Paul Goble
Staunton, August 7 – Because the Russian Federation is so large and because that country has such underdeveloped highway and rail networks, many Russians over the last half century have depended on the use of domestic aviation. But in recent times, ticket prices in that sector have risen beyond the reach of many and cut them off from contacts in other parts of Russia.
Indeed, Anton Sevsk writes in an Ekho Moskvy blog, domestic airline tickets today are "an inaccessible luxury for the majority of Russians.” A single roundtrip ticket between Moscow and Sochi, for example, costs 26,690 rubles (700 US dollars), approximately 75 percent of a Russian’s average monthly income (echo.msk.ru/blog/anton_sevsk/1126770-echo/).
It is thus all very well to talk about the development of resorts in the North Caucasus, "but if even getting to them” is impossible for most Russians, then "for whom are they being built?”
But that is the least of the ...
