Protests Go Beyond Navalny as Putin's Reserve of Good Will Wanes

By Georgi Kantchev | Photographs by Arthur Bondar for The Wall Street Journal

ORYOL, Russia -- Around 200 miles southwest of Moscow, Oryol is a world away from the bright lights and prosperity of Russia's capital city. To understand the tens of thousands of demonstrators who turned out across the nation to protest the detention of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, look here.

Industry in Oryol never fully recovered from Russia's post-Soviet collapse. Once-proud factories sit abandoned. Parts of the city lack indoor toilets and running water. With few job prospects, many young people feel they have no choice but to leave.

The treatment of Mr. Navalny may have lit the fuse for protests, but the rallies quickly became an outlet for Russians' widespread grievances about falling living standards, collapsing infrastructure and chronic corruption, and mark a tectonic shift in relations between ordinary citizens and the Kremlin.

"People don't go out to protest for someone, they go out against something," said Artyom Prokhorov, a marketing manager in Oryol who shares a two-bedroom apartment with his ex-wife and their two children. "Navalny simply served as a trigger. People are tired of what's happening here."

For much of President Vladimir Putin's 20 years in power, oil prices were high and economic growth solid. Russian military interventions abroad stirred national pride. And Russians largely stayed out of opposition politics and protests.

Now, after a fall in oil prices that analysts say could last for years and sanctions that have choked off foreign investment, reserves of good will are waning. Russians have increasingly taken to the streets in recent years over everything from pension reforms to garbage disposal.

"Guys, we agreed with you -- we don't get involved in politics, and you give us the opportunity to earn," Mr. Prokhorov said, referring to the social contract with the Kremlin. "This year a Ford Focus, next year -- a mortgage, then a child at the university. And we will close our eyes to your stealing."

Now, though, Mr. Prokhorov said, "the social elevators don't work at all."

It is a phenomenon apparent in many poor and middle-income countries as economic growth that lifted millions from poverty and offered the possibility of social mobility sputters. Now, with the added economic toll of the pandemic, millions feel their dreams of a better life are unraveling.

Boosted by a commodity boom in the 2000s, Russia's economy has scarcely grown in recent years. Last year, real disposable incomes were around 10% lower than in 2013.

In comments broadcast on state TV on Sunday, Mr. Putin said, "There are lots of problems and scarce funds," adding that he could understand why "irritation is accumulating."

When a person's living standards decline, they start blaming their boss, he said. "That's what happens to bosses," Mr. Putin said. "You can't do anything about it."

Places like Oryol -- which means eagle in Russian -- have borne the brunt of the decadelong stagnation. The city and surrounding region are among Russia's poorest, with average monthly salaries at $400, less than a third of what they are in Moscow.

Factory jobs have largely disappeared. A plant the size of 10 football fields that once churned out air conditioners and refrigerators now stands abandoned, its broken windows reflecting the winter sunlight.

The city's population -- down a 10th from its Soviet peak to around 300,000 now -- is aging fast as the young depart. Nearly 30% of the region's residents are retirement age, one of the highest shares in Russia.

"In the foreseeable future, Oryol will turn into a large retirement home, " said local economist Andrei Tiunov.

Sergei Antontsev, head of the regional Department of Economic Development, said the fact that the region isn't a financial center and doesn't have significant reserves of raw materials are the main factors constraining its development.

There are also allegations of corruption. Local judicial officials say that about one billion rubles, or $13.6 million, were allegedly stolen from public works projects -- including refurbishment of a local theater and soccer stadium -- that were supposed to celebrate the city's 450th anniversary in 2016.

In 2007, construction began on a local hospital that was to serve 12,000 patients a year. But shortages in funding and building materials, flawed plans and other problems continually interrupted work. Today, the 11-story building stands unfinished. Locals call it the Titanic.

Last year, local authorities opened a criminal investigation into the project.

Oryol's regional healthcare department said that work is under way to finish the hospital and that it has asked the federal government for funding.

To be sure, some parts of Oryol have experienced urban renewal in recent years, with craft beer shops and sushi restaurants popping up in the city center. On a recent afternoon, a local Irish pub, the Dirty Boots, was full of locals drinking Guinness beer and eating quail eggs.

But a 15-minute walk from the pub, past a derelict medical facility emblazoned with a graffiti sign reading "The End of the Universe," houses with fading paint reveal a different reality.

Many lack indoor toilets. Oryol isn't alone: Around a fifth of Russians, mostly in rural areas, have no access to indoor sanitation, according to official statistics.

"Here people live like this their whole lives," said Ludmila Anatolyevna, 46, who uses an outside toilet and gets her water from a communal pump on the street.

In January, about 700 people came out to protest Mr. Navalny's detention. While far fewer than the estimated 40,000 people who turned out on the streets of Moscow, it was Oryol's biggest rally in a decade.

Places like Oryol were for years strongholds of the United Russia party, which backs Mr. Putin. But increasing dissent raises the risk that the president is losing some of his backing in the Russian heartland.

"What we saw at the protests is the coalition of the fed-up," said Mark Galeotti, a Russia expert at British think tank Royal United Services Institute. "The issues might be different but what it all comes down to is the long-term management of the system."

According to a poll by the independent Levada Center published this month, 43% of Russians name a general dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in the country as the main reason for the protests, while 16% pin them on Mr. Navalny's jailing.

The opposition has suspended large-scale protests to focus on parliamentary elections coming up in September. But allies of Mr. Navalny called on Russians to come out in their courtyards Sunday and hold up their phone flashlights in a sign of support.

Mr. Prokhorov plans to join the event. He is also ready to go out if new street protests are called.

"I prefer to choose fighting," he said. "Maybe I'll lose, but I'll still try."

Valentina Ochirova contributed to this article.

Write to Georgi Kantchev at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

02-14-21 0954ET