Coronavirus in Russia: stay at home, except when you go to work
Stories from Russia in times of lockdown
My father, Yury Dmitriev, lives in Cherepovets, 9th biggest industrial city in Russia. There are 45 registered cases of coronavirus here (data given for 17.04.20). Yury shares his 33 square meters flat with his cat Muslik, found in the street 6 months ago.
His mother, 80 years old, lives 7 minutes walk from him. Since Vladimir Putin introduced holidays because of coronavirus, she hasn’t taken one foot outside. Yury buys her food and leaves it under the door. His mother puts on gloves to carry them in and washes every item with soap. “She also puts out some food for me, like pancakes or pilaf. Non-contact exchange”, — Yury says.
Being on retirement, Yury still works, as most retirees in Russia. He owns a small business making furniture. After self-isolation started in Russia, he left his workshop and almost stopped working.
“Most clients understand and don’t urge me forward”, he tells. But not everyone. “Some people don’t give a damn about coronavirus. Tomorrow I’ll go to take measures for a kitchen”. When going out, he takes precautions: “I carry around a bottle of ethanol and wet tissues or just put on gloves”.
With the main source of income being left away, Yury mostly relies on his pension now, which is 14500 rubles (about 177 euros) per month. Out of this sum of money, he has to pay 4000 for house utilities, 6500 for renting the workshop and 2000 for a credit. I will let you do the maths.
To help people on retirement, the Russian government promised to pay each of them a lump sum of 4000 rubles, but these payments haven’t been enacted yet.
Being in a similar situation, many people keep going to work, although the president proclaimed April a non-working month. After two weeks of lockdown, many shops in Cherepovets opened again “We have to pay our bills”, Yury explains, “I heard, policemen fine some violators. But there are too many, they can’t just fine everybody”.
Road police of Cherepovets have recently introduced surveillance methods to fine people breaking the rules of lockdown. They are mostly applied to drivers who were in contact with sick people or came from other regions.
With rare exceptions, Yury stays at home all the time. If not the money issue, he wouldn’t mind: “I have always dreamt of working from home, without having to pay the rent. My dream has come true. But I don’t have needed instruments, so I can’t make things for sale”.
Yury has many projects ongoing. “One man asked me to make a handle for his knife, now I’m working on it”. On top of that, he’s almost finished a lamp and a ship made of coconuts (he saved a whole suitcase of those), dreamcatchers, tomahawks, mandalas.
After money, the second biggest problem coronavirus brought to Yury’s routine is a sedentary lifestyle: “I’m afraid more people will die from physical inactivity than coronavirus. I lack activity. Even started doing morning exercises and some primitive yoga. I also sing every day, it’s a good training for the lungs.”
What he’s got enough today, is chatting with friends. “With some, we call each other every day. Some people are bored and even want to come over, but I’m a little scared. A friend of mine was planning to visit me, but we decided to postpone for a week”.
While the coronavirus outbreak is still to reach its peak in Russia, with 27,938 cases registered, people are trying to trade-off between self-isolation and everyday surviving. The government cooperates in its own ways, not by giving people money, as in some other countries, but by allowing regions to ease lockdown regulations.
