He Delivers. That's Why They Like Him.
MOSCOW Not long after I arrived in Russia in the early 1990s, I slipped a few ruble notes to an elderly woman who was panhandling here in the capital. Glancing at the cash, she grabbed my sleeve, produced a little red pension booklet and pointed to the monthly payment which, she explained, had once kept her comfortable in retirement. It was exactly the amount I'd given her -- at the time worth about three dollars.
In the wake of last week's sweeping parliamentary victory by President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party, friends and colleagues in the West are asking me why the Russian people approve of their country's apparently anti-democratic direction under his administration and why they seem to distrust us. I tell them that to understand modern Russia, you must put aside your preconceptions and consider the life of an average citizen, such as the beggar I encountered in the streets of Moscow.
Imagine what she and millions of others experienced during the 1990s, when the country switched from a communist regime to a rudimentary free-market democracy virtually overnight. Hyperinflation and the government's default on its obligations destroyed their savings and pensions. In the first five years of the decade, Russia's gross domestic product fell by more than 50 percent while prices rose 6,000-fold. To say that the country's standard of living collapsed is to engage in euphemism.
Nobody wanted to touch the ruble, which was worth about 70 to the dollar at the beginning of the '90s and plummeted to well over 5,000 rubles to the dollar by 1997. In this once-proud nation, the greenback became the currency of choice. Russia descended into crime and corruption, with gunfights and cars exploding in the streets. More than ever, the economy seemed rigged in favor of the rich and powerful, and public wariness of government institutions grew increasingly corrosive.
Russians were told that this hardship would lead to a new and better way of life. But in 1998, after years of severe economic shock therapy and wrenching social and political dislocation, their economy plunged into debt, currency and banking crises. For the second time in less than 10 years, they lost their savings and were left mired in social inequality.
They saw this tragedy as the bitter fruit of the new Western system imposed on them and asked, "If this is democracy, why do we want it?" Small wonder that they gave their support to Putin, who vowed to crack down on the excesses of the earlier era and return stability -- and a measure of dignity -- to Russian life. This was the psychological and political turning point in the nation's narrative.
Quite simply, Russians support their president because he did something rare for a politician: He delivered. Russia today is a resurgent economic power, with the tenth-largest economy in the world. Eighty percent of the economy is privatized, according to the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation. And the country is flush with oil revenue, having overtaken Saudi Arabia as the world's leading producer of oil.
The ruble is convertible again, a move designed to increase confidence among foreign investors, and it is once again the currency of choice. The Putin administration has instituted a flat, transparent income tax of 13 percent that Russians are actually paying -- in stark contrast to the situation of mutual suspicion a decade ago. Public debt is low and the stock market has taken off. Per-capita income and consumer spending are up sharply. And the middle class is growing rapidly while crime is down.
Moscow was once an isolated bubble of prosperity, but as I saw on a recent business trip to 10 Russian cities, growth is now a national phenomenon. Every skyline bristled with cranes.
And while outsiders see only a blow to democracy in Putin's decision to replace elected officials with appointed regional governors, Russians in the hinterlands admire him for taming the rogue fiefdoms that once plagued their existence. Now their taxes flow from their pockets to Moscow and back to their regions through federal investment in schools, hospitals, roads and bridges.
Russians are also proud of their growing role in the global economy. Net foreign investment reached $60 billion in the first half of this year. Russian corporations are expanding abroad, and exports to the United States rose 30 percent last year.
With the presidential election only three months away, Russian citizens appear prepared to vote their pocketbooks, rewarding the president for rising economic security and public order with approval ratings that regularly top 70 percent. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said last week that Putin "has pulled Russia out of chaos" and that he is "assured a place in history."
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