Into the Street or Into the Grave

Felix Gorelik

Millions of Russians are learning about capitalism on their own skin, not from the books here in former Soviet Union. In USSR millions upon millions of people received housing without any costs. Each year the construction of new homes and apartments were being built at an unprecedented rate. Befuddling and fooling the people about the benefits of privatization as promoted by Gorbachev, these homes-apartments that were given to them by the Soviet State became privatized, Millions of people fell for this lie, not realizing that from now on the State will not be responsible or pay for the upkeep of the homes or apartments that they had free of charge.

The first result was that the payments for the communal services, rent, started to escalate without any stoppage, making most people unable to pay for all of those services. Now they found out the truth, but too late.

The second step was to expel the tenants of these apartments - starting with elderly people and single pensioners. They kicked these people out, sold the apartments for high money to those who could afford it – the new rich class. It went so far that hundreds of these elderly pensioners were thrown unto the street and many were just killed and disposed of. One sq. meter of apartment space now costs around $3-4, 000! But in better districts, the price is astronomical. No one knows how many thousands of people were killed for those apartments.

This even reached some of the TV programs. There was an example of the wife of Professor Antipov – it seems that she was called into a Moscow police station, but she never returned home. The professor appealed to the police station, but they refused even to hear his complaint. Her tried all the ministry’s of Russia but absolutely to no avail. His wife’s body was found six months later. She was killed at that police station, by the Captain of the police station, in order that he could get her apartment. But this police captain made a mistake, he though that she was a widow and alone. At the investigation that followed this scandal, this police captain had a list of 4,000 elder single Moscow pensioners, and his plan was to evict or kill them and then to get their apartments and then sell them.

According to the new Living Act, adopted by the Russian Duma, the person who bought or got the apartment by illegal means the apartment has the right without any notice to kick the tenants out into the street. According to Mr. Putin, private enterprise in Russia is sacred. Thousands were thus evicted and where do they go, elderly, women with small children, and yet the Russian state will not lift a finger to stop this madness of profiteering. This is the present Russian "democracy."

There is a Russian proverb:" What we have, we do not guard it. When we lose it – we cry!"

Now the Soviet people know it all too well and cry: "We lived under Communism, but we did not know it." We also know and see these "new Russians" who have villas in France, Spain, England and Bahamas. There is one "new Russian" who buys perfume at $1.5 million per bottle! They have airplanes, yachts, castles and palaces. There is one multi-millionaire who stole peoples properly, his name is Melnichenko who had a historic church taken apart piece by piece and rebuilt in France in order to have his son get married in is at a cost of over $40,000,000!

There are other instances that make a heart sick and demanding justice. Time is coming sooner than later when these robbers and murderers will get what they deserve.