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The Sarmatian Review IndexSeptember 2002Volume XXII, No. 3 |
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Alleged exchangePercentage of Polish debt to the United States annulled in the early 1990s: 50 percent, or several billion dollars. Alleged reason for the annulment: the rescuing of six US spies from Iraq after Baghdad invaded neighboring Kuwait in 1990. Source: Polish Intelligence Service (UOP), as reported by Agence France-Presse, 11 May 2002. DemographyPercentage of peasants among world population at the beginning of the twentieth century: 90 percent. Percentage of peasants at the beginning of the twenty-first century: 50 percent. Source: Ryszard Kapuscinski, "Wojna czy dialog?" Rzeczpospolita, 2 March 2002. Russian statisticsEstimated number of Russians traveling abroad in 2000: 18 million. Source: Organizers of Moscow International Travel and Tourism Exhibition, as reported by Eric Engelman, Associated Press (Moscow), 28 March 2002. Estimated number of Russians who traveled abroad in 2001: 3.5 million. Reasons for the alleged 80 percent drop in Russian tourism: not given. Source: AFP (Moscow), 25 March 2002. Number of Catholics in the Diocese of Irkutsk according to Russian official statistics: 50,000. Source: AFP, 20 April 2002. Number of Catholics in the Diocese of Irkutsk according to the Diocese's bishop: 1 million. Source: Bishop of the Diocese of Irkutsk Jerzy Mazur (he was refused re-entry visa to Russia in April 2002), AFP (Warsaw), 20 April 2002. Percentage of Russians who planned to celebrate Orthodox Easter in 2002: 80 percent. Source: The title of AFP article (Moscow) (Clarinet # 86852) reporting a ROMIR opinion poll, 1 May 2002. Form of the celebration: preparing and eating traditional Easter cakes and painting Easter eggs. Percentage of Russians who planned to attend a church service during the Easter season in 2002: 21.5 percent. Source: Same AFP article (Clarinet # 86852), 1 May 2002. ReligionPercentage of Muslims in the Russian Federation: 15.3 percent, or 22 million. Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Internet News, 29 November 2001. DrugsNumber of drug addicts in Russia in 2001: 3 million. Value of drugs consumed by them: 1 billion dollars per year. Source: Russian Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov, as reported by AFP (Petersburg), 25 October 2001. TelephonesNumber of mobile telephone users in Poland in 2001: 9.6 million (an increase of 42.3 percent since the previous year), or 24.9 percent of the country's population. Number of fixed-line phones in Poland in 2001: 12 million (an increase of under four percent). Source: National Statistic Bureau, as reported by AFP (Warsaw), 1 February 2002. PornographyNumber of brothels in Moscow where sex with children is on offer: 22. Legal age of consent in Russia: 14. Maximum prison term for an adult who has sexual relations with a minor aged less than 14 years: four years. Maximum prison term for producers and disseminators of pornography, child or adult: two years. Source: AFP (Moscow), 4 February 2002. BudgetsPoland's budget in 2002: $44 billion. Source: Economic Bulletin, No. 8(502), 25 February 2002. Israel's budget in 2002: $46 billion. Israel's GDP growth in 2001: -0.5 percent. Source: Wall Street Journal, 7 February 2002. The Vatican's budget in 2002: $200 million. Source: Melinda Henneberger, "Vatican's Influence is in Vision, not Details," New York Times, 22 April 2002. AIDS in Eastern EuropeNumber of HIV-positive cases registered in Russia in 2001: over 100,000, or nearly twice the number in 2000. Cities most infected: Moscow (30,000 HIV infections), Sverdlovsk in the Urals, Samara on the Volga, Irkutsk in Siberia and Saint Petersburg (each with over 10,000 carriers). Source: Head of Russian anti-AIDS committee Vadim Pokrovsky, as reported by AFP, 14 February 2002. Estimated number of Russians who are HIV positive (includes those unregistered): between 600,000 and 800,000. Source: UNAIDS, the UN Program on HIV and AIDS, as reported by AFP, 11 April 2002. Number of people in Ukraine registered as HIV positive: 42,000. Estimated number of people in Ukraine who are HIV positive: 280,000. Number of people in Ukraine who died of AIDS: 2,500 adults and 80 children. Source: Interfax Agency, as reported by AFP (Kiev), 15 March 2002. MoviesNumber of people who saw Lord of the Rings on the opening night in Poland in February 2002: 518,901 (a record number). Corresponding figures for the runners-up: Pan Tadeusz (424,895 first-night viewers) and Harry Potter (355,955 viewers). Source: Donosy, 19 February 2002. National debtRussian foreign debt in 2001: 138.1 billion dollars. Poland's foreign debt in 2001: 24 billion dollars (a drop of 18.1 percent by comparison to 2000). Poland's domestic debt in 2001: 44.05 billion dollars (an increase of 26.7 percent by comparison to 2000). Combined foreign and domestic debt as percentage of the Polish GDP: 39.3 percent. >Source: AFP (Warsaw), 22 March 2002. HolocaustEstimated number of Holocaust memorials and museums in the United States: between 150 and 250. Source: Rachel Zoll, "Holocaust memorials: What's their place in Jewish life?" Houston Chronicle, 23 March 2002. Roma, or GypsiesNumber of Roma in Slovakia in 2002: 500,000, or 9.2 percent of the population of 5.4 million (the highest in the region). Estimated number of Roma worldwide: 14 million, of whom 12 million live in Europe. Source: AFP (Bratislava), 2 May 2002. PollutionThe most heavily-polluted city in Europe: Moscow. Average shortening of lifespan per inhabitant of Moscow due to pollution: four years. Source: Valery Antifeyev of the Moscow City Hall, as reported by AFP, 10 April 2002. Living above one's meansAmount of money Poles spent in 2001 while vacationing in Austria: 200 million dollars. Source: World Bank estimate, as reported in Rzeczpospolita Magazine, 12 April 2002. Agriculture in PolandNumber of hectares (1 hectare=ca. 2 acres) being rented from the Polish state by foreigners at the end of 2001: 180,000. Source: Stanislaw Waszak, "Europeans farming in Poland fear country's entry into EU," AFP, 28 April 2002. Lech Walesa's financesWalesa's income in 2001: $600,000 (Zl 2.5 million) before taxes, which makes him the best paid Polish politician. Size of his pension as a former president of Poland: $15,000 per year. Source: Donosy, 14 May 2002. Daily press readershipPercentage of adult Poles and Americans who read a newspaper on a daily basis: 10 percent and 50 percent. Sources: Rzeczpospolita, 12 April 2002; M. Q. Sullivan in Veritas: A Quarterly Journal of Public Policy in Texas (Vol. 3, no. 2, March 2002), 5. ColonialismNumber of copies of Short History of the All-Soviet Communist Party (Bolsheviks) published by Poland's mass publisher, Ksiaìka i Wiedza, in 1949: one million. Source: Rzeczpospolita, May 2002. Love of animalsNumber of lambs slaughtered each year at a Soviet fur farm near Astrakhan, the Russian Republic: 19,000. Source: AFP, 10 May 2002. Back to the September 2002 issue The Sarmatian Review sarmatia@rice.edu Last updated 9/25/02 |