Personal income of Russians shrank by 52.2% in January 2016 as compared to December 2015. According to the report by the state statistics body Rosstat, the monthly income in January averaged only 21365 rubles (about USD $291) though only a month ago it was 45212 rubles ($614). Elena’s Models, March 9, 2016

Pollocracy continues its triumphant march across the sweeping plains and endless forests of the world’s largest country, stamping out the last vestiges of real reality there.

Less than a month before nationwide elections to the Russia State Duma and regional legislative assemblies, on September 18, 2016, the Public Opinion Foundation (whose Russian abbreviation FOM should be changed to FOAM) has published the results of a new survey, according to which more than fifty percent of Russians believe the country’s economic situation is satisfactory. At the same time, reports RBC, 44% of respondents said depositing money in Russian banks was a reliable way of saving it.

This astounding victory for what the FOAMsters euphemistically call “sociology” comes amidst a spate of bank license revocations by the Russian Central Bank, a hunger strike by miners at Rostov mining company King Coal, who have not been paid back wages amounting to over 4.1 million euros since May 2015, and an abortive attempt by Krasnodar farmers to drive their tractors in a convoy to Moscow to protest the parceling off of prime land by authorities in the region to big agribusinesses instead of to them.

And those are just the recent “economic achievements” that came immediately to mind when I saw those dubious poll results. There are hundreds of more such examples that I could adduce, starting with the fact that there have been more than a few reports in the media and elsewhere about a decline in the real wages and income of Russians over the past couple of years.

Things are indeed going swimmingly for the Russian economy, and we know that is the case, yet again, because the utterly objective Russian pollsters have told us so. TRR