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January 7 is the Eastern Orthodox Christian Christmas. Since Eastern Orthodox Christianity is to Russia what Catholicism is to Ireland, Islam is to Iran and Judaism is to Israel, naturally January 7 is a national holiday in Russia.
Moscow News has been helping its readers do that for over a decade. At the end of each year, it polls its readers for their opinion on whether the year was harder, easier, or just the same for them with respect to the previous year. This time around, no fewer than 83 per cent of its readers found 1998 harder than 1997, 3 per cent easier and 14 per cent the same. Meanwhile, only 37 per cent of its 1997 readers had found 1997 harder than 1996; 17 per cent had found it easier and 46 per cent about the same. Seems like a lot of folks in Russia are seeing a big-time downward slide in '98. Perhaps a year of broken promises? And when I say big-time downward slide, I mean big-time: the most recent year with comparable figures was 1992. Keep in mind that besides the political events in Russia, 1992 was a year of worldwide recession. And even that had a few more citizens finding it easier and a few less finding it harder than the previous year, than was the case for 1998. Oddly enough, though, the people don't seem to be more apt to take out their frustrations on their president than do the citizens of the still-sheltered United States. The impeachment movement seems to be the dog that isn't barking: it's not being talked about much. The coalition government, which was being bandied about as an idea this time last year - which Yeltsin was then in a position to laugh at, but which since became a reality - seems to have served the government well for the moment. The most austere budget in years passed the Duma on the first reading. All the parties except the liberal Yabloko voted for it. (Keep in mind that half of the Duma's seats are filled on a party, not an individual, basis; party discipline is tight in a chamber half of whose members owe their seats directly to their standing in their respective parties.) Yabloko's sitting this one out just as it did the formation of the government itself. They want to keep their hands clean and their powder dry. Not a bad idea, at least in the long term. Especially since the budget seems very optimistic in terms of the ruble's exchange rate (it assumes that 21.5 rubles will continue to buy at least one US dollar), of receipts relative to expenditures and of terms of debt renegotiation/restructuring.
The copyright of the article It's Christmas in Russia in Russian Politics is owned by . Permission to republish It's Christmas in Russia in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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