Nikolai turns the key and lets himself into his two-room apartment near the Chelyabinsk tractor factory. After hanging his coat up, he walks into the tiny kitchen to put a kettle of water. "I just have some crackers to offer you," he says simply, but without embarrassment. "Or you can have a few slices of bread."
With a monthly pension of 230,000 rubles ($51), and a monthly apartment fee of100,000 ($22), Nikolai has very little money left over for anything but the most basic necessities. Like many older Russians, he had once set aside a comfortable sum for his retirement, only to watch its value plummet when the ruble became convertible, until it was worth virtually nothing.
"I had saved10,000 rubles for my retirement (about $16,000 at the1988 exchange rate)," he says, shaking his head. "For years I worked two jobs, so I could put away enough money to live on and still have a bit to do nice things, like take a trip once in a while.
"But it all just turned to paper, in a very short period of time," he says
with a shrug. "And there was nothing I could do about it. All of the money I
had ever saved -- gone. It's as though I worked all those years for free. Now
I have nothing but my factory pension."