The main paradoxes of Russia

Russia is the largest country in the world, but the population density in its capital is higher than in Bangladesh

Moscow Metro

Russia is the largest country in the world by territory, and even if you subtract from its area the zones of the tundra and the Arctic that are not suitable for life, it will still be ahead of closest pursuer - Canada. However, Russia prefers not to develop all these territories, but to gather in the capital - the population density of Moscow is 4,880 people / km2. This is 4 times more that the population density of one of the most densely populated countries in the world - Bangladesh. And if you consider the density without the sparsely populated Troitsky and Novomoskovsky districts, which were annexed to the capital in 2012, then the population density of “Old Moscow” will be an amazing 11,239 people / km2. This is not a unique result - ahead, for example, is the Philippine Manila (43,079 people / km2), Indian Calcutta (27,462 people / km2), Mumbai (20,694 people / km2), Nigerian Lagos (13,128 people / m2) - so the Russian capital definitely has capacity to grow. The outflow of the population from the outskirts to the capital began in past centuries - and the tsarist government, neither the Soviet nor the modern one, could not defeat it . For comparison, the population density in Russia as a whole is 9 people / km2 (181 places in the world from 195 countries).

The Liberal Democratic Party in Russia has a weak relationship with both liberals and democrats

The Liberal Democratic Party Political Program

If someone suddenly forgot, liberal democratic values ​​put the cornerstone of the equal rights of the entire population and the protection of their rights through various elective mechanisms. At the same time, the word “liberal” is more responsible for the economic component (freedom of enterprise, open competition, free trade with other countries, private property), and the word “democratic” - for political (freedom of speech, separation of powers, open elections). If you look at the political program on the s The Liberal Democratic Party site , then there will be about state control, the consequences of the collapse of the USSR, threats from the West and low unemployment. If you read the slogans on posters and leaflets, then basically also about control, the fight against corruption and the McDonald's. We do not undertake to evaluate whether this is good or bad, but it is very weakly connected with the classical understanding of liberal-democratic values.

Russia has the highest percentage of people with higher education, but this does not affect GDP per capita

Graduate Training

Russia is one of the world leaders by the proportion of the population with secondary and higher education (56%, only ahead Canada). Our pursuers by OECD rating are Israel, Great Britain, Japan, USA. You can find many studies proving a direct relationship between the level of education of the population and its income. However, in the ranking of GDP per capita, Russia is only in the region of 50th place - here our neighbors are Latvia, Greece, Malaysia and Hungary.

There is a lot of snow and mountains in Russia, but the main ski resort is in the subtropics

Sochi

You know - Russia is one of the snowiest countries in the world, a permanent leader in the overall medal standings of the Winter Olympics - we decided to hold our first such Olympics in subtropical Sochi. What to do - in other places where there is the right amount of snow and mountains - it's too cold. Yes, and few people live, then to use the infrastructure that has appeared.

Russia creates the world's best atomic submarines and military aircraft, but doesn’t get along with cars and cell phones

Achievements of the Russian automobile industry

MIG 35, SU 30, SU 35, SU T 50 - really cool military aircraft. Russia is second in the world (after the United States) in arms exports. Russian nuclear submarines are among the best in the world. There are many more examples where Russia is competitive in the technological sphere - there is no doubt that Russian engineers are competent, and the scientific base is up to date. But have you heard anything about the leading passenger cars from Russia, Russian cell phones, or at least coffee machines? Everywhere where you need to create a mass product and compete not only in quality but also in price - in Russia it is full of seams, and isolated attempts to create something caused only a grin.

Any resident of Russia can easily explain to you why this happened and where these paradoxes arose. But it is very difficult for foreigners to understand this. If we forgot about some other Russian phenomena - please share in the comments.

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