News analysis
Russia's heatwave
Hazy summer afternoons
Jul 29th 2010, 11:01 by The Economist online | MOSCOW
RUSSIA’S ability to deal with its legendarily severe winters is a source of national pride. But now Russia’s survival skills have been tested by the hottest summer since records began, 130 years ago. In the country’s central region temperatures have not dropped below 30°C since mid-June; in recent days the mercury has risen as high as 37°C.
A haze from forest and peat-bog fires around Moscow has enveloped the city, turning the multicoloured domes of St Basil’s Cathedral into ghostly apparitions. Moscow’s air is polluted at the best of times, but this smog, heavy with carbon monoxide, makes breathing difficult. Outside the city a swathe of farmland the size of Portugal has been destroyed.
Forest and peat-bog fires are normal summer events in the European part of Russia. But this year the heatwave has lent them greater ferocity, giving the capital an apocalyptic feel. In a country that is not equipped for heat, this is an emergency. The number of corpses being brought into Moscow morgues has more than doubled, to around 25 a day. Most, though not all, are elderly.
Yet it is Russia’s self-destructive streak that has turned testing weather into a tragedy. In the past two months over 2,000 people have drowned trying to escape the heat by dunking themselves in lakes and rivers. (For comparison, 13,000 Soviet soldiers died during the ten-year Afghan campaign.) Fully 90% of them were drunken men, say officials.
Such booze-induced accidents are typical in Russia, where, according to some estimates, alcohol is responsible for over 400,000 deaths a year—whether through heart disease, accidents, suicides or murders. This deepens Russia’s demographic decline, in which the population of 142m has been shrinking by up to 700,000 a year. Corruption and regulatory failures, including low excise duties on spirits, add to the blight.
Similar forces are at play with Russia’s environment. Even as people gasp for air in Moscow, Russia’s authorities have begun to cut down the forests that surround the city, ostensibly to make space for a badly needed road from Moscow to St Petersburg. Given the apparently excessive size of the clearance and the eccentric choice of route, some detect a stink of corruption in the smoky air. But instead of fighting graft, the authorities have been battling environmentalists and concerned residents. As for the bureaucrats, few will breathe in the pollution. Many will take the new fast road to Moscow’s international airport to find respite in more pleasant corners of Europe.
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Readers' comments
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LaContra,
All is well. Had my second kid last week. Hope to send family away from Moscow heat to Sochi in a couple of weeks, once the kid gets a little stronger.
Ha, you are lucky. You got to watch the show in Sevastopol on the Navy day live. I watched it on TV, though have mixed feelings left. Not very impressive for a country pretending to posess any military strength. While the vessels were not rusty junk, as Dido suggested.
+30 and cool breeze is a blessing these days. I have just returned from a btrip to Samara - soaked in cool bath for an hour. Too hot even for a heat-hungry Russian:)))
Vladimir!
All is well here in Sevastopol...its 30C everyday, clear skies, and cooling sea-breezes.
With the way the weather is in Russia its no wonder so many Russian tourists seem so happy to be here in the Crimea this year!
I do not envy the poor souls in Moscow or central Russia...nor even Kyiv for that matter!
The season will be over in a few months then it is off to the UK for another academic season......but I'll be back here next year I imagine.
Hope all is well with you.
:)
Humm...
Russia's heat wave has hit to only Moscow but all of Central Russia. In the Samara and Ulyanovsk regions the thermometer stands firm at 40+C for the past 75 days. The landscape looks like a desert. All is burnt by sunlight. To add to the grim of the picture, this year the Ukraine (the grain heart of the FSU) is expected to be short of circa 3-4m tonnes of quality grain.
The smog is a problem which occurs every year (like the hurricanes in the Carribean). Further, this year it is not that bad - was a lot worse in 2004, when one could not litteraly see hand-stretched far.
The new road to St. Petersburg will add a lot to better econology than the trees that are being cut today do (anyone who ever experiences a 30km/4-6hour trip to Sheremetyevo Airport located on that route will support my comment). So I say - cut those trees and build the damn road.
The Economist somehow conviniently ommitted the fact that the road construction contractors engaged in tree cutting (for that road) are also bound by obligation to seed about twice as much trees in the nearby areas and suburbs to compensate for the loss of trees.
Corruption is truly bad, but getting better (at least my personal experience of a banker shows that more and more businessment chose to go to courts to solve their problems rather than to "purchase" the solution. Unfortunately, there is no clear statistics on corruption. If there were one, the graph would surely show an uptick - all thanks the the GEC (made people value cash more and worry about risks more).
That's my firsthand experience from the field to compliment the Economist blog.
Cheers,
Vladimir
P.S. LaContra, what's up! How is life in the Ukraine these days? Hot and thirsty?
Oh Byron!
Lets not split hairs...
The Blog introduction says...
"In this blog, our correspondents respond to breaking news stories and provide comment and analysis.
Ok they responded, they commented, but they didn't analyse...this time.
Boy you guys are a hard room to play.
;)
Just to clarify, I was, indeed, being facetious (thanks, Nirvana-bound is a twit). nb27, if you took me literally, I can only surmise that you're missing out on all the subversive humor in The Economist's photo captions. Pity.
@La-Contra - true, they may not *have* to write this blog to the same level of quality as is found elsewhere, but usually, they *do.* Compared to other Newsbook postings, this is sub-par. The fact that there are any complaints at all (not about the substance, which commenters contest all the time, but about the writing style) indicates that something is off. While named blogs like Lexington, Babbage, Banyan, etc. occasionally depart on flights of fancy, an anonymous blog like Newsbook doesn't. (I know I'm practically inviting someone to post a hyperlink to just such a posting with that one; go for it.) This blog comments on and analyzes the news, as you said. Analysis must be cogent, almost by definition. This posting leaves a bit to be desired in that department.
Guys,
The reason there seems to be no topic in the article is that this is a blog, not an article, and as we all know blogs don't need topics.
A similar story was on the The Economist's Eastern Approaches Blog. Sweltering in Moscow
Jul 27th 2010, 12:17 by The Economist online | MOSCOW
..(but without the corruption/road angle and the drinking casualties)
Its a blog.
Even the Economist's description explains it:
"In this blog, our correspondents respond to breaking news stories and provide comment and analysis."
In other words...its commentary on other new items, not the in depth analysis we expect from Economist articles.
Its not even a dedicated blog like Charlemagne or Babbage....its the anonymous Newsbook blog.
Lighten up.
@SomeChnGuy - Agreed. I thought I was skipping paragraphs and missing connections, until I realized that this article has no logical connections.
@nb27 - I think that Bryon was being facetious. Perhaps you should look up the word. By the way, there is this excellent website called google.com and if you search for 'facetious' it would give you exactly what you are looking for. Just to help you out, it is a word that makes more sense to people who understand subtlety and have a sense of humour.
Bryon: You speak American? Can't believe you are bragging about a non-existent language. I think you stumbled on to the economist by mistake. By the way, there is this excellent website called google.com and if you search for a conversation rate from Celsius to Fahrenheit it would give you exactly what you are looking for. Just to help you out, 30 degrees Celsius is 86 degree Fahrenheit.
@SomeChnGuy, @Economian,
Agreed. Looks like they threw one of the summer interns a bone.
Corruption is really a social cancer that permeate verywhere in the world. It's so ironic that it always wearing a delicately decorated justice coat---just as the so-called badly needed road in Moscow.
SomeChnGuy:
Can't agree more with you.
As I was reading the article I couldn't find the topic.
So, it is hot and cold in Russia, and the country has a few drunk people, some pollution, and trees cut down...
Umm...I speak American. How am I supposed to know what 30 degrees centigrade means?
Facilitate my backwardness, Economist! I demand illogical Fahrenheit notation in parenthesis after the SI temperature!
What is this article trying to say?
Russian can deal cold -> this summer is so hot -> more forest caught fire -> more elderly died in dog days -> Russian drunks found a new way to kill themselves -> government is building a highway which will cut down air supply and help bureaucrats go Europe... What are you really want to talk about @.@?
wow they need to toughen up. last summers max where I live was 42.
Having spent the last 3 weeks in Russia for work, i can confirm, with personal experience the reports of smog and stifling heat. The change in temperature since January, roughly 60 degrees, is amazing. But to attest to the Russian spirit, everybody just gets on, with little complaint.
When you think everything is wrong with your country, there is allways something to cheer you up.