Another Nail in the Coffin of Russian Village Life: Post Offices Set to Close in Many Rural Areas

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 5 – Russian villages are disappearing at an increasingly rapid rate under Vladimir Putin whose so-called “optimization” programs in healthcare, education, and infrastructure support (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/01/putins-optimization-completing.html and https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/07/why-russian-countryside-is-dying.html).

            Some villagers see the approaching death of their way of life as a result of the closure of schools, libraries, and medical facilities; but now, they face yet another symbolic end, the closure of post offices that link them to the outside world, as the Russian postal authorities struggles to cope with its debt (rbc.ru/technology_and_media/06/10/2023/651ed6489a79471eac27a8c4).

            Russian Post has requested that it be given the authority to close smaller post offices and reduce the frequency of mail deliveries if the government cannot come up with more subsidies, something unlikely given the extent to which the Kremlin has been shifting resources from the social sphere to military spending in support of its war in Ukraine.