2009: Summing up

The events of the year according to The New Times

The results of 2009 of course, this is a pure coincidence: the “zero” of the 21st century end in the death of Yegor Gaidar. A whole era leaves him, the last genius of which he was.

2009 is primarily a crisis, the inevitability of which Gaidar predicted in the very first issue of The New Times on February 12, 2007. According to the latest data from the State Statistics Committee, the decline in industrial production for 11 months of the year amounted to 12%, a decrease in GDP - 8.7%.

However, it could be much worse: quite serious analysts predicted the complete exhaustion of the reserve fund - and there are still three billion, double -digit unemployment figures, crowds of protesting people on the streets of cities. There was. And this is one of the advantages - and by the way, important - outgoing year.

Throughout 2009, we watched the powerful games inside the Duumvirate: Vladimir Putin still salted in the apical glade, leaving Dmitry Medvedev the role of “the first in the second”. The 2010 will become decisive: either Medvedev will be established as the president, or will remain a person who replaces the head of state in the Kremlin.

The outgoing year has become the year of open confrontation between the police and citizens. The Ministry of Internal Affairs today is a colossal business that has recently begun to pose a real danger to the population. The story of a lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who had died in the pre -trial detention center, more than ever, highlighted the scale of the threat. A completely new phenomenon was also designated: the police themselves began to lay out incriminating evidence on their superiors on the Internet. Whether this will end with a serious reform of the Ministry of Internal Affairs or, as before, the authorities will put the problem on the brakes - we will see in the coming months.

2009 will be included in Russian history and its tragedies and disasters, we buried a lot-in the Martyrologist, who annually makes up The New Times, not to list all the names. But on the other hand, there were without war, in this sense it is a rare year in the latest Russian history. Those who are alive are alive, in places they are even healthy and happy, we do what it should, and let it happen.

What was remembered by 2009-in the traditional New Year's selection of The New Times.