Truth only on Fridays: how Rosstat is trying to hide unpleasant numbers from the society

The Russian authorities have once again acknowledged their inability to overcome the growing difficulties in the economy, demography and other spheres.

Before the elections to the State Duma, they decided to publish information with negative statistics as rarely as possible: first of all, these are data on inflation, unemployment, industry, foreign trade and wage arrears.

The authorities discussed the idea of publishing negative statistics once a week at inconvenient times, sources said. Basically, the statistics are scheduled to be released at 19:00 every Wednesday. At the same time, the most sensitive indicators, for example, data on mortality from coronavirus, have already begun to be published only on Friday evening.

Popular blogger Vladimir Stechkin quite rightly believes that such a decision directly violates the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which prohibits hiding socially significant information. However, for a long time, the authorities have not given the country's Basic Law anything, either by ignoring it, or by violating any article that they please.

Stechkin notes that not only the time, but also the place in which Rosstat now publishes monthly reports on its website is extremely inconvenient, such that you cannot find it right away.

And the authorities are doing absolutely right, because they really have something to hide. And a lot. For example, the decline in the country's population, which has reached 360 thousand people over the past 5 months, that is, by more than a third than in the same period last year.

Or the abnormally high mortality rate in May: the total excess mortality for the year from May to May amounted to almost 510 thousand people. This is what the pandemic and the fight against it have cost Russia. Isn't it better to hide it from the people?