Moscow (AFP)
"Buckwheat, vegetable oil, sugar, tea," lists Svetlana Ardachéva, a 57-year-old volunteer, filling a package of food aid for Muscovites crowding in the basement of the monastery which hosts the Miloserdie association.
Between the Western sanctions and the embargo imposed in return by the Kremlin on European food imports, the pandemic, the fall of the ruble and a long anemic economy, many Russians are seeing their wallets shrink.
A growing cause of discontent, while supporters of the imprisoned opponent Alexeï Navalny want to mobilize the street in the run-up to legislative elections in September.
"Before the pandemic, we received 30-40 people a day, it is now 50-60 people" who come to collect food, notes Elena Timochouk, employee of the association, leaning against a table loaded with bottles of olive oil. sunflower.
Many are retired, but there are also people who have lost their jobs or whose wages have been reduced, she says.
"You can't buy anything any more. Before, I could afford to feed the birds but now even the oatmeal is expensive. I no longer go shopping. What I am given here is enough for me", explains Sandra, retired. 66-year-old, wearing a red cap, her face framed in long gray braids, before leaving with her bag.
The cause is a drop in real disposable income of 3.5% over one year in 2020, as it has for several years.
But also a surge in the prices of basic food products.
The price of sugar, for example, jumped 64% in January over one year despite efforts by the authorities to control prices.
- Elections in September -
But "the Russians are very sensitive to rising prices, even more than to falling incomes," notes Igor Nikolaïev, director of the Institute for Strategic Analysis of FBK Grant Thornton Russia: "It reminds them of crazy inflation "from the early 90s.
As the legislative elections approach, the political stakes are high, the popularity of the ruling United Russia party being at its lowest and that of Vladimir Putin having slowly eroded, even if it remains high.
"The risks for the authorities have really increased" estimates the economist, certain that the government will announce a vast plan of economic support before the elections: "He must do something".
Since purchasing power began to decline, in 2014 with the annexation of Ukrainian Crimea, the adoption of the first Western sanctions and that of an embargo in return on European food imports, real incomes have fallen by more than 10%, he notes.
"Against the background of a general decline in living standards, an increase in economic problems and a rise in the retirement age, hostility towards the bureaucracy and more and more often towards the president s 'is increased,' wrote sociologist Denis Volkov, deputy director of the independent study center Levada at the end of January in Forbes-Russia.
In January, the president's popularity was 64%, four points lower than a year earlier, according to the institute.
The protests at the start of the year, which gathered tens of thousands of people despite police repression, were not only motivated by calls for the release of Alexey Navalny, according to Mr. Volkov.
The crowds expressed "their disappointment with the authorities, their concern at the lack of prospects and the deadlock in which, according to them, our country finds itself," he said.
"I see Russia stagnating, unable to offer a prospect of economic and political development," said Ekaterina Nikiforova, an 18-year-old political science student who demonstrated in Vladivostok, in the Far East.
Ditto for Arseni Dmitriev, 22, who finished sociology studies and protested across the country in St. Petersburg: "I worked on the numbers and I understood how things are going in the country : we look at the statistics and we understand that real income is falling ".
Economic discontent appears to be a weak point for Vladimir Putin, who built his popularity as president on rising living standards in the early 2000s.
And supporters of Mr. Navalny are counting on the legislative ballot, planning new gatherings in the spring and summer.
According to a Levada poll, in early February nearly 43% of Russians expected demonstrations motivated by economic demands, a level last seen in 1998. But only 17% say they are so far ready to participate.
© 2021 AFP