the social situation

The social situation in the region is more difficult than in Russia on average.

This is principally a result of the costs related to the separation of the regional economy from the rest of the country, and of its reliance on imports, which results in high prices. This difficult situation has deteriorated further due to the global economic crisis, which affected Kaliningrad oblast especially se-verely. In December 2009, the unemployment rate in the region reached 10.9%

(in comparison to 8.4% on average in the Russian Federation), and was among the highest in the European part of Russia. The wage arrears were also among the highest in this region, which more than tripled during 2009 (to 470 million roubles, or US$15.6 million)²².

22 Source: Rosstat.

[USD]

79.9 86.1

318.8

401.1

119.7

219.5

373.9 385.9

850.5

730.8

577.4

802.6

0 200 400 600 800 1000

Russian Federation

Kaliningrad oblast

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

OSW STUDIES 07/2012 The social situation has been improving since 2010, although most indicators have not returned to the pre-crisis levels and are still below the Russian av-erage. The unemployment rate continues to be quite high (the average rate in September-November 2011 was 9.7%, compared to 6.2% on the average in the Russian Federation)²³. People’s real incomes are gradually growing (in 2010 by 2.6%). The value of outstanding wages was also reduced to 74.4 million roubles (around US$2.5 million) in December 2011²⁴, although the outstanding wage indicator is still among the highest in European Russia. Kaliningrad is also among the ten regions with the lowest average wage (in January-September 2011 it was around 19,600 roubles, or US$650, while the average wage in Russia is 22,600 roubles)²⁵, while the living costs in Kaliningrad are higher than the average in russia. Despite this, the number of residents living below the poverty line has been decreasing over the past ten years²⁶. The stratification of society in terms of incomes is much smaller in the region in comparison to the average levels in Russia as a whole²⁷.

This region has a negative birth rate (in 2010, the number of deaths was around 3000 higher than the number of births, while in the first nine months of 2011 this difference was over 1000²⁸). However, these losses are compensated for by migration. Migrants come to this exclave predominantly from the CIS, mostly from Kazakhstan. 3004 people came to settle in Kaliningrad oblast from CIS countries and the Baltic states in 2010. The positive migration balance was 3307 people²⁹. Since January 2007, Kaliningrad oblast (along with other regions of Russia) has been engaged in the resettlement programme, which encourages

23 Ibidem.

24 Ibidem.

25 The average old-age pension in Kaliningrad between January and September 2011 was 7900 roubles (around US$242), while the average pension in Russia as a whole was 8300 roubles.

Source: Rosstat. According to surveys carried out by the Kaliningrad Monitoring Group, in addition to traditional sources of income, 27% of the residents of this region own a garden plot, where they grow fruit and vegetables for their own needs. 31% of all residents of Kalinin-grad and 40% of pensioners make fruit, vegetable and mushroom preserves every year for the winter.

26 Between 2001 and 2010, the number of such people in Kaliningrad oblast fell from 395,000 to 126,100 (from 39 to 13.2%). Source: Report from the human rights ombudsman in Kalinin-grad oblast ‘O soblyudienii prav i svobod cheloveka i grazhdanina v kalininKalinin-gradskoi oblasti za 2010 god’, http://ombudsman39.ru/annual_reports

27 Source: Ministry of Economy of Kaliningrad oblast, http://economy.gov39.ru/socialno-ekonomicheskoe-razvitie/osnovnye-pokazateli-ser/

28 The average life expectancy in this region is 67.7 years, one year shorter than the Russian average (and five years shorter than in Lithuania); Rosstat 2010.

29 Source: Kaliningrad Statistical Office, www.kaliningrad.gks.ru

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former citizens of the USSR to settle in Russia³⁰. The region’s demographic problems have been deepened by the difficult healthcare situation: the lack of reforms in the healthcare system and insufficient funds allocated from the budget³¹ are restricting access to medical services and are lowering their qual-ity. There is a growing shortage of physicians and hospital beds in Kaliningrad oblast; their number per resident here is among the lowest in the entire Rus-sian Federation, while in the Soviet period, given the military character of this region, its healthcare system was one of the best-developed in the USSR³². This situation is causing many residents to use paid healthcare services in Poland and Lithuania, where standards are higher and the charges are lower than those offered in paid healthcare within the Kaliningrad region.

Other persistent significant social problems are HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, incidences of which are higher than the Russian averages. Nevertheless, it has been possible to prevent these diseases from spreading further, compared to the 1990s. 98.5 new cases of tuberculosis per 100,000 people were registered in 2010 in Kaliningrad oblast (82/100,000 in Russia), while in 2006 this number was 135. At the same time, tuberculosis mortality has been falling over the past few years³³. The number of people diagnosed with HIV was 771 per 100,000 in Kaliningrad oblast at the end of 2010 (while the average number in Russia is 413/100,000³⁴). However, it is worth emphasising that European countries in-vested funds in screening and disease prevention in this region in the 1990s.

Therefore, it is difficult to conclude clearly whether the higher incidence rate concerning these diseases in Kaliningrad oblast reflects a genuinely high oc-currence of these diseases in comparison to the other regions of Russia, or is simply a reflection of better diagnostics.

30 9500 people settled in Kaliningrad oblast as part of this programme by December 2010.

31 The regional healthcare programme for 2009 envisaged such low funds for free healthcare in comparison to the federal standards that it was brought to court by the region’s prosecu-tion authorities. Source: Report from the human rights ombudsman in Kaliningrad oblast

‘O soblyudienii prav i svobod cheloveka i grazhdanina v kaliningradskoi oblasti za 2009 god’, http://ombudsman39.ru/annual_reports

32 In 2009, there were 34.8 physicians (50.1 on average in Russia) and 80 hospital beds (97 in Russia) per 10,000 residents of the region. In 1990, there were 41.5 physicians (45 on average in Russia) and 143 hospital beds (137 in Russia). Source: 2010 Statistical Yearbook, Rosstat.

33 Source: Report on the results and general policies of the government of Kaliningrad oblast in 2010 (DROND 2010), prepared by the Ministry of Economy of Kaliningrad oblast.

34 Our own calculations, on the basis of data from the Russian centre for HIV and AIDS re-search and policy http://www.hivpolicy.ru/statistic/national/

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