Health
Number of cases of diphtheria in the Russian Federation since 1990: 140,000. Number of deaths: 4,000.
Number of people suffering from tuberculosis in the Russian
Federation in 1998: 2.5 million.
Percentage increase in the first 10 months of 1998: 8.5 percent.
Country which has the world's highest adolescent suicide rate:
Bulgaria.
Suicide rate in Bulgaria among the general population: 18.2 suicides
per 100,000 people.
Estimated number of alcoholics in Ukraine: over five million, or ten percent of the population.
Percentage decrease in the consumption of alcohol in Poland over the last ten years: 33 percent, to eight liters per person.
Economy
Amount of money which Moscow's American business community lost in August-September 1998 due to economic crisis in Russia: $463 million.
Estimated value of losses by private creditors and banks in the
August-September financial crisis in Russia: $100 billion and $50
billion, respectively or, to quote Fitch's, 'the single largest
credit loss ever imposed on private sector creditors.'
Amount of foreign debt which the Russian government promises to honor
but which it is in danger of defaulting on: $155 billion, of which
$66 billion is held by private creditors.
Amount of money 'conned' from Western financial institutions by Russia in Spring 1998: $20 billion.
Percentage fall in Russia's oil revenues over the first seven
months of 1998 compared to the same period last year: 26.7
percent.
Revenues from Russia's oil sales through July 1998: $5.886
billion.
Countries which are Russia's most profitable customers as oil
consumers: Germany, Poland and Italy.
Amount of rubles in circulation as of 1 September 1998: 158
billion.
Amount of rubles in circulation as of 21 September 1998: 170.3
billion, or $10.7 billion.
Daily trades at the Moscow Stock Exchange in January 1998: around
$100 million.
The Russian stock market index in January 1998: around 410.
The Russian stock market index on 16 September 1998: 58.86.
Daily trade at the Moscow Stock Exchange on 25 September 1998: $163,350.
Capitalization of the London Stock Exchange at the end of 1997: $1,500 billion.
Percentage of state revenues in the Russian Empire that came from
vodka sales in tsarist times: 50 percent.
Percentage of recorded state income in the USSR (before the 1980s
when gas and oil became big moneymakers) that came from vodka sales:
35 percent.
Estimated percentage of state revenues in the Russian Federation that
come from vodka sales (after President Yeltsin's liquidated the state
vodka monopoly in 1992): four percent.
Decrease in Russian-Chinese trade between 1997 and 1998: from $6.12 billion in 1997 to $5.5 billion in 1998.
Percentage of factories in the Russian Federation which were
unprofitable in 1992 and 1996, respectively: 7.2 percent and 44
percent.
Number of factories in the Russian Federation in 1990 and 1996:
20,998 and 14,934.
Percentage increase in Russian military production between September 1997-September 1998: 15.4 percent.
Estimated Russian total foreign debt as of November 1998: $170 billion, or 2.6 trillion rubles at the November 5 ruble exchange rate (more than 80 percent of the GDP).
Russia's 1999 budget, as presented by the government on 10
December 1999: $29 billion [sic].
The United States Federal Budget for 1999: $1.7 trillion.
Projected fractional repayment of foreign debt as envisaged by the
Russian budget; $9.5 billion (of $17.5 billion due).
Demography
Percentage of 'foreigners' in the German population: nine percent, or seven million people.
Population decline on the island of Sakhalin in the Russian
Federation's Far East between 1992-1997: 12 percent (from 720,000 to
632,000).
Drop in life expectancy on Sakhalin between 1992-1997: from 68 to 55
years.
Percentage decrease in population of the northeastern part of the Russian Federation since the early 1990s: over ten percent, or 800,000 persons.
Crime
Number of cars stolen yearly in the United States (according to
FBI files): 1.4 million.
Of these, number of cars that end up in Poland: two thousand.
Agriculture
Russian grain harvest in 1998: 50 million metric tons (the lowest
in 41 years).
Russian grain harvest in 1997: 88 million metric tons.
Amount of grain consumed by Russia yearly: 70 million metric tons, of
which 22 million is used for food and the rest for cattle feed and
seed.
French estimate of the Russian grain harvest in 1998 (delivered by
an agricultural consultant to the French embassy in Moscow,
Jean-Jacques Herve): 40 million tons.
Value of food which Russia imported in 1997: $12 billion.
Percentage fall in the Russian farm production over the first nine
months of 1998 compared to the same period in 1997: 9.4 percent.
Percentage fall in the potato harvest: 10.7 percent.
Number of cattle in Russia counted on 1 October 1998: 31.5 million.
Politics
Turnout in the 11 October 1998 local elections in Poland: over 46
percent.
Turnout in the 1994 local elections in Poland: 34 percent.
The winner: AWS (Solidarity Electoral Action, or a center-right
coalition of Solidarity-based parties and groups) which got 16
percent of the vote and 10,613 of 63,765 seats in local councils,
municipal governments and regional as well as provincial legislative
assemblies.
Voting patterns in the 3 November 1998 House elections in the United States: Protestants 45 percent Democrat and 58 percent Republican; white Protestants 35 percent Democrat and 65 percent Republican; Catholics 53 percent Democrat and 47 percent Republican; Jewish 79 percent Democrat and 21 percent Republican.