| "Someone must have got what we didn’t receive,
right?" my intelligent Dad used to say. And again I see that he was
right here: the citizens lost their benefits, whence the bureaucrats obtained
benefits.
Even if the "social package" gives a right to get medicine
and free public transport passage, the handicapped from the war are deprived
of a free "Oka" car (Ed. a small economy class car supplied
with special devices for handicapped drivers) and free installation of
a telephone.
The disabled and participants of the [Great Patriotic] War and those
who suffered the blockade [in Leningrad during war] are deprived of their
right to receive once or twice a year a free ticket to any destination
in the country, the right to free dental treatment and a 50% benefit on
payment for a telephone and the hiring of militia to protect their houses
and flats while their hosts are away.
The disabled and other participants of the [Great Patriotic] War, those
who suffered the blockade [in Leningrad during war], war veterans, the
handicapped and handicapped children are virtually deprived of their right
to free rehabilitation and resort treatment (they will get only 600 roubles per year as part of the "social package"; whereas such treatment
costs at least 14,000 roubles).
Veterans of labour, victims of Stalin's repressions and those who served
on the home front during the Great Patriotic War lost all federal benefits:
it is up to the regional authorities to decide what benefits they should
get, provided the regional authorities have money for this.
At the same time state officials and members of their families preserved
their right to medical insurance paid for by the state, rehabilitation
and resort treatment at discount prices, work and personal cars, the payment
of transport costs to another place of work and "regional" additional
payments to wages and benefits (whereas all the citizens lost such benefits.)
As a "present" the bureaucrats got a right to a [state] subsidy
when buying housing and the right to "additional monetary payments"
exceeding their wages by 2.5 times.
See also:
Social
Policies
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