Let's go without kickbacks!

Megalomania is a long-standing trouble for Russia, the successor to the USSR. We do everything big. What, in fact, overshadowed the joy of Sochi-2014 at one time, and what, with all the positive emotions about the 2018 FIFA World Cup, makes ...

Megalomania is a long-standing trouble for Russia, the successor to the USSR. We do everything big. What, in fact, overshadowed the joy of Sochi-2014 at one time and that, with all the positive emotions about the 2018 FIFA World Cup, makes us think about the price of the issue. And how can one not think about it: we still have quite a few large projects, and the scale of kickbacks is such that undertakings rise in price every time. There is no doubt that even in the widely announced arms race our people will be able to make good money. But what will happen to the country's economy as a result?

The political leadership has always been distinguished by its love for scale, however, at the expense of the needs of ordinary citizens - one industrialization, carried out, among other things, thanks to cheap labor and the actual robbery of the village, which was worth it! In the post-war years, the country, which survived a truly famine, did not skimp on costly symbolic acts. For example, the construction of Stalin's skyscrapers: Comrade Stalin's love for domes and spiers increased the cost of already expensive architectural projects. In subsequent years, BAM became a symbol of cost inefficiency. Instead of communism, the Olympics-80 came, the price of which even Brezhnev seemed a bit high. The Afghan war and the arms race undermined the strength of the empire, and no amount of perestroika could restore them. The megalomaniac regime collapsed, the state of large spectacular but inefficient projects collapsed. And as one economist said in the 1990s, after the collapse, the country was a huge space, in the middle of which stood the Severomuysky tunnel, on one side of which submarines were built, and on the other side, thousands of kilometers away, they were cut into scrap metal.

But can Russia, which is so large from a geographical point of view, do without major projects? Probably not. If only because the Russian Federation has remained a country without uniform spatial development, a territory without infrastructure and with toilets in the yards, without roads and with numerous backwaters. Of course, infrastructure projects would not interfere with her. But almost all of them for some reason do not give the planned effect - from the construction of roads to national projects. And for some reason, all these undertakings are carried out either by the state directly, or by quasi-private companies affiliated with it. This is called a public-private partnership. The result, to put it delicately, is not obvious.

Large projects were carried out by our Motherland either on bare enthusiasm (see "Time, forward!" Valentina Kataeva), or using the labor of prisoners, or "for the interest" of serious uncles in jackets and ties. The key phrase that was said on this occasion belonged to Arkady Dvorkovich, Assistant to the President for Economic Affairs: “Hurrah! Victory! There are so many things we can do for our children! And medicine, and roads ... And let's not kickbacks! Here in this cry of the soul - "Let's not kickbacks!" - the dog of all megalomania is buried in Russian.

And the second phrase, which explains a lot, if not everything, was uttered by Vladimir Putin: “I do not rule out that Mr. Abramovich will help in preparing for the World Cup. Let it fork out - it will not decrease. He has a lot of money." That is, the state will "pump up" big business, in whose activities, however, one can never understand where the interests of the owners begin and the interests of officials end. VTB will build the Dynamo stadium, LUKOIL will build Spartak. And so we will reach the figure voiced by Putin - 10 billion dollars for the championship.

This is if there are no rollbacks. And without taking into account the changing situation, Russian projects tend to rise in price from year to year.

SURVEY

How much do you think the price of the 2018 World Cup will increase in eight years?

- will remain the same - will double - more than double - but who counts them (money)

DISCUSS