As Russia’s Economy Slumps, Anger Is Spreading

KRASNODAR, Russia — Last year was bad enough for Sergei and Victoria Titov, both teachers getting along in years. Her government salary was slashed by one third, and rampant inflation put some basic groceries like eggplant and cucumbers out of reach.

Then came January 1, and the decision by the regional government here in Krasnodar, the capital of Russia’s southern agricultural heartland, to reduce transportation subsidies for older Russians, forcing the couple to limit their trolley rides.

Fearing worse amid Russia’s economic problems, Mr. Titov recently joined an unauthorized demonstra- tion by hundreds of older Russians who gathered under the bronze statue of a Cossack horseman on the square here and chanted, “Return our benefits!”

They were not alone, neither in Krasnodar nor across this vast nation, where illegal protests and wildcat strikes are erupting more and more by truckers, teachers, factory workers and all sorts of Russians facing steep government cutbacks because of plummeting revenue from oil and gas.

The collapse in oil prices is reordering economic relations around the world, but the change is particularly daunting for Russia, which relies on energy exports for 50 percent of its federal budget.

In December, President Vladimir V. Putin told the nation that the worst of the recession — the economy shrank 3.9 percent and inflation hit 12.9 percent in 2015 — was over and that modest growth would return in 2016. He has been pushing the oil collapse as an “opportunity” that will wean Russia off energy imports and diversify the economy.

Then in January oil fell below $30 per barrel and the ruble hit a record low of nearly 85 to the dollar before recovering slightly.

With the federal budget approved in December based on oil at $50 a barrel, the government announced the country faced a budget deficit of about $ 40 billion, and ministries were ordered to cut spending 10 percent.

Food prices rose 20 percent last year, according to statistics, but often Russians say their grocery tab is up by a third or more, thanks in part to sanctions Moscow slapped on Western food imports in retaliation for sanctions the West imposed over Ukraine.

In a tradition dating from Soviet times, most firms, and state- run companies, tend to cut hours or stop paying salaries rather than fire people to diminish the chances for social unrest.

In Moscow recently, about 15 employees of Sbarro, the pizza chain based in Ohio, stood in the brutal cold outside one franchise holding signs saying, “Give us our money.” Several said they had not been paid in three months.

“They just tell us they have problems,” said Sergei Yudichev, 50, a driver for the chain.

Albeit poorer, Russia remains a petro state, so there are pockets of plenty. Rolls-Royce reported a 5 percent jump in sales last year.

Others just seemed oblivious. Moscow’s City Hall advertised for tenders for its banquets, noting that menu items should include foie gras and Parma ham.

Social media erupted. One Russian quoted a famous line by the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovski from the 1917 revolution, “Eat pineapples, munch your grouse!” and left unstated the second line, “Your last day is coming, bourgeois!”

Mr. Titov, 64, said he felt the economic problems were contributing to a corrosive sense of drift. “Russia always lived with some manner of national idea, a goal: We were building socialism and communism,” he said. “But there is no national idea. Now, we just go with the flow and it is not clear in what direction.”

Russian involvement in wars in Ukraine and Syria has stirred anxiety. Some analysts accuse the Kremlin of seeking overseas adventures to distract people from domestic economic woes.

“People are more alarmed and more tense, because now we are speaking not only about their well- being, but their lives in general,” said Valery Fedorov of the government- owned Russia Public Opinion Research Center.

Many analysts expect people to do what Russians always do in hard times — hunker down and wait it out. Others say that Russians have gotten used to a higher standard of living and that they will protest losing it.

So far, local governments have reacted lightly to the protests. The governor of the Krasnodar Region restored transportation passes for the older Russians receiving the lowest pensions.

Mr. Titov, for one, remains critical. “The Russian people got what they wanted, a czar ruling the country,” he said of Mr. Putin.