Oil Causing a Building Boom in Russia (An Insider Look) - 11/1/07

In Moscow there is a great building boom is occurring from the influx of petro-dollars.  Below is part of an email from a friend of Beyond Fossil Fuel who recently visited Russia.  

"All the money from Russia is flowing into Moscow, driving up costs astronomically. A lot of it is oil money, because as you know the Russians export, especially to Europe. So, the money comes in, but on a fairly narrow economy, so to speak. Some people are making a lot of money, and most are struggling to keep up. Along the way, there's the mob, which functions more the way the old mob did back in the states, extortion, but usually for something tangible, and the people paying get something for their money.  The Russians here tell me that there is something of a plan, though. Oil money is being pumped into infrastructure -- construction is everywhere, especially roads and bridges/overpasses, because all these new cars have overburdened the grid here. Those cars are usually imports, Japanese and Korean are big, lots of Toyotas (Camry's Land Cruisers, etc), but also lots of BMW's and Volvo's. I look for the older Soviet style cars, but they make up only about ten percent of what you see. On the other hand, you get a good look, because they park on the sidewalk (they didn't plan for parking spaces before , because...), so everywhere you go, it looks like there's an emergency, because cars are pulled up or back up  directly in front of the city's buildings. I keep expecting Batman or Spiderman to come into the scene, but not so far. Anyway, they are pumping money from oil into making up for lost time, and I don't think we've seen that kind of growth in a long time back home. It's like the gov't is letting the oil companies and mob have a fair amount of leeway as sort of a necessary evil, but they've got this addicted hamster running on a wheel that's powering up the whole country. They're going to leap from 1950 to 2020 in 10-15 years. I'm pretty sure we're still in 2002, and maybe losing ground. That's probably not fair, but I can tell you it's disheartening to see the momentum here that use to be back home.  See, now that's strange, being here makes me nostalgic for the good old 2000's back home, when a few years ago I would have thought it'd make me nostalgic for the whole "Happy Days" time frame... Go figure."

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