POPULATION:
Around 12 ml. Majority are Russians, but there are hundreds of thousands of other ethnic and racial groups.

CAPITAL:
Moscow is the most significant city in Russia. Population (including foreigners) exceeds 13 ml. There are thousands of cities, towns and villages around Moscow. Majority of people from there work in Moscow and travel daily on electric trains to their jobs.

ECONOMY:
Moscow is suffering a serious crises as well as the Russian Federation in general. It is obviously observed in economy, politics and religious life.
The economic situation is critical due to the following reasons:

unreasonable financial policy bringing budget deficit to the state and abnormal loans from the West countries;
instability in the government. V. Putin became a new head of the government in the beginning of August 1999. The previous government existed just 3 months. The inflation is going on and reputation of the Government as well as of the President' continues to fall down;
a high number of budgetary institutions (most of schools, universities, hospitals, libraries, theaters, museums, army and e.g.).

All these factors result into a situation in which millions of budgetary employees are not paid for several months. Even those who have a stable income receive an average salary of no more then US $100-150 a month. The economic situation influences different layers of population but children, pensioners and unemployed people suffer most of all. At the same time, there is a prosperous class of Muscovites (so called "New Russians") who can afford to buy very expensive apartments and cars. Their wealth in many cases derives from the illegal business, operations with former state property and from dealings with the Mafia.

BRIEF SERVEY OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS IN AUGUST 1998
The Russian government is maintaining the following financial policy:
keeping the budget stable;
avoiding inflation by any means ;
trying to maintain a fixed ruble/dollar rate.

These measures do not resolve problems of average Russian people. It is more like just a good-looking theory, which is not effective in practice.
To accomplish the above goals the government used its own resources plus loans from the Western countries. Finally, when these resources were exhausted and inflation could not be restrained any longer, the ruble rate was "set free" according to its real market value. During only 10 days of August 1998 the ruble fell down for almost 100% and till the end of 1998 the inflation rate was 300%. A very unscrupulous governmental policy was demonstrated in the GKO pyramid. It was a method to take finances out of banks and investment companies that finally was one of the reasons of collapse and bankruptcy of such.
The population rushed to the banks to save their savings. It is well known that if the majority of bank's clients withdraw their savings concurrently, the bank may easily become a bankrupt. This happened to the number of Russian banks both large and medium within one-week term. Because of that, the army of unemployed people has multiplied.
I want to draw a parallel between situation in Russia today and situation in the States in 1927-1929. The President Hoover tried to resolve similar problems using similar methods. Yet, his policy was one of the reasons of the Great Depression, which struck America.
Truly, God gave wisdom to the next American president, Franklin Roosevelt, enabling him to lead America out of economic chaos of 30's.
Today in Russia, we desperately need government that will be God's given and which will have wisdom and compassion on people as president Roosevelt had.

RELIGION:
Russia is a secular country without state religion, though the influence of Russian Orthodox Church is growing rapidly. According to statistics the population in Moscow can be approximately considered as: Russian Orthodox church - about 45%, Catholic church - 1%, Protestant denominations - 1%, Atheists and Agnostics groups - near 40%.
Those figures are not absolutely accurate as many people claim that they are Orthodox simply because they occasionally visit the Orthodox cathedrals, or think that Russians are historically (or automatically) belong to Orthodox, or they think that to be an Orthodox is just a modern fashion which is nice to follow.

RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
This is the largest religious institution in Russia. Hundreds of thousands of adult people received a water baptism in Orthodox church, although it is necessary to note, that the baptism was a sign of national belonging for many of them, rather than an expression of devotion to real faith. Unfortunately, the Gospel is not preached in most of the Orthodox churches and for many people it is nothing more than mere sacred mystery with lot of icons, candles, memorized prayers (many of them to Mary and the saints).
In many aspects the situation in the Russian Orthodox Church today can be compared to the Catholic Church of a century ago.

PROTESTANT CHURCHES

Russian Orthodox Church used to be a leading church in the state for many centuries. Nowadays, there are forces that desire to return this status.
In October 1997 the law "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations" was signed by president Yeltsin. This law enables the local authorities (absolute majority of them are pro-Orthodox) to control religious organizations. This resulted to evictions of some Protestant churches from buildings rented for meetings in many towns, including Moscow region. This situation causes many problems, as the majority of churches don't have finances to purchase or build their own facilities. Even now, many churches of evangelical faith hold the church services outdoors or shrinking in the little apartments of the believers.
In general, Russian Protestant church is young, persecuted but growing.

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