Word: lyudinovo
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...want to take the pulse of Russia, as its oil and gas boom of the past few years comes to a sudden and wrenching stop, leave behind the garish consumerism of Moscow and drive 220 miles (354 km) southwest to the small Russian town of Lyudinovo. For the first part of the five-hour trip the road is a smooth four-lane highway that whisks you past gleaming gas stations and a brand new Samsung TV factory. Then everything slows down. The highway turns single-track and becomes progressively rougher. For the last 20 miles, you bump along the ruts...
There's nothing flashy about Lyudinovo (pop. 47,000), whose name translates roughly as People's Town. The central square is a traffic island with a Soviet T34 tank on a pedestal, a World War II memorial. Next to it is a farmers' market, where babushkas from nearby villages with woolly hats and dodgy teeth sell homegrown carrots and potatoes for 25¢ per pound. But look closer, and it's clear that even Lyudinovo isn't frozen in time. A shopping emporium that opened a year ago sells South Korean refrigerators, French yogurt and fake Italian pumps. Several houses...
...production line - laid off 40 people, and cut pay for those who remained by 15%. At least they're being paid: the machinery factory nearby is two months in arrears. "People woke up one day and everything had changed," says Ivan Pronin, the editor of the local paper, the Lyudinovo Worker. "It's like a hurricane blew through here all of a sudden...
...Lyudinovo's woes are not exceptional. The markets for the huge exporting firms that are the foundation of Russia's recent prosperity have suddenly dried up, and that's having an immediate effect on machinery makers and other manufacturers. Construction has also seized up in many places. Last month in Moscow, lack of funding stopped work on a Norman Foster - designed skyscraper called the Russia Tower that was going to be the tallest naturally ventilated building in the world. (See pictures of Moscow...
...biggest fallout to date has happened in cities that are wholly dependent on one big industry, especially steel or autos. In the Urals town of Magnitogorsk, a gigantic steelworks has placed 3,000 workers on forced leave. In Novolipetsk, to the east of Lyudinovo, thousands more have been furloughed since Nov. 14, when the steel factory idled two of its blast furnaces. Alexei Mordashov, one of Russia's best known oligarchs, has shelved an $8 billion investment program at his Severstal metals company that was scheduled for 2009-2011. The government now estimates that companies will lay off about...