Everyone will die, but I will remain

Eight Muscovites who lost their jobs took part in the focus group. They sat at the same table in a small room and answered questions from the moderator. They were recorded on video - almost two hours of casual conversation about what to do next and who is to blame for what happened. “What can you say about Putin?” - sounded the question. "Are we still being filmed?" one of the participants laughed. “If you don't want to, don't,” the moderator filed back. “I was joking, sorry. I am absolutely normal,” the unemployed woman recovered. “I generally love our presidents. Very. I have an irrational love for both presidents,” another participant continued. He recently closed his business. “I like [Putin], let him do something.”

Banking crisis, industrial recession, layoffs. The government carried out a devaluation and is now thinking about what to do with the budget. It's time to sum up the first results. Leading sociologists did just that last week. And they came to conclusions that are quite comforting for the Kremlin and the White House.

Yes, the mood of people has deteriorated greatly. Even those who have not been affected by the crisis feel that things will get worse. But these feelings are still unlikely to spill over into broad mass protests. Studies show that the crisis has not yet shaken the support of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. “What does Putin have to do with it?” - this is a typical answer to the question of who is to blame for what is happening with the economy. One would expect that with the crisis, people would begin to doubt their government. And it turns out the other way around: the reserves are dwindling, and the stock of confidence in the prime minister and the president is not depleted. This is what people want to keep so that what is happening does not remind them of the chaos of the crisis of the 90s.

TEMPORARY DIFFICULTIES

Hopes have people, of course, became much less. Sociologists have a special questionnaire, which displays the index of consumer sentiment. “A dramatic drop of as much as thirty points from May to December,” Alexander Demidov of the Russian branch of the marketing institute GfK said at a conference at the Higher School of Economics last Wednesday. “Indeed, expectations have collapsed,” agreed the director of the Zircon research group, Igor Zadorin. Anxiety has been accumulating over the past two years, noted Marina Krasilnikova from the Levada Center: people were nervous about utility tariffs, inflation began to frighten them. The real alarm was not in September, when the stock exchanges crashed for the first time, but in November, when the threat of unemployment came to the fore.

In Moscow, people looked serene at the focus group, even though they had recently lost their jobs. One was in charge of the sales department, the other had his own business, the third installed video surveillance systems, the fourth was a laboratory assistant, etc. Tatyana worked as an economist in a jewelry store. When she was fired, she flew to the Dominican Republic. “We began to sleep more,” - the former personnel officer Elena finds her pluses. Pavel - he had his own business - is now busy with a three-month-old baby and is even glad that he has time for this.

Muscovites look prepared. They are not afraid. “This is not the first time already. In our unpredictable country, you can expect anything, - Mikhail the installer argued. And he continued: - there is an opportunity to start a new life - after all, it is believed that once every five years it is necessary to change the way of life. “I take it easy. We must try to find ourselves somewhere else, ”logistic Sergey agreed phlegmatically. Tatyana, returning from the Dominican Republic, in search of work, called up acquaintances with whom she had not communicated for a hundred years. The end of one life stage and the beginning of a new one - this is her view of the crisis after she lost her job. Moscow victims of the crisis have a feeling that the crisis is just temporary difficulties that need to be waited out, says Maria Volkenstein, director of the sociological service Validata. She also conducted focus groups in Moscow and Voronezh.

Things are getting worse in Voronezh. There were factories. “We have a three-day schedule, the tire one is standing, the aviation one is switching to four days a week and 20 percent reductions,” said an elderly engineer Tamara Karlovna. Relative prosperity in Voronezh, apparently, lasted for two years. “2006 and 2007 were the heyday. Both in construction and industry. And in 2008, the recession began,” builder Mikhail Aleksandrovich picks up. - “Did you have a feeling that tomorrow will be better than yesterday?” - "It was so. Already two years ago [there were such sensations],” answered the accountant Elena. "Former accountant," she amends with a bitter grin.

The economic growth of Putin's eight years was experienced differently by the capital and the provinces. It was prosperity in the capital, and in the provinces - as Wolkenstein put it - rather a pause between two crises. There was a strong industry in the cities, then the factories stopped, then they began to work, and now they have stopped again. “In general, where they were, they returned there,” the director of Validata said at the conference, “and in this sense, there is much more pessimism [in the province]. And abstract considerations that shake-ups are for the best are not close to them.

YOU ARE LIKE EVERYONE

The correct reaction is to spit on everything and go to the Dominican Republic? "Certainly. And what, sit and sob over the crisis? - Answered the personnel officer Elena from the Moscow group. In Voronezh, meanwhile, they again began to visit with their products. “You go - you have to buy something,” Tamara Karlovna said. “The dishonest now only visit guests and go so that they don’t eat at home,” Evgeny, a former manager of one of the Voronezh factories, said in all seriousness.

On the world and death is red. Perhaps the strongest calming factor is that many are fired, you are not alone. This is what the women in the Moscow group said. “If this happened to me alone, it would mean that I am a worthless, unnecessary person,” Natalya explained from a garment factory. In general, Muscovites expect that the crisis will probably be over by autumn. That is, not for long. If it drags on, former economist Tatyana agrees to get a lower salary. Businessman Pavel boasted that he could go to work on a collective farm if the printing services he used to provide to advertisers were no longer needed.

Sociologist Wolkenstein thinks this is just a declaration. In fact, the Moscow middle class is not ready to lose their social status. Another painting in Voronezh. “The editor-in-chief of the local newspaper works almost as a loader. And he feels fine. Well, it’s not normal, but I kind of put up with it, ”she reported at a conference at the Higher School of Economics.

Richer Muscovites are not so willing to change their habits. Although Timofey Barsov, a marketer from KOMKON, has already noticed that coffee shops are emptying, queues are growing at McDonald's. Galina from the recently closed Voronezh tire plant complained that she was again denying herself products that she had barely had time to get used to. In 1998, consumption fell much more. “Then all types of sausages, smoked meats, sausages, sausages suffered. Moreover, smoked meats suffer during any crisis, Barsov recalled. - Almost all types of fish. Imported vermicelli. The dynamics of chocolate was dramatic.”

This time there is no such thing yet - except that the newspapers write that sales of foreign cars have fallen. “According to objective indicators, no serious crisis changes have occurred,” Demidov from GfK spoke at the HSE. Yes, sales of electronics have fallen, but due to the "rejection of all sorts of bells and whistles." Olga Kuzina from the National Agency for Financial Research said that the population has returned to the strategy of foreign exchange savings, but Krasilnikova from the Levada Center reminded that this applies only to those who have foreign currency, and most "are not present in the foreign exchange market." Sociologists are still wondering why a massive run of depositors into banks never happened.

FIND THE GUILT

Another focus group was conducted with students from Moscow universities. They will soon get a permanent job. And they already know that vacancies are bad now. But talking about the crisis - at home, on TV news - they are fed up. “I heard that some bankers are to blame for this global crisis. I don’t remember in which country,” says Tatyana, a student. “In America,” Artem prompts. “Did you hear it on TV? Do you believe in television? - Maxim joked. He is studying to be a programmer. “I believe,” Tatyana answered seriously.

Sociologists have established that people believe any news about Mikheil Saakashvili and Viktor Yushchenko. “I heard that Saakashvili is a pawn in the hands of the American president,” says student Tatiana. “Yushchenko is run by the Americans,” Denis, the dismissed head of the sales department, knows. Nobody argued with them. The January gas conflict no doubt distracted people from domestic problems. “Yes, they did it very well,” Yelena, the personnel officer, approved of Putin’s actions. “It should have been like this for a long time. What did they endure? - Sergei agreed with the propaganda, a logistics specialist by profession.

But as far as the crisis itself is concerned, both Moscow and Voronezh have an opinion that state TV is not the most reliable source. "How do you know what's going on?" they were asked. “From the work book,” the dismissed Elena joked. In January, 21% of respondents told VTsIOM that the news was exaggerating the scale of the crisis and fomenting panic. The respondents unanimously said that they were no longer interested in the crisis. TV , newspapers, anti-crisis advertising in the subway. Got it already. But sociologists suspect that people are being cunning.

From what people say, there is such a picture. Even if the Americans staged this crisis not on purpose in order to annoy Russia - and this is also an accepted point of view - then at least they bear full historical responsibility for it. People are ready to dance from the stove. The former head of the department, Denis, even remembered the Caribbean crisis - then Western ideals won in Russia, and since then everyone has been sitting in offices, but they don’t want to work in factories, there is no production.

And this bubble burst. “It's all coming from the West. These white-collar workers,” complained economist Tatyana, fired from her office, who recently visited the Dominican Republic. The students were also willing to develop conspiracy theories. “There is a plan for a world government,” student Masha recalled. “This topic has been discussed for a long time. So you have to believe,” said Artem, who until recently worked in a financial company.

Not only America is to blame. The Kremlin, according to some reports, is recording an increase in negative attitudes towards regional authorities and the regional media. Sociologist Volkenstein also felt this in Voronezh: people are being fired, and the governor is raising utility bills by half. There is resentment against Moscow and abstract power. Nobody accuses Putin and Medvedev of anything. They are like psychological props during a crisis. If you take offense at them, in the minds of people the world will again become chaotic, sociologists say. “The growth of public pessimism would be even more significant if it were not for the stock of trust accumulated over the years of the country's successful development in the first persons of the state,” writes Krasilnikova from the Levada Center in her report.

Nobody is going to rallies. Neither with those who disagree, nor with United Russia. “In support of the government's course? But it’s somehow strange to support yourself, ”the former businessman Pavel laughed, and the students cynically remarked that it only makes sense to go for money. At the same time, specific solutions do not find support for them. The introduction of duties on foreign cars in Moscow at the focus group was not approved by any of the eight adults and only one student, whose parents work at KamAZ. Vladimir Petukhov of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences sums it up: "Now there is no feeling among the people that Russia is a train without a driver, which is rushing towards the dismantled rails, as it was in 1998." But sociologists also agree on something else: people do not expect anything good.