On this year’s agenda: energy security. One imponderable: how to ensure Russia - a key oil and gas exporter - uses its clout not as a weapon but as a reliable partner.
About the only certainty is that Russia’s notoriety for its gross extremes will continue unabated. Moscow is now the world’s most expensive city, yet the rest of the country (St Petersburg aside) remains, by all accounts, in a Soviet-style time warp.
In the capital, the pace of cosmetic modernisation is telling: in the month I was away, the city’s main airport underwent a major face lift, as did the signage on all major roads leading into the city. Suddenly there are English subtitles, where previously you had only Cyrillic. You have to chuckle at one garbled translation though - the Customs note atop the luggage carrousel carries a warning to declare, inter alia, “cultural values”.
Yet despite being awash with petrodollars, the money isn’t getting through to where it’s needed most. Pensioners exist on a weekly handout below the government’s set subsistence level.
Noone seems to know – or, care – how to ‘close the gap’. One of my colleagues recently spotted the economic development minister shopping in one of Moscow’s most exclusive supermarkets - where apples are individually polished before being put on display. Prices are apparently so exorbitant that shoppers turn up as much to be seen as to stock up on the essentials.
Meanwhile, my neighbour – the archetypal babushka – seldom leaves her apartment, because she can’t afford it.
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From the Financial Times: “the great Athenian lawgiver Solon is said to have legislated that every Athenian bride should eat a cooked quince on her wedding night before being bedded by her husband,” all to ensure that the bride went to bed with sweet-smelling breath. Spot the equity there!
