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Lives in pieces at a Russian pawnshop



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 1st 09, 03:42 PM posted to rec.collecting.coins
Arizona Coin Collector
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,199
Default Lives in pieces at a Russian pawnshop

FROM:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nat...,3987421.story

Lives in pieces at a Russian pawnshop

By Megan K. Stack
Los Angeles Times
February 1, 2009

MOSCOW - In the fluorescent-lighted dens of despair
called pawnshops, bad luck is a commodity as casual
as an aging cell phone or a grandmother's ring,
held up for inspection, the sellers holding their
breath to see what it's all worth.

You won't find Russia's petro-rich here, but you
will find plenty of people who wouldn't have been
caught peddling heirlooms to a pawnshop a year
ago - people too prideful to say they've been
ejected, at least temporarily, from the middle
class. They creep in off the rusting snow banks
and from calcified cars, turning gold and silver
in their pockets, looking for cash.

On the walls of this Moscow pawnshop are pictures
of dreams: a black-and-white shot of Paris,
still-life portraits of gold bars and a chest of
gold coins. "Attention," announces a sign.
"Drunk clients will not be served."

Hounded by landlords, determined to bring the same
sweets and vodkas to winter parties, turned away
by banks, Russians are being driven to the
pawnbrokers and their quick-money-for-collateral
at unprecedented rates.

With the rest of the country hemorrhaging cash on
falling oil prices and tumbling currency, the pawn
business is booming - up 20 percent nationwide
since the onset of the global financial crisis,
said Oleg Osipov, chairman of Russia's association
of pawnshops.

"We started to get a totally new category of
customer: people who got bank loans for various
big projects and now don't have money to make
their monthly payments," he said. "So as not to
spoil their credit ratings, they come to us for
short-term loans.

"They got wealthy enough to enjoy precious things,
and now they are bringing them to us."

Anton Chernov, a tall man in a tracksuit, an
out-of-work jewelry maker, is driven into this
pawnshop after losing a string of jobs. In the
fall, the workshop where he'd labored for five
years abruptly laid him off. He found a slot at
a jewelry factory, but only on a freelance
basis. They paid him, he snorts, at "rates set
by Lenin." But it got him by until the factory
began to feel the pinch of dropping sales.

"At first they started firing people for little
things, mistakes, for missing work," Chernov
says. "They did this on purpose, to avoid having
to pay two months' compensation for firing people
without reason. I missed one day for a very,
very good reason, but they laid me off."

He scanned the Internet, found no openings in
his field and decided to try his hand as a
security guard. A Muscovite can always find a
job, he told himself. He worked two tryout days
for a security company, only to be shown the
door as the company folded.

He has already run through all his gold, so now
he's pawning a set of silver spoons. "We just
need to survive. That's the main task, just to
survive these next months," he says. His cell
phone rings; it's his wife. "Where am I?" he
says cagily. "Just out for a walk."

The pawnshops of a freezing city are full of the
pretty things somebody decided to do without,
trinkets hocked in hope of better times, hanging
in limbo between reclamation and oblivion. Men
and women turn over their keepsakes for $50,
just enough to get them to the next payday or
the next job, and then they'll be back to collect
their mother's ring. Of course.

Yulia Petrova, a homemaker, is pawning her
grandmother's ring - and says she wouldn't tell
her husband; she doesn't want to worry him. "A
woman has her secrets," she sniffs proudly. "It's
not hurting anybody."

Her 3-year-old son runs circles in the room in
his snowsuit and boots, racing his plastic car
over fading peach paint.

"People just don't have any money," pawnshop
clerk Tatyana Sermovbrina says. "It's impossible
to borrow money from the bank now, and
psychologically you can't borrow money from your
friends, because they're in the same situation.
Basically, we're the only recourse."

Behind the counter wink rows of wedding rings,
crosses and icons of Russian Orthodox saints.
These are the first things that get pawned in
times of trouble.

"They pawn everything to solve their problems,"
jewelry clerk Irina Yulshina says. "Sometimes
they bring amazing diamond necklaces that just
shock you to look at them."

...


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  #2  
Old February 1st 09, 03:51 PM posted to rec.collecting.coins
RWF
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 147
Default Lives in pieces at a Russian pawnshop

Serves 'em right, those godless commie rats!
Anyhoo, that's about the worst-written article I've read this year.
Oh boo hoo, the poor Russians.

"Arizona Coin Collector" wrote in message
m...
FROM:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nat...,3987421.story

Lives in pieces at a Russian pawnshop

By Megan K. Stack
Los Angeles Times
February 1, 2009

MOSCOW - In the fluorescent-lighted dens of despair
called pawnshops, bad luck is a commodity as casual
as an aging cell phone or a grandmother's ring,
held up for inspection, the sellers holding their
breath to see what it's all worth.

You won't find Russia's petro-rich here, but you
will find plenty of people who wouldn't have been
caught peddling heirlooms to a pawnshop a year
ago - people too prideful to say they've been
ejected, at least temporarily, from the middle
class. They creep in off the rusting snow banks
and from calcified cars, turning gold and silver
in their pockets, looking for cash.

On the walls of this Moscow pawnshop are pictures
of dreams: a black-and-white shot of Paris,
still-life portraits of gold bars and a chest of
gold coins. "Attention," announces a sign.
"Drunk clients will not be served."

Hounded by landlords, determined to bring the same
sweets and vodkas to winter parties, turned away
by banks, Russians are being driven to the
pawnbrokers and their quick-money-for-collateral
at unprecedented rates.

With the rest of the country hemorrhaging cash on
falling oil prices and tumbling currency, the pawn
business is booming - up 20 percent nationwide
since the onset of the global financial crisis,
said Oleg Osipov, chairman of Russia's association
of pawnshops.

"We started to get a totally new category of
customer: people who got bank loans for various
big projects and now don't have money to make
their monthly payments," he said. "So as not to
spoil their credit ratings, they come to us for
short-term loans.

"They got wealthy enough to enjoy precious things,
and now they are bringing them to us."

Anton Chernov, a tall man in a tracksuit, an
out-of-work jewelry maker, is driven into this
pawnshop after losing a string of jobs. In the
fall, the workshop where he'd labored for five
years abruptly laid him off. He found a slot at
a jewelry factory, but only on a freelance
basis. They paid him, he snorts, at "rates set
by Lenin." But it got him by until the factory
began to feel the pinch of dropping sales.

"At first they started firing people for little
things, mistakes, for missing work," Chernov
says. "They did this on purpose, to avoid having
to pay two months' compensation for firing people
without reason. I missed one day for a very,
very good reason, but they laid me off."

He scanned the Internet, found no openings in
his field and decided to try his hand as a
security guard. A Muscovite can always find a
job, he told himself. He worked two tryout days
for a security company, only to be shown the
door as the company folded.

He has already run through all his gold, so now
he's pawning a set of silver spoons. "We just
need to survive. That's the main task, just to
survive these next months," he says. His cell
phone rings; it's his wife. "Where am I?" he
says cagily. "Just out for a walk."

The pawnshops of a freezing city are full of the
pretty things somebody decided to do without,
trinkets hocked in hope of better times, hanging
in limbo between reclamation and oblivion. Men
and women turn over their keepsakes for $50,
just enough to get them to the next payday or
the next job, and then they'll be back to collect
their mother's ring. Of course.

Yulia Petrova, a homemaker, is pawning her
grandmother's ring - and says she wouldn't tell
her husband; she doesn't want to worry him. "A
woman has her secrets," she sniffs proudly. "It's
not hurting anybody."

Her 3-year-old son runs circles in the room in
his snowsuit and boots, racing his plastic car
over fading peach paint.

"People just don't have any money," pawnshop
clerk Tatyana Sermovbrina says. "It's impossible
to borrow money from the bank now, and
psychologically you can't borrow money from your
friends, because they're in the same situation.
Basically, we're the only recourse."

Behind the counter wink rows of wedding rings,
crosses and icons of Russian Orthodox saints.
These are the first things that get pawned in
times of trouble.

"They pawn everything to solve their problems,"
jewelry clerk Irina Yulshina says. "Sometimes
they bring amazing diamond necklaces that just
shock you to look at them."

..


 




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