Moscow Diary: Tales of the Urals

The BBC's James Rodgers explores the harsh realities of life in the Ural Mountains region, where a retail boom has done little to improve the lives of impoverished villagers. His diary is published fortnightly.

BAR BRAWLS AND ARTILLERY ROUNDS

"Do you think you've fallen into a fairy tale?" sneered the taxi driver.

I'd asked him whether Yekaterinburg had bad traffic jams like Moscow, as both cities are experiencing a construction and retail boom. His answer suggested that it did.

It was 2230 local time when the flight from Moscow landed. It was still light. I was on the edge of Siberia, but it was humid. The rain had brought respite from a hot day.

Here in the Ural Mountains the winters are cruelly cold. Summers are short, but scorching.

The taxi driver was himself a living collection of tales of modern Russia. His friends in the secret police had sorted out someone who had tried to charge for parking where it had always been free.

Two soldiers had been jailed for selling civilians the chance to fire artillery shells. The fancy cigarette lighter had caused a bar brawl. There was the offer of a lucrative job from a criminal gang. He said he'd turned that down for his family's sake.

All the stories were told between jokes about the corrupt traffic cops, and the drunken folly of the wealthy "new Russians".

Yekaterinburg is a sign of how very, very much Russia has changed in the last 20 years. Until the 1990s it was called Sverdlovsk - named after a Communist revolutionary hero.

Andrei Lugovoi denies involvement in the Litvinenko murder

It is the capital of the Sverdlovsk region. In a post-Soviet identity crisis, the authorities left the revolutionary's name on the wider area, but removed it from the city itself.

Its concentration of military industries meant it was off-limits to foreigners - one of a number of "closed cities" hidden from the spying, prying eyes of outsiders.

Now they are here selling their wares. A new shopping centre is packed with international brands. Despite not being cheap, the centre is planning further expansion.

Even if the city is no longer named after a Soviet hero, and I was allowed to visit these days, a very modern spy scandal had followed me.

There was a sense when I left Moscow of the coming clash between Britain and Russia over Moscow's refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi.

"They say on the radio that they're going to stop giving visas for Britain," one man I spoke to in the centre told me, "all because of Litvinenko. Is it true?"

RURAL STRUGGLE

We drove 250km (155 miles). For someone brought up on a comparatively tiny and crowded island, the empty distances in Russia continue to amaze. We were still well within the Sverdlovsk region.

Butka's desolation is mirrored in many villages across Russia

In the village of Butka, we asked a passer-by where the village council building was.

"Opposite the effing cop shop!" he replied, with a wave of a sunburnt arm.

We found the place. Outside there was a notice warning that you could be fined if you let your cow loose in the village.

This isn't a part of Russia where they're worried about being refused a visa to London. Their problems are more immediate. Some 40% of the population have left in the last 10 years.

Where there used to be two brick factories, a dairy plant, and a carpet factory, there are almost no jobs.

Those who remain struggle on. The carpet factory has re-employed some of its workers. They assemble electrical components for cars. It was a small improvement compared to life in the 1990s. Those who had worked in the "good old days" of socialism remembered them fondly.

Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin was born in Butka in 1931

The day before, I'd visited a site near Yekaterinburg where they were building homes for the wealthy. The new houses were going for 30,000 roubles (£600; $1,200) per square metre - six months' salary in the factory.

In rural areas like this, rising oil prices don't mean new riches. They just mean higher petrol costs.

Butka does have its place in modern Russian history. Boris Yeltsin was born here. There is a museum, but it is tucked away on the second floor of the high school.

"We don't actually have anything of his," the lady looking after it admitted.

Butka does have a Lenin street, and a bust of Lenin - even if the garden which surrounds it is overgrown.

The taxi man's stories weren't finished. The one-legged gangster escaped from the town jail, but was caught as he headed for the Caucasus. The gang of robbers slipped past the drunken guards at the distillery, and made off with half a van-load of labels to stick on their moonshine.

In the fairy tales of today's Russia, the good don't always get their reward, and the wicked don't always get punished.

And after all the changes in politics, ideology and even names, perhaps the wealthy "new Russians" sometimes wonder if their luxury car might turn into a pumpkin.

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Your comments:

This is a very good article, it brings out all the mess that Russia is now in. Rich become richer and nobody cares about ordinary citizens. Russia has always been the country where the state stood above a person. The same is true in Ukraine, but maybe to a lesser extent.
Alec Tarasoff, Kamenets-Podolsky, Ukraine

Mr James Rodgers has to visit more rural areas like Butka. He can find there the true reality and more expression of the modern Russia. Moscow and St Petersburg are the exception in the russian development and don't reflect the mentality and spirit of the Russian population.
Natalia Kuzmina, Dusseldorf, Germany

James, I've lived in Moscow for two years and I see all of the problems that you do and agree whole-heartedly with much of what you have to say. However, people need to remember that this country is effectively only sixteen years old and is, in its infancy, developing at an unparalleled rate. The differences between the Moscow I first visited in 1998 and the city I arrived in in 2005 are beyond staggering. It is a different city altogether. Poverty exists even here, and in the regions it can be the norm, but the country is moving forward at breakneck pace and it would be nice if Western journalists like yourself would concentrate a little more on the good that is being done rather than perpetuating a tired old Cold War psyche that has no place in the 21st century.
Mike Rogerson, Moscow, Russia

It's good to see someone from the BBC heading out this way. I am a South African,(ex-New Zealand), living in a small village called Malysheva, (90kms from Yekaterinburg), and yes there is a huge difference between "our village" and Yekaterinburg. How many cities around the world do you see over 200 tower cranes on the skyline at one time? All of my house furniture is from IKEA. In Yekat. You can buy fruit and vegetables from all around the world. You could be in any of the big cities around the world. In Malysheva you struggle to find fresh bread, fruit and vegetables. We are rehabilitating one of the biggest emerald mines in the world here, and as the first two "foreigners" to live amongst the local villagers, it has been an experience for all of us. Getting used to the winters was my most difficult experience.
Graham Radburnd, Malysheva, Sverdlovsk Region, Russia

One might look back at the beginnings of a new capitalism in the US and other Western countries to see that corruption, unfair treatment of workers, and general discontent with the way things were, is nothing new. Progress takes time, and the Russians are good at waiting.
Woodward Taylor, Moscow, Russia

I am based in Astrakhan, but travel around the Caspian on a regular basis to Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, both Ex-members of the Soviet Union, there is so much vitality here, the people's expectations for the future are great and the differences between rich and poor are also great. People are prepared to put with this and much more if they can see a way forward for them and their children, the only thing that can derail this is corruption.
Stuart Lamb, Astrakhan Russia

Isn't 30,000 roubles closer to $1178 than $120? What does the woman mean by not having "any of this"? The wealth? If the people are not wealthy enough to buy any of the higher priced items offered in Russia now, are they more like a ruse to lure in foreigners? The price increase seems counter productive.
Avi, Philadelphia, USA

The unequal distribution of wealth is a rather sad part of reality not only Russia but in every single country on this planet. I was a little encouraged, though, that we are not seeing deportation of British citizens like we saw in the case with Georgia, at least not yet!
Chris, Baton Rouge, USA