises will be closed anyway - during this crisis or the next, because the crisis is cyclical.

At those enterprises that are now more modernized, you just need to keep the core of the employed, because the crisis will end - and these people will have jobs. In such cases, a slightly different set of tools. It is clear that after the crisis both Magnitogorsk and Cherepovets, all large metallurgical centers will work. But some of the cities with the worst assets should be rehabilitated by the crisis. People need to be retrained, they need to be helped to move. Or try with the help of budgetary funds to find forms of employment in the service sector, somewhere else. This is all very difficult, but it will inevitably have to be done, whether we like it or not.

If we do not want to do this, then what happened in the 90s will happen: those who are somehow viable in these cities will go as labor migrants to work in Moscow, in St. Petersburg (first of all, of course, to Moscow) and look for any form of employment. Those who are unable to adapt will live on potatoes from their garden. These are the options, the latter leads to a colossal degradation of social human capital. We already went through all this in the 90s, this is not news.

Olga Porfirieva

Natalya Vasilievna, hello! Another graduate of the Geological Faculty of Moscow State University, Department of Social and Economic Studies. geography zarub. countries.

Now in many countries, especially in the United States, jobs are being created in the alternative energy sector, research is being carried out, and experimental facilities are being built. The prospects and scale of such projects are, frankly, impressive. Do you see this as a possible way out of the current situation for those monotowns of Russia where enterprises belong to high-tech industries, as well as cities that are centers of the chemical industry?

First, to be honest, I do not know anything about the crisis in the cities of knowledge-intensive industries, because we do not have many science-intensive industries, these are the cities of Rosatom, cities of the defense industry, monotowns, the so-called closed administrative-territorial entities. There is no crisis. There is state funding, our budget has not died yet, money is coming in. They had a terrible crisis in the 90s, when funding was sharply reduced. And there are absolutely marketable products - uranium enrichment, something else, waste from the nuclear industry - they fit into the market. I don't really understand how this is related to alternative energy. There are ZATOs that are connected with the military-industrial complex, with other industries, rocket and space - they are completely supported by the state - why is there alternative energy there? And cities connected with the Russian energy sector, we also have such mono-cities - the cities of RAO "UES of Russia" and, as I said, "Rosatom" - there are no serious problems there so far. Problems are mainly with metallurgical and machine-building cities. The cities of the chemical industry - there, too, so far everything is softer. Chemists have some difficulties with sales, but such a failure as in metallurgical and machine-building cities has not yet been observed. Russian chemistry, of course, is also poorly modernized, but I hope that it will more or less slip through this crisis.

Yuri

Will it not happen that, due to government support for non-competitive enterprises, we will slide back into the stagnant period, the late eighties? And another question: does the bankruptcy procedure exist / is debugged in Russia? The United States bankrupted General Motors without batting an eye, why don't we do the same? We would have divided Russian Tungsten into parts and sold it off. Surely there are departments / workshops there that would be very useful to other enterprises. And people would save their work. What is the obstacle?

Now, in fact, the authorities have made a decision to semi-nationalize these enterprises. The third case is already happening - the Baikal PPM, the state becomes the majority owner; this tungsten plant has been put on the balance sheet of the Primorsky Territory. Etc. This is not a very good option, but I would separate two things. First, if this is a temporary thing, for several months, say, in the acute phase of the crisis, then the reorganization of these assets begins, and if it is recognized that they are not viable, no one is ready to buy, then the state program of reorganization of these cities is simply adopted - this is one option. If the state becomes the owner on a long-term basis, then every taxpayer of the Russian Federation should understand that of our taxes, the state finances non-market, uncompetitive, unprofitable enterprises. What's so good about that?

I am not a great specialist in legal aspects, but I can say that in the West bankruptcy is a normal procedure for reorganization, change of ownership, distribution of debts, change of a team that did not manage well. In the Russian Federation, unfortunately, bankruptcy is most often used for raider seizures of owners, and not for the rehabilitation and maintenance of enterprises. As far as I understand, the bankruptcy procedure does not really work to clean up the economy, to replace bad managers and owners with better ones. Maybe it will work in the future, but I don’t presume to judge, since I am not an expert in this matter.

DC

Is it possible that the solution to the problem of single-industry towns would be a full-fledged program for the support and development of small enterprises with the allocation of lifting ones, assistance in registering an IP, the allocation of loans at preferential rates with a long maturity, etc.?

Gregory

Dear Natalya Vasilievna, I have 2 questions for you.

1. Is our automobile "Mecca" Togliatti a single-industry town, and in your opinion, is it possible to explain the huge financial influence in VAZ by the fear of a repetition of the Pikalevo situation? What other large monotowns would you consider socially dangerous?

2. Is it possible to support business development in single-industry towns with any tax incentives, for example? It seems to me that this would help diversify the economy. Or will it be cheaper to completely liquidate the city with the resettlement of its inhabitants in neighboring "non-monocities"?

Thanks in advance, it would be nice to hear from an expert in this field.

Have you given a loan, where will it go? If it goes for modernization - that's one question, but modernization requires a lot of money. And if it just goes to support the current profitability, then this money will be consumed. And when the loan ends, everything will be the same.

Lenta.Ru: There is also a question about the provision of tax incentives to such enterprises as one of the measures to solve the problem. How can you comment on this proposal? Are the options the same as with loans?

Absolutely. Then this enterprise will very quickly appear resourceful people who will use these benefits to minimize their tax costs. Remember this rule: any gap in the legislation, especially tax breaks, is ideally used by businesses in their own interests, and not at all in the interests of production development. We have an excellent experience of these offshore regions, which were given benefits, when businesses from all over the country were registered in Kalmykia in order to minimize their tax costs. So, none of the regions of the Russian Federation, which had these special tax regimes, showed as a result of outstripping qualitative and modernizing growth. Therefore, the practice of individual tax incentives is flawed; other tools are needed here.

Communist

Don't you think that the problem of single-industry towns does not, in principle, have a solution within the framework of capitalism, i.e. private ownership of the means of production? Don't you think that such objects can function only with public (state) ownership of the means of production? And to put the question more broadly: have you ever thought about the fact that the socialist economy with all its complex infrastructure (the elements of which are single-industry towns) does not "transform" into the economy of capitalism in general, as, for example, in the process of biological evolution, plants cannot transform into animals and back? Maybe the restoration of socialism will be the salvation for the monotowns?

Alexander

In your opinion, what political ideology, what "-ism" most adequately meets the economic interests of the residents of single-industry towns?

Why doesn't it? There are excellent examples where this problem has been resolved. Let me remind you of the experience of the Ruhr (the largest steelmaking macroregion in Germany). Now the Ruhr has ceased to be such. For 40 years, money has been invested in these cities (there are 5-6 large cities) for environmental remediation, retraining of employed people, and infrastructure development. And as a result, now the Rhine part is no longer a steel zone, it is a diversified and economically developed territory. It's just a very slow process and very expensive. This is the second time I emphasize these points. Nothing can be solved here by speed. This is a process that takes one or two generations of people if you are using your money wisely and efficiently. If you do not react in any way to this process, these cities will wither, die, the youth will leave them. We have already seen all this, a complete analogue is non-black earth villages. Only grandmothers remained there, there is no longer any economy, only a completely degraded social environment. If the state does nothing, then such old, for example, metallurgical single-industry towns in 20-30 years will resemble non-black earth villages. But the state, in general, is responsible to its citizens for the quality of their life, so it is obliged to do something.

Mayan

Good afternoon, Natalya Vasilievna! I follow the topic with great interest, tk. I myself live in the city of Magnitogorsk, which is a monogrod. And I do not agree with the opinion of many that such cities are futile. "MMK" - a city-forming enterprise, until recently, provided the residents of the city with work, a stable income, which now, for obvious reasons, has decreased. BUT! The enterprise is modern, new technologies are being introduced, jobs are preserved, as far as possible. I see the question in a different vein: why city residents do not have the right to count on state aid, when over the past 7 years the city has provided almost half of the regional budget revenues, it is up to date and a lot of funds have come to the federal budget. It turns out that when the region, the federation lived at the expense of our enterprise, everything was fine, now there are doubts about the expediency of its existence. I don't want to feel (the city as a whole) used material.

Then it turns out such a thing - oil was found in the Khanty-Mansiysk district - does this mean that the valiant residents of the Khanty-Mansiysk district, in the development of which the whole country invested money, are now such powerful donors of the whole country and have some special privileges to them should there be a special attitude? For example, I don’t think so. Yes, these people are sitting on rich resources, but in order for these resources to be mastered in the 60s and 70s, money was collected from all over the country. Exactly the same as Magnitogorsk - yes, now it is the main payer of taxes in the Chelyabinsk region, no doubt, but the whole country was building the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine. Therefore, it is necessary to help single-industry towns, just in Magnitogorsk rather short-term assistance is needed, there you just need to survive this crisis. The time for the reorganization of such large cities as Magnitogorsk has not yet come. Moreover, this city has alternative resources. It is 400 thousand people, it is a large center in the south of the Chelyabinsk region. There, however, everything is on money from metallurgy, but many service industries have already developed: travel agencies, all kinds of recreation, and services for the population. For such cities, competent support of the employed is important.

I will just remind you of one figure: we still have 10 times more employees at metallurgical plants for one ton of steel produced than, for example, for one ton of steel in the United States. We have over-employment there, and the crisis has shown this very clearly. And the decline in employment is inevitable, because these industries must be much more automated. Therefore, competent assistance in reorganization, support for the creation of alternative jobs, retraining for other specialties, opportunities for migration, study - this is where the state's assistance must be provided. But I would not say that the entire Chelyabinsk region is obliged to the residents of Magnitogorsk.

Dmitriy

Hello, Natalya Vasilievna!

Since there is so much talk about the development of IT technologies in the country, why not give young people jobs in this area in such monotowns?

Organize software companies, albeit small at first, but which could be provided with orders. Moreover, it could be given for the execution of the state order by these companies. Or won't they? Not enough brains?

It's no secret that in many cities teenage drunkenness and drug addiction are off scale, and the authorities don't give a damn about that. Maybe this is the reason for the troubles of monotowns - the indifference of the authorities?

I vaguely imagine how metallurgists can become IT-shniki. As you noticed, these service sectors are developing much better in large cities, where the level of education of the population is higher, where it is more mobile, and quicker to grasp innovations. For example, we have a large IT outsourcing center - this is Nizhny Novgorod or science cities, in which the concentration of people with high education is obviously increased, so they can be rebuilt. For metallurgical cities, I still vaguely imagine the transition to IT technologies. Rather, various services should be developed there.

In our country, services for the care of the elderly and the socialization of children are terribly underdeveloped. We have a very poorly developed housing and communal services sector, and more people should work there, despite all the technologies. In general, we have underdeveloped service sectors of the economy.

In principle, one must understand that the viability of a city increases sharply if it is formed as a local service center for the surrounding area. This is a huge number of functions. And all the service industries are labor-intensive, there are always a lot of people working there, the inclination to the service economy is absolutely reasonable.

And I would never dare to assume which other plant will "land" on this territory, because this can be assumed by the owner, who considers his investment costs and his potential profit. The state cannot do this, because even if it tries to do it, it will be bad and economically ineffective.

[email protected]

In the journal "Expert" in his own column A. Privalov shares the following thought: "We should remember: one of the main reasons for the failure of the Soviet economy was the inability to close enterprises."

In the context of the prime minister's demonstration trip to Pikalyovo, this idea seems reasonable and oppositional at the same time.

Do you share the point of view that monotowns just need not be afraid to close?

I would be very careful about calling the word "close." With the exception of individual cases, in the extreme conditions of the North, rather, not even single-industry towns, but settlements with one mining enterprise. Such people should simply be relocated to the mainland, no doubt. When it comes to extreme northern territories when a base enterprise, a small town or village is closed (with large ones, everything is much more complicated), then the resettlement strategy should dominate here. In populated areas, this strategy does not work. What is a city in Russia? We have 1,067 cities throughout the country. We have fatally few of them. And each city is a center for its surrounding territory, it has a hospital, it has some kind of educational institution, vocational school or college, it has more qualified personnel who provide services. This city must not be closed, it must be reformatted, speaking in computer language. And it can be done. Therefore, there should be no talk of closure in the developed territory of the country, this is wrong.

KrolevSergei

Good day!

I agree with the opinion about the insufficient activity of the majority of the population,

just many do not have successful experience in such activities, and there is nowhere to get real help in mastering a new type of activity.

those. we need effective government support in the analysis of the general and local market for goods and services in demand, as well as fast and high-quality training in new types of activities

and this must be organized in every city.

For a realistic forecast of the profitability of the proposed activity, a reliable forecast of the general dynamics of the development of the situation in the country is required, at least for half a year.

The question is where can you get acquainted with this forecast? (if it exists and is not classified)

It was profitable three months ago, and then the crisis came. You really want the State Planning Commission, right? Gosplan does not work. There is market analytics, there is the value of assets, which is measured on exchanges when buying and selling. There are a huge number of people who work in business services and follow these trends, which is profitable, which is growing. Money flows through the purchase of shares from less profitable industries and enterprises to more profitable, with b O Greater growth prospects. What you say is a function of the market. The state is an agent that works where the market cannot work. And they [the market and the state] have quite separate functions. Or the state supports what is called the country's defense, this is not a market. Although for the Americans, as you know, private companies also make military aircraft.

The state does not provide market services, it is its function: it replaces market failures. Therefore, let's not confuse God's gift and scrambled eggs. And if the state begins to monitor the market conditions, then we will receive a second State Planning Committee with you. The state must see strategic things: what are the spatial priorities of the country, what territories need different forms of support, how to improve the institutional environment, reduce corruption, how to support vulnerable groups of the population that cannot adapt themselves to the labor market - these are all functions of the state. He already has a lot of work, and, unfortunately, in the Russian Federation it does not do it very well.

Vera

Natalya Vasilievna, you must agree that the problem of single-industry towns has not arisen now. The crisis situation has only exacerbated this problem. Okay, Togliatti, although someday the share of AVTOVAZ in the market would also drop to a critical one. And there are also "oil" and "gas" cities, the fields are not endless ... and so on. How can this problem be solved in the future? Were appropriate measures planned "during the lifetime" of the USSR?

No, not planned. In a planned economy, it was believed that we were developing progressively. The only thing that was somehow discussed was only one topic: what to do with monotowns in the areas of natural resource extraction when the resources run out? The planned economy nevertheless assumed that natural resources had a beginning and an end. Everything else was to develop exclusively progressively. Therefore, it turned out that in the 90s it was bad for everyone: very many territories, and monotowns, if they did stand out, the state still did not have money and could do nothing to help.

As we entered the economic growth period of the 2000s, we were very dizzy from oil revenues, and we decided that it would always be that way. This crisis is very useful, it sharply sobering up, this is the first thing. Second, it makes one think about the structural and other defects of the Russian economy, and third, it shows the real place of the state. There is no need to plan great and mighty construction projects in the East, we need to deal with those problems that the market cannot solve or those in which the market is the worst instrument for solving. One-industry towns are really an area of ​​increased attention of the state. Because the market is often powerless here. The market is abandoning this already outdated format, it no longer really needs it.

The course towards "Russia of agglomerations" is confirmed by the continuing decline of the countryside (although 2019 has been declared the Year of the Village in Russia). Natalya Zubarevich, professor of the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University, Doctor of Geographical Sciences, talks about why this is happening in an interview with the portal "Russia of the Future: 2017 → 2035".

The most likely scenario for the territorial development of Russia can be considered the concept of "Russia of agglomerations", put forward in 2017. To what extent do you think it is justified economically and geographically?

There is undoubtedly a healthy economic kernel in this concept. The fact that in places where people and business are concentrated, the economy develops faster is obvious. But then - when it comes to embodiment - questions begin. The first question. We already have everything gorgeous concentrated in a place called the Moscow metropolitan agglomeration. The concentration of the population and money around Moscow goes on by itself: this gigantic agglomeration "vacuums" resources from all over the country. The second is the agglomeration of St. Petersburg. In the northern capital, the state institutionally helps to pull financial resources for development: a number of institutions are transferred here, for example, the Constitutional Court; some key state corporations like Gazprom. So, with the help of the authorities, the Petersburg agglomeration is developing relatively quickly. But all other cities, even millionaires, against the background of these two agglomerations are just Cinderella.

The reason is obvious. It is primarily in the status of cities. If Moscow and St. Petersburg (now also Sevastopol) are federal cities and subjects of the Federation, the rest of the cities are municipalities. They simply have little money and little authority - and without this there is no rapid development. All any serious budgetary funds are concentrated at the regional level. And this situation is systematically aggravated: the federal government adopts laws one after the other that redistribute resource flows in favor of the federal center, and within the regions - in favor of the regional budget. This is the reason for the slowly and poorly developing infrastructure of the largest cities with a population of over one million. This is the reason for the slow creation of new, high-quality jobs in the province. In general, the main problem is the hellish vertical, which in Russia brings all the money from the “land” to the top.

Now about the concentration of the population. Unlike Moscow and St. Petersburg, other cities with a population of one million, the capitals of their region, draw mainly the inhabitants of their own region. The growing concentration of the population of the regions in their capitals due to migration contributes to the development of construction, trade, but financial resources are insufficient. In Russia, interregional movements are traditionally not developed - if people get out, say, from Samara, they go not to Perm or Saratov, but to Moscow and St. Petersburg. And from Chelyabinsk they don't go to Yekaterinburg - again, immediately, to the capitals. So it turns out that the resources for the development of agglomerations - that is, the population and money - at the regional centers are limited.

Some large agglomerations still have more resources. It is clear that without any decisions of the "party and government", for completely objective and natural reasons, the largest cities in the South of Russia - Rostov and Krasnodar - will develop faster. There is still a vast rural area around them, which means there are migration resources. Kazan and Ufa have good development opportunities - these are the capitals of large regions in which urbanization also continues. But there are very few resources for the development of Novosibirsk, or Omsk, or the agglomeration Samara - Togliatti - Novokuibyshevsk, a significant part of the region's population has already been drawn into these agglomerations. Urbanization in these regions is high, there is little population left in the village, and there are no resources for significant growth.

So it is wrong to measure all Russian millionaires by one yardstick. In my opinion, they will develop in different ways. Some cities will grow faster, but somewhere the population will remain the same.

So, let's summarize. Each of the largest cities with a population of one million is a developing service sector, housing construction. It helps cities to develop. In order for agglomerations (except for two metropolitan areas) to really grow, municipalities need to be given real resources and powers. It is necessary to promote the mobility of the population, to create more convenient conditions for renting housing. Facilitate the business environment, which in turn will create quality jobs. Thus, the bottleneck in the whole structure is institutional barriers, including the configuration of power. If the whole country has a bad investment climate, it can hardly be done much better in large cities. It is necessary to restructure the entire management system, to reform the “rules of the game”.

I will add that the largest metropolitan areas will develop faster than Russia as a whole. But in different ways. Moscow fled and will continue to run ahead of the rest of the country. Because in a country with a super-vertical management system, all the benefits for life and business are concentrated in the capital. The outstripping development of Moscow is associated not only with the enormous size of the metropolitan agglomeration, but also with the fact that it is the capital of a country with super-vertical control. Until the decentralization of the management system begins, words about stimulating the development of agglomerations of regional centers with a population of one million will remain just words.

The current "garbage" conflicts and scandals show that even at its current size, the Moscow agglomeration generates too much waste. Are we running into a natural ecological barrier to the development of agglomerations here?

Agglomerations do have two development barriers. Environmental - related to water, fresh air and the waste management system - and logistic when the infrastructure is no longer able to cope with people and cars. The environmental barrier is being overcome by massive investments in waste management, sewage treatment plants, and so on - as well as decisive anti-pollution measures. For example, switching to separate garbage collection. Logistics problems are mitigated with sound urban planning and infrastructure investment, but metro, roads and interchanges are very expensive to build. Therefore, in parallel, in the largest metropolitan areas, transport restrictions, parking fees or entry fees (for example, for private cars) are being introduced, although these measures are unpopular. Due to the aforementioned costs, agglomerations and megalopolises have natural development limits.

- And for Moscow, for example, has this limit been reached?

Nobody knows! As long as high-paying jobs throughout Russia are so concentrated in Moscow, people will come here to earn money. Despite the problems and the high cost of living. The metropolitan areas of China - Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou - are also full of problems, but people from all over the country go there to work.

- This despite the fact that China is a fairly crowded village, unlike Russia?

Yes, we are already at another stage of urbanization. We have a living village only in the South and in some national republics. And in all other regions of Russia, migration is proceeding mainly not from the countryside, but from small and medium-sized cities to the largest - the centers of the regions - and further to the federal capitals.

Thus, the land remains deserted - one can recall the Kostroma region, where entire village councils, that is, dozens of villages, have simply disappeared from the map in recent years ... What will be in the place of the countryside in the future?

Firstly, there are countries, including developed ones (Australia, USA), where historically there were no villages in the countryside - instead of them scattered farms and small towns. Secondly, the process of contraction of the rural population in the Russian Non-Black Earth Region has been going on for more than half a century, residents are aging or are leaving. Depletion of water in the village will continue, this is an objective process. The rural population is concentrated in the suburban areas of large cities, where there is paid work and access to services. In the distant periphery, the population will continue to shrink. It is impossible to develop an agrarian economy in such places, except perhaps of the Soviet type, unviable, unprofitable and subsidized.

- Well, even if not villages, even farms - as in America and Australia. Is it possible?

In Europe, Asia and Russia, the traditional settlement is villages. Farms and farms are not a traditional form of settlement for us. At the beginning of the 20th century, Stolypin's reform allowed rural residents to settle in farmsteads, cuts ... But this was in the context of a population explosion. Now there are simply no people for such a resettlement. And traditional agriculture with a large number of workers is becoming a thing of the past, the agricultural sector is being modernized. Therefore, the rural economy and the population of the Non-Black Earth Region are concentrated in the suburbs, while the periphery are empty and only come to life in summer at the expense of summer residents. In the Black Earth Region and in the South of Russia, rural settlements are larger in terms of population and in the foreseeable future they will remain, although they will gradually depopulate.

- But people from the city can return to nature, to villages - for example, working remotely.

Dreaming, of course, is not harmful ... Yes, there are cases of moving to a village from cities - this process is called deurbanization. Individual families move to the countryside, rent out a city apartment, live on this money, and start a small farm. This trend exists, but it is not massive, marginal. The fact is that when you move to a village, you lose the opportunity to receive quality services - first of all, education and health care.

Suburbanization is a completely different matter. If de-urbanization is resettlement to the countryside in general, at a considerable distance from a big city, then suburbanization is the process of resettlement to the suburbs, but people go to work in the city every day. Part of the urban population is moving to the suburbs to live closer to nature, to escape from the noise and hustle and bustle. The peculiarity of Russian suburbanization is that the majority of those who have moved keep their city apartment in order to use the services in the city. Even more often it is seasonal suburbanization - in the summer at the dacha, in the winter in the city. There is a cottage and dacha belt, including year-round use, around all major cities.

But what should be done in the emerging gigantic desert spaces, where previously there was a developed rural civilization? Can't the earth stand empty, not work?

Well, why, in fact, cannot? Why don't you like it so much? Peripheral territories of the Non-Black Earth Region will gradually transform for non-labor-intensive activities. In particular, national parks, hunting farms, and tourist complexes can be organized on the deserted lands. We must come to terms with the fact that the period of mass agricultural development of all lands, characteristic of past centuries, is over. Of course, not everywhere, but in areas with the worst conditions for agriculture. Where conditions are good, almost all the land is used. Now a team of six men is working on the former territory of an entire state farm using modern technology. Such a model works and will work. Where the arable land is infertile, perhaps mainly dairy farming - but, again, where to find sober and skillful workers? This is a huge problem, given that the rural population of many regions is marginalized, those who are able to work leave for the city or “to retire”. The main employment in such places is the public sector.

Of course, this hits the fate of people. I have no sadness about empty space, but there is a great sadness that the people who live there do not receive the basic, necessary services. Optimization, and in Russian - the reduction of the network of social institutions in rural areas has exceeded all reasonable limits. This is the real problem.

-… which can be solved, after all, if there is political will? Return the network of hospitals, schools, maternity hospitals ...

It is impossible to restore the entire network, the population has decreased. But super-hard to cut is wrong. As for the people, you cannot keep them in the village by force ... Collective farmers were given passports even under Khrushchev. So everyone solves this problem for himself, on a personal level. There is no need to wait for help from the state.

Konstantin Churikov: Well, here is the big topic of this hour: we find out how the country lives, so different, so different, why we have this division into rich and poor, not only by population strata, but also in our country, and why the poor are regions, there are more cities than rich ones? In our studio Natalya Zubarevich, professor at Moscow State University. Natalya Vasilievna, hello.

Oksana Galkevich: Hello, Natalya Vasilievna.

Natalia Zubarevich: Hello.

Konstantin Churikov: We will ask our viewers right away to try to assess the standard of living of yours and your city, how you assess what is happening with you, how you feel. Please write what city you are from; we are also waiting for your calls 8-800-222-00-14.

Natalya Vasilievna, for a start I just want to decide. How many "Russians" do we have in terms of living standards? Because when we are discussing here some things that we see from Moscow, a dozen regions immediately write to us, who say: "Guys, you are in Moscow, everything is different with us." There are regions that are more affluent than the most lagging, as they say, points on the map, they say: "No, we are somehow spinning and spinning." So how many "Russia" do we have?

Natalia Zubarevich: If we take, measuring the settlement, then in the first Russia live those who live in cities with a population of one million and half a million. Today I was going to talk about them in more detail - these are only 36-37 cities. But excuse me, 31% of the population of the Russian Federation lives in them - a lot, you will agree. In total, we have 1 100 cities, and then a kind of intermediate zone begins, where the population of the city is from 250 to 500 thousand, there may be different ways, but not fatal. Then there is a whole bunch of medium-sized cities, smaller cities. And now, medium-sized cities with industrial potential, not very much like that, are more on trade, and this is about another quarter of the country's population. And finally, a third, slightly more than a third, are small towns, urban-type settlements and rural areas; there, with the exception of the suburbs and areas adjacent to the largest agglomerations, with the exception of these pieces, everything is about the same - on potatoes, on chickens ...

Oksana Galkevich: Subsistence farming.

Konstantin Churikov: Equally bad?

Natalia Zubarevich: Yes Yes.

Konstantin Churikov: Are these cities with less than 100 thousand inhabitants, if we take cities?

Natalia Zubarevich: No, I didn't say that. Small towns are cities with less than 20 thousand inhabitants, they are very small. Anything ... Up to 50 is often bad, but there are exceptions, here is the 50-100 zone - everything is very different there. There will be oil cities in this number, where I would not say that life is successful, but it is much more acceptable than in cities where textile production or no industry has been left for a long time. Let's do it this way: this is a very different Russia, this second, medium-sized cities, it is very different.

Oksana Galkevich: Natalya Vasilievna, how is it that we have points, or perhaps even most likely one point in our country, where there is an over-concentration of opportunities and money? And this whole rest of Russia is also somehow different there, it is at different levels (2, 3, 4 of them are observed), but there is no superconcentration, no money, no movement, no prosperity.

Natalia Zubarevich: Well, about well-being, let's remember that some have small pearls, and some have empty cabbage soup. Therefore, the feeling of well-being depends not only on money: in Moscow it is already ecology, and a lot of things related to social relations. The richer a place, country or city, the more difficult the feeling of well-being is. I assure you that the Finns are far from the nation with the highest level of happiness. Do you know where it is maximum? In the countries of Central America.

Oksana Galkevich: Warmth, dancing, fruits, vegetables.

Natalia Zubarevich: The sun is shining, life is alive today, and now the person is happy. Therefore, let us here we are purely economic prosperity, if this is money, and a general feeling of satisfaction with life, that's another story.

Oksana Galkevich: No, it's not about feeling, of course. Overconcentration from an economic point of view.

Natalia Zubarevich: Moscow, yes.

Konstantin Churikov: Why do we have one global place of power in the country?

Natalia Zubarevich: Because ... Now I am going to say to myself politically incorrect, but absolutely correct from the point of view of economics things. In a country with a rigid vertical of power, all businesses always strive to be close to this power, so the basic headquarters sit in a pedestrian or in a good typewriter, not long accessible from the places of decision-making. I tried to express myself as correctly as possible.

Konstantin Churikov: Some are even directly opposite, across the river.

Oksana Galkevich: That is, oil is being produced ...

Natalia Zubarevich: Some are exiled, however, to St. Petersburg to boost the city's economy. This is called the consequence of over-concentration in politics.

Second. In a country dominated by large companies, large companies, and medium and small businesses live in a semi-suppressed state, it is large companies that determine budget revenues and wages of their employees. As a result, everything that pays well is in large companies, and as you understand, management, top management is concentrated in headquarters. Where is our headquarters? - in Moscow.

Oksana Galkevich: Natalya Vasilievna, why don't we have ... All headquarters are in Moscow, but oil is not produced in Moscow, agricultural production, agriculture is developing ...

Natalia Zubarevich: I realized.

Oksana Galkevich: Why don't we have an agrarian capital, I don't know, a metallurgical capital?

Natalia Zubarevich: We have metallurgical capitals.

Oksana Galkevich: Hydrocarbon capitals.

Natalia Zubarevich: There is a hydrocarbon, Moscow is called.

Oksana Galkevich: And so that these centers of gravity were distributed in this way more evenly?

Natalia Zubarevich: I repeat my answer once again. There is an honest advantage, it is called the agglomeration effect. The giant city has more choice of jobs, they are more diverse, they are more qualified, there is a demand for all this. And as a result, wages are higher in giant metropolitan areas, but life is also more expensive: you understand that an apartment in New York and in a city somewhere in Nevada will cost different money. This is a pure, correct, economic agglomeration effect that works this way, it does not depend on politics. I told you the second addition, the vertical system of power, which is pulling people to Moscow even more.

Now about the capitals. The headquarters of any company pulls on the maximum profit like it can or pulls it further on to its traders if it works for foreign markets. It's so convenient because all decisions are made at the headquarters, a giant company. Therefore, in the Khanty-Mansiysk District, the price at which oil is calculated will be - as if very carefully - near the baseboard, before we even had the term "oily liquid", and all the added margin would sit at the headquarters or on traders, because it is so convenient for a large company. Grain traders are not concentrated in Moscow, grain traders, thank God, are more differentiated across Russia, but this will be Rostov, this will be Krasnodar and Moscow.

Oksana Galkevich: Metallurgy, for example.

Natalia Zubarevich: Yes. Metallurgical money is just the most deconcentrated: it is in the Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, Lipetsk regions, in the Vologda region, less in Kuzbass, that is, where large metallurgical companies sit. They have headquarters, if you walked around our capital, they are not here.

Konstantin Churikov: Let's just move to these different cities now. Let's see how the residents of Irkutsk and Yekaterinburg assess their standard of living. It will still be subjective, but nevertheless, people have something to tell about.

PLOT

Konstantin Churikov: And now we see that people in the million-plus city Yekaterinburg, and in the non-million-strong city (there are 600-odd thousand) Irkutsk rate their lives as C grade. Your comment, Natalya Vasilievna?

Natalia Zubarevich: First: Irkutsk from Siberian cities has a more or less decent salary, again in comparison. Say to Irkutsk people: "Come to Buryatia and to the Trans-Baikal Territory" - and they will understand ... They know very well these differences in wages. It is another matter that in all regions of the raw material type or primary processing, where export companies, there are very high gaps in the salaries of those in aluminum, those in the oil industry, and those who, as you interviewed people, are on the budget. It is clear that due to the fact that there is a segment of people who receive good salaries, prices and the cost of living are growing up, it is the average of large and small. Therefore, life in Irkutsk is more expensive, it's true. But we are adjusting for the cost of living, and I can say that from the Siberian regions, if you look, then Irkutsk will stand out for the better relative to all regions, including even Krasnoyarsk, because it has a large south, there is agricultural employment, there is no earn.

About Togliatti I agree that now the Samara region and in particular Togliatti is going through hard times. In the 1990s. it was a city with opportunities, then trade and sale of cars gave decent salaries. Now, both at AvtoVAZ and at neighboring enterprises, wages are low, and people feel uncomfortable. About Rostov ...

Konstantin Churikov: Rostov and Togliatti are ahead.

Oksana Galkevich: Yekaterinburg second.

Natalia Zubarevich: Yekaterinburg is a strong, developing city, which was hurt, of course, somehow by the crisis, but Yekaterinburg was reformatted into a service center, there are a lot of different jobs. Salaries in Yekaterinburg, if we take into account the prices, are almost the level of St. Petersburg. Do you think that salaries in St. Petersburg are very high? They are like in the Moscow region in rubles.

Konstantin Churikov: No, no, in St. Petersburg it is several times less than in Moscow.

Natalia Zubarevich: And I also adjusted for prices. Therefore, Yekaterinburg is, perhaps, of the entire range of the largest Russian cities in terms of salaries, the most competitive sphere from non-capital ones, that is, not Moscow or St. Petersburg. That is why people somehow hold on, they don't leave much, although I must say that there is an even more prosperous city until 2017 - Tyumen is called.

Oksana Galkevich: I will have one question just about our survey, but now let's listen to our viewer, we have a call from Tula from Alexei. Alexey, hello.

Viewer: Good evening.

Konstantin Churikov: Kind.

Natalia Zubarevich: Good evening.

Oksana Galkevich: Please speak.

Viewer:Good evening, hosts, good evening, Natalia. I have worked for 12 years since 2001 in such a unit as the fire train (Tula-1 station). The subdivision should be strategically subordinate to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and belongs to private individuals, just private individuals who ... maintain the transport of Russia.

Konstantin Churikov: So.

Viewer:Do you understand me, right?

Konstantin Churikov: If possible, louder and louder.

Viewer:The salary is set at 6 thousand, and it has remained the same to this day. After the transition ... according to the application, I work in the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the salary is 13 thousand.

Natalia Zubarevich: I do not understand.

Viewer:After a decrease in the budgetary sphere and an increase in wages, it will turn out to be 200 rubles more. Can a father with many children with four children live on that kind of money?

Konstantin Churikov: Yes, Alexey, unfortunately, I can hardly hear you. This means that our viewer told that 13 thousand, 13 200 became ...

Natalia Zubarevich: I understood the story. Tula has never had decent salaries, just never in the post-Soviet period Tula decently - I do not even say the word "good" - did not live. The entire belt of regions around the Moscow metropolitan agglomeration is characterized by the fact that for a higher salary they go from there to labor migration to Moscow, and more recently to the Moscow region.

Oksana Galkevich: That is, this is the problem of these regions?

Konstantin Churikov: And this train, too, is probably a disaster.

Natalia Zubarevich: As before for sausage, now for a salary and better paid jobs. What has been said is a specific case, different people have it in different ways, but these regions are extremely poor in terms of salaries.

Oksana Galkevich: Natalya Vasilievna, so I drew attention in our stories to what people say ... They not only talk about salaries, how they live, not only about expenses and income, they also assess the situation in the city, they say that the city is clean, the city dirty, landscaping.

Natalia Zubarevich: Here it is.

Oksana Galkevich: It also influences the feeling.

Natalia Zubarevich: Not only salary, of course.

Oksana Galkevich: For some reason, for some reason, I’m sorry, I immediately remember Moscow and the local improvement, at what pace it is happening, what amounts are spent on it.

Natalia Zubarevich: Monstrously tall, monstrously tall.

Oksana Galkevich: Well, tell me, you are an economist, you can give definitions.

Natalia Zubarevich: For God's sake.

What do I want to say about Yekaterinburg? That is why people noted the environmental characteristics that kindergartens were built, or something else? Because this city is not critically poor, and when incomes rise to any more or less decent level, people begin to look wider. They not only have a clean salary, but the urban environment is important to them, some kind of social services, and it’s great when people start looking wider. Moscow is a crazy city in terms of spending on Wednesday, but I can tell you that in 2017 Moscow spent almost the same amount on landscaping as on all education.

Konstantin Churikov: In the country?

Natalia Zubarevich: No, in the city. Here are the expenses of the Moscow budget for education somewhere, if memory serves, of the order of 280 billion, and the expenses for the improvement of the order of 240 billion.

Oksana Galkevich: And how much is this in relative numbers?

Natalia Zubarevich: Moscow spent more than 11% of all budget expenditures on landscaping. If at least some region ...

Oksana Galkevich: How much do they usually spend? Moscow 11% ...

Natalia Zubarevich: Moscow 11%, regions 1-2%, while their budgets are not just significantly less, they are an order of magnitude less.

Konstantin Churikov: Do you think the current state of affairs creates a strong social tension in the country?

Natalia Zubarevich: Moscow breaks away from the rest of the country even in times of crisis. It would seem that the way out of stagnation, as you want to call it, 2016-2017. - these are the years of accelerating separation of Moscow from the rest of Russia. This is manifested in the fantastic growth of budget revenues, in the fantastic spending on everything that we call improvement, when the rest of the country most often has broken roads, with the exception of Tyumen, which was spent on it. Peter is incomparable in terms of infrastructure spending. So the risks are here ... How can I tell you? Do you think people will simply dislike Moscow even more? Is this the first year like this? And in Soviet times, when Moscow had sausage and Finnish boots and butter, and the rest of the country had none of these, Moscow was also very disliked.

Konstantin Churikov: No, you know, like Saltykov-Shchedrin: "The main thing is that they don't give in the face for a ruble."

Oksana Galkevich: Forgive me, but Muscovites say, Moscow says, the Moscow authorities respond to this, they say that they earn, sorry, you do not earn there, but they earn.

Natalia Zubarevich: So my answer is always simple. Why is such a high volume of income tax from Sberbank concentrated in the Moscow budget? In fact, Sberbank operates throughout the entire territory.

Konstantin Churikov: There are many branches.

Natalia Zubarevich: The same is the second payer of VTB. Well, how did you distribute profit among all branches, that Sberbank has become the largest tax source of income tax to the Moscow budget? He's the largest. Please tell me whether Rosneft is pumping in Moscow or not?

Oksana Galkevich: Yes, not here at all, in my opinion.

Natalia Zubarevich: Why? And it begins ... Remember, I told you that it remains in the region. Well, here's another story for you. They created a law on consolidated groups of taxpayers, they seemed to want the best, so that according to this law, profits were distributed between regions, taking into account employees, the cost of fixed assets. But who will explain to me why in 2017 the payments of consolidated groups of taxpayers to the Moscow budget increased by more than 40 billion and they fell down by a comparable amount in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug and Yakutia? Answer: a head of cabbage, as one very nice young governor used to say. Because large companies can do whatever suits them best. They are not the main payers, not consolidated groups, but because of the way the business system is organized in Russia ...

Konstantin Churikov: Closer to power.

Natalia Zubarevich: Big business is the most important thing, and the consolidation of everything and everyone at the headquarters. Due to the fact that state-owned companies and the authorities are, in general, a single whole, it is done in the way that is more convenient for state-owned companies and big business.

Konstantin Churikov: We are called by Natalya, Kuban, Krasnodar Territory. Natalia, hello.

Viewer: Hello.

Konstantin Churikov: What city or village are you from? How do you assess the standard of living?

Viewer:I am from the small town of Yeisk, we have a very beautiful city.

Natalia Zubarevich: Yes.

Viewer:On the shore of the Azov Sea. But we have no work at all.

Natalia Zubarevich: Here.

Viewer:We used to have about 17 enterprises, now we have nothing, only shops, shops, shops. And salaries are also small, 10-15 thousand. Many people travel all over the country to earn money, there is no work in the villages either ...

Natalia Zubarevich: This is true.

Viewer:Those who still have shares there, people keep the farm, and those who do not have shares, it is difficult to keep the farm. Just at the expense of the garden. It’s like a paradise, but if the collective or state farms are at the state level, because you yourself understand that the entrepreneur - it all depends on the person, and for most of them it’s faster to get rich, and not to think about people, therefore, because of this, people and suffer. And so people basically: "Give a job and pay normally." We don’t need a lot of money, and we don’t want to go abroad, we love our country, we are proud, we support the President, the patriots of our Motherland. So give the job at least to live like a human being, to raise the children, so that the children learn, so that they also love their country. At least the Soviet Union has something to love: I gave it an education, I gave it an apartment, I traveled all over the country ("my native country is wide"), but now what are these kids if there is money, money here, money everywhere, money is the most important thing?

Konstantin Churikov: Your question is clear. Natalia, thanks for your call.

Natalya Vasilievna, but how to make sure that for, for example, the residents of Yeisk and for Natalya, who also loves the Motherland, love is mutual?

Natalia Zubarevich: Dear Natalia! I just want to remind you that in 1985 the Soviet Union imported 40 million tons of grain, and in 2017 it exported more than 40 million tons of grain. There is a small difference between the Soviet Union, which eventually collapsed to a very large extent for economic reasons, and the current economy is crooked, numb, but this economy knows how to sell at least part of its products.

Second, grain farming, which now dominates the agricultural sector, is not labor-intensive. And what we see now is a very difficult transitional period, still continuing, from the Soviet collective farms, state farms with their hellish employment, hellish subsidies and no profit and production, they were all mostly unprofitable.

Oksana Galkevich: Ineffective.

Natalia Zubarevich: Absolutely. Now the agricultural sector, grain and sunflower, is absolutely profitable, but this means a sharp contraction of jobs, because I repeat once again, I repeat everywhere: teams of 6 peasant combine operators collect and sow as a whole collective farm did. Technology is modern, people know how to work. Next - how to get through this situation? What is happening is happening: people from the village are drawn to the retreat and to the city. Painful? - Yes. Hard? - Yes. What are the options? Just pay to stay where you live?

Konstantin Churikov: Global market, no?

Natalia Zubarevich: No, because this technique was largely unclaimed in the 1990s.

Oksana Galkevich: Uncompetitive.

Natalia Zubarevich: Undoubtedly. And then only what survived survived. Need to expand? - necessary. Let's invest? - there is no particular desire, because it is not clear whether it will be possible to sell what is produced at the new production facility. What happens? " John Deere " before we quarreled with America, I installed an assembly of components perfectly in the Krasnodar Territory. And thanks to leasing in the leasing system, which is slightly subsidized by the Ministry of Agriculture, it was bought very well. Now Rosselmash is also increasing its volumes by 20-30% per year, and it is being sold and bought. Therefore, let's not cry about the Soviet Union, let's understand that now we are living in a rather difficult transition period (and it will be for a long time), when medium and small cities have already de-industrialized, have ceased to be those Soviet cities, factories, and new ones are not yet hatching.

Konstantin Churikov: But Natalya Vasilievna ...

Oksana Galkevich: I want to somehow turn to sanctions. But this is the situation that we are in, we are in a situation where certain sanctions are being imposed on us, maybe it will give some impetus to the development of these cities, where there used to be enterprises, now they are not?

Natalia Zubarevich: I will try to answer, as I have already answered 155 times. Please tell me, in order to produce something new, do you agree that you need to invest first, right? You don’t mind, this doesn’t happen by magic.

Konstantin Churikov: Yes Yes.

Natalia Zubarevich: To invest, you need to see the prospects. Fools, except, excuse me, are a shovel of state-owned companies with money, there are no crazy investors in private business, they want to see profit. Third: I will remind you once again that over the 4 years of the crisis, Russian investments fell by 12%, business does not see any prospects. Next: if we invest, we should see effective demand, don’t you agree? What happens to the income of the population?

Oksana Galkevich: They fall.

Natalia Zubarevich: Minus 12% in 4 years. In this situation ... To enter foreign markets now? Well, we tried so hard so that no one loved us, not really ... No, with oil, gas - please, there are no questions, but there are already questions with aluminum. And when you put it all in a pile and offer me: "Let's replace everything with imports," I will answer you with a simple phrase that the dynamics of industrial production for 2017 is plus 1%, the extractive industry plus 2%, the manufacturing import substitution itself is in it) plus 0.2%.

Konstantin Churikov: Within the margin of error.

Natalia Zubarevich: That's it, I answered you.

Konstantin Churikov: Close to zero.

Let's now listen to our viewer Eduard from Togliatti. Edward, hello.

Viewer: Good evening.

Konstantin Churikov: Tell us about your city, about your life, and then, by the way, we'll watch the story that our correspondents filmed in Tolyatti.

Viewer:I will tell you with pleasure. Today the conversation is mainly at the macro level, that is, Moscow and the regions are being compared. It is clear that there is Irkutsk, there is Yekaterinburg, there is Togliatti. Our city is so marker.

Natalia Zubarevich: Yes.

Viewer:They called us a monotown, we are such "monotowns".

Natalia Zubarevich: No, no longer.

Viewer:Here. The population is fleeing.

Natalia Zubarevich: Yes.

Viewer:It is believed that we are in a strong depression, although here I am talking with my classmates in the Kemerovo region, for example, and I understand that this is not so.

Konstantin Churikov: So interesting.

Viewer:You can still live with us. But now I want to go down to the micro level. If earlier the difference in salaries between the cleaner and the director of "Uralmash" was 10 times, then today take a department at AvtoVAZ from 5-8 people: a simple economist gets 15-20, the head of a department - 250. And the Moscow Varangians, who we have there are vice presidents and so on, I'm even afraid to say these numbers.

Konstantin Churikov: They probably still have a percentage there in addition.

Viewer:This is in Tolyatti. How would a distinguished professor comment on this? I would like to hear.

Konstantin Churikov: Thanks for the call, Edward.

Viewer:In general, I would like to learn from such a professor as now, but the previous such professor you had in a plaid jacket as if under coke was slightly, I was even somewhat surprised. Sorry if that.

Konstantin Churikov: Thanks for your call.

Natalia Zubarevich: Thank you. You know, I agree with you in all moments, including the last one. The first point: indeed, the standard of living in Togliatti, starting somewhere in 2009, has fallen to the bottom, to be honest, it is now much worse than in other cities than it was in the 1990s. It's true, AvtoVAZ pays little, it's true. Wild inequality in Russian wages is true, because it is permissible: there are no trade unions, there are no collective agreements, there is no pressure from below from workers, everyone is afraid and clings to their jobs, so the bosses go crazy.

If you are at least a little consoling, I can say that exactly the same thing happens in medicine (the salary of the head physician and an ordinary doctor), in higher education (the salary of the rector, for example, of my Moscow State University and me as a professor will be approximately, let's say, 20 times different ). Therefore, this is a country in which the rights of people are not protected, there are no barriers to ensure that the differentiation of wages does not go beyond a certain level of common sense; it is a country that does not know how to stand up for itself. So we have what we have.

Konstantin Churikov: Are these questions to the state or to the country?

Natalia Zubarevich: To people.

Oksana Galkevich: To people.

Konstantin Churikov: To people, right?

Natalia Zubarevich: You see, there is no good, all-good, intelligent, reasonable state. The state is a group of interests, as institutional theory teaches us. And small interest groups with resources always work to their advantage. Large groups of interests, if they are not consolidated, do not allow movement from below - it will be as it will be. And I'm not talking about revolutions, I'm talking about civic participation and defending one's interests.

Oksana Galkevich: Natalya Vasilievna, now, as we promised, let's see the plot that our correspondents filmed in Togliatti and in another city, Rostov-on-Don. Let's see how people there assess their standard of living.

PLOT

Konstantin Churikov: Well, here are two more oil paintings. You know, Natalya Vasilievna, when you hear about how a family lives with children on a total salary of 20, 30, 40 (this is more or less) thousand rubles, it becomes scary, because we know we want everything in stores, and the prices are we, I think, in Moscow and in Togliatti are not much different.

Natalia Zubarevich: Tolyatti is a little cheaper.

Konstantin Churikov: But nevertheless, how to live?

Natalia Zubarevich: First, they told you that your parents help you so that you just have enough food.

Oksana Galkevich: Family ties help.

Natalia Zubarevich: The first is cross-family support. It is in Russia. Another thing is that they often help children, less often elderly parents who are retired, especially if they stayed in another city.

About Togliatti. There happened what should have happened. How do you imagine a car factory employing 115 thousand people? This is inconceivable by all means, an inconceivable number. Now there are 33 thousand people, and it somehow looks like it has not yet approached the factories that we know by the name of foreign cars. The inflated Soviet population was artificially kept for more than 10 years. Once again: people pay for everything. There was an ineffective Soviet plant, now it is somehow ... Well, the design is changing to make it more efficient, these are layoffs. Therefore, yes, the risks of unemployment are increased, migration to other cities is growing, and migration from the city is growing. Well, okay, but your option is to leave 115 thousand AvtoVAZ, as it was in Soviet times?

Konstantin Churikov: Our option is to carry out such an internal policy in the region, I don’t know, in the district (this is the Volga District), in the country, so that people who lose their jobs can find another decent job, study to find this job ...

Natalia Zubarevich: Refresher training was carried out, but bad and not about that. Relocation opportunities were provided, but people did not go to the city of the Leningrad Region, where a new carriage building plant was built, because from more than 700 thousand cities to go to a 50-thousand-seat monotown, only about car building, people with heads in Togliatti are all right , they are reasonable. Therefore, Togliatti is reformatted. Nitrogen is alive, Togliattikauchuk is alive, they are not laborious. We all the time yelled: "Well, make the best connection, so that there is not such a long road between Samara and Togliatti" - well, at least somehow this increases the mobility of the workforce.

Konstantin Churikov: Yes, they are also generally separated.

Natalia Zubarevich: These 40 kilometers - yes, run the high-speed tram to quickly.

Oksana Galkevich: Only 40 kilometers?

Natalia Zubarevich: So that's what we are talking about, there is an agglomeration. Togliatti, Samara and Novokuibyshevsk are one ... And on the other hand, there is not far from Zhigulevskoe, Syzran. In principle, the effect of this agglomeration could have been much greater if these regions had not been managed very badly over the past 15 years (I would say more), there would have been no endless fights of the elite, then there was no arrival of effective managers from Russian Technologies. Therefore, this is all about underinvesting in infrastructure, and poor quality of management, and reformatting the Soviet factory into something else.

Oksana Galkevich: Natalya Vasilievna, we've talked about the super-concentration of benefits in Moscow, or we can talk about the enormous centralization of power in our country.

Natalia Zubarevich: Undoubtedly.

Oksana Galkevich: And you say that this region has been very badly managed. But he managed the local staff, that is, maybe ...

Natalia Zubarevich: It seemed so to you.

Oksana Galkevich: ... Moscow is trying to choose everything for itself, because look how careless they are, they cannot cope.

Natalia Zubarevich: There were no local cadres there since the late Titov. Then there were people from Russian Technologies, then there was the head of neighboring Mordovia ...

Konstantin Churikov: Mr. Merkushkin.

Oksana Galkevich: Varangians-temporary workers, or what, it turns out?

Natalia Zubarevich: As you accurately characterize the situation, I am very pleased to hear that.

Now about Rostov, with your permission. Rostov has never been a poor city, this is Rostov-papa. There has always been a lot of shadow employment and shadow incomes since the days of the Russian Empire. You know, the south is more businesslike in this sense. There is such a word: "Well, you are a business woman" - this is about the southern business. But there are also hellish gaps in the income of an ordinary pensioner and purely specific guys who do their business very often in conjunction with the authorities. Until recently, the infrastructure of the city was in a monstrous state: a hole in a hole, an eerie ancient airport, and further down the list. Only now they have begun to invest in the city, I hope that most of the money will reach the addressees, I hope so.

Konstantin Churikov: Do you know what the locals call the new airport "Platov"? - "Overpayments", because the most expensive.

Natalia Zubarevich: Well.

Konstantin Churikov: Let's listen to Hope from the Kirov region. Only, please, briefly, Nadezhda, we just don't have much time already. Good evening.

Viewer: Hello.

Konstantin Churikov: Hello.

Viewer:So I say, 9,400 are now my pension, I don’t know how to start treatment. And even to go to the region 300 rubles, and more than once we have to go to the examination, to the dentist, to put our teeth in, we can’t do anything. And now you have to go to the region - this is 600 rubles for the road, this is from pension ... I will pay 4 thousand for an apartment, and we have nothing left. I do not know how to be. One daughter teaches her son at the institute, also with her husband, our earnings are very small. Another daughter pays a mortgage, even if I borrowed from them, I don't even know how to give the money to me.

Konstantin Churikov: Hope, thanks for your call.

Natalya Vasilievna, during this hour we looked at different cities, different stories, different situations, but in fact they are all similar - they are similar in that there is Moscow and several more or less such more or less rich, and everything else is so sad and sadly.

Natalia Zubarevich: Yes.

Konstantin Churikov: We're really talking about a systemic problem, aren't we?

Natalia Zubarevich: This is a systemic problem associated with the fact that, firstly, the main resources are concentrated in Moscow, it is true, and the main best jobs are there, and salaries are there, everything is the same. Second, this is due to the fact that we have reached unacceptable gaps - unacceptable, I just emphasize this word - in the level of payment of top management and ordinary non-nurses, qualified specialists. Because there are limits that should not be violated, we violated them by canceling the tariff scale of payment (the Soviet really burp), but in the absence of control over what is happening by the employed, we got a completely feudal system.

Oksana Galkevich: Natalya Vasilievna, we are talking, therefore, not about economics, but about some kind of morality.

Natalia Zubarevich: No, this is called institutional failure. If you abolish the Soviet restraining levers, but in return do not create an environment that works on a kind of balance sheet, these are your failures, these are administrative failures.

Oksana Galkevich: Thanks.

Konstantin Churikov: Thanks.

Oksana Galkevich: So they would listen and communicate more, but live broadcast. Natalya Vasilievna Zubarevich, professor at Moscow State University, was in our studio today.

Konstantin Churikov: We talked about the standard of living, about the level of development of various cities in Russia, although what kind of development is there, there is Moscow and several cities and there are all the others. Thank you for coming.

We will continue in a few seconds.

Olga Arslanova: We continue, it's time to talk about the main topic. The problem of overcoming poverty in Russia was again raised at the Gaidar Forum held in Moscow. Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova reported: the number of Russians living below the poverty line for 9 months of last year decreased by 0.5%. 13.3% of our fellow citizens are officially recognized as poor.

Peter Kuznetsov: And according to the Ministry of Economic Development Maxim Oreshkin, the situation is complicated by "an unacceptably high level of economic inequality in Russia." According to his calculations, Russia lacks 800 billion rubles a year to overcome poverty. It is in this amount that the deficit of the annual income of all Russians is estimated in order for each citizen to reach, respectively, the subsistence level.

Olga Arslanova: In recent years, the ratio between the average per capita income of the richest 10% and the poorest 10% in our country has been approximately at the same level, this is 16 times.

Peter Kuznetsov: According to Rosstat, for 9 months of 2018 the poverty rate was 13.3%, which is lower than the same period in 2017, when the indicator was 13.8%. At the same time, in the third quarter of last year, the number of Russians with incomes below the subsistence level amounted to 19 million, and this is 200 thousand more than in the second quarter of the year.

Olga Arslanova: The average Russian worker can expect a salary of 17 to 44 thousand rubles a month. Half of the country's working population falls within this range. Another quarter gets more, a quarter less. This was calculated relatively recently by Russian experts. The leading region, the Yamalo-Nenets Okrug, has a range from 45 thousand to 107 thousand rubles per month, this is the first place; about the same result in Chukotka. In 11 regions, the minimum limit for the most common wages exceeds 25 thousand rubles, in 13 regions, workers can reasonably count on salaries above 50 thousand rubles a month, the researchers note, and in general, in Russia, every 5th employee receives less than 15 thousand. rubles per month.

Let's talk about both poverty and social stratification in our country. As always, we are waiting for your calls on the air, you can ask questions to our guest: in our studio Natalya Zubarevich, professor of the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University. Natalya Vasilievna, hello.

Peter Kuznetsov: Hello.

Natalia Zubarevich: Hello.

Olga Arslanova: Here's the last piece of information we have given - this is income data, but this is not the only factor that can be taken into account when assessing poverty? What are the criteria for poverty in modern Russia?

Natalia Zubarevich: Before talking about the criteria, I have to remind you that prices in Chukotka and Yamal are very different.

Olga Arslanova: This is what we are talking about, yes.

Natalia Zubarevich: Therefore, it is not necessary to measure in rubles, it is necessary to measure it through the ratio of income to the cost of living.

Olga Arslanova: This is, in fact, the criterion.

Natalia Zubarevich: And then there will be a completely different story. If we talk about the criteria of poverty, then we have it so-called absolute. There are relative, absolute and still others, subjective. What is absolute? For us, the state has legally established a poverty line, which is called the subsistence minimum. How is it counted? Half of the cost of living is a food basket: there is a set of products, it is prescribed by law. To make it clear to you, about 30% there are potatoes and simple vegetables, do you understand what kind of food it is?

Peter Kuznetsov: Yeah.

Natalia Zubarevich: And so they calculated, measured and added to this another half, it is considered for non-food products and compulsory services, the same transport, housing and communal services and so on. We, of course, have a very low cost of living, 11 thousand. Someone tried, in my opinion, to live for 3 in the Saratov region ...

Peter Kuznetsov: 3.5 thousand.

Natalia Zubarevich: Heroic, of course.

Peter Kuznetsov: It worked out, but I had to undergo treatment later.

Natalia Zubarevich: It's hard, yes, but 11 thousand is also very little. Once again: this is the average for Russia, we have places where there are 8 thousand, 8.5, and there are places where it is much more. So, an absolute dash.

In general, the developed world no longer lives like this, poverty is not measured by the absolute line. In more or less developed countries, a relative criterion of poverty is used. What does it mean? Here is the entire population, and the median is measured, that is, the middle, those 50%, the level of income in which 50% of the population is higher and 50% of the population is lower, this word is a scientific median. And further from this median, it is taken as 100%, it is considered (in some countries 50%, in others 60%) of the median poverty level. It is relative: incomes are growing, the median is growing, and the border of relative poverty is also growing. Such poverty cannot be eradicated, but it is not to eradicate, it is so that those people who cannot live by the standards of these countries - and if you have half of the median, you can no longer live by these standards, the state helped them ... Apparently, we will also gradually move to this criterion. Research is underway now.

But I am afraid of one simple story. As you remember, these decrees say that we must halve the poverty rate, remember, by 2024?

Olga Arslanova: At least they set such a task.

Natalia Zubarevich: And somehow an inner voice tells me, no matter how they tried to rebuild this relative poverty so that it would be somewhat easier to halve. I live in Russia, but I have the experience of observing how the numbers are adjusted to the required task.

Peter Kuznetsov: Do you mean that you are using, perhaps, these new calculations?

Natalia Zubarevich: Yes, how will the median be calculated, how will it correlate with informal income? These people, who are informal, always have lower incomes. Let's live. But the very transition to the relative humanistic criterion, it is correct.

And I can tell you that there is a third criterion - subjective assessments of poverty. It is measured very simply - sociological polls, people are asked: "What is enough?" The subjectively poor are those who, firstly, do not even have enough for food, and secondly, they somehow have enough for food, but it’s hard for non-food purchases. And I can tell you that our dear Russians say, 29% consider themselves to be poor, 29%. Therefore, the cost of living is for officials to report, but in the self-perception of people, the picture, frankly speaking, is different.

Olga Arslanova: And if we compare it with other countries, where else is it estimated in the same way?

Natalia Zubarevich: In catching-up countries with small resources, as a rule, there is absolute poverty, an absolute line, because it ... This is actually the physiological minimum of survival. In countries more or less developed by this criterion, poverty is no longer measured, there are no hungry, another story. People who find themselves in the low-income zone cannot live the standard life that the population of these countries lives, they experience hardships, and the state is trying to help them.

Peter Kuznetsov: Natalya Vasilievna, but let's talk about inequality as such.

Natalia Zubarevich: Good.

Peter Kuznetsov: After all, inequality for any state, inequality for a state, it doesn't matter - from the point of view of the economy, from the point of view of progress, development, should there be?

Natalia Zubarevich: Of course.

Olga Arslanova: It's evolutionary ...

Natalia Zubarevich: Inequality is normal.

Peter Kuznetsov: We can deduce the ideal model, in what ratio?

Natalia Zubarevich: Well, the ideal model is very simple: if you work harder, if you are better educated and your work is better qualified, then you should of course earn more. Because if there is a scandalous egalitarianism, there is no incentive to increase human capital, to work hard. Therefore, inequality is a necessary element of development. The question is, firstly, to the extent of this inequality, to what extent it does not tear society apart, but is perceived as more or less honest, and the second question is in the dynamics of this inequality.

I'll start with the second one. We are all with you - you are young, here I am a lady from the Soviet past - I perfectly remember the scale of inequality and the current one. We are within one generation, before the eyes of one generation, we have passed from the Soviet inequality, where the ratio of funds was 10 to 10, it was only 3-4 times. We went into the regime 16-17 times at the peak, the Latin American level of inequality, all in front of one generation.

Peter Kuznetsov: Below is only Africa.

Natalia Zubarevich: No, there are cooler ones, we are not the coolest. People cannot adapt, because they see that very often this is inequality, these high incomes are not earned: it was lucky, at the right time in the right place, you know, we all remember the post-Soviet history well.

Olga Arslanova: That is, it is not determined by real merit.

Natalia Zubarevich: Of course. You didn't plow to have ...

Olga Arslanova: No education ...

Peter Kuznetsov: Therefore, we are forbidden to read fairy tales, of course, with a pike.

Natalia Zubarevich: It's clear. Moreover, what you named, these 16-17 times, there are no oligarchs, believe me, this does not fall at all, because incomes are measured, a maximum of 10% is the upper one, it is good if it is a middle class, there is practically no upper middle class there, then there is middle-middle, as they say. Therefore, the real inequality, of course, in Russia is even greater.

Peter Kuznetsov: Why does this critical gap between the poor and the rich not stimulate you to travel a lot in the regions, you see all this) people to change places? Why do they adapt to this poverty, why do they themselves not want anything?

Natalia Zubarevich: Differently. Let's do this ...

Peter Kuznetsov: And what can they do about this inequality model?

Natalia Zubarevich: Quite a bit of. First, let me tell you about the factors of income inequality, and you will immediately understand everything. My colleagues at the Higher School of Economics, Lilya Ovcharova and her team, regularly measure what affects inequality. And the main factor for the last 3 years has been the place of residence. Here you sit, poor fellow, in the Tambov region ...

Olga Arslanova: Bad luck.

Natalia Zubarevich:... and your salary will be like this, income. But you are in Yamal, in Moscow, you will have completely different conditions. That is, geography was of fundamental importance.

Peter Kuznetsov: Move to Yamal, move to Moscow.

Natalia Zubarevich: I'll tell you now. For the last 3 years, the picture has changed, we finally (with maternal capital, with other factors) began to have more children, and now, in the last 3 years, the main factor of inequality is the so-called child load. Do you all get it? The more children you have ...

Olga Arslanova:… The higher the costs.

Natalia Zubarevich:... the more chances you have of slipping into the poor group. Therefore, the risk is maximized now in demography, and before that in geography.

Now about "move". Point one: do you know the scale of the migration inflow to Moscow and the Moscow region, St. Petersburg during the peak years?

Peter Kuznetsov: Precisely from the regions?

Natalia Zubarevich: Of course. It was a net surplus, in the peak years in Moscow plus in the Moscow region it reached 200 thousand people. How do you like it?

Peter Kuznetsov: Good.

Natalia Zubarevich: Good.

Olga Arslanova: Who is it good for?

Peter Kuznetsov: Even too much.

Natalia Zubarevich: In St. Petersburg, in the Leningrad region, up to 100 thousand. That is, this vacuum cleaner worked because people chose a place where they have the best choice of jobs and a higher salary.

The second format is incomplete relocation. As a rule, younger people decide to do this. If you have a family and you are sitting somewhere in Bashkortostan, for example, the oil industry does not take you anymore, there are massive rotational migrations. The Tyumen north, now the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, are increasingly provided with shift workers: a wife with children in his hometown, a man for work. Now we already have gender here: a woman goes to sit with old women, in Moscow she is paid by her family, or a babysitter, and the family, children sit with their grandmother in a region, in some Saratov region, and this is also becoming widespread.

And this is not reflected in the migration statistics in any way, practically not. But we have at least 1.5, maybe 2 million people on watch alone, according to estimates. Therefore, Russians are much more mobile than we think. But to take the whole family in an armful, to move to a place where there is work, means one little detail: how much will you sell housing at your home in an average city? And to buy something in a new place, where salaries are higher, and housing is much more expensive, where do you have money?

Peter Kuznetsov: Even remove for a long time.

Natalia Zubarevich: Shooting is pointless for many. On a watch, for part-time work ... Girls-secretaries, a 500-kilometer zone around Moscow, middle-aged men are security guards, the same 500-kilometer one: you work for a week, for example, as a security guard, and rest for several days. Five or six girls rent an apartment and somehow live in order to reduce costs, but earn money. There are a bunch of ways to adapt, statistics simply do not see them.

Olga Arslanova: Let's listen to our viewers. We have Irina from Biysk on the line. Hello Irina, you are on the air.

Viewer: Hello.

Olga Arslanova: Yes, hello.

Viewer: Hello. I am Irina from the city of Biysk, I am 52 years old. At one time, the city of Biysk flourished, we had an oleum plant, a chemical plant, we had a Sibpribormash, and, as they say, there is still ... But at one time we had a science city here. What do I want to say? At one time, we ... from the villages of good workers, people were brought to factories, do you understand? But now what do I want to tell you? Here I am now, although I graduated from the Polytechnic Institute in due time, I am now a cook. It is impossible to get settled anywhere, nobody needs us. We have a salary, even for a cook, 12 thousand, we have to work for 17 hours at private traders, do you understand? How can we survive? Our rent (I have a 2-room apartment) is 5 thousand, pills, let's say ... Sorry, maybe I'm not talking about the topic, but in our city of Biysk this is generally life, sorry, a nightmare.

Olga Arslanova: Thank you, Irina. Many people write to us from Russian regions in about the same vein.

Natalia Zubarevich: They write correctly. I was in Biysk in November, I pass through it almost every year and I can say that the city is really in a very deplorable state, here I agree. Altai Territory among the regions of Russia is one of the territories with the lowest wages, that's all. The Soviet industry in Biysk almost died, some small remnants remained. Everything your spectator says is true.

Olga Arslanova: And, probably, it is not so easy to sell housing there.

Natalia Zubarevich: And her age is such that ... It will cost a penny, you cannot move to Barnaul, where the choice of work, of course, is better.

Olga Arslanova: Mobility in general ...

Natalia Zubarevich: And the age is no longer conducive to mobility. And for many people this is a real and insoluble problem, I have nothing to say here, she is right.

Olga Arslanova: So, the authorities should probably solve this problem somehow?

Natalia Zubarevich: Firstly, if she has 5 thousand housing, then we have a rule: if the cost of housing and communal services is higher than 22% of your income, you apply for a housing subsidy. Housing subsidies are provided by the state, it is necessary to use the resources of the state. Secondly, if you have children, I don’t know, it’s help from children, interfamily support. Thirdly, a fertile place, if you have a land plot - and very many in the Altai Territory have summer cottages, land plots - it means that these are blanks, this is an attempt to feed themselves from the land. So many people have such a set of strategies. The state helps to a minimum here, because this is a housing subsidy in fact. Even if in emergency situations, when you are literally given a one-time payment of social services, even the third child benefits, I think that at 52 this is not very relevant. Like this.

Peter Kuznetsov: At the very beginning, we also cited the words of Topilin, who said that 800 billion is not enough to overcome poverty. Let's say, let's imagine now, we found this money, we have it.

Natalia Zubarevich: So this should be done regularly.

Peter Kuznetsov: In your opinion, where to start so that it does not turn into a one-time payment so large that it does not accelerate inflation, I don’t know, there was no budget deficit, and so on?

Natalia Zubarevich: Let's relax: more than 800 billion rubles annually. It's non-stop.

Peter Kuznetsov: For how long?

Natalia Zubarevich: Since people do not earn ...

Peter Kuznetsov: Endlessly?

Natalia Zubarevich: How? Well, if a person does not earn money, he sits right there, this is the level of the living wage. To tighten it, you are like a bobby every year ...

Peter Kuznetsov: 800 billion minimum.

Natalia Zubarevich: Yes. This is just unreal. Another thing is that a favorite pastime is to take away and divide. Okay, take it away, distribute it once. But what, will you take away all the time in the same automatic mode? It is also somehow quite difficult, you must agree. Then the country will look very specific.

In order to help people, first of all, economic growth is needed, and it is impossible to argue with this. He creates jobs, he creates wage growth. With this, pensions can be raised faster. Second: reforming the social security service. I repeat once again: the social security service in our dear country has remained very Soviet. It does not help the poor, 75-77% of all payments go to well-deserved categories of people, labor veterans and others.

Olga Arslanova: And they don't always need it.

Natalia Zubarevich: Regardless of their financial situation. If people are so deserved, it means that they should have a higher pension in mind, they deserve it.

Peter Kuznetsov: As a rule, yes.

Natalia Zubarevich: And in our country, in fact, since pensions are equalized, this function is performed by social protection, it gives them benefits, primarily through the system of benefits, and some additional cash payments. It is not aimed at supporting the poor. And now they are trying to deploy it, but very clumsily, I will explain why. The main task is not so much to target, sorry for the buzzword, to target the support of the poor, the main task is to save budget money, to remove some categories of recipients of this assistance from the system. So, in a smart way, if you made the right design and aimed it at supporting the poor, the savings should go towards increasing this support, right? And not to go to other types of budget expenditures.

Peter Kuznetsov: It's simple.

Natalia Zubarevich: And here they are just trying to save on this.

Olga Arslanova: We continue to receive calls from our viewers. Call and tell us what the average salary is in your region, how you feel the financial stratification in your region.

Well, now is the time to watch the plot. Our correspondent Anna Tarubarova with stories of Russians with different incomes in different regions.

Peter Kuznetsov: Natalya Vasilievna, in November last year, the Ministry of Labor chose some 8 (we are very fond of experimenting recently, choosing pilot projects) regions where, I even found, "universal mechanisms to combat poverty" year. Do you know something about at least the beginning?

Natalia Zubarevich: I don’t know the details.

Olga Arslanova: What is it for?

Natalia Zubarevich: The logic is clear to me. First, practice on kitties before introducing across the country. This is correct, because the topic is difficult. In order to give benefits and help according to the criteria of need, that is, taking into account your income, the most severe thing in the Russian Federation is to really determine your income. We have 20% of the population in the informal economy, how will you measure? To look into the refrigerator? French social services at any time can come to the homes of recipients of social assistance and look in the refrigerator, what is there, whether it corresponds to the size of your expected income. If you earned a part-time job, you may be taunted that you earned a part-time job, because you have no right to earn extra money. Therefore, everything is not so simple.

Peter Kuznetsov: Now it is much easier to enter in France, because everyone is on the streets, so ...

Olga Arslanova:... the refrigerators are open.

Peter Kuznetsov:… The paths to the refrigerator are open.

Natalia Zubarevich: Probably, perhaps, I don’t presume to judge. But the bottom line is that first you need to test it in different territories, where people are mainly in the "white" zone: Yamal, Khanty, there are mostly "white" salaries, it is much easier to measure real household incomes there. Come on, you are welcome to the Krasnodar Territory, and even more fun to Dagestan and Chechnya, come on, try something on there.

Olga Arslanova: That is, from Moscow, not very much from there ...

Natalia Zubarevich: Yes. I assure you, Moscow is also a very difficult city in this sense. How many part-time jobs do people have? Some of them are paid in envelopes. You really can't always get a figure of how much people are earning. Therefore, our country is not easy for the transition to the criteria of need, but it is necessary to start sometime. Therefore, we don’t do it by rolling, with a bunch of inevitable mistakes, with attempts to debug, taking into account territorial differentiation ... Once again: in agricultural territories, where they live on their own potatoes, on their own chickens, on many other things, how will you calculate this income to people? Should I tell you how the Kazakhs count?

Peter Kuznetsov: Yes.

Natalia Zubarevich: Is there a camel on the farm? - that's it, you don't need it. Is there a cow on the farm? - that's it, you have additional income. It's harsh with this case. But I guess ...

Peter Kuznetsov: What kind of cars are there, right?

Natalia Zubarevich: I’m not talking about that at all. Therefore, let them train, let them try, because it is time to move from distribution only to the deserved to support the poor, it's time!

Peter Kuznetsov: What regions would you choose in this regard? Unfortunately, I don't have a list ...

Natalia Zubarevich: Well, God bless him. I think that the geography there is understandable: the north, Central Russia, something from the Urals, the Volga, and some such more or less calm south ...

Peter Kuznetsov: So contrasting, right?

Natalia Zubarevich: And plus, where the services themselves wanted to join this experiment, that is, here the will of the region also matters. It doesn't matter, let it be 8, let it be 4, you have to try and try, then gain experience, straighten your mistakes. Here I absolutely support the Ministry of Labor in this endeavor.

Now one more very important point. It is very interesting that people openly talk about how and how much they earn and how they are trying to earn money. But we must understand that the country is different not only in terms of the opportunities for part-time work (Moscow, of course, opens up the widest opportunities, there would be health, as they say), but also in inequality. If you want to find territories with the maximum inequality, these are your 10 to 10, incomes of 10% of the top and 10% of the bottom, not so long ago, only in 2001, do you know how much was in Moscow? 48, now somewhere around 20. Moscow is a champion in inequality, because you can see what different groups of people live in it. There are two more places close to Moscow, Yamal and Khanty: some have high oil salaries, and some work in the budget in relatively low-paid jobs, compared to Tambov, everything is much better, so there is also increased inequality here. Who has the least, the level of poverty there is therefore very low?

Peter Kuznetsov: So?

Natalia Zubarevich: Lipetsk, Voronezh, Tambov, central black soil to Orel, to Bryansk. These are places where inequality is low.

Peter Kuznetsov: There are simply no rich people, I guess.

Natalia Zubarevich: This is what we are talking about, and there it will not be more than 20 times or about 20, but it will be 8-9 times. There, therefore, since differentiation is flattened, the poverty line is lower and the poverty rate is remarkable, about 9% of the total. Only this is poverty from such a modest living wage ... Therefore, the country is different.

Olga Arslanova: Let's listen to the Kemerovo region, Sergey. Good evening.

Viewer: Good evening.

Olga Arslanova: We listen to you.

Viewer: Actually a good night.

Natalia Zubarevich: In Kemerovo, yes.

Olga Arslanova: Right.

Peter Kuznetsov: Is that why you have a little pause, Sergei?

Viewer: I'm talking about poverty. Why is the average wage set so incorrectly? I gave an example: 1985, Los Angeles, construction site. A person without education, a handyman, a salary of 3 thousand 200 dollars. Convert dollars at the rate of 66 rubles with kopecks to our rubles, here ...

Peter Kuznetsov: So you should probably count on that course.

Viewer: Here is the minimum wage.

Natalia Zubarevich: I have to answer.

Viewer: 211 thousand 200 rubles.

Natalia Zubarevich: I'll answer tough.

Viewer: Why are we being paid by FAP "Leningradsky", FAP "Uporovka", FAP "Elykaevo", FAP "Verkhotomka" (they are already falling apart)? A nurse, she is a cleaner, she is a boiler attendant, she is a janitor, at the same time a nurse, the salary is 5 thousand rubles! How to live with this money? Why are you lulling us with your calculations, calculations?

Olga Arslanova: OK then.

Viewer: I calculated our average wage - $ 4 an hour.

Olga Arslanova: I see, Sergei.

Peter Kuznetsov: The night is with you, Sergei, that's why we will lull you.

Viewer: From 4 and below.

Olga Arslanova: Sergey, let's give an opportunity to answer.

Natalia Zubarevich: I will have to answer you harshly, dear spectator from the Kemerovo region. There is no need to compare the salary in the United American States with their average per capita income, which is approximately 48-50 thousand dollars per person (average), with ours.

Olga Arslanova: And the dollar too.

Natalia Zubarevich: We are different countries with different levels of development and completely different incomes of the population, this is the first thing. Second: a handyman at a construction site is not the lowest wage. The lowest salary ($ 7 per hour) is if you work part-time at McDonald's, so there it is more or less. Third: 5 thousand salaries in Russia - you have to go to the prosecutor's office, because we have introduced a rule that wages cannot be lower than the minimum wage in the country, you remember that it is more than 10 thousand. Or is it part-time, and a person working full-time and part-time, first of all goes to our bodies, which are called ... Controlling employment, the name popped up ... We have special bodies to protect the labor rights of citizens. Therefore, do not cry on TV, but go and figure out why you have 5 thousand for three jobs, why you pay half-time, but you work full time, and you do not need to compare yourself with America. This is a very strange, economically illiterate comparison. Don't you want to compare it with Iceland yet? The salary is even higher there.

Olga Arslanova: Well, the currency is much more expensive.

Natalia Zubarevich: These are the more developed countries, first of all. We are a rather poor country. In America, the per capita gross product is somewhere around 50 thousand dollars per person in GDP, in our country, excuse me, at the dollar rate of 9. We are at least 5 times poorer than the United States, what are we singing about?

Olga Arslanova: But if you take such an average poor American and Russian, what is the gap in their lifestyles?

Natalia Zubarevich: Colossal. America is not the kindest country, this is not the Scandinavians, where there is a colossal system of support for low-income groups of the population.

Olga Arslanova: That's why I started talking about America.

Natalia Zubarevich: America is tougher. But you will have there, firstly ... I forgot the criterion, but this is something like $ 600-1000 per month, I just need to refresh it, and then it starts working, firstly, the social protection system, which gives you food stamps for food; you are given public rental benefits. There are programs there that help those who have little money, they are different. In rich California, these programs are denser, in states that are poorer ... This is a regional story, this is a real federal country, but nevertheless there is a very high level of inequality.

Peter Kuznetsov: We are just with them in the ranking of inequality somewhere close.

Natalia Zubarevich: Yes, three countries, let me explain.

Peter Kuznetsov: In my opinion, this is the only rating where we are neighbors with America.

Natalia Zubarevich: Are they similar, huh?

Olga Arslanova: Close.

Natalia Zubarevich: I will not torment yours, the people will not turn their brains, there is such a Gini index, an index of inequality. And here we are, the States and Israel. Why? 3 different stories. Why is inequality in the States so powerful? Because there is a large group of working whites, when both the husband and the wife are more or less qualified, they have a normal salary, and below there is a very large group of single-parent families, mainly a mother, African-Americans (I am careful to put it), who have 1-2, or even more children, and this is also a large group, because single-parent families are very common in the African American population. And these two groups, as it were, create poles.

We go to Israel - why such inequality? Not orthodox, not too religious working husband and wife are Jews, but here below, at the other pole, those whom we call orthodox ...

Olga Arslanova: Who have a lot of children.

Natalia Zubarevich: A man reads the Talmud, a bunch of children, a woman works in a low-paid job. And then there are also migrants, immigrants from Africa and Asia, Jewish. And when you have two polar large groups, it creates a high level of inequality in you.

And what have we got to do with it? And we, as I tried to explain to you: our main factor until recent years is the territory. Therefore, when you receive a call from the Altai Territory, from Tambov, it is a matter of territorial earnings. You have even seen from the plots what different figures Muscovites and regions are talking about.

Olga Arslanova: Yes.

Peter Kuznetsov: By the way, about this Gini coefficient. It seems to me that if the general level of well-being is abundant, then this coefficient is not needed, but in poor countries it is already.

Natalia Zubarevich: No, it is always needed, because there are countries with income-polarized populations, and there are countries with equalized ones. For example, a very low differentiation is not only among the Scandinavians, among the French. They have a very tough policy: when you start earning more and more, more and more are taken away from you in the form of taxes, more and more redistributed within the framework of the so-called social protection to poor groups.

Peter Kuznetsov: It's clear.

Natalia Zubarevich: This is a question of the level of development and state policy in terms of taxes. Scandinavians give 50% to taxes, 50%. This is distributed to vulnerable groups. But this is a good quality of services, free education, healthcare, a developed system of social protection, it's not for nothing that so many refugees from the Arab world and from Asia fled there, because an excellent system of social protection, honest, working, effective. This is one model.

Americans don't have a lot of taxes, but then the support of these black mothers with a bunch of children ...

Peter Kuznetsov: I just presented: but they have Donald Trump.

Natalia Zubarevich: No, no, not by nightfall, it's already night in Kemerovo, no need.

Olga Arslanova: After all, you spoke about the territory. They write to us: “All the acquaintances who left for a better life in Moscow returned within a few months. Everyone who went to the Far East, everyone has settled down and are resting in Europe. "

Natalia Zubarevich: Is the Far East resting in Europe?

Olga Arslanova: I don’t know, they wrote to us.

Natalia Zubarevich: Come on, let the person joke in these letters to you further, because the Far East, if he is resting, then he is resting in China.

Olga Arslanova: He's on vacation in Asia, I see.

Natalia Zubarevich: Hainan, sometimes Vietnam.

Olga Arslanova: Does this suggest that some new centers of attraction have appeared?

Natalia Zubarevich: No, no, I disagree.

Olga Arslanova: Do we have any hearths other than Moscow?

Natalia Zubarevich: With Moscow, everything is much more complicated. There are jobs, the economy is booming, people are moving and getting a foothold; jobs shrink, stagnation, who gets slaughtered first? - most often from other cities. Because the salary stops, and you still have to pay rent, that is, your real income is significantly lower than that of a Muscovite. Therefore, at some point it becomes simply unprofitable to sit in Moscow due to the fact that the salary is not growing, or even being cut, and housing has not gone down too much, so little.

Now about the Far East. The migration outflow from the Far East continues, minus in all regions. Therefore, if your acquaintances got there and settled well, please do not create a trend out of this, this is your personal experience.

Olga Arslanova: It's clear.

And we also have a tendency, we again got a call from the Kemerovo region. Alexander, hello.

Natalia Zubarevich: There are night owls.

Olga Arslanova: And then we will take the next region, the Khanty-Mansiysk District.

Viewer: Hello, good night, we have a night. I somewhat disagree with your TV presenter that the fight against poverty is linked to economic growth. These things are not interrelated at all, because the economy can grow and poverty can continue to grow in the same way. Moreover, salaries can fall even with a growing economy.

Natalia Zubarevich: No.

Viewer: I'll tell you, here I was working on the railway, we had a lot of deterioration, reorganization, people were reduced, it would seem that people who stayed should live better, earn better. But nothing of the kind: after each reorganization, optimization, the salaries of those who remained, always fell. Moreover, they received even less than before optimization, although they worked more. The paradox is that a person works more and starts earning less, but there are real improvements, they just go to a very small group of the population: those who manage production processes, of course, appropriate everything. Let the people not think that someday they will be ... This is not a task at all, not a single government in the world has ever stood for a better life for the people. He will always live on the brink of poverty, because it is a consumable, it is just labor. This is how they will reason.

Olga Arslanova: Thank you, Alexander, your point of view is clear.

Peter Kuznetsov: Thank you, Alexander, good night.

Natalia Zubarevich: The points. Point one: if the people of any France, Britain begins to live worse, they have a stupid habit in the next elections, as a rule, to demolish the government under which they began to live worse.

Olga Arslanova: Which led him to this.

Natalia Zubarevich: Therefore, the people have leverage in democratic countries to influence the policy of the government, this is the first thing.

Second, I completely agree with you that the flow of growing incomes in a growing economy is highly unevenly distributed. We all remember the tale of tops and roots, but even though the low-income groups did not go much, we were able to reduce the poverty level during the period of economic growth from 29% to 13% somewhere in 2008, so the population also got something. Although you are absolutely right that the incomes or earnings of high-status, commanding groups of the population are monstrously averted from massive earnings.

The reason is very simple - we wanted it like in the West? We removed the Soviet tariff scale, where it was written: you are of the 7th tariff, category, you have that. No, we said: here we have a salary fund, now it is not according to the tariff, now the management, together with the trade unions, decides who worked better, and thus the allowances, there is a certain basis, and we got what we got when the head physician of the hospital receives exactly order, now it is already prohibited, now only 7 times ...

Peter Kuznetsov: AT 6.

Natalia Zubarevich: At 6 already? It was at 7.

Peter Kuznetsov: Oh, progress.

Natalia Zubarevich:... the average ordinary doctor; where the rector of a Moscow university receives 3 million a month, and a professor of a Moscow university 50-60 thousand, that's what we have come to. Why, it is clear: there are no trade unions, no publicity, people are afraid for their jobs and will not protest. That is, we left the scoop, and came to feudalism, that's all.

Further, the last one. There is no growth in income and wages during an economic depression, so the factor of economic growth is a prerequisite. Only when society accumulates more resources, including financial, can it redistribute more and pay higher wages.

And the last thing. You are absolutely right about what is happening now during optimization. Some of the employed are cut off, the rest, under the threat of a possible, potential dismissal, are imposed on more obligations, and somehow not very much with an increase in wages. And this problem is being solved in only one way - by capable trade unions and self-organization of workers. The boss will not make you happy without pressure from below, and the labor inspectorate (she remembered the name of this structure) and the prosecutor's office are unlikely to run to you. Therefore, the rescue of drowning people is to a very large extent the work of the drowning people themselves.

Olga Arslanova: Let's listen to Vasily again.

Peter Kuznetsov: Let's.

Olga Arslanova: We still have time.

Peter Kuznetsov: Not from the Kemerovo region?

Olga Arslanova: Khanty-Mansiysk. Hello.

Natalia Zubarevich: There, too, minus 2 hours.

Viewer: Good evening.

Olga Arslanova: Kind.

Viewer: I'm Vasily.

Olga Arslanova: Yes, please speak.

Viewer: I wanted very briefly, since there is little time left, to say a few words about what we have in the rural settlement. We had 5-6 industries, 3 forest areas, a fish plot, a fishing collective farm (these are in five villages), a fur farm, where 5 thousand silver foxes were released annually, and people had jobs. And we do not need handouts from the state, from the authorities, we need work. That is why it is really necessary, according to the May decrees, to create jobs, not necessarily high-tech jobs, but just jobs, this time.

Second. Our president correctly noted that rural settlements are literally beggars.

Natalia Zubarevich: This is true.

Viewer: I worked as the head of a rural settlement, we had a budget and remains 36 million for a year - think for yourself what this money can be done in a rural settlement. And I absolutely agree with your expert in the studio, who correctly noticed that you need to push from below, this is really so. Unfortunately, we have a population, but there is no civil society as such. We still have to grow and grow so that we can clearly and clearly declare our rights. Thanks a lot.

Peter Kuznetsov: Thank you.

Natalya Vasilievna, even when it comes to inequality, of course, they remember the progressive tax, the tax, I don’t know, on luxury. Chubais, over there, wants to impose light on the rich, per kilowatt, and so on.

Olga Arslanova: To pay for the poor.

Peter Kuznetsov: Or, in general, these are the measures, taxes for the rich, let's call them that? Or when the country as a whole doesn't get rich, they won't help?

Natalia Zubarevich: Look, the French act according to this scheme: everything that is higher, a salary of, say, 3.5-4 thousand euros, goes under a progressive tax, and people often say that there is no point in growing ...

Olga Arslanova: Although this is not the highest salary for France.

Natalia Zubarevich: There is a very strong progression. And when a person reaches 10 thousand - and the management of good companies, not top, average, can reach - they already have no incentive. We have a slightly different story, two points. Point one: the rich mostly do not have income from wages. They do not receive a salary, these are your dividends, this is some additional income from your accounts; it is often not for an individual, but for a company.

Olga Arslanova: That is, you can't impose it too much.

Natalia Zubarevich: You won't impose it. Do you know who to hit? - hit the more or less educated, in-demand, for example, IT-shniki, right away, because they have up to 200-250 thousand, that's all, this is the threshold. Then you will hit the decent management of companies, not the tops, they will be on dividends, on stocks. Therefore, you will catch, in fact, first of all highly skilled workers, so think about that.

Second: any progression in Russia leads to one intelligible result - a dump into the shade.

Peter Kuznetsov: To regression that is.

Natalia Zubarevich: No, people simply go into the shadows, and part of their income, part of their earnings is received in the shadow form, so as not to pay taxes and not be registered. Therefore, the economists have a discussion: the liberals say not to touch, it works at least somehow, the left economists say that everything is in progression, forward and with songs. I am not a macroeconomist, I do not have my own solution, I just show what risks there are from this.

Olga Arslanova: What can help? Free the poorest from taxes, for example?

Natalia Zubarevich: This was discussed, it was even calculated to simply remove the income from them. This is one of the measures. But what is the problem, you know? The income is paid to the budget of the subject, and then there is a hole in the budget of the subject of the federation. We have a lot of subjects with medium and high subsidies. Well feds, honey, make up for that, not a bad story. But how can the federal budget be? Never, never.

Peter Kuznetsov: Compensates just at the expense of the poor only, just from different sides.

Natalia Zubarevich: The idea itself is not bad.

What else can you do? I would work in a different format. The main factor of poverty in Russia is the presence of children. Average ... None of the respected bosses at the Gaidar Forum said this: we have an average poverty level of 13% with something, and among the child population more than 20%. Maybe we will finally not only stimulate the mother capital so that the aunt gives birth, the mother gives birth, and give her the first year or two an increased this payment? Maybe we will understand that the child lives his whole life? That he needs to be fed further? Do you know what the size of child allowances is? The most "dead" regions are 150 rubles, the richest region, if memory serves, 1,500 or 1,800 (Nenets). The allowance covers 8-9% of the child's subsistence minimum, that is, we can compensate for 1/10 of the minimum minimum amount with an allowance. Listen, are we giving birth to cannon fodder? Maybe we should still do some kind of normal program for accompanying families with children? But these are expenses, these are expenses, everything that is expenses, our government does not like. This is a really expensive program.

Peter Kuznetsov: Thank you very much.

Olga Arslanova: Thanks.

Peter Kuznetsov: These were the outputs suggested by our expert. In the studio was Natalya Zubarevich, professor of the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University. Thanks a lot.

Olga Arslanova: Thanks.

Natalia Zubarevich: Thanks.

Natalia Zubarevich is a Russian scientist, researcher, professor at the Lomonosov Moscow State University.

Education and scientific degree

In 1976 she graduated from the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University.

In 1990, Natalya Vasilievna became a candidate of geographical sciences, and in 2003 - a doctor, defended her doctoral dissertation on the topic: "Social development of Russian regions in the transition period."

In 1998-2004 - Associate Professor, since 2005 - Professor of the Department of Economic and Social Geography of Russia, Geological Faculty, Moscow State University.

Labor and teaching activities

From 1977 to the present, he has been working at the Department of Economic and Social Geography of Russia, Faculty of Geography, Moscow State University. Gives lecture courses "Geography of the non-productive sphere", "Contemporary problems of regional development", "New directions of social geography".

Since 2003, he has been the director of the regional program of the Independent Institute for Social Policy "Social Atlas of Russian Regions".

As a leader and executive officer, he regularly takes part in the programs of the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, as well as in international projects, including projects of the UN Development Programs, TACIS, the Moscow Bureau of the International Labor Organization, the World Bank Social Projects Fund, etc.

At the invitation, she also lectures at universities and state authorities in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Germany.

She is the author of the "theory of four Russias", which she developed since the 1970s from the existing center-peripheral model of space development (center and periphery). The Russian Federation, in socio-economic terms, is explained by an internally heterogeneous, divided into relatively developed cities and a backward province.

She was a member of the expert council of Vnesheconombank.

Awards

She was awarded the international Leontief medal "For contribution to economic reform" - for achievements in regional socio-economic research and contribution to the development and substantiation of economic reforms for the regions of the country.

Family status

Is in an official marriage.