Although food is plentiful in the cities, many products are expensive. Hence, the average person eats imported fruits and vegetables infrequently. People on fixed and limited incomes (mainly the elderly) eat more bread and potatoes than any- thing else. Urban residents more often have meat and dairy products. Rural people have gardens. Urban dwellers usually grow vegetable gardens in the country or on plots near the city. Traditional Russian foods include borsch (cabbage soup with beets), pirozhki (a stuffed roll, eaten as "fast food"), golubtsy (stuffed cabbage leaves baked with tomato sauce and eaten with sour cream), and shi (soup with sour cabbage). Borsch is still one of the most popular foods in the country. Its ingredients (potatoes, cabbages, carrots, beets, and onions) almost complete the list of vegetables used in everyday life. Pork, sausage, chicken, and cheeses are popular, but they can be expensive. Russians drink coffee and mineral water; juice and soda are available. Vodka is preferred to wine.
Russians have little leisure time because of the hours they devote to getting food, working extra jobs, or taking care of their households. Urban Russians spend nearly all their spare time at their dachas (country cottages), if they have them, relaxing and growing fruits and vegetables for the winter. In the summer, people Re to gather mushrooms. Cities have relatively few nightclubs and entertainment usually ends before midnight, even in Moscow.
The country's favorite sport is soccer. Winter sports such as ice skating, hockey, and cross-country skiing are also particularly popular. Most families like to watch television in the evening. Russia has a grand and abiding heritage in cultural arts. The people highly appreciate theaters and movies, but these are available only in big cities. Rural people can watch movies at community recreation centers called dvorets kultury (palace of culture) or the smaller dom kultury (house of culture)
New Year's Day is the most popular holiday in Russia. Almost everyone decorates fir trees and has parties to celebrate the new year. Grandfather Frost leaves presents for children to find on New Year's Day. Easter and Christmas observances, long interrupted by communism, regained their prominence in 1990. Christmas is on 7 January, according to the Julian calendar used by the Russian Orthodox Church. Women's Day is 8 March. Solidarity Day (I May, also known as May Day) is a day for parades. Victory Day (9 May) commemorates the end of World War II and is deeply important to most Russians.
The business week is 40 hours, with Saturdays and Sundays off. Offices generally are open from 9:00 A.M. to 6:00 p.m. They close at lunchtime (1:00 P.m.). Prices in stores are not negotiable, but prices are flexible on the streets, where an increasing number of items is sold. Capitalism is booming in Russia and a new generation of entrepreneurs is beginning to thrive. Numerous small businesses and joint ventures with foreign firms are finding success, and employees are buying state-run factories and working to make them profitable. Under communism, there were no incentives for bureaucrats to perform well or even be nice to clients, so the usual answer to any question was "No." This practice is still found in society, but "no" is no longer final. One must simply bargain and be persistent to get what one desires.
Russians prefer having social interaction before discussing business. Trying to do business on the phone without seeing the prospective business partner is ineffective. One often spends a lot of time in meetings before even a small deal can succeed. The business climate is characterized by the high level of uncertainty in Russia. However, any companies successfully adapted to the Russian environment. In the Rising Russia the following industries are of particular interest for foreign investors: gas and oil refinery and export of oil, pharmaceutical, food and food-processing industry, aluminum extraction and manufacturing. Leasing and franchising opportunities exist in agricultural sector where the government established a policy encouraging farmers to obtain the modern equipment. The number of contracts were signed with car manufacturing plants such as Vojskiy Avtomobiliniy zavod and Moskovskiy zavod. Russia welcomes the foreign investors but has a number of difficulties in it such as corruption and organized crime, difficult environment in business and tax laws, unsuitability of local currency and unstable political situation due to the war in Chechnya. However, the new Russian government took active steps toward the Chechen populations supporting the international terrorists and the terrorists who were fighting the Russian troops.
The First Chechen war cost a lot to the Russian government. The second war was more successful than the first one but still Russians are in the active process of guerrilla war with Chechen bandits. These challenges can stop potential investors from using the opportunities of 150 million people market.
Russia is a federation of autonomous republics and regions. Vladimir Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin as a president. The president is strong and has power to dissolve parliament, set foreign policy, and appoint the Prime Minister. The Federal Assembly has two houses, a 176-seat Federation Council and the 450-seat State Duma. The Constitutional Court is Russia's highest. The voting age is 18. An array of political parties is represented in the Duma. The actual party names are less important than their alliances. Communists form the largest block, but not a majority, and nationalists and liberals form other substantial voting blocks. Recently, new Russian president implemented the measures for strengthening his power and ability to react and influence the national economy but many there are critics.
Russia's natural resources give it great potential for economic growth and development. Natural gas, coal, gold, oil, diamonds, copper, silver, and lead are all abundant. Heavy industry dominates the economy, although the agricultural sector is potentially strong. Russia's economy is weak and unstable. Liberal reforms designed to attract foreign investment and privatize the economy led to higher unemployment, high inflation (above I 00 percent), and lower production. Organized crime and corruption weigh heavily on the economy's ability to perform. Real gross domestic product per capita is $4,828. Poverty is increasing as fast as wealth. The currency is the ruble (R). Nearly all transactions are made in cash.
Education is free and mandatory for everyone between ages six and seventeen. In 1994, new curriculum guidelines were introduced to encourage choice and innovation over previous approaches to teaching, but many public schools are unable or unwilling to implement the reforms due to lack of money and clear local leadership. However, a few are embracing new ideas and even teaching basic market economics to young children. Students attend primary, middle, and high school. They can specialize in their last two years. Private schools offer a high-quality education to the wealthy and influential. Education is highly valued, and Russia's literacy rate is 99 percent. More than five hundred universities, medical schools, and technical academies are found throughout the country. Russians have a distinct advantage of a high-standard education and they are actively using their intelligence. Russian large intellectual potential and a system of educating brains even with its drawbacks has produced a number of talented people who can work at least at the same level as their Western counterparts. Unfortunately, this educational potential is not fully utilized by the current condition of the Russian economy. The facts on Russian immigration to such developed countries as Canada, Australia, New Zealand or United States confirms this fact. (http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/newcomer/welcome/index.html). The educational potential of the nation is probably the most important factor that can bring the nation to the family of the high-industrialized nations.
Russia with its rich heritage of music, theatre performance, poetry is a distinct expression of the Russian media history. Currently, together with the old ways of communications such as cinema, theatre, newspapers and TV new avenues of the human interaction are rapidly developing. Internet brought by the introduction of Western communicative abilities is changing the Russian youth. Russian students are not isolated from rest of the World due to the Internet. However, the introduction of this powerful source of information exchange mainly affected the large cities where there are enough resources. Countryside does not have a full access to the Internet and can not enjoy the full advantage of Internet using. The scope of media coverage in very wide in Russia. Russians commented on the Olympic Games, War in Chechnya or situation in the Near East.
Russian media is the most advanced among the CIS media in terms of the connections with the foreign media sources. Russians have to create a new media channels to deliver messages. They do not have such strict censorship like Republics of the Central Asia or Caucasus. The Russians reformed TASS and have a closed connection with CNN News, Reuters. MTV, a Musical channel established a Russian speaking music channel. Russian media played a great role in covering the news and war operations in Chechnya and was one of the major reasons why Russians pressured the government to stop the massacre. Russians receive news from abroad mainly by TV (ORT- Obchestvennoe Rosiyskoe Televidine), (RTR-Rossiyskoe TeleRadiove Vechyanie), TV-4, TV-6. Eduard Sagalaev together with CNN, headed by Ted Turner arranged NTV and NTV+ for broadcasting on Moscow and St. Petersburg. The second source of Information are the various newspapers in Russia. Most of them were originated during or after the era of Perestroyka. However, many remained from the Soviet Era but changed their profile to be more “readable”. Before the newspapers only printed what they were allowed to print on political or economic topics. They could touch sports or weather occasionally. Now newspapers can criticize the government and give their comments on the economic situation in Russia. Radio is usually listened in the countryside or where people do not have televisions.
Unlike people in America, many Russians use the public transportation and do not have cars except in Moscow and St. Petersburg. However, due to the high traffic, people prefer use subways to get to their work place. As a result, radio does not enjoy such popularity like here in the States.
The last, but most flourishing, medium is Internet. It enjoys the relatively lower costs of information exchange. Many newspapers have their web sites where they place the information, news and current events. Russian youth are becoming more and more exposed to the Internet. Internet getting to the colleges and homes. The example of Russia organized search engines are www.rambler.ru, www.lib.ru. Larger resources are allocated on the information databases such as www.news.ru, www.omen.ru, which specializes on music and entertainment. Russians made an advance step in terms of the amount of servers but they are closely followed by Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
Despite the rapid development of the Russian media there are still some challenges and problems the media faces. Russian government was not pleased with the way Russian reporters disclose the situation in Chechnya, Kursk, fire in Ostankino and other major events where they government was not acting at its best. Amnesty International reports on the arrests and interrogations of the Russian reporters in Chechnya by the Russian military. The reporters are being killed and the government does not want to do anything about it.
Russians are facing another dilemma. The society has mixed feelings about their identity and their role in CIS and the World. This reflects on the ability of the Russian media to cover the news. They can not figure out what is more important for the Russian society and what is not. The difficult relations with West are a special circumstance of the Russian society. Russians do not want to be portrayed as “losers” to the West. In fact, in his speech at the West Point conference a chief editor of “Foreign Policy” Zakartia said that Russians did not lose the cold war. They want to change their system and life better. They do not think that the West won it. He argued that thinking in such way and failing to cooperate with Russia made the United States lose the Russia. This relationship prevents the Russian media from showing the real attitude of Western democracies on the events because the media do not want to be portrayed pro-Western. The Russians are making steps toward democratization of their society and political system and it has a reflection on the Russian media. The Western nations should provide the full support to this movement while understanding the situation in Russia and the challenges Russian go through.
After the collapse of the Communist regime left Russia with an inefficient economy, regional conflicts and problems with the neighboring countries. Russia wants to become a democratic society with a developed market oriented economy. It has a large potential especially in human resources. Russians are educated, talented and bright people who are willing to work hard if they are paid well. Russia has a vast variety of natural resources that can attract foreign capital. Russians are welcoming foreign investments. All these conditions will surely have an effect and lead Russia to the family of the most-developed nations in the world. It might take long time but it will surely happen.
Works Cited
Brudny, Yitzhak M. Reinventing Russia: Russian nationalism and the Soviet State, 1953-1991. Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England, 1998
Tankred G. Golenpolsky, Johnstone M. Robert and Kashin A. Vladimir Doing Business in Russia Basic Facts for the Pioneering Entrepreneur. The Oasis Press, Grants Pass, Oregon, 1995
Dunlop, John B. The Rise of Russian And The Fall Of The Soviet Empire. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1993
Finckenauer, James O. and Waring, Elin J. Russian Mafia in America: Immigration, Culture, and Crime. Northeast University Press, Boston, 1998
Official Site for Immigration to Canada http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/newcomer/welcome/index.html
Alexandr Soljenicin, “Odin deny Ivana Denisovicha” One Day of Ivan Denisovich Trans. Rustam Tashpulatov.
Biblioteka Moshkova www.lib.ru
Information Database www.rambler.ru
Russian Gazeta www.gazeta.ru
Amnesty International http://www.amnesty.org/
Ferghana on Line www.ferghana.ru