vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #540 / Social life / Reading article...

Stern life conditions in Russia’s remotest territory of the Far East have led to a 20 percent shrink in population in the recent 15 years, Kamil Iskhakov, presidential envoy to the area, told reporters on Tuesday in Moscow.

Iskhakov, who held a conference ‘Russian Far East – survival or development style?’, stressed that prevention of migration from the area should become the prime and most vital measure for the territory’s development.

“To change the territory’s survival lifestyle into development we should bar migration from the Far East by providing life conditions equal to other Russia’s regions,” Iskhakov said, his official website www.dfo.ru reported.

According to Iskhakov, price policy should accurately meet people’s incomes in the region. Iskhakov, who arrived to the conference with a basket of food, demonstrated the difference between Moscow-priced food and that of the Far East. According to him, a loaf of bread in Moscow costs 9 rubles 80 kopeks ($0.37) while a Chukotka resident pays 29 rubles 68 kopeks. In Vladivostok a loaf of brown bread costs 15 rubles. A kilogram of apples in Moscow costs 25 rubles while in Chukotka one should pay 103 rubles. In Vladivostok prices for apples vary from 35 rubles to 70 rubles. The cost of communal services for residents of the Russian Far East 2.7 times exceeds average prices in the country, Iskhakov added.

At the same time the income of the residents is slightly bigger than average in Russia due to additional payments for ‘Northern territories residence.’ “When there is such a striking difference in prices, the additional payments accounting to 1.2 - 2 percent of the wages are practically equal to zero,” Iskhakov said.

High living costs cause another problem of expensive housing. “The apartments are very expensive because the construction costs are very high,” Iskhakov noted. “We do not produce cement, metal and other construction materials and those imported are very pricey,” he elaborated. Engineering, energy and transportation industries are feebly developed.

In Primorye a square meter in a new residential apartment costs 32, 281 rubles ($1,200), according to the regional statistics bureau. The price for a square meter in an apartment for secondary sale makes an average of 27,478 rubles ($1,033). A one room apartment having 36 square meters would cost in Vladivostok from $40,000 to $55,000 depending on the residential district.

An average monthly salary in Vladivostok is about 10,000 rubles ($376), one third of which is swallowed by communal services bills. The remaining money goes on food. Clothes, education, travel and other expenses are hard to cover with this money. The question of survival never leaves the heads of ordinary residents, the inspiring idea of the development seems remote as the territory itself.