The ‘prisoners’ of Vladimir Putin’s pension reform above Russia’s Arctic Circle
Russian president wants to raise men’s pension age to 60 in the far north, but in one of the small mining towns the life expectancy is only 56
Russian railway worker Andrey Bugera had one goal: get to pension age so he can leave the polluted, freezing coal mining town above the Arctic Circle and move south to live out even a brief bit of retirement in comfort.
But with President Vladimir Putin’s moves to raise the retirement age by five years, Bugera fears this will never happen.
In his city of Vorkuta, a place so isolated it cannot be reached by road, temperatures dip below minus 40 degrees Celsius in the winter and clouds of coal dust turn the snow black.
Thin, polluted air, scarce sunlight and winters lasting up to 10 months weigh heavily on the average life expectancy in the city.
In two weeks in June, three of Bugera’s friends died before turning 50.
