Can you buy yourself a 13-story apartment building by your retirement?

Hello, ATS!

I noticed on our forum that Americans and Brits react very emotionally to the elements of everyday comfort in Russia that are familiar to us, Russians. Delicious products in supermarkets, low prices, polite cashiers, clean streets, friendly pedestrians, instant home delivery, minimal crime on the streets...

And indeed, the difference between 1984 and 2024 is so great that a Soviet traveler from that era, having come to us, would decide that we have already built communism. However, all these everyday manifestations of capitalism, although important, are still external. All this is a consequence of the main change - our talented people were again allowed to do business and save.

The peculiarity of capitalism is that it reveals human potential to the maximum: almost everyone can, with enough effort, become rich. Well, when a significant portion of citizens become rich, the entire country inevitably becomes rich after them. Imagine a bedspread lying on a bed. Pick fifty random dots on it, grab each one with two fingers and start lifting it. You will find that the entire bedspread lifts up after these dots.

In Russia, this effect is not so obvious yet, since we have been building capitalism for a short time: since about 1998, when the period of post-Soviet chaos basically ended. Among our wealthy people, the share of those who got rich quickly, in a spurt, is still too high: with the help of pronounced business skills or dangerous adventures. In China, where healthy capitalism is already 46 years old, the picture is more correct. Over these 46 years, a large layer of wealthy people has already emerged there, who got rich slowly - through stubborn and hard work.

Here is an inspiring story from Alexey Raisikh, a Russian entrepreneur from China. His Chinese wife's parents built two apartment buildings in a Chinese metropolis for retirement, 6 and 7 stories high. Translated into our reality, it's like a Russian couple retiring with thirty apartments on the outskirts of Moscow. (link)

"Here is a photo of the second house of my wife's parents in Guangzhou, they celebrated a housewarming party during these October holidays, they finally moved in. Guangzhou is one of the largest cities in China with a population of almost 20 million people.

7 floors plus a residential roof - they will grow vegetables there. And they got chickens. The area of ​​one floor is 150 m2. There is an elevator. They built it for themselves with their pension, so as not to have to walk up to the 7th floor.

The parents themselves and their son live here, with his wife and two children. On the upper floors. They rent out the rest.

The "old" house, six-story, was given to their daughter. The second daughter is now building her own house. We live in Yiwu on our own with Korn.

Both of these houses are not commercial housing. They cannot be sold. They can be inherited by family members...

The second house was built because the commune allocated land to the wife's father for his services to the fatherland, so to speak. They built the house themselves, not in a hurry."

Anticipating the question — the narrator's Chinese father-in-law works (or worked) as a policeman, this is the aforementioned "services to the fatherland". But, as far as I understand, his rank is closer to that of a patrolman than to a general.

So, getting back to capitalism. As you can see, a simple Chinese family worked hard, starting from their twenties, and organized two thousand square meters of housing in a metropolis by the time they retired. The construction didn't stop them from raising four children (if I calculated correctly). And if the next generations at least preserve what they have acquired, without squandering it on various nonsense, they are already guaranteed a comfortable life.

When there are many such families in a country — 10% of the total, let's say — the country inevitably becomes prosperous. Money appears for washing sidewalks with shampoo, and for the total suppression of petty crime, and even for advanced private hospitals.

In Russia, I repeat, petty bourgeois success at the level of individual families is also quite possible. But more time will have to pass before we start seeing this on a large scale. Nowadays, a Russian guy can rarely say to himself: "I'm going to work hard, have four children and become a wealthy person by retirement, like Uncle Kolya, with whom my dad plays football on weekends." There are not enough such role models for everyone yet. But, looking at China, I cautiously hope that in 10-15 years everything will change for the better.

I recently calculated that a well-earning Russian family of middle-class wage earners, having started consciously saving in 2004, would now have the equivalent of 720 square meters in their city, that is, let's say, an apartment of 120 meters for themselves plus 15 apartments for rent. I also pointed out the main reason why there are few such families in Russia: due to a defect in business thinking, well-earning middle-class families do not consider it necessary to save, preferring to spend money immediately.

I don't want to judge the choice of ordinary people, since they spend their money, including in places that belong to me, but I still want to emphasize that we are talking about choice, and not about coercion, as in the USSR. Let me remind you that under socialism, saving was extremely difficult: the state prohibited citizens from owning real assets such as securities, shares in businesses, gold, real estate, and so on. You could use things and even own them (on a bird's rights), but you couldn't make money from personal property... without getting too close to the line of breaking the law, in any case. The strategy of living one day at a time was probably the most reasonable in the USSR for an ordinary person who was not ready to spend several years in prison in case of failure.

Now the situation is fundamentally different. You can spend, but you can also save. This, I repeat, is the personal choice of each family. And, by the way, you can also earn more than average now, outside the "health in exchange for rubles" format, popular in Soviet times. For example, the honored agrarian of Russia, former governor of Krasnodar Krai, Alexander Tkachev is surprised by the salaries of milkmaids - they now need to be offered 120-150 thousand rubles so that they at least start considering an offer to work on a farm. If you consider that combine operators are paid even more, here you go, a guaranteed start: a young couple of a milkmaid and a combine operator earn 4 million rubles a year ($45,000), living in a free apartment allocated to them and buying excellent products at the lowest price. That is, 4 million rubles in purchasing power is several times higher than $45,000.

This is the reality in Russia. But the US and Britain are increasingly reminiscent of the late USSR before its collapse.

Thank you.

a reply to: RussianTroll

So more anti-British and American propaganda laced tripe.

How very consistent of you if nothing less.

Would you like to know what we notice RT?

That would be you continually punting hate and division.

So on that note, and as always, freedom to Ukraine and down with Mad Vlads Russian scum invaders.

Thank You.

Yes, that would all be well and good if your own politicians weren't so corrupt.

Communism is still communism, those who have something to say will naturally enrich themselves and thrive on it. It's human nature.

You can write "#ty Russia" here, then we'll see how long you're allowed to post. At the moment you're just a useful idiot for your government. Bravo.

Of course you'll answer that you would never write something like that because you love your politicians and so on and everything. There's no reason to write that, right?

a reply to: Naftalin

I expected a lot from my post, but not such outright hysteria.

a reply to: RussianTroll

We know what you "expected".

And i dont know about "hysteria" but you're hysterical.

I hope you have a shoe rack for all those clown shoes?

a reply to: RussianTroll

Hysteria?

That's how you might see it, in your little tower, isolated from the rest of the world.

Don't get me wrong, I like Russian culture. But this is propaganda of the highest order.

a reply to: RussianTroll



Hey, forget the US, Britain and the rest of the world. I guess that you haven't checked the level and increasing level of poverty in Russia these days? Especially, how Putin is knee-capping the growth of his own population by killing so many young men that will affect every aspect of your conglomeration of a country for virtually forever more?

a reply to: Naftalin

Once upon a time, residents of the USSR came to the West, which communist propaganda presented as the abode of Evil, and were shocked by the abundance of goods in Western supermarkets. Now the situation has changed by 180 degrees. It is Westerners, stupefied by Western communist propaganda, who come to Russia and are shocked by the standard of living and abundance of goods in my country.

a reply to: CosmicFocus

Yes, I sometimes read the editorials of CNN)))

a reply to: RussianTroll

RT your economy is about a hop skip and a jump away from total collapse.

Down to the sanctions, inflation, and the impact of the war in Ukraine.

We know you are not allowed to admit it all the same.

But its in the post.

a reply to: RussianTroll
I don't know what you're talking about? Our supermarkets are well stocked. There were brief supply problems with wheat and sunflower oil. But that's because of your government, you know, that war in Ukraine. Already forgotten?

who come to Russia and are shocked by the standard of living and abundance of goods in my country.

Yes, in a very negative way.

You have to laugh yourself when you write something like that, be honest.

Do you think you enjoy freedom of speech? Or the people who are locked up for speaking out against the war? Very progressive.

a reply to: Naftalin

Remember Tucker with the dirty old trolly that needed wiping down sharpish.

And when he spent around 2/3 of the average Russian person's monthly wage half filling the thing.

a reply to: Naftalin

And you introduce even more sanctions, and your stores will have even fewer goods at even higher prices))))

a reply to: RussianTroll

Variety is the spice of life RT dont you know?

It's not our fault all your stores have is 100 different types of potato.

Maybe if you choose to return to the fold you can have nice things again.

But until such time you're sitting in the corner facing the permafrost wall.

Until your nation learns to play nice with her peaceful neighbors.

a reply to: andy06shake
I googled him briefly, I've seen him before but can't place him right now. Is he a newsreader? The photos from Google suggest that.

There's some confusion here too, do you mean a trolley as a troll or as a walking aid for the elderly? Both make sense when translated, but I don't understand the context. One is filled up or wiped down, I don't know. But it costs as much as two thirds of the average Russian income. That's what I understood.

I heard about Trump through our media and I have to honestly say that I don't know much about your politics. But I've been reading along quietly for a few months and of course I've also noticed the media war over the years. I pick up a lot here too, although you never know what's true and what isn't.

But to join in the stupid conversation like at the pub, it's more than enough for me

a reply to: RussianTroll

That's not true at all. I don't impose sanctions. The parties that currently make up my country's government do things like that. And I didn't vote for any of them.

Yes, the sanctions are relatively useless, I agree. I was also against sanctions because they affected us Germans more than anyone else from the start.

Yes, I also know about the geopolitical circumstances NATO Ukraine Russia. Nevertheless, Russia started it. That's it.

And to get back to the topic, the reason for this thread and its statement: Go ahead and fool yourself, but don't try it with me.

a reply to: Naftalin



I meant a supermarket shopping trolly Naftalin.

Which he half filled with items totaling about 2/3 of the average wage PCM.

I'm not in the US but the UK.

a reply to: Naftalin

Russia has started imposing sanctions? I laughed for a long time. I have been to Germany many times before the sanctions, I have many friends and even classmates living there, so I know the situation in Germany now. You have deprived yourselves of everything, your energy, your factories, plants and economy. You have let crowds of minrants into your home. The Germans are degenerating. You have to pay for friendship with the USA. You are paying in full.

a reply to: andy06shake
Oh man. Thanks for the explanation. I could have seen the connection between filling up and trolley and prices. Phew.

Out of personal interest, was the amount of money also converted? So a comparison of Russian income with UK prices would be unfair, you get the idea.

Then greetings from across the North Sea, I somehow assume that many people here are Americans if there is nothing listed under location. Well, I don't have anything listed there either. It's just stupid to assume that.

a reply to: RussianTroll

It is Westerners, stupefied by Western communist propaganda, who come to Russia and are shocked by the standard of living and abundance of goods in my country.

That was literally one guy, and he’s a pundit who makes entertainment for money.

Do you think there is more selection at an average Russian super market than a western one?