Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has an article today entitled,  The Russia Left Behind:  A Journey through a Heartland on the Slow road to Ruin, about the small villages and towns on the highway between St.Petersburg and Moscow.  It tells of the people who are struggling to survive and who have not been part of the Russian economic resurgence of the past decade.  Here is an excerpt:

“At the edges of Russia’s two great cities, another Russia begins.

This will not be apparent at next year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi, nor is it visible from the German-engineered high-speed train. It is along the highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg — a narrow 430-mile stretch of road that is a 12-hour trip by car — that one sees the great stretches of Russia so neglected by the state that they seem drawn backward in time.

As the state’s hand recedes from the hinterlands, people are struggling with choices that belong to past centuries: to heat their homes with a wood stove, which must be fed by hand every three hours, or burn diesel fuel, which costs half a month’s salary? When the road has so deteriorated that ambulances cannot reach their home, is it safe to stay? When their home can’t be sold, can they leave?”

The photographs accompanying the story are stunning images of the people who live in these areas.  When I visited St. Petersburg in 2012, the depictions of these images were evident once you left the main city limits.

Tony