(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Gleb Fedorov, RBTH – October 13, 2014) Russia has an effective antibacterial system that helps avoid uncontrollable outbreaks of viruses similar to Ebola, says one of the country’s leading epidemiologists. Research by a Boston university also indicates that the chances of the Ebola virus spreading to Russia are currently minimal. According to a study published […]
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MOSCOW, October 9 (RIA Novosti) – A serious outbreak of Ebola virus is unlikely in Russia, although sporadic infections among Russians who traveled abroad are possible, the head of Russia’s public health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said Thursday. “No hysterical reports have ever been made for the Russian Federation, and will never be made, because the situation is under control and all […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 4, 2014) The majority of Russia’s urban population is breathing highly polluted air, including at least 14 million people in 38 cities where pollutant concentrations are 10 times above acceptable levels, according to a recent report by the national weather and environment service. Moscow was among cities that rated high on air pollution, mostly […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – August 1, 2014) Russia’s drug control agency has proposed providing free housing, food subsidies and home attendants to recovering addicts to help them in their rehabilitation, in a bill that has drawn sharp criticism from opponents who argue it would encourage drug use, a news report said. The bill of amendments to […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Elena Vlasenko – June 30, 2014) Elena Vlasenko is a Russian journalist Russia has no treatment programme for drug addicts; cold turkey is the only way they can kick the habit, either in prison or in rehab centres like Yevgeny Roizman’s City Without Drugs Foundation. But the foundation has been engaged in some very questionable practices. On 30 […]
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(The Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Allison Quinn – June 26, 2014) As the world marks the United Nations’ International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on Thursday, millions of drug addicts in Russia have nowhere to go for treatment, and specialists are in despair over the lack of progress in the country’s rehabilitation system. The Federal Drug Control […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Georgy Manaev, RBTH) On June 1, 2014, Russian lawmakers banned smoking in trains, hotels, cafes, and playgrounds. For a country where tobacco has been popular for more than 400 years, this is not the first action taken to restrict smoking. RBTH takes a trip back in time to uncover the history of smoking […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 29, 2014) Russian consumers ranked second only to Estonians in terms of the amount of money they spent on alcoholic beverages last year, Euromonitor International said in a report. While Estonian consumers spent 6.5 percent of their cash on beer, wine or spirits in 2013, Russians spent 5.8 percent, or $61.5 million, on alcohol. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 15, 2014) Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev reprimanded the head of Russia’s alcohol watchdog as the World Health Organization published a report classing Russians as some of the world’s heaviest drinkers. Medvedev signed an order faulting Federal Alcohol Market Regulatory Service head Igor Chuyan for “substandard organization of work to enforce government orders,” on Monday, […]
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MOSCOW. May 15 (Interfax) – The director of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service, Viktor Ivanov, has said there have been at least 500,000 deaths in Russia caused by the use of Afghan heroin since 2000. “Over the past 14 years, since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom, Afghan heroin has killed more than one million people in Eurasia, including at […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Obrazkova, RBTH – April 15, 2014) According to statistics, children in Russia have grown bigger over the past 10 years, largely due to changes in lifestyle and the quality of food. Experts have expressed concern over the trend and claim it is a symptom of a growing health problem among the country’s […]
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(Interfax – April 1, 2014) Some 68 percent of Russians drink alcohol from time to time, and vodka, sparking wine and beer top the preference list, the Public Opinion Foundation said. Men (75 percent) like drinking more than women (68 percent). Twenty-one percent of respondents said they never drank alcohol and 10 percent stopped drinking, 4 percent of them did […]
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[“Fast food conquers Russia, brings obesity” – ITAR-TASS – Lyudmila Alexandrova – February 18, 2014 – http://en.itar-tass.com/opinions/1676] ITAR-TASS tries to blame McDonald’s for Russian obesity: Russia’s first McDonald’s fast food restaurant opened on downtown Moscow’s Pushkinskaya Square in late January 1990, causing unprecedented buzz among Muscovites who formed a multi-kilometer line to taste American fast food. International fast food came […]
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[“Shape Up Sochi” – Wall Street Journal – Betsy McKay – SOCHI – February 11, 2014 – http://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2014/02/11/shape-up-sochi/] The Wall Street Journal covers efforts to use the Sochi Olympics to encourage health and fitness among Russians. The Olympics are supposed to inspire people to shape up and go for their inner gold, right? In Russia, that’s a big “if.” A […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Simeon Bennett and Stepan Kravchenko – January 13, 2014) On a chilly September evening in Novogireyevo, a Moscow suburb of concrete apartment blocks about 16 kilometers east of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin compound, a young woman in an orange hoodie approaches Sasha Mazay with an offer that might save his life. Mazay, 33, is one […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 9, 2014) Karabash, a copper-smelting company town in Chelyabinsk Oblast, has seen the life expectancy of its residents fall to 38 years, the result of massive environmental pollution by a highly profitable company that has turned this city of 13,000 into a kind of hell, “one of the dirtiest in the […]
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MOSCOW, January 8 (RIA Novosti) Russia is among the world’s heaviest smoking countries, outranked only by China, India and Indonesia, according to a new report out Wednesday. About 39 million of 143 million Russians smoked as of 2012, the latest year covered by a global group of researchers for a study published in the Journal of the American Medical […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Eradzh Nidoev – December 13, 2013) It’s 10 a.m. on a Sunday. A thin layer of fog hangs in the air, but I can clearly see the dilapidated concrete building in front of me. It is one of the biggest children’s hospitals in Moscow. I am here to work as an unpaid volunteer. “Do you […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Ilya Dashkovsky, special to RBTH – December 9, 2013) Higher taxes on tobacco products has forced more Russians to quit smoking. Tobacco users in Russia decreased by more than 5 percent in 2013, and experts expect a new higher excise taxes to reduce further the sale of cigarettes. Every Russian smoker knows the […]
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MOSCOW, November 28 (RIA Novosti) More than 143,000 Russians have died from HIV-related illnesses since records started being kept, a federal AIDS research center official said Thursday. Vadim Pokrovsky, head of the AIDS research and prevention center, said 20,000 people died from complications of HIV last year alone. Rampant drug addiction and lack of effort in improving sex education […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 15 (Interfax) – The HIV rate is on the rise in Russia, according to a sanitary watchdog, which describes it as an “epidemic.” Between January and September this year more than 54,000 new HIV cases were registered, which was 7.1% up on the same period of 2012, the acting head of the Federal Surveillance Service for Consumer Rights […]
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MOSCOW, November 15 (RIA Novosti) Russians now face fines for smoking in public places, including near metro stations and airports, under new amendments to a broad anti-tobacco law that came into force Friday. Smoking within 15 meters (50 feet) of entrances to the metro, train stations and airports, as well as near hospitals, schools and playgrounds, is now punishable […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – November 12, 2013) Over three-fourths of Russians say they are happy, a figure that has grown by a third in the last two decades, a recent poll said. According to a study by the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion Research (VTsIOM), 76 percent of Russians said they were happy, RIA Novosti reported on Tuesday, citing […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Natalia Antonova, Acting Editor-in-Chief – November 8, 2013) An Uzbek migrant in labor was initially denied entry to a Vladivostok hospital and nearly gave birth on the doorstep. Although the Investigative Committee looked into the incident, they will not be launching a criminal case. And the head of the regional branch of the Federal Migration […]
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(Voice of America – James Brooke – October 31, 2013) James Brooke is VOA Moscow bureau chief, covering Russia and the former USSR With Obamacare dividing the U.S., I thought it my patriotic duty to do an undercover investigation of “Putincare.” My weekend did not have the drama of Solzhenitsyn’s 1967 novel “The Cancer Ward,” but it had its moments. […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 3, 2013) The Kremlin celebrates every temporary uptick in the Russian birthrate, but it and many others typically ignore another deeply troubling aspect of that country’s deteriorating demographic situation: extraordinarily high death rates among adults and especially working-age males. Indeed, those rates are so high Russia ranks 175th among the […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, October 15, 2013) Russia’s lower house of parliament on Tuesday approved the third and final reading of a bill toughening the country’s anti-smoking legislation by introducing fines for smoking in public and encouraging minors to smoke. The bill is part of broader anti-smoking legislation that came into force in June. It sets fines of up to […]
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(RIA Novosti – Karin Zeitvogel – WASHINGTON, September 30, 2013) Russia earns low marks on a global index that rates countries by the quality of life and wellbeing of their old folk, ranking 78th out of 91 countries in the first-ever Global AgeWatch Index released Monday. The index, which lists Sweden at number one and Afghanistan at rock bottom, ranks […]
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(Interfax – September 23, 2013) Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev has acknowledged that security and the armed forces are a priority for state spending and social needs will have to take their place in the queue, Interfax news agency reported on 23 September. “I hope that after we complete the reorganization and restructuring of the armed forces, on which we’re […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, September 9, 2013) Russia has become a relatively happier country, but it still ranks below its autocratic neighbor Belarus, according to a UN-sponsored study released by Columbia University on Monday. Russia climbed eight positions in the second annual World Happiness Report, ranking 68th of 156 countries just behind Belarus (66) and the island nation […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Ivan Varentsov, public health expert with the Andrey Rylkov Foundation; special to RBTH – August 22, 2013) The country’s ineffective and conservative policy stymies efforts to stop the epidemic. The HIV epidemic is one of the most pressing public health problems in Russia today. According to the latest UNAIDS global report, Eastern Europe […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Maria Stambler – August 20, 2013) When Westerners think of Russia, bears, snow, matryoshki and, of course, vodka are among the first things that come to mind. The pervasiveness and social acceptance of vodka have attracted the government’s attention in recent years due to worrying levels of alcoholism. According to a 2011 report by the […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Natalia Antonova – August 19, 2013) It’s a fact of life that most Russians put up with and most expats are shocked by virtually every patient in intensive care is completely cut off from the world: no visitors, no cellphones, and hardly any exceptions. The rules are so strict that even parents of small […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. Aug 13, 2013) Nearly half of Russians (47%) think their rights cannot be protected in the majority of cases, and 38% claim the opposite. Twenty-four percent said their rights had been breached in the past 24 months and only 7% managed to defend themselves, the Public Opinion Foundation said in comment on a poll of 1,500 respondents […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 6, 2013) Russians tend to blame their diseases on themselves, while low living standards and bad environmental conditions are deemed less significant, sociologists said. Daily stress and fears top the list of causes of diseases, Russian Public Opinion Study Center (VTsIOM) told Interfax. Other essential factors are bad environmental conditions (26%), age (24%), a shortage of […]
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(Interfax – NOVO-OGARYOVO, July 30, 2013) The positive dynamic of decreasing death rate can be observed in Russia, Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said. “The results of 2013 show that positive tendencies remain regardless of the flu epidemic we had in January-April,” Skvortsova said at a meeting of the State Council Presidium in Novo-Ogaryovo on Tuesday. The total death rate […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 24, 2013) The number of whiskey fans in Russia is growing and the percentage of young people among whiskey consumers is on the rise as well, sociologists said. Consumption of whiskey increased in the first quarter of this year although a decline had been predicted, Romir Holding experts told Interfax on Wednesday. The opinion was based […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 11, 2013) The death rate in Russia grew by 3,900 year on year in January-May 2013, the Labor and Social Protection Ministry said on Thursday. “Some 813,200 people died in January-May 2013 or 3,900 more than during the relevant period in 2012,” the press service quoted Minister Maxim Topilin. The minister said though that the death […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – MOSCOW BLOG – July 9, 2013) The Russian government has just approved the next three-year budget that runs to 2016 that has cut spending on education and health in favour of boosting it on reequipping the armed forces. Relations between Russia and the west are probably at their lowest ebb since the fall of […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Kristen Blyth – July 1, 2013) Got a headache? Put a cabbage leaf on your head. Toothache? Garlic is your answer. Drinking a shot of vodka will help cure a cold. If you happen to be suffering from an open wound, slap some badger fat on it and your cut will be healed in no […]
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(Kremlin.ru – June 22, 2013) Text of report “XI World Congress of Perinatal Medicine, 22 June 2013, Moscow” published in English by Russian presidential website on 25 June Vladimir Putin spoke at the XI World Congress of Perinatal Medicine being held in Moscow. The congress is taking place in Russia for the first time. Around 2,500 delegates are attending the […]
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(RIA Novosti – June 14, 2013 – Article also appeared at http://en.ria.ru/society/20130614/181666437/Under-16-An-Interactive-Documentary-on-Teen-Motherhood.html) “Under 16: Monologues on Teen Motherhood” is RIA Novosti’s first web documentary. Its title reflects the central story line: All of the girls featured in the film became pregnant under the age of 16, but chose to keep their babies. The viewer can navigate freely, from character to […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, June 13, 2013) The World Health Organization has no right to dictate to Russia how to develop its tobacco pricing policies, Russia’s chief health inspector said Thursday. The head of the WHO office in Russia, Luigi Migliorini, had earlier expressed disappointment in lower than expected increase rates for tobacco excise in the country after 2016. […]
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(Voice of America – James Brooke – June 10, 2013 – James Brooke is VOA Moscow bureau chief, covering Russia and the former USSR) Last week, an American friend of mine received two mysterious white envelopes in the mail. On opening them, he found that each contained a black and white photo of his car, each taken secretly, in the […]
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(RIA Novosti – GORKI, June 10, 2013) Maternal mortality in Russia has fallen by 55 percent since 2005, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday. “We recently obtained data on a decrease in maternal mortality,” Medvedev said at a meeting of deputy premiers. “Since 2005, or in essence since the start of the national healthcare project, it dropped 2.2-fold.” In […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, June 7, 2013) Life span in Moscow has almost reach the level common in Europe, said Moscow’s acting Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. “Muscovites’ life span has increased considerably in recent years, reaching 75.5 years, which is almost as long as in Europe,” he said. The birth rate has risen, too, he said. “About 130,000 births were registered in […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – June 5, 2013) The new anti-smoking law that came into force last week and is seen by the government as a measure to fight population decline has been met more with skepticism than strict implementation. The measures that took effect on June 1 are the first phase in a large-scale program designed […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, June 3, 2013) The physical fitness of Russia’s soldiers remains inadequate due to the poor state of recruits and shoddy training, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Monday. The Defense Ministry has tried recently to improve physical training in the Russian army and navy, with more time allocated to physical exercise, Shoigu said at a […]
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(RIA Novosti – Natalia Antonova, Acting Editor-in-Chief of The Moscow News – May 27, 2013) Here is a bit of uncomfortable information for Western expats who are new to Moscow: If you or your loved ones, God forbid, end up in intensive care, few hospitals will allow you to have visitors. The rule even applies to very young children. The […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – May 27, 2013) Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova says the population decline in that country has “stopped.” Speaking at a press conference in Moscow on May 27, Skvortsova said Russia’s birthrate rose by 5.6 percent in 2012, at the same time that antitobacco campaigns and other health measures helped lower the death rate. The United Nations predicts […]
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