"Stock up tobacco and learn how to grow potatoes": alarmist advice on how to survive the crisis

Economist and businessman Maxim Averbukh published an alarmist forecast of the future of Russia in the spirit of the novels of Vladimir Sorokin, and along the way gave his readers advice on how to avoid the catastrophic consequences that his predictions promise:

“Thinking over your strategy - your personal, your business, your family and children - be aware that:

- the economic situation in Russia in this decade will consistently deteriorate;

- even separate and rather short (because they are limited by the short development cycle of shale oil) periods of relatively expensive oil will have a minimal effect on the economy and generally have no effect on the welfare of the population, just as they did not affect either one or the other in 2017 and 2018, when oil prices rose from $ 45 at the end of 2016 to $ 86 at the beginning of autumn 2018;

- at the end of the decade, the energy transition of the world economy and the refusal of the world car fleet from internal combustion engines as its most important part will lead the raw-materials Russian economy to a collapse equal to the collapse of the Soviet economy in 1990-1992;

- the population will fall in the "new 1990s", which will be only slightly better than the "old 1990s" and which can be seen in January-February 2016, when the average salary fell below $ 300, and the pension rushed to $ 100;

- the country's pension system has now been destroyed by successive waves of "reforms" in 2013-2019. and this is not the end, the point is that the population was simply forced to work until death, and the purchasing power of pensions was only enough to pay for housing and communal services, which is also now, in case of serious delays in payments from the part of pensioners, removed from their cards without their consent ... Simply put - there will be no pensions;

- unlike the "old 1990s" taxes will put pressure on you and your business, from which it will simply be impossible to hide (this is the essence of "digitalization" and this is what it will end up with), and taxes will grow, and the state's social spending will decrease;

- the shortage of foreign currency in the second half of the 2020s will lead to one or another form of withdrawal from the population of its foreign exchange savings and an attempt to remove it from the foreign exchange market;

- the demand from the population, who is getting poorer for a decade and a half in a row, will be simplified, they will not need "financial products", the credit boom will end due to the gigantic debt load and the absence of a credit facility capable of repaying the loan

- at the very end of the decade, the ruble exchange rate will fall permanently, as in the first half of the 1990s, the fall will not have a bottom;

- state power, as in modern Venezuela, will be focused mainly on protecting itself, citizens will be left to themselves ...

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Therefore, if you are going to stay in Russia, proceed from a disaster scenario (when it comes to physical survival, it is better to overdo it than not to miss it) and remember that such a standard lasts in Russia for about 2 years:

and. register with government agencies and buy a smooth barrel, and more than one;

b. learn to shoot and teach your family members to shoot;

in. buy land and learn to grow potatoes;

d. create a seed fund on which you will be able to hold out for 3 years (Russia’s severe problems historically last 2 years, another year in reserve) - I’m just thinking this through;

even if you do not smoke, create a supply of cheap cigarettes (this is a small cost), cigarettes are the standard "currency" in case of complete collapse and chaos;

e. Build up a large supply of medicines, starting with pain relievers and antihistamines;

g. if you are sufficiently secured, get a satellite connection (I still regret not having bought a satellite phone in 2014);

d. try to transfer your country economy to self-sufficiency in electricity (I am also thinking about this) with the help of solar panels - they have become very cheap and now it is real. Consider installing a wind turbine. And get some kind of energy storage.

PS .

There is only one limiting factor in this whole story: unlike Iran and Venezuela, Russia possesses large reserves of a fairly diverse WMD and borders the European Union. Chaos in such a country is not needed by anyone abroad. Except for China, which, in the event of the collapse of the Russian state, has a very real chance to take over all of Siberia ... "

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However, not all of Averbukh's many readers agreed with his alarm, believing that Russia has quite enough natural resources with which the authorities can maintain the economy at a minimum acceptable level for a long time, including vast territories. For example, Viktor Chemodanov writes about this in the comments :

“One to one Stepan Demura in the forecasts for 2010! And nothing has changed. Keep in mind that all Russian business belongs to the upper echelons of security officials, incl. all construction organizations and all their infrastructure, all retail chains, etc. etc. It will not work to close this farm. Therefore, your predictions, like the Demurins, are the same zilch and passion of God.

Hydrocarbons will be replaced. There is something to change. There, Japan will offer a mutually beneficial deal, Siberia is not all sold yet, the need will force - and they will sell, as they sold Alaska. Kaliningrad also has value ... you can live without problems for 50 years. And they don't need more. Once upon a time, in the early 2000s, I was interested in the topic of the future and found various things on the net, incl. the calculation of a group of leading Russian mathematicians regarding the future of the Russian Federation until 2050 and beyond, they proceeded from the then still trends in the economy, and the mathematicians were communist, and there was a cutting of the map of the Russian Federation according to the distribution of "sold" territories.

The demand for natural resources is disappearing, that's for sure, energy can be extracted from anything, the labor force in the Russian Federation is unskilled, but. The economy only works if the goods produced can be bought. And in this sense, the population of the Russian Federation is considered as a consumer of goods that are not produced in the Russian Federation. The manufacturer is forced to cover his need to sell the finished product! The EU initially emerged as a company of producers, but after that it was forced to include numerous consumers from less developed countries in its ranks, distributing them all soft loans, just to sell the excess to someone from inside the EU core! It is impossible to predict exactly what will happen in a dozen years, but I do not exclude that the expansion, for example, of China, will not force him to support this or that regime in Russia from the fall and anarchy ... "