They are still close to the social milieu from which they came, and share its anxieties as a matter of course. It is not only wages that are late. It is easy to imagine how hard things can get for the elderly. Magnitogorsk city council has opened a hostel where elderly people in difficulty are put up for weeks on end. It also gives them financial help with basic necessities.
All pensioners have free travel.
A vestige of community spirit The city has an ageing population. Deaths outnumber births, probably because of poor management of health and social care facilities during the Soviet period. Life expectancy in Magnitogorsk, which is now 58 for men and 69 for women, has been falling since the end of the 1980s. What is radically new, however, is social exclusion. In the space of two years, the hostel opened by the city authorities has put up almost 8,000 people, either homeless or, more often, in need of temporary help, but the position is still far less serious than in most large Russian cities.