Doing Business in Russia. Котова К.П - 6 стр.

                                         6

                                      UNIT 2
Pre-reading tasks
I.     1) What is the current inflation rate in Russia?
       2) What is inflation?
       3) What causes inflation?
II.    Try pronouncing, writing and translating the following words and collo-
cations correctly:
1) well-to-do people; 2) staples; 3) get robbed blind; 4) to feel the least impact
of inflation; 5) to figure out the dynamics of highly differentiated inflation; 6)
rouble costs for travelling abroad have gone up only a little; 7) prodigious con-
sumers; 8) uniformly ragged and emaciated crowd; 9) current rate of increase in
the price of staples.
III.   Read through the text.
                        Inflation Different to Different People
       The higher the individual’s living standards, the better he/she is cush-
       ioned against the impact of inflation.
       In present-day Russia, the actual inflation level is estimated within a stag-
geringly varying range. Some experts speak about 14 per cent, some others,
about 1,000 per cent – and all have their reasons. In fact, different inflation rates
apply to different consumer items here. The official statisticians tend to use a
mean figure, implying that the current administration is not too bad, after all.
       Matches have had the greatest price rise – 300 times – followed by salt –
130 times. The prices of gold and diamonds rose the least. Leaping to conclu-
sions, you can scream in protest: they are fleecing us on the staples! People with
modest means get robbed blind when they pay for matches, salt and bread. More
well-to-do get robbed all the same in paying for diamonds.
       However, the Russia public doesn’t represent uniformly ragged and ema-
ciated crowd. In fact, it is a society more motley than even a year ago. In this