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Russia

Country profile

Russia is one of the world's largest countries covering 17 million square miles. The population is more than 142 million people.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia's social problems has grown dramatically. The economic breakdown in 1998 knocked the bottom out of an already hard-pressed Russian economy. Although the country has seen steady growth since then, the society remains extremely polarised. Today, more than one third of the population lives below the poverty line, thus living on less than one Euro a day. Adding to the problem are the extreme weather conditions where temperatures can go as low as –50° C in the winter.

Official sources estimate that there are about 4.5 million homeless people living in Russia today. They receive almost no help from the authorities and rely heavily on non-governmental organisations. At the same time, the number of people infected with HIV/AIDS is rising explosively.

In North-Western Russia, unemployment has gone sky high following the collapse of St. Petersburg's military industrial complex. The prevalence of HIV/AIDS and TB are among the highest in the country. More than 10% of the country's officially registrered HIV-positive live in St. Petersburg - 20% hereof in prisons.