| Speaking in the Duma, which finally decided to consider the situation with the reform of benefits in the country, Minister of Health and Social Development Mikhail Zurabov reported that from April 1, the pension of veterans of the Great Patriotic War, taking into account compensation for benefits (lost, we will add, benefits) will be 7200 or 7300 rub. From the context of the minister's speech - by the way, perhaps the best speaker in the current Russian government - it followed that this was some kind of great achievement of the government.
Next is dry arithmetic. Dry and bitter. The Great Patriotic War ended 60 years ago. Even those who went to the front as very young boys are now well into their seventies or late eighties. 7200 or 7300 rub. at the current rate of the Central Bank - a little more than $250. In ten years, there will be practically no people left who literally saved the country and the world, thanks to whom we live, including Minister Zurabov and I. They will simply die of old age. After 60 years - a whole short human life - the saved state considers a $250 pension for saviors to be its achievement.
The other day, in approximately the same style of report to higher authorities, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced that by May 9, 2005, all Russian veterans will receive separate apartments. That is, he thereby admitted that six decades were not enough for our “great and powerful” country for each veteran to have a separate apartment. Despite the fact that you and I know very well what kind of individual apartments we have and what the general state of the housing stock is even in large capital cities, not to mention small provincial ones.
You will see what propaganda of the current government will permeate the May celebrations on the occasion of the anniversary of the Victory, the main and indisputable victory of Russia not only in the twentieth century, but, perhaps, in its entire history. For more than half a century, successive rulers have spoken pathetic words about veterans every year on May 9th. For example, they use the expression, which has already become an absolute cliché, “we are in an unpayable debt to you.”
It seems that the government itself - be it Soviet, Russian democratic or current, Russian post-democratic - in the depths of its soul thinks something like this: since the debt is still unpaid, it means it doesn’t have to be paid. At the same time, each government pretends every year that it is also involved in the great victory of its fathers, grandfathers, and now great-grandfathers. As if it were these secretaries of the Central Committee, ministers and presidents who won the Great Patriotic War.
It is clear that politics and shame are extremely rare in real life. That the word “sorry” seems to politicians to be synonymous with unforgivable weakness and defenselessness in the face of circumstances. But it seems to me that, not being able to reduce the “unpaid” debt to veterans, the Russian authorities can at least not try to make PR for themselves on veterans. Don’t consider a veteran’s pension of $250 or providing separate apartments for the main heroes of your country as your achievements.
There are certainly many arguments that can be made in favor of the advisability of monetizing benefits. Equalization of urban and rural benefit recipients (village residents could not enjoy most of the benefits and did not receive any compensation), creation of a normal market for urban and intercity transport with a transparent pricing system (the costs of benefits were included in the tariffs of transport workers everywhere), an attempt to instill in the Russian population a completely correct idea that someone still has to pay for every service.
But from this whole circle of expediency - as from an enemy encirclement - it would be necessary to remove the veterans of the Great Patriotic War. Because no benefits in kind and no compensation for them really cover the debt of subsequent generations to these people. Because World War II veterans in other countries, including those who lost that war, live incomparably better. Because $250 for Hitler’s head is the monetary equivalent of our all-Russian shame.
Isn't it inexpensive? Semyon Novoprudsky
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