Samara Pensioners Share New Year's Feast Plans and Pensions

The market near Gagarinskaya metro station. A mass of panel Khrushchyovka buildings in this part of the Zheleznodorozhny district is dotted with rare high-rises on Revolyutsionnaya and Myagi streets. Not yet the elite city center, but no longer the working-class Bezimyanka area. During the day, most of the crowd in the trading rows along Gagarin Street are pensioners. The filming crew of 63.RU decided to ask elderly people what their pension is enough for and what they worked as all their lives. And also, with what dishes they will be welcoming the New Year 2026 and what they had to give up for this holiday?

First, we approach a grandmother who is standing modestly on the porch of one of the shops away from the market. She is selling pine and spruce branches.

— Oh, I«ll have everything, — the pensioner assures.

— List them.

— There will be fried chicken.

— Did you give up on anything this year due to price increases?

— Turn it off, — the elderly woman pushes the microphone away with her hand. — I«ll tell you: I have everything. And I have a pension, and I have health. It would seem, I»m 84 years old! It«s fine. Right now I have pine, spruce, cedar here. You have to work.

Out of respect for her request, we did not include this part of her speech in the video. However, later the pensioner agreed to repeat the same thought on camera even more elaborately.

— You can live well. You just mustn«t resent fate. People resent. »And what have you done?«, — that»s the first question. You need to get up and work. People have nothing and want everything to fall on them from above. I got my diploma, my salary was 48 rubles at first, and now young people say that 20 thousand is not money. And in those times, my salary was pennies. I also wanted to eat well and dress somehow. We didn«t sweep the asphalt with fur coats, like you sweep now. If we wanted a coat, we had to buy drape, save money for the collar. For a hat — we also had to save up.

— And where did you work?

— In a kindergarten, for 36 years. I came young and left old. I was a manager.

— And what is your pension now?

— 32 thousand rubles (approximately $320 at current rates).

— Is it enough for everything?

— I«m satisfied, it»s fine. I have a dacha that helps me. I have chickens.

Stepping away a bit from the porch with the cheerful grandmother, we stop the next survey participant. Nina Vasilyevna is 70 years old, with a career as an economist in the republican cash collection department in Kazakhstan, the Ministry of Forestry, and the Ministry of Railways behind her. She willingly shows us the grapes she just bought and shares her holiday plans:

— What will we cook? As usual — everything from a restaurant. Yes, strangely enough. I«m not joking. My husband and I will have 50 years since our wedding. And our son and daughter will arrange a celebration for us.

— And from which restaurant?

— That I can«t tell you. From the very best!

— This year, did you have to give up on anything due to price increases?

— You know, we don«t have to, because we have children who help us. One is a general. The second, excuse me, is also well-off. We don»t give up on anything. God grant everyone such children!

Closer to the market and the bus stop, pensioners, as they say, came in thicker crowds. Just have time — to stop and interview them.

— Have you already thought of the menu? — we call out to a lady in a turban hat.

— Not really. I always have a lot of everything in the fridge. So I«ll open it, see what products are there. I»ll cook from that. The usual set: Olivier salad, chicken, fish, meat. Caviar. How can you be without it? Tangerines.

— Did you give up on anything?

— Well, I can afford everything.

Another survey participant, a former kindergarten teacher, does not plan to economize on the holiday table either. Her pension is 23 thousand a month, and her husband gets 35 thousand.

— I haven«t given up on anything at all. I»ve already bought red fish. I«ll buy caviar. Duck is already lying there. I have everything. I»ll allow myself everything.

A former worker at the Maslennikov and KINAP plants did not complain to us about price increases either:

— I retired at 40 under the first category of hazardous conditions, making carbon filters for gas masks at KINAP.

— Is the pension enough?

— I don«t buy very expensive products. Regular ones. As always. Nothing changes for me. My husband and I live together, so the pension is quite enough. We don»t complain. We even help our grandchildren and great-granddaughters.

We try to get a male opinion from a seller of sauerkraut. The pensioner is sitting behind a notice board, a bit farther from the improvised counter with plastic containers and a wheeled bag.

— Is there enough money for the New Year«s table?

— If it«s not enough — we»ll find it. These days — money walks by itself, — the enterprising man is confident.

At the fruit counter, we intercept Valentina Pavlovna. Before retiring, she designed roads and bridges.

— My menu for the New Year is potatoes, cabbage, and cucumbers. The fish I want, I can«t afford. And meat is very expensive.

— Is it not enough because your pension is small?

— Compared to others, it«s normal. I have great-granddaughters, need to allocate money for little gifts for them.

— You only stopped buying fish this year?

— No, I haven«t bought it for a long time. My son brings me red fish every New Year, — the former designer stuns us in the end.

And here, Lidiya Ivanovna comes out of a fish mini-shop with purchases.

— Here, I took caviar. It«s burst, but still 350 rubles, not 2500. For the New Year, there will be fish too. We take everything little by little. It»s enough because I«m a working pensioner. But on just the pension, it wouldn»t be enough.

— What do you work as?

— A nurse, 50 years of experience.

— A big pension?

— Well, 25-26 thousand rubles. But still, it«s little. Have to work.

Prices for caviar also impressed former accountant Irina Mstislavovna.

— What did I give up this year? Caviar — insane prices on it! Otherwise, on the table will be winter salad, herring under a fur coat, salmon steaks, jellied meat. We still have our own apples and frozen strawberries and raspberries from the dacha.

Seller Tatiana at one of the fish mini-shops does not complain about a drop in demand for her goods.

— They buy!

— Pensioners too?

— Pensioners among others. Sometime, take a look at the fair at «Expo-Volga», where they sell Kamchatka fish, they all advertise on TV. Caviar there isn«t 9000, but 12000. And trout like ours is 1700 rubles, there it»s 2500. And there«s a queue of pensioners for that caviar — you can»t push through. So, pensioner differs from pensioner, — Tatiana shares her observations.

A saleswoman at a meat stall, on the contrary, talks about a drop in demand:

— They used to buy well, but now it«s really weak. They say: »We«ll think, we»ll look, we«ll come again.» Over the year, the price of meat has increased by about 10 percent, I guess.

— More! — thunders off-camera a gray-bearded pensioner Vladimir, surprisingly similar to Ded Moroz (Father Frost).

In each hand, he has a hockey stick, on his back a backpack, between the straps of which he hung bags of groceries on a string.

— For jellied meat now, I took a knuckle for 450 rubles, but before it didn«t cost more than 200 rubles, — the pensioner recalls how prices have changed in two years. — One thing I can say — there»s nothing to rejoice about. To speak from the podium and tell how the government is trying to help — that«s great. But I say that the increase that will be to the pension, prices have eaten it up! There»s no pension in money to buy something to pamper yourself. Everything is very, very expensive. They say: «Price control cannot be established, there will be a shortage.» Control can«t be, but something could have been done? That»s what the state is for, to regulate. Well, we won«t buy, let everything lie in abundance. That doesn»t mean that people who trade need to be cut back somehow. They also can«t work for free. They also have children, they also need to be fed. We all understand that. But price changes by 3-5-7, by 10 times! Apparently, the state should take something upon itself here.

— And where did you work?

— I worked as an engineer at Aeroflot, in Smyshlyaevka, in Kurumoch. My pension is ordinary.

— 25 thousand?

— Well, now I«m approaching thirty. I»ve been working since I was 14.

Natalya Viktorovna, a former therapist, says that on pension, she gave up excesses:

— From sweets, from sausage products. I don«t need them now. Better and more natural — lard. But in principle, I»m not starving, not at all. Let me wish everyone well-being and prosperity. Well-being is such a big concept that includes a lot. And prosperity — that«s a kind reward for labor. That»s what«s written in the Bible. So that»s what I wish.

With her own labor lives and supports four children widow Elena from the village of Aleksandrovka in Kinelsky district.

— I work as a social worker 3 times a week, and in free time I come to Samara to trade, so that I can set the table for holidays and all other days. On our menu for the New Year, everything we grew. Potatoes? Have! Pickles? Please! Meat — pork, beef, rabbit, chicken — have. Mushrooms of our own salting. Well, for red caviar, maybe we«ll earn, — Elena gestures around the counter with huge goose carcasses, potatoes, soaked apples, jars of pickles and jams. — Everything from our homestead. I grow it myself, I process it myself.

— What a great labor this is! How do you manage?

— It«s fine. Second year alone. Husband died. And they refused child benefits, as the income is too high, — Elena explains with bitter irony. — When assigning benefits, they consider the survivor»s pension and everything is counted as «dirty», before tax deductions. And people lack everything. I went to buy fish myself. The price is simply unaffordable: 1000 rubles per kilogram of capelin, haddock — 600 rubles. That«s savagery!

According to Elena, she observes a surge in purchasing power only three days a month: when salaries, pensions, and child benefits come:

— All other times it«s quiet-quiet. No one is there.

But pensioner Rafail turned out to be more optimistic in his observations:

— I wouldn«t say that our people are poor. Look how many cars. In our time, in the 70s, a couple of cars stood in the yard and that»s it.

— Is your pension enough for you personally?

— I have 27 thousand rubles pension, it«s enough for one. But I also work in security. I»ll meet the New Year right on duty.

— I«m a Soviet person, youth of the 70s. For us, probably, the holiday has long been like an ordinary day. I»m an adult, already old person, I also want, of course, a fairy tale. But it doesn«t work out…