A truly wonderful compilation was put together by naganoff. It is extremely important to collect and circulate things like this. The chief Kremlin crook is constantly trying to present himself as if he has only just walked into a burning apartment. As if he has only just started putting out the fire. As if the “cursed nineties” have only just ended. And yet he has been in power for almost 13 years. And he has been sitting in the Presidential Administration since 1996. The man had every opportunity to apply his genius and talents to reforming the housing and utilities sector. Sure, the Americans were getting in the way. The State Department, agents of influence, all that. But could he not have done at least something in 13 years of rule, under conditions of unprecedentedly high oil and gas prices? The whole job consisted of demanding action decisively and showing the process of decisive demanding on television. I quote the full post: In recent days, we have had the pleasure of watching an information attack on Kirov Region Governor Nikita Belykh, launched simultaneously across various media outlets and the internet. Supposedly, he handed the regional housing and utilities sector over to his cronies and allowed utility rates to rise sharply in his region because he does not care about residents and only wants to go on vacation even after the New Year holidays are over. And not just anywhere, but in Sweden. But Putin, defender of the common people, sternly put a stop to these outrages in front of the cameras. Which makes sense, of course, because Putin knows a thing or two about fighting utility rates: after all, there is no one else in this country who has fought their growth so consistently for eleven years now... So let us trace, year by year, the stages of our National Leader’s titanic struggle against housing and utility rates, and see what a man of his word he is: 2001 Putin warned against carrying out housing and utilities reform at the expense of worsening people’s living conditions. Pr*esident of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, opening today’s State Council meeting in the Kremlin, named four basic principles for reforming the housing and utilities sector. First, he said, it is** necessary to clearly define the paths and directions of the reform, which must not be carried out at the expense of worsening people’s living conditions. “The reform must be approached with enormous responsibility; the authorities must act openly and with complete clarity,” the president said. He noted the need for both the public and local authorities to share a common interest in carrying out the reform. The president insisted on “a division of duties and responsibility among all levels of government.” ... V. Putin stressed that at the federal level it is necessary to develop a “mechanism for justified tariffs that must correspond to the state’s economic policy.”** *2002 *Pu**tin: only this approach will help dispel our citizens’ fears that the entire housing and utilities reform will amount to nothing but a bare increase in tariffs **It is obvious that the entire system by which the housing and utilities sector functions requires radical change. **... the ma**in goal of the reform is to improve service quality while simultaneously reducing the cost of providing those services. Only this approach will help dispel our citizens’ fears that the entire housing and utilities reform will amount to nothing but a bare increase in tariffs. **... the task of increasing payments can only be set alongside the development of competition, an audit of utility companies’ costs, and granting residents the right to determine the range and volume of housing and utility services. * 20**03 Putin: “The housing and utilities problem cannot be solved by ‘raising administrative tariffs’” **The pr*esident also recalled the country’s housing and utilities problems. ... Putin also noted that the housing and utilities problem cannot be solved by “raising administrative tariffs.” *20**05 Putin demanded an end to the “bacchanalia” in housing and utility services **Vl*adimir Putin de**manded an end to the “bacchanalia” surrounding tariffs for public transport, housing and utility services, and communications in the regions. “The right to determine tariff levels in these areas should, of course, be given to the authorities of the federal subjects, but not above the limit set by the federal government, so that there is no bacchanalia,” the Russian president said at a meeting with the leadership of the government, the Federal Assembly, and members of the State Council presidium. *2006 Putin unhappy with rising housing and utility rates **Vl*adimir Putin is unhappy with rising housing and utility rates and with how the government is fighting inflation this year. ... “There is a lot of talk, but the result so far is not what we expected,” he said. *2007 Putin called for an end to unjustified growth in housing and utility rates **“It is alr*eady important now to launch truly effective economic mechanisms in order to stop unjustified tariff growth and ensure better quality of these services (housing and utilities),” he urged. “People expect from us not the spending of money; people expect changes for the better, and they have every right to,” V. Putin emphasized. I like this bit: “it is already important now to launch.”* Only 7 years after the man came to power... 20**08 Putin: The pace of growth in housing and utility rates can be reduced **Answering a question during a live broadcast on state television and radio about whether the growth of housing and utility rates could be frozen for the duration of the crisis, he said: “This is one of the problems, and an old one at that.” The premier stressed that the issue is not only tariffs. The wear and tear on utility networks has reached 80%, and if the system continues to be underfunded, it will collapse completely, he believes. *2009 Pu**tin: Speculative overpricing of housing and utility rates is unacceptable **Pu*tin acknowledged that “housing and utilities is a monopolized market, controlled mainly by the bureaucratic apparatus, not by actual economic actors.” The state understands what needs to be done to modernize this sector, and these steps do not necessarily have to be tied to tariff increases, the prime minister said. “Modernization does not always and does not necessarily have to be linked to raising tariffs. We need to create market conditions; we need to get rid of the situation in which private pocket firms monopolistically control this services market,”** Putin said. *20**10 Putin: Housing and utility rates must not rise by more than 25 percent **Ac*cording to the prime minister, all housing and utility tariffs “must be brought into line, and that standard is an increase of no more than 25** percent.”** In turn, Dmitry Kozak reported to Putin that on average across Russia, housing and utility rates had risen by 15 percent since December. According to him, based on preliminary information received from 22 federal subjects of the Russian Federation, in about 10 percent of them “either in violation of the law or due to the political immaturity of municipal authorities, these tariffs exceeded 25 percent.” *2011 (January) Putin demands harsh punishment for officials over rising housing and utility rates **Pr*ime Minister of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin demanded that housing and utility rates not be allowed to rise by more than 15%, and that offending officials be punished severely. ... According to him, there are grounds to believe that management companies are, one way or another, very closely tied to municipal leadership. “In** essence, their activity has turned into a feeding trough for these very housing and utility companies, rather than a way to improve the situation,”** the head of government said. *20**11 (May) Housing and utilities cannot be reformed at the population’s expense, Putin said **The de*velopment of the housing and utilities sector must not take place at the population’s expense; the** pace of tariff growth must be reduced to the level of inflation, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at an expanded meeting of the presidium of the council on local self-government. ... He noted that the cost of housing and utility services is rising not only because of higher tariffs from natural monopolies, but also because of the demands of management companies. “Strict control over their activities must be introduced, and if necessary, their hands must be slapped.” *2011 (November) Putin: No one should inflate prices in housing and utilities **“Pr*ice** padding in utility services is happening without justification,”** Putin said on November 1 during a meeting of the presidium of the presidential council for the development of local self-government in Russia, noting that tariff growth in most cases among natural monopolies is limited to the existing inflation level. *20**12 It has been 11 (eleven!) years since the man came to power. All these years he has been uncompromisingly fighting housing and utility rates. Now it is time to quote the election program of presidential candidate Putin in 2012: We* will bring order to the housing and utilities sector. Everywhere, we will move to establishing a social norm for the consumption of utility resources, which will make payment for them fairer. Regional and local authorities must organize the provision of high-quality utility services to people within the region or municipality and bear real responsibility for carrying out this work. ... The main thing is that tariffs will depend on the quality and reliability of the services provided. Apparently, every year of Putin’s third presidential term — 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 — if, of course, he serves it to the end, will be marked by a continuation of this titanic struggle and even harsher, more resolute promises.