#6041
[Second Issue of the Day]
#6
Sky News (UK)
January 25, 2002
The Trouble With Russia...
By Geoff Meade
If Britain demonstrates a strange logic in buying a record number of new cars to further congest Europe's most crowded roads, Moscow's infatuation with personal motor transport - despite excellent, cheap mass transit - seems equally baffling.
As the UK devotes billions more to public transport, the near-gridlocked Russian capital may cast a warning of where we could be heading. Dr Tatiana Shaumian, a Moscow academic, recently noted how perceptive 19th century historian Nikolai Karamzin has proved to be in saying: "Russia has two misfortunes, her roads and her fools."
Palm-greasing
The post-Soviet race to capitalism has married those ills in a damaging and deathly embrace. Wide highways designed for swift movement of the privileged and the military become choked with the Ladas and Volgas which disposable incomes have brought within most people's reach. Kings of this asphalt jungle are the black-windowed BMWs or towering four-wheel-drives, favoured badges of often ill-gotten wealth among the new Russian rich.
This mayhem is - nominally - policed by the grey uniformed GAI traffic cops, whose black and white batons flag down violators at any intersection. But poverty-level state wages leave too many susceptible to backhanders. That means most infringers are waved on after the requisite "donation". Red lights and speed limits assume little meaning to drivers who first encountered palm-greasing when they paid for their licenses... and have been buying their way out of difficulties ever since.
Slapdash enforcement and congestion mean motorists park wherever they please and escape the jams by short-cutting across pavements, through playgrounds and across any space their wheels will fit. Meanwhile endemic tax dodging and corruption robs repair budgets, so the roads remain cratered with potholes ever deepened by the harsh climate.
'Embezzlement'
Faced with predictions that, by next year, another 400,000 vehicles will be queuing alongside the three million already on Moscow's streets, City Hall has embarked on a frenzy of tarmac-laying. Late last year, President Putin opened the latest six-mile section of the still incomplete third ring road. Started in 1998, the scheme has been mired in corruption and controversy ever since.
It is massively over-budget as city officials and construction firms come under investigation for alleged fraud. In what one investigator termed "embezzlement on a massive scale", suspected infringements have varied from signing multi-million rouble contracts with shell companies which exist only on paper to plain jerry-building. One bridge which overshot not only the Moskva River but its own estimate - by more than £100m - was so poorly constructed it needed major repairs before it could open.
Showpiece
Parking fines are so trivial - set by federal law and currently £2.25 - as to be meaningless. Tickets are rarely issued, routinely ignored. Driving standards are often idiotic and, with roadworthiness checks easily circumvented, it's a rare journey that isn't delayed by accident or breakdown. Blizzards over the year end brought some awesome traffic jams, with some drivers shivering at a standstill for 16 hours with heaters unable to combat -20C.
Such above-ground anarchy drives many to use Moscow's legendary Metro. Built on an inexhaustible supply of cheap labour and raw materials between the wars it remains a showpiece. The best stations are works of art, platforms graffiti and litter-free and adorned by stained glass, sculpture and elaborate chandeliers rather than adverts.
Stench
A ride of any distance along the city-wide network costs just 16p. But with 18 million passenger journeys a day and little investment since Soviet Communism's collapse, it is starting to show the strain. Coaches, trolley-buses and picturesque trams, too, are bursting at the seams. The antics of freelance minibuses which challenge them for road space and fares would make Britain's white van man seem like a vicar driving to communion.
While economic nosedive throughout much of the '90s forced the closure of many noxious factories, their pollution has been replaced by the pall of all these exhaust fumes. Russian-built cars run on leaded fuel, some using poorly-refined 76-octane petrol which costs less than 20p a litre - including 25% tax. The stench tastes on the lips, lingers on clothes and may be implicated in increasing respiratory disease.
Restless
As in all societies, there is a fortunate class who escape all this. In Russia, it is the politicians, senior civil servants, Mafiosi and anyone with sufficient financial clout to carve their way through the immobile masses at speed with blue lights flashing. The acute disruption caused by the President's motorcade, when miles of roads are closed off, has even raised grumbling in the legislature, the Duma. After years of servility to authority the locals are getting restless again - they have nothing to lose but their snow chains.
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