(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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MOSCOW, October 21 (RIA Novosti) Russian President Vladimir Putin signed off Monday on the introduction of stiffer penalties for smoking in public as the government continues in its battle to improve health standards in the country. The law sets fines of up to 3,000 rubles ($94) for smoking in public places designated as no smoking areas. The steepest fines […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, October 17, 2013) Drinking of alcohol by Russians has dropped by one-quarter over the past three years, according to a leading health official. The Health Ministry’s substance abuse specialist, Yevgeny Bryun, said alcohol consumption per capita currently stands at 13.5 liters of pure ethyl alcohol equivalent, down from 18 liters in 2010. The 2010 figure was […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – October 16, 2013) A court last week ordered activist Mikhail Kosenko to undergo compulsory psychiatric treatment for attacking a riot police officer during the May 6, 2012 protest rally on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s inauguration. The ruling sparked concerns among rights activists that Soviet-era punitive psychiatry, when dissidents were found to […]
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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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(RFE/RL – Brian Whitmore – October 10, 2013) The fact that a Moscow court found Mikhail Kosenko guilty of assaulting a police officer despite video evidence to the contrary didn’t exactly come as a surprise. In recent years, Russian courts have convicted Mikhail Khodorkovsky of stealing oil from himself and Aleksei Navalny of embezzling money without making a profit, just […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – October 10, 2013) Russia’s top psychiatric institution held an open house Wednesday in an attempt to popularize its work, amid speculation about a revival of Soviet-style punitive psychiatry following the sentencing of an opposition protester to mandatory mental treatment. The Serbsky Center of Social and Judicial Psychiatry welcomed about a dozen journalists […]
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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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(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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(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 23, 2013) Around 2.5 million liters of wine have been delivered by Georgia’s enterprises to the Russian market since Russia lifted its ban on Georgian wine imports, Gennady Onishchenko, head of the consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor and Russia’s chief epidemiologist, told Interfax on Friday. “A total of 690 shipments of alcohol products weighing more than 2.4 […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 20, 2013) A serious change has occurred in the Russian mentality and political system since the breakdown of the Soviet Union, Levada Center sociologists told Interfax. Seventy-four percent of 1,600 respondents polled in 130 towns and cities in 45 regions in July said fellow citizens had changed a lot or entirely in the past two decades […]
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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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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – August 7, 2013) One of Russia’s most revered priests, widely considered a “dissident priest” for his strong criticism of the Russian Orthodox Church, was stabbed to death on Monday night in the northwestern town of Pskov. Pavel Adelgeim, 75, was found dead by his wife late Monday, with the suspect still at […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – August 5, 2013) The performance of popular U.S. rock band Bloodhound Gang was canceled over the weekend after one of its musicians shoved a Russian flag into his underpants at a concert in Ukraine, prompting outrage from Russian officials and calls for an investigation into the possibility that the flag fiasco was […]
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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 29, 2013) One in two Russians gives three (out of five) to the existing economic situation in the city, town or village where the respondent lives, the majority do not feel confidence in tomorrow and their social activity is decreasing, Levada Center sociologists told Interfax. According to the results of the poll held on July 18-22 […]
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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 director of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN), Viktor Ivanov, has confirmed an upsurge in smuggling Afghan heroin to Russia. “We see a larger flow of Afghan drugs to Russian territory. (Drug hauls) intercepted by our services in the first half of the year increased 1.5-2 times as compared with the same […]
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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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(Interfax – MOSCOW, June 27, 2013) Russia took the 33rd place out of 54 in the rating of the happiest countries. The top ten includes Latin American countries, Finland, Switzerland, Azerbaijan and others. The global survey was held by the Gallup International/WIN, the association of independent pollsters, in over 50 counties, including Russia and the post-Soviet space, where the association […]
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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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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Obrazkova, special to RBTH – June 5, 2013) With GMO products paving their way into Russia, people become concerned with the trend. While some support GMO products, others express their doubts. Russia is gradually starting to fulfil its obligations as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). One of these obligations […]
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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 – 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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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – April 29, 2013) Anna Arutunyan is an editor and correspondent at themoscownews.com As the head of an organization that helps people suffering from cystic fibrosis, an incurable genetic disorder that affects the lungs, Olga Alekina, of the Aid to Patients with Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, wasn’t exactly daunted when prosecutors demanded an explanation for […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 26, 2013) Russian human rights commissioner Vladimir Lukin said that the tragedy in the psychiatric clinic in Ramensky village in the Moscow region’s Dmitrov district was a consequence of a number of issues in the sphere. “I share deep grief of all relatives and loved ones of the victims. Of course, possible criminal liability for what […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 25, 2013) Russians are mostly happy with their lives, especially those living in Tyva, Dagestan, Adygea and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, the poll held by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) showed. The poll was carried out in 2,220 settlements in 79 Russian regions among 56,900 respondents. A total of 73% Russians consider themselves happy. The following […]
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(RIA Novosti – GORKI, Moscow Region, April 24, 2013) New legislation banning smoking in public places could save up to 200,000 lives annually in Russia, which has some of the highest rates of smoking in the world, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday. “I hope that it [anti-smoking law] will contribute to reducing this factor [smoking],” Medvedev said […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – April 18, 2013 – Robert Coalson) The whole process took less than an hour. At 10:26 a.m. on March 18, Lyudmila Popkova was handed a piece of paper ordering her to appear before Moscow Judge Tatyana Neverova. At 11 a.m. the same day. Hustled off to court by investigators, Popkova spent 15 minutes in front of […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 9, 2013) Mortality rates in Moscow have declined by practically every parameter thanks to the modernization of city healthcare in 2011-2012, city health department head Georgy Golukhov said at a city government meeting on Tuesday. “The death rate from external causes decreased by 25% in the reporting period; the death rate from respiratory disorders went down […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 9, 2013) Physical education and sport in Russia have improved over the past seven years in the eyes of respondents polled by the Russian Public Opinion Study Center (VTsIOM). The percentage of positive opinions grew from 42% to 59%. The negative opinions declined from 44% to 30%, VTsIOM told Interfax. The majority of positive opinions were […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Kristen Blyth – April 8, 2013) A few years ago, an autistic boy named Anton wrote an essay about life. “People rush. People swear,” it reads. “Now happy. Now serious. People bang and rattle. They’re not shaggy. They get lost. Ginger. Deep. They skin things. People renovate houses and barns. People will endure a bit […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 4, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/04/window-on-eurasia-life-expectancy-in.html) For the first time in a decade, life expectancy at birth in the Russian Federation has declined, the Russian state statistical agency says, and while the decline was small, demographers say that it reflects a disturbing trend, one that also includes the end of the much-ballyhooed mini-“baby […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Eugen Tomiuc – April 2, 2013) More than two decades after the fall of communism, most former Soviet countries still have mortality rates significantly higher than those in Western Europe. Cardiovascular disease, high infant-mortality rates, infectious diseases, and a decrease in the quality and financing of public health-care systems were the main factors driving the trend, […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 3, 2013) Over one million people have died from Afghan heroin in the world since 2001 and the NATO operation against drug production in Afghanistan is ineffective, Russian Federal Drug Control Service Chief Viktor Ivanov said. “Since the 2000s, since the beginning of the Enduring Freedom operation in 2001, over one million people have died from […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Mikhail Loginov – March 21, 2013) Mikhail Loginov is a journalist and novelist based in St Petersburg. He is the author of the recently published bestselling political thriller “Battle for Kremlin”. Throughout Russia’s history its rulers have attempted to curtail the consumption of alcohol and/or tobacco. Gorbachev had little success in the 1980s; will this year’s new laws […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Winning – March 21, 2013) Health officials are complaining that Russia is becoming increasingly dependent on the West for medical supplies and top-flight treatment, as a growing number of Russians choose overseas clinics over state medical care. Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova told regional health authorities on Wednesday that instead of traveling either abroad or […]
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