By Ben Aris in Berlin “Life is hard. But at least it’s short.” That is an old Soviet joke that plays on the harsh conditions Russians lived under since Tsarist times. Those times changed when Russian President Vladimir Putin came to power. Russia boomed. GDP doubled in a decade. Goods long absent from the “Unimags” arrived in their boat loads. The Kremlin, realising that the growing gap in income between the burgeoning private sector and those dependent on the budget – directly or indirectly, about half the population – was potentially explosive and started raising public sector wages by 10% a…
