Superedinaya Russia ...

[Евгений]

Russia today: all-powerful center, disenfranchised regions

In these days of Russia celebrates her real age. In August 1991, the country felt free from the Soviet Union - the monster who was not "all the same Russia, only to be called in a different way", as the now Vladimir Putin. However, 21 years - the period that person has enough to live to be an adult in all respects - we did not have to fully believe in themselves and find their new identity.

Advanced Russian history is almost equally divided into two periods, clearly divergent in its main vector. In the 1990s, the "revolutionary expediency" - a ban the Communist Party, the appointment of governors, severe pressure on the legislature, etc. - Quickly gone. In 1992, the Federation Treaty was signed in 1993 - legalized the Communist Party, from 1995 began the election of governors. Despite the economic problems and the decline of the "order", which is now permanently remembered, Russia was formed as a federal and democratic country. In 1999, the federal budget revenues accounted for 43%of consolidated, regional leaders have great power, and the head of government was the prime minister, whom the president had to assign due to the fact that the Duma was not ready to approve the candidate they originally proposed. "Fatherland - All Russia", in fact "the Party of Regions", seemed the clear favorite of the parliamentary elections.

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But history took a different path. Russia in 2000 was scared myself. After losing 24%of the Union, including the land that is a member of it from the XVII century, frightened branch hard-won 150 years ago in Chechnya. Allowing the creation of a market economy, scared that the state finally become the master of the people in his servant. Did not believe that the country could make itself from below and not be dirizhiruemoy top. And could not find the strength to continue the old way.

Putin's project was not so much the "one" as "centralized" Russia. In 2011, federal revenues to 64%of the consolidated and municipal budgets were almost completely subordinate to the regional. Today, the average budget of the regional center receives no more than 6%of the taxes paid by registered in its territory of businesses and citizens. In the U.S. - about 27%. Large corporations consolidated financial flows in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Paradoxically, according to official statistics, the whole of Siberia and the Far East accounted for only 9.8%of Russia's exports - all the main wealth of the country are taken by companies with headquarters in the capital, and in the same settle taxes. Power almost completely abandoned development areas - all of the major features of the project found "focal". Where today are the major investment? Vladivostok for the APEC summit in Sochi in preparation for the Olympics, to the Caucasian tourist "cluster" of "appeasement" troubled suburbs. Then the time comes to the World Cup. Periodically substantial funds allocated to local authorities on "special occasions": 1000th anniversary of Yaroslavl, the 300th anniversary of Omsk, 1150 anniversary of the Russian state centered in Novgorod. New roads are built primarily where on them in the near future must pass President, or where they lead to its "summer cottages." Each year, the federal budget is aimed at increasing the protection of that splendor: in 1999, 19%of the cost went to the needs of the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior, in 2012 - more than 29%.

Characteristically, this situation has recently become perceived as natural. We used to say "state" instead of "country", and the concept of "the people" and does disappear from the lexicon. Meanwhile, a "unified" Russia is a completely unsustainable model that is almost exhausted itself.

The situation in the Russian regions, all the more depressing. 70 of 83 in the current system are subsidized. Coming from the center of the target funds are spent according to the settings. As a result, people like money, "are centralized" faster. In 1991, the RSFSR in cities with a population of over 100 thousand people lived 42.3%of the population, in 2010, in Russia - more than 49.7%. Outside major cities is rapidly destroyed cultural monuments and architecture, the old type of life is lost. Over the past 20 years has disappeared from the map of Russia for more than 23 thousand settlements, and agricultural production is decreasing in almost all positions except crop. Number of processed farmland from 1991 to 2011 decreased by 33.1%, or 38.2 million hectares. In small towns and rural areas quickly degrade housing and infrastructure, while the central government focused on megaprojects. Vladivostok on moving people out of housing per year is spent just 0.3%of the amount, with the stroke of a pen dedicated to building a bridge to a completely uninhabitable Russian island, all local roads in Siberia for 20 years, spent half as much on the ring road around St. Petersburg and in the Kaliningrad region full update dying grids would cost seven times less than the construction of the Baltic Nuclear Power Plant. Modern rigid centralized control and more obvious prevents the progressive development of the country.

Typically, however, that the subject rarely comes up in public debate. The largest country in the world by area not seen by its people as a nation doomed to be diverse. Yet it seems clear that taxes can not be unified, that VAT can not be installed across the same level, that insurance payments for payroll can not vary according to the deficit or surplus in a given region, the labor force. Regional laws can not be different, reflecting the real history and needs of regions and republics. However, among the 128 parties that have applied for registration with the introduction of the new law, there is only one - led entirely unknown politician, which has in its name the word "Region". We know that regional parties are banned, but why there is no party that protects the interests of the territory from the claims of the center?

Our Fatherland - All Russia is, and not just followers of the imaginary unity, rarely traveled outside Moscow. In my view, it is time radical rethinking of our state, return the region not only artificially limited gubernatorial elections, but the real political and economic power.

For all its diversity, Russia - a relatively mono-ethnic country, and divisions along ethnic lines, the Soviet Union collapsed, there is not too real. Voters and politicians will not entertain any illusions about survival in today's complex world of "Ural" and "Far East" republics. The country has grown, and her former teachers now look funny with their regulation, which every year is just getting more and more petty.

Russia can successfully develop not just as a democratic country, but as a country democratic regionalism. Not realizing themselves as citizens, we do not put the state into its service, not to make it work. Not perceiving themselves as the people responsible for the fate of their "small" country, we do not make Russia great. Russia's potential is due to the variety of its people and its territory. Restricting their freedom under the pretext of preventing "separatism", the government is killing the life force of the country - a country that is now much more ready for self-government than twenty years ago.
http://www.mk.ru/print/articles/7389...a-rossiya.html
material: Vladislav Inozemtsev