Older Russians invariably recall the Soviet era as a time of stability and social security, if not prosperity, and feel they have suffered unfairly from the social turmoil and repeated economic crises of the past two decades.
“You could buy a loaf of bread for 16 kopeks (cents), and that was a stable price for many, many years,” says Alevtina Dimitrieva, a Moscow pensioner. “Now the price is different every day. The authorities promise to raise our pensions, but even when that happens, rising prices gobble up the increase immediately.”
Lack of money has blocked most pensioners from taking advantage of the expansion of personal freedoms, economic opportunity, and social mobility that many younger Russians began to enjoy in the wake of the Soviet collapse.
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