
The Russia Left Behind - mxfh
http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2013/10/13/russia/
======
olegious
Interesting article but this is nothing new. Russian villages have been dying
for centuries- life was always better and easier in the cities. Putting
forward gypsies as examples of a "Russia left behind" is disingenuous at best-
gypsies live in their own societies by their own rules all across Europe.

Frankly I'm a bit tired of all the negative coverage of Russia by the NYT, The
Economist and other respected establishments. I can drive through the
Appalachians or towns in the South or Detroit and describe an "America Left
Behind"\- but we all know that those places do not represent the USA as a
whole.

Edit: Russia has problems everyone knows that, I would just like to see more
balanced coverage- talk to the middle class that has grown in the cities, the
startup people in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities, compare how things
are today to how they were in the 90s.

~~~
D_Alex
>Frankly I'm a bit tired of all the negative coverage of Russia by the NYT,
The Economist and other respected establishments. I can drive through the
Appalachians or towns in the South or Detroit and describe an "America Left
Behind"\- but we all know that those places do not represent the USA as a
whole.

But... This is not about a cherry-picked stagnant area, this is about a main
highway between Russia's two largest cities. It seems to be woefully
neglected, while facilities used by Putin are done up to @#$%-the-expense
standard. This is about the leadership of the country gone morally astray, and
not caring about who sees it.

> Russia has problems everyone knows that, ...

Oh well, that's allright then. No point actually doing something.

~~~
olegious
You're missing the point- negative coverage on Russia is ALL you hear coming
from the major Western media outlets, this is my complaint.

~~~
smtddr
I understand. Africa(-Americans) & Oakland can almost never catch a break
either... trying to explain the imbalance is an uphill battle. If you only got
your world-view from western-TV, you'd think America is paradise with perfect
people, aside from blacks & mexicans. Everyone outside of it are savages not
worthy of respect or consideration; perhaps a bit of pity though...

~~~
mogrim
> If you only got your world-view from western-TV, you'd think America is
> paradise with perfect people, aside from blacks & mexicans.

That's not the view of the US I get from Spanish news: there's a /lot/ of
coverage of gun crime, obesity, etc. This is "balanced" by the amount of US TV
shows that are imported, of course.

~~~
kristofferR
Yeah, it's the same here in Norway too.

The US gets a lot of bad press here. Obesity, corruption, disfunctional
government, inequality, surveillance, religion, puritanism, gay hate, gun
violence etc are much more in the focus in the news about the US than the
positive sides of the US are.

Most Norwegians thinks of the US as this slightly weird, ignorant country that
believes it's still the best at everything and doesn't bother with the rest of
the world.

~~~
Mikeb85
> Most Norwegians thinks of the US as this slightly weird, ignorant country
> that believes it's still the best at everything and doesn't bother with the
> rest of the world.

Most Canadians think the same. Visiting the US several times, having family
that lives there and listening to Bloomberg radio every morning and afternoon
during my commute reinforces that opinion...

While I have no doubt the US has some benefits (high pay in certain
industries), overall it seems like a strange, ignorant, backwards place. The
fact that the Republicans have shut down the government to block health care
(which is pretty much universally regarded as a good thing) makes it seem even
more backwards (especially when watching a protest on TV in which someone was
waving a confederate flag in front of the White House...).

~~~
cobrausn
Of course 'health care' is a good thing, that's a fairly meaningless
platitude. This particular implementation being good or bad has yet to be
determined. I personally don't find the ACA to be a 'good' system, but I wish
they would just shut up and let it succeed or fail in production.

Also, a large part of why you have cheap healthcare and access to lots of
drugs because we paid the cost to research and make them. With the ACA, a lot
of that (potentially) goes away, though from the look of the early prices it
seems the cost of healthcare has gone up for most, and near free for some,
meaning the healthcare industry still gets massive profits. I'm wondering if
it was good for the rest of the world to have our healthcare system be so
expensive.

Hopefully not, I'm pretty tired of being terrified of becoming sick enough to
need medical care.

~~~
Mikeb85
> Also, a large part of why you have cheap healthcare and access to lots of
> drugs because we paid the cost to research and make them.

Not entirely sure about that. It seems like many (most?) of the 'important'
drugs worldwide were either developed by educational institutions or
laboratories (some belonging to corporations) from a wide variety of
countries, not just the US.

~~~
cobrausn
The only reason it is currently profitable to make drugs at all (and the
reason we've seen research in so many) is that US consumers will buy them at
market rate with IP protection, i.e., too expensive for most places. If we
didn't exist as that profit center, many would not have been put through
clinical trials and brought to market.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/02/10/the-
tru...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/02/10/the-truly-
staggering-cost-of-inventing-new-drugs/)

~~~
smtddr
I'm scared to get into healthcare debate, but I will say that while I
understand the importance of clinical trials, if there wasn't any.... then the
drugs would just be brought to market regardless even if it means people die.
In Nigeria; even just in ChinaTown San Francisco, you can get some
_questionable origins_ drugs. But indeed, all bets are off when you take that
stuff. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, maybe DOOM! Not saying this is a good
thing, but the drug market would continue without USA, IMHO.

------
DominikR
This article is outrageous propaganda, I knew that the US government had
issues with the Russian government, but it saddens me to see that most posters
here have nothing but hatred towards Russia.

Just the fact that the NYT picked life in a gypsy settlement (no water, no
electricity, child weddings) to generalize about the life in Russia makes it
obvious to me that the journalists had no other intentions but to villify the
Russians.

What they did not tell you is that gypsy settlements look the same in France,
Germany and other industrialized countries. (Yes - children not going to
school, no electricity, no water, weddings of 13 year olds and so on)

~~~
yummyfajitas
This article is barely about Russia at all. It's mainly about wealth!
privilege! inequality!, which is a perennial favorite topic of the NYT.

You aren't expected to read this and thing "omfg, Russia is so bad". No one in
the US is thinking this - all they are thinking is "omfg, if inequality keeps
growing, the US will be like this". This is of course nonsense for various
reasons (we don't have gypsies and therefore the bottom 50% will not adopt
gypsy cultural indicators, and our inequality seems to be merely differing
rates of positive growth).

Note that many of the Americans on this thread are posting about Detroit,
Appalachia and even Oakland (!?!?).

~~~
grey-area
_You aren 't expected to read this and thing "omfg, Russia is so bad"._

I think that's exactly what you're supposed to think, and you'd be quite
justified in coming away with that impression when the strapline is _' A
journey through a heartland on the slow road to ruin.'_ It's a beautifully
executed and written article with a slanted premise. Reminds me of Newsweek or
Time with better graphics/writers to be frank.

Imagine this as an NYT article about the US (which has examples of much of the
same poverty, inequality and disillusion) - there's no way it would be
published in this paper, without sympathetic asides/articles about other areas
of the US which are developing well. The slant here is that the entire Russian
nation is decaying and on a road to ruin.

I admire the quality of the writing in the NYT (it beats any other english
language paper I'm aware of), but often the editorial slant is far too
parochial for a truly global newspaper, and far too close to the official US
government line on important topics (like surveillance or budgets for example)
where the NYT should be standing up to government, not relaying its
pronouncements without question.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Imagine this as an NYT article about the US...there 's no way it would be
published in this paper, without sympathetic asides/articles about other areas
of the US which are developing well_

A quick ddg search for "site:nytimes.com detroit" shows this to be incorrect:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/us/detroit-faces-
problem-o...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/us/detroit-faces-problem-of-
stray-dogs.html?_r=0)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/19/us/detroit-files-for-
bankr...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/19/us/detroit-files-for-
bankruptcy.html?pagewanted%3Dall&pagewanted=all&pagewanted=all)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/business/detroit-is-
now-a-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/business/detroit-is-now-a-
charity-case-for-carmakers.html?pagewanted=all)

~~~
grey-area
Stories about Detroit are not presented as stories about the entire US.

~~~
jonknee
Nor was this presented about the entirety of Russia. The NYT has featured the
infrastructure and inequality problems in America dozens of times. If you
actually read the paper it's a theme that appears almost daily (healthcare is
a big part of this). Here's a very recent example that I remember reading
titled "Inequality in America: The Data Is Sobering":

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/business/economy/in-us-
an-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/business/economy/in-us-an-
inequality-gap-of-sobering-breadth.html)

~~~
grey-area
_Nor was this presented about the entirety of Russia._

I disagree there, the strapline talks of a heartland in decline, and the
article talks of the rest of Russia as separate from the two major cities. Not
sure I would have called this propaganda myself but it does read to me as a
portrait of the entire country and system in decline, not a single journey,
partly because of the framing and strap.

 _If you actually read the paper_

I've read it extensively for years thanks as I used to be a subscriber; the
snark is not helpful.

 _Here 's a very recent example that I remember reading titled "Inequality in
America: The Data Is Sobering"_

I agree the NYT features some great writing and some great journalism
(including the article you cite). I'm not trying to say they never criticise
the US, but that they haven't produced splashy front-page spreads about the
decline of the once great nation of America which compare to this article -
given the recent hostilities between Russia and the US (Georgia, Syria,
Snowden), they should be doubly careful about cheering on the side of a very
partial US administration or denigrating Russia as a country. To my mind, they
haven't challenged that administration sufficiently on drones, surveillance,
budget, wars, Guantanamo bay, etc. They have published critical articles but
have also published many apologias for the gov. position, and on Snowden for
example their coverage has been more notable by its absence from the front
page than by its presence. I remember when the story broke the largest story
on their home page for the day was a story about high prices in Disney theme
parks.

Still, they compare well to almost every other newspaper, most of them have
their blind spots, and there are some real high points in their coverage IMHO,
like _The drone that killed my grandson_ , though that was an op-ed rather
than one of their writers.

------
memracom
Makes things sound desolate and hopeless. But the residents of provincial
cities like Kazan would tell a different story pointing to new subway lines, a
new airport terminal, new rapid transit from the airport to the city center,
new highways, new apartment buildings, etc.

A foreigner will say, but St. Petersburg is an important port city. How could
the main road link between the port and the capital be in such a sorry state?
The answer lies in the Russian way of doing things. Russia has an excellent
train network, and goods mainly travel from the port to the capital by train.
Roads serve those areas which are not important enough to have trains, so when
you take a road trip in Russia, you are choosing to travel off the beaten
track in the back of beyond. Charming and full of natural beauty, but also
full of poverty just the same as you would see on an indian reserve in the
USA. Only the natives live in such places in Russia, clinging to the
traditional way of life of their ancestors. You look at these people and see
white faces like those of you and your neighbors and you are confused because
you are used to seeing brown faces on the aboriginals. But in Russia, the
white faces ARE the aboriginals, living in this land since before the end of
the Ice Age 12,000 years ago when all of Europe was under a thick sheet of
ice.

Russia is a very big place, and the government cannot afford to spend its
money everywhere and anywhere. In order to make Kazan and Sochi into modern
cities that are productive and desirable places to live, they have to neglect
some other places. In a vast territory that means that most of the villages
are neglected. But there are lots of people who like it that way because they
want to live in the forest, breathe fresh air, collect mushrooms and berries,
etc. It is their traditional way of life since time immemorial.

~~~
tinbad
> Russia is a very big place, and the government cannot afford to spend its
> money everywhere and anywhere.

Is that how you justify pumping 50 billion in olympics that they shouldn't
have in the first place?

~~~
userulluipeste
"Is that how you justify pumping 50 billion in olympics that they shouldn't
have in the first place?"

Well, it's not that it didn't happened before. Greece was the olympics host a
few years ago, and spent for that billions of euros. Greece!

~~~
tinbad
In some ways the Greece culture and politics can be compared to Russia's. In
most cases they cannot however.

What's interesting about the Olympics example is that the amount is 3 times
more than the previous Olympics. And I can assure you that that is not because
everything is 3 times more expensive. The majority of this funding ended up in
the pockets of corrupt politicians and their business friends, not reinvested
in things like infrastructure, providing jobs and uplifting the economy as a
whole. This is exactly where the article is spot on and why one of the most
important roads in Russia is still an embarrassment of civil engineering.

~~~
userulluipeste
I don't know about the costs involved and if three times the previous costs is
justified, but that the corrupt politicians and their business friends are
feasting on government projects is not a rarity either. Just to leave you an
example:

[http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2012/11/dod-contractors-
cos...](http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2012/11/dod-contractors-cost-
nearly-3-times-more-than-dod-civilians.html)

------
dm8
How much time does it take for NYT to make these interactive stories? (pure
technology not data collection or field journalism)

If it's not significant then this is certainly future of journalism.

[EDIT]: Looking at couple of interactive stories in recent past (Snow Fall and
New Silk Road) looks like this is something they want to repeat again and
again. Do you think they've developed some sort of framework (like
Django/Rails) ?

~~~
jeffpersonified
I'm particularly curious what they're using these interactive stories for.
Refining design or technique? Gauging user interest? Putting processes into
place to speed up their development?

Really impressed either way.

~~~
ssully
It's most likely all of that. They seem to be testing the waters on what
written journalism means in the 21st century, and I think it's great.

The Rolling Stone recently did an article[1] that I otherwise would have
ignored(due to my distaste for their material), but ended up reading because
of the fantastic presentation. I don't know if this trend will stick, or how
it will evolve, but it is certainly an interesting spin at modernizing these
features.

[1]- [http://www.rollingstone.com/feature/the-geeks-on-the-
frontli...](http://www.rollingstone.com/feature/the-geeks-on-the-
frontlines#i.c7ydtg2vgdx1s3)

------
victoro
There is nothing really that novel about this story to anybody who knows
anything about Russian history. Rural Russians have been saying "God is too
high and the Tsar is too far away" for centuries now. A strong central
government that cares little for the provinces is the status quo that has been
maintained despite a variety of different political systems. Unlike the US,
which has had powerful agrarian political parties that were fiercely
suspicious of a strong central government since at least Jefferson, Russian
serfs and the overall "agricultural class" have never had any significant
political power (factory workers and other lower-class city dwellers were the
prime force behind communism while the serfs were mostly an afterthought).

I don't know if anyone can make any sort of objective claims as to whether the
highly centralized Russian power structure is any better or worse than a more
evenly distributed one. Yes people in small towns live without infrastructure,
but they also choose to live there, often for the "clean air" as the article
notes. I'm sure there are many American individualists out there that would
love to be able to disappear into an unregulated wilderness, mostly free of
government scrutiny and yet be like 4 hours away from the capitol.

~~~
hollerith
>(factory workers and other lower-class city dwellers were the prime force
behind communism while the serfs were mostly an afterthought)

I heard that that was not because the communists did not like or did not trust
the serfs, but rather because factory workers knew how to show up at a
particular time and place, e.g., the location of a demonstration.

------
austenallred
I spent two years living in a variety of cities eastern Ukraine (Donetsk,
Kharkov, Makyevka, Gorlovka), and what I saw there wasn't too far removed from
what is described in the article. As I read the article, with the exception of
the 14-year-old Gypsy wedding, I found myself saying "Oh yeah, I remember
that." I would argue that what was described wasn't so much a story of a dying
and decaying Russia, as it is some aspects of Russian/former-Soviet culture,
especially in small cities or villages.

------
dangoldin
Meta:

I love this style of presenting journalism content and hope to see more of it.
Finally seeing the web being used to do things that print cannot.

Great job to the NY Times team.

~~~
jeffpersonified
How long as the NYT been in beta anyway? It seems like quite a while now, and
really look forward to the official release.

------
martincmartin
Long Bet #5: "By 2012, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times will
have referred to Russia as "the world leader in software development" or words
to that effect.”

Predictor (who lost) was Esther Dyson, an investor in several Ruassian start-
ups. Challenger was Bill Campbell, chair of Intuit.

[http://longbets.org/5/](http://longbets.org/5/)

~~~
Egregore
Actually the IDE I'm using - JetBrains's Intellij IDEA is made in Russia and I
think it's the world leader in IDEs.

~~~
vetinari
JetBrains is actually from Czech Republic, not Russia. Yes, they have offices
in Moscow and SPB, but also in Munich and Boston - that does not make them
German or US company either.

~~~
Egregore
I think the owner decided to register the firm in Czech Republic because it is
more western and also a country with Slavic language. As far as I know both
the owner and majority of developers are from Russia.

~~~
vetinari
You are right, I had a look into business register and names of owners like
Sergey and Valentin are not exactly Czech names.

------
anovikov
Nothing new and does not really show how bad things are. Places like he
visited are among relatively polished ones. And well, using a wood stove an
not having indoor plumbing is simply the traditional way of life, most of
those people are subsistence farmers and that obviously doesn't give good
quality of life. Problem is that in many regions, there is nothing reasonable
people could except subsistence farming + receiving relative's pensions and
drinking them away, because there are no jobs and no economy per se. That in
turn, happens because the regions are populated sparsely enough due to cities
sucking out population, and smart and initiative people who could start a
business find that they have so few customers that they are better off just
getting a full time job in Moscow, so they leave. And this filtration goes on
and on, and we get the population that is rotten itself.

That is a natural process, and will result in rural Russia being completely
abandoned (probably with no permanent population at all) in couple
generations. In the region where i am from, rural population (settelements
under 100,000 population) declined by a factor of 5 in 80 years (while total
population declined by just 25%). There is not much left and what's left
cannot sustain itself, too few people to even maintain infrastructure, which
in turn pushes remaining people out.

Soviets somewhat contained this trend with restrictions on movement
(propiska), which were a gross violation of human rights and Soviet
constitution itself, and these limitations were lifted immediately after
Soviet Union collapse. That only accelerated in the process.

Probably in countries where there are no real reasons for people to live
(except resource-rich regions), some kind of non-democratic control is needed
to simply make them survive.

When leaving becomes very easy, it is true even in not-so-bad countries. Why
so many people left Baltic states and they turned from most prosperous Soviet
republic to the holes they are now? Answer is simple: because they CAN leave.
Nobody is going to live in Vilnius if we can just catch a train, find a job
and stay in Berlin with no paperwork at all. And it doesn't even require
Vilnius to be very terrible. You just can't make it like Berlin, no way.

I know i will be downvoted for this, and of course i'd hate to be in the shoes
of those poor chaps locked up in their countries/regions, but it's extremely
sad to see places decline, depopulate, and turn into forests for no real
reason at all except that the people who lived there initially did so because
they've been forced to, and now they are no longer.

~~~
lmm
By all accounts Estonia has been doing very well in cerent years, even though
Berlin is available.

~~~
guard-of-terra
In 2012 Estonia's population was 1 294 236 (census), which is 5,5% smaller
than in 2000, which is still smaller than before the collapse of Soviet Union.

And that number is predicted to be exaggerated because census was carried over
the internet, promises of penalties for those skipping it - the real number of
residents might be even smaller.

[http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2013/0569/mir01.php#3](http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2013/0569/mir01.php#3)
linking to Regnum

It might be a very nice place to live but it still crumbles.

------
1gor
This coverage reminds me Soviet articles from my childhood about hard life of
common people in the USA. Funny to see same propaganda being produced for
domestic consumption in the USA now.

~~~
RomanPushkin
exactly, it's a journalism as it is: concentrating on the worst distorting the
reader's view and the truth.

PS I live here, moreover between Moscow and Spb. In the nice and largest city
on this path (Tver'), but they skipped it accidentally. Why you should know
something good about Russia? Look, they're savages.

------
V-2
You may argue that it's biased and cherry-picked - presumably as opposed to
all these counter-arguments like "I've seen worse around Brooklyn" or "I
happen to have a lower crime rate than NY in my 100 thousand Russian town"
:))) That's solid stuff fortunately, no cherry-picking going on.

However oops, overall statistics also tend to show that Russia isn't doing all
that great

Eg. Human Development Index, which measures the standard of living based on a
wide variety of data, doesn't even place Russia in the world's top 50.

It only does slightly better than Cuba or Mexico. Or is this evil, imperialist
dollar-paid propaganda too (this one never gets old) :)

------
tvladeck
I wish they'd stop saying "problems of the last century".

What's described in this article has never stopped being a major problem in
many parts of the world.

~~~
evli
As a Brazilian national I wholehearted agree with this. It is very easy for a
develop world country reporter to inform the world on our seemingly barbarous-
like ways.

As in the case of Brazil, this has been a problem for generations, like our
authorities do not live in Brazil or only come for the world cup and carnaval.

The picture is much dire, its part of the culture, we are raised to think this
way. Someone applies for a job in the police not because they seek order but
because they know the corruption behind it can put their family in a better
spot.

You can find examples of this in any 'developing' country.

~~~
varjag
It is not a developing country though, it pioneered space travel, invented
TOKAMAKs, underwater electric-arc welding and self-balancing binary trees.

If anything, it's on the way downhill into late 1800s, at least culturally.

------
avenger123
The America Left Behind A journey through a heartland on the slow road to
ruin.

Could we not use this title? Take the examples of Detroit, New Orleans,
Cleveland, Galveston or Atlantic City and many other cities in America and the
same could be said.

The headline is catchy and I'm not sure if I agree with it.

It would be really nice if NYT did a real piece about how American cities are
declining and the causes of this and also how we could change it. I guess its
easier to study Russia, instead of looking inward.

------
afiedler
This reminds me of this NY Times article about the Amtrak line between NYC and
Washington, DC. Similar story of two booming cities and hundreds of miles of
urban blight and poverty in between:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/magazine/amtrak-
industrial...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/magazine/amtrak-industrial-
corridor.html)

~~~
brohee
This article is pure Soviet propaganda!

------
patrickg_zill
I spent some time in a different part of Russia, 10 days in Volgograd. The
best and brightest do try to leave for the big city, not much different than
many stories of people going to NYC or California in the 40s and 50s.

~~~
khuey
Many of the best and the brightest leave smaller cities in the US for NYC or
California today.

------
Tarang
Besides the content, Is anyone going to mention the beautiful use of the line
as a scrollbar with the SVG? Its nice to see more and more articles beginning
to use more interactive web technologies as opposed to just a static text and
pictures. There's more of a reason to read content online than just having the
latest content.

------
democracy
My cosmopolite was sustaining the pride and reputation of the Earth when the
waiters closed in on both combatants with their famous flying wedge formation
and bore them outside, still resisting.

I called McCarthy, one of the French garcons, and asked him the cause of the
conflict.

"The man with the red tie" (that was my cosmopolite), said he, "got hot on
account of things said about the bum sidewalks and water supply of the place
he come from by the other guy."

"Why," said I, bewildered, "that man is a citizen of the world--a cosmopolite.
He--"

"Originally from Mattawamkeag, Maine, he said," continued McCarthy, "and he
wouldn't stand for no knockin' the place."

A Cosmopolite in a Cafe by O Henry

------
dchichkov
I think that in the moment, it is very beneficial to have large chunks of
rural, not overpopulated lands. And I don't think that it is in any way a
problem.

Current approach of developing natural resources is an ecologist nightmare!
Just consider growing fields of mono-cultured plants. And in
developed/overpopulated countries, well, the land is 'developed' on the
country-wide scale. Ecological nightmare on a country-wide scale!

So. Until we learn how to build better-than-natural ecologies, I'd never
consider any under-populated regions as a problem. I wouldn't even think of
such region as poor, considering the richness of local ecosystem and natural
resources.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Beneficial to whom? Because residents of said chunks do not feel happy - no
heat, no roads, no money, nearest hospital 50 km away.

"richness of local ecosystem" doesn't do anything for people.

~~~
dchichkov
Just look at the photos of these people. Doesn't look like they are too
unhappy. As to the "richness of local ecosystem", it does do _a lot_ for
people. Consider this another article from the same newspaper, took me only a
few seconds to find it, on the frontpage:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/us/the-soaring-cost-of-
a-s...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/us/the-soaring-cost-of-a-simple-
breath.html?ref=us)

And compare the photo of that girl with photos of the children from the
original commment article.

------
thrownaway2424
Why do they bother hauling goods by road if it takes days, and they have
railroads and inland waterways?

~~~
raquo
I'm guessing here, but maybe it's because road transport is a flexible and
free market, and railroads are anything but that.

~~~
varjag
Exactly. The rail is a state monopoly, with prices and turnaround times worse
than truckers.

------
colinbartlett
Есть ли жизнь за МКАДом? Я думаю, нет.

~~~
RomanPushkin
У меня кореш живет в Десногорске (за сотню километров от Смоленска, маленький
городок, градообразующее предприятие - атомная станция). Его невеста из
Москвы, есть там квартира и возможность жить. Так вот, они почему-то предпочли
жить там. Хотя ничто не мешает жить в Москве. Он, кстати, пилит там свои
стартапы для US рынка в том числе.

Более того, наблюдается обратная тенденция -- люди бегут из Москвы в свои
родные города и живут там. Почему? Все просто: ты зарабатываешь в Москве 50
тысяч рублей и снимаешь квартиру за 30. Так зачем там жить, когда в родном
городе ты сможешь зарабатывать столько же, только жизнь будет спокойнее?

Моя мама, кстати, жила под Москвой (Солнечногорск). Переехала с мужем в
поселок рядом с Ульяновском. Продали квартиру и купили там дом. Очень им там
нравится, много ягод, грибов и т.д. Спокойная жизнь.

Так что это палка о двух концах, не все так однозначно ИМХО.

~~~
kutakbash
>Почему? Все просто: ты зарабатываешь в Москве 50 тысяч рублей и снимаешь
квартиру за 30. Так зачем там жить, когда в родном городе ты сможешь
зарабатывать столько же, только жизнь будет спокойнее?

Сразу видно москвича. Проблема с регионами не в том, что там доходы ниже (хотя
они объективно ниже), а в том, что в регионах нету множества работ. Это важно,
если ты не программер / дизайнер на удаленке и не водитель троллейбуса. Не в
любом российском милионнике можно найти софтверную контору, которая занимается
чем-то кроме аутсорса. В российских стотысячниках в этой области нет вообще
ничего, кроме сопровождения одинесок и сборки визиток на джумле.

------
itchitawa
To me this is a good sign. Not every small town needs to exist. Historically
there were reasons for them - agriculture I guess. But now they often serve no
purpose except to house the old people who have trouble leaving. The fact is
the world doesn't need as many farmers as it used to so these places are
better off left to disappear. It might feel sad if your hometown is lost but
it's only physical things whose usefulness has passed.

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ommunist
I believe I am going to hack Russia by going to live there for a while. Let's
see what I can do. They have 13% of business tax only.

~~~
pampa
Actually, its 6% if you use simplified taxation. After that you can cash in
your companys profits every quarter for a reduced 9% dividend tax (instead of
13% personal income tax).

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revelation
They need to stop with the scrolling effects for the big images. It just
flickers, stutters and is all together a terrible experience.

~~~
MrSourz
On my device it was very smooth. Machine: Chrome Version 30.0.1599.69 on 2012
rMBP

~~~
joshlegs
it was good on my laptop too, but annoying. some things can be too fancy

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ohwp
Wow great pictures! Didn't have time to read the article but I had to look up
the photographer: [http://www.kostyukov.com/](http://www.kostyukov.com/)

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scarfacedeb
It's definitely not a whole picture, but it's rather accurate view of the
countryside and abandoned villages. I live in Tyumen and it's not that bad,
thanks to the gas and oil industry. But I visited a couple of villages and _it
seems to me_ that this article is rather accurate portray of the average out-
of-the-city life in Russia.

I think that it's written as propaganda, but it doesn't change the facts.

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usaphp
I just want the author to go to a Moscow or St Petersburg subway and compare
that to the one in New York City. He will be amazed how clean and beautiful is
Moscow subway, and he will see how dirty and slow is NYC subway compared to
it.

You can not judge the whole country just by driving on a highway which not
many people use and filming a gypsy wedding which has nothing to do with
Russia.

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kutakbash
That 'cartographic' parallax is seriously cool. They even increase scale
indicator accordingly.

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sailfast
Beautiful presentation work - congratulations to Mike Bostock and company at
the Times for making something engaging to read in the modern web environment.
Great work and I enjoyed the experience of reading it - things like this will
be critical to the future of journalism.

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palderson
Putting the article aside, I love the functionality. Mapping a story to
exactly where you were on the trip when it occurred, the way the NYTimes has,
is an amazing way to present the story.

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Duckpaddle2
The subject matter aside, that is the coolest web page implementation I have
seen in a long time. The rolling zoom with the mouse wheel and the map display
on the side was just neat.

~~~
tomrod
I liked the road progression on the left too.

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rpupkin
NYTimes' maudlin travelog aside, Russia is in deep sh*t:

[http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Implos](http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Implos)

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wuschel
I have only skimmed this article and thus will not comment on its contents,
BUT I wonder what is the software package that has been use to generate the
article layout?

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danso
I'm old fashioned...the parallax motion and the embedded widgets and things
don't do much for me, but what really sticks out to me is the great
photography, and this format, whether you like the effects or not, at least
showcases the great images.

That said, I don't think this story-telling format is the future of
journalism. The reason why this story looks so attractive is because there are
so few ads, if any. Yes, this format lends itself to being able to do full-
page ads or special built-in ads...but those take work to both acquire and
construct. Given that these type of feature stories are far and few between,
I'd be surprised if the higher-CPM on special-feature-story-ads outweighs the
bespoke-effort needed to acquire and implement them. In any case, I highly
doubt that if it does, that it does so at a scale that is meaningful.

And another thing: the reporting and editing is obviously the bottleneck here.
But let's let that be a given...the other main bottleneck is the non-web-dev
reporters and editors trying to get their ideas into this innovative format.
My guess is, that even at the New York Times, this is a very painful and slow
process, even if your devs include Mike Bostock, creator of D3. Part of these
features are done with generated templates. And part of them appear to be
handcrafted.

But again, it's not the hand-crafting that is necessarily the most painful
part of the tech workflow. It's the editing across systems that weren't
designed for this collaboration. Have you ever built a fancy website in Flash
only to have your client want to change a bunch of links that were hard-coded?
Imagine that, except across several editorial departments. Another way to
think of it: newspaper reporters and editors typically do not use Sublime
Text.

\----

Some technical observations:

The NYT interactive team has been doing analytics on these different story
formats. Check out the source code for their previous feature on The Jockey:

[http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/the-
jockey/#/?chapt=bre...](http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/the-
jockey/#/?chapt=breaks)

At the bottom is some JavaScript that seems to be handcoded for that feature
and refer to analytics:

    
    
              NS.jockeyMeta = {
                photoPath: 'http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/multimedia/bundles/projects/2013/Jockey/',
                videoStillPath: 'http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/multimedia/bundles/projects/2013/Jockey/',
                videoPosterPath: 'http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/multimedia/bundles/projects/2013/Jockey/',
                videoPath: 'http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/video/multimedia/bundles/projects/2013/Jockey/',
                url: 'http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/the-jockey/',
                viewport: document.documentElement.clientWidth,
                legacyDesktop: window.NYTMM_IE,
                imageSizes: [1400, 1280, 1024, 980, 800, 680, 640, 540, 420, 380, 320, 280],
                videoSizes: [320,600,970],
                blankImage: 'http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/multimedia/ICONS/greyC.png',
                      comment_page_url: 'http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/the-jockey/comments/'
    
    

If you view the source of the Russia story, you won't see any such analytics
code. You'll see a lot of D3 code and even some special video-player helper
code that I haven't seen on the other features. So again, these features are a
pretty new thing, but I think it's a long way from being something that is
scalable, and not because for lack of technology or skill at the NYT.

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beautybasics
Why is that it's fine for major western media establishment to paint
unsettling picture of east.

\- Of course west is doing better

\- But that does not mean they can point communities that are worse off

\- I'am sick of BBC covering negative stories on China & India (i'am one)

\- Why don't NY Times and the like, point to their own troubles where they
left ordinary people troubles and spend all the recourses in covering the
powerful { Politicians, Actors, Musicians, Sports Personale}

\- Just like the way BBC sucks up to monarchy

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codecrusade
Can someone pen a similar - 'The India I left behind' and put the damn thing
on NYT

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ilteris
does anyone have any idea how they did the left bezier drawing as one scrolls
down? thanks.

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squozzer
Two words -- West Virginia.

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hoiplodocus
would love to see this 12 hours drive from the russian driver dash cams

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ujsfdo
USA WINS!

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exhilaration
How long until this happens to the United States?

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caiob
Is this open-source?

