More4 – The State of Russia
More4 is running a season of films called The State Of Russia which explores the current challenges of everyday life in Russia and the extreme difficulties of Russian society.
In Russia today:
- Life expectancy for men is 56 (the same as in Bangladesh)
- Ten years ago the life expectancy for men was 63
- There are more abortions every year than babies born
- Every second newborn is diagnosed with disease at birth
- Ten million people are infertile due to ill health
- In the first six months of 2005, the population fell by half a million
- By 2050, according to Russian government statistics, Russia's population could have halved
- Although Russia's population is in freefall, people are still being driven out – 30,000 Meshket Turks have recently had to seek asylum in America, having been forced from their homes by discriminatory laws and racist attacks
- A quarter of the population lives below the poverty line
- Moscow has more billionaires than any other city in the world
How the Great Bear that was Russia has declined. The bear metaphor is central to the very striking More4 trailer for the season. It shows the traps – representing all the social, economic and political pitfalls facing today’s Russia – which threaten the survival of the State and its declining population.
The State of Russia season runs on More4 from Monday 20 March to Friday 24 March 2006.
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