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bne September 2017 Eastern Europe I 41
Propensity to protest spikes as Russians worry over wages and family
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Wages, the economy and social policy are the main challenges Russians believe their country faces today, state-owned pollster, the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM), says, and the grinding recession has led to a dramatic jump in the propensity to protest, especially in pursuit of political demands.
Russians perceive that the most serious problems Russia currently faces are connected with low salaries and living standards (24%), the state of the economy (21%) and current social policy (18%), a VTsIOM survey concludes.
However, this has not affected President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating. It was still riding high at 83% in July, according to the latest poll from independent pollster, the Levada Center.
More worryingly for Putin, the propensity to protest with political demands, which has been fairly stable for most of the past decade, has suddenly jumped, according to the latest results from Levada.
While in June only 12% said they would participate in economic protests and 23% said they might participate, the number of respondents who said they would participate in a political protest have jumped from 9% at the end of last year to 15% now. What's more, the number who stated that they might participate in a political protest more than doubled from 12% to 28% between December 2016 and June 2017.
This spike in discontent is probably associated with the anti-corruption rallies organised by anti-corruption blogger and opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is revving up to run in the 2018 presidential election (despite the authorities attempts to ban him from doing so).
Potential for protests – political demands
diet,” she said. “I thought: Why not turn my own commitment to a healthy lifestyle into a business?”
And her timing was spot on, a conclusion backed up by her initial market research. After over two decades of transformation, Russia's emerging middle class has become more urban and internationalised, which is manifest in slowly changing lifestyle choices. Vodka consumption is down and wine drinking is up. The disappearance of fancy French cheese following President Vladimir Putin’s decision to sanction Europe’s agricultural imports is bemoaned
by a section of the population. And fitness and health are in. Russia’s health food industry is growing at 7% a year, she learned, but the healthy snack niche was entirely empty.
Shifrina, who is now 34, started BioFoodLab in February 2011. She
committed initial capital of RUB7mn ($120,000) out of her own pocket, money she had earned as a model in Paris and London before working in the Russian oil industry for the former Russo-British joint venture TNK-BP as well as in the banking industry.
Shifrina said a master’s degree
she obtained at Regent’s Business University in London before starting her Skolkovo studies provided her with practical business lessons
that would prove valuable when
she started BioFoodLab.
“All of the professors were proven businesspeople,” she said. “We covered a lot of interesting business case studies, and talked with a lot of successful businesspeople.”
However, like every start-up, Shifrina’s had significant challenges to overcome, made all the more difficult by the caustic business environment that all small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face in Russia.
She was determined that everything in her Bite snack bars would be natural, with no preservatives
or additives. When she couldn’t
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