oney is squandered in Zavolzske,
but the guilty ones are sought in Moscow.

l. THE CITY.

The city is separated from the rest of the world by a large river, across which there is neither a bridge nor a ford . There is no gas, no hot or cold water. There are no pigeons and very few dogs - they have been eaten. Now it the cats turn.

And this is not someplace in a hungry African country -it is in the very center of Russia, in Ivanov province. The city clings on the steep and abounding in ravines left bank of the Volga, from which it gets its name.

The subject of my assignment was not one of chance. If in the years of the stagnation our people could fill their refrigerators with products while the store shelves were empty, today even the least clever learn how to live with out paychecks.. And at the Zavolzske chemical factory, which dominates the city and where the bulk of the city residents work, no pay checks have been received since September of last year.

How do they live?

II. THE FACTORY.

The factory is in a deep comma. Already for four months there has been no production. There are signs of life only in the water pump of the boiler room. The telephone service has been cut for non payment. From day to day they are threatened with a cutting of electricity.. As a result of legal actions by creditors the courts seized the trucks. The auditors search the documents, seeking to unearth the reasons for the fast death of the sick enterprise.

There are many reasons for it. Some are objective- the crisis of the textile industry, for which this factory produced the dye, and the burden of supporting the city. The factory has not yet transferred to the city (the city refused to assume it) responsibility for housing and social welfare, and like a blood donor, continued to pump in its working capital. There is also an abundance of subjective reasons: the transfer of a part of the profits into commercial ventures organized by the factory' s administrators, delivery of goods to contractors without advance payments, and without signed contracts. The shirking of duty by the general director Afonin. He has hidden from us behind a closed door.

One way of the other, most of the workers - the number of which after the privatization were reduced from 3800 to 2468- were sent home, some with partial pay, some with full pay. But they like all the others sit without money. There is even no money for those that the enterprise fired and by law is obliged to pay first of all.The crisis scorched all with its icy breath. Adults and children.

III. ADULTS.

The most keen witted left the factory as soon as the roasting could be smelled. They defected the shops and headed for the construction sites in Moscow and the Moscow region, and for the chemical plant of Cherepovets and the Sakha republic. Others became travelling traders (chelnoki) selling goods on the local market, But there were only a very few of them. Most of the workers, in expectations of better times, headed for the unemployment office, There are now 2,000 people on the books of the unemployment office. Some were able to be placed in a milk factory and bakery, thus squeezing out alcoholics, thieves and loafers. Those displaced workers are now on the brink of extinction and eat dogs and cats, clean out other peoples pantries, break into garages, apartments and dachas.

But,unfortunately, the same depths of poverty befell those who did not dare to break with the enterprise, in the hopes that soon the director would be replaced and everything would be put back on track. They don't know how to eat dogs or steal. Often they lived without a kopek, economizing on everything. They travel by foot to and from work. For food, instead of bread they buy mixed cattle feed, and for their health they no longer go to the hospital, thus improving the statistics on health by going without medicine and injections. The shares which they received in the privatization process they have long ago sold. They live by accumulating debt.

Lubov' Shipova, a participant in the February hunger strike; She sat for two days with her children outside the directors office. She caught a severe cold which has not yet gotten over, but her two month 600,000 rubles wage was quickly snatched away. She paid off some debts, bought some sugar, flour and a little macaroni, Only 5,000 rubles remained. Tomorrow she will by some bread, but what to do after that she does not know.

Worker Vadikm Vier:
Got up in the morning -nothing to eat. Whatever there was, he left for his pregnant wife. He drank a piece of bread dissolved in water and went to the factory. After work he went to the evening technical school. He returned that evening and drank a cup of tea. There has not been a kopek in the family for more than a month. On days off he goes to his parents to get some products and which are stretched out for the week.. "I await the days off like I await God" he said.

There is nothing left to eat anywhere. The river has no fish and the forrest no wildlife. All the hope is on the garden plot. The old age pension is dependent on the good will of the neighbor who sometimes lends money.

The workers tried to settle in court with the director. The court found their claims justified and ordered that each claimant be paid wages plus from 200,000 -800,000 in damages. They was never paid. They went on strike - but the director threatened to call the OMON. "They complain. they called us animals, but they themselves regularly receive their pay."

An old cadre worker, Victor Ivanovich Smirnov is surprised: "They regularly cuss Yeltsin, but all these years they have built such dachas on the banks of the river.. I can't fathom that."

People are getting dizzy for want of food, many suffer from anaemia, nerves are strained to the end. The number of suicides increase. In the past three months five people ended their lives another 6 attempted. All for the single reason that there was no work, no money or anything with which to feed the children.

IV. THE CHILDREN.

We were told: when the school children were given the assignment to write an essay on what they dream about, one child wrote "I dream of getting up in the morning and drinking some sweetened tea with white bread." On the wall to the entrance to her home, the teacher of Russian language and literature, instead of the traditional "Kolya and Nina", with horror found scribbled the words "People! I want bread and butter."

The district government can not insure hungry children hot free meals and is able to give them only some tea and a donut, and then not always.

"In my class, out of 25 students, in the course of a week only 10-12 have lunches to eat in school" said Svetlana Yar'vena - "and the first grade students pity them. In the fifth grade only 2 out of 30 eat."

Nausea, dizziness, abnormal stools, hunger fainting spells....The children are weak, are often sick, physically underdeveloped and with difficulty learn their lessons.. The teacher bought a chocolate bar as a prize for the girl who won first place in the competition. By the end of school it had been stolen.. they all steal from one another, primarily food and clothes.

True, not all children are hungry and not all children steal. But there are a very many hungry children. Children from large families have a particularly difficult time. They beg door to door in the apartment buildings and in the streets, and search for edibles in the garbage , and stand at watch in the cemeteries to scoop up the food left on graves.

Somehow in Zavolzske a collection point for scrap non- ferrous metals sprang up. Then the fun began. The workers rushed to strip the factory of everything made of non-ferrous metals. The children followed suite and removed all of the rubbish receptacles from the street...

V. THE AREA.

Honestly speaking, learning from people about such horrible facts I thought; This can not be.. People eating mixed cattle feed, eating dogs, hungry children fainting...I went to the militia, the district prosecutor, the hospital, the school..Yes they say, its all like that. Almost the entire city has been utterly ruined.

How much longer can these Zavolzske workers bear the endless unpaid furloughs? For a year they have been without any means of subsistence as well as those two thousands who live off the unemployment office. What can be done with such a mass of hungry people.

There was an attempt to declare Zavolzske, as well as the entire Ivanov province an economic disaster zone, but no support was found. The situation is no better in other provinces - the centers of textile, light industry and machine building. An if there is to be help. who will get it. The director who considers the factor his own patrimony, but does not know how to manage it? The local administration -"the royal masters" who have become so proficient in blaming all the troubles soley on the "soverign"? The unemployed? The hungry children of Zavolzsk?....

Notes on hunger.

Izvestiya Feb 22,1996. p. 2 Boris Reznik "Without work, without money, without bread: Today's plight of thousands of persons in the far east".

"In Komsomolo'ske on the Amure, an extreme incident occurred. A crowd of unemployed persons with rocks and sticks in their hands broke into the city unemployment offices demanding to be paid their withheld unemployment benefits. The pogrom was able to be quelled only with the assistance of the OMON."

"Alas, a similar incident could happen at any moment in any other district of Khabrovsk krai, or anyplace the entire Far East."

The article went on to state ,among other things, "that even if the unemployment benefits were paid the average benefit is only 200,000 rubles which is less then minimum subsistence , and almost half of the unemployed can claim only 70-80,000 rubles. 'Basically we eat mixed feed. For breakfast, diner and supper' are the words we hear over and over in conversations with the unemployed".

According to the article, unemployment in Kosomol'sk exceeds 52% .

Based on the relationship of food costs to the levels and distribution of incomes prevailing in Moscow in 1992, the Moscow Coordination Center for the Social Protection of the Population estimated that the calorie intake of one third of the Moscow population could well be below 2,100 per day and that of the lower 20% of the population less than 1,600. Valdimir V Ivanov, "Economic Genocide; Its Real".Rossiiskaya gazeta, Dec 3, 1992 p. 6 (Rossiiskaya gazeta is the official paper of the Russian government)

Izvestiya ekspertiza, No 47.March 15, 1995 p.1, has a picture of a dump some 10 km from the Moscow where local residents sift through piles of discarded vegetables to salvage those which are still in good condition.

Izvestiya, March 1 1995 p.1 has a picture of another dump outside Moscow with many people scavenging in it. The text says that work in the dump begins early in the morning when the first trucks arrive. The first thing people look for are edibles. They find sausages, cheeses, discarded can goods, and bread. It is estimated that some 100 persons live in the dump, including several families with children.

"If during the "stagnation" (Brezhnev) years the worry was that about the 12% of the nation's children who were overweight, today the worry is the opposite. Doctors are noting a growing number of underweight children." Sels'kaya zhizn, 25 Sept. 1992 p. 1

A sociological survey conducted in St Petersburg in 1992 revealed that 40% of all young people 21 years of age and under felt hungry all of the time, and that an equal number felt hungry quite often. Only one third of the young people questioned said that they had recently had a satiating meal., The remainder could not remember when they last had one. Izvestiya July 7, 1992, p. 1.

Izvestiya of March 4, 1994, p. 1 reported on a letter received by the Ribinsk province newspaper,the Golden Ring, from a woman who offered to sell her 11 year old son. The woman had become unemployed and received an unemployment benefit equal to the minimum pension once every two or thee months. Other than potatoes and bread her son had nothing to eat. The last time he had eaten meat was a year ago.

An article in Krest'yanskie vedomosti no. 6, 1994 p 3 tells about children in Kurgansk province fainting from hunger. Their parents at times don't have money to even buy bread because they have not been paid their wages for months. Also in the sovkhoz Priorezernii(Sovkhoz By the Lake) and the sovkhoz Sungurovskii, milk maids bring home from work feed supplement pellets used for cattle and boil it into a porridge for their children.

In a short piece in Izvestiya of 15 Feb. 1994 p. 1 entitled "Everything that's edible they steal more often" tells how the police in Bashkortostan Republic of Russia have noted that burglaries of apartments are more and more often committed by people without work. They break in to steal stuff from the pantry and refrigerators in the kitchens, but leave things in the other rooms alone. They have noted that the number of "food thefts" rises in function of the growth of unemployment. Last year the number of food thefts rose by 345% as compared with those of 1992.

C. Kalashnikov, chair of the Duma's Committee on Labor and Social Welfare was quoted in Sels'kaya zhizn, March 15, 1994 p 1 as saying "Today their are entire categories of Russians who are living at the level of the "blockadniks" in Leningrad and can not avail them selves of even 500 grams of bread per day" He said that if extraordinary measures are not taken now, then very quickly people will begin dying from hunger.

Bread Russians are eating more and more bread. According to Krest'yanskie vedomosti No 36 (5-11 Sept 1994, p. 1 every day Moscow bakeries bake 2,200 tons of bread and nonetheless. toward evening, there is no bread in many bakery stores.

49% of the residents of Novosibirsk spend all of their income on food. This was revealed in a survey conducted by the City Center For Social Research.Izvesitya, Feb 21, 1995 p. 1.

According to Vyacheslav Evolinskii chair of the Council of the Federations Committee on agrarian policy. Sels'kaya zhizn, June 24, 1995 p. 3--- Since 1991 there has been a rapid fall in consumption of food products. In 1994 as compared with 1990 it has fallen 30-60%. The only exception is potatoes. In Russia the general quantity of food products consumed per person is about 701.6 kg where as in the advanced foreign nations it is 959.8. According to medical norms 959.7 kg are needed.

Consumption of meat and meat products is down by 32%, milk and milk products by 35%, vegetables and fish by 40%. the deficit of protein in the rations is 26% and for vitamins 50%.

"The outlook for Russia is especially pessimistic. Here one third of the population today is undernourished. And the outlook for the harvest of 1995 is a possible fall of 10-15% in output which will lead to an increase the number of undernourished people in Russia to 50%" .

Sels'kaya zhizn, of July 8, 1995 p.1 Says that ten years ago a law "On food security" was passed. No one paid any attention to it. Food situation has quickly worsened. Today we now speak of the loss of food security as if it were a fact. Why?

During the past five years in Russia the daily per capita calorie intake of Russia citizens fell from 3300 to 2520 calories per day.

The country in this respect has fallen from 6th place in the world to 37th. The deficit in proteins and vitamins and other valuable elements has sharply risen. Every third person in Russia is undernourished. The death rate now exceeds the birth rate by 1.7 times.

A letter from four people in Novo-Shirokinski in Chitinsk province tells of hardship in the village because the gold mine has not yet gone into operation. The letter was displayed on the first page of Rossiiskaya gazetta Sept.9, 1995 p.1. under the heading "Hungry children in the midst of Gold Deposits" This it should be noted is a government paper which carries all of the decrees, laws etc. construction of the mine was begun 25 years ago, and the project was supposed to created a "Garden city" but central financing stopped in 1993 and the project, which was 90% finished had to come to a halt. Minimum wages were being credited to the workers, but these have not been paid. This was stopped in 1995. Wages due from wages which have not been paid since August 1993 amount to 143 million rubles. The letter goes on to say "Maybe, we could look for sponsors from the game programs "Fields of Miracles" "What,Where, When?" , "Guess that Tune" etc., where million ruble gifts are scattered left and right, while several children of our village wander about searching for food and faint from hunger. Many families are forced to live on the pensions of relatives, getting; pieces of bread from them, The children subsidy is only 143,000 rubles per month, which has not been increased even though the minimum wage was increased. At times we live without bread for a whole week, not to speak of sugar and butter which we can only dream about."

"The workers at the mine leave their families in search of work elsewhere, but the cases where they can find work and relocate their families is very rare. And while the men are forced to leave their homes, the women are left at home with the children in the village which decays everyday.. Letter also told about how because of the lack of coal, people freeze in winter.

In the opinion of C Glaz'yev the chair of the Duma's committee on economics, by the end of the year 46 plus million citizens which are now living below the poverty line will become even worse off and become mal-nourished - i.e will starve.-cited in Sels'kaya zhizn July 20, 1995 p. 3.

At a regular session of the Federal Assembly there was a discussion of changing certain sections of the constitution. The main topic of discussion was on the question "Insuring the food security of the Russian Federation" At this session reports were given by the Minister of Agriculture, Alexander Nazaruchek; the president of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Valenin Pokrovskii the president of the Russian Agricultural Academy, Gennadii Romanenko, and the vice president of the Russian Academy of Science, Valenin Koptug.. The speakers noted that in recent times Russian are undernourished. In 1961-1990 in terms of rates of increase in ;production of food products the USSR was among the leaders of Europe. In recent time Russians began to eat from 30-60% less, and in terms of nourishment, Russia occupies the 36th place in the world. It is the opinion of the doctors that one third of the Russian population is undernourished. Rossiiskaya gazeta July 5, 1995 p. 3.

Sels'kaya zhizn October 21, 1995 p. 1 has a picture of a child approximately 5 years old sitting on a sidewalk begging for money,. He holds a sign in front of him which states "I want to eat. Help me".

The same paper on page 2 has a cartoon depicting a mother and father standing beside a table with three visibly hungry children pleading for food with outstretched hands saying. "bear up children, bear up;, Soon there will be elections and then we will eat to satiety"

Sels'kaya zhizn, 21 october 1995 p. 1. Per capita intake of food in Russia has fallen in the past few years almost by one third and is comparable to levels in the hungry nations of the world. During the "stagnation period" our per capita consumption was 7th in the world, today it is 39th.

An article in Sels'kaya zhizn October 26, 1995 p. 1 entitled "The Well Fed do not Understand" starts off by quoting a politician, a deputy to the Duma and a former assistant minister of finance, Alexander Pochinok(spelling???) who ridicules the fact that there is hunger in Russia. The author said she herself would have perhaps believed the politician if she had not traveled around the country. She gave an example of the Spirovsk(spelling) social shelter, where with "frightening frequency" children , who are not drinkers etc, "run away from hungry parents. Real hunger".She also gave the example of a 73 year old woman who was dying of hunger before being hospitalized. She also gave example of how hard it is for teachers to survive. Low wages to begin with and then no wages during the summer.

She concluded her article with "A hundred years ago a French queen on learning that the people had no food said 'Let them eat cake" Our rulers today repeat 'No one can die of hunger as long as the stores are full.' The field of vision of these well fed people is narrow! It is frightening how far them are from the people But we have the right to vote.. In any case, we want to believe that".Author of the article was Irene Suprunova.

Sels'kaya zhizn,Feb 6, 1996 p. 1. an article on page one tells how a schoolboy in the Village of Perm in Sandovsk district of Tversk province hung him self because he could no longer bear his semi starvation existence. The reporter Anatole Sidorov said that in conversations with the local police on the matter he was told "We have a lot of children in these parts who are going hungry. Families of members the local police here are not exempt;we have not received any wages since last October."

Sels'kaya zhizn Feb 10, 1996 p. 1 has an editorial on the first page in reference to the Feb 6 report(above on hanging) which says "Such a thing has never happen before. One after the other the editorial offices receives notices of hungry children in Russia. We had not had time to send a special correspondent to Tversk province where the eleven year old child hung himself because he did not want to be hungry any more, when the telephone rang from the Khaciya Republic telling about hungry children., The paper said that "considering the alarming situation with hunger among chidden in rural areas of Russia, we are opening a "hot line" and ask you in emergency to telephone us at 257-53- 53.

Jamestown june 29,1995 RUSSIAN INFLATION OUTSTRIPS RUSSIAN INCOMES.

This year inflation has risen nearly twice as fast as incomes and that has led to the pauperization of much of Russian society, an economics ministry official told Moscow's Echo radio June 28. Nikolai Lazutin said that 10 percent of the population now eats so poorly that it is beginning to affect the country's future gene pool.

OMRI July 26, 1996 UNEMPLOYED DIE OF MALNUTRITION IN ARKHANGELSK.A number of unemployed people and members of their families have died of malnutrition in Arkhangelsk Oblast, according to an official letter from the regional employment center to the Federal Employment Service, ITAR-TASS reported on 26 July citing Pravda severa. The letter said unemployment benefit payments are delayed for as long as seven months because of lack of funds. The region has a high unemployment rate: 8.5% compared with a national figure of 3.6% (in June).
Penny Morvant

Famine Said To Have Started in Chita, Pskov Oblasts
MOSKOVSKIY KOMSOMOLETS
October 15, 1996

Report by Yana Yurova:
"Has Famine Started in Russia?"

In the opinion of Sergey Kalashnikov, chairman of the [State Duma] Committee for Labor and Social Policy, Chita and Pskov Oblasts have been plagued with a disaster called famine.
"I have five children. For three weeks now we have had nothing to eat at all. We live on oil cake and mixed fodder. Children faint from hunger. Please help. You are our only hope. The Ivanov family, Chita Oblast."
In Chita Oblast, pensions have not been paid for over three months. Three quarters of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment has long been no surprise to anyone here. According to the Federation Employment Service, 32,433 people are looking for jobs and loaf about having absolutely nothing to do. There is, however, no place for them to go indeed. Most industrial enterprises stand idle, with 56.3 percent of local factories and plants having been up to their neck in debt for a long time. Many large enterprises, which used to provide means of living for the whole Chita Oblast and seemed to be able to survive under any circumstances, have failed this time: Gold mining works have come to a standstill, and export of timber has stopped because of high duties. The main problem, however, is that there is no hope for help from anywhere. It would be reasonable to expect that the government should take urgent measures, but instead of giving the 2 trillion rubles owed to the oblast by the state budget, only 400 billion have been received by now.

The situation in Pskov Oblast is similar: Industry is also in decline, with 46.3 percent of enterprises being unprofitable. Some 30,872 people are unable to find any job. The rate of unemployment there is twice as high as the average figure for Russia (7 percent versus 3.5 percent). As for the pensioners, who have lost all hope, they have nothing to do but resign themselves to fate and wait quietly for death from hunger.