Does Russia face massive social unrest?
Russian industrial towns might face social unrest and violence as companies plan massive layoffs, a Russian sociologist says.
Sociologist Yevgeny Gontmakher believes the financial crisis and subsequent economic downturn might have serious social consequences in Russia. In a purely fictitious scenario report, published under the headline “Novocherkassk 2009” in newspaper Vedomosti last month, Mr. Gontmakher painted a disturbing picture of what might emerge from the financial crisis. The story describes a provincial industrial town seeing huge protests after massive layoffs at its main factory next year. The authorities scramble haphazardly to contain the unrest. Violence will spread, ultimately reaching Moscow. Despite its fictitious character, the newspaper report stilled triggered a very real reaction from the authorities, with the government media watchdog fired off a warning to Vedomosti that it was “inciting extremism”, newspaper the Moscow Times reports. Novocherkassk is a town in the southern Rostov region where Soviet police brutally quashed rioting workers in 1962. Gontmakher, a deputy social protection minister and Kremlin official in the 1990s, said he had not expected such a response from the government, but the threat is real and growing daily as the crisis takes it toll. “Of course they are worried, and they should be,” he said of the government, the Moscow Times writes.
