When planning what to write about in April, I decided to write one news-related post. With so much going on in the world and in Russia, the task didn’t seem too difficult. Except, of course, that April turned out to be one heck of a month with catastrophes and tragedies piling up on top of each other. It just didn’t feel right to do linguistic analysis of an article about terrorist attacks in Moscow subway.

Today, as I was scanning BBC Russian news, I saw something that I thought would be just right. Not only the subject raised lots of comments in the forum, but it is also easy to relate to and gives a glimpse of peculiarities of Russian life. I’m talking about the issue of retirement age.

The short article titled «Россиянам грозит повышение пенсионного возраста» [Russian citizens are threatened with an increase in retirement age] mentioned that Arkadiy Dvorkovich, Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation, announced a possibility of having to increase retirement age.

Currently, retirement age for Russian women is 55, for men – 60. In case you are wondering why such a discrepancy in retirement age between men and women, here’s a comment from one of the readers:

«…государству экономически выгоднее отправить женщину на пенсию раньше, чтобы она сидела с внуками, чем строить дошкольные учреждения и содержать их персонал…»

[…instead of opening child cares and paying staff salaries, government finds it more profitable to let a woman retire earlier so that she can stay home with grandchildren…]

It seems to me sometimes that to be Russian means to be a conspiracy theorist. Most Russians do not trust their leadership and suspect, not totally undeservedly, their government of all sorts of corruption, selfishness and «антинародные планы» [plans that go against the interests of the people].

It is interesting that here, in the US, the ones to blame are the elected leaders, the politicians. In Russia, it is «чиновники» [administrators and officials, appointed by the government] that get blamed for whatever problems there are in the society.

Comments, in general, are the most interesting part of any article since they allow a glimpse of the real Russia, whether to confirm the stereotype of Russians as heavy drinkers:

«…пенсионный возраст для женщин можно поднять до 65 лет, поскольку в России женщины меньше пьют.»

[…women’s retirement age can be raised to 65, since in Russia women drink less.]

to realize that expectations regarding gender roles are still very traditional, even at the policy level:

 «женщины имеют право на более раннюю пенсию, так как у женщин здоровья много уходит на роды, на воспитание, на хозяйство по дому…»

[women have a right to an earlier retirement since women ‘s health is affected by giving birth, raising children, and keeping the household].

Or to find out that Russia does not have much in the way of Equal Opportunity Employment laws. Many job ads read «требуются люди до 35-40 лет» [hiring workers ages 35-40]. As a result, older workers have problems with «трудоустройство» [getting hired for a job].

Still, compared to the retirement age here in the US, Russian workers don’t have it that bad. Unless, of course, you take into account the average life expectancy, which according to the same article is 59 years for men and 73 – for women.  Not too bad for women, but it looks like an average Russian man works until he dies. The expression «вкалывает, пока дуба не даст» [slaving away until kicking the bucket] comes to mind.

Quite typically, the comments are high on sarcasm and finger-pointing, but light on constructive criticism. Some suggest «улучшение условий труда» [improvements in work conditions], others – «повышение рождаемости» [raising birth rates] and most agree that the government needs to stop «разворовывать пенсионый фонд» [pilfering the pension fund].