Russia Showing Further Signs of Unrest

In the old days the central planners loved the odea od cities with an that revolved around what massive factory or industry, as time went on the factories decayed and the cities needed to be propped up by the central government. (In America this would be the entire state of Michigan)

March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Alexander Skachkov, waiting to sign up for unemployment benefits in Zlatoust in Russia’s Ural Mountains, laughed as he recalled a November newspaper interview with a local official.

“He said the crisis won’t affect us, everything is fine with the government and unemployment is falling,” said Skachkov, 34, a plumber. “I’d like to see what he’d say now.”

Things are not fine in Zlatoust, population 188,000, where production at the Zlatoust Metallurgical Works has dropped 80 percent since October amid plummeting demand for its steel alloys. Workers yesterday announced a hunger strike to protest wage cuts of almost 50 percent and a shortened workweek.

One of Russia’s so-called monocities -- company towns that are home to about 12 percent of the country’s 142 million people -- Zlatoust is a prime example of the dangers of the Stalin-era practice of depending on one factory to employ workers, heat apartments and support small businesses.

Now the people are restless and the government is scrambling. Coming off the demonstrations in the Far East this could be sign of further troubles in Putin's Russia.