There was just a three-part series about Russia in the Christian Science Monitor. It focused on the young people who are part of what has been dubbed the “Putin Generation” - those who have come of age in a Russia that is more stable and prosperous, but still tightly-controlled politically and beset by corruption in business.
The whole series is worth a read, but there were some interesting cultural points in the second article, which focused on a young woman who has struggled to establish herself as a new business owner. The story points out the opportunities of the new Russia, but also the country’s inability so far to break free of some of the stifling practices of the past. An excerpt:
Yulia Barabasheva never wanted to have her own beauty salon…But with a dream of securing a steadier income and starting a family, she opened her unmarked brown metal door to the public in April last year.
It took the help of her husband, Igor Barabashev, a businessman, to get $180,000 in start-up loans and complete a six-month slog through Russia’s formidable bureaucracy to obtain a license. Now, she and her staff of 14 take clients up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, giving them thinner eyebrows or 5-inch nails.
At 25, Barabasheva is politically unengaged, like many of her “Putin generation.” But she enjoys a rising prosperity, which Russians typically chalk up to President Vladimir Putin. Serving that new wealth has opened the door to opportunities that would have been unheard of for average Russians just a decade ago. But even as Mr. Putin’s Russia allows ever greater numbers of people, like Barabasheva, to move up the economic ladder, it demands a scrappy persistence to battle red tape and corruption while trying to get ahead…
That shift toward broader prosperity, especially in Moscow, has been dramatic. In his first five years in office, Putin brought the poverty rate of his countrymen down to about 16 percent, according to the World Bank…Official figures put the middle class at about 20 percent of the population…
But the backstage of business in Putin’s Russia is much messier, according to Barabasheva and other entrepreneurs. “The state structure is quite complicated, quite corrupted, and it requires a lot of financial investment and emotional investment,” she says.
In a recent speech, Putin acknowledged such challenges. “To this day, it’s impossible to start a business within months,” he said, laying out his vision for Russia through 2020. “You have to go to every office with a bribe: firefighters, hospital orderlies, gynecologists, you name it. It’s just a nightmare.”



