The Sarmatian Review Index

April 2005

Volume XXV, No. 2

Russian spying in the United States in 2005

Estimated number of Russian spies operating in the United States in 2005: approximately the same as when Russia was under Communism.

Number of known Russian spies currently operating in the United States under official cover, according to the U.S. intelligence sources: 100 (a fraction of the total).

Most common professions assumed by the non-official Russian cover agents, or NOCs: businessman, journalist, and academic.

Information the spies are after: military technology and hardware, including the latest lasers; U.S. plans regarding the former Soviet states, China, and the Middle East; and U.S. energy policy.

Source: Jonas Bernstein in Russia Reform Monitor, no. 1240 (February 2, 2005).

Russia’s economic priorities

Number of families in the Russian Federation who live without hot water or sewerage: 14.3 million (out of the estimaged 34 million families), or 40 million people.

Source: Federal Construction and Communal Services Agency Director Vladimir Averchenko, as reported by Russia Reform Monitor, no. 1244 (February 16, 2005).

American finances

Percentage of total world savings in 2004 that are invested in America and finance American consumption: 80 percent.

Percentage of U.S. Treasury bills, notes, and bonds held by foreigners: 43 percent.

Russian finances

Estimated capital flight from the Russian Federation in 2004: 8 billion dollars, or quadruple the 2003 outflow.

Source: Deputy Economics Minister Andrei Sharonov, as reported in Russia Reform Monitor, no. 1242 (24 February 2005).

Chechen contribution to Soviet GDP

Percentage of Chechnya’s contribution to the Soviet GDP before 1991: 12 percent.

Source: Chechnya Weekly (published by the Jamestown Foundation), vol. VI, no. 9 (2 March 2005).

Postcolonial economies: CIS economies in 2004

Growth of GDP in all CIS countries including Russia: 8 percent.

Percentage of export earnings that Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan receive for oil: 90 percent, 58 percent, and 26 percent, respectively.

Percentage of export earnings that Turkmenistan receives for gas: 57 percent.

Infant mortality in CIS: Tadjikistan, 116 per thousand; Kazakhstan, 99; Kyrgystan, 61; Moldova, 31, Russia, 21.

World Bank figures for GDP per person (according to current exchange rages) in these countries: Moldova, 590 dollars; Kyrgystan, 330 dollars; Uzbekistan, 310 dollars; Tadjikistan, 190 dollars; Ukraine, 970 dollars; Belarus, 1590 dollars.

Percentage of GDP earned by trade in all postcolonial post-Soviet countries: from 50 to 100 percent.

Percentage of Russian exports that go to CIS: 15 percent.

Source: Peter Rutland in Eurasia Daily Monitor, vol. 2, no. 42 (March 2, 2005).

Percentage of Russia’s budget revenues that come from taxes on the oil and gas sector: 60 percent.

Source: Alex Nicholson of AP, as reported by Houston Chronicle, 8 March 2005.

Polish incomes between 1989-2003

Average per capita increase in income in this period: 3 percent.

Number of counties in which per capita income went down in the same period: 269 (out of the total of 314).

Source: Jadwiga Staniszkis in Europa, no. 14 (80/05), 6 April 2005.

Percentage of Poles who lived in poverty in 2004: 60 percent.

Source: Zdzisław Krasnodębski in Europa, no. 14 (80/05), 6 April 2005.

Skinheads in Russia and elsewhere in the world

Estimated number of skinheads in Russia in 2005: 50,000; in the rest of the world, 70,000.

Source: Jonas Bernstein in Russia Reform Monitor, no. 1262 (19 April 2005).

Immigration to and emigration from Poland in 2004

Number of immigrants to Poland from other EU countries: 70,000.

Immigration to Poland from countries that were part of the USSR: 250,000.

Emigration from Poland to Ireland, Great Britain, and Sweden (only these three EU countries opened the job market to Poles): 60,000.

Estimated number of emigrants from Poland to other EU countries and the USA: 60,000.

Source: Rzeczpospolita, 12 March 2005; Donosy, no. 3928 (13 March 2005).

Polish budget deficits

Polish budget deficit in 2004 as computed by the Polish government: -5.4 percent; as computed by the EU Statistics Office: -6.9 percent.

Projected Polish budget deficits for the forthcoming years: 2005, -3.9 percent and -5.4 percent; 2006, -3.2 percent and -4.7 percent; 2007, -2.2 percent and -3.7 percent.

Reason for this disparity: Polish statistics include in the budget current retirements funds, thus making the deficit appear smaller. The EU rule is to exclude retirement funds from the budget.

Reason this disparity matters: the second set of figures makes it impossible for Poland to join the euro zone before 2009 or 2010.

Source: Rzeczpospolita, 17 February 2005.

OECD data concerning worker productivity in Poland and Germany

By comparison to the productivity of Germans designated as 100 percent, the productivity of Poles in various branches of the economy is as follows: in retail business, 120 percent; in tourist and hotel business, 174 percent; in construction, 91 percent; in industry, 56 percent; in agriculture, 24 percent. Overall, 56 percent.

Monthly wages in Poland by comparison to those in Germany: 20-25 percent of German wages.

Source: OECD (Paris), as reported by Rzeczpospolita, 18 February 2005.

United States compensation to the Hungarian Jews for financial losses in the Second World War

Reason for compensation: May 1945 U.S. soldiers’ interception in Werfen, Austria, of the “Gold Train” of 40 boxcars packed with gold, art, and other valuables the Nazis had plundered from the Hungarian Jews.

Follow-up to this event: a class-action suit by survivors in a U.S. District Court in Florida in which the judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.

Number of persons to be compensated: 10,000 persons in the United States, 15,000 in Hungary, and 25,000 in Israel.

Form of compensation: unspecified, but said to consist of millions of dollars.

Source: UPI (Budapest), 17 February 2005.

Attitudes toward migrants and minorities in Europe

Percentage of Poles opposed to granting citizenship to foreign nationals who entered the country legally: 14.3 percent, or the lowest in the European Union.

Percentage of other EU nationals opposed to granting citizenship to foreign nationals who are in the country legally: western Germany, 51.8 percent; eastern Germany (former DDR), 46.4 percent; UK, 48.5 percent; Austria; 44.3 percent; France, 40.5 percent; Slovakia, 37.9 percent; Italy, 24.8 percent; Czech Republic, 21.0 percent.

Source: European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (“Majorities’ attitudes towards minorities in Western and Eastern European Societies: Results from the European Social Survey 2002-2003,” EUMC Website (www.eumc.eu.int/eumc/index), as of 17 March 2005.

Chechnya, Poland, Russia

Date of demonstration in Warsaw during which the name of Dhokhar Dudaev Square was given to the crossing between Jerusalem Avenue and Popularna Street in Warsaw: 12 March 2005.

Russian response in March 2005: renaming the Moscow street at which the Polish Embassy is located the Muraviev-Veshatel’ Street (Muraviev the Hangman who tortured and hanged Polish prisoners of war after the 1831 failed insurrection).

Source: Lena Białkowska in Donosy, no. 3936 (24 March 2005).

Commemoration of John Paul II in Poland

Number of monuments in Polish cities and villages (as of April 2005) commemorating John Paul II during his life: 230.

Source: CUL graduate student Kazimierz Ożóg in his thesis on that topic, as reported by Małgorzata Subotić in Rzeczpospolita, 11 April 2005.