Lives Of Quiet Desperation
With the economy in shambles, some Russians are increasingly turning their private frustrations into public protests. Demanding payment of wage arrears, and a halt in the slide of their currency, many seek the resignation of President Boris Yeltsin.
However, even with the burden of years of economic malaise, most Russians still belong the silent majority who, as CBS News Correspondent Richard Threlkeld reports, believe that public protests are useless.
In the Russian village of Sokolniki, where there is seemingly an overwhelming cause for protests, Pushkin Street remains quiet.
Since the Sokolniki coal mines closed down, almost everyone is out of work. Most have given up hope for recovering back wages. Many are living on potatoes, stolen from the collective farm down the road, while living in old unheated shacks.
There are thousands of places like Sokolniki all over Russia, full of people with no jobs, no money, no prospects and no hope. They are all aware of the approaching Russian winter.
Among the desperate residents is Lena Filatova, an unemployed nurse. She and her daughter, along with eight people, share two tiny rooms.
"Do I have savings?" she asks. "Here are my savings, some pickles, and mushrooms. We're living like animals even animals live better."
As for public protests against the government, the folks on Pushkin Street are of one opinion. "What's the use?" they say. "It never does any good. The leaders won't listen."
Teachers at the nearby town of Donskoi have already started a different kind of protest; they stopped teaching in September. The teachers of School Number 12 had not been paid their monthly salary of $30 dollars since last Spring.
One teacher, who had been teaching history for twenty years, says they are doing it for the children.
"The children are hungry and cold when they come to school" she says. "They don't have enough clothes. Don't they understand in Moscow? They're killing the children, they're killing our Russia, they're killing the future."
The people on Pushkin Street and the teachers at School Number 12 are part of Russia's silent majority. They are abandoned by their government, left to fend for themselves in a rubble of shattered dreams and broken promises. For them, every day is one of quiet desperation.