The widely known problems in Russia’s housing and communal services sector are not new. The entire sector is slowly but steadily deteriorating. This is no surprise since the average age of the Russian housing stock exceeds 40 years. Several tragedies happened over the last year. A residential building partially collapsed in Mezhdurechensk; household gas explosions occurred in Omsk, Perm, Yaroslavl and Volgograd; a bridge collapsed in Vladivostok; cars regularly get stuck in potholes as pavement collapses. Well-known Russian blogger Ilya Varlamov has repeatedly supplied evidence of dire housing conditions of ordinary Russians.
The federal authorities do not at all seem concerned about this situation. In 2016, federal allocations for the repair and replacement of utility lines as well as for the upgrading of the housing stock will amount to around 75 billion rubles or about half of the obviously ill-gotten $2 billion belonging to Putin’s close friend violinist Roldugin. There are plans to further cut federal spending on the housing and communal services sector in 2017 to more than half its 2016 amount.
In fact, why should Russia’s budget be spent on housing around 85 percent of which is privately owned? On the other hand, despite the mass privatization of apartments in the 1990s, public spaces and communal services of most apartment buildings such as entrance halls, courtyards, stairs, gas, electrical and plumbing have not been privatized and remain the responsibility of municipalities. The budget situation on the local level is obviously much worse than on the federal one. Read More “Putin, Roldugin, Shamalov, Patrushev and the Rest of Homeowners”
